When a Ghost Talks, Listen by Tim Tingle

Author:Tim Tingle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The RoadRunner Press

Chapter 15

Tobert Shows His Hand

“HE DOESN’T HAVE ANY weapons, Joseph,” I said as the day’s walk began and we moved away from the camp.

“None that you can see,” said Joseph. “He was sent to kill me. I have no doubt about that.”

“He has to find you first.”

“Do you remember how Leader found me?”

“He threatened Naomi,” I said, remembering Leader’s mean eyes as he urged his horse against her.

We walked in silence for what seemed like hours, both of us thinking of what Leader might do this time.

At noon, the usual resting hour, we stopped in a small grove of trees downslope from the road.

Using broken tree branches, Joseph swept a thick pillow of snow from the ground. He pulled a few strips of dried pork from his pocket. “Want one?” he asked, holding a pork strip under my nose.

“You know I’d fight you for it if I was still alive,” I said, laughing.

“Hoke,” he replied, “then you could blame me for your final day, instead of that wolf.”

I knew why he was teasing me. Joseph was Choctaw, and whether panther or human, he felt guilty eating while I could not. “Hey,” I said, “you gotta live with hunger and cold and cuts and bruises, so stop worrying about me.”

The warm silence that followed was short-lived.

“I thought I’d find you here,” Tobert said, sliding down the hill and landing next to Joseph. “Who were you talking to?”

“Nobody. Just myself.”

“Well, it’s great to see you, Joseph. People are still talking about you, up and down the line, how you saved Leader, and then he pardoned you. Why aren’t you walking with everybody else?”

“I don’t like all the noise that people bring.”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m just excited to see you. For a long time, I thought you were dead.”

And you have come to finish the job, I thought.

“Nope. Sorry to disappoint you,” Joseph said.

Tobert looked over his shoulder and leaned closer to Joseph, lowering his voice to a whisper. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, away from the others.”

Joseph moved away from him. We were only fifty feet from the road but hidden by mounds of snow. Tobert could muffle Joseph’s cries and stab him, and no one would ever know. It might be spring before his body was found.

I floated into sight, standing over them. “You know you are never alone when you’re with Choctaws,” I said.

“Hoke, achukma,” Tobert said, jumping back in surprise. “Where did you come from? You’re not alive, are you?”

“Yes, I am alive,” I said. “Alive enough to still be with my friends and family.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it,” Tobert said. “Of course, you’re alive.”

Seeing how nervous Tobert was, Joseph asked the obvious question. “Why are you here?”

“That is what I want to talk to you about,” Tobert said. “Your life is in danger, surely you know that. Leader can be trusted ‘only so far as you can throw him,’ as my grandmother used to say.”

“And who was your grandmother?” Joseph asked.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I want to know,” said Joseph.

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