Page 75 of Joker's Ghost
“I’m guessing that’s not your first shot,” I deadpan.
Derek rolls his eyes, and Python pipes up, “Hey, according to club rules, you and him are equals now.”
“Not so,” I counter. “I’m not only an officer, but I’m also his old man.” I smirk. “Plus, I can take him down any day of the week.”
“I don’t know about that,” Python adds. “The kid’s got some mad skills and karate moves.”
“Ahh, leave the kid alone.” Rattler refills his glass. “What the hell were you doin’ at his age?”
“All right, wiseass, I get it.” I point to my son. “But no way you’re driving later.” I angle him away from the group. “Mom told me about getting into the masters program at school.”
“She was supposed to keep that a secret.”
“She was excited for you and it slipped out.” I wrap my arm around his shoulders. “Proud of you.” My voice cracks with emotion and we do the man hug thing.
“Hey, did one of your women lose a necklace?” Rattler reaches under the bar. “I found this when I was cleaning up down here the other day.”
“Holy shit!” My eyes go wide at the silver feather on a leather rope dangling from Rattler’s fingers.
“What?” Cobra closes the distance between us.
“I don’t fuckin’ believe it.” I swipe it away from him. “Where’d you get this?”
“It was wedged between the floorboard and the base of the bar. Almost where you’re sitting right now.”
Exactly where I lost it when the Nomad swiped it away from me after my journey to another time.
“You know whose it is?” Rattler asks.
“It’s mine.”
Cobra looks over my shoulder. “That’s the one Warrior gave you, right?”
“Yeah. Fuckin’ crazy. I . . . thought I lost it.”
I examine the silver feather, and one of the reporters a few stools over moves closer for a better look. “Looks like an authentic talisman from the Shoshone tribe.”
“You know about the Shoshones?” I ask.
“I did a piece about them a few years ago. Remarkable people, dedicated to tradition. How they’ve kept the old ways, and how some of their medicinal cures rival modern medicine. Which is interesting because they have the highest number of centenarians among indigenous people.”
“The guy who gave this to me had to be at least one hundred. Maybe you interviewed him. His name is Warrior.”
“He was the tribe leader up north around Reno, right?”
“Yeah, you spoke to him?”
The reporter cocks his head. “Ahhh, no. They told me at the time he was one of the oldest living tribesmen, but he’s been dead for like ten years.”
“Dead?” Cobra said.
“Yeah, he died in 2015.”
“You must be talking about somebody else,” Cobra said.
The reporter pulls out his phone, swipes at it a few times, then turns the screen to Cobra and me. “Is this the guy?”
Warrior’s weathered face stares back at us. “Yeah.”
