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know.”
    “And you think she knew about this dead lady, and that little potato bug, and his Master?”
    “Boz, I told you what she told me—”
    “Yeah,” Boz relented. “You did. So what d’you reckon is her business with these folks?”
    That was the least of Trace’s concerns at the moment, and he shrugged irritably. “I don’t know. She could be tellin the truth about Miss Lisette leavin the box to her. Prob’ly McGillicuddy stole it along with the rest of her property.”
    “Maybe you should ask her.”
    “Miss Fairweather?”
    “Miss Lisette. You said you saw her, right?”
    “No,” Trace said, repulsed. “I mean yeah, I saw her, but I ain’t gonna call up some crazy woman’s ghost.”
    “Why not? Sounds to me like she got somethin to say.”
    Trace almost choked on the lunacy of that proposal, and its source. “Ain’t you soundin like a true believer!”
    “Look, I ain’t sayin I believe none of this—but hell, Trace, I rode across this country with you ten times. I seen some weird shit in the time we been together, and now you tell me this…” He gave a shaky laugh. “This actually makes some things make more sense. And I know you ain’t any more crazy than I am, so if this is real, if you think it’s real … then it seems to me, the sensible thing is, you go ask Miss Lisette what happened.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “Why not? We just sat in there and talked to some dead holy man—”
    “I can’t help it if they come to me, but I ain’t gonna start callin up spirits and demons.”
    “Who said anything about demons? Just one poor dead crazy lady.”
    “Because people tend to die bad when I let it out,” Trace shot back. “It’s in the Bible, a curse against anyone who calls up the dead.”
    “Well that dead holy man came to you, and he called it a gift.”
    “Evil spirits can speak prophecy, too,” Trace said, but the words felt phony, even as they passed his lips. The shade of a dead priest had visited him in a church and told him not to be afraid. Messages from God didn’t come much clearer than that unless you were Moses.
    “Christ on a crutch!” Boz hollered. “Don’t it say in your Bible all niggers is cursed? Ain’t you heard the one about Ham’s sons bowin down to white folks cuz Ham’s old man got drunk and left his pecker layin out? Now you tell me you believe that one, I’ll head back to St. Louis and find myself a new trail partner.”
    “You know I don’t.”
    “Damn right. You got the sense God gave you and that’s worth a helluva lot more than some dead folks’ words in a book. So quit feelin sorry for yourself and use that gift to find out what the hell we’re doing here.”
    Trace looked at him for a long moment, trying to weigh the situation rationally, instead of see-sawing between the fear and that guilty throb of excitement in his brain and guts. Talking to the spirits had always given him an uneasy thrill, like some imp sitting on his shoulder whispering Go ahead, live a little—no one will know .
    But Boz’s argument made sense. He had never deliberately tried to summon a spirit and talk to it. All his years of keeping a lid on this thing didn’t seem to have saved anyone; maybe it was time to try a different approach. Miss Fairweather and that dead preacher and Boz himself were pushing him to act —and was that allowing himself to be influenced by others, or God sending him so many signs he was a fool to keep ignoring them?
    He drew a deep breath. “All right. But you got to come with me.”
    “What d’you expect me to do?”
    “You can hold the damn guns, in case McGillicuddy comes around.”

 
    CHAPTER FIVE
    Miss Lisette’s room was just as they had left it, not even the little girl sitting at the breakfast table as Trace cracked open the door and waved Boz inside. But he thought there was an unnatural stillness about the place, as if something was listening. He hung his hat on the bedpost and slid out of his coat, ran a