Excerpt:

ONE

October 31, 1957

I’m a brave cowboy. I am a brave little cowboy.

Mommy told me so.

Billy hiked up his dungarees until the seat wedged tight between his cheeks, felt the edges of his thick plastic gun belt with trembling fingertips. The six-shooter strapped to his thigh was heavy. Nickel-plated, just like a real gun. And even though it didn’t shoot real bullets, that was okay.

Bullets wouldn’t do any good up here anyway.

“Did you piss y’self?” a squeaky voice asked from somewhere in the darkness behind him.

Billy turned, squinted into the shadows beneath the shade tree. Chad, a negro boy who was older than him but smaller, wiped his runny nose with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Well? Did’cha?”

Billy huffed, then calmly stated, “No, I didn’t.”

“What’cha waitin for then?”

Another huff. Billy pursed his lips and touched the tip of his frocked brown hat. The moss-like suede came off on his fingers a little bit. He wiped his hands on the front of his shirt.

“You goin up there or not?” Chad barked.

“Of course I am. I’m a brave cowboy.”

“You look like a skeered cowboy to me.”

“That’s enough.” Billy squinted, peered up the hillside toward the mansion, it’s jagged roof silhouetted against the three-quarter lit moon like the unhinged jaw of a monster. It didn’t look so bad that afternoon, in the daylight. Just an old house, with duty old windows and gray, warped wood siding. Nothing scary about it, really.

So why did you ask your mom if you were brave when she tucked you in?

Billy squeezed his eyes shut. How long had it been since he snuck out of the house? An hour? Two? His tummy ached from too much candy.

Or was it fear?

As his mom was pulling off his boots, he asked the question and got the answer. And that’s when he begged her to let him sleep in his costume. She didn’t think it was a good idea at first, but by the time she tugged his other boot off, she’d agreed. As soon as she shut the door, he got up and put the boots back on, threaded his gun belt and grabbed his hat off the bedpost. He heard his mom and dad yawning in the other room, then laughing as he opened the window and slipped outside. It seemed like such a perfect plan.

So why was he having second thoughts?

“Look, if you’s skeered, we’ll just go home. Ain’t nobody got to know.”

“I told everybody at school we were coming up here,” Billy said.

“So?” Chad huffed. “Just tell ‘em tomorrow that we came. They ain’t gonna know the difference.”

“I gave ‘em my word.”

“So?”

“That woud be lying.”

“So?”

Billy shook his head. He had to set a good example for Chad. “We’re going up there.”

“Fine. Then go. I ain’t the one too skeered to move.”

“I ain’t skeered.”

“Then go!” Chad shoed both hands impatiently from a safe distance back.

“So, you been up here before?” Billy asked as he laid his hands on the cold ground’s uneven surface.

“Yeah. I told ya.”

“And there’s nothing to be scared of?”

“Nah. But—but—let’s just go home.”

Billy shook his head. He dug the toe of one boot into the hillside, pushed his body up like he was climbing a ladder. A few more steps and he was a mountain climber—not just any climber, but Edmond Hillary, scaling the summit of Everest.

Except this took more bravery than climbing Everest.

Hillary didn’t have to face a haunted house when he got to the top.