Later, at the trial, Father John had testified for the prosecution; then Vicky had followed him to the witness stand. It had been unusual. Most of the time, they were on the side of the defense—priest and attorney—but it was Muriel who had come to them, scared and defenseless. Vicky remembered how Lonny Hereford sat with his chair tilted onto the back legs, chin dropped into his chest, black braids trailing down the front of his blue shirt, the squinting, black eyes never leaving her.
“What’s this all about?”
“Got to thinking how you’d want to be the first to know, seeing how Lonny might have some scores to settle.” The voice on the other end had shifted into a lower, more intimate range. “About four hours ago, Lonny up and said his good-byes to the old Gray House. Still haven’t figured out how he escaped, but he sure left everybody here shaking our heads at the man’s genius. You wouldn’t be alone, now, would you?”
God. Vicky held the receiver away and stared at the black, inert plastic. On the other end was Lonny Hereford—the strange, partly familiar voice, the intimate, insidious tone. Bad Heart, the people called him after the trial. Arapahos were called Good Hearts in the Old Time, for their generosity and even tempers, but a man who pushed his wife down a steep flight of stairs onto a concrete floor—that man was no longer one of the people. The man could be outside her apartment building now, looking up at the dim light glowing in the window. The realization sent a cold spasm down her spine. Lonny Hereford, who’d twisted his head around after he’d been sentenced and the guards were guiding him toward the door—the narrow eyes searching the courtroom until they’d locked on her. You’re gonna pay, he’d shouted. I swear to God.
Vicky slid the receiver back to her ear. “Thank you for letting me know, Warden,” she said, playing the game, keeping her voice calm and confident, the courtroom voice she always summoned to camouflage the tremors running through her. “I guess it’s fortunate that I’m not alone now that my boyfriend lives here.” She glanced around the shadows. She didn’t have a boyfriend. “We’re having friends in for dinner tonight. We’ll certainly keep our eyes out for any sign of Lonny.”
“You do that.” Was there a trace of disappointment in the tone, or was she only trying to assure herself that she’d convinced him? There was a click, followed by the electronic buzzing noise.
Vicky got to her feet and moved to the window. She tugged at the cords, guiding the shades down over the glass pane until all that was visible of the streetlamp was a faint circle of light glowing like the aftermath of an explosion. She made her way around the apartment, conscious of the sound of her own footsteps muffled in the carpet, and closed all the shades. Then she retraced her steps and flipped on the overhead lights. A white, preternatural light flooded around her, giving the apartment the surreal feel of a nightmare.
The doors. God, she’d forgotten the doors. She lunged for the corridor door and shot the bolt, then ran into the kitchen and checked the locks on the door to the back hall. She leaned against the counter and made herself take a deep breath. Maybe she was overreacting, doing exactly what Bad Heart hoped. He could be making his way back to his cell now, congratulating himself on the fact that Vicky Holden—Bitch, he’d shouted at her as the guards had pushed him through the courtroom door—wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
She went back to the desk and called the Riverton Police Department. The receiver was still warm and slightly moist in her hand. Two rings, three. Finally a woman came on the line. Vicky gave her name and asked to speak to Matt Hover, the detective who had handled the investigation into Muriel’s death.
“Hold on,” the woman said. “I’ll see if he’s still on duty.”
A long moment passed. Then, a man’s voice: “Vicky, you must’ve heard the news.”
“Then it’s true?”
“The warden thinks the bastard hid inside one of the supply trucks while he was unloading it. Rode the truck out of the prison grounds.”
“He just called me.”
“What!”
“He claimed to be Warden Ransom. He wanted to know if I was alone.”
“I’m notifying the Lander police. They’ll send a car over to your place. You’re going to have an officer camped at your front door until we get Lonny Hereford back where he belongs.”
“Look, Matt,” Vicky said. “I may have convinced him that I’m not alone. Lonny could head for the mission first.”
“Just like Hereford to go looking for revenge on you and Father O’Malley. I’ll notify the Wind River police. They’ll get a car over to the mission.”
Vicky thanked the man and pressed the off button. She felt the tightness in her chest, the quick, shallow gulps of breath. She dialed the number for St. Francis Mission and listened to the sound of a phone ringing across the reservation. Pick up. Pick up.
“This is Father O’Malley. Please leave your name and number and I’ll return your call.”
Vicky waited for the beep, her fingers tapping out a nervous, staccato rhythm on the edge of the desk. John O’Malley wasn’t at the mission. That was good. She left the message that Lonny Hereford had escaped. “Be careful, John,” she said.
She dropped the receiver into the cradle, a new thought creeping like a shadow in the back of her mind. Bad Heart could be at the mission waiting, hiding somewhere on the grounds. There were so many buildings, so many nooks and crannies. A police cruiser might drive right past the man. Bad Heart could lunge out of the darkness before John O’Malley had gotten the message.
Vicky picked up her purse and headed back out into the corridor.
* * *
Father John O’Malley stood at the door in Eagle Hall and shook hands with members of the parish council as they filed outside. Brown, knobby hands of four elders in blue jeans and plaid shirts, with hunched shoulders and gray braids falling from beneath the cowboy hats pushed back on their heads. The work-roughened hands of Don and Beatrice Gray Wolf, both in their late forties, about his age. They seemed older. And Lucia Running Horse, a grandmother with long gray hair swept back from a wrinkled brown face and a small hand with a grip of steel.
“Good meeting, Father,” the old woman said.
Father John waited until the council members had climbed inside the old pickups parked at angles in front of the hall as if they’d dropped out of the sky. One by one, the engines choked into life, emitting little clouds of black exhaust. Then the pickups swung into a procession out onto Circle Drive and headed into the tunnel of cottonwoods that led to Seventeen-Mile Road, taillights flickering like fireflies in the darkness at the far edges of the mission grounds.
Father John went back inside. It had been a good meeting, he thought. The elders and grandmothers were accustomed to making decisions, and the people trusted them. They were good hearts. He walked through the hall, straightening the chairs. A gust of wind caught the door and thumped it against the wall. He threw a final glance around the hall, turned off the lights, and stepped outside, pulling the door after him. Then he plunged across the mission grounds toward the residence.
The lights around Circle Drive swayed on their poles in the sharp and erratic gusts of wind that swept over the grounds. Even the church steeple, white against the darkness, seemed to be swaying. For a half second, the lights snapped off, then flickered on again. The evening was warm with the faintest odors of cattle and horses in the air and stars glittering in a sky that looked like an inverted black bowl. Father John crossed the drive and bounded up three steps to the concrete stoop in front of the residence. He reached for the doorknob and stopped. Someone was there in the shadows behind him. He could feel eyes boring like a laser into his back.
He swung around. Nothing but shadows and light shimmying in the gusts. Except for the whoosh of the wind and the howling of a coyote out on the prairie, it was quiet. The only vehicle on the grounds was his own pickup, a dark hulk nosed against the curb. His assistant, Father
George Reinhold, had left for a meeting in Casper this morning and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.
Father John turned back, opened the door, and stepped into the entry hall. Probably an animal skulking by, he told himself. Coyote, fox, raccoon—they all came out in the evenings. He shut the door, turned on the table lamp, and walked down the hall to the kitchen. He flipped on the overhead light. Walks-On, his three-legged golden retriever, was crouched low on his rug in the far corner, eyes fixed on the back door. A low guttural sound rumbled in the dog’s throat.
“Hey, buddy.” Father John walked over, bent down, and patted the furry head. “It’s okay,” he said. He wondered whether that were true. Usually Walks-On met him at the front door, stuffing a wet muzzle into his hand before darting back to the kitchen and waiting at the door, wagging his tail.
“Ready to go out?” Father John straightened up, stepped around the end of the counter, and opened the door. The dog leapt forward, skittering across the vinyl floor into the back porch, barking into the quiet.
“Take it easy,” he said, moving past the animal. He opened the outside door that led to a short flight of wooden steps into the backyard. Walks-On darted down, head lowered, his single rear leg spinning to keep up. He was growling now, growling and barking.
Father John followed the dog down into the yard. Something was wrong, off-kilter. He’d sensed it on the walk over from Eagle Hall, the almost imperceptible change in the atmosphere that had made him suddenly aware of his surroundings—the light from the overhead poles stuttering into the darkness, the shadows wavering over the buildings, and the unmistakable sense that someone was there.
Now, in the dim light from the kitchen window, he looked around the yard. Nothing out of the ordinary. The dog was still barking as he dashed along the rear of the house. He stopped to sniff at a basement window before crashing through the bushes to get to the next window. The wind was knocking a cottonwood branch against the side of the house, and the clack-clack punctuated the noise the dog was making.
Probably a wild animal, Father John told himself again. A fox bedded down for the night in the shelter of the bushes, until Walks-On had plunged down the steps, raising a ruckus, and chased the animal off. The dog stopped barking and trotted over.
Father John patted the dog’s head. Then Walks-On darted away and started running around the yard, his usual evening exercise. Father John went back up to the kitchen and poured out a mug of the coffee, black and thick with grounds, left over from dinner. He’d just started back down the hall for his study when the phone started to ring. The jangling noise swelled into the quiet.
He hurried past the door that led to the basement and crossed into the study. Setting the coffee mug at the edge of the stacks of papers that toppled over his desk, he reached for the phone. The tiny message light was blinking red. Someone must have called while he was at the meeting.
“Father O’Malley,” he said into the receiver.
“This is Molly Redman, Father.”
“What’s going on?” Streaks of light from outside scribbled across the window behind the desk. Father John walked around, nudged the leather chair back with his boot, and sat down. He turned the switch on the desk lamp and pulled a yellow pad out from one of the stacks.
“Ethan’s up to his old tricks again. Drinkin’ and makin’ trouble.”
Father John rummaged in the desk drawer for a pen, then stopped. He sat very still. Someone was outside the window: a presence behind him as real as the aroma of coffee wafting over the desk. He could feel someone watching him.
He swiveled around, pitched himself to his feet, and leaned close to the window. No sign of anyone outside. Nothing but the branches moving in the wind and the dim light fading into darkness at the edge of the grounds. But someone had been there a moment ago. Someone had been looking through the window; he was certain of it.
“Last night Ethan—”
“Listen, Molly,” Father John cut in. “Someone’s here now,” he said. “Suppose you come to the mission first thing tomorrow morning.”
The woman started to protest—he could hear the reluctance in her voice. “I’m sorry, Molly,” he said. “We’ll have to talk tomorrow.” Before the woman could say anything else, he hung up.
A few feet below where he was standing, Father John could hear the scrape of footsteps across a hard floor, followed by a thud. Whoever was in the basement had stumbled against something. The dog must have heard the noise because he started barking again, an explosive sound that burst through the house.
Father John went out into the entry. Keeping his gaze locked on the basement door, he stayed close to the wall, conscious of the sound of floorboards creaking under his boots. He moved past the door and pressed his shoulder against the frame next to the hinges. He could sense the atmosphere begin to shift as the footsteps came up the stairs and moved into the space on the other side of the door. His eyes were on the knob now, waiting for it to turn.
* * *
Vicky stared into the cone of headlights that pushed into the darkness on Rendezvous Road, barely aware of the shadows rushing past outside. Ten minutes ago, as she’d slowed through the one-street town of Hudson at the southern boundary of the reservation, she’d tried St. Francis Mission again, jamming the cell against her ear and willing the intermittent buzzing noise to stop.
The answering machine had picked up. “This is Father O’Malley . . .”
She’d hit the end button, tossed the cell across the seat, and, pressing down hard on the accelerator, drove onto the reservation, unable to shake the image from her mind: John O’Malley getting out of the pickup, walking across the grounds, starting up the sidewalk to the residence. And Lonny Hereford—Bad Heart—lunging out of the dark. Somewhere between the prison and the mission, the man could have gotten ahold of a weapon. A gun or a knife. Lonny would know how to get a weapon.
She had to warn John O’Malley. No telling how long it might take for a police car to arrive. Twenty, thirty minutes. It depended on where the car was. Nothing was close on the reservation; everything was surrounded by miles and miles of empty space.
Vicky turned right onto Seventeen-Mile Road, holding the accelerator to the floor, the speedometer needle jumping at eighty. Two miles. Three miles. Ahead the lighted sign loomed through the darkness. St. Francis Mission. She let up on the accelerator and made another right into the tunnel of cottonwoods that led to the mission grounds. A gust of wind swept through the trees, and for a moment, she had the odd, disconcerting sense that the tunnel itself was shifting around her.
She swung onto Circle Drive. Over in the trees, at the edge of the headlights, there was . . . the glint of metal. Vicky hit the brake pedal and skidded to a stop. She shifted into reverse and started backing up, turning the wheel until the headlights framed a pickup wedged among the trees. Hidden. Lonny Hereford was already here.
Vicky swallowed hard at the dry knot in her throat, shifted back into forward, and shot around Circle Drive. Of course Lonny had stolen the pickup. It was probably the first thing he’d done after breaking out of prison. Stolen the pickup and headed for the reservation. She could hear the man’s voice on the telephone: Seeing how Lonny might have some scores to settle . . .
* * *
The knob started turning, then stopped. A half second passed before the knob moved again, as if whoever was on the other side had considered the possibility that Father John could be waiting and had decided what to do. The door cracked open, then began moving into the hall. The hinges squealed like a small, trapped animal. Past the edge, Father John could see the tip of a man’s boot, the green pants leg, the brown fist gripping a knife. The steel blade shimmered in the light of the hall lamp.
Come on. Come on. A few more inches. Father John clenched his muscles, ready to throw his weight against the door and jam whoever was behind it into the frame.
Then it happened: A sharp knock o
n the front door, the sound of the door crashing open against the entry wall, and Vicky’s voice: “John? Where are you?”
“Go back!” Father John yelled.
The man lunged past the basement door and swung around, jabbing the knife into the air. Father John ducked away, then grabbed at the man’s arm and pushed it back. Lonny Hereford. The realization came like a flash of light in the darkness that Father John hardly had time to register. Lonny plowed into him, ramming his forearm across his throat. Father John gasped for breath. He could see the glint of the knife blade below his jaw. Bringing his fist up, he sunk it into the other man’s soft belly, then pounded against his chest. The weight against his throat seemed to release, and Father John braced himself against the wall and swung hard at the man’s arm. The knife clanked onto the floor.
“Just you and me, Priest,” the man shouted. He was breathing hard, the brown face contorted into a grotesque mask. Strips of black hair fell over the narrowed eyes. Fists bunched, he started moving forward.
Beyond the man’s shoulders, Father John glimpsed the movement of shadow and light. There was the sharp crack of metal on bone. Lonny Hereford froze, the grotesque mask suddenly wiped away, and in its place appeared the fixed features of surprise. Then the man started crumbling, and Father John saw Vicky standing behind him. Both hands gripped the twisted shaft of the hall lamp. She started to raise the lamp again over Lonny’s head, but the man was down, the bulky frame folded onto the floor.
Father John reached over Lonny and grabbed Vicky by the shoulders. “It’s okay,” he said. “You took care of him.” Then he took the lamp out of Vicky’s hands, unpeeling her fingers to get it loose.
Watching Eagles Soar Page 5