As they neared the house, Stands-Alone began to rein in, stopping in front of the white man. “We come in peace,” he shouted.
“Turn around and ride out of here.” Now the rifle was waving back and forth, moving from Stands-Alone to Thomas to Jesse. The white man was smaller than he remembered, Jesse thought, not much larger than a branch that he could snap in two. Jesse swallowed hard at the rage welling inside him. He could kill the white man with his hands.
“We came to talk,” Stands-Alone said.
“Nothing to talk about. The woman’s dead, and her killers gone with her. There’s no more business between us.”
“Put down your rifle. We bring you images of Bashful.”
“Images?” The white man looked up. “You talking about photographs?”
Stands-Alone sat like a statute and waited. A moment passed before the white man stepped back and set the rifle against the log wall of the house.
“Let me have them,” Evans said.
Jesse felt hot inside, the rage burning through him. He made himself look away from the white man. He was a warrior, and Stands-Alone was the leading man. He would do as Stands-Alone said. The signal came in the almost imperceptible nod—the nod of a chief to the men who rode with him.
Jesse slid from the pony and pried the cyanotypes from his saddlebag. He walked past Stands-Alone’s pony and handed the blue-and-white images to the white man.
It was a moment before the white man let his eyes fasten on them. His face was unreadable, like a sheet of blank paper, as he studied the images. “This ain’t nothing,” he said. “Nobody’s gonna believe ghost images.”
“Everyone will believe these.” Jesse pulled out the black-and-white photos and handed them to Evans.
The man looked at them for a long moment, then he raised his head and threw a glance back at the rifle. “What would stop me from shooting you and taking these photographs?”
Jesse could hear his heart thumping in his ears. They should have brought their own weapons, but Stands-Alone had said that they would go unarmed. They had the weapons they needed, he’d said.
“You could shoot us,” Stands-Alone’s voice again, calm and confident, “but it is not necessary. We bring you the photographs as a gift.”
“What about the glass plates.”
“They are also yours.”
The white man tilted his head and stared at Stands-Alone out of the corners of his eyes, as if he might get a clearer, better image. Finally he said, “I never knew any Indians to come bearing gifts for nothing. You want the land back, ain’t that so? Well, you ain’t getting my land. It’s my land, the way it oughtta be. Bashful never worked this land. She was nothing but a woman, and what’s a woman gonna do with land like this? I’m the one who fixed up this house with my own hands. I got the herd together. Got the best bull in the county. Got the ranch up and going, and all the time I was nothing but a hired hand. It was Bashful who owned the place, and when she told me she didn’t want me for her husband no more, that she wanted to go back to her people, oh, I knew the truth. She was still pining over Jesse here. Would’ve gone running to him, taking her land to him. And where was that gonna leave me? All my work, and for what?” He gathered up a wad of phlegm and spit it onto the ground. “For nothing, that’s what.”
He stepped back and, still watching Stands-Alone, reached for the rifle.
“You can keep the land,” Stands-Alone said.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to.” The white man lifted the rifle, crumpled the cyanotypes and photos in the fist of his other hand and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. “You come here to kill me. You’re gonna take your Indian revenge. Well, I got myself the perfect excuse for shooting first.”
“I tell you, you can keep the land,” Stands-Alone said. “You will have the plates. All of the proof of your shame is yours. We have come for Bashful’s child. Where is she?”
The white man blinked up at Stands-Alone, who sat tall and dignified on his mount. A long moment passed before the white man set the rifle back against the wall. “You gotta be crazy,” he said. Then he pushed the door open and yelled inside the house. “Pauline, get out here. Bring the girl.”
A gust of wind blew across the porch and caught at the white man’s hat so that he had to grab the brim and pull it down. From inside came the soft scrape of moccasins on wood, and then an Arapaho girl no more than ten years old appeared in the doorway. The daughter of Shavehead, Jesse thought, one of the Arapahos who worked on the ranch. The girl must work in the house. She pulled a small child forward, then stooped over and lifted the child onto one hip, swaying with the weight.
The little girl blinked into the light before looking from the white man to Stands-Alone. She had the shiny black hair and oval face that made Jesse close his own eyes a moment. She was an image of Bashful. Except that she had light eyes, the color of finely tanned leather. The eyes of the white man. There was a mixture of confusion and fear in the child’s eyes now, a glimmer of recognition and something else—longing?—as she stared at her uncle.
“You want her, do you?” Evans seemed to find the situation amusing. “A half-breed girl. What good’s she gonna be to you?”
Stands-Alone leaned forward over the horse. “What good is she to you, white man? Will another wife—a white wife—want a half-breed daughter? You can have your own white children. Bashful’s child belongs with her people.”
Evans turned his head and gazed out into the distance, as if he were considering the images in his mind. White wife. White children.
He looked back. “I want everything. All the photographs and glass plates and anything else that you got. There will be no more about this matter, you hear me?”
Jesse waited again for Stands-Alone’s nod before he walked back to the saddlebag. He began withdrawing the glass plates.
“Leave them,” Evans barked. “I’ll take the whole bag.”
Jesse unbuckled the bag and clasped it against his chest a moment. The plates were all they had. They were the truth. They were everything.
He watched Stands-Alone slip off his pony and walk across the porch past the white man. He put out his arms and the child lunged into them. She wrapped small brown arms around the man’s neck and nestled against his chest.
“The saddlebag.” The white man stepped forward holding out his own arms.
Jesse held out the bag, the edge of the glass plates inside the leather hard against his palms. He waited until Stands-Alone had settled the child in the front of the saddle and swung up behind her before he let the white man take the bag. Starting to turn the pony now, Thomas turning his pony behind, shielding his father and the child. The ponies breaking into a gallop.
The white man had already turned back to the porch when Jesse brought his fist crashing against the man’s head. He stumbled forward, and Jesse reached around and yanked the saddlebag free of the man’s grasp.
He threw himself onto the pony and started galloping after the others, the images blurred in the whirlwinds of dust. From behind came the shrill shouts, like a wail of grief, followed by the thud of a rifle shot. Another shot and another, the bullets spitting into the ground around him.
He leaned down along the pony’s head and grasped the saddle bag to his chest. He rode on.
They didn’t stop until they reached Stands-Alone’s place. Jesse dismounted, still clutching the saddle bag as Stands-Alone carried the child to the house and handed her to the woman standing on the porch. Several other children clustered about, wide-eyed, giggling, small brown hands reaching for the new child.
Then Stands-Alone walked back and Jesse handed him the saddle bag. “I can make other photographs,” he said.
“Yes, in time you will do so. Now we must hide this evidence. It must stay hidden until the time is right for the truth.”
“The white man will come with the soldiers.” Thomas was looking over at the porch. The woman had set down the child, and the other children had closed h
er within their circle, laughing and cooing, patting at the black head that bobbed among them. “He will say we stole his child. She is not worth the danger to us. We should have taken back the land.”
Stands-Alone moved close to his son. “Do not be a fool. You must think like white men if you are to keep ahead of them. The white man has what he wants. He does not want the half-breed girl. If he comes with the soldiers, he knows that we will show them the evidence. He cannot take the chance that an officer would not believe the evidence.” Stands-Alone paused. “Do you understand now? It is over.”
35
ST. FRANCIS CEMETERY SPRAWLED across the top of a rise between the mission and Seventeen-Mile Road. It was a short walk up the bulge in the earth, but most of the people who had filled the church for the funeral Mass had piled into pickups and sedans and made the loop out of the mission and back into the cemetery. The vehicles were parked on the narrow dirt road that wound around the perimeter, and the crowd gathered together in a circle around the two coffins poised on gray straps over the open gravesites.
Last night, the people had filled Blue Sky Hall for the wake, crowding into the rows of folding metal chairs, standing along the walls, blocking the doors, and flowing outside into the parking lot. They had come from across the reservation, from Lander and Riverton—whites along with Arapahos—to pay respect to the councilman who had stood up to Senator Evans in the methane gas controversy. Even if they hadn’t agreed with T.J. Painted Horse, they’d admired his courage. The courage that had gotten both the councilman and his wife killed.
Father John had led the prayers of the rosary, voices murmuring the responses in waves of sorrow flowing over the hall. Afterward, Max Oldman had blessed Denise’s and T.J.’s bodies in the caskets. He placed the sacred red paint on their foreheads, cheeks, and hands. “Go with the ancestors,” he’d prayed. “They will welcome you to the sky world. But we know that your spirits will always be with your people to help us.”
Then Max had lifted the pan with the smoldering cottonwood chips and cedar and walked down the center aisle, allowing the smoke to waft across the hall, touching the faces turned toward him. Father John had felt the sense of peace that had moved through the hall.
Now he stood at the head of T.J.’s coffin, Father Damien beside him at the head of Denise’s. They waited until the last knots of people had worked their way around the mounds of other graves and flowed into the rest of the crowd. The wind blew cold and sharp across the cemetery, flapping at the yellow, red, and purple plastic flowers that rose around the white wooden crosses on the dirt mounds. People shuffled about, moving in closer, tightening the circle around the coffins.
Father John opened the prayer book and began reciting the burial prayers: “God, by Whose mercy rest is given to the souls of the faithful, in your kindness, bless these graves.” As he read, the other priest began sprinkling holy water over the coffins: first for Denise, then for T.J.
Father John glanced around the circle of brown faces pressing toward him, then went on: “Almighty and merciful God, take pity upon your people who carry a heavy burden of sorrow. Remove the anger and despair from our hearts, and let us not be consumed by grief and sorrow, as those who have no hope. Let us believe in You and in Your love for us.”
Closing the prayer book, Father John turned to Max Oldman, standing gray-haired and stoop-shouldered beside Denise’s coffin. The elder nodded, then made a slow circle, letting his gaze fall over the crowd. He cleared his throat and began speaking in Arapaho. Father John recognized the tone: formal and declaratory, the tone the chiefs had used in the Old Time to address the village. He closed his eyes and let the words roll over him. How many times had he heard the elders speak? How many funerals? He understood a few words, a phrase here and there. He knew what Max was saying.
“Jevaneatha nethaunainau. God is with us. Jevaneatha Dawathaw henechauchaunane nanadehe vedaw nau ichjeva. His spirit fills everywhere on earth and above us. Jevaneatha nenenadonee naideed. He has lived always. Jevaneatha nenaideed detjanee. He will live forever. Ha, adnauhawanau Jevaneatha ichjeva ith ithinauauk. Yes, those who are good will be with God in heaven.”
The elder paused. No one moved. An air of expectation engulfed the crowd as he nodded to the musicians seated around the drum near the foot of the graves. The drumming and singing began, the high-pitched voices mingling with the sound of a truck out on Seventeen-Mile Road. When the song ended, the elder cleared his throat and let his eyes roam over the faces turned to him. “We ask the Creator and the ancestors to welcome our sister and brother, Denise and T.J. Painted Horse,” he said, his voice piercing the air like an arrow. “In the name of Jesus Christ. Iesous Christos.
He motioned to two men who stepped forward and stooped over the wheels that controlled the gray straps. There was a squealing noise as the coffins began to descend, and someone in the crowd let out a sob. In a moment the coffins were out of sight. Nothing remained but the two oblong holes gaping in the earth. Immediately, three Arapaho men began shoveling the dirt piled a few feet away into the holes.
Max stretched out his arm, and Father John clasped the elder’s hand in his own. In the firm grip, he could sense the strength and determination passed down through the generations, like the old stories. “We appreciate what you’ve been doing for the people,” Max said. Then he turned to Father Damien and shook his hand. After the graves had been filled, the elder motioned to the crowd still fixed in place. Little by little people started forward, dropping flowers onto the mounds until they were covered with pink wild roses and yellow tansies and white asters. Then the people began peeling away. Bunched into little groups, they trudged around the other graves toward the parked vehicles.
Father John went to the family, still hovering about, reluctance etched in their faces. Denise’s people first, shaking hands, patting shoulders. Then Vera, dabbing wads of tissue against her mouth, her eyes fixed on the rectangle of flowers that lay over her brother’s grave. Father John told her again how sorry he was and promised to stop by for a visit soon.
Out on the road, the line of vehicles had started moving around the cemetery in a jerky, stop-and-go motion, plunging one by one out onto Seventeen-Mile Road. There was the sound of engines straining, and puffs of black smoke belched out of tailpipes. Still little groups of people lingered near the gravesites. Max Oldman was on the other side of the cemetery, bent over one of the other graves.
Father Damien stepped away from several members of T.J.’s family and walked over. “Looks like Senator Evans has decided against running for president after all,” he said. “Too many things he’d have to explain, I guess. The senate’s going to investigate his campaign anyway. Saw him on TV last night. He looks like a beaten man.”
“He’ll go on,” Father John said, remembering what Vicky had said. He clasped the other priest’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Damien. We always seem to get enough donations to keep the mission running. The little miracles keep happening.”
Damien shook his head, the shadow of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Then he turned and hurried toward the line of people still making their way to the vehicles.
“Did you find the photographs?” Vicky’s voice behind him. He’d spotted her earlier at the outside edge of the crowd with Adam Lone Eagle, and he’d had to look away. He hadn’t seen her walk over.
He turned toward her now. It surprised him, how much he wanted to tell her what he’d worked out in the last few days, to take her into his confidence. They’d worked together on how many cases? Lawyer. Priest. They’d made a good partnership, and he’d always looked forward to holding up a hypothesis to the bright light of her mind. But things were different now, and he felt himself pulling inward. It was like crawling into a cave and pulling a blanket around himself against the cold.
He glanced across the cemetery at Max Oldman, who was standing with his hands clasped behind his back, staring down at a white cross trimmed with plastic flowers. And beyond, near the Jeep, Adam Lone
Eagle. Waiting.
Finally, he said, “Not yet.”
She looked out in the direction of the Jeep. “I have a new law partner. Adam and I are forming a firm together. We’ll be moving into a larger office. I’ll be busy . . .”
“I hope it works out for you, Vicky,” he said hurriedly, aware that her gaze had shifted in the direction of Max Oldman, and in that instant, he realized that she had also worked it out.
They started off together, threading their way around the mounds, not saying anything. There was no need for words. Max had stopped at another grave when they walked up. Vicky moved to one side of the elder, and Father John took the other side. “Are you all right, grandfather?” he asked.
The elder studied him a moment. His light-colored eyes were suffused in sadness. Then he turned to Vicky. “You did right, granddaughter, sticking up for T.J. The fed could’ve railroaded that Indian right into prison, if you wasn’t there protecting his rights. Maybe T.J. didn’t do right by Denise, but he wasn’t no murderer.”
“Thank you, grandfather,” Vicky said, her gaze on the ground a moment, respectful. But in the slope of her shoulders and the way that she finally raised her eyes to the sky, Father John could almost feel the invisible weight lifting from her.
“It was them damn photographs that killed both of ’em,” Max said, pivoting about and heading down the row of graves. “This way,” he called over his shoulder.
Vicky started after the elder, and Father John fell into step behind. A three-person cortege, he was thinking, reverent and silent, heads bowed, stepping between the mounds topped by wooden crosses and tangled garlands of plastic flowers. They had gone about fifty feet when Max stopped, his head bent toward another white cross. Chiseled into the horizontal bar were the words ELLEN OLDMAN, BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER. GRANDDAUGHTER OF CHIEF SHARP NOSE. DIED OCTOBER 10, 1965.
“She was my mother. She was the daughter of Bashful Woman.” Max took in a gulp of air. “Bashful Woman and Carston Evans. A little half-breed girl that Stands-Alone raised up with his own kids. He had ten, you know, so people sort of lost track. He treated them all the same.”
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