The Story Teller

by Margaret Coel

  Facing his visitor, he said, “The mission doesn’t depend upon me. Neither would the museum.”

  “It’s impossible,” Father Stanton said. He started down the steps—a stiff-legged maneuver—and headed toward the Buick parked in Circle Drive.

  Father John caught up and walked alongside him. “I want to know what the provincial thinks,” he said. Was this one of the rules? Pulling rank? After all, he and the provincial went back a long way—to their days in the seminary—although he hadn’t seen Father William Rutherford in years. The gamesmanship left a sour taste in his mouth, like the aftermath of bad coffee. The museum would help the Arapahos preserve their history and culture. Why couldn’t this other priest see that?

  “The provincial hears a hundred so-called good ideas from Jesuits every week,” Father Stanton began. His breath came in short jabs. “Everything from running preschools and day-care programs to operating soup kitchens. And now a museum! What are we? Some kind of social-welfare or civic organization? We are educators, let me remind you.”

  “There are many ways to educate. The museum—”

  “The decision is final.” Father Stanton yanked open the car door and, gripping the wheel, pulled his bulky frame into the seat, the front of his black suit coat bunching over his fleshy stomach.

  Leaning against the open door, Father John said, “How long will the provincial be in Denver?”

  “The provincial relies upon my decision in these matters.” Father Stanton gave the ignition a quick turn. The engine burst into life.

  “How long?”

  “I’m not his secretary.” A tug at the door handle.

  “Tomorrow?” Father John persisted. “The next day? When does he leave?”

  Father Stanton shot him a look filled with exasperation and contempt. “The provincial will be tied up in meetings at Regis for the next few days.”

  Slamming the door, Father John stepped back as the rear wheels dug into the gravel and the car lurched forward. A few days, he thought. If he drove to Denver tomorrow, there was a chance he could see the provincial. But that meant the mail, the messages, and the work piled up on his desk would have to wait. And his assistant would have to postpone the backpacking trip he had planned and handle things at the mission awhile longer.

  Father John watched the Buick weave through the shade of the cottonwoods lining Circle Drive and plunge down the straightaway that led out of the mission onto Seventeen-Mile Road. “I’ll see you in Denver,” he said under his breath.

  3

  Vicky set the file folders into her briefcase and closed the flap. She had everything she needed. Everything she’d copied yesterday in the library at Benner and Hanson, the largest firm in Lander, concerning the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Enough, she was confident, for this afternoon’s meeting with the curator at the Denver Museum of the West.

  The only meeting, she hoped. With luck, she would find a perfectly logical explanation for the fact that the ledger book was not on the inventory list and would fly home first thing tomorrow. She would convince Dennis Eagle Cloud and Charlie Redman that the museum could be trusted, and her people could reclaim what belonged to them. Her carry-on, which was all she needed, was in the Bronco. She was dressed for the trip in an attorney uniform: tailored gray dress and heels. An uncomfortable uniform, she knew. It would be as hot in Denver as it was here.

  She was not looking forward to another trip to Denver where she had spent ten years as an undergrad, a law student, and, finally, a lawyer in a downtown firm. Every day of those years she had longed to be back on the reservation, surrounded by the vast spaces of earth and sky. Since she’d come home, she had approached any trip—even the shortest—with a heavy heart.

  She glanced at the little silver watch on her wrist. Less than an hour to get to the Riverton airport. Even with the usual light mid-morning traffic and no delays for highway construction, she would have to hurry.

  Swinging her briefcase off the desk, she started across the office, aware for the first time of voices behind the closed door. She had instructed Laola White Plume, her new secretary, to cancel appointments for today and tomorrow, yet one of her clients must have come in. The uneasy feeling Vicky had been trying to ignore rose inside her like the bitter aftertaste of a bad meal. She was leaving the office in the hands of an eighteen-year-old girl, still giddy from having walked across a stage and picked up a high-school diploma. Still giddy from having landed her first job. And not just some job swabbing out motel rooms or clerking in a discount store, but the beginning of a career.

  An ambitious girl, her new secretary, with plans to attend night school at Central Wyoming College in the fall. Vicky had seen something of herself in the girl, she supposed, which was why she had hired her. But the on-the-job training had been wearing. Laola had a lot to learn about dealing with the public, which was obvious from the rising tone of anger in the voices in the outer office.

  For an instant Vicky thought about fleeing out the back door and down the stairs to the parking lot. She could call Laola from the airport and explain her abrupt departure. But the voices were louder, more insistent, and Vicky flung open the door.

  “You don’t understand!” a young woman in her early twenties shouted at Laola, who had planted herself a few feet from the doorway, as if to block the visitor’s entry.

  Laola swung around. “I told her you ain’t seein’ any clients today.”

  Vicky winced. Grammar was part of the on-the-job training. She would mention it again when she returned, not in front of the other young woman in blue jeans and yellow blouse, who was making a wide track around the secretary.

  “You’re Vicky Holden?” There was a quickness and desperation in her voice, as if she expected Laola to interrupt.

  Vicky didn’t recognize the woman, but she was Arapaho: the sharp angles of the cheekbones, the small hump in the nose, the long black hair parted in the middle and swept behind her ears.

  “And you are . . . ?” Vicky said, pushing aside the thought of an airplane waiting on the tarmac.

  “Annemarie Jemson.” The woman waved one hand, a dismissal of unnecessary preliminaries, of the usual dance of politeness. “Todd Harris’s fiancée.”

  Vicky remembered. One of the Jemson girls. They had been little kids thirteen years ago when she’d left the reservation, and she hadn’t seen them since.

  “I tol’ her to come on Friday after you get back from Denver,” Laola said. “You got an opening at two o’clock.”

  “I’m on my way to catch an airplane,” Vicky said.

  “I know,” the girl interrupted. “I saw Dennis Eagle Cloud this morning. He told me you were going to Denver, so I drove over here hoping to catch you before you left.”

  It occurred to Vicky that something might have happened on the reservation, and this young woman had been sent to fetch her. “Is there an emergency?” she asked.

  “Emergency!” The young woman seemed to grab at the idea, as if an unexpected lifeline had floated toward her. “Yes, that’s it! Todd’s got some kind of emergency.”

  “Can’t you come back on Friday?” This from Laola. “Vicky’s got to catch her plane.”

  Annemarie ignored the secretary. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Walk out to the car with me,” Vicky said.

  Their footsteps made a rhythmic slapping noise in the outside corridor that ran along the second floor of the small office building. “What makes you think Todd has some kind of emergency?” Vicky asked.

  They hurried down the stairs in tandem. “He’s not around,” Annemarie said. “I’ve been calling his apartment for three days.”

  “Three days?” Vicky turned and stared at her. Heat rose from the sidewalk and bounced off the brick building. “You’re worried because he doesn’t answer his phone?” A picture was forming in her mind: a handsome young Arapaho man in the big city, where the temptations were mighty. Todd may have a fiancée on the reservation, but other young wo
men, beautiful and available, were in Denver.

  “It’s not what you think,” Annemarie said, fear and impatience in her expression. “We’re getting married in September. This isn’t about us. When he was here last Saturday—”

  “He was here last Saturday?” Vicky heard the sharpness in her tone. Turning abruptly, she walked to the Bronco parked at the curb. She was losing precious time. She’d probably get a speeding ticket on the way to the airport, might even miss her plane, all because she had given Annemarie her attention, when she should have backed up Laola, whose instincts, on this occasion, were better than her own. She flung open the door and slid onto the burning seat.

  Annemarie held the door and leaned down. “Todd was stressed-out. I mean, he’s supposed to be finishing up his thesis, but he drives up here. Didn’t call or anything. Just shows up Saturday night.” She stopped, drew in a shuddering breath. “He said he couldn’t stay, that he had to get back to Denver, that something was going on.”

  “Did he say what it was?” Vicky jammed the key into the ignition and gave it a quick turn. The engine growled into life.

  “He wouldn’t tell me.” Her voice was a whine. “He said I didn’t want to know, and if anybody asked, I was to say I didn’t know anything. He said it could be dangerous.”

  Drawing in a long breath, Vicky shifted in the seat and gave the young woman her full attention. “You haven’t talked to him since?” It was a statement, not a question.

  Annemarie ran her fingers under her eyes and looked away. Bringing her eyes back, she said, “I don’t know if he got back to Denver okay.”

  “If he was in some kind of trouble, why did he come here?” Vicky asked.

  “To see Father John over at the mission,” Annemarie said, as if it were obvious.

  Vicky heard the catch in her breath at the mention of the pastor at St. Francis Mission. She glanced away: the wide stretch of Main Street, the cars and trucks lumbering by. How many cases she and John O’Malley had worked on together: getting some kid out of jail, helping somebody through a divorce, a funeral. She was the lawyer; he, the counselor. A good team. She had never met a man like him—sure and strong. In the last three years she had grown to care about him more than she had wanted, more than she could acknowledge, more than was possible. He was a priest. He had obligations and vows, which he meant to honor. A month ago he had left St. Francis Mission.

  The news had flashed across the moccasin telegraph in tones of abandonment—as if he had abandoned the people. And the search for an explanation had begun. The emergency calls from dying parishioners, the constant stream of troubles. Who called a priest except someone in trouble? The chronic lack of funds, the worry, the sadness. It was too much for one man. And through all the explanations, guilt had nagged at her, a constant companion; she knew why he had left. She had allowed her feelings to drive him away.

  She tried to concentrate on what the young woman was saying, something about Father John not being back from Boston yet. Yet. The word jolted her and made her acutely aware of the space she was occupying, the heat enveloping the car, the sun slanting through the windshield. She had never expected to see him again.

  Trying to ignore the jumble of feelings, she glanced up at the young woman. Tears were welling in Annemarie’s eyes. “Did you call Todd’s grandparents?” Vicky asked. Doyal and Mary Harris had lived in Denver as long as she could remember.

  Annemarie shook her head. “They’re old. I didn’t want to worry them.”

  Vicky understood. It was a sign of respect not to worry old people. She pulled a small pad and pen out of her bag and handed them to the young woman. “Give me Todd’s address and telephone number,” she instructed. “I’ll try to talk to him while I’m in Denver. And give me his grandparents’ number.”

  “Oh, Vicky, thank you.” Relief and gratitude mingled in the young woman’s expression as she scribbled on the pad. “Call me as soon as you find him,” she said, handing back the pen and notepad. The girl had also written down her own phone number.

  Vicky pulled the door shut, pushed the gear into forward, and wheeled onto the street. In the rearview mirror she caught a glimpse of Annemarie walking toward a brown pickup, head bowed, arms tucked at her sides. A right turn at the corner, and the girl was gone. Vicky felt a small shiver run along her spine, like some unbidden and inexplicable premonition.

  She pressed hard on the accelerator. A quick look at her watch confirmed what she feared. She would have to race the clock all the way to the Riverton airport.

  4

  Vicky couldn’t get Annemarie’s story out of her mind. Settling back into her seat as the plane rose above Riverton, she went over what the girl had said: Todd suddenly appearing, unannounced, agitated about something, wanting to talk to Father John. Why would he make the long drive to the reservation unless he was in some sort of trouble? That’s when people always turned to Father John—when they were in trouble.

  And then Todd had disappeared into Denver. Disappeared? Annemarie hadn’t been able to reach him for three days. That hardly constituted a disappearance. There had to be an explanation. Another girlfriend, most likely. In any case, after the meeting at the museum, she would find the young man, make sure he was okay, and explain how worried Annemarie was. Whatever was bothering Todd Harris, it wasn’t fair to keep his fiancée in the dark.

  Feeling more relaxed, Vicky set her forehead against the rounded frame of the window and watched the great expanse of earth below, streaked in sunshine and shadow, melting into the rim of the sky. Wild grasses were the faintest of green now, but she knew they would soon turn brown in the summer’s heat. There was the occasional farm, the clump of reddish-brown buildings, the emerald circles of cultivated fields, but most of the land was open, the way it had been when her people lived here in the Old Time.

  She imagined another June, the time to move the village from the lee of the mountains onto the plains, where the great herds of buffalo could be found. The chiefs riding in the lead, women behind, with infants in cradle boards strapped to their backs, dogs in the rear, pulling travois piled high with clothing and household items, the warriors galloping back and forth, guarding the line. Somewhere below, among the cottonwood trees along the banks of the shimmering streams, the long line halted. The men tethered the ponies, the women scurried about setting up the tipis. They would think the shadow passing overhead was an eagle.

  The squawk of static, the pilot’s voice droning through the cabin called her back to the present. Ten more minutes, and they would land in Denver. In the distance now, Vicky could see the skyscrapers gleaming silver in the sun, the tentacles of the city reaching onto the plains, the miniature cars and trucks rolling along ribbons of highways. To the west rose the massive white peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Then the airport came into view, its white Teflon roof peaked like the mountains, like the tipis in the villages of her people.

  Forty minutes later Vicky gripped the steering wheel of the rented Taurus, heading west on I-70, a highway she had driven often in the years she had spent in Denver. It seemed different now. More automobiles, new exit and entrance-ramps, or had she just forgotten the rush of a city, the steady brrr of traffic, the smell of exhaust fumes? She banked through a series of turns that locals called the “mousetrap” and joined the stream of cars flowing south on I-25, past the warehouses and industrial buildings, past the run-down motels and country-western bars. The highway had once been a trail her people had followed as they moved along the front range of the mountains.

  At Speer Boulevard, she swung south and headed across the South Platte River, then turned into downtown Denver. Locked in traffic now, she inched along sidewalks crowded with business people, briefcases in hand. Another turn, and she passed the small white building with marble columns marching across the entrance. She left the Taurus in a parking lot a block away.

  The sun burrowed into her bare arms and the asphalt burned through the soles of her pumps as she strode through the intersection, the
din of the city—horns and sirens, the growl of engines—rising around her. She looked just like the throngs of lawyers and secretaries and bankers, she thought: tailored linen dress, hair pulled back and clipped at the nape of her neck. But she was not one of them. Not because her skin was brown—she passed others with brown skin—but because she belonged to this place. This was where the villages of the Hinono eino had stood, where her people had traded with whites coming onto the land, where her people had died, their blood soaking the earth that lay buried under asphalt and piles of brick.

  She passed the small shops with designer clothes draped in the windows, the glass-walled entrance to a hotel, the revolving doors into a skyscraper. Huddled next door, like a survivor of another age, reluctant to announce its presence, was the Denver Museum of the West.

  The gray-haired woman behind the doughnut-shaped desk in the lobby seemed intent on shuffling a stack of brochures. After snapping the last of them into place, she raised her eyes. “Yes?” she said, a prolonged drawl.

  “Vicky Holden. I’m here to see Rachel Foster.”

  The woman swiveled toward the phone on the right curve of the desk. There was the tapping of keys, a few muffled words into the receiver, and she swiveled back. “Ms. Foster’s expecting you. Third floor. You can take the elevator.” She tilted her head toward the alcove behind the desk.

  Thanking her, Vicky started toward the alcove, her heels clicking on the marble floor. An archway yawned on the right, and in the gallery beyond stood a large canvas tipi, white as snow. She walked through the archway and slowly circled the tipi, studying the geometric designs painted in blues and reds and yellows on the sides: lines and circles, pyramids and diamonds symbolizing the earth and mountains, the villages, the paths individuals must follow. She tried to read the story the symbols told, but it was difficult. Circles inside squares, diamonds and crosses juxtaposed, vertical and horizontal lines interlocked—all shading the meaning. Mostly women wrote in symbols laden with meaning, whereas men wrote in realistic, detailed pictographs. She wondered about the woman who, more than a hundred years earlier, had painstakingly drawn the prayer symbols for her family.