William had waited outside the tipi, listening to the low rumble of voices. McCoy’s voice firm with sympathy. Charlie’s voice angry at first and finally sinking into a low mumble. McCoy gave him a nod when he came out, and William knew that McCoy had reminded Charlie that in two weeks they could collect their money, ride to Milford, and board the train. They could go home.
Now Cruze lifted the megaphone to his mouth. “Bridger! Open the door and step out. You’ve heard the wagons rolling in. You haven’t seen white people in months. You’re excited and overcome with joy. Let’s see excitement and joy in your eyes. Crank ’em!”
The cameraman started turning the crank. The violin music got faster, like the music speeding up at a powwow, and the door at the fort swung open. The old man playing Jim Bridger leaped outside, throwing both hands in the air. A smile stretched across his face, eyes wide with excitement. He stepped forward, bowlegged and stiff-legged at the same time, as if he weren’t used to moving about without a horse. The player looked so much like Jim Bridger, Goes-in-Lodge had said when he first saw him, that he was sure the old trader’s ghost was walking the earth.
“Good! Good!” The voice blasted out of the megaphone. “Keep moving. You are greeting the emigrants. They’ve come a long distance, suffered many hardships, and now they will be safe for a time at your fort. Let us see the safety you offer. Cut! Perfect!”
Cruze swung around and waved at the cameraman. The carello rolled backward and the camera swiveled about so that the lens now turned on the wagons lined up in front of the fort. “Emigrants! You are finally at Fort Bridger. You have hungered for the sight of this outpost of civilization for hundreds of miles. You are exhausted from the long trip, yet now you are overcome with joy and relief. Show us the exhaustion and the joy. Eyes! Eyes! Let us see the feelings in your eyes.”
The pretty woman with black hair, Molly Wingate in the story, climbed down from a wagon. She looked tired and dusty, shoulders drooped in weariness. He must have been twenty feet away, yet William could see the tears welling in Molly’s eyes and the mixture of relief and joy shining through her expression. She lifted her head, drawing from a well of inner strength and started forward.
Cruze shouted, “The eyes. The eyes. You see Indians hanging around the fort. You do not trust them.” Molly’s eyes became rounded in fear. “The fort is your refuge. You trust only Bridger. Let us see the trust and fear.” Molly stumbled past Goes-in-Lodge and two of the other buffalo Indians seated cross-legged around a pile of buffalo robes and threw herself into the arms of the old trader. Shining out of her eyes was a different spirit from the one William had seen at breakfast this morning. She had been Lois Wilson then, relaxed and chatting with the hero, J. William Kerrigan, as they moved down the food table, helping themselves to bacon and eggs and oatmeal.
Kerrigan jumped out of another wagon and went after Molly, but now he was Will Banion, in love with Molly, looking out for her. And yet this morning he had left Lois Wilson at the food table and gone over to eat with Cruze and two of the cameramen. It was the same with the other players, William realized. Shape-shifters, all of them. Jostling one another as they dished up food, sitting in the shade next to a wagon, looking tired and bored. Then shifting into emigrants, weary and determined, frightened and courageous, driving the oxen, walking in clouds of dust next to the wagons.
“Get the wide angle.” Cruze walked about, gripping the megaphone and flapping his other arm like a lopsided bird trying to lift off. Another camera stood nearby on a tripod fixed to the ground. The cameraman who had been standing about came to life and hunched over the lens.
Cruze swung back to the fort. “Indians! I need menace, surliness. You are drunk, beaten down. You know your ways have ended. You hate the emigrants who took your lands. Show us the bleary, drunken hatred in your eyes. Whiskey bottles are everywhere. You are drinking out of bottles.” He bent his head and peered around. “Where are the bottles?”
McCoy stepped out of the crowd. White cowboy hat pulled forward, shading his face, black shirt sweat-smashed against his back. He walked over to the director. “I thought we settled this.” His voice cut through the hush. “Indians went to the forts to trade. Look!” He nodded in the direction of Goes-in-Lodge. “They’ve brought buffalo robes to show the way they traded.”
“The audience wants to see drunken Indians.” Cruze waved him off. “Get the whiskey bottles!”
“It will look like Indians were drunks. That isn’t the truth.”
“What do I care about truth? We give the audience what they want, and they want drunken Indians.”
William saw Goes-in-Lodge push himself to his feet. The other buffalo Indians stood up beside him. Straight-backed, all of them, heads high, staring out beyond the line of wagons toward the expanse of brown desert. Then they started walking in the direction of the tipis. The others fell in behind. Two and three at first, and finally groups of Indians walking away. William hung back.
“What the hell is going on?” Cruze’s voice was hoarse and strained. “We’re not done shooting.”
“They were traders,” McCoy said. “You’ve turned them into drunkards.”
Cruze started pacing, carving out a wide circle. Little clouds of dust rose around his boots. “All right! All right! Get ’em back here. They can be goddamn traders. But I want some drunks, you understand? The audience expects drunks.”
McCoy swung about and hurried after the Indians. William watched him push through the others until he had caught up with Goes-in-Lodge. Hands were flying: McCoy first, then Goes-in-Lodge and some of the other old men. Finally they turned around. It was like watching a herd of buffalo starting back.
“Indians!” Cruze spit out the word. He was still pacing about, muttering something about Indians being more trouble than they were worth. He stopped pacing, lifted the megaphone, and shouted, “Places everyone. We don’t have all day.”
William moved to his place near the fort and watched the others trailing back and dropping cross-legged onto the ground. A prop man scattered whiskey bottles about. Goes-in-Lodge and the buffalo Indians settled themselves around the pile of buffalo robes. Charlie was standing back. Finally he came toward William. The prop man cut across his path and tried to hand him a whiskey bottle, which Charlie stared at for a moment. Then he took hold of the neck and threw the bottle high into the air. His face was red and puffed. The bottle arced toward the fort and crashed against the wall, making a loud popping noise. Pieces of glass shimmered in the dirt.
“Great!” Cruze shouted. “Get the broken glass. It will look like the Indians had a drunken orgy outside the fort.”
William could read the signs that McCoy made toward Goes-in-Lodge. “Two more weeks and you can go home.”
An air of resignation dropped over the buffalo Indians, William thought. Hunched over, eyes on the pile of buffalo robes, as if all they cared about was making the trade, bringing food home to their families. They would have looked the same at Fort Bridger in the Old Time. William could feel the truth of it in his bones. He had heard the grandfather stories all his life. How the warriors rode for days, the sun hot on their backs, the packhorses straining and snorting with the weight of the buffalo robes. How they waited in front of the forts to bargain with the white traders and soldiers coming and going. They drove hard bargains, the whites used to say. The old men would laugh at the memory.
Until the last days, when the buffalo were disappearing and the warriors had no robes to trade. Only beaded necklaces and pieces of extra clothing and worn moccasins spread on the hard ground. Finally the warriors had stopped going to the forts. But the fort Indians went, the beggars with no dignity, driven mad by the white man’s whiskey and the hunger in their bellies.
William watched Goes-in-Lodge, waiting for the old man’s expression to change. He stayed stone-faced. All the buffalo Indians, stone-faced with resignation. It would be up to him and Charlie and the rest of the younger generation, he realized, to show the anger over all th
at was lost.
William made himself look menacing, crouching alongside Charlie and some of the others, as if they were ready to attack the wagons drawn up at the fort. The violin squealed at a faster tempo. The camera clanked over the sound of boots on the ground, the whoosh of air parting as the players moved about. Molly threw herself again into the arms of the old trader. Will Banion was right behind, hovering over her. The woman he loved. He’d gotten her safely to Fort Bridger.
Then William saw the beautiful white girl, huddled in one of the wagons, cradling a doll that resembled a baby. Her blond curls fell around the folds of the dark shawl pulled about her shoulders. A pioneer woman, crossing the plains, wanting only a new and better life for her child!
William could feel himself changing the way the other players had changed. He was someone else, a warrior in the Old Time with everything slipping away. It was like the vision quest he had made last year. Alone on the cliff, with no food or water, only the little campfire of burning sage. On the third day he had seen a man approaching. The man had shifted into a bear, and he had known that the bear would give him bear’s gifts of courage and determination. It was the bear that had been true, not the shape of the man, and William wondered which shape was true for the players. Which shape was true for himself, the friendly, helpful Indian or the menacing warrior waiting for a chance to kill white people?
“Cut!” The director’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Indians, that’s all for now. Wait by the tables.”
William saw that the carello had been moved all the way around the set so that the camera now faced the inside room. One of the cameramen yanked a curtain partway across the rod, and sunshine and shadow striped the room. Cruze yelled something at Bridger and Molly Wingate, who stood near the table. The camera started whirring, then settled into the familiar clacking noise as William started after Goes-in-Lodge and the others. Almost everyone was moving toward the food tables, whites and Indians alike. He could see the plates of donuts, the silver coffee urns.
“Did you see her?” Charlie stepped beside him. “She looked worried.”
William kept his eyes straight ahead, not saying anything. He knew who Charlie was talking about.
“They could hurt her.”
“They wouldn’t do that.” William kept his voice beneath his breath so that the others wouldn’t hear. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “She makes money for them. White people love money. Why would they hurt her?”
“She loves an Indian.”
William stopped and faced the man. The other Arapahos and Shoshones flowed past—a few buffalo Indians hurrying to catch up, the younger generation sprinting ahead. Moccasins made a rhythmic scuffing sound against the ground, and little clouds of dust rose around their tanned-hide trousers. “She doesn’t love anybody but herself,” he said.
William saw Charlie’s hands ball into fists. He forced himself to seem relaxed, unconcerned, but inside he felt himself get ready to stop the fists from crashing into his face. Indians fighting on the set. They would all be sent back to the rez without paychecks. “You’re different, that’s all. She’s been amusing herself.”
A fist came up then, but William lifted his arm and knocked it back. “Take it easy,” he said. “Remember who you are. Arapaho. We came here to do a job. We keep our word.”
Charlie seemed to think on this because the fist dropped. He began to relax into himself, shoulders sagging, arms hanging at his sides. “I never met a woman like her,” he said. The other Indians were slowing down, staring at them as they passed, and William could see the worry coiled in their eyes.
He said, “They’ll probably send her back to Hollywood. McCoy said she’s gonna be a player in another movie. She never should’ve come here.” He was thinking that if Mr. Lasky heard about her and Charlie, he would order her back to Hollywood.
“Remember what McCoy told us,” he said, but he realized Charlie wasn’t listening. He was looking toward tent city. There she was: floating down the narrow street between rows of tents, the white dress swaying around her legs as she moved in the direction of the tables. The sun shone through the curled blond hair that lay over the white shoulders. The shawl she’d had on was gone. William realized he was holding his breath. He could never have imagined a creature so beautiful.
Everyone was staring at her, Indians and whites alike. Time stopped, then started up again as people twitched back into motion. The wind blew up a cloud of dust, which made her seem blurred and out of focus and unreal, as if she existed in a dream.
“She isn’t hurt,” William heard himself saying, but he knew it wasn’t true. Something about the way she gazed into space a moment before she thrust a white shoe past the hem of her dress, set one foot on the ground and propelled herself forward. Then she stopped and gazed about again before taking the next step.
“She’s drunk,” William said.
“They must’ve given her cocaine,” Charlie said. “They give her cocaine and Orange Blossoms that are nothing else than gin and vermouth in orange juice, much of it as she wants. They shouldn’t give it to her. I’m gonna tell ’em . . .” He lurched forward.
William grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Not your business,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the skinny white bodyguard burst from the crowd around the tables and run toward the girl. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and spun her about. She was staggering, the white shoes sliding over the ground, and for an instant he thought the white man would let her fall. Let her grovel, the beautiful white face in the dust. It wasn’t right. Still, he grabbed Charlie by the shoulders to hold him in place. But Charlie twisted hard, and William felt the hard blow of a fist in his chest, the shock of a foot stomping on his own.
“Stop it!” James was between them, brown arms taking hold of Charlie.
Past the crowd of Indians and whites, William could see that the girl and the skinny man were gone. The narrow street that divided the tents was empty, as if she had been a ghost that had vanished when the white man appeared.
“She’s gone,” he said.
Charlie stood still, and James stepped back. William felt his own hands relax on Charlie’s shoulders. “Let’s get coffee,” he said.
14
FATHER JOHN FINISHED the fried chicken and mashed potatoes Elena had left in the oven, washed the dishes, and stacked them in the draining pan. He refilled his coffee mug and walked down the hallway to his study across from the living room, Walks-On scuttling ahead. The dog had already settled onto his rug by the time Father John sat down at the desk. Something deserted about the residence, he thought, with only Walks-On and him rattling around and the silver night bunching at the windows. He missed having an assistant. Even those assistants who had spent most of their days at St. Francis trying to land an assignment somewhere else had been company.
“Just you and me, buddy,” he said, patting the dog’s soft fur. Walks-On shifted around and licked at his hand.
The house was a bit like the residence in Rome, he thought, a thing of the past, holding on to its place. Except that the residence in Rome had started as a palace, not a two-story house faced with red bricks looking out on a drive that circled through an Indian mission. A palace from the Renaissance, fifteen-foot ceilings with fancy moldings and gold paint peeling from the chandeliers, black-and-white-tiled floors and faded frescos and bellpulls that no longer connected to anything. At least there were three other priests at the residence, a human presence in the corridors in the mornings and evenings. “Have a good day.” “Arrivederci.” Sometimes, when he was awakened in the middle of the night by the clack of footsteps on tiled floors, he had wondered if it was one of the other priests or a visitor from the Renaissance.
He opened the laptop that Father Ian had left behind. The street-light outside cast a yellow glare on the monitor. He moved the laptop a little, sipped at his coffee, and waited for the machine to go through its usual gyrations and flashing screens.
All a man has is
his reputation. He hadn’t been able to get Andrew’s words out of his mind. Late this afternoon, at Riverton Memorial, visiting Marcia Nolan in intensive care from a burst appendix and Lewis White Robe going through detox, then back at the office returning phone calls—the old man’s voice had been thumping like a drum inside his head.
Illogical in the extreme, as one of his philosophy professors used to say. It made no sense to believe that Kiki Wallowingbull had learned something in Hollywood that had led to his death on the rez. Logic dictated that Kiki had died in some kind of drug feud. Gianelli was working on the drug angle—whoever had beaten Kiki unconscious had left him to die in a place where drug deals came down, an example to anyone else who might break whatever codes existed among drug dealers.
And Vicky went along with Gianelli’s theory, and why wouldn’t she? Father John closed his eyes a moment, trying to push away the image of her this afternoon. How glad he had been to see her—almost like reconnecting with a part of himself, the part he had left behind when he went to Rome. In the instant she had appeared in the doorway, the world had seemed round again. And yet there was something sad about her, and unforgiving. He had felt as if he were trying to reach her across a great chasm.
He took a drink of coffee, then typed in The Covered Wagon and Arapahos. A list of websites materialized on the first of twenty pages. He read through the descriptions. Silent Films. Jesse Lasky—Famous Players. James Cruze, Director. Locations. Western myth in cowboy and Indian movies. This could take hours. He clicked on to the next page.
And here was something. Indians Featured in First Epic Western. He went to the website and watched the advertisements materialize at the side and, finally, the lines of black text from a newspaper dated November 5, 1922:
Three hundred Arapaho and Shoshone Indians from Wyoming and 200 Shoshones from Idaho, along with their tipis and horses, are camped in the desert on the border of Utah and Nevada while they play themselves in The Covered Wagon. The Indians are among 3,000 people at work on the moving picture. Actors, technicians, carpenters, cameramen, the director, and assistant directors are housed in what is called a “tent city.” The Indians have erected their own tipi village nearby. Meals are served in three shifts. “We have created our own metropolis,” says James Cruze, the director.
The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 13