The Silent Spirit (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  The voice mail picked up and he had the choice of paging or leaving a message. He left a message.

  He hung up and started reading through the other messages. Nothing from JoEllen Redman, but he hadn’t expected her to call. She would continue to protect her son. New sounds erupted from outdoors: an engine gearing down on Circle Drive, tires crunching the snow. A door slammed. He recognized the footsteps on the steps, the smooth quickness in the way the front door opened and closed. In an instant Vicky stood in his doorway, little flecks of snow in her hair and on her black coat. Walks-On got up and went to her, and he watched her lean over and run gloved fingers through the dog’s coat for a moment.

  “How was your trip to LA?” he said.

  “I found the name of the man who must have killed Charlie Wallowingbull.” She dug through the black bag that hung over one shoulder. “William Thunder, a close friend. They were both in love with the same movie star. Thunder might have killed him in a rage of jealousy. Maybe it was even self-defense.” Finally she pulled out an envelope, walked over, and handed it across the desk. “At any rate, I’m sure Kiki believed Thunder was responsible. Have a look,” she said.

  Father John pulled out the folded papers. Los Angeles Police Missing Persons Report was printed at the top of the first page. He glanced down the faint, ragged lines of type. “It’s all there,” Vicky said. “McCoy filed the missing persons report and suggested the police talk to Missy Mae Markham. Obviously the studio had covered up Charlie’s death. I spoke with the same old movie people Kiki had talked to. There was gossip that Markham had gotten involved with Charlie while they were filming The Covered Wagon, and there was also gossip that she may have started up with his friend. Painted Brush got a picture of her with Charlie and William in Hollywood, which suggests she was still involved with them. But the studio would not stand for Markham’s name being linked to Charlie’s death. The police were probably paid to do what the studio said, and they closed the case.”

  Father John turned over pages of the report and the disposition and read the bold print at the top of the third page: Fremont County Parolees, followed by a list of names. His eyes focused on a name partway down: Kiki Wallowingbull. He read on. Near the bottom was the name Will Thunder Redman.

  “JoEllen Redman’s son,” he said, catching the flash of confirmation in Vicky’s eyes. “I spoke with her yesterday. She claims she never talked to Kiki, but she told me that Will has a son. Just like your caller.”

  “Kiki and Will Redman knew each other.” Vicky slipped the pages back inside the envelope and waved it at him. “They served time together. Chances are they had both worked for Bellows. Kiki must have known that Will Redman was a descendant of William Thunder, and he went looking for him.”

  Father John tilted his head back and stretched his neck. The pain in his ribs shot upward. He could see Kiki Wallowingbull seated across from him, wiping up the syrup with a piece of pancake. Justice, he had said. It’s time our family got justice. Dear Lord, he thought. What kind of justice had Kiki demanded?

  Vicky said. “I’m going to see if Will is at this address.” She flicked her fingers on the envelope and stuffed it back into the bag. “I can talk to him, and we can get this whole matter cleared up.”

  Father John got to his feet. “Will Redman doesn’t want to be found, Vicky. His mother doesn’t want him found. They’ll deny they know anything about Kiki’s death. Redman will deny that he ever called you.”

  “You forget that I saw him. I can identify him.”

  “You saw a man in Wal-Mart that you believe is the same man who called you.”

  “I saw him outside my apartment.” Vicky threw up both hands to stall the questions in his eyes. “What are we talking about? We both know Kiki came back to the rez and out of some crazy sense of justice blamed Thunder’s descendant for what Thunder did. Will Redman killed Kiki. What would you have me do? Nothing? Sit back and watch Jason Bellows convicted for a murder he didn’t commit?”

  “I can come with you,” he said.

  “It isn’t necessary,” Vicky said, but it struck him that she hadn’t told him not to come.

  33

  SNOW BLANKETED THE prairie that rolled away from Riverton, criss crossed by narrow roads marked with the deep grooves of tire tracks. Gray clouds edged in black hung low all around, dipping into the tops of cottonwoods that appeared here and there. Vicky bent over the steering wheel, trying to keep the Jeep in the ruts that stretched ahead, aware of John O’Malley beside her, staring out the windshield, watching for signs of a house in the white wilderness.

  They had driven through town in silence, past the strip malls and box stores and warehouses that gradually fell behind until they were out in the country. Once or twice she had started to tell him she was glad he had come along, but she had stopped herself. She couldn’t shake the sense of misgiving that had taken hold of her. John O’Malley had come with her to Tracers and ended up with broken ribs. Then Bellows and some of his gang had attacked him at the mission. She should never have dragged him into this.

  “There’s the house,” he said, and Vicky followed the direction of his hand. A yellow, two-story house set back in a clump of cottonwoods. As she drew closer, she could see the white porch and white trim around the windows. Clumps of snow and ice hung off the porch railing and bunched on the steps. She slowed down, searching for a turn onto an access road. Then she saw a pair of tracks running like rails toward the house. She stepped hard on the brake pedal and fish-tailed into the tracks. The snow was heavier, grabbing at the tires. She had coaxed the Jeep to the edge of the trees when the tires skidded and the rear wheels seemed to lock into place. The house was about twenty yards ahead. It looked deserted.

  Vicky turned off the motor. “Another wild-goose chase,” she said, but Father John had already opened the passenger door. Cold air blasted the inside of the Jeep.

  “Let’s see if anyone’s home,” he said.

  Vicky threw open her door and started trudging through the snow that reached for the top of her boots and dropped inside. John O’Malley fell in beside her. She was conscious of the crunching noise of their boots on the snow and the puffs of their breath running ahead. The cottonwoods cast long gray shadows, like the shadows in a forest. She felt the pressure of his hand on her arm, guiding her toward the faint traces of boot prints that made a path to the porch. Then, his hand tight around her arm, he yanked her sideways toward the trunk of a tree.

  “Get down!” he shouted, and in an instant she felt herself crumbling onto her knees, folding into the snow, the weight of his arms against her shoulders.

  The gunshot sounded like a cannon that split the air and reverberated around the trees. The earth seemed to shift and rumble in the aftermath. “Stay down.” John O’Malley was huddled next to her, nothing but the trunk of a tree between them and the rifle that now, for the first time, she saw jutting from the upper window of the house.

  “Oh, God.” She inched closer to the trunk and pressed her face against the front of his jacket, aware of his arms around her, reining her in. Her breath was stopped in her throat. She could hear her heart hammering next to his. The Jeep was at least fifteen feet behind them. They were ducks in a shooting gallery. “He’s going to kill us,” she said.

  “Put the gun down, Will,” John O’Malley shouted.

  Vicky pulled a little away and peered around the trunk. The rifle was still balanced on the windowsill. Inside she could barely make out the shadowy figure of a man.

  “Get out of here!” he shouted. His voice was heavy with rage, yet something about it was familiar.

  Vicky made herself draw in a breath. “It’s Vicky Holden,” she shouted.

  “Nobody asked you out here. Go away!”

  “Put the rifle down, Will.” John O’Malley’s voice sounded confident, reassuring somehow. “We just want to talk to you.”

  “It’s that priest I told you about.” The woman’s voice came from somewhere deep inside the house.
>
  “Get out of here!” the man shouted.

  “Will, let him help us.” The woman sounded as if she were on the edge of hysteria. “Let him help us!”

  “I don’t need no help.” The voice was muffled, as if he were speaking into a thick drapery.

  “Please, Will. Please.”

  Vicky watched the rifle pull back from the window and the window slowly close. For a long moment the sound of breathing—hers and John O’Malley’s—drifted into the silence of the snow and the trees. Then, there was the thwack of a door opening. A woman stepped onto the porch. “It’s okay now,” she shouted.

  JOELLEN REDMAN STOOD in the middle of the small living room, clasping and unclasping her hands against the waist of her blue jeans. She looked middle-aged, with wide-set eyes, prominent cheekbones, and short, black hair fading into gray. Dark tearstains made vertical lines on her cheeks.

  “You just couldn’t leave us alone,” she said, facing Father John. Her voice was thick with tears. She shifted toward Vicky. “Who are you?”

  “I’m an attorney. Will called me,” Vicky said.

  Something seemed to go out of the woman, like air escaping a balloon. She stared at Vicky, eyes wide and unblinking. Then she swung around and walked over to the foot of the stairway that divided the living room from the kitchen in back. “You’d better come down here, Will,” she shouted.

  It was a moment before the man with thick shoulders, black hair that hung below his ears, and eyes as black and opaque as coal started down the steps that creaked and groaned under his boots. “What’re you doing here?” Will Redman said, taking the last step with a little lurch. He was the man in Wal-Mart, the man outside her apartment. His was the voice on the telephone. Vicky could have sworn to it in court.

  “She says you called her.” There was a pleading note in JoEllen’s voice.

  “This whole thing’s settled,” he said. “I don’t need no lawyers and priests coming around, so why don’t you both just get out of here.”

  “A man may go to prison for a murder he didn’t commit,” Vicky said.

  “I’m supposed to feel sorry for Bellows?” Will Redman listed sideways and spit out a puff of air, as if he were spitting on the floor.

  “Convictions can be overturned,” Vicky said. “How many people know you went to meet Kiki at the house in Ethete that night? Did you tell anyone what happened?”

  “You said you told those guys at Tracers, Mickey and Rob,” JoEllen said.

  “Be quiet, Mom.” The words shot out of the side of his mouth. He didn’t take his eyes from Vicky. “I’m taking my chances. There’s witnesses that say Bellows killed Kiki.”

  “Come on, Will,” Vicky said. “Troy and Lennie are hoping to make a deal with the feds, stay out of prison, and take over Bellows’s gang. When they realize that is not going to happen, they’ll recant. They’ll tell the truth that neither of them actually saw Bellows beating up Kiki, that Kiki was already unconscious on the floor when they got to the house.”

  JoEllen cupped her hands over her mouth and gave out a sharp sob.

  Vicky pushed on. “Or let’s say that Mickey and Rob start thinking about what you told them and decide to talk to the fed. They may even leave out the self-defense part. Either way, homicide charges against Bellows will be dropped. Sooner or later, Agent Gianelli will knock on your door.”

  “We’re all done talking.” Will walked over and flung open the door. “Get out.”

  “Is that your son?” Father John nodded toward the photo in the brass frame hanging over the sofa. A boy about five stood wide-legged, squinting into the sun and leaning back a little as if he were winding up to throw a baseball. He had a big grin and dark, trusting eyes.

  “That’s Matthew,” JoEllen said, a mixture of pride and sadness moving through her expression.

  “Leave him out of this,” Will said, but beneath the bravado, Vicky could hear the tone of the man on the telephone, the sob-choked words: “I got a little boy. I gotta take care of him.”

  “He lives in Casper with his mom,” JoEllen said. “Will’s trying to get half custody. That’s why he can’t get involved in any of this. You see that, don’t you?”

  “Is that what you want for your boy?” Vicky said. “Living in a shadow, waiting for the knock on the door? You called me because you wanted to be cleared.”

  Will kept one hand on the doorknob. He squeezed his eyes together and, for a moment, all of the bluster and determination peeled away. He was the man on the phone again, the man in the shadows who needed help.

  “We can help you,” Vicky said. “We know why Kiki wanted to see you. You have to trust us. Tell us what happened.”

  Will kicked the door shut. He walked over, sank onto the sofa, and hunched forward, dropping his forehead onto clenched fists. JoEllen sat down beside him and slipped an arm around his shoulders. She nodded toward the worn-looking upholstered chair, and Vicky sat down.

  “Kiki called here,” Will said. “Wanted to meet over in Ethete. Mom tried to tell me to stay away, that he was trouble, but I got to worrying what he might’ve gotten himself into. We used to work together.” He dropped his voice to a whisper, like the whispers on the telephone. “We got arrested by the Riverton cops for distributing and spent a couple years in Rawlins. Got paroled about the same time. How’d I know he wasn’t back in the drug business and wanting to pull me in again? I needed to clear things up, make him understand I was done with all that. I got my kid to think about. Mom’s letting me live here ’til I get back on my feet, get a place of my own, and get my kid half the time. I got a job fixing tires at the tire shop. I had to make sure Kiki got it straight.”

  “What happened when you got to the house?” Father John had perched on a footstool. He leaned forward, hands clasped between his knees.

  “Kiki was crazy. I never should’ve gone to meet him. Went crazy in prison.” Will dropped his hands and looked from Vicky to Father John. “Happens to Indians,” he said. “Locked up in a steel box all day, can’t see the sky. We both got straight in rehab, but Kiki started going on all the time about how he had to repay his grandfather, give him something back for all the trouble he caused. His grandfather never knew what happened to his father, so Kiki was gonna find out soon as he got paroled. Well, I got to the house and he tells me he went to Hollywood and found out how his great-grandfather, Charlie, and my great-grandfather, William, were buddies. They were in a movie together. I said, Man, what’s this got to do with anything? He got real mad. I seen him get mad when we were dealing drugs. Damn near beat a guy to death one time. I had to pull him off. So I got tense, you know what I mean.”

  He took a moment, and Vicky said that she understood. Then he went on, “He started shouting all kinds of craziness, like William killed his great-grandfather over some movie star, and the Thunders ruined his family and a lot of other junk like that. He said I had to go with him to his grandfather and apologize for all the suffering the Thunders caused him. I said, You’re crazy, man. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m out of here. I turned around to leave, and that’s when he hit me. Hit me hard on the back of the head. I thought I was going down. But I must’ve swung around, ’cause I caught him hard in the throat with my elbow and he was the one that went down. His head hit the corner of the cabinet.”

  Will slumped against the back of the sofa. “I’m never gonna forget the sound of his head hitting that cabinet,” he said. “I knew he was dead. So I ran outta there. Got in my truck and drove away. There wasn’t anybody around.”

  “He told me all about it.” JoEllen had taken her arm from her son’s shoulders and gathered her hands in her lap. “I told him to shut up about it. Nobody was ever gonna know.”

  The house was quiet, except for the small groan of a water pipe somewhere. “But you didn’t want Kiki’s death hanging over you,” Father John said after a moment. “You wanted to be cleared.”

  “Nobody’s gonna believe me,” Will said. “So what if William Thu
nder killed his great-grandfather? What the hell’s that got to do with me?”

  “Could be the truth,” JoEllen said. She was staring at a space across the room. “My father said his dad came back from Hollywood a week after he’d left. All the other Indians stayed for months acting in some show. Soon as he got back, he packed up everything they had, mattresses, chairs, tables piled in the back of an old truck, and they drove to Oklahoma. Nobody knew they were leaving, not even the government agent. They just got outta here. Oklahoma’s where we stayed until a few years ago when Will”—she threw a sideways glance at her son—“came back to the rez and got into trouble. I moved up here to help him out, keep an eye on how Matthew was doing. My father said his dad never wanted anything to do with white people after he got back from Hollywood. You can’t trust them, he said.”

  “Is that what you told Kiki?” Father John said.

  JoEllen started nodding. Her eyes were watery and tears started down the tracks in her cheeks. “This is all my fault,” she said. “Kiki came around to the bank asking for stories about the past. We went to coffee, and I told him what my father said.”

  “Listen, JoEllen,” Vicky said. “Kiki talked to other people, too. All he had was circumstantial evidence at best. He had stories, that’s all. There’s no way to know for certain that your grandfather killed Charlie Wallowingbull. What we know is that Kiki believed the stories were true.” She looked at Will. “What time did you go to the house?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to know.”

  “He left here about seven o’clock,” JoEllen said.

  Will shrugged. “I told Mom where I was going. I guess I wanted somebody to know where I was, in case I didn’t come back.”