“How’d things go between you and Melissa’s family last night?” he asked.
Anthony was lacing up his sneakers. “Can’t you guess? They refused to see me. Cooley ordered me off the ranch. It’s bad enough I’m Arapaho, but now I’m also suspected of killing my own uncle.” His chest rose and fell, as if the words took his breath away.
Father John was sorry he hadn’t tried to warn the young man. The fact he was suspected of murder made little difference. The Cooleys would never accept an Indian for Melissa any more than the family had accepted an Indian for Dorothy. He wished, with all of his heart, there was some way to spare Anthony from ever knowing that fact, but sooner or later, he would know. Father John pulled the bologna sandwiches out of the cooler and handed one to the Arapaho. Then he grabbed two Cokes. “Now what?” he asked.
Pushing back the plastic bag, Anthony bit off a chunk of white bread and pinkish bologna. After a moment he said, “We’re gonna cool it for a while. Melissa thinks her family will come round soon as I’m in the clear. She wants to wait and not push them.”
Father John popped the tab on a Coke and drank almost all of it, letting the cold syrupy liquid quench his thirst before opening his sandwich bag. Anthony had stopped eating and was staring down the canyon at the plains shimmering in the last light of the sun. “Chief Banner and that FBI agent are taking their sweet time about finding Harvey’s murderer, and meanwhile my life’s falling apart.”
This was how the young warriors were in the Old Time, thought Father John, biting into his sandwich. Impatient to right the wrongs. Anxious to settle matters fast, while the chiefs signed treaties and believed promises. They had brought a lot of trouble on themselves and on their people, those young warriors.
“I heard Ernest went before the tribal judge today for being drunk and disorderly,” Anthony went on. “They let him out on bond. Can you believe it? A crazy guy like that. He’s supposed to stay in the rehab program at the hospital. I figure I’ll go over and pay him a visit.”
“Look, Anthony,” Father John began, choosing his words carefully. “Ernest didn’t murder Harvey any more than he could’ve forced Charlie Taylor’s pickup off the road from his hospital bed. Whoever killed two tribal councilmen is playing for a lot bigger stakes than the royalties from some oil wells.”
Anthony shifted toward him on the tailgate, his expression wary and curious. Father John hurried on. “I think Charlie had an idea of what was going on. He might have known who killed Harvey. When I talked to him, he was either covering up what he knew or he was flat-out lying.”
“What makes you think so?” Anthony asked.
“Charlie said he wanted to see the Cooley ranch deal go through. Then he tried to tell me that Harvey had intended to vote for it.”
Anthony looked puzzled. “He said that? Harvey planned to do everything he could to get the council to vote against the deal. That’s what we were arguing about. That and Melissa, of course. You know what’s odd, Father?” he said. “Harvey was absolutely sure that Charlie was with him all the way.”
Father John finished off the sandwich. “Could be that Charlie changed his mind about buying the ranch after Harvey was murdered. But why would he do that?” He wished he had asked Charlie’s wife that question before she’d left Wind River Reservation today to take her husband’s body to Oklahoma for burial.
“Who knows,” Anthony said. “Nothing’s making sense anymore. Everything stinks.” He threw the empty Coke cans back into the cooler and slammed the lid. “I’m gonna take a run up the mountain. You wanna come?”
Father John glanced at the sky fading into shades of gray and lavender. It would be dark before long, but he understood the Indian’s need to work off some anger and frustration. Anthony needed to feel himself moving across the earth like the wind. “Sure,” Father John said, wishing he were in a little better shape for a run to the top of a mountain.
The young Arapaho sprinted across the dirt road, and Father John followed. There was nobody around. Not more than three or four other fishermen had been at the reservoir in the couple of hours they’d been there. Anthony attacked the mountain like a young bighorn sheep. Three steps right, three steps left, he zigzagged upward through the scrub brush and around the boulders, ducking under the thick branches of ponderosa trees. Father John had to push just to keep the young man in view. He wished he had on sneakers instead of cowboy boots that slipped with every step.
Halfway up, Anthony stopped and waited, but as soon as Father John caught up, he started off again, slicing away the mountain at short angles. Father John had to wait a minute to catch his breath before starting out again. He wondered how this modern-day warrior had ever sat still long enough to be within a few weeks of a college degree.
The Arapaho scrambled up a clump of boulders near the summit and stood on the top, outlined against a sky of deepening shades of blue. The wind flattened his shirt against his back. Father John climbed the boulders, hand over hand, bracing against one in order to leap to the next, trying to keep from slipping back, hearing his heart pounding in his ears. Finally he reached the Indian. On the other side were sheer cliffs of granite that dropped straight into the valley of the next canyon.
Father John let his eyes range across the distant views. Most of the plains lay in shadow, except for a slim golden strip on the east that still caught the setting sun. The ranches were marked off in squares, like patterns in a quilt. Lander huddled close to the foothills while Wind River Reservation spread northward and wrapped around Riverton on the east. So much space, so few people.
Neither he nor Anthony spoke for a moment. Finally the young man said, “Harvey used to bring me here when I was little. He’d tell me to look out there. ‘That’s your place on earth,’ he’d say. ‘That’s where you belong.’” Anthony stretched out one arm. “The beautiful prairie lands, that’s what Chief Black Night called this place.”
Suddenly Anthony jumped down and edged his way along the ridge below the boulders. “Come on,” he called. “I’ll show you something else.” Father John started after him, but by the time he reached the ridge, Anthony had disappeared. He looked down the mountain expecting to see the Indian zigzagging through the brush and trees, but no one was there. “Where’d you go?” he hollered. The wind sighed through the ponderosas, and the last of the daylight played across the bushes and rocks.
“Here I am.” Anthony sprang upward, as if he’d been propelled out of the pile of boulders a few feet above Father John.
“How’d you get up there?”
“I’m in the eagle catch,” Anthony said. “Only way in is down below.” He nodded toward two boulders, close to where Father John stood, then slid down out of sight. After a moment he appeared several feet down the mountainside. Father John picked his way down. He couldn’t make out where Anthony had come from. The boulders were wedged together without enough space for anyone to squeeze through.
“Harvey showed me the eagle catch when I was little,” the Arapaho said. “Only eagle clan people know how to catch the eagles and take their feathers. Harvey was the last to catch the eagles when he was still a boy. He’d gather brush and pile it on top of the catch like a nest. Then he’d lay a dead rabbit on it and slip into the catch below. Sometimes he’d wait there two or three days. Soon’s the eagle swooped down for the rabbit, he’d grab it by the legs and hold it while he plucked out a few tail feathers. Then he’d let it go. He always left some sage in the catch to thank the eagle for his feathers.”
Pushing back thick scrub brush, Anthony exposed a narrow opening between the boulders. “Want to go in?”
Father John bent down and looked into the narrow tunnel running under the boulders. If he got inside, he might not get out. “No thanks,” he said. “I’m not a member of the eagle clan.”
“I would’ve been an eagle catcher like Harvey if the government hadn’t outlawed it. Just as well, I guess. It was a lonely job. Now we get our feathers from the forest rangers. Whenever they find a
dead eagle, they freeze it and send it to us.” Anthony let the brush fall slowly back into place. There was no trace of the tunnel. “When the eagle catcher dies,” he went on, “he turns into an eagle and flies straight to God.”
The last of the daylight shimmered through the trees under a sky that had turned purple. “Hadn’t we better get down?” Father John suggested. “While I can still see where I’m going?”
26
MOONLIGHT WASHED ACROSS the red bricks of the tribal office building as Father John turned off the ignition and pressed the stop button on the tape player. The Magic Flute snapped off, leaving the last notes to fade in the air. Grabbing the handle of the player, he stepped out of the Toyota. The parking lot was deserted. With no interruptions—just Mozart for company—he could put in a couple hours on the history files. The answers were there, he was certain. He had to find them.
Using the keys Banner had given him, he let himself in the front door and groped along the wall for the light switch. Moonlight poured like rain through the window, but most of the lobby was shrouded in darkness. He thought he saw something move in the shadows of the hallway. “Who’s there?” he called.
From somewhere came the soft gurgling of water pipes. He inched along the wall keeping his eyes on the hallway until his fingers touched the light switch. Before he could flip the switch, someone lunged out of the darkness, across the shaft of moonlight, and slammed against him, jamming his right shoulder into the wall. Pain shot down his arm all the way to his fingertips. He swung the tape player, but it flew out of his hand and thudded against something. There was the clack of boots on the tile floor, and then the sound of a door slamming shut.
Father John sank down against the wall. trying to catch his breath, which finally came out of some deep well inside him. Grasping his shoulder, he lifted himself up along the wall and moved toward the door. It took all the effort he could muster to let go of his shoulder long enough to yank open the door and slip outside. The parking lot was bathed in moonlight. The only vehicle there was the Toyota.
Leaning against the brick, he edged to the corner of the building and looked toward the back. Suddenly headlights were beaming down on him. He jumped back just as a jeep sped by, its wheels shooting out gravel. It swerved up a knoll and onto the highway.
Holding on to his shoulder and biting his lower lip against the pain, Father John made his way back into the building and flipped on the light. The little tape player lay against the wall, its top cracked, the Magic Flute tape hanging out. He bent over slowly to pick it up, then looked around for the keys.
Spotting them against one leg of the receptionist’s desk, he set down the player, fingered the key ring, then wedged player and keys together in one hand. Pain pulsated down his right arm as he walked along the hall to Harvey’s office.
The door was locked, and he had to go through the whole rigmarole again: Set the player on the floor, grapple with the keys, unlock the door, push it open, pick up the player. It made him slightly dizzy, and he had to lean against the jamb a moment to steady himself. The office looked the same as when he had left this morning. Whoever had attacked him hadn’t gotten in, although Father John had no doubt that had been the goal. He had arrived just in time—just in time to get his shoulder dislocated. Perfect, he thought.
Grunting with pain, he sat in Harvey’s chair and placed the tape player on the desk. Then he picked up the phone and punched in 911. “This is Father John O’Malley,” he told the operator. “Get me Chief Banner.”
The chief wasn’t in, he was told, but the operator would put out a call for him. There was no sense of hurry in her voice, and Father John heard himself shouting into the phone that this was an emergency and that the chief should call him immediately at Harvey Castle’s office.
He slammed down the phone and forced himself to take long, deep breaths and try to relax his shoulder and arm muscles. He didn’t think anything was broken, but his shoulder was definitely separated. He’d separated it a couple of times before, pitching fastballs. His throat felt dry and scratchy, and every cell in his body was crying for something to drink. He forced himself to think of something else.
He had to get to emergency at Riverton Memorial, a good thirty-minute drive away, and that wasn’t going to be easy with his right side convulsed in pain. Whoever had attacked him would be miles gone by now. “Where the hell are you, Banner?” he said out loud. “Come on, call.”
27
THE EMERGENCY ROOM whirled around as Father John sat up, swung his legs off the examining table, and willed the room to stop moving. His right arm rested against his chest in some kind of high-tech combination of buckles and bandages. They had wanted to give him a general anesthetic, but he’d said no, thank you, no general. That would be the beginning.
The doctor had seemed eager to talk him into it, explaining how much better it would be—relaxed muscles, less pain. Then he’d stepped behind the table. Suddenly he’d gripped Father John around the shoulder, and his dislocated arm had shot into its socket. A fireball had hit him, every muscle in his body had twitched, and little lights had flashed everywhere.
He’d rested on the table awhile as the nurse hummed around. At one point she came at him with a needle—“it’ll feel better”—and he’d rolled to the side, nearly falling off the edge. “Okay, okay,” she’d said. “Have it your way. But you’re gonna want something to get you through the night.”
Now he wanted out of here. He struggled off the table. The nurse grabbed his left elbow and, with surprising strength for a woman who barely reached his chest, steered him out the door. The waiting room looked like another Arapaho funeral, it was so full of brown faces: Anthony, Rita, some parishioners, Banner, and three or four BIA policemen. And Vicky. She took his arm from the nurse. “You okay?” she asked. Everybody was asking the same question.
The Toyota moved down Riverton’s main street and slowed for the blinking yellow lights at the wide intersections. A couple of oncoming cars passed. Anthony was driving Vicky’s Bronco right behind them, then Banner in his patrol car, then two other patrol cars and a couple of pickups. They were their own parade through town.
The Toyota’s windows were rolled partway down, and a cool night breeze stirred through the cab. Father John shifted slightly to keep his right shoulder from touching the passenger seat—it’d been a long time since he’d been a passenger in the Toyota. Not since that first year at St. Francis when old Father Peter pulled rank as superior and insisted upon driving. It’s a wonder they’d survived. He smiled thinking about it, and pain lit up his shoulder. He heard himself grunt.
“You’re not going to take those painkillers, are you?” Vicky asked, her eyes straight ahead. He could see the moonlight in her hair as she smoothed back a few strands that had blown across her face.
“Nope, I’m not going to take those painkillers.”
She glanced at him, then turned her eyes back on the street. They were moving through moonlight and the dark shadows of Riverton’s flat-roofed stores, motels, and gas stations. “Fact is, there’s probably nothing you’d like more right now.”
“Actually I prefer my painkillers in liquid form.”
“You are one stubborn Irishman, John O’Malley.”
They were on Highway 789 now, heading south of town, and the Toyota speeded up. “Who hit you?”
“A four-hundred-pound Sumo wrestler.” Father John squirmed in the seat. There was no place to hide from the pain. “How’d you hear?”
“Moccasin telegraph.” She glanced at him, smiling. “If you must know, the police dispatcher is a friend of Rita’s. She called Rita, who told Anthony, who called me. We thought you’d need somebody to drive you home. They usually put you under for these things.”
“It’s nice to have a chauffeur anyway,” Father John said. He found that if he leaned his head against the window frame, his right shoulder floated in space, which relieved the pain a little.
“I was there twice, the emergency room,”
Vicky said. “Courtesy of my husband.” She seemed lost in thought, and Father John waited for her to go on. “So I got a divorce, left my kids here with my mother, and moved to Denver.”
This was what she’d never told him, but for some reason she was telling him now. The tone in her voice was one he was accustomed to hearing in confessionals from penitents needing forgiveness.
“The thing was, Ben loved the kids. He was good to them, he really was. But in the divorce, well, I paid him back for what he’d done to me. I made sure he didn’t get the kids. It just about destroyed him, although I hear he’s getting on his feet now. But the kids ... well, they lost both of us.” She stopped, glancing quickly at Father John before turning her eyes back to the highway. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s over now. It’s in the past, and the past is over.”
“Except,” Father John said, “it has a way of hanging around, demanding we understand it and weave it into ourselves so that we can go on.” He watched the Toyota’s headlights dance over the asphalt ahead, illuminating the stands of cottonwoods along the highway, and thought of the hell she had broken out of, and the cost.
Vicky shifted behind the wheel, as if forcing her consciousness, her whole being, into another position. After a moment, she said, “Did you hear that Miller had Anthony in for more questions today? He’s trying to pin Charlie’s murder on him. That fed’s not going to give up.”
Anthony hadn’t said anything about that, but Father John wasn’t surprised. Up at Washakie reservoir, the young man’s mind had been on Melissa.
“Whoever trashed Harvey’s office last Saturday didn’t find what he was looking for. So he came back tonight,” Vicky continued, drumming her fingernails against the steering wheel. “I don’t think it has anything to do with the oil on the reservation.”
The Eagle Catcher Page 17