The Moss Maiden of Kinderhook

Chapter Eighteen

The winds had shifted and the skies had cleared by the time Seamus MacGowan was ready for dinner. The cold that came with the clear skies was most unwelcomed and he forced his hands deeper into his coat pockets. Fortunately, his room at Lewis' Hotel, just off the village green, was conveniently close to Frink's Tavern.

Even with the walk being short, it was easy to see that the town was affected by all that was going on. Not that many people would be out on a cold fall evening, but the streets were almost empty. Of the people he did see, most carried rifles. The village was afraid.

As well they should be.

It had not been a very fruitful day for Seamus, at least, not in regards to his quarry. The woods, predictably, yielded nothing. Even if there was something to find, which he doubted, the useless hunt that the village insisted on would have almost certainly trounced over anything helpful. It didn't matter. He had seen where the murders had happened and gathered what he could from those spots.

His other endeavors were a bit more productive. William Kip, the silversmith, was very accommodating.

Entering Frink's, the warmth of the tavern was immediately soothing. His eyes scanned the room and he found that there was no shortage of spots for him to choose from. The place wasn't empty, but was not nearly as full as he suspected it usually was.

Selecting a table far from anyone else, Seamus ordered his food from the kind looking barmaid and relaxed. Candles and lanterns flickered around the space as they fought off the darkness of the approaching night and created a familiar, if not comforting, atmosphere. Seamus did not mind his solitary lifestyle, had sought it out, but it was good to be somewhere that felt familiar – for taverns, in his experience, had very similar qualities. He even had to admit that, on occasion, it felt good just to be in the presence of others.

Before long, the food arrived, roast chicken, and Seamus began eating. Between mouthfuls, he would occasionally look around the room, and would catch a few of the patrons glancing his way in return. At best, the looks he received were wary; at worst, the looks were menacing. It was funny, he thought, how differently he was viewed and treated at different places.

He considered the Walton family in Connecticut and how they had welcomed him; practically treated everything he said as gospel. Far from skeptical, they were happy to have someone who understood, who could put a name to their blight and help. Even if it did mean digging up the dead and decapitating them. It was gruesome, but their horrendous desperation needed something of equal magnitude.

Western Pennsylvania was a very different experience. Seamus arrived soon after he heard the rumors of a werewolf in the area. However, with the town looking for someone to blame, they locked him up as the potential beast. It wasn't until a few days later, when another murder happened, that they believed him innocent. Sometimes he wondered what he would have done if the killings had suddenly stopped. By the conclusion of the matter, the town had grown to tolerate him, had paid for his services, but were more than happy to see him go.

Seamus had high hopes when he came to Kinderhook. After all, his time in Tarrytown, not far to the south, was excellent. Irving's book had the whole area worked up and they were ecstatic to have someone fight that battle. Even though some of the townsfolk were truly scared of the headless horseman, he knew that most people just enjoyed being part of the legend and keeping it going.

When Seamus first started his career, he did not fully understand the psychological aspect of it. Early on, he simply assumed that people would be afraid of a monster and want his help. It took time for him to understand that there were many reasons for people's belief in some supernatural creature, and that simple fear was not the most common. It was, in reality, mostly a question of blame. The people in the towns and villages he visited believed in monsters because the alternative was not acceptable. If a monster wasn't killing people, then that meant a person – a friend, a neighbor, a family member – was the culprit. As reluctant as people were to believe in the supernatural, they were more reluctant to believe that someone they knew could be behind the hideous deeds that often resulted in death. How much easier it was to lay the blame on something intangible or ethereal.