The green hills of Montecito rose lushly to meet the harsher landscape of the Santa Ynez Mountains, and the big windows of the mansions on the highest ridges flashed with reflected afternoon sun like pieces of gleaming gold.
Friday afternoon traffic sped past me on Highway 101 as I kept the Mustang in the slower, right lane, looking for the turnoff that would take me up into the canyons. The sky was sharp and clear, almost cobalt blue over a darker sea laced with rippling whitecaps. I had the top down and the breeze coming off the ocean was salty and cool, teasing the fronds of towering palms rooted in the bluffs and slopes that rose from the shoreline and gave Montecito its cherished vantage points, its million-dollar views. Because of the curve of the coastline here, most of the homes faced south, not west; the chaparral-covered mountains in the background were situated to the north, rather than the east, as one might assume. In this disorienting place, Rod Preston had chosen to purchase a fourteen-acre estate forty years ago in his Hollywood heyday, turning it into a hideaway called Equus, where few intruders had ever been allowed.
A freeway sign overhead announced the approach of the Montecito exit, and, beyond that, several departure ramps for the more populated seaside city of west-facing Santa Barbara. I eased the Mustang toward the exit, and left the rush of vehicles behind for the rarefied and tranquil atmosphere of Montecito’s well-groomed hillocks and meandering ravines. The ubiquitous palms, first planted by Spanish settlers more than two centuries ago, mixed uneasily with oak and eucalyptus trees along the twisting roads. Miles of low stone walls marked residential boundaries in a region where Indians and grizzly bears had once roamed free. The homes were more modest along the lower roadways, some no more than garden cottages that had once belonged to land-grant settlers or local laborers serving the wealthy Easterners who had built summer homes here in the latter 1800s; even these quaint little houses were now priced in the real estate guides at several hundred thousand dollars, so coveted was the opportunity to reside in fabled Montecito, where elegant architectural gardens and Sunday polo matches had been the order of the day several decades into the twentieth century. As I climbed higher, the community took on a more Mediterranean look, with impressive wrought-iron gates and sweeping drives that led to lushly landscaped Italian- and Spanish-style villas, at least those that had survived bulldozing and subdivision, which had resulted in a glut of half-acre lots priced today in the million-dollar range. Along my rising route, I saw more gardeners than residents, who seemed to be hidden away behind their fancy gates, up their sweeping drives.
Equus, still intact but slowly crumbling, according to Charlotte Preston’s notes, was located on a steep section of Cold Springs Road high in the northwest section of the unincorporated community. I followed a map until I was perhaps a thousand feet above sea level, in a less developed section near the mountains, where the homes were older and their acreage more expansive. In her notes, Charlotte had instructed me to watch for the distinctive Equus gate, and had even provided a photograph for that purpose.
I recognized the portal the moment I saw it, and pulled the Mustang off the narrow asphalt road onto a wide driveway entrance paved with cobblestones that looked smooth with age. Divided into twin sections, the magnificent wrought-iron gate was anchored on either side by heavy square pillars constructed of beveled sandstone blocks. The two sections rose to join and form a dramatic arch, whose intricate, hand-forged pattern represented two heraldic horses rising on their hind legs, their front hooves clashing near the crest. Below the horses, a heavy steel chain was looped several times through the wrought-iron bars and secured with a massive padlock that no hacksaw could hope to damage. There was no knee-high wall here, as I’d seen running through much of Montecito; instead, a wrought-iron fence in the range of seven feet extended away from the gate in either direction, ascending with the slopes to protect the secret heart of Equus.
I’d tried to call ahead to George Krytanos, the caretaker, intending to ask some questions about his last meeting with Charlotte on the day she died, but phone service to the estate had been disconnected, with no forwarding number. Driving the hundred miles up the coast unannounced had seemed my next-best option. I was exhausted, though—from lack of sleep and continuing illness and troubling memories of Charlotte Preston’s upbeat manner and forced smile, which flickered continuously in my head like an old kinescope. As I sat in the Mustang studying the big gate and fence, my eyelids grew heavier, my resolve more elusive. Scaling a wrought-iron fence a foot taller than I was and trudging up a wooded hillside didn’t seem impossible, just arduous and very unpleasant.
I glanced across the road, over the treetops and the red-tiled roofs of hundred-year-old villas. The sun was moving across the bay, past the rocky point of Rincon to the south toward the more central Channel Islands, and a series of oil derricks that looked, from this distance, like an armada of ghostly ships crossing the bright water. The breeze felt nice on my skin, like a caress, tempering the sun’s heat. I could hear the blue-gray eucalyptus leaves stirring on the draping branches around me, as light and dry as parchment paper, whispering in mysterious tongues. It wasn’t difficult to imagine why Rod Preston had spent part of his considerable fortune to purchase some solitude up here, in this lovely place. I slept.
*
I awoke abruptly to the sound of a gardener’s flatbed truck rounding the bend in the road above me, then rumbling past, its tires flicking acorns and pebbles. The sun was gone around the curving coastline to the west, but there was still some light among the shadows, suggesting another hour until dusk.
I drank from a bottle of water, climbed from the Mustang, contemplated the wrought-iron fence that separated Rod Preston’s world from the rest. Then I studied the chain and padlock on the gate more closely and wondered if gaining entrance wasn’t simpler than I’d first imagined. I worked at the loops of the chain, found some play, loosened the chain until I was able to part the sections of the gate just enough to wiggle through. Fifteen pounds ago, when I was healthier, this would have been painful, maybe impossible. Now, wedged in, I was able to straighten up, suck in my chest and belly, and slip through with barely a scrape.
I began climbing the winding, cobbled drive. It was lined on either side by massive oaks and ivy-covered grounds, with much of the untended vines crawling up the trunks of the trees to drape the lower branches. At the first turn, recessed perhaps a hundred feet from the drive and nearly overgrown with vegetation, was a small, two-story stone cottage, apparently once a gatekeeper’s house. A few hundred feet above that, the drive leveled off. To my left, a narrow paved path extended to corrals and stables that could be glimpsed through the ivy-draped oak and the shadows that were beginning to deepen where the growth was thickest. On my right stood an impressive Mediterranean-style mansion, with a stucco exterior and a tiled roof that looked like they both could use some repair; past the two-story house, the drive opened up to a motor court and a series of connected garages.
I veered right and made my way to the southernmost edge of the house, which afforded sweeping views from the mountains to the sea. The landscaping here was precise and dramatic: sculptured shrubbery, a dazzling array of plantings and trees, formal boxwood gardens graced with statuary, all of it showing signs of neglect. Wide steps of cut graystone led from the weed-infested gardens down to the next level, where additional gardens had been designed in intricate mazes around a circular fountain that was now dry, robbing its colorful tiles of their sheen.
I turned back to the entrance of the house, stepped up to the columned portico, and rang the bell. No one came, and I rang again, then rapped on the massive oak door with a heavy copper knocker turned green. When I tried the equally tarnished doorknob, I found the door unlocked. I opened it and stepped into an expansive entry hall of hardwood flooring, which opened, in turn, to a living room of stunning dimensions, with every window looking out either to ocean views or, toward the rear, elaborate courtyards and gardens. The place had a musty smell, suggesting aged wood and leather, and most of the furniture was covered against dust. A marble fireplace with a carved wood mantel dominated the section ahead of me; to my right, a graceful staircase in the Art Deco style rose to the second floor. I crossed to the stairs and started up, my footsteps the only sound in the otherwise silent house. The landing offered me either a pair of French doors leading to a verandah that overlooked the terraced gardens, or a length of hardwood hallway leading into the interior of the second floor. I chose the hallway, opened doors along the way, found elegant bedrooms, each with its own fireplace. Charlotte’s notes had told me to expect eighteen rooms, four of them originally for servants. At the end of the hall I found what appeared to be the master bedroom, and across the large room a balcony that offered a spectacular view of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Below, in the rear yard, was a swimming pool formed of natural rock; beyond that, a small but charming guest house with a large, private deck, from which all of Montecito and the bay must have been visible.
Then I sensed movement off to my left, toward the stables. It was just a flash of motion, a black horse galloping off, carrying a slim rider trailing long hair as dark as the horse itself.
*
As I reached the front steps and crossed the drive, I heard thudding hoofbeats growing more distant until they were gone.
I struck out along the path to the stables, and when I reached the stable door I stopped, hearing nothing but my own quickening breath. Inside, in separate stalls, several fine-looking horses stood blinking languidly, flicking at flies with their tails. They were in various shades and sizes, and appeared to be strong, healthy, and well groomed, which pretty much exhausted my knowledge of matters equine. I passed beyond the stables and found open, rolling land beyond, interspersed with oak and eucalyptus. The ground sloped gradually up to merge with the more rugged mountains, which were public land, carved with enough trails, I imagined, for a rider to run a horse forever.
Hoofbeats suddenly pounded toward me from behind. I whirled to see the dark horse coming back, a shiny black mare with flaring nostrils being whipped by her pale rider, whose delicate face I barely glimpsed as the horse bore down on me. I stepped quickly from her path, pressing myself against the stable wall as she galloped past, her sharp hooves churning dust. The rider brought her expertly around, reined her in, then guided her back until we faced each other and I was finally able to discern some maleness in his features. He was wispy and wan yet strangely beautiful, with a Raphaelite face that defied age and gender. Yet the face, for all its lack of definition, was disconcertingly familiar; it was the face in the photograph back on my kitchen table, or very nearly—the face of Randall Capri as a young boy. Or very nearly.
While I shrank beneath the eaves of the stable, the rider reared the mare up on her hind legs like the wrought-iron steeds on the big gate, her lethal hooves flailing above my head, while he kept his dark eyes fixed on mine, demonic in his pallid face. He appeared as physically insubstantial and beardless as a boy, with the bearing and passion of a man—ethereal as an angel, as haunted as an archangel, and lost within himself like no one I’d ever encountered.
Then he pulled on the reins, dug his knees into the mare’s ribs as she came down, and galloped away across the rolling landscape into the dying light.
*
Minutes later, I encountered him again. I was descending the long drive, nearing the gate. He stepped from the foliage near the stone cottage, and when I looked, I saw the mare tied up near the cottage steps, drinking from a trough.
He faced me in the middle of the drive, seemingly unafraid.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
His voice matched his features: feathery, genderless, ambiguous. He was dressed in a loose-fitting, long-sleeved white shirt and black leather riding pants tucked into black English riding boots. The outfit might have fit a slim, long-legged woman as easily.
I spoke my name and told him about the book Charlotte Preston had asked me to write.
“She wanted me to come here, to see Equus for myself.”
“She’s gone now. Equus belongs to me.”
“Charlotte left no will, no provisions for her estate.”
“Mr. Preston wrote a note before he died, signed and dated. If anything happened to Charlotte while she still owned Equus, it was to be mine. My lawyer has the note. If Charlotte left no will, and no one proves the note invalid, Equus belongs to me.”
“You must be George Krytanos.”
“That’s right.”
“Charlotte spoke of you.”
“She had no reason to. She hardly knew me.”
“She said you were very loyal to her father.”
“She was going to sell Equus. It’s been my home for twenty-two years, the only home I know.”
“You must have been quite young when you came here.”
“Mr. Preston brought me here when I was ten. Twenty-two years I’ve lived here, with Mr. Preston and the horses.”
“You don’t look thirty-two years old.”
The light was nearly gone, but there was enough to show me the unnatural contours of his face, the shaping that seem forced upon it. “You must have been very fond of Mr. Preston, to stay on so long.”