The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  “When did he get back?”

  “Last week sometime.” She went back to tossing the clothes about until she had the other boot. She flopped onto the edge of the sofa, stuck her other foot into the boot, and went about pulling up both zippers. “Showed up out of the blue, never bothered to call all the time he was gone, let me know if he was alive or dead. Just left me alone, like I was nobody, didn’t mean nothing to him. So he shows up. Didn’t say sorry or how you been? Nothing. Just talking about how the answers he wanted was right here all the time. Didn’t need to go to Hollywood after all. But how was he gonna know that if he didn’t go? And a lot of other stuff that didn’t make sense. I said, don’t get me involved in your crazy world, okay? That’s all I wanted, for him to stop talking about the fricking past all the time and just, you know, live today.”

  She jumped up and did a little dance step—one foot out, then the other—glancing down at the boots. Then she patted at her skirt and ran her fingers through the long yellowish hair. “You know what I mean? Live in the now.”

  “Where can I find him?” Father John said.

  “Try the bars. How the hell do I know? Kiki’s out of my life. I’ve had enough, okay?” She took a minute, her jaw rigid with anger. “We got into it last night. He’s going on about Great-grandfather Wallowingbull getting killed out in Hollywood and somebody was gonna pay, and I said, shut the hell up! What do I care about some old man a million years ago? He tried to hit me, but he got a big surprise ’cause I threw a glass at him. Cut him on the forehead. He was bleeding like a pig. I told him to get the hell outta here, and he took off. Guess he didn’t go back to Grandma and Grandpa. Maybe he went back to Hollywood.” She tried for a laugh that came out like a sob. “I don’t ever want to see his crazy face again. You find him, tell him come get his stupid posters.”

  She pivoted about and climbed up onto the sofa. Jamming the high heels into the cushions and piles of clothes, she started ripping the posters off the wall and throwing them onto the floor. Winners of the Wilderness. Two-Fisted Law. Silent Men. “Tell him they’re in the trash where they belong,” she said. “Tell him to drop dead.”

  “What bars?” Father John said.

  She swung around and stared down at him, struggling for her balance, The Covered Wagon crumpled in her hands. “What bar d’ya like?” A steely calmness had come into her voice, as if all the anger had leaked out. “From what I hear, Kiki wasn’t ever particular where he drinks or shoots up. Maybe he went to that place on the Little Wind River for some hits. Maybe he got high and fell into the river. I could hope, right? All I know is, he ain’t never coming back here.”

  Outside Father John started the engine and thought about where Kiki Wallowingbull might have gone last night. Cold air spurted from the vents. The sun glistened on the skin of snow that lay over the hood. There were a couple of bars in town where he had heard Arapahos hung out. Murphy’s. The Drop-In Tavern. A place called Tracers. He could start with the bars, see if anybody had talked to Kiki or knew where he might have spent the night. He could be hung-over, possibly still drunk. It was never easy to come off a drunk. The memory of some of the drunks he’d been on made him wince. All those mornings when, head throbbing, stomach turning over, he had stumbled into one of his American History classes, sunk onto his chair, and ordered the smartest kid in the class to give his impressions of the American Revolution or the Civil War or the conquest of the West, any subject that would run out the class time.

  He stared at the snow tumbleweeds and tried to push the memories away. He didn’t want them. He forced himself to think about what the girl had said, and what she might have left out. It was possible that not only was Kiki drinking, he could still be using. Yet, somehow, he had convinced Andrew and Mamie he was clean. There had been so much hope in Andrew’s eyes at the welcome-home feast two weeks ago: He’s not messing with drugs anymore, Father. But if he was still using, it would explain why Kiki hadn’t called or gone to see his grandparents after he got back from California. And it also explained why Kiki had seemed so jumpy and distracted the morning he had given him a ride.

  Father John shifted into forward and started to pull into the street. The rear tires spun and howled a second before the pickup lurched free. There was a remote spot along the banks of the Little Wind River where drug deals came down. From time to time, the Gazette ran articles about the drug arrests there. He turned onto Federal and drove south toward the reservation. Kiki might have stopped at one of the package stores and bought a bottle, but if he was using again, chances were good that he had headed to the river to buy drugs.

  7

  FATHER JOHN FOLLOWED the snow-packed ruts on Rendezvous Road to where the Little Wind River curved close to the southern edge of the reservation. He had passed the last house about a mile back. All around was nothing but great expanses of snow sparkling in the sun. Bursts of wind skimmed off the surface and tossed white streamers into the air. He parked about fifty feet from where the banks jogged to the northeast. There were no signs of recent activity, no tracks or footprints in the snow.

  Blowing snow pelted his face as he headed for the riverbank. He could see the ice protruding around the edges, the narrow stream bubbling over the boulders in the middle. A fool’s errand, he was thinking, and he laughed out loud at that. A fool’s errand in search of what Dede called a crazy man. With all the articles in the newspaper, the drug dealers had probably moved onto a new location.

  He stood on the riverbank and peered through the blowing snow that whipped at his jacket and bunched around his boots. He might have been the only man in the world, he thought, stranded on a cap of ice and snow after some global catastrophe. He turned around and, squinting into the glare, started retracing his tracks back to the pickup. He was about to get inside when the wind died back and the swirling snow dropped out of the air. It was then that he saw the ruts and tracks about fifty feet along the bank from where he had been standing. Then another sweep of wind and snow, and the view was gone.

  He turned back and set out on a diagonal toward the area. Despite the bright sunshine, cold had penetrated his jacket and blue jeans. He flexed his fists inside his gloves to work the circulation back into his fingers. Each time the wind stopped blowing, he was able to see more: a double set of faint tire tracks running toward Rendezvous Road, a churned area where a vehicle had backed up. Only one set of tracks, he thought, one vehicle coming from the road and heading back. He could make out traces of boot prints. Kiki could have driven here last night, expecting to meet someone. He might have waited a while, stomped around in the snow, impatient and angry, drinking out of a bottle in a brown paper bag, reliving the fight with Dede. Why didn’t she understand he owed his grandfather everything? Waiting for someone to come with the magic that would give the illusion of calmness and make him believe that things made sense.

  Here was something: boot prints dug deep into the snow, as if whoever made them had been carrying something heavy. The prints ran toward the rise above the river, then looped around and disappeared into the churned snow. Father John walked alongside the boot prints and stopped where they stopped. The bank sloped down through mounds of snow and boulders to the river about five feet below. There was a peaceful sound to the flowing water.

  Then he saw the body wedged between boulders and chunks of ice. The bulky dark blue jacket, the strip of dark skin between the bottom of the jacket and the top of the blue jeans, the arms thrust outward, fingers clawlike, stopped in space. Father John started down the slope, moving from one snow-slicked boulder to the next, stopping to get his balance, then going on. He knew it was Kiki even before he worked his way around the body and crouched down close to the face. Something about the blue jacket, like the one Kiki had on when he had given him a ride.

  A half-inch cut gaped in the purple lump on Kiki’s forehead. The brown eyes were half closed, as if he were staring downward. The jacket was unzipped part way, exposing the front of a purple-colored plaid shirt. The skin of Kiki�
��s throat looked grayish in death. There were little cuts and abrasions on his hands, the nails torn and dirty.

  Father John reached out and brushed back the piece of black hair that had fallen over Kiki’s forehead. “What happened to you?” he said out loud, and yet he knew part of it. Whatever had happened, someone had driven here, carried Kiki’s body to the riverbank, and thrown it down the slope. It might not have been discovered until spring.

  He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the water and the wind whistling over the snow. “God have mercy on your soul, Kiki Wallowingbull,” he said.

  FATHER JOHN SPOTTED the fed, Ted Gianelli, as he came up the slope and headed in his direction. Six feet tall with broad shoulders, black hair flecked with snow, everything about him seeming intentional and measured. Twenty minutes after Father John had called 911 from his cell phone, a police car had careened down the road. It had pulled in next to Father John’s pickup, and Father John had waved the two Wind River police officers over to the riverbank above the body. He had been sitting on a boulder, keeping watch. The stone’s coldness had seeped into his thighs and run up his back; his fingers felt like ingots. Still he hadn’t wanted to leave the body alone and wait in the pickup.

  The officers had called the FBI office in Lander. An unexplained death on an Indian reservation; this was a federal matter. Another forty minutes before Gianelli’s white SUV had parked behind the police car, but by then there were three other police cars and the coroner’s van. One of the officers had staked yellow tape around part of the area where remnants of tire tracks and boot prints had escaped the blowing snow. Yellow tape marked a half circle at the riverbank where Kiki’s body had been thrown. Other officers were moving about, examining the tire tracks and boot prints. A man in a red jacket bobbed about taking photographs. The coroner and his assistant had side-stepped down the slope and were hovering over the body.

  “What brought you out here?” Gianelli said when he was still a couple of yards away. He had the quiet, intense look of the Patriots linebacker he had been twenty years ago.

  “I was looking for Kiki,” he said. “I heard he might have come here last night.”

  Gianelli waited with the patience honed on the field—watching for the snap of the ball before springing into action.

  Father John went on: “I saw his girlfriend this morning. Her name is Dede. She said they had a fight last night and Kiki took off.” Gianelli was nodding. He wasn’t telling the fed anything he couldn’t have figured out for himself. “She thought he might have come here to buy drugs,” Father John added.

  Gianelli lifted his chin a moment and glanced around at the sky. “What a waste,” he said. “When I heard the state had paroled Kiki Wallowingbull, I knew we hadn’t heard the last of him. He was going to be back into trouble, the only question was how soon. What did it take? A few weeks to turn up dead? Couldn’t lose the habit or the lousy people he hung out with. Selling drugs to their own people, getting kids addicted. Real pieces of work, these bastards, and Kiki was one of them.”

  “His grandfather says he was off drugs,” Father John said, and he told the fed that Kiki had gone through rehab in prison. He had been thinking about all of it, the cold working its way up his spine. Nobody knew Kiki Wallowingbull better than Andrew and Mamie, and they believed he was through with drugs. “Maybe he didn’t come here to buy drugs,” he said. “There was only one vehicle, and there isn’t any abandoned vehicle around. Kiki didn’t drive himself here and throw himself down the slope.”

  Gianelli studied him a moment, dark eyes narrowed into slits. A gust of snow swirled between them. “I was just about to say that.” He threw a glance over at the officers peering down at the tire tracks. “You ever want to come to work for the FBI, let me know,” he said, smile lines creasing his face. “I’ll give you a good recommendation.” He made a half turn toward the body below. “Coroner says he was probably beaten, but he can’t say for sure that he was dead when he was dumped here.”

  “You’re saying Kiki froze to death?”

  “We won’t know until the autopsy.”

  Dear Lord! Father John watched the coroner balancing himself on a boulder close to Kiki’s body. “Why bring him here?” he said.

  “You want a theory?” Gianelli snapped his gloves together. “A lot of drug deals have taken place here. Somebody was sending a message.”

  “So if I hadn’t come along . . .”

  “Exactly,” Gianelli said. “Eventually some drug dealer or his client would’ve stumbled on the body and gotten a message loud and clear. Might not have been until spring, but it would’ve happened.” He lifted a gloved hand. “I know Andrew and Mamie Wallowingbull want to believe Kiki was done with the drug crowd. They’re good people. From what I’ve heard, they did their best for that boy, and they’re going to spend the rest of their lives crying for him. They always believed what he told them. Wasn’t in their nature to doubt him. Why were you looking for him?”

  Father John made a fist and blew into the tunnel of his glove. The warm air drifted over his chin. Then he told the fed how Andrew and Mamie were worried, how they hadn’t heard from Kiki since he’d gone to Los Angeles.

  “Los Angeles?”

  “Hollywood,” Father John said. He explained that he had picked up Kiki hitchhiking two weeks ago, taken him to the café in Riverton for breakfast, and left him on the highway to catch a ride to Rawlins. “He was looking for family history. Wanted to know what had happened to his great-grandfather when he was working in the silent movies. I think he stayed about a week.”

  “Family history?” Gianelli gave a cough of laughter. “Just when I think I’ve heard it all, something else pops up.” He took a step closer and—his voice low—said, “We know that meth and cocaine are shipped from Mexico to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles, the drugs come right here.” He jabbed a gloved finger toward the snow. “But there are stops along the way in either Salt Lake City or Denver.”

  “What are you saying, Ted? That Kiki went to Los Angeles to buy drugs directly?”

  Gianelli shrugged. “I’m saying the stakes would be high, maybe worth the danger of blocking out the couriers in Salt Lake or Denver. He could have brought in the drugs himself and pocketed the profits. They could have come after him.”

  “Except that when I saw him, he was obsessed with finding his great-grandfather.”

  “A week in LA?” Gianelli shook his head, pulled a small notepad from inside his jacket, and started clicking a ballpoint pen. His black gloves were flecked with snow. “Where can I find the girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know her last name,” Father John said. Then he told him the rest: a small girl, blond hair, about twenty-five, living in a house on Adams Street in Riverton, working in a nail salon on Federal.

  Gianelli scribbled something on the pad, then slipped the pad and pen back inside his jacket. “Will you tell the grandparents?”

  Father John nodded. What was it the girl had called him? Some kind of ghoul, knocking on doors, following death around? The bearer of news nobody wanted to hear. He could picture the old man, swallowed in the pillows propped against the headboard, Mamie fussing over him, both of them worrying about Kiki, fearing the worst. Now he would be the one to tell them the worst had happened.

  IT WAS A long moment before Mamie answered the door. He could hear the muffled sound of her footsteps padding down the hallway and across the vinyl floor in the living room, then the rattling doorknob. Finally the door inched open and the old woman’s face slid around the edge. Surprise registered in the brown eyes. “You forget something, Father?”

  “I have to talk to you and Grandfather,” Father John said. He could hear the solemnity in his tone that had seemed to come of its own accord, the tone of a funeral oration.

  “Please,” she said, pulling the door all the way open and waving him inside. The look of dread had started to work into her features. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  Father John stepped insid
e. Drapes had been pulled across the window, throwing patterns of light and shade across the sofa and recliner. He could hear the ragged breathing of the old woman beside him.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” Andrew had materialized at the end of the hallway and was leaning against the edge of the wall.

  “Oh!” Mamie clasped her hand over her mouth. For an instant, Father John thought she would topple over. He reached out, took hold of the woman’s arm, and guided her down onto the sofa.

  “Come sit down, Grandfather,” he said stepping over to Andrew. He slipped his arm around the man’s shoulders and led him to the recliner. “How did you know?” he said. Still the solemnity in his tone. He pulled over a straight-back chair and sat down in front of the old couple.

  It was a moment before Andrew said, “They killed him, just like they killed my father.” Mamie had shifted around, her eyes fastened on the old man. Little lines of moisture ran down her cheeks.

  “I knew they was gonna do that.” Andrew shook his head, a gesture of such futility and hopelessness that Father John could feel his own heart sink. “Tried to tell him not to go to Hollywood. No good was gonna come of it. I was scared when he walked out that door”—he lifted one hand toward the front door, then let it flop back onto the armrest—“that he was never gonna come back.”

  “He was killed here, Grandfather,” Father John said. “I went looking for him after I spoke with his girlfriend. I found his body down by the Little Wind River.”

  Mamie dropped her face into her hands. Tears bubbled between her fingers, her narrow shoulders were shaking. “Tell us,” she said, her voice muffled and tear-soaked. “What did they do to our boy?”

  Father John hesitated. Truth was so hard to tell, and so hard to take. Yet the old couple had the right to know. “The coroner thinks he was beaten,” he said. “He won’t know the exact cause of death until the autopsy.”