The Ghost Walker (16 page)

He followed her around a pile of boulders, ducking past the cedars. The wind sighed in the trees; snow sifted around them. It felt ten degrees colder. Vicky stopped, peered through the binoculars a moment, then started climbing the boulders. Standing above him like a sentinel in the Old Time, she raised the binoculars again. “Perfect,” she said.

He followed her up the boulders, so slick in the snow he had to grab a branch to keep from sliding backward. She handed him the binoculars, and he bent toward her slightly to see around the branches. A small frame house with faded gray-green paint came into view. The front end of a truck was visible behind the house.

“See anyone?”

“Not a creature stirring.”

“The truck’s still there,” Vicky said. “If I’m right, they’ll leave any minute. By the time I got here yesterday morning, the truck was already gone. If Gary hadn’t come back, I might’ve been able to talk to Susan then.”

They handed the binoculars back and forth, stamping their feet, clapping their gloved hands in the cold. Father John’s feet and hands felt numb. Suddenly Vicky leaned so far into the binoculars he was afraid she might tumble down. “The front door just opened,” she said. “Looks like the professor coming out. And somebody behind him, but I can’t tell who. He’s got on a blue parka like the one Gary wore last night, but his hat’s pulled down too far to make him out. They’re walking
back to the truck,” she said, handing him the binoculars.

Father John watched the cloud of blue exhaust burst alongside the house. Out of the cloud rolled a gray truck, which gathered speed then stopped at the gate. A tall man in a blue parka jumped from the driver’s side, fiddled with the gate, then swung it open. The man looked familiar. He got back in, and the gray pickup spun out onto Sage Canyon road.

“What does Gary look like?” Father John asked.

Vicky shrugged. “Like a white man. Tall, muscular, blond hair, stubbly face, as if he can’t quite grow a beard. Why?”

“Gary picked me up Sunday night on Rendezvous Road after I’d found the body.” He didn’t tell her Gary had come close to running him down first and had then left him stranded in a blizzard at Jake Littlehorse’s garage. Vicky was worried enough about Susan.

They picked their way down over the boulders and hurried to the Toyota. Neither spoke. Father John knew she was probably thinking what he was thinking. If it wasn’t Gary in the pickup just now, he would still be in the house with Susan.

16

W
hoever the driver was, he’d left the gate open. Father John drove the Toyota past and stopped next to the ranch house. “Gary must have thought he’d scared me off,” Vicky said.

“He didn’t know you.” Father John swung out of the pickup and followed her to the front door. She turned the knob and pushed the door open. As they walked in, a tall, thin-shouldered young man with dark, straggly hair lifted himself off the sofa and stumbled against the small table, sending a couple of empty beer cans scuttling across the top. He looked as if he’d just awakened and the world wasn’t yet in focus.

“Susan’s not up yet, Mrs. Holden,” he said, deference in his tone. He had on a red shirt, ragged at the elbows, with the collar partly turned under and the V-neck exposing a dirty gray T-shirt. His jeans were smeared with grease, and he was in stockinged feet. There were holes in the toes of his black socks.

Vicky brushed past him and into the kitchen. Father John followed, watching her retreat down a dim hallway, then he stepped back to the living room. The young man looked about to go after her, but Father John blocked the way. “Are you Ty?”

“What’re you doin’ here?” the young man asked.
Something about the question made Father John wonder if Ty knew who he was. He switched off the idea. Even if Gary had mentioned giving Father O’Malley a ride last Sunday night, how would Ty know he was Father O’Malley? He’d never seen this young man before.

“I’ve come with Mrs. Holden. I’m Father John O’Malley from St. Francis.”

“Oh, man, this is gettin’ really squirrely.” Ty staggered backward, his eyes darting about as if he expected something to materialize. He shook his head, a frantic motion. “Susan isn’t leavin’ here.”

The jerky movements, the explosion about to erupt—Father John knew the signs. Drugs or alcohol, the behavior was the same. There was a sense of helplessness about the kid—he wasn’t much more than a kid, probably in his early twenties. But the wrong word, the wrong tone, and anger would burst forth like a bronco out of a chute.

He kept his voice calm. “Susan belongs in treatment. Her mother wants to help her.”

“I been lookin’ after her. Me and Susan, we’re gonna get married. You think I don’t care what happens to her?” The young man’s tone rose; his fists clenched at his sides.

“Of course I don’t,” Father John said. “I’m sure you love her.”

Ty’s fists relaxed a little, and Father John felt the tension begin to evaporate.

“I been helpin’ her cut back, but last night, after her mom left, she got pretty stoned, you know? Like, man, she passed out on me. I got scared she was gonna stop breathin’ or something, but she come out of it, and this morning she wanted another hit ’cause, you know, she’s feelin’ pretty sick. I say, no way.”

“What’s she on?” Father John decided to take a chance on the dissolving tension. Any information might prove helpful.

“Pot.” The young man shrugged.

“Anything else?”

Ty ran one hand through his hair. “Just pot.”

“Where does she get it?”

“Hey, man, what is this?” The tension rolled back between them. “You think I’m her supplier? She was smokin’ out in L.A. before I met her. She brought her stash with her. I been tryin’ to get her off it.”

Sure,
Father John thought.
You’re on it yourself, whatever
it
is.
Just then a shuffling noise sounded, and Vicky came into the living room, one arm around the thin shoulders of a young woman in green sweats, a younger version of Vicky herself. The girl looked dazed, as if it were an effort to place one foot after the other. The small suitcase in Vicky’s other hand scraped against the wall, and Father John took it from her.

“You shouldn’t be goin’ nowhere, Susan,” Ty said, a rising panic in his tone. “Gary’s gonna go crazy if he finds you gone.”

Susan turned blank eyes on the young man and leaned against her mother. Father John slipped his free arm around the girl’s waist to keep her from listing sideways as they made their way to the front door. He’d seen enough drug overdoses in enough emergency rooms to know by the raspy sound of her breathing that the girl was in trouble. It would be a race to the Lander hospital.

As he pulled the door shut, Father John caught a glimpse of Ty watching them. The young man was capable of serious resistance, yet he was letting them take Susan away. He must care for her, and Father John was
glad for that. Not since he was a kid back in Boston had he had to fight somebody off, and it wasn’t something he wanted to do again. But if Ty had tried to stop them, he would have had no choice.

*    *    *

Father John and Vicky sat on the small sofa outside the emergency room of the Lander Community Hospital, waiting for the stocky, middle-aged nurse to appear through the swinging door and deliver another of her intermittent reports. They’d given Susan a shot of Adrenalin. They’d taken a urine sample, but the lab report wouldn’t be back for a day. Susan claimed she only smoked some pot, but they knew that wasn’t true. The girl was scared. A good sign. A psychiatrist was on the way to talk with her. Maybe she’d tell the truth. It would be easier to help her if they knew the truth.

“What do you think it is?” Vicky interrupted.

“The symptoms—respiratory depression, nausea, diarrhea—point to some type of opiate.”

“Opiate.” Vicky spit out the word. “You mean heroin.”

“I’m afraid so.” The nurse nodded before retreating behind the swinging door.

Father John placed his arm around Vicky’s shoulders. The trembling was there again. He said, “If Gary and the others have brought heroin to the reservation, Banner needs to know.”

“What are you saying?” Vicky jerked away. He was surprised at the intensity in her eyes. “The police would swarm all over Susan. She’s too sick to handle that now.”

“Vicky,” Father John began, “this could be about more than drugs. This could be about murder. There’s a
dead body out there someplace, and Gary could be involved.”

Vicky was shaking her head. “You’re saying Susan might know about a murder? No. You’re wrong. I know my daughter. She might use drugs, she might even be on heroin. . . .” Her tone rose until she was almost shouting. “But she would never be involved in murder. Don’t you see, those men have used her to get on the reservation. She thinks they’re going to start a legitimate business. She doesn’t know anything about what they’re doing.”

Father John leaned back against the sofa and regarded her. This wasn’t the best time for logic. She was too upset to think clearly. He reached out and took her hand. “Okay,” he said.

They waited, mostly in silence, until the nurse reappeared. Susan’s heart rate and blood pressure were stabilizing, but they were going to admit her to the psych unit for twenty-four-hour observation. After that, well, it depended upon whether she would agree to long-term treatment. Her mother could see her for a few minutes.

Vicky pushed herself up from the sofa. Before she disappeared through the swinging door, Father John took her hand again. He extracted a promise she would call 911 if she even
felt
Gary’s presence nearby.

17

H
ighway 287 slid ahead like a conveyor belt, asphalt-streaked where the morning’s traffic had worn away the snow. Light gray clouds dipped among the Wind River Mountains, but the stretch of milk-white plains glistened like fireflies in the sun. Father John missed the sounds of his favorite arias floating around him. He would have liked
La Bohème
now, or perhaps
Faust.
He drove absently, one finger on the rim of the steering wheel, his thoughts three years back when he’d looked up from his desk one morning and saw Vicky in the doorway.

“You don’t know me,” she had said. She was wrong. He knew her immediately, this striking Indian woman in a blue suit, holding a briefcase. The grandmothers had been clucking for weeks over the return of the
hu:xu’wa:ne’h
, the lawyer. They called her
Hisei:ci’:nihi.
Woman Alone.