The Hawkline Monster: A Gothic Western Read Online Free PDF Page B

belonged in Saint Louis or San Francisco or Chicago or anyplace other than where it was now. Even Billy would have been a more understandable place for the house but out here there was no reason for it to exist, so the house looked like a fugitive from a dream.
    Heavy black smoke was pouring out of three brick chimneys. The temperature was over ninety on the hill top. Greer and Cameron wondered why there were fires burning in the house.
    They sat there on their horses for a few moments on the horizon, staring down at the house. Magic Child continued smiling. She was very happy.
    “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Greer said.
    “Don’t forget Hawaii,” Cameron said.

Book 2
• Miss Hawkline •

• Miss Hawkline •
    As they rode slowly down the hill toward the house the front door opened and a woman stepped outside onto the porch. The woman was Miss Hawkline. She was wearing a heavy long white coat. The woman stood there watching them as they rode down closer and closer to the house.
    It seemed peculiar to Greer and Cameron that she should be wearing a coat on a hot July morning.
    She was tall and slender and had long black hair. The coat flowed like a waterfall down her body to end at a pair of pointed high-top shoes. The shoes were made of patent leather and sparkled like pieces of coal. They could easily have come from the huge mound of coal beside the house.
    She just stood there on the porch watching them approach. She made no motion toward them. She didn’t move. She just stood there watching them as they came down the hill.
    She was not the only one watching them. They were also being observed from an upstairs window.
    When they were a hundred yards away from the house, the air suddenly turned cold. The temperature dropped about forty degrees. The drop was as sudden as the motion of a knife.
    It was like journeying from summer into winter by blinking your eyes. The two horses and the huge flock of red chickens stood there in the heat watching them as they rode into the cold a few feet away.
    Magic Child slowly raised her arm and affectionately waved at the woman who returned the gesture with an equal amount of affection.
    When they were about fifty yards away from the house, there was frost on the ground. The woman took a step forward. She had an incredibly beautiful face. Her features were clean and sharp like the ringing of a church bell on a full moon night.
    When they were twenty-five yards away from the house, she moved to the top of the stairs which went down eight steps to the yellow grass which was frozen hard like strange silverware. The grass went right up to the stairs and almost up to the house. The only thing that stopped the grass from directly touching the house were drifts of snow that were piled against the house. If it hadn’t been for the snow, the frozen yellow grass would have been a logical extension of the house or a rug too big to bring inside.
    The grass had been frozen for centuries.
    Then Magic Child started laughing. The woman started laughing, too, such a beautiful sound, the sound of them together laughing with white steam coming out of their mouths in the cold air.
    Greer and Cameron were freezing.
    The woman ran down the stairs to Magic Child who slipped like a grape peeling off her horse and into the arms of the woman. They stood there for a moment with their arms around each other: still laughing. They were the same height and had the same color hair and the same build and the same features and they were the same woman.
    Magic Child and Miss Hawkline were twins.
    They stood there with their arms around each other: laughing. They were two beautiful and unreal women.
    “I found them,” Magic Child said. “They’re perfect,” with snow piled up around the house on a hot July morning.

• The Meeting •
    Greer and Cameron got down off their horses. Miss Hawkline and Magic Child had exhausted their very affectionate greeting and now Miss Hawkline