by Weston Ochse
“That, my still-dead friend, is a long story.”
“Where’s Reggie?” Matt asked, dancing from side to side as he tried to regain Raisin’s attention.
“Reggie’s close by, right?”
Raisin’s smile faltered. “She’s up there with that Ali Baba creep. It’s a good thing you got out of there when you did, Matt. Those boys are up to no good. They have drugs everywhere and it’s only a matter of time before something bad happens to Reggie.”
Matt stopped dancing. He put his hands on his hips and glared into the trees topping the hill, as if he could see Reggie from where he stood.
“There’s something else.” Jacket’s voice dropped. “There’s a darkness I’ve never seen before. It hovers around Ali Baba like a phantom and it scares me.”
“A phantom?” Jacket scowled. “I’ve heard of them, but never seen one.”
“Be glad. I’ve only caught a few glimpses of this thing, but I think it has the power to kill us. Ali Baba calls it Black Jack.”
“Black Jack,” repeated Jacket. “How can this phantom kill you when you’re already dead?”
“I think it eats souls. Living or dead, I think it eats them up.”
Both Jacket and Raisin exchanged terrified glances as each considered what it would like to have their soul consumed.
“Just look at the mess I’ve gotten her into,” Raisin said, covering his face with his hands.
Jacket shuffled his feet. “Now Raisin, don’t go blaming yourself.”
“How can I not?” he demanded. “I feel like somewhere along the way I made it so she wouldn’t listen. If I’d been more of a guardian and less of a friend …” Raisin shrugged, then trudged over to an old-growth pine, one of the few that had escaped the forest fires that occasionally swept the Black Hills.
Jacket followed and leaned against the tree. “Okay, I was wrong. You can blame yourself,” he said. “Blame yourself forever, for all I care. But that’s not going to help that girl.”
“What do I do, then?” Raisin demanded. “Her belief is all but gone.” He brought his hand to his face and stared through it. “I’m proof of it.”
A noise to the side made them both look over. A little boy in a baseball outfit had stopped on the sidewalk beside them. “Daddy, why is that man talking to a tree?”
Jacket caught Raisin’s eye, then winced. He stood slowly and turned.
The man who’d unloaded the cooler earlier now stood a few feet away. In one hand he held a small plastic baseball bat, in the other a plastic ball. He looked as if he was about to pee in his plaid shorts. “I don’t know why the nice biker man is talking to the tree, Timmy,” he said carefully. “Come on, we better be moving on.” He backed away, his eyes wide. Shoving the ball into his pocket, he grabbed his son’s hand. “Sorry to bother you, sir.”
Jacket grinned, a spark of false menace returning to eyes that had died fifty years previously. “No problem at all,” he said roughly, happy to play the part of the dangerous biker. “Not at all.”
The man turned quickly and tugged the boy closer to his side, whispering harshly, “I told you not to talk to strangers!”
Behind them shuffled the ghost of an old-time baseball player who held out his hands in defeat.
Raisin and Jacket watched the trio make their way to a patch of grass, the dad glancing a time or two in their direction before deciding things were okay. He stepped a short distance away from his son, then pitched the ball underhanded. The boy winced as the ball came near, hugging the bat rather than swinging it. The dad retrieved the ball and returned to his place. He said something to his son, but the words were lost in the distance. When he pitched the ball again, the result was the same. The dad hid his disappointment from his son, but from his vantage across the parking lot, Matt didn’t miss the slight shake of the older man’s head.
The dad walked over and knelt beside his son. He spoke to the boy for almost a full minute, then ruffled his hair, retrieved the ball, and went back to his pitcher’s spot. This time, the boy held his bat out with trembling hands, and by some mini-miracle, the ball and bat met. The ball dribbled a few feet and finally came to rest at the dad’s feet. The hit might as well have been a winning grand slam in the World Series as both father and son whooped with excitement. Even the boy’s sad-looking guardian spirit seemed to find some life as he pumped his fist into the air in triumph.
Raisin and Jacket both grinned. They turned toward Matt and found him staring strangely at the father and son, a smile on his face. After a few moments, Matt stood, then he walked over and sat on the bench of a picnic table where he could watch.
Raisin and Jacket returned to their conversation.
“So how goes your great adventure?” Raisin asked.
“Pretty good,” Jacket replied, then added, “That is if you call vampire kitties, blowflies, murderous insurance salesmen, trolls and angry sheriff’s deputies good.”
Raisin chuckled. “Sounds like something I’d have fun being involved in.”
“I don’t know. Being whole again isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“The sheep urine?” Raisin gave Jacket a sideways glance.
“Yeah,” Jacket admitted. “Especially the sheep urine.”
Matt’s voice suddenly interrupted them. “I have a plan,” he announced.
Jacket raised an eyebrow. “A plan for what?”
“For Reggie.” Matt’s expression was solemn. “We’ve got to save her.”
“You have your own mission to go on,” Raisin pointed out.
“You don’t have time—”
“We’ve got the time. Reggie’s my friend. If I can help her, then I will.” Matt was all seriousness. “What do you think, Jacket?”
Raisin and Jacket exchanged glances. “I admire your desire,” he finally said, “but Raisin’s right. We can’t spare the time.”
Raisin looked at the ground. “I’ve done what I can, you know. I’ve told her everything I know and tried to teach her right from wrong. She’s getting older, though.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked forlorn. “What’s a ghost to do?”
“I’m with you, my friend,” Jacket agreed. “I’ve become whole again and my troubles have only increased.” He pointed to the contusions on his face. “Back in the day, this would have never happened, you know?”
“Back in the day a person like Ali Baba would have had his butt kicked long ago. Now he’s operating almost at will.”
Matt glanced at Raisin, then returned his gaze to Jacket. After a few moments, he nodded. “If my plan works, we’ll save Reggie, make her believe in Raisin again and get Ali Baba in trouble all in one fell swoop.” He began to pace, his hands grasped behind his back.
Raisin mouthed the words fell swoop and raised his eyebrows as Jacket shrugged.
“So what’s the plan?” Jacket asked.
“With one of you a ghost and one of you real, it’s perfect.” Matt nodded.
“What’s perfect?”
“The plan,” Matt said. He whirled suddenly, a broad smile stretching across his face. “I saw it on Scooby Doo and it’s brilliant.”
Raisin and Jacket stared at each other. Raisin silently mouthed the word brilliant.
All Jacket could do was reply by mouthing Scooby Doo.
XX
CALAMITY JANE
“What got into you?” Jacket asked Matt as he and the boy walked up the wide concrete avenue crowded with Mount Rushmore concession stands.
“Nothing. I just remembered something my dad told me once. Honestly, I can’t believe I’d forgotten it. It’s not the kind of thing you’d forget, you know?”
Throngs of people milled in a football field-sized viewing area. Some conversed among themselves in languages from around the world. Some sat and made space to eat or change baby diapers. Some even leaned against a raised stone retaining wall, dozing in the warm western sun, the rush and crowds overwhelming. Most stared up at the great faces on the mountain. Chinese, Japanese, Mexican—all ra
ces and creeds stood in awe of one of humankind’s most marvelous accomplishments. Even a pair of Buddhist monks, heads shaven above saffron robes and rope sandals, smiled in delight as they squinted into the sunlight at the faces of men of whom they’d never heard.
“I can,” Jacket said. “I completely understand. I knew there was something wrong with you.”
“What?”
“You were so brave in the beginning. There was no stopping you. And then …” Jacket allowed his words to trail off as he sipped thoughtfully from the straw in his bottle of soda.
“And then we met the witch,” Matt said.
“Exactly.”
“She took the memory from me, didn’t she?”
“Yes. Witches always want what you don’t want to give. No matter how good they seem, they’re very bad.”
“That’s why you were so afraid of her.”
“Of course. If she can make me into a live person, she can also un-make me from being a guardian. Instead of a heavenly reward, I’d become nothing, and even for a ghost, nothing is something we dread becoming.”
“I should have listened to you,” Matt said woefully. He shook his head.
“Nah, you were right.” Jacket punched his ward lightly on the shoulder. “It was your only chance. If we hadn’t gotten her help, we wouldn’t have made it this far.”
“But then I got you hurt.”
Jacket grinned sheepishly. “You had nothing to do with it. And look at it this way, if it weren’t for the witch, I wouldn’t be able to do this.” Jacket leaned down and hugged him. Matt blinked, then wrapped the biker in his best version of a bear-hug. Just for a few moments the laughter and voices of all the other tourists disappeared and the two of them were alone with their thoughts and dreams.
Finally, Jacket stood. He finished his soda and tossed it into a nearby trashcan. “Tell me about this plan of yours.”
“Can’t yet,” Matt promptly said. “We need to find out what Calamity Jane says first.”
“What?”
Matt gulped the rest of his soda and dropped its remains after Jacket’s. “Calamity Jane. We were gonna find her, remember?”
“That’s about the easiest thing we’ve done then, ’cause there she is right there.”
Matt followed Jacket’s pointing finger to the middle of the plaza. Like the eye of a human hurricane, a single spot was empty. Tourists unconsciously sidestepped or changed direction rather than cross the spot, as though their minds knew about the spiritual presence even though they couldn’t see it.
Matt, however, knew the trick. He squinted and focused on a single point of light. He imagined a woman in Wild West clothes and made up his mind to accept it. Within seconds a hard-looking woman pulled into focus in his vision. The brim of her hat drooped sadly and her hair was ragged, hanging into her wild eyes. Her mouth was drawn into a mean sneer and a buckskin shirt and pants covered her sturdy frame. A pistol rested in the holster at her hip.
Although she’d once been a woman, her figure was more like that of a man’s. Matt’s mother would have described Calamity as stout, while his father would have called her pudgy. Whichever description was applied, her entire appearance definitely matched pictures Matt had seen of the one and only Calamity Jane.
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” Jacket said. He shoved his hands in his pockets and headed through the crowd toward the ghost. “Once this is done, you’re gonna tell me the plan, okay?”
Matt hurried after him but ignored the question. He gripped one of Jacket’s belt loops and allowed himself to be pulled along so he wouldn’t get separated from his guardian. In no time at all, they were standing in front of Calamity Jane. She glanced at them once, then looked away, her eyes seeking something else.
“Excuse me,” Matt said softly.
Matt wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the growl that came from the lips of the long dead Western heroine wasn’t it.
Her head whipped back in their direction. “Get out of my face,” she hissed.
Matt felt the blood drain from his face. He swallowed and started to retreat, then forced himself to stop. He made fists of his hands and held them against his legs, trying desperately to hold onto his resolve. He’d come a long way to get to this point and he wasn’t about to back off unless he absolutely had to. So what if she was mean? All the books had stories about how this woman had held her own in the Wild West. And what was she but a ghost anyway? It wasn’t like she could hurt him. Matt remembered Wild Bill shooting ghostly bullets into the butts of tourists and amended his thought. Well, maybe a little.
Matt took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders and tried again. “Excuse me, Miss Jane?”
“Grrrr,” she said. She sounded like a growling dog.
“Er, Miss Calamity?”
She ignored him, mumbling something under her breath that had to do with headless prairie dogs.
“Excuse me, Miss Jane,” Matt said again. “I really do need to talk to you and I’m not leaving here until I do.”
Calamity Jane’s eyes went wide. She stared down at him, then leaned over so she could better examine the child in front of her. After a moment, she tilted back the brim of her wide black cowboy hat. “You can see me,” she said matter-of-factly.
Matt nodded.
She gritted her teeth, turning her mouth into an ugly yellow and black sneer, then wiped at her face with the worn sleeve of her right arm. “Well I’ll be a frilly-feathered dance-hall girl. So how is it you can see me?”
“Wild Bill taught me.”
Her face visibly brightened. She smiled and for a brief moment she was almost pretty. “You know my Bill?”
“Well, I met him and we talk—”
Jacket stepped forward. “He sends his regards.”
Calamity Jane’s eyes widened as she took in first the biker, then Matt, then the biker again. She placed a hand on her chest. “What in tarnation is going on here? Have I been resurrected and someone forgot to tell me? Can everyone see this old gal or are you two somehow special?”
“Just us, Ma’am,” Jacket said as he took off his helmet. His bald head glistened in the sunlight.
“We’re special,” Matt said brightly.
Fear darkened the corners of her eyes, then it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. She hid it well, a skill she’d likely learned on the frontier, where women weren’t treated as they were now, and a woman marksman wasn’t even believable. The fingertips of her left hand grazed the smooth wooden grip of her pistol as if they craved the quick problem-solving it promised. Then, just as quickly, she swiped several strands of lanky hair from her eyes. Her voice was almost motherly when she finally asked, “So how is my William?”
“He’s well,” Jacket answered. “He wanted me to tell you something.” Jacket glanced at Matt and motioned him to step away.
Matt grudgingly complied, taking two steps away so the couple had a little privacy. When Jacket leaned close enough to Calamity Jane so that Matt couldn’t hear him, Matt stared at the crowds. Nearby, a family of three picnicked. A young boy his own age seemed unwilling to bite into a sandwich that looked like tuna fish salad with brown, wilted lettuce, and Matt couldn’t blame him. He also hated tuna fish. The smell reminded him of something rotten.
The mother and father scolded the boy, who concentrated on drinking from a juice bag, no doubt praying they’d give up on the tuna. As all young boys know, he knew not to make eye contact with his parents, so his gaze wandered until it found Matt’s. The two shared a moment of understanding, then Matt grinned impishly and stuck his tongue out at the other boy. As the mother spun on her heel and shook her hands in the air, the boy lowered the juice bag and returned Matt’s salute with a blue tongue.
Matt’s grin widened. Either he’s a Chow or that’s grape juice in the bag.
“Matt, come here.”
Turning, Matt slid next to Jacket and stuck a finger through one of the biker’s belt loops. Calamity Jane stared from Jacket to
Matt, her hand wiping away a tear.
Matt watched her warily. “Jacket,” he whispered. “What’s wrong?”
“Later, kid,” the biker said out of the side of his mouth. He raised his voice until it sounded normal again. “Miss Jane here says she can help us.”
“That’s not what I said,” Calamity Jane snarled, now dry-eyed and appropriately fearsome.
“What I meant was that she said she can help us, but it won’t matter because we don’t have enough time.”
Calamity crossed her arms and nodded once, punctuating the sentence with the truth of it.
Matt chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Then what are we going to do?” he finally asked.
Jacket stared at his scuffed boot tips but didn’t answer.
“What do you mean we won’t have enough time?” Matt pressed.
“Miss Jane says that where we need to go is past twilight time. I can’t take you out into the wilderness and then turn back into a spirit. Who’d take care of you?”
“But how does she know we won’t have enough time?”
“I told her about the Christmas Witch.”
At Jacket’s mention of the witch, Calamity spit on the ground.
Although the gesture was decidedly unladylike, it didn’t seem out of place with her.
“But that doesn’t explain how she knows. I mean, does she know where the war shirt is or doesn’t she?”
“Quit talking about me like I ain’t here,” snapped the ghost. “I know where the shirt is, kid. Your guardian here says you want to get it so you can be brave. He says you want to get it so you can be a big bad warrior like Crazy Horse. Is that true?”
Matt nodded, smiling confidently.
“Who sold you that load of malarkey?”
Matt’s smile fell. “The Christmas Witch,” he said hesitantly.
“And you believed her.”
“She told me that—”
“And did she steal a memory from you, too?” Calamity sighed and spat again. “That woman is always diving nose first into other people’s business. I can’t believe you trusted her.”
Matt blinked. “Do you mean the shirt doesn’t exist?”
