The Ghost Walker

by Margaret Coel

  The girl stood at the bed, stuffing a small bag with things Vicky had brought her—a couple of pairs of jeans, two sweaters, some underwear, shampoo and a hairbrush, a pale pink lipstick. The lipstick was still wrapped in plastic. Susan looked thin and fragile. Red circled her eyes, but her face no longer had a pasty look. A little while ago, she had agreed to enter treatment again, and Vicky had made the arrangements.

  They would fly to Denver tomorrow. The place Father John had recommended was far enough away to give Susan some time—at least a few days—before she would have to talk to the police. She would feel better then, stronger. And who knew what might happen in the meantime? If the white men were linked to murder—even the thought made Vicky wince—Banner might find enough cause to arrest them without Susan’s help.

  Besides, Vicky wasn’t sure how much help Susan could be. Susan claimed she didn’t know Ty and his friends were selling drugs. But she admitted Ty had started her smoking a new drug, although she wasn’t sure what it was.

  “Heroin?” Vicky had asked.

  Susan had shrugged. All she knew was that it didn’t take much to get that floating feeling. Why had she started again? She didn’t know. She’d met Ty, and they got high together, and he loved her.

  Vicky sat down on the edge of the bed. Her shoulders sagged. This drug, whatever it was, could have killed Susan. Thank God she was alive and starting treatment tomorrow. And their evening together stretched ahead. Maybe they’d watch some TV, if Susan felt up to it.

  “You talk to Daddy?” the girl asked.

  Vicky moved slightly on the bed, considering her answer. She could cover up for Ben. She’d done that for years. Don’t be afraid. Everything’s okay. Daddy’s just sick right now. Codependency, the psychologists called it. They had that right. Ben had been dependent on alcohol, and she’d been dependent on him. But half of the equation had changed. She was aware of Susan staring at her.

  “He’s not at the ranch,” Vicky said.

  Understanding shot across Susan’s face, and she grabbed the little suitcase and tossed it off the bed. It made a harrumph noise as it slid over the floor. She started sobbing. “Why am I goin’ into treatment, then? I’m gonna come out and go right back on drugs. Just like Daddy. What’s the point? I should just die now.”

  Vicky placed both arms around her and reined her close. If that happened, she thought, then she must die, too. She said, “Susan, I love you. Your daddy loves you. You are very important. You are necessary.” She kissed the girl’s forehead. It was moist and cool. They sat in silence a few moments. Then Vicky said, “We should go now.”

  The nurse insisted Susan ride in a wheelchair. Susan looked like a child with the small suitcase in her lap and the nurse stationed beside her. Vicky left them inside the front door of the hospital while she crossed the parking lot to the Bronco. As she drove down the row of cars and trucks, she spotted a gray Chevy truck at the end. Her breath stopped. Then she saw its cab was empty. She had to get a grip on herself. Weren’t there dozens of Chevy trucks that color in Lander?

  She set Susan’s suitcase in back through the open tailgate and tossed her black bag on top as the girl climbed onto the front seat. Before she got in, Vicky glanced toward the truck again. It looked like any other vehicle in the lot. Harmless. Not until she pulled out onto Bishop Randall Drive did she see it start to move. It turned onto the street after her.

  Vicky stepped on the gas. Her heart was racing, and she forced herself to take a deep breath. She had to stay calm for Susan’s sake. She debated driving back to the hospital, but thought of the small, gray-haired woman at the receptionist’s desk and the otherwise empty lobby. She continued north into downtown.

  The truck stayed close behind. She could make out that the driver was Gary. She had an advantage over him—she knew Lander. She approached an intersection and, glancing quickly around, stomped on the gas, zooming through the yellow light. The truck came through on the red. Midblock, she jerked the steering wheel right and peeled into a narrow alley that bisected two large brick buildings. Snow and slush washed over the windshield.

  “Mom. What’re you doin’?” Susan cried.

  In the rearview mirror, Vicky saw the pickup pass the alley entrance. Another few seconds and it was backing into view, starting down the narrow passage, tires squealing. Susan looked back. “Oh, God,” she said, slumping into the seat.

  Vicky prayed no one stepped off the sidewalk as the Bronco shot out of the alley and wheeled right. At the intersection, she took another right and glanced out Susan’s window. The pickup was emerging from the alley. Gary would have seen the turn.

  Her speedometer hit fifty, fifty-five. She was on Main Street now, weaving through traffic, the pickup still behind her. Horns honked, and people stopped on the sidewalks and stared. “Where are the police?” she said out loud. Susan gasped.

  Another right turn, then down another alley. Coming out of it, she swerved into an office parking lot and cut across the block to the next street. The pickup was no longer in the rearview mirror. She’d lost it, but there weren’t many blocks in Lander. The odds were great Gary would spot her again. She rolled into another alley. Halfway down, she pulled in alongside a garage and nosed the Bronco against a high wooden fence. She cut the engine. Either the Bronco was hidden from the street, or they were trapped here.

  Vicky kept her eyes on the rearview mirror, forcing herself to breathe slowly, half expecting the pickup to pull in behind them. What if Gary broke the window and tried to drag Susan out? What would she do? She had nothing to protect them with. She had a jack. But she would have to open the tailgate and dig it out of its compartment, and if Gary happened down one of the streets at the ends of the alley, he’d spot her for sure. Then she remembered the flashlight. She groped under the seat until she found the round, hard plastic.

  “Why’s Gary after me?” Susan said. “I don’t know anything about what they’re doing. Me and Ty, we just wanted to get our business going so we could get married. I wish he never brought those guys here. They ruined everything.”

  Vicky said nothing. They’d gone over this earlier, after she’d told Susan about Father John’s hunch—that Gary may have murdered Marcus Deppert, then murdered the girl who could identify him. Susan had been shocked. Slack-jawed. She had sworn by the spirits of her grandmother and grandfather, by all their ancestors, that she knew nothing about any murders. Vicky believed her.

  They waited in silence. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Finally Vicky started the engine. The roar sounded like an approaching jet. She backed into the alley and slowly started toward the street, her eyes on the rearview mirror.

  She zigzagged through the neighborhoods, not daring to drive one street for long. She could not go home; he would be waiting. At the edge of town, she made a dash for the entrance to Highway 789 and sped north. There was no sign of the pickup.

  “Where we goin’?” Susan asked.

  “Trust me,” Vicky said. The irony hit her. Why should Susan trust her? They wouldn’t be in this position had she been a different kind of mother.

  The highway lay open ahead, the asphalt streaked with snow. At one point Vicky glimpsed what looked like a gray truck behind. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel as the truck swerved into the oncoming lane and passed. It was the color of honey.

  She turned left onto Seventeen-Mile Road, and, just past St. Francis cemetery, made another left onto Circle Drive. She could sense her pulse slowing.

  Easing up on the gas, she turned the Bronco down the snow-rutted road that ran alongside the administration building and Eagle Hall. A quarter mile farther was the guest house. She parked on the far side, out of view from Seventeen-Mile Road. They were safe here.

  As she and Susan got out, Walks-on came loping down the road, a red Frisbee in his mouth. Susan patted her thighs, calling the dog over. “Oh, how cute you are,” she said, crouching down and rubbing his head. “What happened to you?”

  Vicky explained about Walks-on a
s she grabbed Susan’s suitcase and her own bag out of the tailgate. Her mind was on the key. What had John said about a key? Had he given her one? She riffled through her bag, searching for a small piece of metal. No, he’d given her the piece of paper with the information about the treatment center. He’d said he would leave the key under the rock by the door.

  Please be here, she said to herself, stooping over to lift the large rock. The silver metal glimmered in the moist dirt. She jiggled the lock a few times before the front door swung loose.

  “He looks happy,” Susan said, stepping inside. Vicky had to refocus her thoughts to realize Susan was still talking about the dog, who didn’t look so happy as Vicky slammed the door. She threw the bolt. The house was one room containing a bed, a sagging sofa, and an old upholstered chair. Lined against the far wall were a small stove, a refrigerator, sink, one cabinet, a small wood table, and two chairs.

  Vicky dropped the suitcase and her bag on the bed. After removing her coat, she checked the cabinet. A box of crackers, a box of Cherrios, two cans of chicken noodle soup, a can of tuna, a jar of peanut butter, a tin of coffee. Inside the refrigerator were a six-pack of Coke, some milk, orange juice, bread, a hunk of cheese, a dozen eggs. A wave of gratitude washed over her. A man she could count on, who spoke the truth, who stood by his word—she wasn’t accustomed to this, and she had lashed out at him, treated him as if he were like Ben.

  She pulled out two Cokes and handed one to Susan, who had already settled onto the sofa, her jacket thrown over the back cushions. Sitting down next to her daughter, Vicky said, “We’ve got to go over everything again, Susan. You must know something important, something you don’t realize you know. Otherwise Gary wouldn’t be after you.”

  28

  Amid the bars and package stores along Highway 789 about a mile south of Riverton sat Herb’s Place, a one-story rectangle, plastered with green asbestos siding, listing toward the snow-packed parking lot. A spotlight fastened at the front corner carved a small circle of light in the darkness. Two or three trucks and a few sedans straddled the snow and ice. Father John parked the Toyota next to a brown truck outside the rim of light, in case somebody from the reservation happened down the highway. The mission pickup parked at Herb’s place would set the moccasin telegraph humming for weeks.

  He stepped out into the frigid air and started toward the front door as an eighteen-wheeler roared past. Behind the truck was a dark pickup. Was it green? He couldn’t tell for sure. He was beginning to see green pickups everywhere. In any case, Nick Sheldon had already delivered the warning. Why would he still have him followed if indeed Sheldon had ordered someone to try to scare him off?

  As Father John pulled the front door open, it gave out a loud screech on the cement slab. Smoke hung inside like a gray cloud. A few patrons sat in the booths that marched down the left wall: a man and woman side by side, a couple of cowboys, four or five people crowded into the end booth. A middle-aged couple occupied one of the tables in the center. In the room that opened off the right, two cowboys were shooting pool.

  He made his way past the tables to the bar on the opposite wall and slid onto a stool, shoving his cowboy hat back. It had been a long time since he’d sat at a bar, but it seemed like yesterday. The slick, polished wood, the little rings of moisture, the smell of beer and whiskey and cigarettes were all so familiar. His eyes stung, and his throat muscles constricted.

  The bartender was busy mixing drinks, his back turned. Three cowboys straddled stools at the far end of the bar, their hands wrapped around beer bottles, voices sharp against the din of other conversations. A waitress stood apart from them, tapping long red nails on a round tray. Catching Father John’s eye, she sidled toward him, scooting the tray along the bar. “Well, hello there,” she said. “Haven’t seen you in here before.”

  She was tall, with long blond hair and dark eyes. Her smile revealed almost perfect teeth, except for the tiny space in front that, oddly enough, made her seem prettier. But there was an unfinished sense about her, a false note of bravado in the short, skin-tight black leather skirt, the pink sweater with shiny beads at the top, the scooped neckline that revealed the graceful arch of her shoulders, the bulge of her breasts. The pungent, sugary sweet smell of her perfume wafted toward him.

  “Are you Jennifer?”

  “I’m Marcy,” she said. The breasts moved closer.

  He tried to ignore them. “What time does Jennifer come in?”

  The bartender set two whiskey sours on the tray. “Nobody here by that name,” he said, his eyes fixed on the waitress. He was six feet tall with the neck and shoulders of a bull and a forehead that sloped upward into a receding hairline. Father John guessed his age to be about forty.

  “Take it easy, Herb,” the waitress said. Picking up the tray, she pivoted on her high heels, leaning toward Father John. “Catch you later,” she whispered before moving away.

  The bartender swished a white cloth over the bar, mopping up the moisture rings. “So, what’s it gonna be?”

  “Coffee,” Father John said.

  “Irish coffee?”

  “Nope.”

  Stepping sideways, the bartender picked up a glass coffee pot from a hot plate and poured steaming brown liquid into a mug. He walked back and set it down. “I thought I knew all the cops around here.”

  “I’m a priest.”

  Inflating both cheeks, the bartender blew out a stream of air. “You don’t say. That’s how come you look familiar. You’re that priest I seen on TV works with them Indians over on the reservation.”

  That was right. Father John asked where Jennifer was working now.

  The bartender shook his head. “How would I know? Never heard of her.”

  “How about Marcus Deppert,” Father John said. “You heard of him?”

  “This ain’t no Indian bar. You must be lookin’ for that place up the highway, the Get-Along. That’s where them Indians hang out.” The bartender walked down the bar toward the cowboys, who, Father John noticed, had stopped talking and were looking his way.

  Father John took a drink of coffee. How did the bartender know Marcus was an Indian? The bartender was lying. People lied for many reasons: to hide something, to protect themselves, to hurt someone, or just out of sheer perversity. What was Herb’s reason?

  Whatever the reason, Father John knew he wasn’t going to get any information at the bar. He stood up, fished some coins out of the front pocket of his blue jeans, and set them next to the coffee mug. The cowboys swiveled around almost in unison, watching him. He felt their eyes on his back as he strolled to the pool room.

  The pool table took up most of the space, allowing barely enough room for a small table at the far end. Cues rested in a rack hung on the wall, and a black-and-white television blared a hockey game from an overhead shelf in one corner. Cheers went up as the puck sailed past the goalie. Rangers, two; Sabres, zip.

  The two cowboys playing pool ignored the television, their attention on the pool table. They looked like brothers, medium height, wiry, with brown hair combed straight back, pink cheeks, little mustaches. They both wore cowboy boots, blue jeans, and long-sleeved western shirts—one red, the other blue—like a hundred other cowboys from ranches nearby.

  Red Shirt stretched low over the table, sighting the cue. Then his arm pulled back and quickly sprang forward in a smooth stroke. The loud whack gave way to the clack-clack sound of balls shooting over the table. The four ball and six ball spun into the side pockets. He took another shot and two more balls pocketed. He circled the table, studying the lays, calling each shot before sinking the balls. The last was the eight ball, which rolled into the corner pocket as he had predicted. He straightened from the table, a wide grin creasing his face.

  “Jesus. You lucky son of bitch,” said Blue Shirt.

  “Pay up.”

  Turning sideways, away from the bar, the cowboys leaned together, hands touching briefly. Then Red Shirt whirled around. “You wanna shoot?”

&nb
sp; Father John shook his head. “I’m looking for someone. A girl named Jennifer. She used to work here.”

  The cowboys exchanged a quick glance.

  “Why you lookin’ for her?”

  “She knows a friend of mine. Marcus Deppert.”

  Blue Shirt laughed. “You must be one of them guys loves Indians. Yeah, I can tell by lookin’. One of them do-good, liberal types. Traitor to his own race.”

  “Do you know her?”

  They both shook their heads, and Red Shirt turned his attention to chalking his cue.

  Father John took off his parka, tossed it onto the small table, and lifted a cue out of the rack. Poking his index finger and thumb into the little pocket of his jeans, he extracted a folded bill. Ten dollars. It was the last money he had. He set it on the rim of the pool table. “If you win,” he said to Red Shirt, “it’s yours. If I win, you tell me what you know about Jennifer.”

  The cowboys stared at each other, a mixture of amusement and challenge in their faces. Then Red Shirt said, “Deal.”

  Father John chalked his cue, trying to remember the last time he’d played pool. Grace House. There had been a pool table in the rec room. But had he played? Much of his time in treatment was a blur. Before Grace House, he’d played at the prep school where he had taught. He liked to challenge the kids once in a while, and sometimes he got beaten, but not often. Before that, his uncle’s saloon on the street level of the apartments where he’d grown up. He and Mike would wander in and shoot pool in the afternoons waiting for their mother to finish work—she had been the cook in the saloon. He had learned to play pool from the best sharks in Boston.