text: I liked Allan Trapper. His son was a good egg, and good eggs don’t just raise themselves. Takes a good egg to raise a good egg. So I was worried when he paid his fee that we didn’t see another wagon join the train. Turns out I was right to be worried, because him and his boy were hoofing it on the muddy trail. The littler Trapper got his boots stuck in the mud and nearly fell over. “Trapper,” I yelled, “Pick up your boy and get on my wagon, pronto.” “Thank you sir!” he said, scooping the boy up. “You’re welcome, but you can thank me better by handling these reins so I can have a smoke.” “Those’ll kill you y’know.” “I’ve seen the other side, Trapper, and I ain’t not too worried about how soon I’ll get there.” I finished rolling up my cigarette, and lit it. “So who’re you traveling to see? Y’know if you don’t mind me asking.” “We’re going to see mom,” said the boy. I could have guessed. The father choked on his surprise, and threw himself into a coughing fit. The boy was probably more amiable to the subject that he was. “Oh? Excited to see your mom again, boy?” “Sorta,” he said, scrunching up his tiny face. “I’m excited to meet her, I guess. She died before I was born.” “Hmm.” I hummed, taking a long drag of my cigarette. It was more than the father would have been willing to say, that much was clear. The discomfort on the senior Trapper was plain. “I just realized, sir” he said, clearing his throat, “we never got your name.” “Don’t really got one, but you can call me O’s. Like ‘Oh dear’, and ‘Oh no’.” I chuckled. “It’s a much more boring story than it sounds, but I was raised in a foreign military. The military themselves had bought me from a struggling orphanage.” “That sounds awful.” “Three square meals, and rifle training. It could have been worse. They didn’t give me a name though, just a number. But that history makes me uniquely suited to be a wagon master on the ghost road. The wandering spirits have nothing to call me by, and there’s no one I’d want to see on the other side.” “Why’s it so important to not want to see anyone?” “Because, and don’t get me wrong, the ghost road is plenty dangerous, but the journey is the easy part. The hardest part is letting go. You’ll see when we get to the wagon graveyard.” I finished my cigarette, and took the reins back from Trapper. We had a long journey ahead of us. We would make a brief stop at Spirit Home, the ghost road's deepest human settlement, but thereafter the wagon train didn’t have a concrete itinerary. The ghost road defied all hopes of mapping it. I could attest to the former completely. No trip was ever the same, but many journeys had built a feel for the correct path. If we were lucky, we would only encounter the wandering spirits, who gawked in envy of the living. We arrived in Spirit Home shortly. The small town was not in fact named for its place on the ghost road, but instead for its many distilled liquors. One in particular that we would need for the journey. Trapper and his boy stayed near the wagon train, while most of my other charges went into town to buy extra provisions and souvenir bottles of the town’s famous ghost liquor. More bottles for me, I thought grimly. We were back on the road next day, which thankfully passed uneventfully. It looked like it would be an easy trip. There was only the matter of the wandering spirits that we needed to worry about. I stayed vigilant for the heavy fog that signaled their arrival. The fog didn’t come that night, or next, but on the third we woke up to the fog’s creeping tendrils. I signaled my men to go up and down the wagon train to pass out thimbles of ghost liquor, and the saucers to offer them on. Even in the early morning, those most attentive in the wagon train could start to spot the pale decrepit faces of the wandering spirits starting to trail the wagon train. “We’re stopping early for tonight Trapper, get up and join me by one of the fires. We’ve a ritual to perform.” At this time the wandering spirits were unignorable. At the edges of all the campfires, just at the end of visibility, you could see that the wagon train was surrounded by a horde of gawking corpses. “Your boy is handling it better than some of the adults. Downright unbothered,” I said, pouring a thimble of ghost liquor into the saucer. “Salud! To the dead and gone!” I placed the saucer and its thimble of liquor on a flat stone that happened to be nearby. I also poured a healthy volume of the liquor into cups for me and Trapper. The boy stared at the gawking dead, with interest, rather than terror. “Why are they like that?” asked the boy. “Only the almighty knows. Some say they’re the wandering spirits of those that got lost while traveling the ghost road. Others say they’re just the envious dead that want another chance at life. I’ve recognized a few faces from people I’ve lost on the trail. So I can confirm that at least some of them did die while traveling here.” “Why the liquor?” asked the father. “I don’t entirely know myself,” I admitted. “The people in Spirit Home say that their liquor is infused with the life energy that the wandering dead crave. By offering some in the saucers we appease them. It seems to work well enough, so as wagon master I’ve made it a tradition to offer ghost liquor to the wandering spirits.” “The drink in the saucer is disappearing!” said the boy. The saucer emptied itself, and the gawking dead disappeared from our end of camp. “Suppose we didn’t do any of this, what then?” asked the father. “They’d start talking to you, making offers and promises. They try to get you to trade places with them, and that’s if they’re nice. If they aren’t then they’ll try to take your life by force. It’s happened on occasion. It can’t really be helped. Likely tomorrow morning we’ll see that suddenly, even though we’re nearly at the end, that some of the wagons will want to turn back home. If they do, then it's known they’ve been taken by the spirits, and the spirit is eager to return to the land of the living.” Me and Trapper kept drinking for a while, getting deep into our cups. His boy long gone to sleep. “What will it be like, when we get there, when the boy meets his mom?” he asked. “Past the wagon grave, and up the hill, there’s the stream of souls. Old books used to describe it like a river, but it's more like a great big lazer firing into the sky. You go up the hill, and think of who you want to see. Then, from out of the stream, your loved one returns.” “Do they look different? She isn’t going to come out looking like the spirits from earlier right?” “Not at all. She’ll come out healthy and whole, I promise.” “Good, that’s good,” he said, polishing off the last of his drink, and asking for more. “I was worried when we saw the spirits earlier, and I got so worried. She died before she could give birth to him, they had to c-section immediately to save his life. I didn’t want him to have to see her like that.” “I’m sorry, it must have been horrible.” “She carried him for nine months, but never got to hold him once.” Trapper started to cry. I let him. “I just,” he started again, “I just want him to know how much she loved him. I tell him all the time, but he never knew her, so how could he know for sure?” “So you journey up the ghost road. I see.” “Yeah.” “Well let’s drink to your wife’s memory, and your fast approaching reunion.” We drank merrily and then sadly, and then merrily again. Come morning, me and Trapper were still sleeping off the drink, and I barely managed to get him back on the wagon. He fell right back to sleep immediately. As wagon master, I didn’t have such a luxury, and had to stay awake to lead the train. As expected, some wagons turned back. It couldn’t be helped. Trapper’s boy was up to keep me company in place of his father for the last leg of the trip. He mostly asked me about the peculiarities of the ghost road, but I could tell that he was working his way toward something specific. So I asked him outright. “What is it boy? I can tell you’ve been thinking about how to bring something up for a while now.” “It’s nothing. Well sorta something.” “Out with it, it’s fine.” “You said letting go is the hard part. I don’t think my dad will be good at letting go.” “Your father’s a good egg. I’m sure he’ll be able to when the time comes.” The boy didn’t seem so convinced. “He always talks about mom. I think almost every day.” “It’s natural to miss a loved one when they pass, and that goes double for the ones you thought you go into your twilight years with.” “Okay.” he said solemnly. We made it to the wagon graveyard the next day. There, at the foot of the hill, were wagons left abandoned by those that had decided they would not be making the journey home, choosing instead to enter the stream and join their loved ones. There was a nervous energy going up and down the wagon train. The promised beam of the lifestream hadn’t appeared yet. Then, BANG. People started making their way up. I sent the Trappers up with my best wishes. “I’ll be waiting for you two down here. Don’t worry about the time, my team and I will ring a large bell to let you know when it's time to come back.” They waved me goodbye, and I watched them ascend the hill, and toward the bright beam shooting up into the sky. The first wave of people to make it to the top summoned a matching wave of ephemeral figures. I went to sit at the back of my wagon, facing away from the hill. Such moments were private, and I did not want to intrude. Not even from afar. A little while later, I took the last drag from a cigarette I had lit while waiting, and checked the time. That was it. Time to go. I signaled my men to start ringing the bell and get everyone to come back home. People started saying goodbye to their dearly departed again, and made their way back down. Naturally, not everyone was returning. There were always more than a few that chose to stay and enter the stream. I searched for Trapper and his kid among the returning crowd, but failed to find them. I didn’t want to believe it, and refused to look at the top of the hill to search for them. I kept scanning the returning crowd, but nothing. Eventually I did admit that they might not be coming back down. I looked up in time to see the ephemeral visage of a woman lean down and give Trapper’s boy a loving hug, a hug of parting. With a kiss on his forehead, and a wave goodbye, I was relieved. I was right, he was a good egg, the both of em. But no, I had assumed too much. The senior Trapper made to give his wife a hug and a kiss goodbye, but when it looked like he was about to let go of her hand, he held on. The visage of his wife rose into the sky, and Trapper along with her, and they both entered the lifestream. They disappeared together, just as the stream did. Leaving the boy alone at the top. I ran up to get him, but I couldn't get two words out of him, let alone get him to move. I had to pick him up to get him back to the wagon train. He remained unresponsive the rest of the night. When he broke his silence, he also breached the awkward subject of what would happen to him. Not wanting to leave the boy to the mercy of chance, I told him that if he wanted he could stay with me. He wouldn’t be the first lone survivor of his wagon. Many of my current employees had been in similar situations before, though none had ever been as young as him. He was still devastated by the loss, but that wasn’t something we would be able to breach for a good long time.