The Eagle Catcher

by Margaret Coel

  Anthony took a deep breath before going on. “I called the airport right away. They said they couldn’t give me any information. So I drove out there, and one of the women at the counter was Arapaho. I said, you gotta tell me if Melissa Cooley was on any flights yesterday or today. She said, ask me a question I can answer. So I said, should I get a new girlfriend? And she says no. No! Melissa didn’t fly out of here. So where is she?”

  Father John felt his jaw clenching, his muscles tensing down his neck and across his shoulders. His whole right arm screamed with pain. What if Melissa and Dorothy had suspected something and had challenged Ned? He didn’t want to think the man would harm his own sister and niece, but if he felt desperate ... He’d already killed twice to keep his secret. The women could be in danger. But he had to get the proof—the missing records—before he could convince Banner, or the Fremont County sheriff, or the FBI agent or whoever the hell had jurisdiction at the Cooley ranch to get out there.

  “If Ned Cooley wanted his niece and sister out of the way for a while, where would he take them?”

  “Why would he want them out of the way?” In an instant, the look of comprehension crossed the Arapaho’s face. “You think Melissa’s uncle ... you think he killed Harvey?”

  “Where would he take them?” Father John heard himself shouting.

  Anthony wheeled around as if he’d been shot out of a cannon. “The old cabin,” he hollered from the hallway. “They’re in the old cabin.”

  “Wait, Anthony,” Father John shouted again as he came around the table. By the time he reached the hallway, the Indian was already out the front door, and Father John ran after him. He flung open the door and hurried outside. Rain was falling in great white sheets, and the sky erupted in thunder as Anthony jumped into his jeep.

  “Wait,” Father John hollered again, running out to Circle Drive and grabbing the door handle as the jeep lurched forward. “Be careful,” he yelled into the rain as he let go of the moving vehicle.

  31

  RAIN PLOPPED ONTO the hood of the Toyota and washed over the asphalt moving toward him like a conveyor belt. Thunder roared overhead, coming out of the west—the place of the Thunder Beings—and lightning flashed through the air like neon lights blinking on and off. The old pickup shuddered and protested as Father John floorboarded the gas pedal. Before he’d left the mission, he’d dialed Banner’s office only to be told the chief was out. Of course he was out. He was always out. Father John told the operator to get a couple of cars—BIA, sheriff, somebody—out to the Cooley ranch fast.

  It was nearly five o’clock as he swung past the tribal offices. Vicky’s Bronco wasn’t in the parking lot. A short way down the road, he pulled up in front of Indian High School. Let it be open, he prayed, hitting the brake. He sprinted up the sidewalk, water sloshing over his boots and running off the brim of his cowboy hat, and yanked on the knob of the large metal door at the entrance. The door didn’t budge.

  “Damn,” he said under his breath as he ran around the building to the back door, each step sending shock waves into his dislocated shoulder. An old Chevy was parked out back. Good. Somebody was here, he thought, grabbing the knob of a smaller metal door. It inched slowly forward, and he slipped inside, clipping his arm on the door’s edge. The pain made him groan. The rhythm of a bouncing basketball floated out of the gym and into the hallway, which was banked with lockers. One of them was Charlie’s. But which one? There were at least fifty on each side of the hall.

  Father John burst into the gym and strode out onto the floor interrupting a scrimmage. Three Arapaho high school boys stopped in place, startled. “Anybody know Councilman Taylor’s locker?” he demanded.

  “Nah, Father,” said the kid palming the basketball, a baffled look in his eye. The other two kids were shaking their heads. “I know it.” The voice came from behind, and Father John whirled toward the bench against the far wall where a younger boy was lacing up one of his hightops.

  “He don’t know nothin’,” one of the older kids muttered.

  “Show me,” Father John said. The boy jumped off the bench and marched into the hallway, and Father John followed.

  “I saw him put his stuff in here.” The kid stopped in front of one of the lockers. “I don’t know the combination.”

  I do, Father John thought. There were only two possibilities. He held the lock tight against the metal door with his left palm and twirled the knob. 3-33-10. The lock held. He swirled the knob a full circle, then tried again. 33-3-10. The shaft slipped free. “All right,” the kid said.

  Father John opened the locker door. The inside was crammed with sweats, T-shirts, sneakers, towels, a deflated basketball. A pump tilted forward, about to fall out, and he jammed it back. He held his breath, scarcely believing his luck was holding. Charlie’s wife hadn’t cleaned out the locker. With one hand he pushed aside folds of terry cloth, T-shirts stiff with dried sweat, and plastic shampoo bottles. Then he gripped something flat and hard.

  Father John pulled the plastic file box toward him. It came free, trailing the leg of gray sweatpants. He sank onto the shiny, waxed floor and set the box upright against the wall. The kid had gone back into the gym, and Father John was alone. Slowly he lifted the lid. The pages inside were thin and yellow with the musty smell of archives. He pulled out the first page. Page 2274 of Father Stanislau’s diary, handwritten in precise, carefully formed, easy-to-read, yet tiny, script, the work of a precise, careful, logical man.

  “January 17, 1887. This morning at 10 o’clock, Chief Black Night brought the leading men of the Arapaho to the mission. They said they wished to tell the Great White Father how the agent had falsely claimed part of their lands. They believe that as soon as the Father in Washington is told of the fraud committed against them, he will require the agent to return their lands. They said it has caused much hardship to lose these lands, which are the most desirable on the reservation because of clear streams and stands of good timber and nutritious grasses. They need the water and the grasses to preserve the last of their pony herd.

  “I agreed to take their depositions and to forward them to officials in Washington. Accordingly, each of the leading men recounted how, in 1878, Agent Cooley held their annuities for many months. It was winter, and there was nothing to eat. The warriors hunted deer and small game, and so the people were able to stay alive. But the children were crying with hunger and many were sick in the freezing cold. Finally the leading men said they had no choice but to allow Agent Cooley to carve off a large part of their lands. They said he made them sign some papers. He would not give them the food and blankets that Washington had sent them until they signed the papers. They feared the papers meant their lands were gone forever, but it was never their intention to give over the lands. They had signed because they were afraid the people would die if they did not.

  “I wrote all of it down exactly as the leading men told it to me, and they signed the depositions with their X’s. Afterwards my two assistants and I also signed to prove to the government that three white men were witnesses. I immediately dispatched the depositions to Washington with little hope that anything will be done. The great bulk of their lands has been taken from these Indians, and this additional outrage will not, I fear, make any difference to the government. Nevertheless, these leading men have told the truth. My hope is that the future will know the truth.”

  Father John returned the page to the file box feeling as if he had heard the words, not read them, as if the voice of a long-ago Jesuit priest had spoken to him. The thumping of the basketball reverberated down the empty hallway as he leafed through the other pages. It was all there. A copy of the actual letter Father Stanislau had sent to Washington. At the top of the page was the number 2250. And ten depositions, carefully written copies of the originals, each signed with an X. Under the signatures were the names of the leading Arapaho men. Black Night’s name was on the first deposition.

  There was more. Several typed pages stapled together and titled “
insert.” It was the section Harvey had intended to include in the chapter on the early days of the reservation. And there was a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Father Stanislau, acknowledging receipt of the depositions and promising prompt redress.

  Not so prompt redress, Father John thought, lifting himself stiffly off the floor. He had to get these records to Banner. This and whatever forged records it was likely that Vicky had found in the Fremont County courthouse. That they would be forged he was certain.

  There was no sign of Vicky’s Bronco at the tribal offices. Inside the receptionist was on the phone staring off into space, absorbed. “Any messages for me?” Father John waved to get her attention. She looked away. After a couple seconds, he realized she was talking to a friend, and he hit the disconnect button. She looked up, startled. “Father John!” Her voice was a whine.

  He repeated his question.

  “Chief Banner called.” A note of pained reluctance crept into her voice now. “Something about jurisdiction problems at the Cooley ranch. He said to call him. Vicky Holden called you. She said, and I quote, ‘He’s gonna like what I found.’ She said to meet her at the Cooley ranch.”

  “What?”

  The receptionist flinched, pedaling backward a couple inches on her chair, an automatic reflex.

  “I’m just telling you what she said.” The whine was back.

  “Listen to me,” Father John said. He was leaning over the desk. “Call Chief Banner right now and tell him ...” The woman looked as if she might burst into tears.

  “Never mind,” he said, picking up the receiver and pushing in Banner’s numbers. “Be there,” he said under his breath. Then Art Banner’s familiar voice came on the line. “Get some cars out to the Cooley ranch right away. BIA, sheriff’s deputies—don’t tell me about jurisdiction.”

  “Wait a minute,” the chief yelled. “I can’t ask the sheriff for cars at the Cooley ranch without a damn good reason. Ned Cooley’ll have the sheriff’s ass in a sling and mine, too. What the hell’s this all about?”

  “About stopping a murderer,” Father John shouted as he slammed down the receiver.

  32

  FATHER JOHN CLAMPED the gas pedal to the floor and willed the Toyota faster down Highway 287. The file box with its precious records lay on the seat beside him. A clap of thunder drew an instant flash of lightning. White sheets of rain washed over the windshield and hood and spread into miniature lakes on the asphalt ahead. He had to hunch over the steering wheel to keep the center line in view between swipes of the windshield wipers. He swore out loud, a string of words he’d forgotten he knew. What was she thinking of? People could be so damn impetuous. She was impetuous. Going by herself to see Ernest Oldman, a crazy drunk who tried to shoot up an oil pump. Coming out here alone to confront Ned Cooley. What would that get her? Dead?

  The Toyota skidded on the rain-soaked pavement as he wheeled onto Rendezvous Road. Another sharp turn and he was heading down the long driveway to the Cooley ranch, its front lawn gray with rain. Vicky’s Bronco was parked at the end of the driveway where the food tables had been set up last Saturday night. There was no sign of Banner or the sheriff or anybody else, for that matter.

  Father John left the engine running and, nearly doubled over, dashed across the soggy lawn. Rain pelted the back of his shirt and spilled off his hat. He mounted the stairs to the porch two at a time and slammed his left fist into the door before turning the knob. The door swung open.

  “Vicky!” he shouted. The sounds of the rain diminished as he stepped inside and closed the door. He felt as if he’d stepped into the eternal quiet of a museum. The hallway stretched toward the carved wooden banister on the stairway ahead. Starting toward it, he shouted again. “Vicky! Ned! Anybody here?”

  Rooms filled with Arapaho belongings opened off either side of the hall, and, as he glanced through the doorway on the left, his eyes fell on Chief Black Night’s warbonnet. He stepped into the room, drawn to the warbonnet draped against the wall, eagle feathers graceful and elegant behind Plexiglas. The warbonnet of a great man. How much food, how many blankets and bolts of cloth had it purchased for Chief Black Night’s people?

  And Ned Cooley had worn it the night he murdered Harvey. Father John could feel the truth of it, as if he had seen with his own eyes the white man darting past the tipis, in and out of the shadows of flickering campfires, dressed in buckskin shirt, beaded apron, angora leggings, moccasins, warbonnet with eagle feathers trailing down his back. Ned Cooley had his choice of regalia, all authentic. He was one of the powwow dancers walking through camp. No one would have noticed him. And then, as he did his terrible deed, one of the eagle feathers had fallen from the warbonnet. It lay on the dirt floor of the tipi, a fact Ned Cooley hadn’t realized until he got home and draped the warbonnet back on its stand in the center of the room. The empty woven shaft that had held the feather was obvious. He had arranged the warbonnet behind Plexiglas so no one would notice.

  “Help you, Father O’Malley?” Father John swung around and faced one of the ranch hands in the doorway.

  “Where’s Ned?”

  “Gone fishin’ up at Washakie reservoir. Says nothin’ like rain to get those trout bitin’.”

  “Where’s Vicky Holden?”

  “That Indian lawyer lady?” The ranch hand shrugged. “So that’s the lady he had in the pickup with him. You ask me, she’s a darn fool just like Mr. Cooley if she likes fishin’ in this weather.”

  “He took her up to the reservoir?” As Father John gasped the words, he realized Ned intended to kill her. Not on the ranch. In the steep, rock-studded canyon of the Washakie. Jesus, she would never be found.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “The police are on their way here. Send them up to the Washakie fast. Do you understand?”

  The ranch hand looked startled, perplexed.

  “Do you understand?” Father John shouted.

  “Yeah. Yeah,” the ranch hand said as Father John yanked open the front door and dodged into the rain.

  Washakie reservoir washed over its banks in places, spilling across the road, and Father John had to fight with all the strength in his one good arm to keep the Toyota on track. He hit a dip, and, suddenly, he was hydroplaning out of control. He took his foot off the gas, but as soon as the wheels touched the ground, he jammed down the pedal again. Thunder rolled above the canyon and lightning danced through the rain-filled air. Just as he came out of a long curve, he spotted the blue pickup nudged into the scrub brush along the side of the road, across from where he and Anthony had been fishing last evening. The Toyota slid in the wet dirt, and, pumping the brakes, Father John pulled in behind the pickup. Then he saw them.

  In the stand of aspens about fifty feet up the mountain, Ned Cooley was gripping Vicky’s arm, and the force of his grip propelled her uphill. In the man’s other hand was a rifle. Father John laid on the horn with all the strength in his left arm. Ned turned, swinging Vicky around with him as if they were doing the do-si-do in a western bar. After a moment, they started down. Father John had to twist around in the seat to grab the file box before he got out of the cab. The rain crushed his shirt against his back and shoulders and beat on the sling that held his arm to his chest.

  Slowly Father John made his way alongside the bed of the pickup. Ned and Vicky were still about fifteen feet up the slope. Vicky’s hair was matted against her head, and water streamed down her face. Her T-shirt looked as if it had dissolved into her skin. Ned had on a hooded, full-length brown slicker, the rain pinging against it like pebbles on a lake. Still gripping Vicky’s arm, he pointed the rifle at Father John.

  “You got the records?” Ned hollered.

  “Here,” Father John shouted, lifting the box into the rain.

  Pushing Vicky ahead, Ned came toward him. “I figured you’d find them. All I had to do was wait. Then I’d get ’em from you. Of course, you’d have to have yourself a tragic accident afterwards. I wasn’t countin’ on this lawyer lady showing up
waving copies of county records at me. That was perfect. I knew you’d come after her and bring the mission records right to me.”

  “You didn’t have to kill Harvey,” Father John said. “The Arapahos would’ve worked out a fair price for all the years your family’s taken care of the ranch. Harvey was a fair man. He would’ve seen to it. Isn’t that the deal he offered you? Why didn’t you take it? Was it the five million dollars? Is that what you wanted?”

  The rancher’s head was shaking inside the hood of the slicker. “Ned Cooley’s gonna be the next governor of this state, and nobody’s gonna say the governor’s family cheated a bunch of damn Indians out of anything.”

  “So you killed Harvey to protect your reputation?” Keep him talking, Father John thought. Stall until Banner and the sheriff get here.

  “The Cooley name, you fool. We been here more than a hundred years. We built this place. We are Wind River Reservation.”

  Lightning struck the boulders up above and sent a charge of electricity through the air. Rain fell in waves between Father John and the man and woman, who, like Siamese twins, were still inching downslope toward him. He could see the defiance on Vicky’s face, her lips drawn into a tight line.

  “Nobody would’ve been the wiser if you hadn’t come pokin’ around here.” Ned waved the rifle, and Father John felt the muscles tighten in his chest. “Fremont County records show who’s got title to the Cooley ranch. There are sworn statements from a lot of Indians that my great-granddaddy bought the land fair and square. Without those old mission records, nobody’s ever gonna know any different.”