“Probably some punk from Cainesville. I don’t know anybody around here who’d pull a trick like that. If it had been some thief stealing her for gain, I could understand it better.” He led the horse back into the stall. “I’d consider selling this baby too, if you’re interested.”

“I’d love to have her, but not right now.”

Dobbs walked back to the car with us. “You ever have any trouble over there at the Caine place?” he asked.

“What sort of trouble do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. If you’re a member of the family, you must know the reputation that place has.”

“Oh, we’ve heard stories.”

“They’re more than stories, according to some folks. Lots of folks have moved away from here.”

“But you’ve stayed,” said Father Jackson.

“Yep. I won’t say I haven’t seen and heard a few strange things though in that woods back there.”

“What sort of things?” I asked.

“Well, I was hunting a dog in those woods one time and I saw a procession of people, all in black, coming out of the Caine graveyard.”

“A funeral?”

“Weren’t no funeral. They were taking a coffin out, not putting it in.”

“When was this?” asked Father Jackson.

“Sixty years ago. It was before old Hannah Caine moved into the house.”

“But you haven’t seen anything similar since?”

“I never went over there again. I’ve heard screaming and sobbing, though, in that Caine woods late at night.”

“Why haven’t you investigated?” Father Jackson asked.

Dobbs sniffed. “I tend to my own affairs. And I won’t be scared off valuable land. Whatever goes on over there at Caines’, I figure it’s people of today are causing it, not any creatures out of the past.”

“That’s exactly my judgment, Mr. Dobbs,” said Father Jackson.

We got in the car, and Dobbs leaned in the window on my side. “They say old General Caine used to ride an Arabian like that one of mine.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep. Some also say that General Caine was the old Nick himself.”

“There’s a little of that fellow in all of us, Mr. Dobbs,” said Father Jackson. When we were back on the road, he said, “Well, there’s your horse. Now where’s the rider?”

I was tempted to say, “In Cainesville High School, or at least that’s where he’s supposed to be.” In a way, I was sorry to learn that I had seen a living horse on the road. It may have been evidence of my sanity, but it offered a terrible alternative.

Father Jackson read my thoughts. “It needn’t have been Duff, you know. In this instance you didn’t see Duff immediately before you saw the General. It could’ve been a local kid just as Dobbs suggested. A kid dressed up like the General.”