by Angela White
“We have a legend,” Natoli began from Marc’s right. “It says that Afterworld will be ruled by a Ghost.”
He met Marc’s eye curiously. “Do you know of this tale?”
Marc stripped his saddle and took it to where he would sleep. “Yes. A savior to unite the remaining people after mother earth expels the others.”
Natoli trailed him. “They say he will have great power over the lands to the west and north, that even the south will join him on the quest,” Thaddeus added.
Like them or not, he was also convinced of who Marc was. He hadn’t even known the rabbits were there. Who else but a ghost could have spotted them?
“And you wonder if I am that man,” Marc supplied, tossing down his bedroll. “The one from your stories.”
Paul brought the other two saddles over and Marc took the bedrolls from each of them and got all three of their places ready. “What if I told you I’ve always been called that, but never actually felt like it? Would my lack of belief matter to your people?”
Thaddeus responded in light surprise at the honesty. “No. The spirits put men into place as if all life is one constant battle. If you are the one, you will take us there through your choices, not your belief.”
Marc absorbed that as he dug through his kit. “So you would follow a ghost into a battle, so long as you are sure he is the one of legend?”
Thaddeus turned away. “Do not abuse our trust, white man. Too many have.”
Marc understood how he could feel that way, but didn’t make any promises.
That was also noticed.
Jax steeled his nerves as he gathered what he needed for the large meal. He understood what Marc wanted, what he’d be doing for the next hours, and understood it was to toughen him up and show he’d been punished. It was something these men would respect and Jax handled his temper well considering how tired he was.
After building the quick, light-smoke fire that Marc had shown them, Jax took a small pinch of a cotton ball covered in petroleum jelly from his water-tight canister and placed it in the center of his tender.
Around him, the Choctaws observed curiously as he took a flint striker from his belt and struck a spark onto the cotton ball. It flamed right up.
Despite the wind and the small piece of the ball, the tiny blaze continued to burn while he put the striker away and held the tinder to where it would catch easier. Seconds later, he had a nice fire started and went to get a pot and fill it with water.
The Indians exchanged grins, gesturing toward the homemade fire kit.
Marc caught Paul as he went by. “Some of their horses have cuts from the brambles we went through. Do ours, then theirs, but ask each man first.”
Paul agreed contentedly. He loved caring for horses, being out in the open, learning new ways. He’d already picked up quite a few tricks while observing their escorts, and unlike Jax, he was using his curiosity to stay alert.
Paul finished their own animals quickly–he had been applying the salve to injuries each night as he and Jax bedded them down–but when he started to go toward the closest Indian horse, Marc pinned him with a hard glare.
Paul felt it from across their comfortable little camp and turned.
Marc’s eyes went to Natoli. “His first.”
Paul understood and respectfully approached the warrior. “May I tend your animal?”
Natoli gave a short nod. “All of my braves will allow it. There is no need to ask each one.”
Paul was in heaven from that moment on. Being surrounded by horses for the next few hours was perfect for him and their company liked his happiness. They watched him closely, but after only a single animal, it was clear what his passion was.
“He makes a fine horseman,” Natoli, joining Marc by the cooking stew.
“Yes. A good fighter, too. Loyal.”
The warrior appraised Jax as he finished skinning the last rabbit and slid the meat into the pot. “What of this one?”
Marc didn’t stare at the nervous Eagle, instead tossing him an extra pouch of mix from the kit at his side. “He kills.”
That drew more respect and also a bit of doubt. Fumbling with the boxes and packs, Jax didn’t look dangerous at all. He looked like their women.
Marc snorted at the images. “He cooks like one, too.”
That was a compliment to these men, but Jax didn’t know it. He turned to Marc with a snotty glare and was saved an embarrassment by Paul stepping in front of him.
“Here’s the whey milk I saved. Make ’em good. We’re hungry.”
Jax tried to stay mad and found himself laughing with everyone else.
“If I’m going to be treated like a squaw, I’d better be protected like one, too.”
It was an odd moment where Marc expected joking responses. What the comment received, was agreement.
Interesting, Marc thought. We push this shit out even a little and the survivors soak it up like they’re starving. Very interesting.
6
The meal was good. Jax hadn’t known how they would serve the stew to their escorts, but Marc handed him a small stack of cups from his kit and he dipped as much as each one would hold. He gave them to Paul, who was already passing around stacks of flapjacks, and the campsite filled with happily feasting riders. The Indians hadn’t eaten anything from their own pouches or made any stops either.
Marc had recognized the competition that he wasn’t trying to win and chosen to use it to his advantage. Now that they’d provided a meal for everyone, the Indians might provide something, like entertainment or the morning meal. It was a trade-off system Marc planned to stick with. These results were impossible to argue with.
“More?” Jax asked, glancing around the group.
Marc held out his sloppy cup. “Half way.”
Marc never took seconds, not even when they were in camp, and Jax turned away before the good feeling could bring up tears. He was one of those cursed people who cried when happy or angry, and he struggled to hide it from the Indians.
Paul groaned as he stood up. “Permission to find a bush and crash?”
“Granted,” Marc allowed, almost smiling. The food had been hot and they felt safe with their escorts. Life was often much worse.
Jax started cleaning up after handing Marc his cup, leaving him and Natoli alone. Marc took his time finishing the stew. Once they left tribal lands, they would use their rations. Few lights would be allowed in enemy territory until the fighting began.
“Then I’ll give them all the light they can stand,” Marc muttered, mind going to the horrible feeling of doom he’d felt upon riding way from Safe Haven.
Natoli studied Marc as he smoked, confident that his braves had them protected. “We have questions.”
Marc had been hoping it would happen soon. “Such as?”
The warrior’s brows drew together. “Who are you?”
Marc let the crimson bleed through and observed the warrior pale. He shoved a blast of power out, felt the man cringe from the harmless energy he’d sent.
“Do not doubt me.”
Marc pulled the demon in like he’d watch Angela do hundreds of times. It was harder than he’d ever imagined.
“We few who stayed,” the warrior began, waving his braves off as they came to his defense. “We are not healthy. The winds come from the oceans and kill our animals, wither our crops. We cannot stay here.”
Marc understood something had to be stopping them from leaving. “Your people know the government survived. They fear being hunted if they leave these lands.”
Natoli’s voice was thick with anger. “This time we will die out. They have no right to keep us here any longer!”
Marc’s eyes flashed and this time, the warrior wasn’t intimidated. “We’ve seen others like you. They will fight at your side?’
Marc nodded, thinking of how many magic-users were currently gathered in Safe Haven. “With the help of tribesmen or alone, we will stand for oppression no longer.”
The rest of the night passed in a thick, thoughtful silence that said plans were being formed and shored up. This group was making their choice.
7
Marc’s obnoxious alarm jerked Jax and Paul into upright positions with their guns in hand.
The Indians around them snickered.
They’d observed Marc placing it between the heads of his two men and waited for the entertainment. They liked the Ghost, these twenty scouts. Most of them wanted to go along for his ride, but that choice would be made by their chief and they would honor it.
“Where’s Brady?” Paul asked, yawning.
Jax slowly put away his gun. He was the more leery of the two. “His horse is here. He’s around.”
“Your leader is bathing away the other world, the corrupt one. He will return when he is finished.”
Both Eagles were instantly uneasy, not sure if that meant Marc had gone willingly or been taken.
Paul snorted. “Marc taken and we didn’t hear it? Yeah. That’ll happen.”
Jax agreed, chuckling at their worry. If Marc was in trouble, they would have been woken by those brutal Colts.
“Do we need to stay away from him until he’s done?”
“You are free to watch,” Thaddeus invited.
As soon as they’d taken care of themselves and given their horses a drink, the two Eagles went toward the small crowd of braves on the nearby hill-rise. The men were pointing, betting, and neither Paul nor Jax liked the images that were forming. Bathing away a corrupt world couldn’t possibly be as simple as getting clean.
They joined the warriors without showing any signs of fear. It helped that there was only a worried anger. There wasn’t anything to scent and trigger a problem, and the braves let them through.
“What the hell…” Paul trailed off as Marc, naked except for his boxers, dove into the creek below. They had a view from fifty feet above Brady and it was crystal clear water. Beautiful, inviting, and full of wildlife.
“What’s he doing?!” Jax swore. “Things come out…”
Marc broke the surface with an enormous grin that instantly made both men feel left out.
Paul narrowed in on the shapes under the water. It wasn’t the snake-like things he’d expected, but hundreds of fish.
Paul turned to the closest man. “Are they safe to eat?”
Thaddeus pointed downstream, where a group of braves were wading up with nets. As they struggled against the current, the water rose to their waists, then chests, but Marc’s antics upstream kept pushing the fish into their waiting arms.
“He is a good hunter. You will learn much from him,” the warrior stated. “If you survive.”
Paul and Jax exchanged a concerned glance, but didn’t comment further. Instead, they returned to the campsite and helped the other men prepare an area for their coming fish-fry.
8
Their breakfast of fish and onion burritos inside smoked leaves was interrupted by the arrival of three new warriors. These men rode into the center of the camp with an attitude that said they were important.
“Ah, braves have come from the Chickasaw. We shall find out where the Ghost goes from here with them,” Thaddeus stated.
Marc waited patiently, as if he held no concern for the glares of the new men.
The Chickasaw warriors talked to Thaddeus and Natoli in low tones. Their words didn’t carry, but the incredulousness on the faces of the new arrivals was clear.
“What happens now?” Jax asked, cleaning up his mess and swallowing a belch.
“They’ll kill us or take us where we want to go,” Marc answered. “Same as with the Choctaws. You’ve both done great. Don’t stop now. Be what you are.”
That clue came a second before the three new warriors moved their way, drawing knives.
Paul was the first one up, hand on his holster. “I was told not to kill anything on your lands. If you attack my leader, I will break that rule.”
Jax rose to his feet, voice deceptively casual. “Paul’s the best gun on our team after Brady. He won’t miss. Neither will I.”
Marc flashed a sarcastic look of sympathy. “My men are very loyal.”
Instead of the fight Paul and Jax were bracing for, Natoli’s confidently arrogant tones rang across camp.
“I believe that is my knife in your hand, Atolius.”
Atolius scowled, but obligingly tossed the knife to Natoli. “They don’t look that hard!”
Marc waited for the new men to come closer, and offered one of the smokes he’d rolled. All of the braves accepted, using sticks from the fire for lights.
Marc blew smoke toward the sky, feeling more alive than he had in a while. “Thank you for the bath. I needed it.”
He hadn’t been sure what to expect when he’d woken to find most of their escorts on the bank, but he’d recognized the opportunity when he’d spotted all the fish around the bathing Indians.
“We will go with you, to the lands of the desert.”
Marc waited for Atolius to continue.
“When we arrive, I will view the enemy. If the threat will reach our people, then we will stand with the Ghost.”
Marc extended his arm.” My thanks.”
The Indian clasped his around the forearm and gave a firm shake. “Our honor.”
Not about to miss another opportunity, when the demon spoke, so did Marc.
“I feel your unrest. The drive to take your people home is one that will never give you peace. It must be accomplished to be banished.”
Atolius jerked his arm away, but didn’t leave the fire, and Marc delivered a final message from the demon. “You have a traitor here. We… I can feel him, too, listening and worrying. Beware.”
Marc let the red bleed through slightly, then pulled it in. Every moment like this was a practice for when he would use these gift in battle for the first time.
“Do not ignore my words. It will lead to death.”
Marc shoved up from his seat and everyone flinched.
Getting a little taste of what Angela had gone through, Marc was overcome with the need to be alone. “I’m leaving here in five minutes.”
He walked toward the tree-line to get himself under control and heard the immediate response of a camp being broken down.
So, this is what Adrian feel likes every day. No wonder he thinks he has it all covered.
Marc swallowed that pride, glad that he could, and got to work.
9
They left exactly five minutes after Marc spoke it, Paul and Jax in their usual place and the Chickasaw Indians behind them, studying. Marc was glad of that, too. The more details they picked up, the more likely they were to fight.
“Would you hear of a legend?”
“I enjoy stories,” Marc invited.
“Perhaps you will tell us one,” Natoli tried to confirm.
“Perhaps.”
Natoli cleared his throat, turning his head to the front at the lightly given sting. It said his story had to be good enough.
“When we were first sent here, the land was welcoming. It gave us great harvests and fed our bellies. Then the warming came. Year after year, it got hotter, damper, until the ground refused to be so generous. When the catastrophe came, we were starving.”
Marc blew out smoke, waiting, observing.
“After it all fell, we took what we needed from the stores and began to recover our stolen cultures. We formed new trade routes, new laws and rights, and we joined with our brothers on all sides.”
This was what Marc had been hoping for and he gave the man his full attention.
Natoli, sensing Marc’s interest, provided more details. “We have hatred in our hearts for the white man. We would fight, but they are all gone. The Indian has inherited the earth, not the white man who drove us out of our lives.”
“And now here we come, ruining the happy ending,” Marc drawled.
He could certainly understand their hatred and their desire to be in charge. They’d never raped the earth the way
a government society did.
“Yes, the news has been devastating. Some of the tribes are holding councils as we ride through their lands. Some are refusing to consider the fight now that it has come to us. My own tribe has chosen to battle, but we are among the few who practiced the old ways in secret. We have more students than fighters, though. It is true of all tribes now.”
“My people are the same,” Marc said. “Some will fight, but most will hide until it’s over. There was never any doubt for me of my path.”
Natoli viewed Marc’s matching, ivory-handled Colts with the respect they deserved. “No, with one such as you, how could your future be anything but what you’ve become?”
“Indeed,” Marc agreed. He’d been battered through life until he was now the ram that others would be hurt upon. So be it.
“You have Indian blood.”
“I’m a mix of many things. I used to think the Gypsy side was dominant.”
“Until you discovered the spirit lurking inside,” Natoli guessed.
Marc stared lightly. “How do you know so much about my kind?”
Natoli gave a light sneer laced with scorn. “You are not the first ghost to travel these lands since the War.”
Natoli’s voice lowered. “Or even before that day.”
Marc felt it then, the kinship, and let himself ask. “You have tribesmen like me.”
Natoli didn’t openly confirm or deny it. Instead, he began to speak in the deep tones of a natural storyteller.
“The odd ones came among our people when the white man arrived. They were drawn to our kindness, to our respect of nature. When the white man began driving us out like cattle, the odd ones aided us, healed our warriors and provided shelters that the soldiers could not locate. We were protected.”
Marc noticed all the braves listening and guessed by the expressions that it was a story that some of them hadn’t heard.
“Then the white man began taking the odd ones, stealing them from our vibrant camps. The Indians began to die in massive numbers and the odd ones vanished from our knowledge.”
Natoli stiffened his shoulders. “We were sent here to be brainwashed and it has worked. Half of the tribes are still clinging to the soldier’s rules, though their control of us has ended. Some kept the old ways in secret and those are the warriors who come to view the odd one who calls himself our Ghost.”