Demon Child

It'll be exciting!”
        She did not fancy coming face-to-face with the murderous animal no matter how safe the confrontation might be. But it was obvious that he wanted her to come along. This was another sign of his interest in her that she would be foolish to ignore.
        “I'll have to shower,” she said.
        “Time for all that if you hurry,” he said. “Nine o'clock at the stables. I'll have a horse saddled for you.”
        When she reached the stables, dressed comfortably in jeans, a blue sweater and brown riding boots, the others were already mounting for the hunt. Eight men from neighboring farms had volunteered for the chore. Though Jenny would have called it a chore, the others seemed more favorably disposed. Most men, of course, enjoyed a hunt no matter how civilized and urbane they might be. It was a primitive bloodlust that ran beneath the skin of all men-and women-no matter how much they might deny it. But on top of that natural drive, most of those present also looked upon the day's venture as a mark of acceptance. These were all gentleman farmers, lawyers and businessmen who maintained farms not for living so much as for the status such ownership implied. To have been asked to join a Brucker family hunt was a sign of some minor aristocratic standing in the area. They had all accepted, surely, with the same smugness and self-assurance that the nouveau riche exhibited in accepting a party invitation from an old-line family like the Vanderbilts or Rockefellers.
        The two state patrolmen wore simple blue riding uniforms with black rank patches on their sleeves. They were large men, but agile, and they had the most beautiful chestnut stallions Jenny had ever seen, enormous animals with powerful shoulders, thick necks and haunches. Horse and master, here, made a splendid single unit, as if the two were parts of the same organism, some centaurlike being.
        Richard was here, sitting on a black mare, talking to one of the neighbors who had joined the hunt, a fellow who looked-with his gray hair, mustache and full sideburns-like an English baron.
        There was a wiry little man on a spotted mare who kept a pack of hounds around him with nothing but his soft commands. This, she supposed, was Gabe Atchison.
        Walter sat on a mottled black-brown stallion behind the others, holding the tether of a second saddled but unmounted mare which Jenny recognized as a horse called Tulip which was kept next to the stall where Hollycross had died.
        “Here. Hurry!” Walter called. “We're about to begin.”
        She ran the last few yards, got her foot in the stirrup and swung onto Tulip's back. The horse snuffled, shivered all over but made no attempt to test the girl's horsemanship.
        “It's the first time I ever saw state policemen riding horses instead of prowl cars,” she said.
        “I understand Pennsylvania's state police are supposed to be the best-trained force in the world. They learn how to do nearly everything that might come in handy. That chap there, name's Halliwell, told me that they even have a championship horse team that does nothing but go all over the world from one international show to another. And they win medals more often than not.”
        Both of the officers were checking saddle-slung carbines before starting the day's activities. They looked like capable men, and they made her feel safer by their presence.
        “Are you worried?” Walt asked.
        “A little.”
        “Don't be. With so many guns about, the beast will be in tatters before he could finish half a charge at us.” She saw that not only the police carried rifles. Indeed, only she and Walter were weaponless.
        Jenny looked at the sky and wished it were a better day. Low, flat clouds scudded from horizon to horizon, an even gray color that did not threaten rain but promised no sun either. The morning seemed just a bit chilly for a June day. She supposed it would get hot enough shortly. Then they would all be cursing the humidity.
        “What are you doing here?” Richard asked, trotting his stallion toward them. He was dressed in black slacks and a black, short-sleeved shirt. “Did anyone tell you to come along?”
        It was a rhetorical question. He was not expecting any answer.
        “Yes,” she said.
        That surprised him. “Who?”
        “I did,” Hobarth told Richard before the young man could say anything. “I didn't see