Charles Ingrid - marked man 02 The Last Recall by Charles Ingrid Page B

even this could not drive him to use the ghost road. He could not control the passage if he did. The road wove its way through a time and place unknown, its beginning and end anchored God knew where, fueled by the anger of lost souls. He had used the road before only because life and death drove him to it. He would never use it again. "Never again."
    "The more fool you, then. God gave you Talents. You'd not cut your gills, would you?"
    Reluctantly, the answer was drawn from him. "No."
    "Then use the road. It was meant for you, boy."
    Thomas looked at him. The flame points in the sockets' depths flared slightly. "You walked the road and it killed you. Do you want the same for me?"
    "Part of me does," the phantasm admitted. "I'm a lonely old man. But the best part of me says that what you have is a gift meant to be used. Find out how. You may need it.''
    The ghost's honesty fazed him. Thomas licked dry lips and said, "Rest in peace, Gill, and leave me alone. Consider me warned."
    "Pshaw. I could kick you in the ass and you wouldn't know where it was." With an abrupt blink, the specter was gone.
    In the cold silence, Thomas sat quietly. Then, he reached forward with a stick and stirred the fire's coals, sifting the embers about. A sharp hiss spat at him. He jumped in spite of himself. "Shit!"
    There was a disembodied laugh. As it faded away, Thomas knew he was truly alone.
    Get home. Why? What was going to happen? He lay back down, watching the cloudless sky overhead. The stars were brittle and brilliant. He named them to himself, saw a few he did not recognize, and drifted to sleep for a final time that night.
    He knew when he was in nester territory by the red-tailed hawk which had been flayed, its skin left on a lone fence post, its natural beauty dulled both by its death and by the clay paint upon its feathers. The Prado Dam overshadowed them though it was another quarter day of leisurely riding away. He surveyed the rangeland about it. It was sere, overgrazed, the grass burnt to brown husks, with mesquite woven abundantly through the range. The foothills were blackened with char marks from last year's fires. This year would be worse, until the rains came.
    He reined the gelding upwind of the burro and dismounted Harley, dropped the reins into a ground tie, and squatted down. He took his battered leather hat off and wiped the sweaty band marks across his forehead. He had no need to find the nesters now. They would find him. He squinted into the late afternoon.
    His muscles hadn't even tired of his hunkered down position when they appeared, loping over the flat, their faces burned dark by too much sun and wind. Grass stalks split and shattered under their pounding feet, bare soles callused hard as rock.
    They circled him quietly. Unwashed and heathen, they were no more fragrant than the corpse he brought back to them, their sweat profuse and sour. He drew his lips tight in concentration, tapping his Protector abilities, and projected trust and calm toward them.
    The lead nester, his brown-streaked black hair thick and matted upon his head and face, the whites of his eyes startling against the color of his skin, jerked a thumb. "What be that?"
    "It's a dead man."
    "His name?"
    "You tell me. He was a son of a bitchin' water poisoner, but he was one of yours." Thomas rose to his feet slowly. They'd encircled him, but he could smell them almost sharper than he could see them.
    "You kill 'im, Blade?"
    He was not surprised they knew his name. His light yellow-blond hair and mustache and white scarf set him off. "I executed him."
    "He tell you the truth?"
    Straw stalks rustled as someone moved behind him. Blade moved his wrist ever so slightly, loosening a knife in its sheath. "That he did. He poisoned the well. Now you tell me the rest of the truth."
    The nester relaxed. He waved the other runners from around Blade. "He come t'listen," he said. "Bring him in." He turned and ran back the way they'd come, toward the eroded and charred