The Silent Spirit

by Margaret Coel

  “Would you like me to stop by?” he had said.

  “Could you, Father? His heart’s been acting up, racing like crazy. He’s so worried about the boy. You know they was always close.” She paused. “When Kiki was a kid, before he started getting into trouble.”

  He had told her he would be over this morning.

  The front door at the faded green ranch-style house was open before he had turned off the engine. As he got out, he saw Mamie peering past the edge. The wind whipped the snow into his face. Pellets of snow showered his shoulders and fell into the creases of his jacket. He hurried up the wood steps, slick with ice. The door flew open and Mamie waved him inside.

  “How are you, Grandmother?” he said, using the term of respect for the old woman. A cloud of moisture seemed to be rolling off him. Dots of snow fell from his jacket onto the gray vinyl floor. Mamie patted at the fronts of her blue sweater, then started rubbing her hands together. A small woman, a fragile look about her. She came only to his shoulder. He could see the pink circle of scalp in her gray hair.

  “He’s been resting,” she said. “Come with me.” She turned herself around—slow, jerky movements—and took a couple of steps across the small living room with the Indian blanket spread over the sofa, the imprint of Andrew’s thin body in the recliner, and the TV on, the actors of some soap opera talking and gesturing in silence, like the actors in a silent movie.

  He followed the old woman down the short hallway, past closed doors that, he suspected led to a bedroom and bath, and into another bedroom. Andrew lay stretched on the bed, dressed in blue jeans and plaid shirt, arms folded across his chest. For an instant Father John wondered if he were breathing. Then the old man’s head turned toward him.

  “That you, Father?” he said, straining to push himself upright against the pillows piled at the headboard. “Wasn’t expecting visitors.”

  “Don’t get up.” Father John placed his hand on the old man’s shoulder. He could feel the knobby bones, the paper-thin skin beneath the plaid shirt. “Just dropped by to see how you’re doing today.”

  “Doin’ okay, I guess.” Andrew let himself lie flat again. “For an old man.”

  “I hear you’ve been having some heart trouble.” Out of the corner of his eye, Father John could see Mamie hovering near the doorway.

  “Moccasin telegraph say so? Don’t miss much, I guess.”

  “Can I get you something to drink, Father?” Mamie asked.

  He could sense she was anxious to get away and let them talk, as if Andrew were more likely to talk freely if she weren’t there. “Coffee would be great,” he said.

  “You better sit down, take a load off your feet,” Andrew said, giving a little wave toward the wooden chair in the corner.

  Father John nudged the chair toward the bed and sat down, conscious of the sound of Mamie’s footsteps retreating down the hallway. “I understand you’ve been worried about Kiki,” he said.

  Andrew gave a bark of laughter that sounded as if it had erupted from a hollow drum. “The old lady never could keep a secret,” he said.

  Father John waited. He could hear the clinking of metal and glass in the kitchen, the swooshing sound of water moving through the pipes in the wall somewhere.

  After a moment, Andrew went on: “Haven’t heard from Kiki since he took off on that crazy mission of his. Goin’ off to Hollywood, looking to find the past. Keep thinking all the bad things that could happen to him, Indian like Kiki wandering around out there where he don’t know anybody and nobody cares if he lives or dies. You heard anything, Father? Any news on the moccasin telegraph that nobody wanted to send our way?”

  Father John shook his head. “Was he planning to stay with anyone?” He was thinking that if he had a name—any name—he could make some inquiries. He wished he had asked Kiki where he planned to stay.

  The old man started coughing. He twisted sideways and pulled a crumpled blue rag out of the back pocket of his jeans. He held the rag against his mouth and coughed into it for a few seconds, hands trembling, chest heaving.

  Father John was on his feet. He slipped an arm under the old man’s shoulders and lifted him up a little. Still it was a moment before the coughing subsided. Andrew lay back on the pillow, breathing hard. Father John sat down and waited.

  “You know the boy,” Andrew said finally. “Don’t tell you more than he wants you to know. Been shut up inside himself ever since he was six years old. Mamie and me had to go to his house and get him that night his folks got killed, our boy Edward and his wife. Both of ’em drunk. Two o’clock in the morning when the cops and the mission priest—name was Father Peter; I’ll never forget him—knocked on our door. Got some real bad news, the priest said. You could tell he didn’t want to tell us, but he did. Took hold of both our hands and said he was sorry, so sorry.”

  Andrew pushed the blue rag against his mouth, and for a moment, Father John thought the coughing would start again. Instead, he saw that the man was trying to stifle a sob. After a moment, Andrew said, “Father Peter asked if we knew where the boy was. Said he stopped by Edward’s place. Nobody answered.

  “ ‘Kiki?’ I said. Then I knew they’d left Kiki home alone and gone out drinking. Oh, I knew Edward did that, and I gave him hell for it. Didn’t change anything. The boy knew not to open the door. Little guy he was, real small for his age, but he knew he had to take care of himself. I said to Mamie, ‘We gotta get to the house.’ All the pain we was feeling just went out to the boy. We knew we had to take care of him. So we drove over to the house. Let ourselves in with the key Edward give us, like he knew we were gonna need it some night. There was Kiki, hiding in the closet. Shivering with fright and cold. Wouldn’t say anything, even then, that he didn’t think we oughtta know. I said, ‘Come on, son. You’re goin’ home with us now. You’re gonna be our own boy.’ ”

  Andrew ran the blue rag over his lips and closed his eyes. He was quiet for a long moment, as if he were watching some image play across the inside of his eyelids. Father John waited, and finally the old man opened his eyes and fixed him with a look filled with an enormity of loss. “He has a good heart,” Andrew said. “He wanted to be a good boy, but there were demons in him and secrets he couldn’t get out. They stayed inside and twisted him up.”

  “He went to California because he wanted to do something for you,” Father John said.

  “See what I’m telling you? He has a good heart. Got himself into rehab in prison. He’s done with drugs. Wants to know the truth about our family, find out what happened to my father.” Andrew rubbed the rag over his cheeks and forehead. He dabbed at his eyes. “My father went off to Hollywood and never came back. What if Kiki don’t come back, Father? That’s what keeps goin’ round and round inside me, never leaves my mind. It’s tearing me up.”

  “What about his friends on the rez?” Father John said. “Maybe he told someone what he planned to do. Might have mentioned the name of somebody he planned to look up.”

  “That girl won’t help us.” Mamie stood in the doorway, a coffee mug in each hand. Rivulets of coffee ran down the sides. “We called her lots of times, left messages. Said we had to know if Kiki told her anything that could help us. Asked her to call us back, but she never called back.”

  Mamie handed a mug to Father John. “Poured a little milk in it,” she said. “I remember that’s how you like it.”

  Father John thanked the old woman and took a sip of coffee. Hot and fresh and familiar, more delicious than any coffee he’d had in Rome. “Who’s the girl?” he said.

  Mamie set the other mug on the bedside table. “This is for you when you’re ready,” she said, brushing Andrew’s hair back with her hand. “White girl he took up with after he got out of prison.” She dropped onto the bed and shifted toward Father John. Her legs dangled over the edge, the toes of her brown shoes barely scraping the floor. “Never brought her around, ’cause he knew we wouldn’t approve. We heard she likes drugs, likes to go out drinking. She’s no good
for him. How is he gonna stay off drugs with her around? The parole officer finds out he’s hanging around with somebody like her, and Kiki goes back to prison. Andrew told him, ‘You think she loves you? You think she gives a damn if you get locked up again?’ ”

  “He didn’t want to hear it,” Andrew said. He let his head roll over the pillow a moment. “He was always stubborn. Couldn’t tell him nothing, like he already knew it all. Even when he was a kid. Went around like a little old man that had already seen everything and knew everything, his mind permanently made up.”

  “What’s her name?” Father John said. He took another drink of coffee. He would be sorry to finish it, he thought. And how was that possible, out of all the things in this world, to want to hold on to a last sip of coffee?

  “Dede somebody,” Mamie said. “Don’t think Kiki ever said her last name, and we never asked. Been hoping she’d go away.” Mamie looked down at the thin figure prostrate on the bed. She patted Andrew’s hand a minute. “Kiki’s the one that went away.”

  “They been staying at a place over in Riverton on Adams Street,” Andrew said, a sudden burst of energy in his voice, as if he had grabbed onto a lifeline tossed out of nowhere. “Little white house, paint peeling off. Looks like a shack. We drove over a couple times, once we seen she was never gonna call us back. Knocked on the door—real nice blue door. Door’s probably the best part of the house. We was hoping we’d catch her there. Didn’t have any luck.”

  Father John drained the last of the coffee and got to his feet. He set the mug on the bedside table next to the other mug and placed a hand on the old man’s shoulder, the bones as fragile as those of a bird. “I’ll see if I can locate her, Grandfather,” he said. “Maybe she’s heard from Kiki.”

  Mamie slipped off the bed, grabbed his hand and held on for a moment, squeezing his fingers. “I got something for you,” she said, motioning him to follow her down the hallway.

  In the living room she sat down and rummaged through piles of newspapers on the little table next to the recliner. “It’s here somewhere,” she said, as if to reassure herself. Then she had it. A DVD envelope in the middle of the papers. “Kiki brought over a player so we could watch this,” she said, nodding toward the black box on the television stand across the room. She handed the envelope to Father John.

  On the front, in thick yellow print against a black background were the words The Covered Wagon. James Cruze Production. Below the title were the figures of a cowboy sitting on a black horse and an Indian with a feathered headdress greeting each other with lifted arms. Except for a breechcloth, the Indian was naked, the muscular body washed in yellows and reds. White clouds of dust rose around the horses’ hooves. Above the title was a line of white type: Out where thrills began. And at the bottom of the envelope, in black cursive, were the words A Paramount Picture.

  Father John turned the envelope over. On the back was the image of a covered wagon winding across the golden prairie, a red balloon sun floating in the sky. A pair of grizzled emigrants, rifles slung over their shoulders, walked at the head of the wagons. Looking close, he could make out the shadowy figures of women and children in the first wagon.

  He could almost hear Kiki’s voice: “Three hundred Shoraps went off to be in The Covered Wagon. My great-grandfather never come back.”

  “We watched the movie, and Andrew seen his father riding by on a pretty pony,” Mamie said. “He was sure it was his father, ’cause he has an old picture that his mother give him. The movie’s precious to Andrew ’cause his father’s alive in it.” She jabbed a finger at the DVD. “Could you watch it, Father?”

  He told her he would like to see the movie.

  “Kiki watched this movie a dozen times. Maybe after you see it, you’ll know what he went off to Hollywood for.”

  FATHER JOHN SPOTTED the house a half block away. The wind had picked up, and gusts pummeled the pickup and blew the snow sideways across the street. The house stood close to the curb, lost for a second in a whirlwind of snow, the blue door jumping out. A black sedan with a rusty dent on the trunk stood in the driveway. He pulled up at the curb, the Rigoletto tape playing softly. The DVD was on the passenger seat next to the tape player, a burst of red and yellow against the gray upholstery. A movie filmed almost ninety years ago, and yet something in it had sent Kiki Wallowingbull to Hollywood, certain that he would find out what had happened to his great-grandfather. He got out and made his way through another gust of wind and swirling snow to the blue door.

  The bronze knocker, the top screw missing, limped to one side. He lifted the knocker carefully and let it drop a couple of times. It made a dull thud, almost lost in the whoosh of the wind. He pulled up the collar of his jacket, hunched toward the door, and waited, the wind beating against his back. There were no sounds inside. The house had the vacant feeling of a tomb.

  He lifted the knocker again, this time letting it hit the door hard several times. A long moment passed before he heard the footsteps scrambling on the other side. Then a woman’s voice, high-pitched with impatience: “Yeah? Who’s there?”

  “Father O’Malley from St. Francis,” he said, leaning in close. “I’m looking for Dede.”

  The door started to slide open, squeaking on its hinges. The face of a young woman with straw-colored hair and tired green eyes appeared in the opening. “You a priest?” she said, incredulity working into the voice.

  He nodded. “Are you Dede?”

  “Oh, God.” The door swung back. “You better come in.”

  Father John stepped into a living room smaller than his office, with various pieces of worn-looking furniture pushed against the walls and a red blanket with the geometric designs of the Arapaho spread over the middle of the green vinyl floor. Taped onto the walls everywhere he looked were movie posters from the silent movies, all in faded reds, blues, yellows, and oranges that had probably been bright once. D. W. Griffith, Way Down East, with the lonely figure of a man riding a horse across steep bluffs. Zane Grey’s The Vanishing American. An Indian sat bareback on a horse. There were crowds of Indians in the background and the sense of people moving away. Hal Roach, Call of the Wild, based on the famous dog story by Jack London. Here was a shaggy-looking brown-and-white dog with a wolf howling in the background. The Winning of Barbara Worth, starring Ronald Colman. A cowboy and cowgirl floated above cowboys and Indians and a wagon train. Another cowboy stood next to a white horse and aimed a rifle at the gold-printed letters: Merton of the Movies.

  Plastered on the wall across from the door were posters from movies starring Tim McCoy, wearing a wide-brimmed white cowboy hat, black shirt, and white scarf tied at his neck. Bold black type leaped off the posters: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer presents Winners of the Wilderness , starring Col. Tim McCoy. Tim McCoy in His Latest and Greatest Outdoor Romance, Two-Fisted Law. Tim McCoy in Silent Men.

  Father John couldn’t take his eyes away from the poster in the center. All of the other posters looked as if they had been arranged around it. A cowboy on a black horse was on the right, and on the left, a naked Indian in a feathered headdress riding a white horse. Colors of orange, bloodred, and black washed over the poster, giving it a sinister look. Out where thrills began. James Cruze production The Covered Wagon.

  “Hideous, aren’t they?” the girl said.

  “They must be Kiki’s.”

  “I hate ’em. I wish he’d take them down. I swear, one of these days, I’m gonna rip ’em off the walls. I’m sick of looking at them.” She stepped over to a table and found a pack of cigarettes among the clutter of papers and empty foam cartons. She lit a cigarette, blew a trail of gray smoke toward Tim McCoy, and pivoted around. “All right. Give it to me. Kiki’s dead, right?”

  “Why would you think that?” Father John said.

  “Why else would they send a priest around? Go give his girlfriend the bad news, okay? Isn’t that what you do? I mean, like some kind of ghoul showing up whenever somebody’s dead?”

  Father John unzipped his jacket
halfway. The house was warm and stuffy and smelled of rotten food and cigarettes. “I don’t have any bad news,” he said.

  “So he’s not dead?” The girl twisted her head and blew another stream of smoke toward the posters. “Makes me sick, all this old movie stuff. Crazy sonofabitch. Watching them stupid silent movies all day and night. Goin’ off to Hollywood, like he was gonna find out anything. Who cares what happened to some old Indian a thousand years ago?”

  “It was the 1920s,” he said.

  “Yeah? Well, how long ago was that? I mean, it’s over and done with, right? Who cares?” She flipped the ash into a Coke can. “Look, I gotta get to work. I got a great job at that new nail place on Federal and I’m not blowin’ it ’cause of Kiki. What are you doin’ here, if he’s not dead?”

  “I’m looking for him,” he said. “Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “What do I look like? His keeper?” She gave a snort of laughter and tossed her head toward the posters. “Keeper of the stupid, freaking movie posters, that’s what I am.

  “His grandparents are worried. They haven’t heard from him since he left for California.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not laying that guilt trip on me. I told him they been calling. I gave him all the messages. Not my fault if he didn’t go see ’em.”

  “Go see them? Wait a minute.” Father John took a step forward. “Are you saying he’s back from California?”

  “Look,” she said. “I don’t know anything about this. I don’t know what games Kiki’s playing.” She dropped the cigarette into the Coke can and started pawing through the tangle of clothes on the sofa, finally pulling out a black, high-heeled boot. “I gotta get to work, okay?” she said, hopping around on one foot, pulling the boot onto the other.

  “When did he get back?”

  “Last week sometime.” She went back to tossing the clothes about until she had the other boot. She flopped onto the edge of the sofa, stuck her other foot into the boot, and went about pulling up both zippers. “Showed up out of the blue, never bothered to call all the time he was gone, let me know if he was alive or dead. Just left me alone, like I was nobody, didn’t mean nothing to him. So he shows up. Didn’t say sorry or how you been? Nothing. Just talking about how the answers he wanted was right here all the time. Didn’t need to go to Hollywood after all. But how was he gonna know that if he didn’t go? And a lot of other stuff that didn’t make sense. I said, don’t get me involved in your crazy world, okay? That’s all I wanted, for him to stop talking about the fricking past all the time and just, you know, live today.”