“I’m glad,” I said.
“Me too.” James rocked back on his heels. “Though I wondered how my Irish grandmother could possibly have known to give him Chinese tea, of all things.”
James shifted closer to me. I looked away.
“Fei-Yen, I’ve spent five months making excuses to walk by your family’s laundry, trying to come up with a reason to go inside. I never imagined I would be dead before I finally had the courage to thank you.”
I dared to look up and hold his gaze again, even though my heart was thrumming as I thought of him walking by our laundry all those times. It was a strange thing to think — that he had wished to speak to me.
Our conversation had tugged us closer. We were standing nearly toe-to-toe.
I inhaled sharply and pulled back.
My heel crashed into a feed bucket and I gasped, arms flailing. James caught my elbow and pulled me upward, locking me firm against his chest for merely a heartbeat before he flickered and vanished.
I stood on the street, alone, my pulse in my ears. It was difficult for ghosts to affect the physical spaces of our world. Between frightening the prospector earlier and now bracing my fall, he must have used up too much energy. It would take some time before he returned.
I was almost grateful — almost. At least it gave me time to think, to let my mind clear without being pulled off course by his friendly smile and too-easy gait.
Five minutes passed before he began to appear again, more faded than before.
I greeted him with a nod, but I didn’t smile or thank him for catching me.
“You want me to be your voice,” I said, as James gathered his spirit back together. “So you can tell your family good-bye.”
To my surprise, he shook his head. “No, Fei-Yen. I want you to help me give them a future.”
“A future?”
His voice crackled at first but became stronger as he watched his family. “There’s a businessman in town named George Rinehart. He arrived a few months back and has been buying up claims ever since, mostly placer mines that already ran dry. Turning unlucky prospectors into paid miners. He’s offered to buy our claim. Not for much — says the land is barely fit for goat grazing — but enough that Ma and Jules could pack up, go back to New York. She signed the deed this morning, within hours of hearing about the attack. Heartbreak, I suppose.” A line formed between his eyebrows. “I need you to get that deed back and destroy it. She can’t sell the claim.”
“Why?”
“Because we found it, two days ago. There is gold. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.” He hooked his thumbs behind the suspenders. “Enough to live comfortably — here or New York or wherever she wants to go. Jules could go to school. If you got that deed . . .”
A needle inside me said that Mrs. Hill had willingly sold the claim, so why should this businessman lose just because her son was stubborn enough to wander around after being shot rightfully dead?
“I don’t owe you any favors, James Hill.” I recited the words I’d silently rehearsed after he’d vanished. “You may have saved me this morning, but I already saved your brother. Five months ago.”
His face showed no surprise. “I know. I needed to repay my debt to you.”
“And I owe you nothing.” I wanted to hear him say it. Freedom from a spirit’s control was a valuable thing to someone like me.
“You owe me nothing,” he admitted, his body no longer vague and wispy. “But I will beg you on my knees to do this, Fei-Yen. Please. Help me.”
Sympathy seeped through me, and my hand twitched toward him, but I locked it firm against my side. Across the street, his mother was kissing Jules’s head. The driver of the wagon was getting ready to haul the bodies of James and his father away to be prepared for burial.
Maybe, if she did end up the owner of a working gold claim, Mrs. Hill might be willing to pay a commission off it. In gratitude. Not just for saving the claim but for saving her son’s life when he was sick.
Maybe it would be enough to take me back to California. I hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place. I tried to persuade my uncle to leave me behind — my skills were more suited to the city — but he insisted we stay together. He believed he could provide for us both, and his laundry was doing well enough, but we both knew I didn’t belong here. Whether or not he regretted bringing me, it no longer mattered. There wasn’t enough money to send me back.
All I needed was a ride on the stagecoach and a train ticket out of Cheyenne. Enough to let a room where I could conduct the wu-shaman rituals.
Maybe, when I got there, I could find another shaman to complete my training. Maybe I could even find my mother’s spirit, if she hadn’t yet departed. Oh, how I yearned to see her again. To be home.