Ghost Talker (16 page)

The light faded and they stood on a featureless plain, no butte or mesa or mountain anywhere to be seen. Low in the beige gray twilight sky, the bottom round arc of a dark moon cleared the flat black line of the horizon.

Exultation shattered throughout Evie, through Clare. Evie shrieked wildly.
It is NOT a full moon, a bloodred moon as I've so often seen! It is a waning gibbous moon and did not rise today and has hidden its face in the night and will not rise until after midnight!
The words reverberated on and on, like a black tide that hit the horizon and demolished the moon. A ram stood before them, a big-horn sheep native to Colorado.
It is the year of the sheep. TAKE ME!
The hole where the moon had been sucked Evie away.

Clare faltered, feet blocks of ice, arms and shoulders numb. Her knees felt weak.

“You bitch.” Poche's vituperative tone yanked her back to her shivering self and the present and shouts of discovery of gold. Clare tottered from foot to numb foot to look at him. Desiree joined them, and Clare saw the door flung open and Tony Rickman and Zach sped through.

Poche moved up close, far into her personal space. Desiree faded back, Clare thought she must sense the man's infuriated aura, easy to see in the flush of his face, the throbbing of the vein in his temple. Muttering, sending spittle her way as well as words, he said, “I have built my reputation as the top medium in this hick town for eight years. How
dare
you come here to try and destroy my reputation, my clientele with your crazy tricks! God damn you.”

Her tongue unfroze first. “That's what you get when you're a fraud and deal in a non-rational, illogical career. A career that depends upon and manipulates people's emotions,” said Clare.

“Bitch!” he repeated. His hands fisted. “You
will
pay.”

Pivoting on his heel, he turned his back on her and stalked away to the opposite side of the room, accompanied by sycophants who shot Clare filthy looks as they trailed after him. There were all sorts of true believers in this world.

She happened to have a real and inconvenient gift. Poche had only his wits and a belief that people were nothing but marks to be conned.

Zach's narrow-eyed stare followed him. “Like other con men, he doesn't have any history of violence.” Her lover angled his body to consider everyone in the room. After a moment, he rolled his shoulders. “But I'm thinking he may cut his losses here sooner or later.”

“His clientele will erode,” Clare said softly. Because Poche was a fake, unlike her and her great-aunt Sandra.

A quick surge of anger hit Clare that Poche betrayed what Sandra had cherished, her gift to help others. Yes, emotions
were
very messy, and people who'd just lost loved ones would be full of them.

Clare hadn't figured out how Great-Aunt Sandra, whose slice of history encompassed depression-era gangsters, helped people with recent losses—yet. Clare would, and then she'd have to make decisions of her own.

No, she didn't think she could become a medium in truth, not right now. And, for her, there remained a taint to promising newly devastated people that she could speak with their loved ones. As if she took advantage of their time of grief, when they weren't in control and thinking clearly.

The woman who'd begged her for information earlier had left with her friends. Mrs. Flinton, Mr. Welliam, and Desiree Rickman stood with the crowd messing with the brick wall and the locket, discussing the disposition of the locket and the repair of the wall.

Poche worked the far end of the room, one of the television cameramen with him. One lingered too close to Clare for her comfort.

Zach had moved more to the middle of the room to keep an eye on everyone, watched Poche, room, but smiled at her when she met his eyes.

And Tony Rickman stood by her like a bodyguard. Rather intimidating. For some reason, she needed her first and oldest friend who'd begun this wild ride with her.
Enzo
, she whispered mentally.

He galloped back from greeting Mrs. Flinton and Mr. Welliam and poking around the room.

Hi, Clare. Lots of REALLY nice people here, Clare. People who believe in me!

“Yes, I'm sure.” She had seen a few narrowed gazes following him as if others with a hint of ghost seeing—or some other psychic talent that she didn't know about—perceived him. Then she realized she'd spoken aloud to an invisible companion, and flushed.

Glancing around she found that she only met with smiles, and not just sympathetic ones, but supportive looks. That seemed a little too weird for her.

Rickman remained impassive, but he'd experienced her speaking with invisible folk before.

She moved back to the refreshment table and took a small paper cup of lemonade. Rickman kept pace with her. She drank a few too-sweet swallows, and continued her telepathic conversation with her ghost companion.
Enzo, did you come into my life so that you could help me be a medium for people, and do you know how to do that?

The dog's cheery aspect sobered.
No, Clare. I came to help you with your gift. Your real gift of moving those ghosts in your time period on.

Okay
, she said.

He yipped and they garnered a bit more attention.
I am having fun, and I want to stay until you have fun all the time, too, Clare!

That may take some time to occur
, she said. Because right here, with all these people who were supposed to be a lot like her, or thought they were a lot like her, and who
believed
in her gift, she felt supremely uncomfortable.

Zach joined her and Rickman and they observed Poche leave with his entourage . . . and the television channel people, which relieved Clare greatly.

“Bad tactical mistake,” Mr. Rickman said. “He retreated and left you the battleground.” Tony shook his head. “He's
going to like you even less when he realizes that.”

Zach shrugged. “What could he do? Clare proved she's the real deal, and appeared too dazed to answer questions about
him
or accuse him of conning people, and didn't follow up on any of his insults. Better to go when he could.”

Tony Rickman grunted in a sound of disagreement. “We'll keep an eye on him.”

“That's right,” Zach said.

*   *   *

Zach made early morning love to Clare and left her exhausted and satisfied when he'd finished. After showering and dressing, he walked out into the chill summer-becoming-autumn air. According to the cooking calendar in the kitchen, the fall equinox was the day after tomorrow. Clare had to pay attention to such things because her new clients did. Zach thought he'd heard her say something about the moon and the year of the sheep yesterday as he got to her after she helped the madam move on.

Moon phases. Sunrise and set. Equinoxes and solstices, all might factor into her new vocation.

The lack of solid rules stymied her, but Zach was more of a go-with-the-flow guy. As he rolled Clare's case to the front gate, a large black BMW pulled up. Zach's hand went to his shoulder holster, then dropped as his boss exited, opened the front gate, and held it as Zach negotiated the steps and they both got into the back seat, along with the case.

The driver, one of Rickman's operatives, nodded to Zach then accelerated smoothly.

“We're heading to the airport?” Zach confirmed.

“That's right,” Rickman said.

“I have to check in with security and get cleared to carry a weapon on the flight.”

“That's the best way,” Rickman agreed. He handed over a card to Zach. Glancing down at it, Zach looked back at Rickman with raised brows. “I'm now a licensed private detective in Oklahoma?”

“That's right,” Rickman replied gruffly. “As an ex–law enforcement officer and a current member of this agency, you qualify for a license as an armed investigator.”

Sticking the card into his wallet, Zach said, “I know that, but didn't I,
we
, fill out those papers yesterday afternoon? Here in Denver?”

Rickman lifted and dropped a shoulder. “Couriered the package. Requested expeditious review. Got it. We have contacts in Oklahoma.”

Seemed like Rickman had high-level contacts everywhere. “Okay.”

“What's your plan of action?”

“Checking out some news reports, then interviewing former employers, neighbors, and relatives of the man. I've tugged on my contacts and it looks like I won't get access to the police report today, more like tomorrow. That will confirm date, time, and cause of death, but I'd like to get a good idea of the man's character first.”

“You're sure this actor is the one messing up Buffalo Bill's grave.”

“He seemed obsessed with Bill Cody, visited the grave site, put in an application at the museum, stated he could play Buffalo Bill in several stages of the showman's life. I'll confirm that, get a feel for the man—the ghost—how violent he might become down the line.”

Rickman grunted.

“Thanks for the license. It will help.” Zach eyed his employer, smiled. “Not as good as a badge, but a help.”

“People can get chancy around a badge,” Rickman retorted.

Zach shrugged.

“And you still look like you carry one,” the man ended, and Zach couldn't tell if that was a compliment or not.

“See any crows lately?” Rickman asked.

Instinctively Zach glanced out the window, tinted to avoid being observed. He hadn't seen many crows during this case at all, especially compared to last week. Fine with him. “No crows.”

*   *   *

Clare lay in bed, staring at the beautiful blown-glass lamps attached to the cherrywood ceiling fan. One of the lovely original accent items that gave her pleasure, made her happy she'd bought the house.

But her chest felt tight, and not only because Zach didn't sleep on the other side of the bed. Some general depression fogged her mood. She tried to throw it off as she showered, but she didn't understand the malaise until she walked into the small office she had for her new vocation and glanced at the calendar of the Old West.

A month ago, exactly, she'd finished wrapping up the legal part of her great-aunt Sandra's estate . . . and Clare had seen her first ghosts in Chicago.

The day her “gift” had first manifested.

Goody. What an anniversary. She should celebrate, even.

She also realized that having Zach around would have mitigated the whole thing.

Or maybe she needed an even better cheerleader.

“Hey, Enzo!” she called.

He trotted through the doorway.
Hi, Clare! What's up, Clare? Are we doing something exciting?
Enzo whirled around, nose in the air.
Zach's scent isn't strong. Where is Zach?

“He's in Oklahoma City, confirming the poltergeist is who we think he is.”

Enzo made a low grumbling sound.
The new ghost is a pest!

“We know that.”

When is Zach coming home, Clare?

“He left this morning, so I'm hoping it will be tomorrow. It depends on how quickly he can find out the information we need.”

The phantom dog's tail wagged.
Zach is a capable, efficient man. He will be home tomorrow.

“I think so, too.”

Coming over to sit on Clare's feet, Enzo smiled up at her.
Why did you call me, Clare?

“I'm a little lonely. You're my friend and teammate, and”—she paused—“did you realize that in two days we will have been companions for a month?”

He grinned and lifted to brace his paws on her thighs and went straight through her. Sending a deep chill into her core that Zach sure wouldn't be warming up later.

That is GOOD. We are doing FINE. We will have to have a party.

“Maybe we will. For now, though, we really have to talk to Texas Jack and find out how we can help him transition.”

Enzo ran around the room, barking.
Yes, yes, yes. He is our big case and he is a good man and he deserves to leave the gray! Let's go!

Clare dressed in comfortable jeans so old and baggy she hadn't worn them around Zach, barely acceptable for being seen in public. But after last night she felt a little too exposed, and this morning, for a whole list of reasons, she wanted to surround herself with comfort. So she also wore a new thin gray cashmere tank and a fleece vest, along with her older hiking boots.

Once at Lookout Mountain, late enough that she hadn't run into morning rush hour traffic, she drove through the open gate and walked briskly up the path toward the grave site, stopped as soon as she heard voices. Then she tiptoed along the trail until she could see—Maurice Poche standing, looking impressive and visionary, facing toward the plains and Denver, not the graves. He opened his arms, tilted his head. “I believe I have contacted the restless spirit of William Frederick Cody.”

Seriously? He'd made sure to come
after
the poltergeist usually appeared.

Clare took another step or two so she could hear better over the wind and watch the show.

“Colonel Cody is concerned,” Poche intoned.

Imagine that, a restless spirit being concerned about something.

“And what might be that concern?” asked a man whose voice didn't sound nearly as mellifluous as Poche's.

Poche put fingers to his temple. “His emotions roil, and his communication is muddy.”

“Ask him why he's tearing rocks out of his own grave and that of his wife. Why?” asked a third man.

“I
am
attempting to speak with Buffalo Bill,” Poche said.

“Does he want something done before the Roundup?” pressed the last guy who spoke.

Clare took a couple of steps nearer, fascinated to hear what the charlatan might say. The two men interviewing him stood to one side.

Then she saw the camera pointing at her. She turned and began jogging back down the asphalt path.

“Ms. Cermak, hey, Ms. Cermak,” someone called.

“My dear Phillip, please attend—” began Poche.

“Yeah, yeah,” said the same voice—Phillip. “We all know you're the top-dog medium, Poche, but face it, you handle people whose loved ones have recently crossed to the other side. Cermak specializes in ghosts of the Old West.”

Clare cringed and picked up pace. Good thing she'd worn good hiking and running boots. Damn those business cards.

Enzo barked and ran
toward
Poche and the others.
I will protect the graves!

Clare heard a few exclamations but kept on going to her Jeep, and the cameraman didn't follow.

To wait until they'd cleared out, she drove around, down the twisty back way of the mountain to the city of Golden, paying attention to the many and colorful bicyclists, then along the highway and back up. She remained determined to speak with Jack again. Find out how to help
him
.

So she stopped at the mountain park and took the Buffalo Bill Trail up to the parking lot—thankfully empty of the television van and with very few other vehicles.

At the grave site she saw that the poltergeist had been there that morning. Poche and the television people probably had discouraged the staff from cleaning up after him. This time the spirit hadn't been as destructive, but more creative. Atop the first crystals he managed to balance on the tips of the spears and the inward curves of the alternating rods, he stacked another rock. Some looked like a breath could topple them. It would take Clare, or any human, a good while to clear them off.

She gazed at the enclosure and Texas Jack materialized. At her stare, he shook his head.
Don't look at me to fix that. I can't affect physical objects in the living world.
He glanced away, at the tall broadcast antennae planted on Lookout Mountain that interrupted the view. She sensed he wished he hadn't been stuck here to see that, didn't want to know of the
trappings of modern life, wanted to join his wife in the hereafter. As he should have, in the first place, unless—unless he'd been needed here to stop this poltergeist.

That smacked of fate, though Clare had been told something like that by a lingering ghost before. No, she didn't want to think of a mindless juggernaut of destiny, rolling over people at will, with no care for them.

Or some sort of divine chessboard with unknown entities arranging souls to do this or that, again with no concern for the individual.

She cleared her throat. “We'll get you where you need to be, John Baker Omohundro,” she promised.

His gaze flashed to her and he smiled as if his spirit had lightened. He touched the brim of his hat to her.
I have no doubt of that at all.

Those words warmed her and caused her spine to straighten, because previous phantoms
had
doubted her competency. So had she herself, too new and disliking her psychic curse.

Your dog was here and said the same thing, then took off. A sudden one, that dog. He comes and goes.

“Yes, he does. I'm sure he'll show up when he wants.” She went up to the enclosure and began removing rocks from the top, putting them on the ground. Clare continued to move the rocks down until she'd done about half the enclosure, some tourists coming and watching, standing around for the few minutes it took to read the plaques and get a good look at the graves, then leaving.

Texas Jack kept her company for a few minutes, and, thinking he was more extroverted than she, she waited.

Finally he spoke.
I had a good life
. A cheroot appeared in his long fingers and he stared down at it, then smiled at Clare with unexpected charm.
Maybe not a long life, but a good one
. He nodded.
Did a variety of things, experienced much.
Then the pale white hue of his skin shaded darker and he gazed past her.
This after-death time, though
— He gritted out the words in a rough tone.
This gray nothingness. Bad business.
The dark slash of his mouth turned down and he put the cigar between his lips and inhaled. Catching her gaze again, one side of his mouth lifted. He dipped his head.
Glad you're here, Miss Clare Cermak.
He turned and looked at the grave mounds.
Glad I can help keep the peace here where my old pard's remains rest, too. Bill was as much of a brother to me as my own siblings.

Clare had stopped with the rock tidying and given her full attention to her current project, a good man she ached to help. They leaned against the fence. Clare thought it a nice trick that Texas Jack could do that while so incorporeal.

When he turned his head, the fog of his eyes seemed to solidify into real orbs. Frowning, he scanned her up and down like he hadn't really studied her as a person before. He angled his head disapprovingly.
You've got yourself a wound.

She flinched. “Yes, I got it from a ghost involved with Robert Ford,” she said absently, rubbing her side, though she couldn't touch the rip in her spirit lodged right about there.

Who's Robert Ford?
Jack asked.

Clare blinked, straightened out the historical timeline in her head. Texas Jack had died nearly two years before Robert Ford killed Jesse James.

“Ah, Robert Ford was a member of the James gang and shot Jesse James from behind in”—should she give the date? No—“about two years after you . . . Shuffled off the mortal coil. . .” Texas Jack had quoted Shakespeare in one of his magazine articles; he'd get the reference.

Jack pushed away from the fence, his face brutally hard.
Jesse James. Now there was a bad man, him and his brother, and Quantrill's Raiders during the war.

Of course Jack meant the Civil War.

I was already in Texas when the war broke out
, Jack said.

She knew that. He'd left home early. But the man finally spoke of more than pleasantries to her, so she kept her mouth shut.

Went back home to Virginia to enlist in the regiment my brother Orville was an officer in. But I was too young for them to take.

Clare nodded.

The cigar back in Jack's hand, he made a wide gesture.
So I joined the militia
. He smiled.
And did well enough.

He'd distinguished himself as a horseman and scout.

And a few months before I hit eighteen I got into J.E.B. Stuart's command. Cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Jack stood soldier straight.

All right, Clare's curiosity tingled, and if Zach was here, he'd ask the question she wanted to.

She wet her mouth. “Is it true you handed Jeb Stuart his last dispatch before he died?”

Texas Jack's shades deepened, intensified. He turned away.
Like Sherman said, war is hell. I did my duty.

“Sorry,” Clare murmured gruffly.

Jack's back to her, he made a futile gesture. Then he turned around.
My brother Orville and I weren't like those James brothers.
Jack's shoulder's firmed in a solid line.
I was a scout and a courier and a soldier. Not a pernicious bushwhacker like Jesse James.

“I know. You were—are—a good man.”

Jack's form relaxed.
Thank you
. He looked at the evergreens, the knobby hill, turned to stare out at the plains.

Shaking his head, he said,
This sure doesn't look like Virginia.
He paused.
Not much like Texas either.

“No.”

But I loved it here . . . We loved it here. Bill, Giuseppina, me.

“So do I.”

She felt his sharp attention, though where his eyes should be had gone to fog again.
So a ghost wounded you.

“Yes.”

A ghost connected to this Robert Ford who killed Jesse James
.

“That's right.”

And what happened to Ford?

“A man shot him in the face and killed him.”

The bad Jesse James drew others of the same ilk to him, and so on and so forth. ‘He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword'—or in this case, bullets
, Texas Jack said, twirling the lasso that had replaced his cigar.

“That's right.”

Zach didn't take care of this ghost for you?
Jack asked. She'd already figured out that, like Zach, this man had been a protector.

“We fought the evil specter together,” she replied stiffly. “Zach nearly died. I got wounded.” She allowed herself a calming breath. “From what I've learned about you, I know you must have respected your wife as both a dancer and businesswoman.” Clare pulled out an old-fashioned word. “A helpmeet.”

As good a pard as Bill, here
. Jack tilted his head toward the grave.
Better in some respects.

Well, Giuseppina Morlacchi Omohundro had died more solvent than Buffalo Bill, had always been the better businessperson, but no need to inform Jack of that.

My wife was a good actress, too
, Jack added. After a moment, he continued,
I reckon on what you're saying. You're a professional. And I know you're my best chance of moving on into the loving arms of my wife.

Clare nodded.

So, who else have you met, Clare Cermak?

“Who else have I helped transition?” Clare asked.

Texas Jack dipped his head.
If you like
.

Since she wanted to sound experienced, she dug for every individual Jack might have known. “One of the first ghosts I helped was a Native American.”

Native American?
Jack asked.

“An Arapaho tribesman who stood on a ridge in southwest Denver.” She pointed to the general area.

I knew that man. Lone Knife. Knew his spirit got stuck in the gray like I did. He believed he guarded his camp.

Relief trickled through her. She lifted her chin and angled her gaze upward to where his eyes should be. Texas Jack would know the next name, for sure, though the man had died in 1864 in Montana, during the time Texas Jack fought the Union Army at eighteen. “The next phantom I helped was Jack Slade.”

Texas Jack whistled as if impressed.
“The Law West of Kearny” Jack Slade? The famous boss of the Overland Stage and Pony Express?

“Yes.”

Shaking his head, Texas Jack said,
Sour luck that he ended up a ghost, too.

“Yes.”

He was a great man. I never met him but Bill did.

Clare raised her brows. “That was true?”

Bill told me so.

“All right.”

Who else?
questioned Jack.

After clearing her throat again, she said, “You lived in a mining town. Leadville.”

That's right. Anyone from there?

“Not so far, but a prospector from the mining town of Curly Wolf.” Her next case had been a spirit who'd died in 1865, still early enough for Texas Jack. “I'm not sure how many of the stories you might have heard that I know.” That she'd read of, begun to study.

Miss Cermak, what do you think we did around campfires?

“Oh.” Heat flushed her cheeks and she felt a fool. “Storytellers.”

That's for sure
.

“Ah. The next— Ah, another spirit I helped move on was J. Dawson Hidgepath.”

The black lines of Jack's brows lifted.
That man and ghost was real?

Clare nodded. “Yes, indeed.” She shrugged. “Those are the individuals that I believe you would have heard of, though there are others, of course.” Not many others, but she made sure she sounded confident.

All right
. Texas Jack sounded abrupt.
I accept your experience.

“Thank you.”

His chest seemed to rise and fall with a deep breath.
I got stuck in the gray.

“Yes, you got stuck in the gray dimension between life and death,” Clare said gently.

Jack stared over the plains and the thrusting buildings of Denver, the flat eastern horizon.
I lingered because my wife still lived and I wanted to stay close. Then when she passed on at our home in Lowell, Massachusetts, I found I couldn't get to her.
Clare could have sworn his teeth clicked together.
You wouldn't think any constraints of the physical world would tie me, but they did. Or I put the bounds on myself. My own guilt, I think.

“Guilt?”

He didn't reply to that remark, but continued,
I want one of my bones buried with hers.
Pain veiled his face.
We spent a lot of time apart—her touring with her own dance troupe and dancing and training in Massachusetts and me scouting for the army or fighting Indians or guiding hunting parties out here.
He smiled.
I loved that, but she didn't come along. We meant that to happen in the next year or two, but we didn't have that time.
His dark gaze met Clare's.
Seven years together was too short.

He smiled, then shrugged.
Whether bones matter or not depends on the person.