Shades (9 page)

Liz sat in the waiting area outside the hospital emergency room wing. She wanted out of the hospital, or at least to get out of the waiting room and outside for a couple minutes. But she had the feeling that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

The waiting room was bright with early afternoon sunlight that poured in through the slatted blinds. People sat and talked, some of them acting like they'd had quite a bit of experience sitting in the hard, uncomfortable chairs. Others fidgeted or flipped through magazines without any real comprehension. A handful looked sick and nauseated, only inches away from being truly desperate.

All things considered, Liz thought the hospital waiting room wasn't an ideal place to spend time worrying about someone. Even though she didn't know Wilkins, she thought enough of him that she felt guilty. Mostly, her thoughts were on Max, wondering where he was and why he hadn't come when he'd found out what had happened at the Crashdown.

Unless he doesn't know, she told herself. Quickly she tried to cut down on that line of thinking because those thoughts got intense with a scary suddenness.

Liz glanced at her father at the other end of the room. Jeff Parker was trim and driven. He cradled his cell phone to his ear, listening for a while, then talking rapidly, working out details with the insurance people. He often referred to the yellow legal pad and file he carried, making notes as he went along.

Unable to sit any longer, Liz got up and walked over to her dad. When he looked up, she said, "I'll be right back. I'm going to get something to drink. Do you want anything?"

"Coffee," her dad said. "Thanks." Then he turned his attention back to the phone conversation.

Liz left the waiting room and walked to the small alcove filled with vending machines. She pushed a dollar in, then made her selection.

A shadow slid across the vending machine's surface as Liz straightened with the soda can in hand. Startled, remembering how she hadn't seen the ghost back in the cafe and suddenly wondering if they left shadows or reflections, Liz spun around.

"Are you all right?" Isabel asked.

"I'm fine," Liz responded. "You startled me."

"Sorry," Isabel apologized.

"No harm done. What brings you here?"

"I talked to Michael," Isabel explained. "I heard what happened at the Crashdown." She paused, looking around. "Isn't Max here?"

Liz folded her arms self-consciously. "No."

"Do you know where he is?" Isabel asked.

"No," Liz answered.

Irritation showed in Isabel’s eyes and face. "If you see him, tell him I need to talk to him."

"Sure," Liz agreed, refraining from telling Isabel the same thing. She didn't want Max to think she was looking for him. If he came to her, she wanted him to come on his own, not because he thought she needed him. Then she realized that was exactly why she was faulting him for not being there at the hospital, for not coming when he knew she might need him. "Is something wrong?"

Isabel hesitated, then said, "The ghost at the Crash-down Cafe hasn't been the only ghost sighting lately."

"I know," Liz replied. "Michael said he saw one a few days ago when he was working in the desert." Understanding dawned in her as she watched Isabel. "You've seen a ghost too?"

"I saw something," Isabel agreed. "That's why I need to talk to Max." She paused. "I need you to do another favor for me."

Liz was instantly attentive. Isabel never asked for favors. "Sure," Liz said.

"I don't think it will ever come up, but if it does, would you tell my dad that I came over to see how you were as soon as I heard about what happened at the Crashdown?"

Liz blinked, waiting for an explanation. It didn't come. "Okay," she said, but she wondered what Isabel was hiding. Liz felt paranoid all of a sudden that all of them were keeping secrets from her.

Isabel checked her watch. "When did you get here?"

"I don't know. Maybe forty-five minutes ago."

Isabel gave a short nod. "If my dad happens to ask you when I got here, can you tell him that I got here five minutes after you did?"

"Sure," Liz replied. Straight-arrow Isabel? Wanting to lie to her parents? The world might be ending after all.

"Thanks," Isabel said. "I've got to check on something. I'll be back in just a few minutes."

"Okay." Liz stood there dumbfounded, feeling the cold soda can turning her hand numb. Isabel turned and walked down one of the hospital corridors like she knew where she was going.

Terrific, Liz thought with a scowl. Now I'm Messenger Girl. She located the coffee machine and pushed in another dollar. She slipped the coffee cup from behind the protective plastic door and turned around to find Jim Valenti standing behind her. She was so startled, she almost dropped the coffee.

"Something the matter?" Valenti asked. He was raw-boned and rangy, a product of the rawhide cowboy influence that lingered in New Mexico. He wore jeans and a white Western shirt, and a pair of hand-tooled cowboy boots. He carried a white hat in one hand that marked him as one of the good guys in an old TV Land Gunsmoke episode.

"No," Liz replied, keeping control of the drinks she was carrying.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Valenti said.

Liz shot him a wry look.

"Sorry," Valenti apologized, with a small grin. "After I heard the story, I thought I'd drop by and see if it was true."

"I didn't see a ghost," Liz said.

Valenti nodded and twirled his hat on his finger. "I thought it was a bunch of hogwash, but I'm having trouble filling hours these days."

A short time back, Valenti had been let go from his duties as sheriff. He'd been holding back information that would have exposed Max, Isabel, and Michael.

"It's not all hogwash," Liz said. "There was"… she hesitated… "something. Michael saw it."

Valenti's eyes narrowed, and his forehead wrinkled in thought. "The way I heard it, you and Maria were standing beside Wilkins when he went down."

"We were," Liz agreed.

"But you didn't see anything?"

"No."

Valenti sighed. "And Maria?"

"Didn't see anything," Liz said.

"What did Michael say he saw?"

"A man." Liz tried to remember everything Michael had told her during the frantic and whispered conversation they'd managed to have before the ambulance arrived.

"Someone Michael knew?"

"No. Michael said this guy was tall and stooped, like he'd spent a lot of time hunched over so he wouldn't bump his head on things."

"What about his eyes?" Valenti asked.

The interest the ex-sheriff had in the matter was immediately apparent to Liz. "Michael said the ghost only had one eye. The other was covered by a patch."

Valenti scratched his beard-stubbled chin with a thumbnail, sounding like sandpaper. "A one-eyed ghost, eh?"

"Does that mean something to you?" Liz asked.

"Maybe," Valenti admitted. "Thirty years ago, my dad started looking for Leroy Wilkins's partner. A one-eyed man named Terrell Swanson."

A chill flashed through Liz. "Wilkins mentioned that name in the cafe. He said that was Swanson chasing him."

Valenti twirled his hat again, his preoccupation evident. "My dad never found Terrell Swanson. He believed that Wilkins killed Swanson in a fight over a uranium strike back in the sixties, then hid the body."

Liz stared into Valenti's blue eyes. "You think the ghost is real?" she asked.

"I think," Valenti said, "that I want to talk to Michael. He's still at the Crashdown?"

"Yeah," Liz said.

"How is Wilkins doing?"

"I don't know. The EMTs who arrived at the cafe thought he was having a heart attack. I don't think they know if he's going to make it." Will that mean there’ll be one more ghost to haunt Roswell? The thought sent tiny goose bumps up the back of Liz's neck.

"You going to be around for a while?"

Liz nodded.

Glancing back toward the ER proper, Valenti said, "Let me know if anything happens here that I need to know about."

"Sure," Liz said.

Valenti placed his cowboy hat back on, smoothing the brim with a forefinger. He gave Liz a solemn look. "I'll be in touch if this looks like something that might spill over on you and your friends." Then he was gone, striding back through the waiting room and hitting the crash bars on the doors to the main parking area.

Mind racing, facing unwelcome thoughts and feeling the absence of Max, Liz returned to the waiting room and gave her father his coffee. He was so mired in his conversation with the insurance people that he barely acknowledged the coffee's delivery or her departure.

Liz returned to her chair and held the soda can in her hands. She gazed out through the slatted windows.

Oh Max, where are you?

Max trudged back to his car with River Dog at his side. The hot sun beat down on him, sapping his reserves. He looked forward to the Cutlass's air-conditioning.

"You should forgive George Grayhawk and the men with him," River Dog was saying. "Fear makes men do many strange things."

Max stopped by his car and gazed back down at the Mesaliko city. During the walk back through the houses, he had seen a number of people staring at him. The weird thing was, he couldn't be certain how many of them were really alive and how many of them… weren't. "Something's wrong," Max said.

"What do you mean?" River Dog asked.

"If the ghosts really wanted you out of the area, why doesn't an army of them appear and chase your people out?"

"There have been several appearances of the spirits, and this has been going on for days. They are gathering."

"You saw what Henry Callingcrow did to everybody back there. If a group of them got together like that, they could level your village."

River Dog nodded, taking time before he spoke. "Until today, until your arrival, the ghosts have been unable to make physical contact with anyone."

"But Callingcrow wrecked that house before we arrived there."

"True, but you were in the village."

Max looked at the sprawl of houses scattered across the hills. "It can't be," he said. "You told me this first happened hundreds of years ago. The spaceship that stranded us here didn't arrive until 1947. No one like me was around hundreds of years ago."

"I do not know all the answers, but I know that your presence here has had an effect on things. I think it would be better now if you left."

Pain stung Max, and part of the emotion turned into anger. He didn't belong anywhere. Tess had betrayed him, betrayed them all, and Liz wasn't exactly glad he'd stayed around these days.

Max opened the Cutlass's door. "After the reception I got here, I don't want to come back." He stepped into the car and slid behind the wheel. The seat cover was hot.

"You came here for reasons of your own today," River Dog said.

Max's throat felt thick, and he couldn't swallow the painful knot that had formed there. "I have a son."

"Blessings be upon you," River Dog said. "A son is a powerful thing to have, as well as a great responsibility."

"He was taken from me," Max said.

Sorrow showed in River Dog's eyes. "I'm sorry."

"I was hoping that you knew something more of the Granilith. Or a way I might go after my son."

River Dog shook his head. "I told you all I know of the things that Nacedo told me of the place where you came from."

"Then maybe there's something else out here," Max said. "Something Nacedo didn't give you. Something that might help me track the Granilith."

"Once I get this thing done," River Dog said, "and I get my people settled in and protected again, I'll be glad to help you look."

"Thank you," Max said.

"When you get back to Roswell," the shaman said, "see if you and the others can find out more about the spirits that are haunting Roswell."

Max narrowed his eyes, reducing his field of vision. "What do you mean?"

"The spirits are also invading Roswell."

"How do you know?"

"People from the village have returned from shopping there today. While I was caring for Cathy Callingcrow at her home, several of them talked to me. There was an attack at the Crashdown Cafe."

Oh my god, Max thought. Liz! "Was anyone hurt?"

"Only a man," River Dog answered. "His name is Leroy Wilkins."

The name meant nothing to Max.

"Wilkins is known to us," River Dog went on. "Nearly thirty years ago, Wilkins was almost put in jail for mining on reservation land."

"I've got to go," Max said. He twisted the key in the ignition, listening to the engine rumble to life.

River Dog leaned back from the car's window and stood. "A piece of this journey yet remains to you."

Max waved the man's words off as he jammed the transmission into reverse. The Cutlass's tires spun against the sand-covered ground, stirring up a cloud of dust. Screeching to a halt, Max put the car in a forward gear and peeled out, getting back onto the road that would take him to the highway back to Roswell.

As he followed the crooked trail back up the hillside that led to the highway, movement on Max's right caught his attention. Amid the waves of shimmering heat coasting above the sandy terrain, a dozen riders gathered on horseback.

All of the riders were Indian braves. Although the images didn't come across as sharply and distinctly as had the images of Bear-Killer and Henry Callingcrow, Max had no problem recognizing the war paint that turned their faces into angry, otherworldly masks. The ponies pranced and shifted, tails flicking as the riders talked to one anther and stared at the Cutlass.

Then, with voices yelling loud enough to be heard over the Cutlass's engine and air conditioner, the warriors kicked their mounts into full gallop. They lifted their spears and bows high as they took up pursuit of Max's car.

Watching the rearview mirror, staying in the middle of the dirt road to avoid the bar ditches and ruts on either side, Max saw the war party disappear in the fog of swirling dust that the Cutlass stirred up. He could no longer see River Dog, either.

At the top of the rise, Max kept the accelerator pressed down hard and ignored the stop sign at the end of the road. He yanked the wheel to the left, throwing the Cutlass into a controlled skid across both lanes of the highway. Rubber shrilled, and for a moment he fought the car for control. Then he had the Cutlass aimed for Roswell, hoping that he didn't trip a state policeman's radar.