Ghost Warrior - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 

Somewhere in Southeastern Oklahoma - Choctaw Nation

2005

0600 Just as the sun is rising

Hushi Minko Tushka ran like he was born to it. His body moved with the ease of a man who had spent a lifetime on the land, his feet hitting the packed dirt in steady, rhythmic strides.  He ran with the land, not against it. His stride was fluid, measured, each step a conversation between his body and the earth beneath him. The morning air in the Atoka Wildlife Management Area was crisp, touched with the scent of damp earth and pine.  The trail wound deep into the woods, twisting through thick patches of blackjack oak and towering shortleaf pine. The scent of wet soil and cedar filled his lungs, mingling with the early morning chill that clung stubbornly to the air. A thin ribbon of mist curled low across the creek beds, breaking apart as his footfalls disturbed the stillness.

The reservation lay beyond these woods, but in truth, this land had no borders—not to him. It was all connected, every tree and hill, every riverbed and canyon, stretching back through time in a way that most men had forgotten how to see. But Minko saw it. He had spent his life reading the stories left in the soil, tracking things that others missed—the way animals moved before a storm, the way a deer’s prints could tell you how long ago it had passed, the way silence meant something just as much as sound.

Somewhere in the distance, a coyote let out a solitary yip, fading into the hush of dawn. The sky was still dark, the stars fading, but Minko didn’t need light. He knew these trails like an old friend.

His breath was measured—inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth—steady… regulated…his lungs expanding and contracting in perfect sync with his stride. The discipline of years spent mastering endurance had left its mark. At forty-five, his body still carried the efficiency of an athlete, though the edges had worn rougher with time.  Sweat trickled from his scalp, dampening the roots of his long, dark hair, now lightly streaked with gray. It clung to his back, the weight of the ponytail swinging with each stride.  Sweat clung to his skin, a sheen forming along the back of his neck, soaking into the collar of his faded gray T-shirt. His broad shoulders carried the strength of a man who had never left hard work behind, his narrow hips and runner’s legs a testament to endurance. His body wasn’t as forgiving as it had once been, but he refused to slow down.

Minko had been a runner all his life.  As a boy, he’d outrun the other kids on the reservation, cutting through fields, darting between trees, always faster, always ahead. He had started running as a kid, outpacing everyone on his high school cross-country team, even the town boys who mocked him for being quiet, for being “just another Indian kid.” He had proven them wrong, outrunning them on the track, outlasting them in the hills, pounding the dirt roads outside town in the humid Oklahoma afternoons, his feet hammering the same paths his ancestors once traveled. He ran because he loved the burn in his muscles, the purity of motion, the feeling of being unchained from everything but the next step. His father had taught him that running was more than speed—it was control. "Don’t run with anger, Tushka," he had said. "Run with purpose. The land will carry you if you respect it."

Minko’s body had learned that lesson long ago. Now, as his boots struck the earth in perfect rhythm, he let the world shrink down to the simple mechanics of movement. His breathing was regulated—inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. The first five miles had been easy, his muscles loose, his heart pumping in smooth, even beats. Now, past the ten-mile mark, the familiar ache had begun to settle into his calves and thighs, a low burn, not pain, just effort. 

Even now, past the ten-mile mark, the familiar ache set into his calves, creeping into his thighs, but he welcomed it. The sting of exertion was honest, a pain that meant something. The kind that reminded him he was still alive. He ran because it cleared his mind, burned away the tension that came with the job. 

The land had changed. Not on the surface, not at first glance, but he could see it in the details. Boot prints where there shouldn’t be any. Spray-painted trees marking trails that had never needed marking before. Plastic bottles crushed underfoot, the acrid scent of cheap meth smoke sometimes lingering where it didn’t belong. The Los Zetas were using tribal land like their own personal highway, moving drugs and bodies through it like it was nothing but another nameless stretch of backcountry. He had spent months trying to piece it together, to prove it, but the cartel was smart. They worked in the gaps, in the silence, just outside the reach of the law, using tribal land as a pipeline, slipping through unnoticed, treating his home like it was just another stretch of unclaimed territory. But it wasn’t unclaimed. It was his.

The land had always been his. Even as it changed. He knew these hills, the deep cuts in the terrain where deer bedded down, the hidden springs that fed into the creeks, the ancient trees standing like sentinels. But now, he saw different signs. Signs that didn’t belong.

He glanced upward briefly, scanning the canopy where the morning sun had begun carving thin golden blades through the branches. To the untrained eye, the forest was untouched—serene. But Minko saw more. He saw the subtle shifts, the land adjusting in ways that didn’t belong. The remnants of a cheap meth cook fire buried poorly beneath a mound of damp leaves, a broken limb where someone had forced their way through the underbrush. Signs. The kind a good tracker noticed, the kind that told him his home wasn’t just his anymore.

He pushed harder, his breathing quickening, sweat running down his spine. He wasn’t just running now—he was chasing a thought, an instinct clawing at the back of his mind. Another girl had gone missing. Another mother with hollow eyes had sat across from him at the station, clutching a worn photograph in her hands, praying he’d find her daughter before it was too late. He had seen it too many times. And he was starting to think there was a pattern.

The thought nagged at him, gnawed like a coyote on a bone. Missing girls. Drugs moving in and out. Signs of new people creeping into old places. 

The cartel had crept into his land like rot in an old tree. They weren’t loud. Not yet. But their presence lingered in the gaps, in the missing people, in the quiet trails that were no longer empty. A year ago, he’d have said it was just drugs. That was bad enough. Meth, fentanyl, heroin—poison eating its way into the community like a slow infection. But now, it was more. Girls were disappearing. Some turned up, bruised and broken. Others never came back at all.

It had started slow—a missing woman here, a runaway there. But then the names started stacking up. Young women from the reservation, from the outskirts, from places no one would look twice. Some turned up later, bruised, broken. Some never came back at all. And the ones that did weren’t talking. They were too scared, or too lost, or maybe both.

Minko focused on his breathing, pushing the anger down. The job had taught him that frustration wasted energy. He had to think. To see the patterns. It was why he ran—to work through the tangle of thoughts that wouldn’t sit still.

Atoka, Oklahoma had always been a quiet town.  A tough kind of quiet, the kind that came from people used to minding their own business. Situated almost in the middle of Choctaw reservation lands.  But silence wasn’t safety, and he could feel something shifting under the surface. The women who had come to the station with their stories had all been desperate, eyes red-rimmed, voices raw. Their daughters, nieces, sisters—gone. And no one had answers. Just whispers.

Minko exhaled sharply, his feet hitting the ground a little harder. He had seen too many mothers come into the station with their hands shaking, clutching worn photographs, asking the same question he had no answer for. “Have you seen her? Have you heard anything?” He hated that look in their eyes—that quiet, desperate hope, already hollowed out with the knowledge that if he found their daughters, it would probably be too late.

His breathing hitched slightly, not from exertion but from the frustration clawing at his chest. He adjusted, pulling his focus back into rhythm, forcing himself to settle.

The job had taught him patience. His father had taught him discipline. And life had taught him loss.

His thoughts turned, unbidden, to another lost mother—Tucker’s.

Minko’s jaw tightened, his strides lengthening slightly, the old weight settling into his chest like it always did when he thought about her. His sister, gone too young, lost in childbirth, leaving behind a newborn boy who hadn’t even had the chance to know her face. He had stood in that hospital room, looking down at the bundle in the nurse’s arms, and he had known, without hesitation, that the boy was his to raise. There had been no question. No moment of doubt. Tucker was his blood, and Minko had done what needed to be done.

Raising a boy wasn’t easy, not when you were barely a man yourself. He had made mistakes, he knew that. He had been too strict sometimes, too distant others. But he had given the boy everything he had—discipline, strength, the knowledge of the land, of the old ways. And Tucker had taken to it all, soaking it up like dry earth drinking rain. By the time he was fifteen, the kid could track a buck through wet grass without making a sound. By eighteen, he had outrun Minko himself. By twenty, he was in the Navy. By twenty-five, he was a SEAL. Seal Team 6!

And now, he was halfway across the world, running his own kind of trail—through war zones and sand, carrying a rifle instead of questions.

Minko smiled to himself, just slightly, just for a moment. The boy had done well.

His footfalls softened as the trail dipped into a low ravine, the shade cooling the sweat on his skin. He adjusted his breathing again, slowing slightly, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension settling there. He had been running long enough. It was time to turn back.