The Ghost Walker

by Margaret Coel

  “Run,” Father John shouted, stepping between the women, grabbing them around the waist and propelling them toward the trees. The frantic, hysterical voice of the professor pierced the air, like the wail of a wild animal. “Don’t shoot!”

  Father John flung the women in front and pushed them down, throwing himself on top, cradling Vicky’s head under his right arm. There was a sharp, sporadic popping noise and then the roar of explosion, of wood and glass shattering, of metal shredding. He felt the ground tremble, the blast of hot air rush over him, and something as hard as a baseball thud against his arm. The noise reverberated through the air, as if they were inside a barrel. Then there was the sound of fire and the putrid, acrid smell of smoke. Someone was screaming—a woman. The sound was muffled in the snow, and from somewhere, floating as if in a dream, came the sound of sirens.

  He struggled to get to his feet. It was as if they’d been welded together, he and Vicky and Susan. Chunks of wood and stainless steel and glass, pieces of plastic bottles, lay strewn in the snow around them. A thick beam lay a few inches from where his arm had sheltered Vicky’s head. Then he saw the red streak, like a ribbon in Vicky’s hair.

  “Oh, God, no!” he heard himself shouting. He laid the palm of his left hand flat against her neck. He could feel her pulse, or was he imagining it? “Vicky, Vicky,” he said.

  She began moving beneath his hand. Slowly she turned her head and stared at him, shock and fear in her eyes. “I think I’m okay,” she said, her voice hoarse as she tried to sit up. He placed his left arm around her waist and pulled her away from Susan, who was also starting to move. She was crying softly.

  The sirens seemed louder as he helped them both to their feet, aware he could only use one arm, aware of the pain spreading like acid up his right arm, across his shoulder and chest. The sleeve of his parka was soaking up blood. Susan was weaving, and Vicky kept one arm around the girl’s waist. He kept his good arm around Vicky’s as they started for the road.

  The barn lay flattened, as if it had been pulled into a crater with wooden planks strewn around the edge. Flames leapt from the center, expelling a cloud of blue-black smoke. Suddenly sirens drifted off into the air, and two police cars and a dark 4×4 jerked to a stop in the middle of the road. Banner slammed out of the lead car and ran toward them. There was the dark blur of other policemen, of a man in a topcoat running behind him, and then someone was guiding him into the front seat of a police car. He didn’t resist. He knew he was losing a lot of blood.

  * * *

  He sat sideways with the door flung open, his boots planted in the snow. One of the policemen had attached a kind of splint to his arm and wrapped it with tape to keep it from moving. He couldn’t move it anyway, but the gauze stuffed around the splint seemed to stanch the bleeding. He could see Vicky and Susan over by the body sprawled in the snow—Ty’s body. Susan knelt beside it, and Vicky stood over her, a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

  Banner and the man in the topcoat leaned over the door. Father John recognized Mike Osgood, the FBI agent he’d met in Banner’s office last Monday. It seemed like a year ago. The agent started firing questions: How many in the lab? How’d you and the women get out? What the hell happened?

  Father John fielded them one at a time. Three in the lab, one outside. He listed the names, and both Banner and the agent nodded their heads, as if they had already figured that much. He wasn’t sure why he and Vicky and Susan were still alive. They wouldn’t be, if Ty hadn’t stepped into the doorway, between them and Gary. What happened? A falling out of crooks. Glancing from the agent to the police chief, he asked, “How did you get the warrant?”

  “Warrant?” Banner stepped back and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his parka. “Turns out we didn’t need one. Soon’s we got the FBI report on the names you gave us, we headed up here. There was nothing on Nick Sheldon, other than he got himself disbarred in California a couple times. Nothing outstanding on Gary Rollins and Ty Jones, even though they got records from here to Lander. But Morrissey Porterfield . . .” The chief shook his head.

  “A true genius,” Osgood said. “One of the few chemists capable of producing fentanyl in a lab like this. We’ve been looking all over the country for him, ever since the L.A. agents raided a lab out in the San Bernardino valley. He was slippery. He managed to crawl through a window as the agents came through the front and back doors.”

  “And the Z Group?”

  A sadness came into the agent’s eyes. “We have an idea of who it might be. Unfortunately we can’t confirm it. All our sources are dead.”

  Banner leaned over the door again. “One thing you don’t have to worry about. The Z Group won’t be closing down the mission.”

  Grabbing the door handle, Father John began leveraging himself to his feet. “You better stay put,” the chief said as Father John walked past him and the agent and started for the body in the snow. He took a deep breath to steady himself. His legs felt a little wobbly. The acrid smell was still in the air, flames still lapped at the rubble of the barn, and in the distance the sound of another siren was coming up the mountain.

  He knelt down beside Susan, aware of the girl’s soft sobbing. Taking her hand in his, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “I really loved him,” she said.

  “I think he loved you very much,” Father John said. There was no greater love—the young man had given his life. He made the sign of the cross on Ty’s forehead. Then he said the ancient prayers out loud: “Protect him, Dear Lord Jesus; raise him up; show him Your mercy which is all encompassing, which you offer to us all.”

  He got to his feet, and Vicky walked beside him toward the road. The ambulance skirted around the police cars, stopping not far from them. The moment the siren cut off, there was only the soft crackling noise of the flames, the faint shushing of the wind.

  36

  Howard Bushy was a natural, but so was Scott Nathan. Howard snatched the basketball and sprinted downcourt for a dunk, with Scott right behind, barely missing the block. Father John jumped up from the bench along the cement wall. Pain traveled along his arm, into his hand, to the tips of his fingers. He had to remember to move more slowly, with patience. It wasn’t easy. The cast ran from his elbow to his wrist, a dead weight. His arm itched, and he wanted to rip off the cast and fling it into the winds. He forced himself to concentrate on the game.

  Patrick had divided the kids into the Indians and the Warriors. They kept coming, always running, playing quick transition games. The Warriors had already run up a ten-point lead, but the Indians would never admit defeat. Howard made a three-pointer, and Scott took the inbound pass and headed downcourt looking for an opening, dribbling, one arm extended. The Indians moved in for an attempted steal.

  “Where’s the defense?” Father John yelled, jumping forward. He realized he had stepped onto the court.

  The whistle screeched across the gym. The boys held their places, eyes on the coach, who came down the sidelines. “Father, do you mind?” Patrick said. “We’re working out some tactical plays here.”

  “Oh, sorry,” Father John said, backing off the court. It was hard to restrain himself. He loved coaching kids. He couldn’t wait until spring when baseball season started and the Eagles suited up, but that was still three months away. He leaned against the cement wall, resolved just to watch. Patrick was doing a fantastic job.

  Another field goal attempt by the Warriors. Then a turnover, and the Indians exploded downcourt. As Howard sank the ball, Father John heard a motor outside. He slipped through the door, wondering who the visitor might be. Not many visitors turned onto the narrow road that ran past Eagle Hall.

  Reds, oranges, and pinks flamed across the western sky as the afternoon sun hovered above the dark ridge of the mountains. A Bronco stood in the middle of the road, silhouetted in the sunlight, and Vicky was walking toward him. She carried a package. He was surprised to see her—she had been in Denver the last couple of weeks.

  “Father Peter ad
vised me to look for you here,” Vicky said as she came closer. Her brown coat flowed over the tops of her boots. The sun shimmered in her black hair.

  “How’s Susan?”

  Vicky smiled. “That friend of yours and his wife run a very good clinic. I think Susan will make it this time, but . . .”

  “It will always be a struggle.” He finished her sentence. It wasn’t just Susan he was thinking about. He was still struggling with the general anesthetic they’d given him to set his arm around a steel rod. The anesthetic had only whetted the thirst. It was like pouring gasoline onto a flame.

  “It’s over,” Vicky said.

  They were quiet a moment, then she went on, “It made the front page of the Denver Post. It looks as if you helped to thwart the plans of a major drug cartel.”

  Father John raised his good hand and pushed his cowboy hat back. “All the plans hinged on the mission, which, it turns out, the Jesuits never intended to sell.”

  “According to your Provincial?”

  “According to some Scholastic in the outer office.”

  Vicky shook her head and laughed. “May the next economic development director work to preserve our traditions, instead of trying to destroy them. Eden Lightfoot had everything upside-down. Jobs rated first with him, no matter the cost. And he wasn’t averse to accepting bribes along the way. He’ll be facing charges at the Cheyenne Agency as well as here.”

  Father John drew in his lower lip. He had thought a lot about the economic development director. So much potential, so much waste.

  Vicky was quiet, and he sensed something else on her mind. Finally she said, “I can’t help thinking if I hadn’t been so stubborn, if I had tried to convince Susan to go to the police right away, maybe she could have told them something that would have changed things. Maybe Marcus and the girl would be alive. Ty, also.”

  “Oh, Vicky,” Father John said. “The world is full of maybes. Let’s try not to torture ourselves. God is forgiving.”

  “Yes,” Vicky said, but he knew she wouldn’t let herself off easily. “It must be hard on the Depperts, and poor Loretta . . .” Vicky’s voice trailed off.

  Father John told her how he had been spending as much time as possible with the old couple, how the Arapahos had rallied around, and how Ike Yellow Calf had made it his business to look after them. In some ways, it might be easier for them than for Loretta. For her, it was very hard.

  “At least her son has been properly buried now,” Vicky said. “His ghost can be at rest.”

  Father John believed that was true. There had been the wake for both Rich and Marcus, and Thomas Spotted Horse had painted the bodies with the sacred red paint that would identify them to their ancestors. Father John had said the funeral Mass and blessed the graves at the St. Francis cemetery. And as the caskets were lowered, the elders had raised their voices in prayer, and the drums had pounded, the low, heavy sounds reverberating through the air, accompanying the ghosts to the spirit world where they would be at rest.

  Vicky held out the package she was carrying. “This is for you. Because you kept the plank from striking my head and probably saved my life. And now you have that horrible cast on your pitching arm.”

  He smiled as he took the package. It looked like a birthday present, wrapped in yellow paper flecked with red balloons and tied with red ribbon. She had to help him undo it. They almost dropped the whole thing in the snow, but he made a quick one-handed recovery. “This isn’t necessary,” he said.

  “Yes, it is,” she said as he pulled back the last of the paper and read the black letters on the box: Stereo Cassette Player.

  He felt like a kid, deliciously happy with an unexpected gift. Now he could listen to his opera tapes as he drove across the reservation. He couldn’t imagine which opera he would listen to first. La Bohème, perhaps. Puccini, certainly. “You’re right. This is absolutely necessary. Hoho’u ho:3tone’3en.”

  Vicky threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, goodness,” she said after a moment. “Arapaho is the most beautiful language in the world, but I wouldn’t believe it listening to you. You mustn’t let the elders hear you trying to speak it.”

  They walked the short distance to the Bronco, and he shut the door after she had slipped inside. Whatever had made him cradle her head against the explosion, he thanked God he had done so. He watched until the Bronco backed all the way to Circle Drive and began moving around the corner of the administration building. Until it disappeared into the sun.

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