The Ghost Walker (14 page)

She tossed her bag between the top and middle rails, then leaned down, grabbed the middle bar and propelled herself to the other side more quickly and easily than before. Retrieving the bag from the snow, she straightened upright and walked to the Bronco.

She got in quickly and turned on the ignition, sending the wheels into a whining spin. Framed in the rearview mirror was the white man, leaning over the gate, raising one hand and saluting her. The old guilt tightened its grip, like some creature attempting to drag her into its dark hiding place. She was leaving Susan again. Oh, God, who was she leaving her with this time?

14

V
icky drove down the canyon and across the reservation to the Arapaho ranch, scarcely aware of the falling snow, as if she were outside of time. She parked in front of the massive log cabin and ran up the stairs to the porch that extended along the front. Snow piled over the folded aluminum chairs stacked next to the wood railing. Here was where the cowboys sat on summer evenings, smoking and rocking back on the thin chair legs, boots propped on the railing.

She pounded on the wood door. In a moment it swung open and canned television laughter, mixed with the guffaws of male voices, floated toward her. In the doorway, silhouetted by the light indoors, stood Ben’s cousin, Nate Holden, shorter than Ben and broader, dressed in blue jeans and a plaid shirt. “What do
you
want?”

“I’m looking for Ben,” Vicky said.

Nate stepped back, bringing the door with him. He didn’t ask her in. Behind him was the cavernlike main room with log walls two stories high, the upstairs balcony that led to the bunkrooms, the sloping wood ceiling, and the plank floors strewn with faded Navajo rugs. There was a wedge of shiny pine cabinets visible from the kitchen.

She stepped sideways to get a view of the living area. Three Arapaho men sat on a Naugahyde sofa, arms folded, legs outstretched, boots dug into a rug. A couple of other Arapahos occupied two upholstered chairs. There was a vacant chair, its seat crinkled and sunken, probably from the weight of Nate Holden. A television rested on a metal cart against the wall, and a cloud of cigarette smoke hung in the air. She felt a kind of longing; she could use a cigarette right now herself. “You satisfied?” Nate said, watching her. “Ben ain’t here.”

The others had turned toward her, as if Ben Holden’s ex-wife showing up at the Arapaho ranch at 9
P.M.
promised more entertainment than any
M
*
A
*
S
*
H
rerun.

Vicky said, “Where can I find him?”

“He want to see you?” Nate’s hostility was so thick she could almost touch it. Ben’s family had never forgiven her. It was a wife’s duty to stay by her husband.

“Ben’s watchin’ a couple sick calves at the upper range,” volunteered one of the Indians on the sofa. He looked about twenty. Perhaps he’d grown up with Susan and Lucas.

Of course. On more than one occasion, Ben had stayed up two nights running to tend a sick animal. “Thanks,” she called out as she turned and started down the porch stairs. The young man hollered, “His cabin’s up the road about six miles. Can’t miss it.”

Little eddies of snow scudded into the headlights, and Vicky gripped the wheel as the Bronco climbed through a tunnel of cedars and aspens. She had never been to the upper pasture of the Arapaho ranch. She hoped it existed, that the young Arapaho hadn’t done Nate a favor by sending her up a mountain in what could turn into a blizzard. She shook off the thought.

As the Bronco came out of a long curve, she saw light flickering like a campfire through the cedars. After another half mile she spotted the cabin itself, a smaller version of the bunkhouse she’d just left, with light glowing in the windows. Beyond the cabin loomed the shadow of a barn. As she pulled up, she heard a door slam. A figure emerged from the darkness into the stream of her headlights. She knew by his walk it was Ben.

“Never thought I’d see this night,” he said, opening her door. He wore the sheepskin coat and tan cowboy hat she remembered from the night before. A line of snow lay along the brim.

“Ben, we’ve got to talk about Susan.”

“Too damn cold to talk outside,” he said. She felt the pressure of his gloved hand on her arm as he guided her out of the Bronco and toward the cabin. He walked a little ahead, his boots packing the snow. Stepping onto the wooden stoop, he bent down to grip the metal handle set low on the door for people in the Old Time, shorter people. He motioned her inside. “This is where I’ve been hanging my hat lately,” he said.

Vicky took in the cabin at a glance: combination stove, sink, refrigerator, and cabinet against one wall; card table and two folding chairs in the center of the plank floor; two chairs with wads of gray stuffing poking from the cushions; cast-iron stove that gave off a hissing, crackling noise and flooded the room with warmth. The bed stood against the far wall. Spread across the top was the blue-and-white star quilt Ben’s grandmother had given them on their wedding day.

She stared at it with a kind of shock, as if she had unwittingly touched an electric wire. The star quilt: No true Arapaho home could be without one. Its lines and circles and stars were a reminder that all creation is
alive, even the sky and the earth, and that all creatures are meant to live in harmony. She swallowed hard against the sense of the past welling inside her.

Crossing the room, Ben lifted a log out of a wood box, opened the stove’s little metal door, and tossed the log onto the fire. “That should keep us plenty warm.” Then, glancing back at her he asked, “You had supper yet?”

Vicky shook her head. She’d intended to get a bite before driving out to Lean Bear’s ranch, but she hadn’t had time after John O’Malley’s visit. She laid her coat and bag over one of the chairs, suddenly aware of the hollow feeling in her stomach.

Ben shucked off the sheepskin coat and hung it over a wooden peg on one wall. He set his hat on top. In two steps he was at the stove, flicking a match while pressing one of the small black knobs on the stove front, lighting the burner under a metal coffee pot. Then he lit the burner under a large pan. “How about some stew?” he asked.

“Your recipe?” Vicky asked.

Ben laughed. Plunging a spoon into the stew, he said, “The cook down at the bunkhouse sent it up. Didn’t want it on her conscience, my starving to death. I’ve had a couple of sick calves on my hands. Haven’t had a chance to eat yet.” Still stirring the stew, he looked at her and smiled. “Must’ve been waiting for you.”

“Ben . . .”

He nodded. “This is about Susan. But we can get some grub in us first.” He ladled the stew into two pottery bowls and placed them on the table. Then he filled two mugs with coffee and set them next to the bowls. In an instant he produced plastic spoons and knives, half a loaf of bread in a plastic bag, and a tub of margarine.

Nokooho.
The word sprang into Vicky’s mind as she sat down. Out of the natural order. In the eleven years she’d been married to Ben, he had never waited on her. Warriors did not wait upon women. Warriors rode out and slaughtered the buffalo, and brought the carcasses back to the village for the women to butcher and preserve and tan and dry, to cook and to serve. Warriors did not perform the undignified tasks of women.

“Surprised you, huh?” Ben took the folding chair across from her, looking pleased. He could always read her thoughts, sometimes even before she had them in focus. But he hadn’t read her intention to leave him, hadn’t even suspected.

Steam curled out of her bowl, which was filled with lumps of meat, potatoes, and carrots in brown gravy. It smelled of sage. After the first few bites, she began to feel warmer, calmer. Ben was eating, too, and she was aware he hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “You saw Susan?” he said finally. The time was ready.

Vicky set her spoon next to the almost empty bowl. “She’s on drugs again, but I don’t know what she’s using.”

Ben seemed to consider this as he spread a yellowish glob of margarine onto a slice of bread. After a moment, he said, “Stop blaming yourself. If Susan’s got herself screwed up again with drugs, it’s not just your fault.” He laid the knife across the top of the opened margarine tub and regarded her a long moment. “It’s my fault, too, Vicky.”

Vicky heard the catch in her own breath. She could hardly believe what she had just heard. She had been carrying the guilt alone, a heavy burden. And now he had stepped up to shoulder his share. She felt the years fall away, and in the forty-six-year-old man with gray
mingled in the black of his hair she glimpsed the young warrior with soft black eyes, so handsome she hadn’t dared hope he could ever notice her, the man she had crawled out of her bedroom window on summer nights to meet, the man she had run away with and married.

Vicky switched her eyes away. The cabin felt smaller, the heat from the stove oppressive. She would not be drawn into the circle of his charm. She forced herself to focus on the present. “Discussing who’s at fault won’t help Susan. We have to get her away from Lean Bear’s ranch.”

“Are you suggesting we kidnap her?” Ben set the slice of bread on the table.

“You could evict the white men.”

Ben shrugged. “On what grounds? They’ve paid six months’ rent. In any case, they would have thirty days to leave. Longer, if they took the eviction notice to tribal court. You know that. You’re the lawyer. And what if they did leave? Susan might go with them.”

Vicky sipped at the coffee still hot in her mug. Probably so. In any case, evicting the lot of them wouldn’t get Susan into drug rehab, which was what she needed. “Your turn,” she said, setting the mug down.

“Susan told me they’re going to start a business. It could work for her. I say let her have her chance.”

“Business? Don’t make me laugh. Where do you think she’s getting whatever drug she’s on? Those three men haven’t come here to sell Indian crafts. They’re here to sell drugs.”

Ben said, “We both know Susan would never bring drug dealers to her people.”

Vicky pushed her chair back and got to her feet. She turned and stared at the window, watching the flakes chain along the edges. What was she thinking? Just because
Susan had slipped back onto drugs out of her own pain didn’t mean her three friends were drug dealers. Where was the evidence? She was jumping to conclusions. She almost laughed out loud thinking of the way an opposing attorney would tear something like this to shreds in a courtroom.

“Don’t worry so much, honey,” Ben said. There was the sound of chair legs scraping the plank floor and footsteps. In a heartbeat, he was behind her, slipping his arms around her waist, his breath warm on her neck. A rush of remembered feelings came over her: the comfort and excitement of the man who had been her husband. She tried to push them away. They belonged in the past, not in the Time Being.

“Don’t, Ben,” she said, turning within the little circle he’d made. Instantly his mouth was on hers, searching as if he would devour her.

She pushed against his chest as hard as she could, and he stepped back, a mixture of anger and bewilderment on his face. “You want me just as much as I want you,” he said. “You want us back together.”

Vicky slid sideways toward the kitchen stove, feeling the knobs against the small of her back. She didn’t trust herself to move, didn’t trust her loneliness. If he came toward her again, if he touched her, she might go willingly with him, just as she’d done all those years ago, and the woman she had become would no longer exist.

“I want you back, Vicky,” he was saying. “Any way you can come back to me, I want you to come. You tell me how it has to be, and that’s the way it’ll be. Hell, I’ll serve you supper every night.” He nodded toward the card table. “You know you want to come back. That’s why you came here tonight.”

“This isn’t about us,” Vicky said. The strength in her
own voice surprised her. “It’s about our daughter. We have to find some way to help her.”

“That’s right.” Ben raised his voice. “The only reason Susan’s got problems is because we had problems—I had a problem. But I’m not drinking anymore. Soon as we’re okay, Susan’s going to be okay. Once her parents are back together, she’ll be able to help herself.”