Free The Ghost Walker by Margaret Coel

yesterday, Father John knew they couldn’t shut down the mission overnight. Nevertheless, the wheels were in motion. He didn’t have much time to try to stop them.
    And there was the missing young Arapaho. Father John had found himself wide awake in the middle of the night wondering what Marcus had gotten himself into this time. What was it Banner had said? Kids gave you gray hair and kept you awake nights. That was the truth. How much worse was it when they were your own? What he kept coming back to, what bothered himthe most, was that while Marcus might be irresponsible and unreliable, might take foolish chances and look for trouble, he would never abandon his old people. It was not the Arapaho Way. If Marcus didn’t visit the Depperts, it was because he couldn’t.
    *    *    *
    Father John picked up the receiver and tapped the number for Riverton Memorial Hospital. He had met the director a number of times, and he asked to be put through to her office. After a few seconds, she was on the line and he asked whether Marcus Deppert had been treated during the last week. She put him on hold. He waited to the purr of canned music that made him long for an aria—for real music. Finally she was back: Sorry, Father. No one by that name had been seen last week.
    He hung up and tried the Lander Hospital where he knew one of the staff doctors. It was the same routine: question, canned music, answer. Marcus had not been seen there either.
    He replaced the receiver, feeling an odd mixture of relief and concern. At least Marcus wasn’t sick or hurt. But where was he? Maybe he’d returned home, in which case Ike might have seen him. The problem was, Ike’s house was not one of the few on the reservation that had a phone. Father John called Jake Littlehorse’s garage, then the gas station at Fort Washakie, and the little coffee shop at Ethete, leaving messages for Ike if he happened by.
    Thirty minutes later, Ike returned the call. Easter Egg Village was nice and quiet, he reported. First time in weeks he and his wife were getting a good night’s sleep. As far as he was concerned, Marcus and his drunken friends could stay away forever.
    Father John replaced the receiver, the heavy feelingsettling over his shoulders like a leaden cloak. Nobody had seen Marcus Deppert for more than a week. And there was the frozen, lonely body in the ditch. Until Marcus showed up, or the body was found, Father John knew they would remain connected in his head. He wished he hadn’t promised Joe and Deborah he’d keep the police out of it, even though he understood their worry. The last time the police started looking into Marcus’s life, he went to jail for three years.
    In midmorning, Father John pulled on his parka and cowboy hat and walked outside. Father Peter was just coming up the front stairs, leaning onto the metal railing, setting one foot next to the other on each stair. The morning sun splashed across the mission grounds and warmed the air. On the western horizon, the Wind River Mountains stood out in relief against the light blue sky. The sounds of children at recess floated over from the schoolyard.
    “‘There is, sir, an aery of children,’” the old priest said, grinning.
    “
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
,” Father John said as he held the front door open. He pulled the guess off the top of his head. Once in a while, he guessed right.
    Father Peter laughed out loud and shook his head. “Oh, my, my,” he said when he reached the top stair. “I’m afraid you must take your place at the bottom of the class, my boy. It is with despair I contemplate your knowledge of the great bard.”
    Father John thought about asking where, in the mighty canon of Shakespeare, the quote might be found, then dismissed the idea. The old priest, like any Jesuit teacher, would tell him to look it up. “’Tis not the will I lack,” he said.
    Father Peter patted his arm as he stepped inside. “And that, my boy, is not