Father John leaned forward. “Rumors are that he buried treasure in the mountains and left behind a map. Did Mary say anything about a map?”
“Oh, he buried the loot, all right.” Julia bent forward as if she were about to jump out of the chair. Her features froze with anxiety. “But if George had left a map, don’t you think Mary would’ve used it during all the troubles?”
“Tell us about the troubles, Mom.”
The room was quiet. Father John could feel his cell phone vibrating against his chest. Vicky, he thought. He pulled the phone out of his shirt pocket and glanced at the ID. An Oklahoma number; Macon Walking Bear returning his call. Vicky was in court, Father John told himself. She was okay.
He replaced the phone and forced himself to concentrate on the elderly woman framed in the bright light. She seemed to be turning the answer over in her mind. Finally, she said, “Jesse got killed; fell off his horse, which Mary said was no accident because Jesse was the best rider in the county. He could tame a wild horse, saddle, and ride it before the horse knew what was going on. In his rodeo days, he could stay on a bronco longer than any other cowboy. But one day the hired hand came galloping across the pasture with Jesse’s body slung behind him and said the horse got scared by lightning and Jesse got thrown. Mary had hard times after that, real hard times. The hired hand took off and left her alone to run the ranch. If she’d had a map to hidden treasure, don’t you figure she would’ve used it? There was no map. There was nothing.”
Charlotte seemed to take a minute to see if her mother intended to go on before she said, “How do you think the rumor of a map got started?”
“Everybody wants to find treasure. It’s exciting to think of buried treasure up in the mountains. You can go up there and dream you’re standing on it, thousands and thousands of gold coins.”
“So Mary denied there was ever a map,” Charlotte said, clearing up something for herself.
“Denied? I didn’t say that. She never mentioned it, that’s all, and us kids sure didn’t ask her even though we’d heard the rumors and seen the treasure maps in the tourist stores. She would’ve called it hokum, and she didn’t like hokum. She was real practical, down-to-earth. Accepted what came and made the best of it. Married a rancher near Rawlins after a couple years, but she always stayed in touch with her daughter. I never met Mary’s second husband; he died before I was born. That was when she moved to Riverton to be closer to her daughter. Little Mary was my mother.” Julia was quiet a long moment, as if she were pulling a reluctant memory from the back of her mind. “We were a small family, just Mom and Dad, me, and Grandmother. When Mother died, it about killed Grandmother, but she went on. Like I say, she was a tough woman.”
“What about George Cassidy,” Father John said. “Did she ever see him again?”
“Oh, more than once. Like I say, he never forgot her. I heard he came to visit old friends in the 1920s before I was born. Came again in the 1930s, and every time he came, he visited Mary. I remember her talking about how all of them went on a camping trip in the mountains in the summer of 1934. She told stories about how they left the others at the campsite and hiked around the mountains together, just her and George. He told her all about himself, how he’d gone straight, got married and had a son, and built a business in Washington. It made her happy to know he hadn’t been run to the ground and shot like an animal, and all those stories about him and Sundance getting killed in Bolivia was just hogwash.”
“Were they looking for the treasure?” Father John said.
“They were looking, all right, but they never found it. I figure George must’ve told Mary where he’d buried it, and he was counting on her to help him find it. But she said she didn’t know anything about it.” Julia put up a hand and waved at the light, as if she might turn it off. “Where are we now?” she said. “The sun is awful bright.”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Charlotte said. “You’re still telling stories about your grandmother Mary.”
“Mary.” Julia spoke the name softly, and her gaze took that inward look again. “She was a fine woman. Very tough, or she wouldn’t have survived. I remember how she always wore a red gingham dress with a big white apron she’d lift to wipe her face. She worked hard . . .”
“Mom, do you remember any other stories about George Cassidy?”
“He gave Mary this ring with a real opal.” She raised her hand again and turned it in the light. A gold ring with a round stone sparkled on her finger. “Sent it to her after he went back to Washington. Look here, inside.” She slid the ring off her finger and held it out.
Charlotte got up, took the ring, and peered at the inner circle. Then she handed the ring to her mother and sat back down. “Tell us what the inscription says.”
“Geo C. to Mary B.” Julia slipped the ring back on her finger and patted it, as if she wanted to protect it. “Grandmother wore this ring until the day she died.”
* * *
THE RESIDENTS HAD settled into a steady line that shuffled out the double doors when Todd Paxton slid in beside Father John. “That wraps things up,” he said. “We’ve got other folks that claim Butch Cassidy came back here. Lone Bear remembers seeing him. Historians aren’t going to like it, but people hereabouts say they know what they know. I appreciate your help.” Father John shook the man’s hand. The film crew was about finished packing up.
Father John went over to Julia and thanked her for her stories. The old woman looked up, blinking him back into memory. “My stories, yes, my stories,” she said, and he realized that she was about to sink again into the space that she occupied most of the time. He leaned in closer. “One other thing, Julia. Did your grandmother ever mention the name of the hired hand?”
She started shaking her head before he had finished the question. “She said, ‘Let it be. What’s done is done.’ But one time I heard her talking to my mother. She said Walking Bear seen Jesse get thrown from his horse.”
One of the Walking Bears. Never owned a spread of their own. Hired out on ranches. It made sense. Father John thanked the old woman again.
Charlotte stood by her mother, an arm around her shoulders. She smiled at Father John as she said, “You did great, Mom.”
“Did I?” Julia said.
* * *
OUTSIDE FATHER JOHN checked his cell. A voice mail from Macon Walking Bear. He got into the pickup, pressed the callback button, and listened to the ringing of a phone somewhere in Oklahoma.
32
“THIS IS MACON Walking Bear. You called me.”
Father John thanked the man for returning his call. A hot, dry breeze whipped around the pickup. The air tasted of the West, of dust and dried sage and pine trees and asphalt leaking heat. He had parked in the shade of a tree, but arrows of sun lay across the passenger seat and the heat rose toward him. He left the driver’s door open and sat crosswise behind the wheel, one boot on the pavement, explaining to the man on the other end that he was the pastor at St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation.
“I remember the place. Sent my son to school there.”
“I’m calling about James.”
The line went silent, and for a moment Father John thought the connection had been cut off. Then the voice said, “What about him?”
“I understand he graduated from college and worked in the oil fields.”
“Yeah, that’s true. Always was smarter than the cousins. Accounts for why I moved the family to Oklahoma to be close to my wife’s people. They were a smart bunch, real good educations, not like that bunch of Walking Bears on the rez. I didn’t want James to be like them. After he got out of school, he got real good jobs, made a lot of money.”
“Did he ever . . .” Father John took a moment to parse the words and arrange the question. “Show an interest in the treasure Butch Cassidy supposedly buried in the mountains here?”
“That old myth!” Macon
Walking Bear chuckled, or perhaps he was coughing up phlegm. “Swore up and down from the time he was a kid that one day he’d find that treasure. Had a collection of maps when we moved off the rez. Always sure one of them was genuine.” Another gravelly noise came down the line. “I never took much notice of those old stories myself. Folks got to believe in something. I figured if James wanted to believe in a treasure, it was all right with me.”
Father John leaned his shoulder against the seat. He was thinking that Cutter could have come here to find a treasure he had always believed existed. Which meant he had left a good job, moved away from family. Which meant he was serious. How serious was he? Enough to murder a cousin and perhaps cause the death of another?
And something not quite right here, something off. He could sense it. The logic made sense: local boy grows up with rumors of a treasure, moves away, but never forgets and one day, he returns. He could still see the brown-faced boy smiling out of the photo, and he tried again to fit the image into the features of the man who had come to the mission. Looking for his roots. And remembering a boarding school he had never known.
“You still there?”
“Sorry,” Father John said. “Do you think your son came back here to look for the treasure?”
“He always talked about going back, but he was too busy working, never got to go anywhere. Hardly ever came home. I guess that’s what happens. You get your kids up and educated, and they leave you.”
“What do you mean?” Cutter’s father didn’t know his son had moved here? “He seems to be settling in here just fine.”
The line went silent again. Then, a strangled sob, like the sound of a branch breaking. “Who are you?” The words were shaky and uncertain.
“I’m the pastor . . .”
“You’re an impostor. What do you want? What are you trying to sell me?”
“I don’t understand,” Father John said, but he was beginning to understand. He pushed on: “Tell me about James.”
“My son is dead. You call me with some fool story about him being on the rez! What do you want?”
“Mr. Walking Bear,” Father John said, taking his time. “There is a man here who claims to be your son. I’m sorry.”
“Who? Who would claim such a thing?”
“I was hoping you could help. I know this is painful . . .”
“You don’t know anything.”
“Do you mind telling me how your son died?”
“Yeah, I mind.” Silence again, but this time it came with a heaviness, as though the man’s grief and thoughts had moved ahead of his words. “It was an accident, they said. They said James was up on an oil rig inspecting some equipment when he slipped and fell. James had crawled all over oil rigs for years. He was sure-footed as a mountain goat. They said he hit his head and it killed him. Now you tell me there’s somebody there . . .”
“I am so sorry about your son,” Father John said. He waited a moment before he went on. “The man here calls himself Cutter. The Walking Bear cousins said they recognized him.”
“They’re fools. I thought about sending word up there that James had been killed, but I never got around to it. We left that bunch of Walking Bears behind. The family we belonged to was here in Oklahoma.”
“Did James ever mention anyone named Cutter?”
“James was Cutter! He was the best at cutting out the cattle that needed branding. He was the best . . .” Another sob broke in. “The best at everything he did. Sure he used to talk about taking a vacation and going to the rez to look for treasure. Uncle of mine named Luther Walking Bear always claimed he had Butch Cassidy’s map, which was a lie, but it got the kids excited. He was going to ask my uncle if he could see the map. When my uncle died, James figured one of the cousins took the map. He thought he could make a deal. The cousin would let him see the map, and he’d share whatever he found. A dream was all it was.”
A dream he could have passed on to someone else, Father John was thinking. “Did he ever mention anyone he worked with?”
“James had a lot of friends. Everybody liked him.”
“Anyone he might have told about the treasure?”
“Didn’t talk about it to strangers. Didn’t want people thinking he was nuts. But there was one guy—give me a minute, I’ll come up with the name. This guy was a treasure hunter. Used to take off from time to time to hunt for gold the Spanish buried in Colorado. James said he never found anything, but he liked the hunt.” Another pause before the man went on. “He showed up here after James got killed, said he was real sorry. Big, good-looking fellow, reminded me of James. His name just came to me, Mike Nighthorse. He was with James when he fell.”
Father John told the man again how sorry he was. Then he asked if he had heard that two of the cousins, Robert Walking Bear and Dallas Spotted Dear, had died. Mysteriously, he said.
Macon Walking Bear said nothing, but the sound of his breathing rushed over the line like the wind. “That impostor around when they died?”
“It’s possible,” Father John said.
“You got to root him out. You hear me? You got to root out evil.”
* * *
ROOT OUT EVIL. Dear Lord! Is that what the man who had made himself into Cutter Walking Bear was? Evil. Father John stared at the cell in his hand for a long moment after the line went dead. He had told the dead man’s father that he would take the information to the FBI agent. The wind had picked up and was whipping through the pickup and banging the door against his leg. He slid inside, closed the door, and called Gianelli’s office.
“Sorry, Father.” A polite voice on the other end, a new recruit, maybe, anxious to please. “Agent Gianelli isn’t in, but I can try to reach him and give him a message.”
“Ask him to call me,” Father John said. “It’s urgent.”
He put the pickup into reverse, then shifted into forward and followed a sedan onto the street. The light at the intersection ahead was green, and he sped up, close behind the sedan, making a left as the light switched to red. He made another left onto Highway 789 and called Vicky’s office, the cell tight against his ear, waiting for Annie’s voice. The phone rang several times before the robotic voice told him to leave a message, and that was strange. Annie was in the office every weekday, nine to five.
He had slowed down for the right turn into the reservation. Ahead, the steeple of St. Francis Church poked through the cottonwoods and rose against the clear, blue sky. He pressed hard on the gas pedal and drove on. A left onto Rendezvous Road. He was close to Lander when he tried Vicky’s office again. The same message; no one in the office. He realized he was weaving across the lanes and tried to concentrate on holding the pickup steady as he called Gianelli again. The same polite voice assured him he would pass on the message the minute the agent called in.
Vicky was in court. He kept reminding himself. In court. In court. She was safe.
* * *
“WHERE ARE WE going?” Vicky gripped the steering wheel; her knuckles rose into small white peaks. A part of her knew exactly where Cutter would take her. He had forced her down the back stairs and out into the parking lot. Her car, he’d said, not that old wreck of a rental. Besides he had left it six blocks away and walked to her apartment. No sense in alerting her he was here, now was there? He had handed her the keys she had taken from the bowl.
He was laughing to himself. Congratulating himself. He ignored her question, and she asked it again.
“Let’s say you were so distraught over the death of your client . . .”
“What are you talking about?” The two-lane road ahead lifted itself into the foothills, the same road she and Ruth had taken to Bull Lake. The same road she had driven alone when she had found the piece of map at the campsite.
“I’m through playing games with you.” A new menace in his voice, as if he were no longer engaged, as if whatever happened next w
ould happen on its own. “We could have been a great couple, you and me. I know you saw it. What is it about you? So suspicious, asking questions that were none of your business, pushing all the time. I never liked pushy women. I wanted you to trust me. Stop asking questions and trust me.”
“You killed Robert.” The words surprised her, welling up from someplace deep inside.
“Dallas told you that?”
“It’s true, isn’t it?” The road started to wind upward. Around each bend she could see the roofs of the reservation shimmering in the sun, an ordinary day, people going about their lives. The red and blue lights of police cars flashed in the distance. She pushed on: “Dallas told me how you killed Robert.” It was a lie, but it was all she had. “He told Gianelli, too.”
“Really?” Cutter laughed to himself again, and the sound was like the gurgling of water deep inside a pipe. “Too bad Dallas is dead. That leaves only you. I doubt any judge would allow that kind of hearsay, but you’re the lawyer. Maybe you know some way to get around it. Can’t take any chances, can we?”
“You dragged Robert to the lake and threw him in.” She was making it up now, imagining how it must have happened. She waited for Cutter to object, but he stayed quiet, and she went on. “There’s a steep drop-off. You made sure Robert was in the deep water, while you stayed where it was shallow and kicked him under.”
“Kicked?” Cutter flinched forward. He lifted the gun and pushed the muzzle into her neck. Show him nothing, she told herself. Not the tremors running through her body, not the fear thumping inside her. A lifetime passed, as she maneuvered the Ford around another bend. He would not kill her here. A plunge off the side of the road, and he would die as well.
The Man Who Fell from the Sky Page 23