Shades (4 page)

Then, intermittent at first, like a worn starter dragging on a cold morning, River Dog's heart lurched into an irregular beat. Max felt the uneven thumping vibrate against his palm.

C'mon, Max thought fiercely. Breathe!

Suddenly River Dog's mouth opened and he took a ragged breath. Lifting an arm, he seized Max's wrist in his hand.

"Enough," River Dog gasped hoarsely.

Max allowed his hand to be taken away.

River Dog glanced around. "The rider?"

"He's gone," Max said. "We've got to go." He stood and offered his hand.

River Dog pushed himself into a sitting position but ignored Max's hand. "No."

Max looked around, listening to the lonely echo of the wind sailing across the harsh land. Tall chaparral stood in places, leaving only short, blunt shadows that looked gray against the sand instead of black. Vultures circled the sky.

"Are you sure the rider won't be coming back?" Max asked.

River Dog looked at him. "It doesn't matter where we go," he said softly. "Bear-Killer will come for me again when he wants to."

Turning, Max swept the land around them with his gaze. He could see for what looked like miles. How had the warrior ridden up on them on horseback without being seen?

"How can he be two hundred years old?" Max asked.

"He's not two hundred years old," River Dog said. "He hardly looks more than twenty. He died in battle with a tribe who was our enemy at the time."

"Two hundred years ago?"

"About that."

Max grew irritated at the quiet calm the shaman exuded. The sun beat down on him. Off in the distance, tiny swirls of rising heat created near mirages. "How is he here now?"

"It's part of an ancient prophecy," River Dog answered. "That's why I asked you to come here."

"What prophecy?"

The shaman waited a moment. "That one day the dead would rise and punish the living," River Dog answered.

Liz hurried among the tables as the lunch crowd continued descending on the Crashdown Cafe. With its out-of-this-world decor, the Crashdown Cafe was one of the local tourist attractions. Ideally located near the center of town, local businesspeople and employees ate there, sharing tables with the tourists who came in to gawk at the sights.

"Hey, waitress," a truck driver with an Atlanta Braves baseball cap called. "I'd like a refill on this tea sometime today."

Liz glanced at the man. Civil, she told herself. Just be civil. The clock is ticking, and the shift will be over. And being civil means bigger tips.

"Yes sir," she replied, putting on a smile that was just as plastic and phony as one of the art deco rocket ships hanging on the wall. She snagged a bottle of ketchup from the empty table she passed and dropped it off at a table of teenagers who had already gone through two bottles. They didn't even look up to acknowledge her.

Terrific. If I can't get to something someone needs, everybody sees me. But the minute I get something right, it's like I'm the Invisible Girl.

Liz took a deep breath and let it out. She was experienced enough not to take too much to heart. She managed to take another order, a family of five with something special on each entree, then swept back toward the servers table to grab a pitcher of tea.

Maria was already there, stuffing her apron pockets with sugar and sweetener packets.

"So," Maria said, "do you think your mom is going to become a basket case?"

"That's real tactful." Liz stuffed another handful of paper-wrapped straws into her apron.

Maria glanced knowingly at the nearly filled-to-capacity restaurant. "We don't exactly have time for tact." She took a pot of decaffeinated coffee from the wanning plate. "So… we can either talk about the situation, or we can ignore it." Without another word, she stepped back into the dining area amid an immediate flurry of calls for her attention.

Liz attached the latest order to the spinner bolted on the pass-through window. Michael, dressed in an apron over jeans and a T-shirt, wielded a spatula and tongs with grim efficiency. He flipped a half-dozen burgers, then lifted a basket of fries from the deep fryer and swatted the annoying beeping timer in one move.

"How about that order?" Liz asked, flicking one of the tickets with her forefinger.

Michael shook the basket of fries. "You know, I'd be a lot faster if we didn't have to involve this whole cooking thing."

"Good plan," Liz said. Then, off a second look, "No."

Michael shrugged and dealt cheese out onto burgers like playing cards. "Hey."

"What?"

A look of concern lighted Michael's face. "Is your mom gonna cave?"

Choking back a harsh reply, Liz grabbed the order sitting in the pass-through window and went back out into the dining area. She passed the food out, then noticed the truck driver raising his arm again. Retreating back to the wait station, she retrieved a pitcher of tea and managed the refill.

Taking out her order book, she seated three regulars at a back table one step behind the young busboy her dad had hired for the summer. The tabletop still glistened from Ethan's towel. After getting the drink order, which she thankfully knew by heart, she got the beverages delivered.

Grabbing a bus tub from the end of the counter, Liz quickly went to one of the tables. As Liz scooped up three glasses in each hand and placed them within the tub, Maria joined her.

"Look, I can tell you're upset." Maria rounded up the silverware and shoved the utensils into one of the drink containers. "Maybe later will be better."

"You told Michael"

"Oh. That."

Liz finished the table and picked up the bus tub.

"My bad," Maria said, following Liz through the tables again. "It's just that it's easier to talk about somebody else's problems than ours."

"Glad to know I could help."

"Cmon, Liz. You want to talk about this," Maria said. "I know you do. It's eating you up."

The truth was, Liz's concern over her mother had gotten worse. Usually her mom came down to make sure the hectic lunches went well. Today there had been no sign of Nancy Parker. Liz couldn't help wondering if her mom was still upstairs talking to herself. The image hurt and confused her, and it made her angry.

"Maybe saying anything to you was a mistake," Liz said, turning from her friend. After all, Maria was still one of the friends of the happy little aliens living secretly in Roswell. Maybe she complained about relationship issues with Michael, whose very human faults seemed more to blame than any extraterrestrial ones, but she remained in the thick of them. Not like Liz.

"Talking to me is never a mistake," Maria said. "Look, maybe there's a reasonable answer for why your mom was having a conversation by herself this morning."

"What?"

Maria sighed. "I don't know. Yet."

Liz went over to the serving window to check on her orders.

Maria followed, catching up with her at the window. "We'll figure this out. I promise."

Overhearing them, Michael turned from the flat grill. "Figure what out? What's up with Liz's mom?"

Maria frowned and shook her head. "I really shouldn't have told you."

Michael looked at Liz, then back at Maria. "You barely mentioned it," he said in a monotone.

Neither Maria nor Liz spoke.

"Doesn't that help?" Michael asked.

"No," Liz and Maria told him at the same time.

"I've got a right to know about your mom," Michael said defensively.

"How do you figure?" Liz demanded.

"I work here too." Michael shook his spatula at the frying burger patties. "I depend on this job. Without this job I have no house. Without a house I'm sleeping in a cardboard box." He shook his head defiantly. "And I'm not sleeping in a cardboard box. You don't have to worry about that if your mom is headed for the loony hotel and the Crashdown closes down."

Liz couldn't believe Michael could be so insensitive. Even after everything they'd been through together, after everything she'd already seen him do.

"Look," Michael said, "it's not like I'm going to run out on you. If you need help… you know, a place to crash for a couple days, somebody to help subdue your mom till the nuthouse people can get there… I'll be there for you."

"Gee," Liz said sarcastically, "that's awfully sweet of you."

Michael shook his head in disgust. "There's about a million guys out there who wouldn't offer to help you subdue your mom without hurting her."

The sad part was, Liz realized, Michael was right. She and Maria took their orders out to their respective tables.

Several minutes passed as she gathered new orders and refilled drinks. One of the things that bothered her most, Liz admitted, was that Max was out there somewhere and didn't even have a clue that she was having trouble with her mom.

Only a short while later, after a flurry of drink refills

and condiment requests, Maria and Liz stood at the pass-through window again. Liz wished the lunch business would hurry and die down so she could go check on her mom.

"I've got an idea," Maria said.

Liz didn't want to ask. "What?"

"How much do you know about the Crashdown Cafe?"

"A lot," Liz answered.

"Was this always a restaurant?"

"Maybe," Liz answered. "I think so. What difference does it make?"

"Maybe someone died here," Maria said. "Maybe the restaurant is haunted."

"Haunted?" Liz couldn't believe Maria was serious. "You think my mom was upstairs talking to a ghost?"

Maria took a step back and frowned. "It's better than you thinking she's gone totally whack."

"I don't think that," Liz objected, feeling guilty because those thoughts had been in her mind. "Thinking my mom is talking to a ghost isn't exactly a hundred and eighty degree turn on thinking she's wigging out."

Maria shrugged. "Depends on whether you believe in ghosts."

"I don't believe in ghosts," Liz said. "Anyway, my mom wasn't talking to the ghost of a previous occupant. She was talking to my grandmother."

"Maybe ghosts attract ghosts," Maria said. "Maybe there's a poltergeist loose in the Crashdown that has drawn your grandmother's ghost here."

"We've been here for years," Liz said. "Why would she suddenly start turning up now?"

Maria frowned, her brow furrowing. "I don't have all the answers. Some of this still needs to be worked out."

"Ghosts don't exist," Liz said.

"Actually," Michael said, bringing plates over to the pass-through window, "they do. I saw one."

"What?" Maria exploded. "You saw a ghost and you never told me?"

Michael looked at her. "Didn't know we were supposed to share otherworldly experiences. Anyway, you weren't really big on discussing anything I did last week. You were kind of mad at me for being gone."

"The geological survey," Liz said, remembering. She'd had to help cover Michael's shifts last week.

"Yeah," Michael replied.

"You were there with Tiller Osborn," Maria said.

Michael nodded.

"I heard somebody saying something about him seeing his father's ghost."

"He did," Michael said.

"And that was the ghost you saw?" Liz asked.

"Yeah." Michael turned back to the grill and started laying out the next orders. Meat sizzled on the grill. "Those orders are ready."

"Wait," Maria said. "You can't just say you saw a ghost and then walk away. Tell us the rest of it."

"That is the rest of it," Michael insisted. "The ghost was there, then it was gone."

"And it was Tiller's dad?" Liz asked.

Michael nodded. "Looked like him to me. Tiller thought so. The experience messed him up pretty bad. We brought him back into Roswell the next day and left him here."

"Has he seen the ghost since?" Liz asked. Somehow the whole story sounded just too bizarre to believe, but after everything she'd been living through the last year and a half, maybe the ghost tale didn't sound as far-fetched as it should have.

"I don't know," Michael answered. "We don't hang."

"And you don't think you should check on him?" Maria asked.

"No. I'm a guy he worked with for a day. Somebody he sees in the hall occasionally. I figure he wants his privacy about now."

"Does he know you saw his father's ghost?"

Michael laid hamburger buns down on the grill to toast. "No."

"Why not?"

"He didn't ask." Michael used the toasted buns and assembled hamburgers with passionless expertise.

"You didn't tell him?"

"No."

"Why?"

Michael piled fries on the plates and pushed them through the pass-through window. "Nobody else saw the ghost. If 1 told Tiller that I'd seen the ghost, maybe he would have thought about it and decided I was lying. In which case he might want to punch me out. If he believed me, that I had seen the ghost and no one else had, then he might have started figuring something was different about me." He eyed Maria. "I'd kinda rather he didn't go there, you know."

Liz's mind spun and tumbled with the thoughts. Having to choose between two evils… Mom talking to herself

or Mom talking to a ghost… Liz really didn't know which she'd have preferred. "What did the ghost want?" she asked.

"I don't know," Michael admitted. "The ghost didn't talk or anything. It just rushed at Tiller and drew down a lightning bolt that scattered Tiller, Bulmer, and me."

"You were nearly hit by a lightning bolt?" Maria asked. Michael realized there was a near-death-by-lightning footnotes she hadn't been aware of as well.

"It was nothing," Michael said. "The bolt knocked the three of us off our feet. That's all." He nudged the plates forward. "Better get these out before we get mobbed."

Maria sighed in disgust as she gathered her orders. "We're not done here."

Michael nodded. "Kinda got that."

Liz lagged a half-step behind, waiting till Maria left. "Have you ever seen ghosts before?" Liz asked in a low voice.

"No."

"Maybe this is a new power manifesting," Liz suggested. During the time that she'd known Max, Michael, and Isabel, their powers had become stronger.

Michael shrugged and started cleaning the grill. "Maybe. Or maybe it was just something that happened because we'd been telling ghost stories and the storm settled in. Maybe I didn't see anything after all."