The Dream Stalker

by Margaret Coel

  Father John said nothing. Is this what people thought? Is this the gossip on the moccasin telegraph—the gossip that never reached the mission? The mission priest and the Arapaho woman who went away and became a white woman?

  “We are not lovers,” he said. The statement sounded hollow, half true.

  Confusion crossed the other priest’s face, as if he were trying to decide if he was wrong or if Father John was lying. “We’re not lovers,” he mimicked. “What does that mean? That you haven’t taken her to bed yet?” His assistant leaned against the edge of the table, and Father John recognized the other man’s effort to appear steady.

  “The physical is only one level. What about the emotional and psychological? Can you say you’re not lovers on those levels?”

  Father John started down the hallway. “I’m not going to discuss this,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I know what I’m talking about. You’re not the first priest . . .”

  Father John turned and walked back into the kitchen. He’d been wrong. The other priest wasn’t talking about him. The Scotch, the self-pity—why hadn’t he seen it immediately?

  Father Geoff stood at the table, balancing against the edge. “I met a woman,” he said, a sobbing note in his voice.

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “I want to, damn it. Don’t you understand? I need somebody to talk to.”

  Father John leaned against the kitchen counter and waited.

  “Myra.” The name burst into the air, as if it had made its way from some hidden place. “She was the mother of one of my students. She was divorced. Her kid was having trouble, and she needed somebody to talk to. A priest is better than a psychologist, you know. There’s the confession aspect, especially when people are feeling guilty. They get a sense of forgiveness. But then . . .” The man stretched out both hands, a pleading gesture.

  “Geoff,” Father John began. He felt a surge of compassion for the other man; he understood the pain that comes from weakness. “This is hard for you. We can talk about it tomorrow.” He stopped himself from saying, “When you’re sober.”

  “We were lovers for six months,” the other priest went on. “Somehow the superior found out. Somebody always finds out, and three days later, I was here. Three days.”

  Father John pushed himself away from the edge of the counter, his eyes still on the other priest. He’d gotten everything wrong. He’d thought this financial wizard had been sent to operate St. Francis Mission like a business, to total up the columns of profits and losses But Father Geoff’s assignment here had been a punishment, just as his had. A man involved with a woman and an alcoholic. Two fallen priests, the priests at St. Francis. Were they supposed to save the Arapahos, he wondered, or were the Arapahos supposed to save them? “What happened to Myra?” he asked.

  Father Geoff shook his head in a long, deliberative movement. “I didn’t even tell her good-bye.” His gaze traveled somewhere past Father John, toward the darkness in the hallway. “I pray for her every day.”

  A hellish trap, Father John was thinking, to fall in love with a priest. He said, “You could have left the priesthood.”

  “No, I couldn’t. I broke my vow, but I am still a priest.”

  “At what cost? When is the cost too high? The pain too much?”

  The other priest backed along the table and lifted the bottle of Scotch. “If you can avoid . . .”

  Father John nodded. “I understand.” Why had he thought his own temptation so unusual? He stared at the other man a long moment, recognizing himself. The younger priest would drink until the bottle was empty, the pain obliterated, and then stumble upstairs to bed. “Will you be all right?” he asked.

  His assistant waved the bottle, as if to wave away a question of no importance.

  16

  Vicky was climbing up the butte, hands clawing at the earth, feet scrambling for a solid purchase in the crevices. She had to reach the top where the spirits dwelled. She would be safe on top. The bear lumbered ahead, stopping and turning its massive head, eyes as sad as death urging her on. Finally the bear was on top, and Vicky saw it was no longer a bear. Now it was a person—an old man or an old woman, she couldn’t tell which. The person beckoned for her to keep climbing, but the rocks were breaking away beneath her. She was slipping back, falling toward the green luminescent river that pounded below, falling, falling toward the swift current.

  Vicky sat up in bed, her face and arms wet with perspiration. Her nightgown clung to her body. It was the dream that was real, not the moonlight at the edges of the curtains, the shadows falling over the dresser and nightstand, the white terrycloth robe at the foot of the bed. The clock on the stand glowed red in the darkness: 4:14. A moment passed before she was fully awake, before she realized the pounding noise in the dream was coming from somewhere in the house—the kitchen. Someone was in the kitchen.

  Her hand reached for the telephone and struck the little clock, sending it clanking across the stand. Then she found the receiver. The cool plastic lay inert next to her ear: Someone had cut the telephone line. A calculated calmness settled over her. She swung out of bed, grabbed the robe, and slipped it on as she inched along the hall and around the corner into the short hallway at the back door. She stopped, listening. The pounding was a rhythmic chip, chip, chip. She lifted the broom from its metal holder on the wall. The handle felt light in her grip, a twig against the prowler in her house.

  Slowly she edged around the doorway into the kitchen. Moonlight glowed through the window and sent shafts of light over the sink, the stove, the counters. No one was there. Holding the broom out like a tomahawk, she followed the pounding noise across the kitchen and into the dining alcove. Someone was trying to break in through the sliding glass doors.

  Flattening herself against the edge of the counter, Vicky moved toward the doors. She could make out the dark figure crouched on the brick patio outside, jabbing some kind of tool at the lock. She drew in her breath—a sharp explosion in her lungs—as she groped for the light switch next to the door frame. Her fingers found the nub of plastic, and she pushed it upward. A milky light flooded the patio. The figure jerked backward, shock and anger in the movement. Vicky took in the black jacket and pants, the black ski mask pulled down over the face, and in the narrow slit, the eyes as wild as those of a trapped bobcat. Then the figure ducked out of the light toward the back door.

  Had she remembered to lock the door? Vicky whirled around, one hip crashing into the edge of the counter, and ran back across the kitchen to the hallway. She flung herself against the door, her breath making a small cloud on the glass as one hand found the bolt. It was locked. She flipped the switch on the side wall. Light burst over the small backyard, but the figure in black was gone. From inside a nearby closet, the furnace hummed into the nighttime quiet.

  Slowly Vicky made her way into the living room. Slivers of moonlight fell around the edges of the drapes. The room was filled with hulking shadows. She kept her eyes on the door, expecting it to fling open. Had she thrown the lock, snapped the chain into its channel after John O’Malley left? She couldn’t remember. It seemed a lifetime ago. Her heart thudded against her chest as she moved around the sofa, still gripping the broom. Then she found the lock, the cold brass chain dangling from the channel. Her breath exploded in a kind of sob as she began jiggling the outdoor light switch. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. “Please,” her voice exploded around her, “someone please notice.”

  Suddenly she remembered opening the window in her bedroom about an inch before she’d gone to bed; she’d been so upset, she had yearned for the sound of the wind in the trees, the patter of the rain, the smell of wet leaves and grasses. What if the figure in black was already in the bedroom, waiting? She crossed the living room and started down the hallway, her heart still pounding like the wings of a trapped bird, fingers tightening into numbness around the broom handle.

  She peered around the doorway. The bedroom lay in quiet shadow, white sheets a
nd pillows on the bed gleaming in the moonlight. Her eyes moved to the window. The gauzy curtain billowed outward, a round puff of air, then sank back. She kept her back to the wall as she moved, barely breathing, expecting the dark figure to leap from some secret hiding place. Reaching for the window, she slid it into place and threw the lock. Then she saw the rip in the screen.

  “Oh, God,” she said out loud. The words startled her, as if someone else had spoken them. Whoever was outside had been trying to pry the screen off. Had intended to climb into her bedroom, attack her in her bed. Had heard her stirring and thrashing about in the dream and had gone to the patio doors. Her body felt clammy, as if she’d just stepped out of a sweat lodge. She longed for a piece of sage to hold to her mouth and nose to keep from being sick.

  A loud whump sounded in the living room, like someone crashing against the door. She was halfway down the hall when she heard a man calling her name. She crossed the shadowy living room to the sound of pounding against the door. “Who’s there?” she called.

  “Police. You okay, Ms. Holden?”

  Vicky moved to the window, shoved the drapes aside, and peered out. A white police car sat in front, its headlights shooting a long beam down the dark street. She stepped back, turned the lock, and pulled the door open the width of the guard chain. An officer appeared in the narrow opening, dressed in puffy jacket and dark trousers. She could see the black handle of a pistol in his hip holster. “Sergeant Larch, Lander police,” he said. “Detective Eberhart gave orders to keep an eye on you. I saw the front light flashing. Everything okay?”

  Vicky closed the door, snapped off the chain, then flung the door wide open. “Someone tried to break in. Out back.”

  “Lock your door,” the policeman ordered. “I’ll check it out.” She saw him pull a little black radio off his belt and bring it to his mouth as he stepped off the porch and started around back. She shut the door and set the lock and chain back into place. In her mind’s eye, she saw herself moving through the house, barefoot, wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, waving a broomstick into the darkness—a crazy woman. Was that how it was in the Old Time? she thought. The warriors out on a hunt; the enemy circling the camp; the women frantic to defend themselves.

  She heard the low hum of a motor outside and pulled the drape back again. Another police car, the officer already running toward the opposite side of the house from where the first officer had headed. She waited, forcing herself to breathe slowly, to be calm.

  After a few moments, another rap sounded at the front door. Soft, as if the officer knew she was just inside. He called her name. Still she left the chain in place as she cracked the door open. Two policemen stood outside, and she went through the whole exercise again before pulling the door toward her. “No sign of anybody,” Sergeant Larch said. “You wanna tell us what happened?”

  The officers stepped inside and stationed themselves near the sofa, rocking back on their heels, feet set apart. She told them about the pounding noise that had awakened her, the dead telephone line, the gouge in the bedroom screen, the figure dressed in black crouched outside the sliding glass doors. Then she told them about the black truck that had followed her home earlier, the same truck, she was sure, that had tried to run her down. Sergeant Larch had extracted a small notebook and a ballpoint pen from somewhere inside his bulky jacket and scribbled as she spoke.

  “You got someplace you could stay for a while?” he asked, snapping the tablet closed.

  Vicky was quiet, remembering John O’Malley’s words: You can stay at the guest house. She said, “They are not going to drive me from my home.”

  “Who?” This from the second policeman.

  Vicky shook her head. “Whoever wants me to stop opposing the nuclear storage facility on the reservation.” She saw the policemen exchange a quick glance and read the message in their eyes. This was Indian business. Some Indian stalking an Indian woman. What business of theirs?

  The second policeman cleared his throat. “The BIA police oughtta know about this. I suggest you take this problem to them first thing in the morning.”

  “Eberhart’s gonna wanna know, too.” Sergeant Larch turned toward the other man. “He gave the order to watch the house.”

  The second policeman gave a short nod. He accepted the order. He didn’t have to approve.

  “Officer Jackson here,” the sergeant said, “is gonna keep circling the area and watching for a black truck. And I’m gonna stay in the neighborhood. If the prowler comes back, just flip that front light again.” As if the matter were settled, he walked past her and stepped out onto the porch, the other officer following. Abruptly the sergeant swung around, facing her. “Make sure you keep everything locked up tight.”

  Vicky set the lock and chain into place and peered out the window, watching the officers slide inside the police cars. The faint red light of dawn outlined the roofs on the houses across the street as the cars pulled away from the curb.

  She glanced around the living room, fighting down the sense of invasion and violation. The briefcase and purse, the slicker, her shoe, were still on the sofa where she’d dropped them. She sank down next to them, corkscrewing her legs under her and wrapping her bare feet into the folds of her robe. She snapped open the briefcase, withdrew the yellow pad. Flipping to a clear page, she began jotting down the names of people who might want to silence her: Lionel Redbull, Matthew Bosse, Alexander Legeau, Paul Bryant—the conspirators, John O’Malley called them. Maybe he was right. She would fax the list to Eberhart first thing this morning. The detective and Chief Banner could have a talk with everybody on it.

  Vicky turned the pages back to the notes she’d made at the public hearing. Her eyes focused on the word Maybe, with the black slashes underneath. What had made Matthew Bosse begin to doubt the facility? Was the councilman having second thoughts about the issues she’d raised—the safety issues? She wondered if he’d learned something that wasn’t in the environmental report.

  She started scribbling down the margins—lines and circles, a mishmash of angry marks. Even if she were right, if Bosse had come across other information, why would he tell her? It was doubtful he’d even meet with her, after all she’d done to stop the facility. Nevertheless she made up her mind she had to talk to Bosse. When he arrived at his office this morning, she would be waiting.

  17

  The first light of day shone through stained glass windows, casting a pink glow over the interior of St. Francis church as Father John said the ancient, familiar prayers of the Mass. At the Our Father, some of the old people in the front rows joined in softly, speaking Arapaho: “Heesjeva hene Sunauneet: Heneseet vedenau . . .” The solemnity of the words gave him a sense of comfort. There was only one God, and His Name was Wonderful. One God to whom the people brought themselves in all their poverty and richness; one God they petitioned in the Sun Dance and appealed to in the Sweet Lodge; one God they encountered in the Mass. Enough prayers could never rise into the heavens for the poor and forsaken and weak, all the lost and troubled creatures.

  Leonard Bizzel, kneeling at the side of the altar, gave the little metal bell a jangle as Father John elevated the Host. Behold, the Lord with us. For an instant, in the stillness, he felt as if time had stopped, and he was at peace. He offered his prayers for the murdered cowboy, for all the people of the reservation, for Vicky, for himself. A prayer for peace and acceptance in all of their hearts.

  * * *

  “If it ain’t rainin’ today, Ralph says he’s gonna stop by and see about fixin’ that leakin’ roof,” Leonard said. He was placing the Mass books and the chalice in one of the cabinets in the sacristy.

  “He’ll do a good job,” Father John said as he fit his chasuble onto a wooden hanger. He hung the garment in the closet and set the door in place.

  “You gonna pay him?”

  “Absolutely.” Father John was struck by the bravery of the statement. It was a good thing Father Geoff wasn’t around to hear it.

  “What yo
u gonna use? Wampum?”

  Father John laughed. He tried to keep the financial condition from the staff. They had their own worries; this was his. But there were no secrets from the moccasin telegraph. “Don’t worry, Leonard,” he said. “The Lord has taken care of St. Francis Mission for a long time now.”

  * * *

  He was surprised to see the young woman in the foyer as he came down the center aisle. He hadn’t noticed her at Mass. Everyone else had left, and the church was quiet, except for the wind whistling through a partially opened window. The faint smell of hot candle wax hung in the air.

  “Hello,” he said. She looked to be in her early twenties, slender, with a pretty face and long, black hair that hung around her shoulders. She wore a jeans jacket over a pinkish dress. Her legs were bare, and she had on flat, brown shoes.

  “My grandfather said for me to stop by on my way to work this mornin’. He wants to know about Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel Many Horses?” The young woman had his full attention. “Was he a friend of yours?”

  She shook her head in a slow, deliberate gesture. “Grandfather wants to know when the funeral’s gonna be.”

  “Who’s your grandfather?”

  “Clarence Fast. You hearda him? He was a real good cowboy. Used to call him Fast Clarence in the rodeos.”

  Father John didn’t recognize the name. He said, “Tell your grandfather I’ll let him know when the funeral has been set. Where can I find him?”

  “He’s been stayin’ with me and my kid last couple months, ever since he give up wranglin’. He looks after Jamie while I go to work. I got me a job cleanin’ rooms in a motel over in Riverton.” She stopped, letting a smile play at her mouth. The job was an accomplishment. “Jamie and me and Grandfather live in the white house on Blue Cloud Road close by the river. You can find Grandfather there most anytime.”