The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  “Who are they? Can Dede identify them?”

  “They came for her, and she ran out the back door. So they left her a message.”

  “You’re certain they’re the same guys?”

  “She saw them before she drove away. Troy Tallfeathers, currently residing at the county jail. It would be her word against his, of course. The other man is Jason Bellows.”

  Father John leaned back against the chair and took a moment. Jason Bellows was dangerous, with a reputation that spread like black tentacles across the reservation. Kids as young as eleven hooked on meth, their parents sitting in his office, cursing the man who floated like a ghost beyond the reaches of the law.

  “Friends of Kiki’s?” he said after a moment. He had wanted to believe that Kiki was clean, free of drugs, consumed with a mission. He must have misread the man somehow, missed the clues, the telltale signs. Six months in Rome, and he was losing his touch.

  “Looks like it. Dede said Kiki kept his mouth shut about Bellows and went to prison. Bellows and Troy came to see him after he got out. Wanted him to get back into the business. She said Kiki threw them out.” Vicky pushed herself upright and started pacing—a swing to the window, then back along the desk to her chair and back to the window—her boots tapping out a steady rhythm. “Roger asked me to talk to Troy,” she said. Then she told him that Troy maintained he had information Gianelli would want. Pacing. Pacing. What Troy wanted was a deal, and when she told him that was impossible, he had fired her and Roger.

  She stopped and looked at him. “I think he wants to give up Bellows. He knows how Kiki really died, and he’s worried Bellows might want to make sure he never talks about it. It’s his skin or Bellows’s. Dede’s in danger, too. She can identify both of them, connect them to Kiki, and I can’t do anything to protect Dede except to give her a little money to hide somewhere in Denver and wish her good luck.”

  Vicky swung around, walked over to the window, and began tracing a finger around a snowflake plastered outside on the pane. “I can’t talk to Adam about any of this.”

  “He’s your partner, Vicky. Maybe you should try . . .”

  “Adam is buried in drafts and memorandums and court documents on the rights of tribes to manage their own resources and technical descriptions of reservation boundaries and legalistic arguments over whether Riverton is or isn’t in Indian Country.” She pivoted toward him. “Do you really think he wants to hear about somebody who won’t give his name or a girl on the run for her life from a couple of drug dealers?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I have to take care of this myself,” she said. “Kiki spent time in prison for dealing drugs. It’s possible that he took up with Bellows again after he got out.”

  It kept coming back to drugs, Father John thought.

  “We only have Andrew’s word that Kiki was out of the drug business,” she said. “Kiki could have gone to LA to make his own drug buy and cut out traffickers like Jason Bellows.” Vicky stared across the office, considering. “The only problem is, my anonymous caller admits that he was in prison, and Bellows has managed to stay out of prison. It doesn’t mean Bellows isn’t the caller. He would say anything, do anything to protect himself. If it is Bellows, I can identify him. Now that he’s threatening Dede, I have an ethical obligation to notify Gianelli, but first I have to be certain.”

  Father John stood up. “You can’t go looking for Bellows. You’ll never find him. He has a way of vanishing on the rez. If he hears you’re looking for him, he could find you. He’ll figure you know he’s the one who has been calling. He won’t like the fact that you know who he is. He has his own reasons for staying anonymous. It’s helped him avoid getting arrested for a long time.”

  “There’s a chance I can spot him,” Vicky said. She started buttoning up her coat, gathering the scarf around the collar, tying it close. “He’s been seen at Tracers.”

  “Hang on a minute,” Father John said. He retraced his steps down the corridor past the portraits, down the short hallway, and into the library. The circle of light still flared over the table. He wondered if that was what had brought her here—the chance that he would accompany her to a place like Tracers that regularly made the police news—drunken brawls and knifings in the parking lot. Last fall, before he left for Rome, a twenty-year-old Arapaho had been shot there.

  He felt a wave of relief that he had happened to be here. He might have been out on an emergency call somewhere—the hospital or a home forty miles away. But he had been here, and thank God, because otherwise, she would have gone to Tracers alone.

  He shrugged into his jacket, turned off the light and went back to his office. “I’m going with you,” he said.

  THE SOUND OF hip-hop burst through the brick walls and shook the parking lot; outdoor lights spilled across the pickups and sedans and cast yellow streaks over the snow. Dark figures moved at the edge of the lot, four or five guys standing around, low voices working through the beat of the music. The red tips of cigarettes shone in their hands. Father John kept an eye on them as he and Vicky threaded their way past the vehicles to the front of the bar.

  Inside the hip-hop blared into a fog of smoke and beer and whiskey smells. Bodies gyrated in the center under a spray of red and yellow lights that landed like coins on the floor, then evaporated. He had to lean close, his lips almost brushing her ear. “This way,” he said, taking hold of her arm and steering her toward the bar. Odd, he thought, the instinct he retained for always knowing where the bar could be found.

  They worked their way past the figures darting back and forth between the dance floor and the booths along the walls. A mixture of whites and Indians. Twentysomethings, some of the girls probably underage from the looks of the skinny, half-developed arms, the bud-like breasts poking from tee shirts. The men looked older, sure, and experienced. Groups of men hung back in the corners, hoisting beer bottles and watching the dance floor. Father John saw them looking at Vicky. Then their eyes registered him, and they looked away.

  A guy with tattoos running up thick arms, a thick head that sat directly on his shoulders and spiked black hair sauntered over and grabbed one of the skinny girls by the arm. She threw a satisfied look toward the knot of girls she’d been huddling with as the man propelled her onto the dance floor.

  “Nice place,” Vicky said under her breath. He realized he was still leaning toward her, shielding her.

  There was only one vacant stool at the bar, and he steered her there. She gathered her coat around her as she sat down. “Hello, there.” The man on the next stool—blond hair with big ears and alcohol-bleared eyes—shifted his weight toward Vicky and gave her a faint toast. “Buy you a drink?” Slurred and hopeful.

  Before Father John could tell him to back off, Vicky said, “I’m with someone.”

  The man swung about on the stool and blinked up, taking him in: about six foot four, cowboy hat, serious-looking. “Hey, no offense,” he said. He started to get off the stool, balancing the glass of whiskey and hanging on to the edge of the bar at the same time. “Fine-looking woman, just admiring, that’s all.”

  Father John moved toward the stool, but the man wasn’t giving up. “Didn’t mean nothing. Just being polite, buy her a drink.” A drunk, and drunks never knew when to stop explaining. Wasn’t that what drunks did? Explain. Explain. Explain. All in the earnest hope of keeping everyone’s attention focused on something else, not the alcohol-soaked shells they had become. He had been an expert at explaining.

  “Take it easy,” he told the drunk. “No insult taken.”

  “Good. That’s good.” The drunk started to weave away, then dipped back. “ ’Cause I wouldn’t be insulting a good-looking woman like that. Real lady. Indian princess, I’d say.”

  “Maybe you oughtta find your friends.”

  “Good idea.” He saluted with the half-full glass. The ice clinked and whiskey slopped over the top as he backed into an Indian with thi
ck shoulders and long black hair and began another round of explaining.

  “You want something?”

  Father John turned around. The bartender was leaning over the bar. He looked about thirty with a shaved head and a silver cross dangling from one ear. A white apron with yellowish and red streaks was cinched around a thin waist.

  “Coke,” Vicky said.

  Father John nodded the same.

  “What d’ya want in it? Rum?”

  “Just plain,” Father John said.

  The bartender shrugged and started down the bar, then he came back, eyes narrowed on Father John. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “I don’t think so.” He was thinking that half of the Arapahos and Shoshones in the bar probably recognized him. The moccasin telegraph would burst with news tomorrow.

  The man shrugged and moved away. Father John turned slightly and glanced around the bar pulsating with yellow and red lights and hip-hop and shadowy figures moving on the dance floor. “See him anywhere?” he said.

  “Everybody here looks the same,” Vicky said. He had to lean close, watching her lips. “This is probably a wild-goose chase.”

  The bartender was back, shoving two tall glasses of Coke across the bar. “I remember now.” He had a low, direct way of speaking that cut through the noise, honed through years of practice. “I seen your picture in the newspaper. You’re that priest at the mission, just got back from Rome.” He drew in his lower lip and bit at it a moment. “Don’t know as I ever seen you here before. You planning on making this a regular stop?” He let his gaze wander to Vicky and back.

  “We’re looking for somebody,” Father John said. “Jason Bellows. You know him?”

  That stopped him. The man flinched and took a step backward, shaking his head. “Don’t know who you’re talking about.” He stared at Vicky a moment. “What are you, a fed?”

  Vicky sipped at her Coke a moment before she said, “Do I look like a fed?”

  “Who knows, these days.” The bartender yanked at the silver cross on his ear.

  Father John stood up and pulled out the folded bills in the small pocket of his blue jeans. A twenty and a five, all the money he had. He pushed the packet across the bar. “Keep the change,” he said. “If you happen to see Bellows, we’d appreciate it if you pointed him out.”

  The man walked his fingers toward the packet, pulled it in, and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said.

  “Neither do we.” Father John took a drink of Coke. The music had ended, leaving the sound of wheezing voices punctuated by guffaws and a high, piercing laugh.

  “Cops been watching the place. Had some trouble in the parking lot last couple of weeks, lot of hotheads around looking for trouble, picking fights with straights like you, you don’t mind me saying. You better watch yourselves.” He threw his shoulders around and started toward the drunk pounding an empty beer glass at the end of the bar. Other guys had moved in, crowding between the stools, shouting orders. There was a loud thud of a door slamming shut, and Father John glanced around. A group of men, Indians and whites, sauntered in, shaking off jackets, high-fiving a couple of other men. The music started up again, monotonous beats, a cacophony of sounds, and couples started bouncing through the smoky haze to the dance floor. The second circle of Dante’s hell, he thought.

  “Will he help us?” Vicky said, and Father John turned back.

  “Wait and see.”

  The bartender was tending to another customer. He filled a beer mug, set it down, and came along the bar. “Big guy. Black leather jacket near the door,” he said.

  Vicky started to shift around.

  “Don’t look now!” The man’s tone was sharp. Then he shot two fingers in a V toward the Coke glasses. “You want refills?”

  Father John set the palm of his hand over the top of the glass. He was aware of Vicky staring across the bar at the blurred haze of figures in the mirror behind the display of liquor bottles. After a moment, he glanced around and spotted the black leather jacket: a big guy with wispy black hair, the center of attention, judging by the way the crowd parted as he approached. “Look over by the booths on the right,” he said.

  Vicky turned around and, at that moment, as if Jason Bellows had felt their eyes on him, he looked over. The amusement in his expression was wiped away, replaced by a look of menace. He stared at them a moment, then started over, elbowing people that didn’t move out of his way fast enough. He leaned over Vicky. “Who are you?” he said.

  “Tourists,” Vicky said. “Checking out the local zoo.”

  He shifted his lower jaw a moment, hands jammed into the pockets of his jacket. Metal chains ran across the shoulders and down the sleeves, glinting in the dim light. “Funny,” he said. “Never seen you in the zoo before.”

  Father John stood up. At least three inches taller than Bellows, and that was a fact he meant to emphasize. He set a hand on Vicky’s shoulder. “Just having a drink,” he said. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  Bellows eyed him for a long moment, then shrugged and started into the crowd. Then he leaned back toward the bar. “Get me a draft,” he said, still shooting his gaze their way. “How long the cops been here?”

  “No cops tonight.” The bartender set down a glass with a thin layer of white foam on top. “Take it easy. Enjoy yourself. Lots of beautiful girls wanting to dance with you.”

  Bellows picked up the glass, stood up straight, and chugged the beer. He set the glass on the bar, waited while the bartender refilled it, then sauntered back into the crowd.

  “It’s not him,” Vicky said. A little smile of relief had started working at the corners of her mouth. “It’s not the man I saw at Wal-Mart.” She turned toward him, an open, frank smile lighting her face. “Let’s get out of here.”

  FATHER JOHN SAW them as they started toward the door—two of the men who had come in with Bellows, shaggy-haired, jackets unzipped, edging their way through the crowd, eyes focused like lasers on them. He leaned toward Vicky. “We’re going to have company,” he said.

  “What?” She blinked up at him, then she saw them, too, because she stopped in place, as if her muscles had frozen.

  “Keep walking.” He pulled the keys out of his jacket pocket and pressed them into her hand. “The minute we get outside, you run for the pickup. Get inside and start the engine.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” she said. She was moving slowly, a stiff-legged gait, as if she were going to her own execution.

  “Just do as I say.” He opened the door and gave Vicky a moment outside before he stepped out, slamming the door behind him. She was running in and out of the shadows along the building, and he started after her. The door opened behind him just as he had expected. Curious, there were no sounds of voices, no drunken, boisterous shouts, nothing except the hurried and determined thud of boots in the snow.

  He kept walking, not taking his eyes from Vicky. Let her get in the pickup. Let her be safe.

  They hit him then, a hard fist in the back, another fist crashing against his arm. He swung around and managed to plant his own fist into one of the men’s solar plexus before the other one had him by the shoulders, pushing him into the brick wall. In a flash he saw what would happen next: he would be stood up against the wall and pummeled until he dropped into a heap.

  An engine growled into life, headlights zoomed over the brick wall.

  He managed a kick sideways that landed on a shin bone. There was a sharp snap, and the guy let out a scream that punctuated the sound of boots scraping snow, the loud gusts of breath, in and out. He started to crumble as the other man dove forward and planted a hard right that seemed to carry all of his weight into Father John’s rib cage. Pain erupted like fire inside him. When the guy swung for his face, Father John blocked his arm and managed to drive a fist into his nose that popped like a ketchup bottle, spewing red globs over his face.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Father John saw the pickup inching forw
ard, the headlights playing over them, like spotlights on actors stumbling about, missing cues. The guy with the nose was still coming at him, shouting obscenities now, a fusion of words gurgling past the blood in his mouth. Father John deflected another punch and connected with the guy’s jaw. He staggered backward, then reared up like a wounded grizzly, spitting saliva and blood.

  Father John held his place, fists raised. Keep your fists up. His father’s voice booming in his head. The bullies come after you, you stand your ground! Like this. And he had demonstrated the boxing maneuvers—eleven or twelve then, learning to protect himself on the streets of Boston.

  But he wasn’t a kid, and the man was gathering his strength into a murderous rage that no bully had ever managed.

  “Get in!” Vicky shouted, and he realized she had driven the pickup alongside and was leaning across the front seat. The passenger door hung open. “Get in!” she shouted again.

  Father John took hold of the door and pushed it against the man lunging toward him. The man staggered backward, regrouped, and lunged again as Father John threw himself onto the passenger seat. As he pulled the door shut, the pickup shot forward. For an instant, he thought they would hit the guy, who had to jump back, stumbling over the other one writhing in the snow, one leg bent backward.

  “You hurt?” The pickup creamed onto the street. He could feel the rear shimmying.

  Father John bent over and tried to get his breath. He pressed his fingers against his ribs.

  “Should I take you to emergency?” She was driving fast, weaving in and out of traffic. They couldn’t get away from Tracers fast enough. “John! Answer me. Do you need a doctor?”

  He managed to sit up, his breathing almost normal now, his heart no longer beating in his throat. The pain was like a knife bisecting his chest. “What have you been up to, Father?” he managed, trying for a lighter tone. “Not much. Just a friendly brawl outside a tavern.”