Chapter 3

 

Chapter 3

 

“Diamondback!”

All the men and boys at the fire started at Lake Dweller’s screech.  The baby cried and Ghost rocked him as Diamondback spun to face Lake Dweller, who stood only inches away.

“I have told you not to do that!”

Lake Dweller, the sneaky old cuss, snickered.  “Spirit wants you,” he told Diamondback in a singsong voice.

Diamondback turned and ran his eyes over those at the fire.  “Gather the others,” he said.  “Just in case.”  He turned toward the heart-shaped pink portal through which Lake Dweller had returned.  Ghost watched as Diamondback drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.  “Let’s go,” he said, and moved into the portal.  Lake Dweller gave the others a jaunty wave and then followed, the portal disappearing with him.

Ghost watched as leaders set off through the woods to locate their pack members.  He knew his were all there, at the fire, but he looked for each now just to reassure himself none had wandered off.

He started with Holder, the infant in his arms.  Holder had died soon after he was born; he’d gone to sleep and never woke.  He found Little Turtle on Colt’s lap.  Little Turtle had died at one, falling from a hotel balcony.  Next was Stone Skimmer, who’d died at five, falling from a tree.  Pup, six, had eaten some bad berries.  Luck got shot at six, being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Player also died at six, trying to learn to load a gun.  Raccoon died at eight, falling from a horse while jumping a fence.  Stream Jumper died at fourteen after a bridge broke and a carriage fell on him.  Chain Bearer also died at fourteen.  His father beat him to death.  Rain died at fourteen, too.  He survived the beating but ended up in the hospital under the care of Dr. Kit Gates.  There, he’d developed a fondness for opium and killed himself after Kitty stopped letting him have it.  Walks Alone died at fifteen during a trip west.  He’d gone into a vision and never woke.  Dream Walker died during that same trip west.  He survived the vision but then, while he slept to recover, robbers killed him.  

Next came all the ones who died in Tennessee at the age of sixteen.  Watcher died trying to fight off a mob.  Rush died after the mob dragged him behind a horse.  Will survived the dragging but was then beaten to death.  Forest survived the beating but died at the whipping post.  Wilder survived the whipping post but was shot by the sheriff.  West died on the way to jail, when he tried to make a run for it.   Cadence, the one who should have come after West, wasn’t there anymore.  Even after all the years that had passed, Ghost still felt the loss. 

Cub survived the trip to jail but the mob showed up at the jail and lynched him.  Colt was shot breaking out of jail so he wouldn’t get lynched.  Ghost had made it out of jail and escaped Tennessee, but then died of infection from his wounds.  Sleeper came next.

Ghost felt more than a little guilt over the way Sleeper died—and what happened to Cadence because of it.  Cadence had fallen off his horse, dead, on the way to jail.  After Ghost’s death, he and Colt had decided maybe Cadence had the right idea, dying before he ever got to jail.  That would also keep Kitty from dying, the way she had breaking Colt and Ghost out of jail.  Kitty had killed herself the night Cadence died but, assuming they handled it all right, they thought they could get the Spirit Walker to her in time to prevent it.  They thought the Spirit Walker should play possum and then, once he was in the quiet of the undertaker’s office, slip out and go find Kitty.  They were a little worried the mob would destroy the body, but the federal marshal had kept that from happening to Cadence, and they hoped he would again.

Cadence didn’t like the plan.  He thought it was too risky.  Making it worse for him was that he, being the one who’d died and fallen from the horse, would have to be the one to coax the next Spirit Walker into simulating the same act.  He’d have to take him close enough to death to fool the examiners without letting him go all the way.  He’d also have to wake him up.  Cadence argued against the plan but, unable to present an alternative, finally gave in.

Sleeper went into the coffin but wouldn’t wake.  Cadence tried and tried to get him up before it was too late.  They all did.  Sleeper finally did wake.  By then, he was already buried. 

Cadence blamed Ghost and Colt, as they blamed themselves.  As time wore on and Sleeper’s agony continued, Cadence grew angry with The Spirit.  He was sure The Spirit could end Sleeper’s suffering and hated him for not doing it.  Unable to help Sleeper, Cadence had set off to find The Spirit and hold him accountable.  He’d gone into The Forbidden Forest and never come back.  They were all pretty sure the People-Hunters got him.  Ghost had only ever seen one People-Hunter.  It was only from a distance but that was way too close for comfort.  Purple-black in the afternoon sun, it had looked like a giant bat but soared like an eagle above the trees at the edge of The Forbidden Forest, just waiting for a victim to enter the forest so it could swoop and kill.

Sleeper had finally died, releasing him at least physically from the confines of the coffin.  Mentally, though, he might never get out.  Because he wasn’t in any shape to take over, Ghost had remained leader of the pack.  He hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t trusted himself.  He’d wanted Colt to resume leadership.  Long talks with Diamondback and Colt had finally convinced him to stay.

After the horrible experience with Sleeper and Cadence, Ghost almost gave up on the plan to play possum.  After a great deal of thinking, he’d decided to give it one more try.  He knew no other way to save both the Spirit Walker and Kitty.

Edge woke up all right, thanks to Sleeper’s frantic urgings, and got out of the coffin.  But by the time he got to Kitty, she’d killed herself.  He never got over the guilt.  The next year, Mark ended up getting shot during one of their escapades.  Unable to live with himself any longer, Edge got himself shot that same day.

Edge ought to be the leader of the pack now.  He was the last to arrive and had lived the longest.  He had no faith in himself, though, and refused to make any decisions. 

With Sleeper unable and Edge unwilling to lead, Ghost remained leader of the pack.  The mantle of responsibility lay heavy on his shoulders.

Since Edge had made it out of the coffin all right, Ghost had decided to take the same approach with the current Spirit Walker.  

Unfortunately, Edge was so desperate to get the Spirit Walker to Kitty before she ended her life that he added his own urgings to Sleeper’s, waking him a little early.  The Spirit Walker was spotted by lingering members of the mob as he left through the undertaker’s back door, but was in too much pain to realize it.  Afraid of him, they’d gathered more forces and attacked Kitty’s house that night while she treated his wounds.  Injured and drugged, he hadn’t been thinking clearly.  He’d done what she told him to and she helped him onto his horse, tying him so he wouldn’t fall.  He thought she was going, too.  Instead she kissed him, gave the horse the command to run, and stayed behind to shoot the men who tried to follow him.  By the time he realized what was happening, it was too late.  He couldn’t save her with his hands tied.  Still, he’d wanted to.  He’d repeatedly given his horse commands to turn back, but it had refused to obey.  He’d never forgiven it for that.

Ghost and the others couldn’t quite figure out why the horse hadn’t listened to him, either.  He gave it the command.  It should have turned around and taken him back.  All they could figure was that it was something about Kitty.  There’d always been more to her than they could fathom. 

Ghost had fallen in love with Kitty over and over, through the lives of the Spirit Walkers.  Still, he had a special fondness for the one he’d held in life.  The others weren’t exactly her, just like the other Spirit Walkers weren’t exactly Ghost.  But, unlike the Spirit Walkers, all the Kitty’s had started out as the same girl.

Every time a Spirit Walker died, a new branch started on Earth’s timeline back at the moment of the Spirit Walker’s conception.  Though their lives were very similar, they were all separate versions of the same person.  Kitty, though, had already been a teenager by the time they were conceived, and so her history remained constant through all the branching. 

“Wonder what’s goin’ on?” Colt asked.

Raccoon answered.  “Spirit probably just wants to make sure we’re ready, in case we make the transition.”

Edge’s breath audibly caught at those words.

“But we won’t,” Stream Jumper said in a reassuring tone.  “‘Cause Mark won’t shoot him.”

Edge bit his lip, staring into the fire.  Ghost knew he had to be even more nervous than the others.  He’d never been through the transition.  Since the day he died, all he’d known was this existence within the current Spirit Walker, who carried all of the former ones in a secret place in his mind, without ever suspecting they were there. 

Ghost hadn’t known about all the others, either, until he became one of them.  He’d heard them, from time to time, when they wanted him to.  They’d sent him thoughts, mostly in the form of warning and inspiration.  But since the thoughts came in his own mind in his own voice, he’d thought they were all of his own making. 

If the current Spirit Walker came, he would take Ghost’s place as leader.  Ghost didn’t want the Spirit Walker to die but, if it happened, he would willingly step aside.  He hoped David, unlike Edge, would be able to overcome his self-doubts and take his rightful place.

That was the way of things.  Besides, it would be a relief to pass the responsibility to one more capable of bearing it.  The new one had lived several years longer than Ghost and so he’d gained more life experience.  He’d also acquired a great deal more power.  He was even a little bigger than Ghost. 

What a waste that would be, though.  They’d all just spent the last nineteen years helping Night Walker become the man he was.  They’d even begun to hope he’d reach twenty-one, the magic age at which a Spirit Walker was considered an adult.  With a grown-up, they’d be as successful and as powerful as any other pack that had gone before, and Diamondback would be proud of them.  He wouldn’t have to fight their battles for them anymore, either.  And if they could just get one of their pack to the age of thirty, a new pack could begin with a whole different line of Spirit Walkers.  And David of Early Sun Village wouldn’t have to live and die anymore.  He hoped David would not die that night.

Edge spoke into the silence.  “What’s it like?”

“Ain’t nothin’ to worry about,” Raccoon assured him. 

Ghost had told Edge about transitions but Edge hadn’t asked any questions then.  It made sense that he’d have questions now, when transition wasn’t a far-off possibility but an immediate one.

“Basically, as long as we’re all here, it’s pretty painless,” Stream Jumper said.  “We’re gathered around the fire, Wahya comes.”  All of them, including Edge, had a long association with Wahya, the wolf that served as the Spirit Walkers’ messenger between the spirit world and the world of men.  “Soon as the Spirit Walker dies in the world, he appears here.  And Wahya does like a tornado and sucks the fire and all of us and everything else up in his energies.  Wahya takes the soul to the next Spirit Walker and we all go with it.  Next thing you know, we’re unwinding in the new Spirit Walker.  And everything’s pretty much just like now, except there’s another one of us in here and a new one out there in the real world.”

“Real easy,” Raccoon said. 

“Then why does The Spirit have to make sure we’re ready?” Edge asked. 

Golden Leaf, one of the old-timers, answered.  “The Spirit relies on Diamondback to ensure that all of us are present at the fire,” he said.  “The wind Wahya generates is quite strong.  We are safe in the center of the vortex and he pulls us in last, once everything else is in place within him.  But if any of us were far away, outside that safe zone, the wind would pull us to him without regard for trees, rocks, mountains, or anything else that might be in the way.”

Adder nodded.  “We are light and mountains are heavy, so we come very fast and they come very slow to Wahya, once caught in his wind.  Very painful way to travel.”

“We’ve lost a couple, that way,” Crow said.  “Bashed to bits.”

A shudder raced through Ghost at the thought of it.  Even worse than the prospect of the pain was the uncertainty over the eternal fate.  All of them were souls—or at least the parts of the soul that traveled Earth while the other part, the eternal soul, remained in the Home of the Souls.  None of the Spirit Walkers knew what happened to the ones of them who got destroyed, but they feared it meant the end of existence.  That fact compounded the guilt he felt about Cadence.  Living men took comfort in the prospect of an eternal afterlife.  For Spirit Walkers, this place was the afterlife, and they’d had no indication of anything after it.  Almost all of them held out hope that they’d ultimately, finally, be released from the burden of serving The Spirit and be delivered to the West Land, to be reunited with their lost loved ones, and so meeting a final end in The Place of the Spirit Walkers was a frightening prospect. 

A thought came to Ghost, one almost too terrible to consider, but it needed to be said.  “Maybe this is why Mark died the last time around.”

Edge’s head shot up and his eyes bored into Ghost. 

“It’s just something we need to think about,” Ghost said. 

Edge had spent long years blaming himself for Mark’s death.  Being the only one of them who’d lived through it, he’d been the one who sent ideas to the current Spirit Walker when the time came to save Mark.  They’d all been in on it.  They’d all wanted to save Mark.

“Are you saying we made a mistake, saving Mark?” West asked.

“No,” Ghost said.  “I’m not sayin’ Mark needed to die that day.  ‘Specially since the things The Spirits told us all when we were out there seemed to indicate that Mark is part of the future plans.  I’m just sayin’… there’s all kinds of forces at work out there that we don’t understand.  And there’s so much we don’t see, bein’ limited to only what Unole’s eyes see.  Maybe somebody else saw this comin’ and tried to prevent it by getting Mark killed.  If anything happens to Unole, we need to get the next one thinkin’ early on about how to keep things with Mark from ever goin’ this far.  But it also would be a good idea to have him find out who’s muckin’ around in his life.”

“Besides The Spirits,” West added.

“And us,” Colt said.

“Yeah,” Ghost said with a quiet laugh.  “Besides us and The Spirits.  And Aaron.”

They all laughed at the reference to their father.  His nosiness about David’s life was an ongoing sore point for them.