Bitterroot Crossing (7 page)

    “I’ve got her,” Nick’s voice wafted toward me through my cloud of humiliation.

    “No, I’ve got her.” It was another voice less familiar and yet one I’d heard recently. That’s when I realized the hand holding my right arm was cold. I was being held upright by Nick Crush and his great-great-grandfather.

    I got my bearings and looked up at the ghost. “Zedekiah, when did you leave the swamp?” The words tumbled from my lips in disbelief.

    He flashed me a sly but not altogether unappealing smile. “Who said I ever went back?”

    “How’d you get in the cafeteria?” I asked still amazed that he was standing right next to me looking almost alive and holding my arm with solid fingers.

    “Ahh, that,” he turned and waved to some big, dumbfounded looking guy in a sports jersey. The guy didn’t return the wave, but he did look as if he might wet his pants at any minute. Zedekiah returned his smile to me. “Let’s just say I can be very persuasive.”

    “But there were no sirens,” I said wondering if I hadn’t indeed been knocked unconscious and was at this very moment lying face down in my pudding.

    Zedekiah waved his hand in dismissal sending a sharp, bitter smelling breeze past my face and solidifying the fact that I was not dreaming any of this. “The gang always likes to make a big show of leaving the swamp. They were never great at sneaking up on people either.”

    “Listen, Gramps, I’ve got her so you can get your icy claws off of her.” Nick pulled me slightly against him.

    “Gramps? I’m only nineteen.”

    “Yeah, give or take a century.”

    I looked down at the long white fingers wrapped around my arm. “Zedekiah, your fingers feel solid. How’s that possible?”

    “It takes a lot of concentration, a bit of practice, and a smidgen swamp slime. About fifty years ago we figured out that we could solidify body parts but it only lasts for a short time. Only wish I could feel something with these fingers.”

    “Now, I really think you should let go. You’re starting to sound way beyond creepy with your solid body parts and feeling stuff and all,” Nick said. He pulled me even closer.

    “You let go first,
offspring
.” Now Zedekiah pulled me toward him.

    “Not a chance,
Great-great-gramps
.”

    I glanced around the room. I’d never seen so many wide open mouths in my lives. All the lunch ladies had fled the kitchen, hairnets and all. A few kids, including Tina, were pale with fear but most looked on with curiosity. A cold wet drop of something was slithering over my knee and into my boot. It was not the unearthly moisture like yesterday on the mountain. In fact, without looking down, I was quite sure it was the aforementioned pudding.

    Zedekiah squinted at Nick. “Where’d you learn to move like that, boy?”

    “Apparently it’s a trait I inherited from my great-great-grandpa, which would be you, you dolt.”

    Both grips, one warm with life and one cold with death, tightened around my arms as they glared at each other over my head. In a moment I was going become the center of a game of tug-of-war. “Excuse me, but pudding is dripping into my boot.”

    They simultaneously released me. Nick picked up my napkin from the floor and handed it to me. I leaned down to wipe off the chocolate mess.

    “Obviously, you inherited my good manners as well.” Zedekiah leaned casually against the wall and lit a cigarette.

    “First of all, lighting up in here is not exactly good manners, and secondly, seriously, a cigarette?” Nick asked. “What, do they have mini-marts where you ghosts hang-out?”

    Zedekiah squinted at him through a veil of smoke. “Hang out?”

    “Linger, hover, float, whatever it is you dead guys do.”

    Zedekiah’s deep laugh rolled across the room. “Let me tell you a story that might be helpful to you in the future, boy. After I threw the noose around my own neck, I asked to have my hat on my head and a lit cheroot in my mouth before they pulled the floor out. That way I could go out in comfort and style.” The ghost looked Nick up and down. “So if you’re ever about to be hung, you might want to pull out those earrings. Otherwise you’ll spend eternity lookin’ like a girl.”

    “Yeah, I’ll remember that if I’m ever facing a noose. Oh wait, I probably won’t be since I don’t go around shooting people.”

    Zedekiah’s hand waved through the air and the cigarette went out. “Enough, you’re boring me, offspring.” Zedekiah looked around the room. His menacing blue gaze stopped on Tina. She looked close to fainting. He raised his arm and pointed a long, white finger at her. “You!” Suddenly, with a shriek, Tina was catapulted into the air. She was pressed flat against the cafeteria ceiling. Her face bleached as white as her hair. Her screams echoed through the cafeteria. Some onlookers snickered. Others gasped in horror.

     Nick walked beneath Tina and stared up at her then looked at Zedekiah. “You’ve got to get her down from there. Yeah, she probably deserves it, but you could really hurt her.”

    “I will. . . eventually.” Zedekiah took a second, long draw on his cigarette.

    I stepped in front of him. His harsh gaze softened as he looked down at me. “Zedekiah, please get her down. And slowly, please.”

    He looked at me then at the girl he’d plastered to the ceiling, then at me again. “If you wish.”

    Tina floated down like a leaf at first, but the last six feet she plummeted like a paper weight. Nick caught her. Quickly she wrapped her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder. He dropped her feet to the ground and released her. “Save it, Tina.”

    Suddenly the doors flew open and the principal walked in with his nostrils flaring wildly and his neck red as a lobster. “Crush!” He was glaring straight at Nick.

    Nick pointed to his chest. “Who me?”  

    “Who else would I be talking to?”

    “I thought you might have meant--” We all turned to where Zedekiah had propped himself against the wall. He had vanished. Nick shrugged. “--I guess it’s me.”

    The principal pointed to the doors. Nick nodded and walked toward them. “I know, I know, your office. Pretty sure I remember how to get there.”

    “And have you been smoking a cigarette in here?”

    Nick did not look back but he threw up his arms in surrender. “Sure, whatever, I mean you’re gonna suspend me anyway. Might as well throw that one in too.”

    My mom always told me there was way too much unfairness in the world, and I was looking it straight in the face right now. I followed quickly on the principal’s heels. It was time to put an end to this particular bout of unfairness.

    The principal ushered Nick into his office. I came up behind him and tugged on his coat sleeve. Startled, he looked down at me. “Miss Sterling, you get to class. This doesn’t involve you.”

    “Actually, it does.”

    The man looked perplexed for a moment then nodded for me to come inside. Nick and I each sat in a chair facing the principal. He was a large man with an oversized stomach and a thick neck that rolled over his necktie. He placed his forearms on the desk and opened his mouth to speak just as his phone rang. With a roll of his eyes he answered it.

    “What do you mean there was a ghost in the cafeteria? I was just in there.” He looked suspiciously at Nick.

    Nick lifted his hands. “What are you looking at me for? I’m not a ghost.”

    The man returned his attention to the phone call. “Well, who was it? Was it Butcher or Crow or Axel, and where were those blasted sirens?” He paused and reached for a tissue to wipe his forehead of sweat. “Then it must have been Steamer. Well, who was it then? I’ve gone through the whole list.”

    Nick cleared his throat loudly. “Oh no you haven’t.”

    The principal stared at him a minute. “I’ll call you back.” He hung up the phone. “You’re telling me your ancestor’s returned from the grave?”

    “Something like that. Although, technically, he was never given a grave.”

    The principal slammed his fist on the desk. I jumped. Nick didn’t even flinch. Suddenly his attention turned to me. “I told them it would be trouble bringing you out of that farmhouse. I warned them and now look, Zedekiah Crush is floating around our hallways.” He relaxed back and his chair squeaked as if it might collapse beneath his weight. “Well, I guess we’re stuck with you.”

    “Real nice,” Nick said.

    “And you, Crush, you’re suspended for a week.”

    “Great. Beats being here anyhow.”

    I sat forward. “Please sir, Nick is the only person who’s been kind here. He saved me just now from falling face first in the cafeteria.” The man was about to protest, but I put up my hand to stop him. “Please don’t suspend him. Zedekiah is here because of me. If he appears again, I’ll ask him to stay off of the school grounds.”

    The principal laughed quite unprofessionally making his collar and tie cut even further into his oversized neck.“A tiny thing like you has control over the worst ghoul in town? That’s truly rich.”

    Nick sat forward. “He does everything she asks. I’ve seen it.”

    The principal stopped laughing and raised an eyebrow as he stared at me a minute. “Fine, but if he does appear on the grounds again, I’ll suspend you along with Crush.”

    I nodded in agreement, thinking, after my first two days at school, suspension didn’t seem much of a punishment.

Chapter 11

    After the day at school, I was actually glad to get to work. Mitchell’s Lumber Yard was at the edge of town, literally. In fact it sort of straddled it. The office and the first building where the planks were cut were still in Bitterroot Crossing. But the stacking and loading area, where I spent most my work hours loading lumber onto trucks was in the next town of Sweet Grass where they had no ghosts, just a lot of dairy cows. It was stupid of course, but working out back made me feel like I’d escaped my own weird town for a while. And the coolness of living in a haunted town was wearing thin fast. Now that I’d met them in person, I realized Zedekiah was a total jerk and his gang members were no picnic either.

    The lumber yard owner, Mr. Mitchell, was one of those guys whose mood changed from day to day, moment to moment. He could be a snarling jerk one minute and nice as Santa the next. The Santa half came out mostly on Friday evening just before we closed up and he headed out for his weekly steak and ale at Patsy’s Grill.

    Berta, his daughter, ran the office. I remembered her as a senior when I was a freshman. She sort of resembled the school mascot, a grizzly bear. In fact, once I saw her sitting underneath the growling grizzly painted on the school office and I’d convinced myself that the artist used her picture to paint it. Still, even though she resembled a menacing forest creature and was saddled with a name from the previous century, she was very popular at school. Mostly because she drove a Corvette, wore expensive clothes, and people were too afraid not to like her.

    Unfortunately, here at work, she had this creepy habit of coming out to watch me stack wood. Used to be whenever it was hot outside, I’d take my shirt off to work. But I had to stop the half-naked thing real quick. 

    Baxter, Mitchell’s only son, was the one true person I liked in the whole damn town. He was fifteen but his mental abilities stopped at around seven years old. A special needs child as Mr. Mitchell had described it. They babied him too much though and it was obvious Baxter was irritated by it. He was just coming out of the office as I arrived.

    “Baxter, bro!” We bumped fists, then elbows, then hips. It was our special handshake he’d thought up one day.