Beyond the tipi was another archway with a sign at the entrance: THE STORY OF THE CHEYENNE MASSACRE AT SAND CREEK. Vicky flinched. Her people had also been killed at Sand Creek. Slowly she walked into the large room with polished wood floors and glass-fronted display cases. In the case on her left stood a miniature village: circles of white tipis, tiny figures of women tending kettles over glowing fires, men wrapped in buffalo robes, hunched down, cleaning rifles and stringing bows, boys herding ponies into a corral. Traces of snow littered the ground; ice crusted the creek winding through the village. It was winter when the massacre occurred, November 29, 1864, a day burned into the memory of her people.
Vicky moved toward the next display, drawn and repelled at the same time. The painted horizon depicted a gray dawn, a hazy sun lifting out of the east, and the Colorado Cavalry, Third Regiment massed on the bluff overlooking the sleeping village. She instinctively stepped back, wanting to flee the malevolent force about to hurtle toward her. Pivoting around, she walked out of the galleries toward the elevator.
On the third floor, she stopped at the door with the small sign that read RACHEL FOSTER, CURATOR. She rapped once before letting herself into an office about the size of her own, but much neater: books perfectly aligned in bookcases, two leather-slung wood chairs in front of a desk, its polished surface clear except for a computer. A woman in her late forties, Vicky guessed, leaned toward the monitor, red-tipped fingers tapping the keyboard. Stylishly cut blond hair brushed the shoulders of her red suit jacket. There was a slash of red at her lips. “I’ve been waiting for you,” Rachel Foster said, lifting her eyes slowly from the monitor.
Vicky approached the desk, feeling like a kid called into the principal’s office. “I’m afraid I was caught by your exhibit on the Sand Creek Massacre,” she said, a kind of apology, although she felt little inclination to apologize.
The curator waved her toward one of the leather chairs. “Quite an exceptional exhibit,” she said. But not a valid excuse for keeping her waiting, the tone implied.
“We were there, too,” Vicky said, taking the seat and setting her handbag at her feet, the briefcase in her lap.
“I beg your pardon?” Rachel Foster lowered her chin, eyes squinting in coldness. For an instant Vicky recalled the look that used to come into the eyes of her ex-husband, Ben, as he leaned against the fence of a corral and assessed a wild mare: how much trouble to break her?
She blinked back the memory. “Cheyennes weren’t the only people massacred at Sand Creek,” she said. “Many of my people died there.”
A mixture of exasperation and impatience came into the curator’s eyes. “A highly contested theory,” she said. “Professor Bernard Good Elk consulted with us on the exhibit. He’s head of Native American studies at Regis University. Surely you know him?” She gave a little wave as if it weren’t important, and hurried on: “He has devoted many years to studying the massacre. His research supports the theory that only Cheyennes were there. About five hundred, I believe he told me. One hundred and sixty-three were killed.”
Vicky swallowed hard. Almost one third of the dead—fifty men, women, and children—were Arapaho. Was everything to be taken from her people, even their history? She saw the implications: if only Cheyennes were at Sand Creek, then only Cheyennes would have a right to the Colorado lands promised by Congress to the tribes that were there. She said, “Perhaps Professor Good Elk should come to the Wind River Reservation and interview the descendants of the Arapaho survivors.”
The curator gave her a wan, forced smile. “I’m sure he would have done so, had he thought it productive.” Clasping her hands on the desk in front of her, she said, “You mentioned on the phone there was some sort of problem.”
Vicky extracted the blue folder from her briefcase, then let the briefcase slide to her feet. It made a muffled thud against the carpet. “We have reason to believe the inventory of Arapaho artifacts may be incomplete,” she said, locking eyes with the woman on the other side of the desk.
Gripping the arms of her chair, as if to steady herself in a sudden gust of wind, Rachel Foster blurted, “Incomplete? You can’t be serious. I personally oversaw the compilation of the inventory myself. We furnished inventories to numerous tribes, and I can assure you they are all complete. Our consultant was another highly respected expert—Professor Emil Coughlin. You must know him.”
Vicky shook her head. She had never heard of any of these so-called experts.
The curator went on, eyes narrowing in impatience. “Don’t know him? A highly regarded ethnohistorian? Why, he is known around the world for his expertise on the artifacts of the Plains Indians.”
“That may be true,” Vicky said in her courtroom tone, calm and firm. “But the inventory does not include the Arapaho ledger book.”
“A ledger book? In our collections?” The curator’s voice rose in incredulity. “Why would you suppose that, Ms. Holden? Indeed, I’ve never heard that an Arapaho ledger book even exists.”
Vicky drew in a long breath, her hands gripping the folder. This was the difficult part: a ninety-three-year-old man, a story—all the evidence she had. She said, “One of our elders saw the ledger book on display in the museum in 1920.”
“Nineteen-twenty?” The other woman threw back her head and laughed. The sound was dry and strained. “Is this some kind of joke? Some old man says he saw a ledger book here almost eighty years ago?”
“Exactly.”
“It could have been another museum.”
“He believes it was this museum,” Vicky said.
The curator set her elbows on the desk and brought her red-tipped fingers together in a tent below her chin. “Please, Ms. Holden,” she began, amusement in her eyes, “you can’t expect me to take this seriously. This is beyond what NAGPRA requires.”
Vicky held the other woman’s gaze. “We have a right to know the whereabouts of our ledger book.”
Rachel Foster said nothing for a moment. The amused expression faded into grimness. “I take your inference that we are hiding something quite personally,” she said finally. “My job is to know every item in the museum’s collection, and I do my job very well.” Suddenly she was on her feet. “Come with me.” She swung around the desk and started toward the door.
Vicky picked up her briefcase and handbag and followed the curator down the short hallway to the elevator. They rode in silence to the lower level: a steady pull downward. The doors opened onto a carpeted corridor that ran along a glass-enclosed wall. Beyond the wall, Vicky could see shelves stacked with books and gray cardboard cartons. She followed the curator through a door with LIBRARY printed on the clear glass panel. The room was square, with dark-wood tables lined up in rows, polished tops gleaming under the fluorescent ceiling lights. Several researchers sat hunched over papers and books. A young woman with a wedge of brown hair over her forehead and tiny half-glasses looked up from the desk on the left. A small sign on the desk said REFERENCE LIBRARIAN.
Rachel Foster sailed past, and Vicky followed. The muffled sound of their footsteps, the occasional turning of a page, broke the library quiet. A right turn, and they were in the stacks, slipping sideways around the cartons and books, the piles of newspapers jutting beyond the metal shelves.
“Every item is briefly identified,” Rachel Foster said. Her red nails trailed along the plastic labels at the edge of one shelf as she walked on. “Complete identifications are in the files.”
Vicky stopped, her eyes on the labels: Gorsuch collections, 1913; Black and Riddle Papers, 1902–1910. And beneath a shelf of old books: Colorado History, 1858–1888.
The curator had disappeared, and Vicky hurried along the stacks. She found the other woman punching in security numbers next to a metal door on the far wall. “What you see here,” she said with a wave toward the stacks, “are library materials, a small part of our collection.”
The door slid open, as if some invisible arm had pulled it back, and Vicky followed the curator into a cavernlike spa
ce as large as a football field and at least two stories high. The air felt cool—the controlled, even coolness of a morgue. There was an odd musty odor, like that of old spices and decaying fabrics. Rows of large metal shelves resembling scaffolding stretched into the far shadows. At a glance, she saw the items on nearby shelves had been gathered through the last century: Victorian chairs and tables, feather boas, flapper dresses, poodle skirts, saddles, firearms.
She hurried to stay abreast of Rachel Foster, who, with single-minded intensity, was marching down an aisle with shelves looming on both sides. The shelves were crowded with Native American artifacts. Abruptly the curator stopped and swept out one hand. “The Arapaho collection,” she announced. “You will find everything listed on the inventory.”
Vicky moved slowly along the aisle, allowing her eyes to roam over the items: beaded moccasins and gloves, breastplates strung with eagle bones, pipes decorated with feathers and beaded thongs, eagle-feathered warbonnets that, she knew, had once been worn by chiefs. From somewhere came a faint rumble of traffic, and she realized the storeroom reached far under the city streets. For an instant she felt as if she’d stepped into another time, surrounded by objects waiting with mute patience for owners to return and take them up again, while the city pulsed overhead in the distant future.
She reached the end of the aisle and turned, slowly retracing her steps, eyes combing the shelves. Nothing resembled a ledger book.
Rachel Foster waited, arms folded across her waist, red nails tapping her elbows. “I hope you have satisfied yourself,” she said.
“Perhaps the ledger book is lost somewhere.” Vicky swung the briefcase toward the shelves extending around them. “It could be wedged between cartons, or hidden behind some other artifact.”
“Impossible,” the curator said. “We know the precise location of everything in the collections. I can assure you if we owned a ledger book worth one-point-three million dollars, we would know where it was.”
Wheeling about, Rachel Foster started back along the aisle. Vicky stayed in step. When they reached the cool hush of the library, she said, “We’d like an explanation as to what became of the ledger book. You must have records dating back to 1920.”
The curator turned and faced her. “Of course we have records.” There was a note of scarcely disguised contempt in the woman’s voice. Nodding toward the filing cabinets against the wall at the end of the stacks, she said, “The old records are in the files. We have records for each item acquired from the day the museum opened in 1896 until 1975. After that date our records are in the database.” She drew in a long breath, turned, and started back through the library.
“Then you must have a record of the ledger book,” Vicky said, staying in step.
The curator stopped again and turned—a deliberate movement. “Are you suggesting we search every file cabinet?”
“If necessary, yes,” Vicky said.
“Impossible!” The curator took in a gulp of air. “Records prior to 1920 are nothing more than notations jotted on slips of papers.” Another gulp, and she went on: The overburdened staff. A wild-goose chase. Beyond the requirements of NAGPRA.
Vicky gripped the handle of her briefcase, struggling to control her growing impatience. “The law requires you to furnish my tribe with a complete and accurate inventory of Arapaho artifacts. We know the ledger book was once in the museum. We want to know what became of it. I must ask you to check your records.”
The curator glanced about, as if to beckon assistance from the tables, the researchers, the young woman behind the desk. Then: “You are making this very difficult.” Little dots of spittle peppered her chin.
Vicky said nothing, watching the other woman’s eyes travel again over the room. After a moment the curator brought her eyes back. “It will take some time,” she said.
“I’d like a copy of the ledger book record by Friday,” Vicky said. She’d been hoping to settle matters and fly home tomorrow. Now she would be lucky to get home for the weekend.
“Friday! Two days! Impossible.”
“I’ll be back on Friday,” Vicky said.
5
It was almost noon before Father John drove out of St. Francis Mission. He’d spent the morning returning phone calls and tending to the most urgent messages on his desk. The rest he’d stacked into piles—less urgent, important, not important—that he would handle as soon as he got back.
He caught Highway 135 and headed south. Not far beyond the southern outskirts of Riverton, the ranch houses and clusters of barns began to fall away, leaving the open land running into an azure sky and the two lanes of asphalt ahead shimmering in the sun. Hot air rushed past the half-opened windows and mingled with the sounds of Rigoletto blaring from the tape player on the seat beside him. Except for an occasional semi roaring past and the small herds of antelope racing along the highway, he was alone.
“Another trip?” Father Geoff had said, when he’d told his assistant he was going to Denver. As if the pastor of St. Francis Mission was always casting about for some reason to leave, when the truth was he hated having to leave again. He’d only returned from Boston three days ago. He was glad to be home. Yet Boston had been home for almost thirty years—the throb of traffic and rush of people once as familiar as the rhythms of his own life. How strange and jarring they had seemed on this last trip. He’d felt only a sense of relief as the plane had lifted into the clouds, leaving the city far behind, like the life he had once led there.
He had spent two weeks at the Jesuit retreat house in Boston, praying over the direction of his life and, in the privacy of the chapel, renewing vows he had made to God seventeen years before. Made of his own free will, gladly. Knowing that he would not be like other men, would not marry, would never have children, that his life would take a different direction.
After the retreat, he’d spent another two weeks visiting old friends, taking in the museums and a couple of concerts. He’d set aside an afternoon to spend with his brother, Mike, and his wife, Eileen. Nothing had changed with Mike. He still made it clear—the reserved manner, the forced camaraderie—that he wished Father John would go away and not return, as if he feared he might still be in love with Eileen. How silly, Father John thought. After all these years.
There was a time he had loved Eileen. He still remembered the stab of pain when, three months after he’d entered the seminary, she had run off and married his brother. But that was years ago—a lifetime ago. He hardly recognized the woman—the faded red hair, the wide hips and large, rounded breasts. What had become of the lithe, slim colleen with red-gold hair and flashing green eyes he’d guided across the dance floors at Boston College?
These were not thoughts he wanted. Father John snapped down the visor against the sun glinting off the hood. He had chosen a different direction, had been called to a different life—a life he’d found difficult at times and filled with temptations. He hadn’t stood the test well. He’d let everybody down when he’d started drinking—his superiors, his students at the Jesuit prep school where he used to teach American history, himself. He thought of that time as his Great Fall, when he had fallen from what everyone had expected.
He’d spent almost a year in recovery at Grace House and, afterward, old Father Peter had agreed to let him work at St. Francis Mission, a place he’d never heard of, among people—the Arapahos—he knew little about. He’d arrived in the emptiness of the plains, feeling both grateful and depressed. Grateful to the old priest for taking a chance on him, depressed at the distance between an Indian reservation and a university history department, where he had hoped to be.
But the more he’d gotten to know the Arapahos, the more he had felt at home, as if his life had been pointed in the direction of St. Francis Mission all along. Still the temptations persisted, the thirst that came over him at unexpected moments, especially in the evenings, when he was alone. And then the day, nearly four years ago, when he’d looked up from his desk and seen the woman dressed in a blue suit, c
arrying a briefcase, a small fist about to rap against the opened door.
“Excuse me, Father,” she’d said. He’d known who she was even before she introduced herself—the dark skin, the black hair pulled tightly back, the black eyes shining with intelligence. The grandmothers had been clucking for weeks over how Vicky Holden had gone away and become ho:xu’wu:ne’n, a lawyer, like a white woman. And now she had come back. As if she could ever come back, the grandmothers said, as if things could ever be the same. From that first day he’d known he must not spend much time with this woman.
His instincts had been right, he thought, stomping down on the accelerator and passing a truck. The Toyota vibrated around him as he pulled back into his lane, the stretch of asphalt empty ahead. Last month, when he’d thought Vicky had lost her life to a deranged killer, he’d wondered how he would stand it. And when he’d found she was okay, he’d known he had to step back, get his own bearings. He had fled to Boston.
He’d returned with a sense of peace and determination about the things he wanted to accomplish at the mission: the new classes and programs and, especially, the museum in the old school. He felt a twinge of guilt at leaving his assistant in charge of the mission again, especially since Father Geoff had to cancel his plans for a backpacking trip into the Wind River mountains this weekend. But it could be another year before the provincial returned to Regis, another year before he could meet with him. The Arapahos needed the museum now. They had already started to reclaim funeral and cultural artifacts from museums around the country. Just yesterday, the cultural director, Dennis Eagle Cloud, had called to say he was expecting a shipment of artifacts from the Smithsonian. He’d wanted to know if the mission had any storage space, until he could find a permanent location. Father John had offered the empty storerooms on the second floor of the administration building. Storerooms were hardly a substitute for a museum.
The Story Teller Page 4