“Did you and Robert go to school here?”
“Sure did,” Cutter said. “Got a whole bunch of great memories of this place.”
Father John smiled. So many Arapahos had gone to school at the mission. Like a community center, the mission, a gathering place. Children, parents, volunteers, teachers, all coming together. Sometimes when he looked at the old stone building, especially on quiet days like this with no one about, he tried to imagine what it must have been like, people coming and going, school buses rounding Circle Drive, a half dozen or more Jesuit priests teaching classes, kids spilling over the grounds, shouting and laughing—the sounds of children everywhere. A hundred years the school had been here, then it was gone. Closed down for lack of money and replaced by the BIA school close by. The old stone building vacant and crumbling, a ghost from the past.
“Hard to leave home and board at school,” Cutter said, “but once we got here with our friends, we had a great time. Although, if I remember right some of the proctors . . .”
“Proctors?”
“The older students in charge of the boys’ dorm. Some of them could be tough. I guess they’d had tough proctors in their time, so they passed it on.” He laughed and shook his head. “Didn’t keep us from raising hell. I mean, Robert and I used to jump into that old fire escape tube on the back side of the building and slide down. More fun than an amusement park, but what did we know about amusement parks? No such thing in the entire state.” He turned partway around and looked at the building. “If I remember, the boys’ dorms were on the third floor. I got that right? Which floor were the girls’ on? Second? Or were they at the other end of the third floor?”
“Before my time, I’m afraid.” Something wrong here, Father John was thinking. Like a dissonant note in an aria.
Cutter was going on about how he used to climb the trees and swing from the branches. “I remember Vicky. She was as gutsy as any of us boys. Used to be up in the tree with us. Priests would come out and tell us to get down before we fell and broke our heads. I always had the feeling . . .” He stopped at that, then pushed on. “I felt like they would have liked to climb those trees themselves. Maybe they did after we went home at the end of the semester.”
“What other memories do you have?” Father John said, still trying to grasp the off-key note.
The man drew in a long breath. He hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and looked down, as though he were reading a book. “That’s what Robert and I planned to do, recall the old days, relive the good times. I hated it when my father took us to Oklahoma to be with Mom’s family. The Walking Bears were here. I was about eleven. We moved in the summer when my cousins were getting ready to go back to school. But I remember—I remember.” He looked up. “Wasn’t there some kind of basketball hoop up around here? We used to scrimmage, and we were pretty good, too. Wasn’t there a shop? Yeah, we made things out of wood and metal. Over there, wasn’t it?” He nodded toward the white building next to the church, set back from Circle Drive. A storage shed now. “In the spring, there was baseball. I already walked around the diamond out back.” A nod now in the direction of the redbrick residence. “Brought back a lot of memories. I’m glad to see it’s still here.”
Baseball? Father John saw it now, as if he had opened a photo album with pictures of a mission that hadn’t existed, not when Cutter and Robert Walking Bear and Vicky Holden had been in school. There was no baseball diamond. Ten years ago, his first summer at St. Francis, he and the kids had cut down the wild grasses and stamped out the bases. The parents had helped him build the dugouts and the benches. It had taken all summer.
The sound of ringing cut into the quiet. Father John took the phone out of his pocket and glanced at the ID. Federal Gov. “Sorry, I have to take this.” He stepped away a few feet and pressed the answer key. “Father John.”
The voice on other end: “Ted Gianelli, returning your call.”
Father John thanked him and started to tell him about the anonymous caller, aware of Cutter Walking Bear off his shoulder. He took another few steps. “The caller could be telling the truth.”
“Anything else that would give me something to go on?” The fed sounded as if he believed in the possibility. “Any names? Anything at all?”
“He sounded frightened. I got the impression he wants you to locate the murderer without any specific help from him. He doesn’t want to be involved.”
“If he’s a witness, he’s involved.” There was a long pause, the sound of rustling paper, a pen or pencil—something solid—tapping a hard surface. “I’ve talked to everybody around Robert Walking Bear, all the relatives. They all have alibis. This investigation is over, unless I find something new. It makes me sick to think”—there were several rapid intakes of breath at the other end—“there’s a killer walking around in my jurisdiction. If he calls again, see if you can get him to come in.”
Father John said he would do his best. He might not hear from the caller again. In fact, he thought, ending the call, it was highly unlikely that he would. It would make more sense for a frightened witness to walk away, go where the murderer couldn’t find him.
“Trouble?” Cutter said.
“Could be.” Father John slipped the phone back into his pocket and turned around. He had the sense the man hadn’t taken his eyes from him throughout the call. He told him to feel free to continue looking around, then he headed back to the office. A dozen thoughts clanged in his mind. An investigation into a possible murder, with no evidence. Nothing except an anonymous, scared voice on the phone. A detective eager to wind things up, stamp closed on the file. And a stranger back on the rez, trying to find his roots, looking around the mission, remembering things that hadn’t been here. How fragile memories were, like air or music, hard to grasp. It was easy to misremember, to be jolted into an imaginary past by the things around you. The baseball diamond behind the residence—maybe it had made Cutter think there had been a baseball diamond in the past because there should have been a baseball diamond. The boys’ dormitory. There had been a dormitory when the mission was founded, but not in the last fifty years. And maybe there should have been, instead of the creaking, chilly buses Cutter and Robert and Vicky had ridden across the rez. Maybe memories were just that, the longing for a better past.
22
1899
MARY HEARD THE horses’ hooves out on the dirt road. She swished the last shirt in the washtub and ran it through the wringer that Jesse had set up on the back porch. Then she stepped outside, pinned the shirt to the line with the other shirts and jeans and unmentionables flapping behind the house, and went to see who was passing by. Not many people on the road, especially in the middle of the day. Folks in these parts didn’t go visiting at high noon, not with fences to fix, cattle to round up and brand, chickens to look after. An endless stream of chores, just to stay alive, and you never knew, oh, you never knew, when the bank or the tax man would slap a piece of paper on the front door and tell you to move on. That was one worry she and Jesse no longer had, now that Butch was here.
She spotted the billowing dust as she started around the house. Coming down the ranch road were two men in floppy black hats, rifles in scabbards next to their right legs. The horses looked winded and hard used. She had never seen either man before, and she could feel her mouth go dry. Jesse and the others were in the high pasture. Even if she rang the cowbell hanging on the front porch, it would take Jesse fifteen minutes to reach the house. And that was if he heard the bell. “Don’t take chances,” he had told her. “Use the rifle if you have to.”
She ran up onto the front porch, went inside, and grabbed the Springfield off the rack by the door. She went back outside and walked to the top of the step, where the riders would be sure to see her.
“Halt,” she shouted. “Halt, I say.” The riders pulled up on the reins and the horses danced about, front hooves pawing at the dirt. “Identify yourselves.
”
“Name is Siringo. Charles Siringo,” the man on the left shouted, sitting taller in the saddle. “This here’s my partner. Don’t mean you any harm. We come on official business.”
Mary walked down the steps, keeping the rifle trained on the man named Siringo. The faces of both men were in shadow, but everything about them looked seasoned and experienced. There was an unhurried steadiness in the way they sat the horses. They wore leather vests that hung open and exposed the sidearms on their belts.
“State your business.”
“Now, ma’am.” Siringo made as if to dismount.
“Stay where you are.” Mary moved in closer. Not too close, just enough that they could see she was serious. “Don’t let anyone underestimate you,” Jesse always said. “You’re the best shot in the county.” Now she could make out the faces in the shadows of the hat brims: Siringo had a long, narrow face, sunken cheeks, with a big nose; the other man, a smoother face, round with slits of dark eyes.
The men exchanged quick sideways glances, then settled back into their saddles. Siringo said something, but his voice was low, the words lost in the breeze.
“Speak up!” This was a trick, she could feel it in her bones. He would lower his voice until she came closer, and somehow they would overpower her before she could fire.
“We’re lawmen,” he shouted. “With the Pinkerton Detective Agency, here on business for the Union Pacific Railroad. You can put the rifle down. You have nothing to fear.”
“I guess I’ll be making that determination.”
“You got menfolk around here?” This from the other man.
“What business would that be of yours?”
“Just thinking. Looks like a big spread for a little lady like you to run all by yourself. Might be you had some strangers stop by and offer to help out for a spell?”
Mary moved the rifle a little until it was pointed at the other man’s belly. “If I had to fire this gun,” she said, keeping her voice steady, “the menfolk would be here before you knew you got hit.”
“Listen here, ma’am.” Siringo leaned forward and crossed his arms over the saddle horn. “We’re here to help you. You and your menfolk could be in a lot of danger with outlaws on the loose hereabouts. You hear about the train robbery down in Wilcox?”
“What’s a train robbery got to do with me?”
“I’m asking if you heard of it.”
“I heard about it in town. It still doesn’t have anything to do with me or my menfolk. We got our own business to tend to.”
“Butch Cassidy, you heard of him?”
“I heard he ran a ranch around here some time ago.”
“Well, he’s still got friends in these parts, and we believe Butch and his partner, the Sundance Kid, stopped off with some of those friends. Could be they’re here on this spread, helping out.”
“If they were here, I’d know it, wouldn’t I?” Mary could feel her heart jumping about. She struggled to keep her words steady. Her tongue felt like a piece of wood. “I’m the one that does the cooking. I guess I know how many mouths I feed, and I’m not feeding any extra mouths.”
“You mind we have a look around?”
“You heard what I said, so ride on out of here. There aren’t any outlaws on this ranch.” God! Jesse, the hired hand, Anthony, Butch, and Sundance, all of them rounding up cattle in the upper pasture. If the Pinkerton men were to ride up there, Butch and Sundance would be arrested.
Arrested! For a moment, she couldn’t catch her breath. They would be killed.
Siringo was still leaning over the horn. “Maybe you didn’t hear all the news in town. The Union Pacific wants these outlaws bad. They caused a lot of damage to railroad property. Blew up cars, cleaned out the safe, blew up a bridge. Cost the railroad a lot of money in repairs and canceled trains. This whole country depends on railroads. Can’t have outlaws stealing and interfering with the service. So the Union Pacific is making folks a helluva offer. Reward of eight thousand dollars per head for Butch Cassidy and his gang.”
Mary realized she must have flinched, because the man went on: “You heard that right. Enough money for you and your menfolk to live happily ever after. Hell, you could buy your own island out in the ocean somewhere. No more worries.”
“I told you, there’s no outlaws on this ranch. No strangers.” My God, the reward was a fortune. Enough to tempt a lot of people to turn in Butch and Sundance. “Ride on out of here,” she said, “before I have to use this gun.”
“I don’t believe you’re going to shoot us.” Siringo smiled and shook his head.
Mary shifted the rifle on him and looked into the sights. He didn’t move. She sighted the rifle on the high branch of the cottonwood next to the road and pulled the trigger. A gray squirrel exploded into pieces and landed in front of the horses. They reared back, ears flattened against their heads. It took a moment for the riders to steady them.
“You got two seconds to turn around and ride out of here.”
Mary kept the rifle on the two men as they turned the horses and galloped to the main road. Still she waited until they had taken the diagonal cut and headed south, past the sage-marked hillocks and the clump of willows. She stared out across the plains, hazy in the hot sun. There wouldn’t be enough left of the squirrel for dinner. In the distance she could hear the muffled thuds of the horses’ hooves. She kept the rifle pointed at the road. If the Pinkerton men decided to return, they would not take her by surprise.
Eventually the sounds of the hooves disappeared into the low shushing roar of the wind, and she walked back along the house to the washing tub and wringer. Ducking past the clothes that flapped on the line, she made her way to the porch and set the rifle on the table, not more than an arm’s stretch away. She put another shirt into the water, still warm from perching in a stream of sunshine. In case the Pinkerton men were watching from a high bluff, she would go about her business as usual. If she saddled a horse and rode into the pasture, they would come back. Besides, Jesse would be here in another five or ten minutes, if he heard the rifle shot.
She had hung up the wet shirt when she spotted two riders coming across the north pasture, dark, blurred figures that gradually began to take shape and color. She knew Butch by the way he sat the saddle, straight-backed and shoulders squared, his body moving in rhythm with the galloping horse. Anthony rode close behind. Mary hurried over to the fence, let herself through the gate, and ran toward them.
“You okay?” Butch shouted when she was still a barn’s length away. “We heard the shot.”
They pulled up beside her, and she told them about the two detectives. She was breathing hard, partly from running, partly from fright, she realized. “Pinkertons,” she said. “Man named Charles Siringo and his partner. The Union Pacific hired them to find you and Sundance. They’re killers, Butch, I could smell it on them.”
Butch turned in his saddle toward the hired hand. “You take Mary back to the house. Don’t leave her, in case they come back. I’m going after Sundance.”
Mary handed the rifle to Anthony and swung up behind him. “I’ll take my gun back, if you please,” she said. She laid it crosswise between her and the saddle. Then she clasped her arms around his waist and held on tight as he spurred the horse into a fast gallop. Over her shoulder she could see Butch riding back across the pasture.
* * *
IN THE KITCHEN she made sandwiches from the beef she had roasted yesterday and the week’s supply of bread she had baked this morning. She wrapped the sandwiches in packing paper and put them in two canvas saddlebags. Then she added hardtack, oranges, a loaf of bread, two jars of beans, and peaches she had put up last fall. She filled tin bottles with fresh spring water and laid them on top. Enough food, she hoped, to get Butch and Sundance to the Wyoming border and all the way into Brown’s Park. Not even Pinkerton detectives would lay siege to Brown’s Park. Or
maybe Butch and Sundance would head to the Hole in the Wall in the Bighorn Mountains. Another place where they would be safe.
She saw the three riders out in the pasture: Butch in the lead, Jesse close behind, and Sundance in the rear. Anthony opened the gate for the riders, who slowed the horses into the yard and dismounted. They stood there talking, making plans. Butch would have already formed one in his mind, she was sure. He would know which direction they had to go in order to avoid the Pinkertons, who had ridden south. While she had prepared the saddlebags, Anthony had saddled fresh horses. Now he led them out of the barn. Butch and Sundance would ride their own horses, with two fresh horses roped behind.
She knew all this, standing by the half-dry laundry on the line, watching with one hand shading her face, because it had happened before. She had never been sure when Butch would leave. Looping through her mind was what she did know, had always known: Butch didn’t like good-byes, so he just left. She picked up the saddlebags, carried them out into the yard, and set them on the ground by the horses.
“You have to go,” she said to Butch.
He nodded. “Pinkertons never give up. We have to stay ahead of them.”
“It’s because of the money, just like I said. The minute Jesse took that money to the bank, somebody figured out where he must’ve gotten it. The railroad put a big price on your heads.”
When she told him the amount, Butch whistled. “Makes me think about turning myself in,” he said. “Now don’t you blame Jesse for saving the ranch. He did it for you.” He held her eyes a long moment until she thought she could read the real meaning in what he had said: I did it for you.
“We wish you luck,” Jesse was saying. “You’ve been a big help to us. Which way you think you’ll go?”
The Man Who Fell from the Sky Page 16