The Ghost Walker Read online

  More praise for

  THE GHOST WALKER

  “A corking good read . . . Coel’s Catholic Irish Jesuit priest and his Arapaho friends and neighbors, each with their individual worldviews and sensibilities, make for interesting contrasts in this excellent mystery that focuses on the strange place Native Americans occupy in their own land. An outstanding entry in a superior series.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Engaging . . . Coel’s series in the Hillerman tradition finds a space where Jesuits and Native Americans can meet in a culture of common decency.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Sharp writing and poignant characterizations.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “The writing has grown smooth in a way that makes it clear that Margaret Coel and Father John O’Malley will both be around for a long time to come.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “The Ghost Walker should show everyone that Coel is not a one-hit wonder. She not only tells a believable story, she invokes the power of place to draw readers into her tale. She crafts a good whodunit and throws in enough obstacles to keep the tension building . . . Sometimes a fiction writer knows her subject so well, you almost forget it’s fiction. What more can a mystery reader ask?”

  —Gazette-Telegraph (Colorado Springs, CO)

  Praise for Margaret Coel’s National Bestselling Debut,

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  “Margaret Coel’s account of dastardly deeds among the Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation shouldn’t be missed by anyone interested in either new trends in mystery writing or contemporary American Indian culture. She’s a master at both.”

  —TONY HILLERMAN

  “The best parts of The Eagle Catcher are Coel’s portrayal of the dual cultures that exist uneasily on the reservation and an uncanny sense of dialogue that makes her characters ring true. Coel merges her grasp of history with the mystery genre. The result is so successful, you wonder what took her so long!”

  —The Denver Post

  “The Eagle Catcher’s Native American theme will inspire comparisons to the work of Tony Hillerman, but its insights into the Arapaho way of life in our century are unique to this form.”

  —LOREN D. ESTLEMAN, author of Edsel and City of Windows

  “A first-rate mystery, played out against a background of Arapaho tradition and the vast reaches of Wyoming’s Wind River Reservation, and featuring two admirable sleuths, Father John O’Malley and Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden.”

  —JEAN HAGER, author of the Mitch Bushyhead and Molly Bearpaw Cherokee mysteries

  “Welcome Margaret Coel to the ranks of esteemed Western mystery writers such as Hillerman, Hager, and Prowell. The Eagle Catcher is not only an alluring fresh mystery told with the authoritative voice of a historian, it is also a thoughtful testimony to the clash of cultures that endures in the West.”

  —STEPHEN WHITE, author of Higher Authority and Private Practices

  “The Eagle Catcher is an intense and fascinating story of avarice, tragic old wrongs and ultimate justice. Margaret Coel has gifted us with a Western mystery full of characters we long to know better and a Wyoming setting that takes our breath away.”

  —EARLENE FOWLER, author of Arkansas Traveler and Seven Sisters

  “The Eagle Catcher mines the Arapahos’ rich history and lore to stake out Coel’s territory among the growing body of western literature.”

  —The Associated Press

  “Insightful commentary about Arapaho culture . . . Likable, well-drawn characters and a lively pace mark this novel—which seems poised for a sequel—for Hillerman fans.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The Eagle Catcher is a beautifully plotted novel with tension that builds with the speed of a stone rolling down a hill.”

  —ANN RIPLEY, author of Mulch

  “One can only hope that this is the beginning of a long and shining career for both Margaret Coel and Father John.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “The story begins at once and drives straight through. The theme is handled with a wonderfully deft hand: the reader learns something without thinking about the process, which is what all good novels do.”

  —JOHN DUNNING, author of Booked to Die

  “Coel’s writing raises The Eagle Catcher to a level that’s rare in a first piece of work.”

  —Colorado Daily

  “A rousing mystery.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  “Fascinating.”

  —Internet Book Review

  “The Eagle Catcher is a tightly crafted murder mystery from start to finish. The book offers the reader a blend of Native American spiritualism, action that is rocket-paced, and a host of contemporary moral issues that face us all.”

  —ROBERT GREER, KUVO Public Radio

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Coel

  Catherine McLeod Mysteries

  BLOOD MEMORY

  THE PERFECT SUSPECT

  Wind River Mysteries

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  THE GHOST WALKER

  THE DREAM STALKER

  THE STORY TELLER

  THE LOST BIRD

  THE SPIRIT WOMAN

  THE THUNDER KEEPER

  THE SHADOW DANCER

  KILLING RAVEN

  WIFE OF MOON

  EYE OF THE WOLF

  THE DROWNING MAN

  THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR

  THE SILENT SPIRIT

  THE SPIDER’S WEB

  BUFFALO BILL’S DEAD NOW

  KILLING CUSTER

  NIGHT OF THE WHITE BUFFALO

  Anthologies

  WATCHING EAGLES SOAR

  The

  Ghost Walker

  Margaret Coel

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  THE GHOST WALKER

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1996 by Margaret Coel.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY ® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-66363-9

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime hardcover edition / October 1996

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 1997

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_2

  For Margaret and Sam,

  so loving.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am fortunate to live in a university town where, every time you round a corner,
you meet an expert. These wonderfully erudite people have always been willing to share their expertise and to act as my guides through some tangled fields of knowledge. I thank them all, especially Professors Gene Erwin, Mancourt Downing, and John Tracy; psychiatrist Jay Haws and addictions therapist Ann C. Noonan; Fay Tracy, Karen and Carl Schneider, and Mary and Ed Kaupas.

  And to those who read this manuscript and made many insightful suggestions—Karen Gilleland, Ann Ripley, Sybil Downing, Dr. Carol Irwin, Dr. Virginia Sutter, Dr. George Coel—my hat is off to you all.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Margaret Coel

  Ad Card

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  We will not, however, bemoan thee as if thou wast forever lost to us, or that thy name would be buried in oblivion; thy soul yet lives in the great country of Spirits.

  Jonathan Carver

  Touch the Earth

  1

  Snow had fallen all day, and now the open spaces of Wind River Reservation lay under deep powder. Father John Aloysius O’Malley gripped the wheel of the Toyota pickup and peered through the half-moon the wiper carved across the windshield. He tried to follow the depressions of the tire tracks running ahead, all that hinted at the boundaries of Rendezvous Road—tire tracks and an occasional scrub brush or dried stalk of goldenrod poking through the snow in the ditches. It was the second Sunday in January, the First Moon in the Arapaho Way of marking time: the Moon When the Snow Blows Like Spirits in the Wind.

  A blast of frigid air filled the cab, and Father John glanced at the dashboard. The heater lever still rode on high, but the Arctic itself had begun to stream through the vents. The tiny needle on the temperature gauge danced in the red zone.

  He felt the engine start to miss as he pumped the gas pedal. “Come on,” he coaxed, startled at the sound of his own voice in the vacant cold. The Toyota slid to a stop. He flipped off the headlights, still pumping the pedal. Nothing. The engine was as lifeless as a block of granite.

  He was already late for the meeting, which was why he’d taken the shortcut to Lander. Rendezvous Road angled across the eastern edge of the reservation and joined Highway 789 near the southern boundary. Now he wouldn’t make the meeting at all, and how would he explain it to the bishop’s personal representative, Clifford Keating, who had driven into a Wyoming blizzard to meet with the local pastors?

  Father John opened the glove compartment, fished through a stack of opera tapes, two maps, a couple of pencils, and a spiral tablet and pulled out his earmuffs. His fingers felt stiff inside his fur-lined gloves as he removed his brown cowboy hat and adjusted the earmuffs on his head. Replacing the hat, he snapped the ends of his collar together, then yanked the flashlight from beneath the seat and swung out into the storm.

  Cold seeped through his parka, past his flannel shirt and blue jeans, into his skin. The wind drove the snow slantwise, pricking his face with hard pieces of ice. He squinted as he groped for the metal catch and threw open the hood. A cloud of steam rose, and he jumped back, even though the warmth had felt good. He shone the flashlight over the engine, spotting the broken radiator hose still dripping water. The coffers at St. Francis Mission had enough last month for a tune-up and new hoses or for two recapped rear tires. He had bought the tires. Bad choice.

  He slammed down the hood and, pushing back the cuff of his parka, turned the flashlight onto his watch. Seven-fifteen P.M. The meeting had started. Highway 789 lay a mile ahead. He might be able to catch a ride there to Jake Littlehorse’s garage, another two miles west. It was hard to imagine any other fools out tonight, except for priests summoned by the bishop’s delegate.

  Swearing under his breath for not carrying a roll of duct tape and a jug of antifreeze, he pushed the flashlight into the pocket of his parka and struck out for the highway, snow crunching under his boots. He guessed the temperature to be at twenty below with the wind-chill factor. His feet were beginning to feel like ingots. Wyoming blizzards had it all over the storms he had known in Boston. You could freeze to death here.

  He had probably come half a mile, but there was no sign of the highway. What was there to see? One white road flowing into another. Just ahead, it looked as if the snow had been churned by a tractor, with tire tracks crisscrossing one another. Somebody had started down Rendezvous Road and turned back. Smart, thought Father John. Whoever it was had probably decided to head home to a warm fire.

  As he got closer, he could distinguish the tracks of two vehicles. He couldn’t have missed them by more than ten or fifteen minutes judging by the deep, wave-like marks. They made a wide turn across the road and stopped at a dark, smudged area next to the ditch. Father John angled toward it. He saw the boot prints, the trampled slope of the ditch, the broken scrub brush. Four or five feet below the road lay a dark object, a log. Only logs didn’t wear boots. The wind bore through Father John’s parka, sending shivers along his spine.

  He started down, his boots sliding in the snow. One boot hit something flat and sharp—a boulder—and he drove his foot against it, steadying himself while he extracted the flashlight. It flickered a moment, then went out. He pounded the plastic tube into his glove until a narrow, eerie beam burst over the loglike figure: the boots, the patterns in the black soles, the tops of gray socks. The figure was wrapped in a brown tarp, but hanging from the side was a strip of blue fabric with white stars and red and yellow stripes: the Arapaho star quilt. He recognized the stillness of death. He was looking at a corpse. “Dear God,” he prayed out loud, “have mercy on his soul.”

  Jamming the flashlight back into his pocket, Father John climbed to the road and started for the highway. He was running now, gulping in icy air that punctured his lungs like a thousand sharp needles. He sensed he had passed from cold to numbness, the beginning of hypothermia, but his thoughts were focused on the poor dead soul wrapped in a star quilt and tarp and thrown into a ditch. “God help him,” he prayed silently over and over, the words matching the rhythm of his boots against the snow.

  He ran past the stop sign and turned west on the highway. There were no headlights, no signs of life, nothing but the blowing snow and the white earth slipping into the gray sky. Strips of icy asphalt crept through the snow in places. He felt his boots slipping. He nearly fell. Catching himself, he slowed to a walk, breathing hard, clapping his gloves together for warmth.

  Just before he heard the motor, faint in the distance, he sensed the slight tremble in the highway and swung around. White pinpricks of light glowed in the darkness. He started running back along his own boot prints. As he ran, he pulled the flashlight from his pocket and waved it back and forth before realizing it wasn’t working.

  Jiggling the switch, he ran on. The flashlight sprang to life as he came into the far reaches of the headlights. He circled the plastic tube in front, shouting, “Stop, stop!” With a kind of shock, he realized the truck was not stopping. He jumped out of the way.

  A gray Chevy pick
up lumbered by, its wheels throwing clods of snow over him. He hollered after it, scarcely believing anybody would pass a man in a blizzard. Then suddenly the brake lights came on, and the pickup ground to a stop. Father John ran after it and grabbed the tailgate. Half expecting the driver to take off, he lunged around the side for the door handle and hoisted himself onto the passenger seat as the truck started moving.

  “Thanks,” he managed through clenched teeth, swallowing the swear words he usually forgot he knew.

  In the dim light of the dashboard, the driver looked to be in his twenties. The beginning stubble of a blond beard covered his chin and he wore a dark cap with ear flaps pulled down. He sat square-shouldered behind the wheel. “Didn’t see ya,” he said. “No car anywhere.”

  Pounding his gloves together to work the circulation back into his fingers, Father John said, “I broke down on Rendezvous Road.” It was an effort to keep his tone civil. “I’d appreciate a ride to Jake Littlehorse’s place.” Then he added, “I’m Father John O’Malley, pastor at St. Francis Mission. You from around here?”

  He knew the answer. Nobody from around here would think of leaving another human being out in a blizzard in subzero temperatures. Not unless he wanted the person dead.

  “Yeah. From around here,” the driver said.

  Father John wondered why his companion was lying; what difference did it make? He shrugged it off. The cab was warm; the heat rising around his legs made his skin tingle; he was grateful for the ride. You didn’t have to like the guy who gave you the ride.

  He turned his eyes on the frozen landscape sliding by his window. The snow seemed lighter, gentler, like cotton billowing downward. Less than an hour ago, he’d been driving down Rendezvous Road, late for a meeting called by the bishop. The meeting was probably half over by now, and he could imagine the excuses Father George and Father Edward and the other priests from Lander and Riverton had laid out for him. “Always late. Probably forgot. You know the Jesuits.” And they’d all have a good laugh, except for Clifford Keating, who wouldn’t be laughing. Jesuits. They were always trouble.