Father John opened the front door and followed the woman outside. The air was cool with a hint of rain, but the sun sparkled on the leaves unfolding in the cottonwoods. The woman hurried down the sidewalk and across Circle Drive to a parked yellow truck with a streak of rust along the side. He watched as she made a U-turn and sped around the drive toward Seventeen-Mile Road. He felt glad at the woman’s news; the cowboy hadn’t been alone in the world after all.
* * *
Elena had insisted he take a thermos of coffee, but he had tried to beg off, explaining she would have to brew another pot, and he didn’t have time—an idea foreign to the old woman, he knew. People had nothing but time. Now the thermos wobbled on the seat next to the cassette player, and Don Giovanni filled the cab of the Toyota. He loved the music, the sense of space: the Wind River Mountains floating ahead in the haze, the sky an enormous blue bowl inverted over the earth, and the sun patterning the wild grasses and clumps of sagebrush on either side of Seventeen-Mile Road.
He swung left onto Rendezvous Road and drove south through Hudson into Lander. He slowed along Main Street, focusing on the asphalt ahead as he passed the red brick building where Vicky’s office was. Then he was on the highway again, racing through land broken by buttes and arroyos, jammed against the foothills on the west. He passed one ranch after another, tapping on the brake, slowing to read the names on the mailboxes at the edge of the highway. What did he expect? What would identify an Arapaho woman with a white man’s name?
A big ranch, LuAnn Fox had said. Runs up into the foothills. A good description of every ranch he’d passed so far. Suddenly he spotted the rock outcroppings ahead, as if the foothills had broken off and tumbled downward. An expanse of meadow disappeared into a canyon. He slowed past the mailbox with the name Cavanaugh and turned into a driveway lined with evergreens and cottonwoods. He parked next to the two-story ranch house with white board siding that gleamed in the morning sun. A porch extended across the front. As he walked up the steps, a gust of wind caught one of the webbed metal chairs stacked along the railing and sent it sprawling over the plank floor. He clacked the brass knocker against the door and waited.
The only sound was that of wind rustling in the evergreens and cottonwoods. He gave the knocker another clack before walking back down the steps. Around the corner of the house he could see the buildings out back—a series of sheds and barns. The door in the nearest barn stood open, and he started down the driveway through the shadows of the branches.
He could see two cowboys inside the barn, currying a couple of horses. Suddenly a woman emerged, leading two quarter horses—a sorrel with a blaze on its face and a gray. She was probably in her thirties, with curly gold-red hair pulled into a thick bunch and tied with a yellow bandanna at the nape of her neck. She wore blue jeans that revealed the curve of her thighs and hips. Her jeans jacket hung over a white blouse. White ruffles flared along the lapels of the jacket and dangled around her wrists.
Father John set one boot on the lower rail of the fence and leaned onto the top, caught by the ease and fluidity with which she moved with the horses, as if the stroll across the bare yard were some kind of dance. They must be her best companions, he thought, the horses.
She glanced up and caught his eye.
“I’m sorry if I frightened you—” he began.
“You didn’t.”
She came toward him, not hurrying, bringing the horses along, the leadropes resting in each hand. He could see the green of her eyes, the sprinkling of freckles across her cheek and nose and in the plunging V of her blouse. She was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in a long time, a fact that gave him a momentary pang of homesickness. So like the Irish girls he’d grown up with in Boston, the striking women they had become. He introduced himself.
“A priest,” she said, as if this piece of information held some fascination for her. She brought the horses close to the fence, light dancing in her green eyes.
“I’m trying to find a woman whose maiden name was Many Horses.” He was aware of her perfume as she set one booted foot on the railing not far from his.
“My stepmother’s in the upper pasture with most of the cowboys. They’re moving the herd to higher ground.” She allowed her smile to last a long moment. “Perhaps I can help you.”
He said, “I believe your stepmother may know someone I’m trying to locate.” A kind of Jesuitical evasion, he knew. In a way he was trying to locate a murdered man, place him in a context. But he didn’t want to discuss the murdered cowboy with this beautiful, self-possessed woman who, he suspected, might decide her stepmother had nothing to say to him.
“I was just about to ride up to the pasture to give her a hand,” she said. “Todd was coming with me”—she gave a little nod toward the barn—“but you can come instead. Take Beauty here.” She raised the lead of the gray mare, which kept trying to nudge the sorrel gelding. “Think you can handle her?”
Father John was reminded of the first time he’d been asked if he could handle a horse. Jamie Little Bear and Dick Wooly had invited him on a four-day pack trip in the Wind River Mountains. It was his first summer at St. Francis; he’d never ridden before. He had learned by doing what they did. It was the way the Arapahos taught their children to ride. He’d gone on pack trips many times since. He and horses seemed to get along.
He climbed up to the middle railing, swung himself over the top, and jumped down on the other side. She was already leading the horses to a hitching post where she tied the halter reins. Then she walked toward a shed, and he followed. Swinging open the door, she stepped inside and pulled two blankets from the saddles straddled over a post. She handed one blanket to him—blue-and-red-striped wool, soft in his hands. They walked back to the horses, and he laid the blanket on top of the mare, pulling it along the spine just below the withers.
They walked back to the barn for the saddles. “Beauty likes that one,” the woman said, nodding toward the saddle with the tooled leather skirt. He lifted it off the post, walked outside, and gently set it on the mare. Then he shook it backward by the horn, making sure it fit comfortably before he cinched it up. After giving the mare a moment to get used to the straps under her belly, he tightened them. Another moment, another tightening.
The woman handed him a bridle. He removed the halter, threw it over the hitching post, and slipped the bit in the mare’s mouth. He lifted the bridle over her ears and flipped the reins over her crest. Then he swung into the saddle, settling his weight slowly. It took time to get used to a man’s weight.
The woman was already mounted. “You learn how to saddle a horse in Boston?” she asked, amusement in her eyes.
“What makes you think I’m from Boston?” He crossed the reins behind the pommel, holding them loosely.
She smiled. “Dead giveaway, that accent of yours.” Leaning toward him, she extended a slim hand, the back brushed with freckles. “Sheila Cavanaugh. I’m impressed.”
“And do you ride every morning, Sheila Cavanaugh?”
“Every morning? Every morning I ride the Powell-Hyde Cable to Union Square. I’m an investment banker.”
“Then I’m impressed.”
“No, you’re not.” She lifted her hand, moving it slightly forward. The horse started across the yard. He let the mare walk alongside.
Past the barn, she leaned forward and applied a little spur. The horse broke into a trot, and Beauty followed. In an instant they were galloping across the meadw the breeze cool on Father John’s face, the sun warm on his shoulders. They reached a path that started uphill through a clump of boulders and the overhanging branches of ponderosas. Sheila Cavanaugh reined in. He brought Beauty to a halt a few feet away.
The woman tossed her head back and laughed. After a moment she said, “I used to ride every day when I was growing up. But my mother died when I was fourteen, and Dad took a look at the ranch hands and at his nubile, adolescent daughter and said Off to boarding school with you. So you might say I’m from Boston, too. I
spent the next eight years there. One Christmas I came back and found I had a stepmother. Alberta Many Horses. Arapaho. To say I was shocked wouldn’t quite say it all. Dad died a couple years ago and left the ranch to both of us.” She turned the gelding and started up the path, a slow walk, both horses picking their way through the ponderosas.
“Alberta runs the ranch,” Sheila shouted over her shoulder. “I come here to regroup in between husbands.”
Father John said nothing. He didn’t think she expected a reply. She seemed so brittle and self-enclosed, so unlike Vicky. And the grandmothers called Vicky a white woman—he had to stifle a laugh. They hadn’t met any white women like Sheila Cavanaugh.
On top of the ridge, the woman stopped in the shade, closed her eyes, and raised her face to the cool breeze. Father John reined in beside her. Sprawled below were the geometric squares of Lander, the peaked roofs, the leafing trees. The Wind River Reservation crept northward, brown earth and arroyos, isolated houses in the cottonwoods bunched along the river beds. This sacred space, Vicky called it.
On the other side of the ridge lay an open meadow, surrounded by mountains that shouldered into the sky. A herd of cattle rolled through the meadow, cowboys riding at the edges. He looked back at the woman. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry?” She opened her eyes and gazed at him, blankness in her expression.
“That you seem so unhappy.”
“Father O’Malley.” She brought her chin down, her eyes leveled on his. “At this very moment, my husband is on a sailboat in the Virgin Islands fucking his secretary. What would a priest know about that, if somebody didn’t tell you?”
The hissing of the wind in the ponderosas filled the space around them. Finally Father John said, “It’s got to be very tough.”
“You’re damned right,” she said. “And you know what’s the toughest? She’s such a scrawny, washed-out bitch.” The woman tossed her head toward the meadow. “You’ll find my stepmother down there. I’ve decided I don’t feel like helping out after all. I’ll wait for you here.”
18
Father John leaned forward and squeezed with his legs to get Beauty turned away from the gelding to begin picking her way down the steep path toward the meadow. Once there, he urged the mare into a gallop. One of the riders had turned from the herd and was riding toward him. “Help you?” a woman called over the thud of the hooves.
Father John reined in and waited until the rider drew alongside. She was dressed like every other working cowboy—boots and jeans smudged with mud, jeans jacket snapped to the collar, a brown felt cowboy hat pulled low over her forehead. He guessed she was close to sixty, with the leathery skin of a woman who had spent her life outdoors, the eyes and cheekbones of the Arapaho.
“John O’Malley,” he introduced himself. “The pastor at St. Francis Mission. Your stepdaughter said I’d find you here.” He glanced back to the ridge where the younger woman still sat on the sorrel.
“Gabriel.” The word came like an exhalation. “This is about Gabriel.”
“You knew him, then.”
“He was my brother.” The woman looked away, her expression unchanged.
“I’m very sorry,” Father John said. A part of him felt the same relief he’d felt earlier, knowing now for certain the cowboy had not been alone. The meadow stillness was broken by the sound of mooing cattle, hooves pounding the earth, a cowboy shouting.
The woman brought her gaze back to him. “What happened?”
“Your brother was shot.” He kept his voice low—the voice of hospital corridors and waiting rooms. It never got easier, telling this kind of truth.
“I saw the article in the Gazette,” Alberta said, straightening her shoulders. “Some old Indian, no ID, found shot to death out on Johnstown Road. I knew . . .” She gulped in air. “I knew it was Gabriel. You’re the priest that found him, right?”
Father John gave a little nod. “He called me. Said he had something he wanted to tell me. Do you have any idea what it was?”
“Father O’Malley,” she began, lifting herself slightly so the saddle, and settling back, “until last Sunday, I hadn’t seen my brother in thirty years. All of a sudden he was riding across the meadow on Beauty, like a ghost out of the past.” She glanced around, as if expecting to see him yet. “When you rode up here, well, for a minute I thought he’d come back.”
“What brought him to the reservation?”
“Some old business.” The woman shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me. Said it was best I didn’t know. I told him he could stay on the ranch—I could use a top hand. Gabriel was a good cowboy, the best. He said he’d like that a lot, except for one thing.” She glanced away again. “He was dyin’. Lung cancer. The doctors only gave him a few months. Looks like he didn’t even get that.”
Father John leaned over the pommel, his eyes on the cattle moving farther up the meadow. So this was it, he thought, all he was ever likely to learn about the man with his face shot off on Johnstown Road. “I’d like to see him have a proper funeral,” he said.
“Just bury him. Put him in the cemetery there at St. Francis. Send the bills to me.”
“I’ll let you know when . . .”
“Don’t bother.” She flicked the reins and turned her horse, which started trotting back toward the herd. Glancing around, she called, “My brother’s been dead for thirty years.”
Father John watched the woman ride through the meadow a moment, wondering about the ways that love dies. He allowed Beauty to turn and start back toward the ridge. Sheila Cavanaugh was no longer there. He kept the reins tight as the mare started after the stallion, hooves clacking against the rocks. Around an outcropping, Father John caught sight of the red hair and yellow bandanna.
And then the sorrel was galloping across the meadow below, the woman bent low along the gelding’s neck. Beauty picked up speed, leaving the path in a burst of energy, and broke into a gallop. He let the horse have its head as it raced across the damp grass. He felt exhilarated and free, as if, for a moment, his feelings of loss and failure had fallen away.
By the time the mare trotted into the yard, Sheila Cavanaugh had dismounted and was handing the reins to a cowboy. “Todd will take care of the horses,” she said as Father John dismounted. “Maybe I’ll even give him a hand. What else do I have to do today?”
“Thanks for your help,” Father John said as he started across the yard. He hoisted himself over the fence and dropped to the other side.
“Wait,” Sheila called, walking to the fence. She laid both arms over the top rail, the ruffles of her blouse folding over the wood. “This is about Alberta’s brother, isn’t it? What happened? Did the old guy die?”
“He was murdered.” Father John stepped back to the fence.
The woman flinched. “Bar fight?”
“He was shot in a deserted cabin on the reservation. Did you know him?”
She emitted a small laugh. “I didn’t even know Alberta had a brother until an old Indian showed up in the rain Sunday morning, reeking of alcohol. Looked like he’d climbed out of a ditch. Said he was Alberta’s brother. Well, you know, when your family marries up with the Indians, you’re in for one surprise after another. Alberta was in the upper pasture. Rain never bothers her. Anyway, he said he’d find the way. I let him take Beauty.”
“Look, Sheila,” Father John began, “I’d like to know more about the man. Did he say why he’d come back?”
She was staring, as if he were some kind of a puzzle she couldn’t quite fit together. “I didn’t ask,” she said finally. “I’m not in a particular hurry to get to know my extended family. But . . .” She glanced toward the barn a moment. “After he rode back from the pasture, he asked me to take care of Beauty. He seemed in a hurry. Said he had to get to Ethete to see some old friends. I think he said he was meeting them at Betty’s Place.”
Father John drew in a long breath. He’d gone to Betty’s Place to call 911 after he’d found the cowboy’s body. “How was h
e getting around?”
“Hitchhiking.” Sheila shrugged. “That’s why he was in a hurry. He probably figured it would take a while to catch a ride, the way he looked. And I didn’t offer to give him a ride. I was glad to see him go.”
He was about to turn away when she said, “I’ve been thinking, Father.” She moved along the fence until she was directly across from him. “I could really use some counseling right now. My life is, well, pretty messed up.”
He smiled at her. “I can give you the names of the best counselors in the area.”
“Would John O’Malley be among them?”
“Among the best? I’m afraid not.” He rattled off the names of three counselors in Lander, another in Riverton. “They’re all good at helping people through transitions,” he said.
“Transitions? Is that what this is?”
“A good question for your counselor,” he said, starting down the driveway, aware of the soft shush of her footsteps as she kept pace along the other side of the fence.
“How about dinner, then? Sunday evening? Alberta will be here, so you would certainly be safe.”
Sunday evening. Ted Gianelli had invited him to dinner. “Sorry, I have an invitation.” He glanced sideways at her and smiled, relieved he didn’t have to lie.
19
On the outskirts of Lander, Father John spotted the orange ball floating overhead and wheeled the Toyota onto the cement apron of the gas station. The gauge registered close to empty—an approximation, he knew, of the gas in the tank. With a little luck, he could make it to the reservation. He preferred to give his business to the Arapahos. He parked next to the telephone mounted on the brick wall and swung out, leaving the engine running, the voice of Pavarotti rising out of the cassette player like an invisible cloud.
After a quick check in the thin directory, he pushed a quarter into the slot and dialed Gianelli’s office. The fed would want to know Gabriel Many Horses had a sister.
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