Watching Eagles Soar

by Margaret Coel

  “Are you all right?” she asked. Her voice was shaky, and her eyes were lit as if she had a fever.

  Father John nodded. He wasn’t sure. He felt a stab of pain with each breath, and his knuckles, he realized, were trickling blood. He crouched down and placed a finger on Lonny’s carotid artery. The skin felt hot, the pulse strong. “He’ll be okay.”

  Father John pulled himself upright. “Thanks,” he said, watching her, trying to make sure that she was okay. “You have a pretty good arm. Great timing, too. What brought you here?”

  “A lucky guess.” She was smiling at him, her voice steadier.

  “I’m going to call the police.” Father John started down the hall. Through the front door, he saw the dark police cruiser slide alongside the curb, the kaleidoscope of red, blue, and yellow lights flashing over the roof.

  “Looks like they’re here,” Vicky said.

  Day of Rest

  The Fourth Commandment: Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day.

  “Good sermon this morning, Father.”

  “Glad you approve.” Father John O’Malley took Nathan Birdsong’s brown, outstretched hand. It had the firm strength of dried leather. He patted the Arapaho on the shoulder and reached for the next hand as parishioners spilled through the double doors of the church and out into the warm sun bathing the grounds of St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation. Several others pressed into the half circle of Arapahos clustered on the sidewalk, waiting patiently to shake the pastor’s hand and say a few kind words about this Sunday’s sermon—even those he’d caught nodding off—before they headed around the corner of the church toward doughnuts and coffee in Eagle Hall.

  It was a good ten minutes before Father John had greeted the last congregant. He bounded up the concrete steps of the stoop that passed for a porch in front of the white stucco church and stopped. Someone was watching him. He could feel the eyes piercing his back like a laser beam. He swung around, expecting to see someone who had been waiting to speak to him. Someone he’d failed to notice.

  There was no one. The mission grounds might have been deserted, except for the pickups and cars parked around Circle Drive and the nearly imperceptible undercurrent of voices floating from Eagle Hall. Around the drive, the sun bounced and glittered across the priest’s redbrick residence, the gray stone museum, and the yellow stucco administration building. It glistened in the water shooting out of the sprinkler on the grasses in the center of the drive.

  Father John shrugged and turned back just as the church door sprang open and Leonard Bizzel stepped outside. The Arapaho had been the caretaker at St. Francis for so long that nobody remembered when he’d taken the job, only that he was part of the mission, much like the cottonwoods sheltering the old buildings. He was a big man, probably in his fifties now, judging by the gray running through his black hair, with the rounded, powerful shoulders and confident black eyes of a younger man. Every morning, Leonard assisted Father John at Mass, and on Sundays, he took special care to tidy up the sacristy, making sure that the prayer books, altar linens, and chalice were placed in the appropriate cabinets for the following week. When he finished, Leonard usually ducked out the sacristy door in back and headed to Eagle Hall.

  “Been lookin’ for you, Father,” the Arapaho said. “Everything’s picked up and put away. You comin’ to Eagle Hall?” He started down the steps.

  “See you there,” Father John called after the man. The women in the parish handled the coffee and doughnuts on Sunday mornings, but Father John knew that Leonard would be hovering about like a raven, ready to swoop down at the first sign of an emergency—spilled coffee, upset plate of doughnuts, somebody looking for a folding chair on which to sit down.

  Father John let himself inside the church and headed down the aisle, starting to shrug out of his chasuble as he went. The church was small—a chapel, really. Leonard had turned out the overhead lights and snuffed the candles. The air felt cool in the dim light that filtered through the stained glass windows and spattered red, blue, and yellow blotches over the wood pews. The altar ahead was almost lost in shadow, the red votive light flickering in front of the tabernacle that resembled a miniature tipi. Traces of gray smoke curled around the ceiling, and the faintest whiff of smoke mingled with the lingering smells of perspiration and perfume. A sense of serenity and eternity seemed to fill the vacant space.

  The door opened behind him, sending a blast of hot air into the coolness. Father John turned around as the door thudded shut. The smallest tremor ran through the old wood floor. A large man faced him from the shadows, and for a moment, Father John felt again the laser beam piercing into him.

  “Can I help you?” he said, tossing the chasuble over a pew.

  The man was holding what looked like a paper bag. Leaning sideways, he stretched his free hand toward the door and clicked the bolt into place. Then he lurched forward until he emerged into the dim light, traces of red and yellow flitting over a brown face hardened like granite. “Looks like nobody’s here ’cept you and me, Priest,” he said. His fingers rattled the paper bag.

  “What’s going on, Kenny?” Father John kept his voice calm, but he could feel his muscles tense. Kenny Yellow Plume was a drunk and a troublemaker. Father John started back down the aisle, removing his stole and the white alb. He set the vestments on another pew, freer now, wearing just his blue jeans and plaid shirt. The smell of alcohol floated toward him.

  “Don’t try to bullshit me, Priest,” the Indian shouted. He was swaying from one foot to the other, as if he couldn’t make a solid connection with the floor. Then, in a lower tone, more menacing, he said, “Melba left me, like you tol’ her. Took the kids and walked out. I can’t find her nowhere. Yesterday some clown knocks on the door and hands me papers that say she’s divorcing me. That Arapaho lawyer, Vicky Holden, wrote out the papers, made ’em all legal and final, like there’s no more talkin’, no more putting things back together for me and Melba. Ten years of being together thrown out like garbage.”

  Father John stopped a couple of feet from the man. The stench of whiskey was so strong that he had to breathe through his mouth. He said, “Melba couldn’t take your drinking anymore, Kenny.”

  “That what you tol’ her? ‘Melba, you can’t take his drinkin’. You gotta take the kids and get out.’”

  The man started pulling at the paper bag, hands shaking. Finally he yanked out a small, metallic pistol, letting the bag flutter to the floor. Father John could see down the barrel of the gun, an immense black tunnel.

  “You don’t need a gun, Kenny,” he said, surprised by the steadiness of his tone, the focused, relaxed feeling that came over him, as if all of his energies had turned to the gun. He had to make an effort to pull his eyes from the barrel. “Put it away, and we can sit down and talk.”

  “You done enough talkin’.” Kenny’s face cracked into a half smile, half sneer. “Melba’s gone, and I got me a couple scores to settle. Sit down.” The gun jerked toward the last pew.

  Father John moved sideways, backed into the pew, and dropped onto the hard wooden seat. His left knee cracked against the pew ahead. “What are you going to do, Kenny?” he said. “Shoot me?”

  “You got about twenty minutes, my guess.” The Indian didn’t take his eyes away—the laser eyes—while he shifted the gun into his right hand and tugged with the left at an even smaller object in the pocket of the blue denim shirt plastered with sweat against his chest. He withdrew a cell phone and flipped it open with his thumb. There was a half second when the laser eyes shifted to the phone as his thumb hit a couple of keys. Father John felt his muscles tighten again. He was about to spring forward when the laser eyes returned and the gun bobbed back toward him.

  “Don’t move,” the Indian shouted. He lifted the phone to his left ear, his boots still fighting for a purchase on the floor.

  Father John stared at the black tunnel, aware of the silence pre
ssing around them and the shades of mottled light flickering over the pews and the floor. It was hard to imagine—fifty feet away, beyond the walls of two buildings, parishioners were laughing, drinking coffee, munching doughnuts; kids were shouting and playing tag around the tables and chairs. They might have been on another planet.

  He was alone with Kenny Yellow Plume, a man who intended to kill him.

  * * *

  Vicky Holden had just poured a mug of fresh coffee and was about to settle into the sofa with the Sunday newspaper when the telephone rang. She threw a glance at the phone on the desk against the wall. The window was open and a warm breeze billowed the sheer curtains into the living room. The carpet and walls were striped with sunshine. The phone rang again. She wasn’t expecting any calls. The answering machine can take the message, she told herself. And yet, the ringing had already disrupted the quiet morning she’d been looking forward to. There was something unnerving about an unanswered phone. The call could be an emergency, someone arrested last night on a DUI or domestic disturbance or—who knew what? Someone sitting at the Fremont County jail in need of a lawyer.

  She set the mug on the coffee table, crossed the room, and picked up the receiver. “Vicky Holden,” she said. She held her breath. She could almost feel the malevolence at the other end. The response was slow in coming. For a couple of seconds, there was nothing but the sound of breathing. Finally, a man’s voice said, “You got twenty minutes to get over to the mission.” The words slurred into one another, the words of a drunk.

  “Who is this?” Vicky felt her hand tightening over the plastic receiver.

  “Twenty minutes, if you want to see the priest alive.”

  She knew who the caller was now. It wasn’t the voice that she recognized—she couldn’t remember ever speaking to Kenny Yellow Plume. It was the anger, the craziness, washing through the slurred words. What was it Melba had said? You don’t know him, Vicky. He starts drinking and he gets crazy. No telling what he might do. And Vicky had said, You have to leave him, Melba. For your sake and the sake of the kids. That’s what Father John told me, the woman had replied. Vicky could still see her slumped against the back of the chair, small, almost like a child. She took up only half of the chair. Mopping at her eyes with a tissue, strings of black hair hanging over her thin shoulders.

  “Where are you, Kenny?” Vicky struggled to sound calm and rational, as if she were examining a witness in the courtroom, as if she were in control. She was playing for time, she knew, trying to pull her thoughts together, searching for the right words. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears. The man had been served the divorce papers yesterday. He’d gone berserk, just as Melba had predicted, which was the reason Vicky had made certain that Melba and the kids were safe at a friend’s house in Casper before she’d had the papers delivered.

  “Me and the priest are havin’ a little party in the church, just waitin’ for you. You better be knocking on the front door in twenty minutes, or the priest’s gonna accidentally get shot dead.”

  “I can’t get to the mission in twenty minutes.” Vicky could hear the note of panic sounding in her voice.

  “Well, you better get goin’, lady, ’cuz that’s all you got.”

  “Listen to me, Kenny,” Vicky began, but she was speaking into a dead line. The buzzing noise pulsed in her ear.

  She tapped out *69 and, keeping her eyes on the red numbers in the readout, scrambled for a pen in the drawer and jotted the numbers across the corner of the top sheet of papers stacked next to the phone. She ripped off the corner and stuffed it into the pocket of her blue jeans. Then she grabbed her bag and ran out the door of the apartment. Two minutes later she was down the flight of stairs and jamming the key into the ignition of her Jeep. She pressed down on the accelerator and glanced at her watch as the Jeep squealed out of the parking lot ahead of a sedan that swerved and honked behind her. Eighteen minutes left.

  * * *

  My God, Father John thought. The minute Vicky walked through the door, Kenny would start shooting. He intended to kill both of them at the same time, before the sound of gunshots brought people stampeding into the church.

  He kept his eyes on the Indian. The man needed a drink. Father John knew the signs: the sweat-glistened forehead, the widening circles of perspiration at his armpits. His hand was shaking so that the gun swung like a pendulum. He weaved back and forth, as unsteady as a broken branch in the wind. He’d just clicked off the cell and stuffed it back into his shirt pocket, but the laser eyes kept darting toward the door, as if Vicky might knock at any moment.

  Father John shifted forward. Somehow, he had to get the gun before Vicky arrived. He said, “You don’t want to shoot anybody.” It was the counselor’s voice that came back to him in the quiet of the church—smooth, confident, and consoling.

  The Indian regarded him from beneath drooping eyelids, the gun still jumping in front of his belt buckle. “Wasn’t for you and that lawyer, everything would’ve been okay. I had me a wife.” His voice quivered, and for a second, Father John thought the man might burst into tears. “Two kids, the house. So me and Melba had some problems. What right you got to go poking into what’s none of your business? I ain’t got nothing to go on for, but I ain’t dying alone.”

  So that was it, Father John thought. After he killed them, he intended to kill himself. “You know what day it is, Kenny?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Today is the Sabbath.”

  The Indian dipped his head and blinked hard, as if he were trying to grasp hold of something in the dimness.

  Father John pushed on: “It’s the day of rest, Kenny. The day to let go of everything that’s bothering you, all the heavy burdens. Let them go for today. Tomorrow you can come to the mission, and we’ll sit down and talk. You know that Melba doesn’t want to divorce you. She wants you to stop drinking.”

  Father John inched his way to the end of the pew and started to get to his feet. “Give me the gun, Kenny. We can figure things out tomorrow.”

  A look of comprehension began to settle in the laser eyes. “You think I don’t know what you’re up to? Bullshittin’ me? You’re full of bullshit, you and that lawyer.”

  “If you go into a rehab program . . .”

  “Shut up! Shut up! I don’t wanna hear no more words.” The pistol started bucking up and down, and Father John dropped back onto the pew. “Words, words, that’s all you got. Melba ain’t never coming back.” The Indian threw a glance at the door. “That lawyer don’t get here in three minutes, you’re gonna be dead.”

  * * *

  Vicky could see the parked cars and pickups flashing through the stand of cottonwoods as she turned into St. Francis Mission. It might have been an ordinary Sunday, sunshine stippling the grounds, a warm breeze rustling the leaves in the branches. A mixture of relief and alarm washed over her. The mission wasn’t deserted; there were people still having coffee in Eagle Hall. And yet, if anyone tried to enter the church, Kenny would start shooting. And the minute she stepped through the door, she knew, she and John O’Malley could both be dead.

  She’d realized the truth of it back on Rendezvous Road, the brush and sunflowers in the ditches blurring past. She’d yanked her cell out of her bag and started to punch in 911, then dropped the cell into her lap. She could picture the police cars speeding into the mission, the uniforms rushing up the steps of the church. She could hear the gunshots. She pushed the next picture into the shadows of her mind: John O’Malley crumpling to the floor. She was still a couple of miles away—checking her watch. God. Only three minutes—when she knew what she had to do.

  She drove past the church, turned into the alley, and slid to a stop behind the bumper of a pickup. Grabbing the cell, she slammed out of the Jeep. A group of kids were playing on the stoop in front of Eagle Hall. She brushed past and let herself through the door. The sound of voices hung in a haze of coffee smells. Little groups of people sat at the tables s
cattered about, while several women fussed over the empty plates and Styrofoam cups on the table against the wall on the left.

  “Have you seen Leonard?” Vicky said, her eyes roaming over the crowded hall, aware only that someone was standing inside the door.

  “Over there.” It was a man’s voice. A bulky arm shot past her in the direction of the far corner.

  Vicky started around the tables, barely registering the startled looks on the faces that turned up as she passed. She was in blue jeans and a tee shirt. She didn’t remember combing her hair this morning; she hadn’t put on makeup. God, she must look a mess. Someone called, “Hey, Vicky.” She dodged the hand reaching for hers and kept going, her gaze fixed on the back of Leonard’s plaid shirt. The man was folding a chair. He stacked it against a pile of chairs in the corner.

  “Leonard,” she said, coming up behind him. He swung around, then reared back a little, as if the breeze had just blown her through the door. He started to say something, but she cut him off. “There’s an emergency. Kenny Yellow Plume has a gun on Father John over in the church.”

  “What?” The man’s face froze in disbelief. “I was just thinking about going over to see if Father John needed help with something.”

  “We don’t have any time.” Vicky hurried on. “We’ve got to get some men and get over there. Kenny called me almost twenty minutes ago. He’s threatening to kill Father John.”

  Leonard started past her, and she grabbed his arm. “I think Kenny locked the front door. He told me to knock.”

  “Don’t worry. I got the keys.”

  “What about the back door, in case he locked that, too?”

  “The back door?” He tossed her a sideways glance. “Yeah, I can unlock it. Let’s go.”

  He pushed past her, and Vicky followed the man across the hall, weaving around the tables, dodging the knots of people. Leonard pulled up at one of the tables, leaned down, and said something to Nathan Birdsong, then kept going. Behind her, Vicky could hear the scrape of Nathan’s boots. A couple more stops, and two other men jumped up. They were a little crowd by the time they got out the door and started for the church, boots scuffling the gravel.