Father John took a moment before he said, “Why would Kiki think your father had been killed?”
Andrew stared off into space. The buzz of conversations filled up the quiet. A blur of kids circled the tables, laughing. “Mother knew the truth in her bones,” Andrew said, his voice barely a whisper. “That’s how it is with the truth. You can’t push it away, cover it up, and pretend it isn’t there. It takes hold of you and never lets go.”
“Have you heard from Kiki?” Father John said. “Did he get to LA okay?”
“Kiki’s not one for telling things ’til it’s time for them to be told.” Andrew was shaking his head. “Said he was goin’ to Hollywood to talk to folks, find out what happened. Figure it’ll take him a few days to find out that nobody cares. Then he’ll come on home. That’s what his grandmother”—he tossed his head again toward the food table—“keeps saying is gonna happen.”
“Let me know when Kiki gets back,” Father John said. Lord, let it be soon, he was thinking.
He spent a few more minutes chatting with Andrew and the other elders, finishing the stew and draining the last of his coffee. The drums had started, and the singers’ voices rose over the soft, rhythmic thuds. Finally he excused himself and started around the tables, thanking people for coming, tousling the black heads of the kids. And all the time, he realized—visiting with Andrew and the elders, joking and laughing at the tables—he had kept an eye on the door. Vicky had not come.
4
October 1922
THE GIRL WAS trouble. Anyone could see that trouble followed her like a pony sniffing after a cube of sugar. All in white, the girl. A gauzy white dress that moved in the breeze and turned pink and orange in the sunset, white stockings and white shoes with little bows on top. And a face as white as the piece of porcelain he’d seen in the shop window in Riverton that day the agent had told him to take the Ford Runabout into town to pick up parcels his wife had ordered at the dry-goods store. Like porcelain, the white arms and little white hands drifting with the folds of her dress. Her eyes were violet. She was about the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Curly yellow hair flowing over her shoulders as she looked around at the tipis and the campfire giving off little bursts of fire and smoke. Like a queen. He could feel the uneasiness creeping over him like the wind.
“What’s she doing here?” William Thunder dropped down in the space between Charlie Wallowingbull and James Painted Brush. The smells of burning sage and the dry dust of the desert mingled with the faint whir of voices. Goes-in-Lodge and the other buffalo Indians sat cross-legged on the ground close to the campfire. The white men were lining up on the other side. Tim McCoy—you could spot him a mile away in his white cowboy hat—had already positioned himself where he could see the Indians and the movie people.
“She’s Missy Mae Markham,” Charlie said. “She’s a big star in a lot of moving pictures.”
“I’m gonna get me one of them box cameras and take her picture.” Painted Brush was leaning so close to the fire that William could see the red fingers of light licking his face.
“She’s nobody in The Covered Wagon,” William said. Here she was just one of the players, like the Arapahos and Shoshones—five hundred of them counting the other Shoshones that came from Idaho, all camped in the middle of the desert for four weeks now, next to the tent city with a couple thousand white movie folks, the nearest town a place called Milford with a few horse-drawn wagons and crank-up Fords on the Main Street. Except that the Indians were important. Couldn’t make the photoplay without them, not with the white players crossing Indian country in covered wagons, practically begging the Indians to attack. Just like in the Old Time, the buffalo Indians said.
The important people stood shoulder to shoulder now, staring across the fire at the buffalo Indians. The director, Mr. Cruze—McCoy called him Jimmie—and J. Warren Kerrigan standing real close to the pretty black-haired woman, Lois Wilson. They were the most important players, near as William could tell. Seemed that a camera was always pointing their way. On the other side of the black-haired girl was Alan Hale, the guy that played the bad man. By the end of the photoplay, William guessed, Kerrigan would win the pretty woman. He had heard that when white people went to a fancy theater to see a moving picture, they hollered and stomped their feet until the good guy finally won.
But what William couldn’t figure was why the girl was always hanging around. Why did she have to come to camp every evening to talk about the next day’s shooting?
Bunched up behind the director were Mr. Cruze’s assistants, the production manager, and three cameramen. Mr. Cruze always insisted on having the cameramen at the evening meetings. They could smell tomorrow’s weather, he said. They knew the best time to shoot different scenes. “What do you think?” he would ask them before the meetings ended. After they gave their opinions, he would tell the elders what time in the morning the Indians should be ready.
And the girl in the Indian camp for every meeting, drifting around the Indians like a white wisp of smoke. She had a way of tilting back her head and gazing up into the eyes of each man, making promises. “She’s nothing but trouble,” William said. He could feel his lips pulled tight, the words pushing against his teeth. Behind him, he could hear other Indians wandering over, moccasins scuffing the hard-packed earth.
“We shoot the attack tomorrow.” Mr. Cruze’s voice bellowed into the evening quiet. The breeze had picked up, and the girl patted her dress around her legs. Her gaze ran over the Indians, as if she were trying to locate someone. Red and gold lights from the campfire lit up her face. Her eyes were like purple glass.
“Biggest scene in the photoplay, civilization against savages, march of progress across the West. You understand how important the scene will be?” Mr. Cruze started walking up and down, flapping his big arms, the collars of his white shirt standing out around his thick neck. He had on his usual floppy hat with the beak that crowded his face. Everything about the man was big—as if he owned the desert.
McCoy’s hands were flying about, translating everything the director said for the buffalo Indians. They came from the Old Time when all the tribes used sign language. No need to learn other languages. Everyone knew what was said. They had never learned to speak English. Trouble was, nobody except the old men used signs anymore. McCoy had learned signs so he could talk to them. Whatever he said with his signs, they would believe. He spoke the truth.
McCoy himself had come to the reservation and talked the old buffalo Indians into going to the desert to be in the moving picture. Then McCoy had gone around talking to the young men who kept their hair in long braids. The movie people only wanted longhairs, he said, ’cause they looked like real Indians. William had decided to go even before McCoy had finished with all the particulars. He had convinced Charlie and Painted Brush to come along. Even though they had gone to the St. Francis Mission school and learned to read and write English, figure numbers, make computations, and think about things, they still kept their hair in long braids, a way of holding on to something of themselves, William guessed. McCoy said they could help the others adjust, explain the way whites think, reassure the old buffalo Indians when they got to longing for the reservation.
William saw it then—the way the girl’s eyes lit up when she spotted Charlie. “Don’t pay her any attention,” William said. He could see Charlie watching her, as if even the director walking back and forth couldn’t block her from view. “You been seeing her, haven’t you?” William said.
“Don’t see how it concerns you,” Charlie said.
“Soon’s I get a camera, I can get a real good picture of her and take it back to the rez,” Painted Brush said, and William realized that he was also watching the girl.
William leaned close to Charlie. “Concerns all of us. You take up with a white girl, and they’ll send both of us home. We came together, and they’ll send us back together. Painted Horse, too. Even McCoy won’t be able to change things.”
Mr. Cruze had tu
rned around to talk with the cameramen, who were tossing their heads to the east and west, as if they could see the weather and the light coming tomorrow. Finally the director swung back and faced the buffalo Indians. “We shoot the attack scene at eight o’clock sharp.” McCoy’s hands and fingers danced about. “Gotta take advantage of the overcast before the sun breaks through. Everybody clear on the positions? Warriors attack through the boulders over there.” He lifted his big arm and jabbed a hand in the direction of the rock outcropping in the hills about a mile away. “You’ll be naked except for breechcloths. Bands on your arms. War paint on your faces. Bring your bows and arrows, whatever you got. Anybody doesn’t have a weapon, stop at the supply tent thirty minutes before the shoot. Everybody’s gotta be armed. Understand?”
McCoy’s hands stopped moving, and William realized he left out the last word. Goes-in-Lodge and the others would be insulted. Then he saw that the girl was still smiling at Charlie, lifting her eyebrows in that promising way she had, turning sideways, and looking over one shoulder. Charlie didn’t take his eyes from her, but he was nervous, William could tell. Clasping and unclasping his fists, the muscles of his arms bulging through his cotton shirt.
Mr. Cruze made a raspy noise and spit on the ground. “One more thing,” he said. “We’re gonna get a panoramic shot of the Injun camp in the first light. I want the tipis in a circle, openings facing the center. Shouldn’t be too tough to move the tipis around tonight so we’ll be ready tomorrow.”
William could see McCoy hesitate. He looked hard at the director before he started making the signs. A stillness came over the Indians huddled close to the campfire and flowed through the Indians standing in back. The old buffalo Indians in front were nodding. It would not be polite to argue or refuse; it was polite to nod. But William knew that tomorrow morning, all the tipis would still face the east and the rising sun, the way it had always been in Arapaho and Shoshone villages. And McCoy knew it, too, judging by the embarrassed look on his face, like a shadow lengthening beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.
“Nobody here is going to change tradition for a photoplay,” William said. “Mr. Cruze must’ve figured if he just blurted it out, McCoy would have to sign the words.” The director looked satisfied with himself. It hadn’t been a problem after all. Look at those old Indians nodding.
“Questions?” Cruze bellowed. “Everything understood? Good. Be on time tomorrow, eight o’clock sharp.” He swung around and started back through the white men scrambling to get out of his way. The cameramen jumped in behind him, then the others fell into step, the whole group walking past the Indians standing about, past the tipis and small campfires crackling into the quiet.
Charlie started to scramble to his feet. William grabbed at his arm, but Charlie shrugged free and headed around the campfire to the girl. She looked up at him with that tilted head, those raised eyebrows and said something she must have thought funny, because she started laughing and the sound was like bells tinkling in the corral. Charlie took a couple of steps backward, but the girl moved in closer, set a small hand on the sleeve of his cotton shirt, and said something else that sent her into squeals of laughter.
William started over. He wanted to tell her to go away, that a white girl with violet eyes and porcelain skin was trouble for an Indian. Except that he would not tell her that. A white girl would know many ways to bring him and Charlie trouble. They needed the work, needed the money. Charlie, with Anna White Bull waiting for him to get enough money to buy the lumber and nails and build them a little house so they could get married. And he, wanting to start his own herd. A couple of cows, a bull. Maybe he’d have a ranch of his own someday and wouldn’t have to beg the agent for permission to go off the reservation and work on the white ranches.
He saw the white man out of the corner of his eye—like a locomotive puffing through the groups of Indians, retracing his steps, as if he had just realized he had left something behind. He was tall and skinny, with curly brown hair and squinty eyes. One of Mr. Cruze’s assistants, always hanging around, running errands, telling somebody what to do. He had heard the rumors that the skinny man was the girl’s bodyguard. The man lurched forward, grabbed the girl’s arm, and spun her around, nearly lifting her off her feet. She would be as light as air, William thought.
“You heard what Mr. Cruze said. Time to go.” He pushed the girl in the direction of the others.
She stumbled a little, then gave Charlie a backward glance. “See you later,” she called in that tinkling voice tinged with laughter and regret. Something not quite right with her, William thought. Something out of whack, off-kilter. Rumors had run through the Indian camp—there was whiskey and cocaine over in the tent city. Much of it as you wanted. Couple of Indians had gone to tent city and come back drunk and sick. Couldn’t work the next day. Mr. Cruze had fired them, and McCoy had arranged for them to catch the train at Milford and ride back to Rawlins. They would be shamed, coming back with no money for their families.
After that, McCoy had come over to the Indian camp and talked in signs with the elders. Better keep the young bucks out of tent city. No good for them there. Best they concentrate on work. The old men had called everybody together and told them in Arapaho: wo:to’ niwatha.
Stay away from the whites.
Now there was the girl.
The white man turned toward Charlie, fists clenched. “Leave her alone,” he shouted. Little specks of saliva flew from his lips. “She’s not for some Indian. Got it? The big man hears what’s going on, you’re all gonna be gone.”
Charlie didn’t say anything, but William could feel him pulling himself upright, tensing his muscles. He could kill the white man with one blow.
“Nobody here is interested in her,” William said.
“Like hell you aren’t. I seen you Indians watching her every minute. No dumb Indians are gonna get in the way of Mr. Cruze’s movie.”
Charlie stepped forward, and William moved with him. The white man stepped back. Then he swung around and stomped after the girl.
“She’s no good,” William said. “Won’t cause us anything but trouble.”
“Problem over here?” William glanced around. Tim McCoy was making his way through the groups of Indians that had gathered about.
“Tell the white girl to stay with her own,” William said.
McCoy drew in a long breath that puffed out his chest, then let it out. “Near as I can tell, nobody tells Missy Mae Markham to do anything, ’cept for Mr. Lasky. But what she tells him could stop the movie. Mr. Cruze didn’t want her here, but she wanted to come. Always wants to be in the movies, see her face on the screen. Gonna be in another lead role that Mr. Lasky has lined up, but the filming won’t start for a couple months, so he ordered Mr. Cruze to put her on the extra payroll.”
“Why’s she coming around us?” William’s voice was tight with anger.
McCoy shook his head. “Conquest,” he said. “Just looking for another conquest. I don’t have to tell you . . .” He let the thought trail off, but William understood, and so did Charlie, nodding beside him.
The beautiful white girl was not for Indians.
5
RIVERTON SPRAWLED ACROSS the flat plains in the eastern part of the reservation. A town of wide streets and peaked-roof bungalows that squatted behind giant old evergreens and cottonwoods. There was a white-hot glare of sunshine on the snow-covered lawns and streets. On the west, the peaks of the Wind River range floated like ice caps in the blue sky. Except for the pickups, trucks, and SUVs lurching down Federal, Vicky thought, it was likely that not much had changed since white settlers had pulled up in horse-drawn wagons in 1906, settled on land that the government had purchased from the Arapahos and Shoshones, and founded a town where tribal councils and courts and Indian justice had no jurisdiction. She turned into the asphalt parking lot in front of Wal-Mart and drove toward an empty space.
Odd, the way the tan truck had turned behind her and stayed close on her tail down the r
ows of parked vehicles. She had been so preoccupied, her mind full of the opinion she had delivered to the tribes almost two weeks ago with Adam’s thin-lipped agreement. Riverton was encircled by the reservation, which made it part of Indian Country. And tribes had the right to sell water within Indian Country. They had advised the tribal water engineer that another case concerned with the definition of Indian Country was in federal court, and that the decision would be months away. They had made it clear that the tribes had the option of proceeding or waiting for the decision. They had decided to go ahead. Development plans would be under way, a lot of money would be spent, all based on her opinion that the court would affirm that Riverton was in Indian Country. Lately she found herself wide awake in the middle of the night, the alternate scenario loping through her mind. If the federal court decided otherwise, she would be responsible for a large financial loss to her own people. The realization had left her stumbling out of bed in the mornings feeling headachy and queasy. Adam was more experienced in natural resources law. She should have listened to him.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. The truck was still behind her. A man behind the wheel: large shoulders hunched forward, big hands with puffy gloves gripping the top of the steering wheel, dark knit cap pulled around his face. It was hard to make out his features, but she could feel his eyes burning into the back of her head. She swung right into a vacant spot between two sedans and waited until the truck had passed and the sound of tires crunching the snow had faded. Then she got out. Odd to feel so jumpy and uncomfortable. Just a man going to Wal-Mart, she told herself as she hurried around the parked vehicles toward the automatic glass doors at the entrance. Dozens of men drove into the Wal-Mart parking lot every day.
The Silent Spirit Page 4