River Marked (Mercy Thompson #6)(37)

"Good thing the USGS doesn't speak French, or they'd rename the Grand Tetons," I said.

Adam laughed. "You just know those French trappers were missing home when they named them, don't you?"

The drive through the park took us past an Indian graveyard that was still being used--I could tell from all the balloons and items left on the graves. It looked almost like a birthday party had gone on there, and all of the guests had departed without taking away their presents. There was a tall chain-link fence around the graveyard with "No Trespassing" signs on it.

I can see ghosts. But I've never actually seen one in a graveyard. Graveyards are for the living. In my experience, ghosts tend to hang out in the same places they did while they were alive.

So what had my father been doing in a campground beside the Columbia all the way out here when he was supposed to be from Browning, Montana?

Calvin Seeker was leaning against a chain-link fence when we parked the car on a gravel lot next to a boating dock. He looked tired and older than he'd appeared last night--like almost twenty. Without moving, he watched us lock up the car and cross the road.

The chain-link fence he was leaning on ran until it met up with the railroad that went along the edge of the water, then it followed the track of the railroad out of our sight around the bluffs. There was a sign behind Gordon, but I couldn't read it.

"Uncle Jim told me to meet you here at noon," he said, a little more politely than his posture indicated. "I'm going to be your tour guide, apparently."

"Thank you," I said.

He shrugged. "No trouble. Sometimes I volunteer to guide people on tourist days during the summer."

He scuffed his shoe in the dirt and gave Adam a wary look. "How did you manage to get in touch with Uncle Jim? He told me while we were waiting in the hospital to see how Benny was doing, but I didn't see him pick up his phone--and I know you didn't get his phone number while we were waiting for the ambulance last night."

"We didn't," said Adam. "We talked to your grandfather."

Calvin came off the fence and stood up straight, his eyes a little wide. "My grandfather?" he asked, sounding startled. "Which one?"

"He called himself Gordon Seeker," I said. "He came by last night, said your uncle had sent him. He gave me some stuff that really helped with my leg."

"Ah, that grandfather." He didn't seem too happy about it, and I was pretty sure it was the thought of Gordon Seeker that had jolted him off the fence. "I should have known."

"Something wrong?" Adam asked.

"Something's always wrong when Grandpa Gordon stirs up the water," Calvin said. He looked at me, then looked at Adam. "Werewolf, huh?"

Adam nodded.

"Okay. Well, if Grandpa Gordon sent you, I'm going to do this a little differently. Did he say why he sent you?" He shook his head before he answered. "What am I asking? Of course not. He'd rather watch us all run around like chickens when the fox comes calling. I guess he thinks it's funny."

"You were at the hospital last night?" I asked. "Is Benny going to be all right? Did he tell you what happened?"

"Yes," Calvin said. He squinted against the sun, and the little gesture let me see the family resemblance between him and the old man who'd come to my trailer. "Benny'll survive. I think . . . I think I should tell you his story after I've played guide if you don't mind. I don't know that it will make more sense that way, but at least you'll know why he wanted you to come out here." He frowned at me and Adam. "I'm not sure why he thinks it's important that you know anything. I might question Uncle Jim, but only a fool asks Grandpa Gordon anything: He just might answer."

He looked out across the river as if for inspiration, and when he spoke again, his voice was low. "My uncle Jim is a medicine man. It runs in the family, usually in sibling lines. None of his kids have the ability to become what he is, and neither did his father. But his uncle did. It runs like that."

"Is Gordon a medicine man?" I asked, trying to work out the lineage. The answer should be no, if Gordon was his grandfather and shared his last name--unless Jim was Calvin's uncle on his mother's side. Which, I suddenly thought, was probable since they didn't share last names.

"Is the night dark?" Calvin grinned, which robbed his face of its sulky cast and made him look likeable. "Maybe. Maybe not. Depends on what you mean and in whose eyes. He is something, that's for sure. Anyway, I'm Uncle Jim's apprentice. I'm going to start this tour just like I would if you were a pair of tourists, but if I'm doing it right, some things might change along the way." He cleared his throat, looked a little embarrassed, and said, "As inspiration strikes me. Or not.

"So." He took a deep breath. "Welcome to this sacred ground. Speak softly and show respect while you are here, please. Twenty years ago, we fenced it and closed it to strangers because of vandalism. But that made no one happy because these were left behind to share the stories of those who have gone before with those who are now. So the decision was made to make it accessible, but under specific circumstances. If you were to come on your own . . ." He paused and looked at me, and when he continued, he'd lost the practiced flow of his voice. "You'd probably be okay. You look Indian. But people here without permission get jail sentences; we are serious about keeping this place safe."