Free The Ghost Walker by Margaret Coel Page B

fence to the white stucco tipi, the laughing, yelling voices of the children behind him. Howard and the others needed a place to play some real basketball and a coach to develop their skills, get them ready for basketball at Indian High School in a few years. Of all the problems, finding a coach would be the hardest.
    For a second he flirted with the idea of coaching them himself. He liked coaching. He did a pretty good job with the Eagles baseball team, which went 22-3 last summer. But basketball? He’d only played one year at Boston College Prep, after the coach, who was also the math teacher, had pulled him aside and explained that any kid over six feet tall had a duty to play basketball. And if he didn’t play, he could expect an F in math. It was another two years before Father John had topped out at almost six-feet-four, but by then he’d proved his talent on the pitcher’s mound, and, he suspected, the baseball coach had warned his colleague against anymore creative recruiting. Baseball was his sport. He could have pitched in the majors—that was a fantasy he sometimes allowed himself. But then, he wouldn’t have been who he was.
    The irony struck him as he swung open the glass door of the tipi and stepped onto the concrete floor. He was trying to figure out how to start a basketball program when, at the same time, two fancy suits were plotting to shut down the mission. He made his way along the empty school corridor, between walls draped in papers covered with crayon drawings and numbers and letters and gold stars. There was a faint odor of barbecue sauce.
    The corridor led into the cafeteria, a spacious square with rows of tan formica tables glowing under fluorescent lights. Behind the metal counter at the far end, Loretta Dolby was stirring something in a large pot. The smell of barbecue sauce was so thick he could almost taste it.
    “You’re early for lunch,” Loretta called as he walked to the counter. She was probably in her forties, but she looked older, with dark, sun-blotched skin and gray hair pulled into a knob at the base of her neck. She wore a light blue dress that hung loosely from her shoulders and flowed around her like a nightgown.
    Suddenly she set the long metal spoon on the counter and came toward him. “Heard about that body.”
    It was a statement, not a question. Until the body received a proper burial, it would be on everyone’s mind—the lost spirit wandering the earth, trying to find the afterworld.
    “I seen it last night,” she said.
    “The body?” For a moment, he wondered if it had been found and he hadn’t heard.
    “The ghost.” Loretta smoothed back a strand of gray hair that had fallen across her forehead. “It was out in the field back of my house. I heard it in the middle of the night, wailing like the wind. I looked out, and there it was, like a dust devil gettin’ madder and madder. The police don’t find the body pretty soon, no tellin’ what that ghost’s gonna do. The Day of the Death’s gonna go too long.”
    Father John nodded. She meant the time the spirit spent on the earth after death, before it was sent to the afterworld. It was similar to his idea of purgatory, except the Arapahos believed the Day of the Death ended on the third day, when the body was buried. It had been almost two days now since he saw the corpse.
    “Chief Banner’s trying to find the body,” Father John said, wondering how to bring up the fact that Marcus Deppert seemed to be missing. He didn’t want to alarm her by suggesting the lost, half-mad ghost she was convinced she’d seen was Marcus. It was bad enough for a ghost to be anonymous. Its fate would seem even more terrible if it acquired a name.
    “Where can I find Rich?” Father John asked.
    The atmosphere seemed to change between them, as if someone had opened a door and let in a blast of cold air. Loretta pulled herself upright, squaring her shoulders and gazing steadily at him. “Rich is on the good road now. He