The Ghost Walker (13 page)

Father John never took his eyes off her. “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know. I drove up there this morning, but she wasn’t around, or so one of the men told me. I informed him I’d be back at 6:30 sharp.” She glanced at her wristwatch—a white habit she’d acquired, which she hated. She would have to drive like Mario Andretti to make it.

“Would you like me to go with you?” he asked, his voice calm, strong.

Vicky turned the offer over in her mind. Yes, she
would like him to go with her. She shook her head. “This is something Susan’s father and I have to handle.”

Father John smiled, and she sensed his disappointment, his understanding that this was a family matter in which he had no part.

*    *    *

Vicky had buttoned her brown wool coat, flung a scarf around her neck, and switched off the light when she remembered her briefcase. She stepped in the darkness to the file cabinet. Grabbing the briefcase off the top, she glanced out the window just as Father John walked under the streetlight toward the red Toyota pickup, his cowboy hat pulled forward. Tiny dots of snow, like a light rain, fluttered around him. He looked so alone she could have wept.

She watched until he disappeared inside the cab. Until the Toyota nosed away from the curb and drove into the shadows of the street. Suddenly headlights flipped on at the corner. A green truck churned through a U-turn and accelerated after the Toyota.

13

S
now swept lightly across the Bronco’s hood and glistened in the headlights, and the wipers swung in intermittent half-circles to brush away the flakes. Vicky tried to shake off the notion that the green truck was following Father John by concentrating on the road climbing ahead. Crazy, she thought. Who would be following him? Anybody who wanted to talk to Father John O’Malley could find him at St. Francis Mission any day of the week. But for how long, how long?

The Bronco swung into the long curve before the turnoff into Lean Bear’s ranch. Vicky tapped on the brake pedal, scanning the road for the black faces of ice that showed here and there through the snow. She turned right, then stopped at the metal gate, glancing at the little green light on the dashboard. Six-twenty-nine. The bozo from this morning knew she’d be back and had made sure the gate was closed.

She switched off the ignition, grabbed the floppy black bag next to her, and slid into the icy outdoors. Moonlight filtered through the clouds, casting gray shadows over the snow. She heard the soft swish of the wind in the ponderosas. She pulled the wool scarf under her chin, set the strap of her bag firmly over one shoulder, and trudged to the gate. The chain was thick
enough to discourage a herd of buffalo from attempting to break through. Fresh tracks packed the snow on the other side, and a dim light glowed from the house.

Suddenly Vicky had a sense of someone watching her, as if she were surrounded by ghosts. She glanced about, silencing her own breathing, half expecting the white man to step out from the trees. No one. She turned back to the gate. About a foot and a half separated each of the three horizontal bars. She had climbed hundreds of gates like this, sat on the top rail for hours watching her father and grandfather brand the new calves, slid off the rail onto the back of her own pony, and raced across the earth. But not in a suit, coat, hose, and dressy leather boots.

She tossed her bag over, then grabbed the middle bar and scrunched down, pulling her upper body through the narrow space. She twisted around to bring her right leg over the lower bar, then the left. Snow slid inside her boots; she felt as if she’d waded into ice water. She picked up the bag and started down the driveway, walking in the hard-packed tracks.

A wave of memories washed over her as she approached the house. She remembered the plywood siding she and Ben had installed one summer and painted the color of green apples. The old pickup she had loaded the kids into the day she had decided to leave. And the memory she hadn’t experienced, only imagined: Ben coming through the front door and finding her and the kids gone. The pictures dissolved into a jumble of black-and-white images, like an old movie reeling itself out.

She pounded hard on the front door, her glove muffling the sound. She yanked it off and pounded again. The static noise of a television mingled with the hiss of the wind. She waited a moment, tried the doorknob, and was surprised when it turned in her hand. “Susan,”
she called, stepping into the small living room. The odors of cigarettes and stale food met her.

The room was a contrast of light and shadow: the shaft of light from the kitchen; the greenish light flickering off a television set; the shadows everywhere else. Slowly a figure began to uncurl from the sofa against the opposite wall. “Mom? What’re you doin’ here?”

Vicky set the door in place, a mixture of relief and terror welling inside her. This child-woman in rumpled sweats with long black hair plastered to the sides of her head, with circles under her eyes so dark even the dim light couldn’t conceal them—this was her beautiful daughter.

Susan stretched one hand toward a small table, groping among empty beer bottles, ashtrays overflowing with cigarette butts, and Styrofoam fast food boxes. She fingered a pair of glasses and slipped them on. Her eyes loomed large and accusing behind the wire-framed lenses.

“Are you okay, honey?” Vicky’s voice rose over the noise of the television. “. . . your question, please. Would you care to guess? . . .”
Jeopardy,
She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the sofa, close to her daughter. The old black-and-white TV, the table, the sofa—all as she remembered, smaller, perhaps, more haggard-looking. The detritus of her old life.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Susan flopped both bare feet onto the linoleum floor and attempted to sit up, then slouched against the back cushion. “I was takin’ a nap.” Her words came slowly, as if she had formed them through wired jaws.

Vicky’s stomach twisted into knots. The signs loomed like billboards on the interstate. Not just the lethargy and fogginess of marijuana, but something else—another kind of drug, which she was at a loss to identify.
“I was surprised to hear you’d come back,” she managed.

“Yeah, well, I was gonna call you, but . . . no phone. Didn’t we used to have a phone here? Yeah, it was on the kitchen counter next to the toaster. You used to talk to Grandmother while you smeared jelly on our toast. See, I remember.” Susan brought one hand up to her forehead. “Did you take the phone?”

“Susan, you’re sick. Let me help you.”

Her daughter shook her head, like a child in a temper. “No, Mom. I’m tellin’ you, I’m fine.” She pushed herself to her feet. “Look, you want some coffee or something?”

Vicky nodded and followed her daughter into the kitchen. Dirty plastic dishes, more empty beer bottles and Styrofoam boxes, papers, and stacks of catalogues spread over the countertops and the yellow Formica table. A door on the left opened onto a dark hallway that led to the two bedrooms. The house felt hot and close, as if there were a shortage of air. She dropped her bag onto the clutter on the table and unbuttoned her coat, letting it slide back loosely around her shoulders.

Susan mechanically filled two mugs with tap water and shuffled along the counter. Stopping in front of a cluster of jars, she opened one and spilled instant coffee crystals into the mugs. Vicky pushed some papers and dirty dishes out of the way so Susan could set the mugs on the table. Tiny black specks floated in the brownish liquid.

“I didn’t come here to argue,” Vicky said, taking one of the two chairs at the table.

Susan slid onto the other. “So why’d you come?”

Vicky began again. “Your father said you and three men plan to start some kind of crafts business. If I can help you—”

“You can’t.” Susan’s eyes blinked behind her glasses.
“We’ve got things figured out, okay? We’re gonna get the moccasins and beaded stuff that people make around here. And we’re gonna advertise in catalogues.” She drew a catalogue from a pile and set it next to an open Styrofoam box with pieces of wilting lettuce still clinging to the sides. “Everybody wants Indian stuff. We’re gonna make a lot of money.”

Vicky took a sip of coffee. It was tepid and bitter. This idea sounded so good, so possible, except that Susan was stoned on something. Her hand shook as she lifted her mug. “Your friends are from Los Angeles?”

“You mean, are they white? Yeah, so what?” After a moment, Susan added, “My friends know all about starting a business. One’s a real professor.” Still the shaking. Little drops of coffee ran down the sides of her mug.

“So why do you need them?” Vicky asked. “You’re the one Our People will trust. You’re the one who can go to their homes and contract for the crafts. You could run the business yourself.” Then she added, “Once you were clean.”

“Don’t bug me, Mom.” Susan got to her feet, gripping the edge of the table so hard her knuckles blanched. “Maybe you better go away and leave me alone. You’re real good at that.”

Here it was, the blow Vicky realized she had been waiting for. Susan and Lucas never forgot she had left them, even though no one else on the reservation ever mentioned it. It was traditional for Arapaho grandparents to help raise the grandchildren. What had kept the moccasin telegraph buzzing for years was that she’d left Ben. And for what? To go to school and become a white woman, to become
Hisei:ci’:nihi
, Woman Alone.

Vicky pushed her chair back and walked around the table. She placed an arm around Susan’s thin shoulders.
“Please come home with me. Just for a few days. You can clean up, get some food in you. You’ll feel better. I’ll bring you back.”

The girl shrugged off Vicky’s arm. “I don’t need your help. I got Ty. He’s here for me, and I can count on him. Me and Ty, we’re gonna get married. So, please, just go.”

“You heard what she said, Mom.” The male voice came from the living room, and Vicky swung around as the man she’d met earlier came through the kitchen doorway. He seemed larger here than he’d appeared outdoors: six feet tall, with a thick neck, and shoulders and forearms that filled out the sleeves of his down jacket. His blond curly hair was matted in places, as if he’d just removed the knit cap he held in one gloved hand. A light stubble covered his cheeks and chin like a rash. He was about Susan’s age.

Two other men followed him into the kitchen and lined up next to the counter. One was also in his twenties, thin and dark-haired, in blue jeans and a thick jean jacket. Susan sidled toward him, and he draped one arm over her shoulders, a gesture of ownership. The other man was short and heavyset, with a round face partly hidden by a dark beard streaked with silver. He had brown curly hair and pebble-like eyes that looked out from plastic-rimmed glasses. He could be her own age—forty-two—too old to be hanging out with kids.

“Who are you?” Vicky demanded.

“This is Ty,” Susan said. Then, nodding toward the blond, she added, “This here’s Gary.” Another nod. “And that’s the professor I told you about.”

“What’d ya tell her?” Gary said, his tone sharp.

“Nothin’.” Susan leaned into the dark-haired man.

Vicky stepped between Gary and the couple her daughter had become. “Susan, please come with me.”

“She said no, Mom.” This from Gary behind her. “So I’ll just walk you out to your Bronco.”

Vicky sensed that even if Susan wanted to leave, Gary would not allow it. Her daughter was a prisoner. The question mark was the dark-haired man with his arm slung over Susan’s shoulder. How did he fit in? “I’ll be back,” Vicky said, not taking her eyes off Susan’s. Did she imagine it, or was there the smallest flicker of gratitude?

Vicky edged past Gary and the professor. Grabbing her bag off the table, she strode to the front door. There were footsteps behind her. “I don’t want your company,” she said, letting herself out. She hurried across the yard and down the road, aware of Gary’s boots crunching the snow. She made herself breathe deeply. The bastard was trying to scare her. When she reached the gate, the footsteps stopped.

Vicky glanced back. “Are you going to open this, or do I have to crawl over?”

Gary stood about ten feet away, arms folded, a dark shadow in the moonlight. He didn’t move.