Watching Eagles Soar

by Margaret Coel

  “You have a husband?” Lizzie asked. The news filled her with an unexpected gladness. The woman was not alone.

  Glancing up, the woman said, “My husband was killed at Gettysburg in the war that just ended. You heard of the war, didn’t you?”

  Lizzie nodded. She had heard Flying Cloud and the other warriors talking about how the soldiers were killing one another. The war was good, they said. It meant fewer soldiers to attack the villages. But the war had killed the woman’s husband. A shiver as cold as an icy stream ran through Lizzie.

  “What is it?” the woman asked. Her voice was kind.

  Lizzie said, “I think of my husband.” She stumbled, groping for words that felt strange and unfamiliar on her tongue. She tried to say that Flying Cloud had gone to lead the soldiers to the hostile tribes in the north country. “I wait for him,” she managed.

  The woman gasped. “The north country? But that’s where the worst battles have been! General Connor has been subduing Indians there all summer. There have been many casualties.” A mixture of horror and grief came into the woman’s eyes. “Oh, Lizzie,” she said, “your husband . . .”

  Lizzie held up one hand against the words. The sun seemed to stand still; the breeze stopped in the willows. She got to her feet and walked back to the creek, staring at the dried clumps of grasses on the other bank, at the golden plains that ran into the horizon. What would the world be like without Flying Cloud? There would be another father to show Little Feather the ways of a man. Another husband to provide for her, but the sadness that held her now would be her companion.

  The woman was beside her. There was the gentle pressure of the woman’s hand on her arm, the soft tone of her voice. “Lizzie, come home.”

  Lizzie turned to her, trying to imagine—to remember—another world. The warm shelter of the house, the comfort of quilts on the bed, the rungs of a chair against her back, the table where she had taken food and made bright-colored marks on white sheets of paper. It was no longer her world. She was Arapaho. She said, “I am home.” And then she added, “Sister.”

  The woman drew in her lips, as if to bite back a cry, and Lizzie placed her arms around her. They held each other a long moment before the white woman pulled away and started walking back to the village.

  Lizzie picked up Little Feather’s cradle and swung it on her back. As she started after the woman, she spotted the warriors galloping across the ridge, Flying Cloud in the lead. She knew him at a distance—hair black as the night flying in the wind.

  And then Lizzie saw the soldiers whirl their horses about, saw the rifles raised, the heads bent to sight in the line of warriors. She stood frozen to the earth, her mouth open in a scream that locked in her throat.

  Running ahead, like an antelope bounding through the grass, was her sister. The white woman reached the lodgepole-thin soldier and yanked at his reins. “No!” she shouted. “Don’t shoot.” Now she flung herself along the line of soldiers, in front of the guns, waving and shouting, “Friendly Indians. Friendly Indians.”

  The lodgepole soldier barked words Lizzie struggled to understand, and the others lowered their rifles. She moved closer as the white woman mounted her horse, snapped the reins, and pulled alongside the lodgepole soldier. “Let us leave this village,” she shouted. “You’ve brought me on a wild-goose chase. There are no white women here. Only Arapaho.”

  Gratitude filled Lizzie’s spirit as she watched her sister, surrounded by the soldiers, ride up the slope, pulling to one side to avoid the warriors. She watched until the soldiers reached the top of the ridge, until they disappeared over the horizon. Then she saw other women break away from the village and start to run up the slope. And then she was running with them, catching herself from falling with joy.

  Flying Cloud was galloping toward her.

  The Man in Her Dreams

  Vicky Holden awoke with a start. Her heart thumped at her ribs, like a bird flailing against a cage. The tangle of sheets and blankets was damp with her own perspiration. A wedge of moonlight fell through the window and illuminated a corner of the bedroom. The rest was dark. Red numbers on the nightstand clock glowed into the blackness: 4:23.

  From far away came the drone of a truck lumbering along the highway north of Lander. It passed, leaving an empty quiet. Vicky kicked the damp bedclothes aside and forced herself to take deep breaths, willing her heartbeat to slow. It was just a dream.

  A dream about a man she didn’t know, had never seen before. He had brown hair combed straight back and a long, narrow face. The wide nostrils flared above tightly drawn lips; the dark eyes bored into her with a malevolence that left her stunned and immobilized. It was the man’s eyes, she realized, that had tripped her heart into an erratic spin.

  The man came walking toward her, kicking up clouds of dust with each step. The dust rose around his boots, licked at his blue jeans and brown corduroy jacket, swirled about his head and shoulders. Still he moved forward, in and out of the dust, eyes fixed on her. She tried to run, but the earth shifted beneath her feet. She couldn’t move.

  After a while Vicky felt her heartbeat subside to a normal rhythm. She wondered if she had received a vision, then pushed away the idea. In the Arapaho Way, only men received visions. When the warriors went into the wilderness to fast and pray, the forces of nature might reveal themselves and share their power: the strength of the buffalo, the determination of the bear, the cunning of the coyote. Women received dreams. And yet, some evil force had been revealed to her. Its power was mighty. It frightened her.

  First chance she got, Vicky decided, she would drive onto the Wind River Reservation north of town and ask Grandmother Ninni to interpret her dream.

  Just as no man could interpret his own vision, no woman could discern the meaning of her own dream.

  * * *

  The phone on the nightstand jangled into the early morning quiet, and Vicky realized she had been hearing the noise in the distance for some time. She must have dozed off. It surprised her. She’d given up hope of falling back asleep. Every time she had closed her eyes, she had seen the man walking toward her and felt the evil force in his eyes. She shook herself awake and picked up the receiver.

  “That you, Vicky?” A man’s voice, someone she must know, but she had no idea who it might be.

  She took a deep breath and said, “This is Vicky Holden.”

  “Darrell Running Bull here. I been tryin’ to get ahold of you for thirty minutes or more.”

  Vicky swung out of bed, muscles tense, senses alert. A call from Darrell Running Bull meant one thing: Richard was in trouble again. Three times in the last four years, Darrell had called about his son. Richard had stolen a car. Richard had beaten up a man in a bar. Richard had been arrested on drug possession. Vicky had managed to keep Richard out of jail on the first two incidents, but he’d done time on the possession charge. “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Police got Richard locked up over in county jail.” The words came like a burst of gunshot. “You gotta get him out, Vicky. He just got done with prison, and he can’t be locked up no more. No tellin’ what he might do . . .” Darrell’s voice trailed off. She heard a muffled sound, a choked sob.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said gently.

  There was a half second of silence on the line. Then: “Somebody shot Clifford Willow. Police say Richard done it, ’cause it happened over at the construction site where he’s been workin’.”

  Vicky knew the site—a two-block apartment complex on the west side of town. A developer by the name of Stephen Jeffries—she’d heard he was from Los Angeles—had moved to Lander, bought a number of vacant lots, and seemed intent on covering every one of them with buildings. Not everybody liked the idea, but no one could deny that the man had created dozens of much-needed jobs.

  “Police jumped to conclusions, all of ’em wrong,” Darrell was saying. “Arapaho gets hisself shot. Ano
ther Arapaho must’ve done it. But ever since Richard got outta prison, he seen Willow was leading him down a bad road. He got off them drugs and started a new life. Been goin’ to work every day, learning how to be a carpenter. No way he shot that no-good Indian. He don’t even own a gun.”

  A picture had begun to form in Vicky’s mind. Clifford Willow sought out Richard at the construction site and they got into an argument over—who knew what? Richard had a violent temper. He whipped out a gun that his father didn’t know about and shot the man. But if that were true . . . The picture shifted, like pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope. Why would Richard shoot him at the construction site, where he might come under suspicion? Richard Running Bull might be a hothead, but he wasn’t stupid. And he didn’t want to go back to prison.

  “You gotta get Richard out of jail,” Darrell said, his voice tense with fear and hope.

  “I’ll go see him,” Vicky said before hanging up the phone. First she intended to find out what evidence the police had against him.

  * * *

  The skeleton of the apartment complex rose into the steel-gray sky, like an ancient ruin on the plains. Workers in blue jeans, plaid shirts, and hard hats darted among the posts and half walls, shouts mingling with banging hammers and screeching saws. Vicky peered through the Bronco’s windshield, trying to spot Detective Bob Eberhart. The desk sergeant at the Lander police headquarters had said she’d find him at the construction site.

  She slowed past the pickups along the curb, past the silver trailer that looked dull under a trace of morning dew. Black letters above the door spelled Office. On she drove down the second block. Sounds faded and pickups gave way to three black-and-white police cars at the curb. Yellow tape enclosed a section at the end of the block. She parked behind the last police car and made her way across the hard-churned dirt, loose nails and scrap wood strewn about. Beyond the tape two policemen in dark blue uniforms guided metal detectors over the ground, shoulders stooped to the task.

  She spotted Eberhart and another uniformed officer in the shadow of a framed alcove. The detective was a slight man in dark slacks and a tweed sport coat that hung loosely from thin shoulders. As she stepped across the tape, he glanced up and started toward her. “Don’t think your legal magic’s gonna get Running Bull out of this mess,” he said.

  “What do you have?” Vicky ignored the comment.

  “Your client called Clifford Willow and arranged to meet him here”—a glance at the alcove—“at six thirty last evening. He was looking to buy some cocaine, which Willow was looking to sell. We’ve been watching Willow. Had a tap on his phone. I had a car over here at six thirty sharp, but Willow had already been shot. A couple workmen flagged down the police car. Said they saw Richard Running Bull leaning over a body. We picked him up just as he was getting in his truck.”

  Vicky felt her stomach muscles clench. Despite what his father had said, Richard was still using drugs. And the police had a phone tap. Witnesses. “What about the weapon?” She braced herself for the answer.

  “Expect we’ll find it soon enough.” Eberhart nodded toward the policemen with the metal detectors. “Richard shot Willow over by that pile of boards.” Another nod. “Soon’s he realized somebody saw him, he made a beeline for the truck.” The detective raised one hand and traced the direction of Richard’s supposed flight. “He stashed the gun right here somewhere. Dropped it in a hole, stuck it under some lumber. Might take a few hours, but we’ll find it. Expect we’ll find a bag of coke in the same place.”

  “Wait a minute,” Vicky said. “Are you saying you didn’t find the gun or any drugs on Richard?”

  The detective nodded. “Correct.”

  “No drugs on Clifford Willow’s body?”

  “We wouldn’t still be lookin’ for ’em, now would we?”

  “What if Richard didn’t make the buy?” Vicky said, marshaling her thoughts. “What if Willow was already dead when Richard got here, and somebody else had taken the cocaine?”

  “Nice theory.” Eberhart was shaking his head. “I’m willing to bet this badge here”—he patted the pocket of the tweed sport coat—“that soon’s we locate the gun, we’ll find a baggie of coke. Richard ditched them fast. He would’ve come back for them later.”

  Suddenly the officer snapped to attention and stepped out of the alcove. “Mr. Jeffries,” he called.

  Vicky glanced around. A tall man in blue jeans and a brown corduroy jacket strode toward them, boots kicking up clouds of dust. The long, narrow face, the brown hair flattened along the top of his head, the flashing evil eyes: the man in her dream. Vicky felt her mouth go dry, her breath form a hard rock in her chest. She staggered backward, struggling to find purchase in the chunks of dirt and scraps of wood, stealing herself against the force of evil drawing closer.

  “How much longer you gonna keep this area shut down?” The man’s voice boomed. “I got fifty men on the payroll sitting on their asses. I’m losin’ a lot of money here.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Jeffries.” There was the hint of deference in the officer’s tone. “We’re still looking for evidence.”

  Jeffries snorted, then raised a fleshy hand and began patting his nose. He sniffed several times. “What the hell more you need? You got the guy that shot that Indian. I can’t afford to pay a bunch of men for not workin’.” He was stomping back and forth now, punching both fists into the air.

  Eberhart took a couple of steps forward and put out one hand in a gesture of peace. As soon as they found the gun, he began—cajoling, assuring—they would release the area.

  Vicky stared at the man. The hair and eyes, the dust billowing around—she had seen it all in her dream. With a certainty that froze her in place, she knew that Stephen Jeffries had killed Clifford Willow.

  * * *

  “You got everything fixed?”

  Richard Running Bull rose from behind the metal table in the visiting room at the Fremont County jail. He was half a head taller than she was, with a thick chest and muscles that rippled beneath his blue denim shirt. His black hair was parted in the middle and caught in two braids that hung down the front of the shirt. He was about thirty, she knew, but he stared at her out of the solemn eyes of a man twice his age.

  “Hello to you, too,” Vicky said. She knew he expected her to walk in with a ticket for his release, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. The metal door slammed behind her, a low thud that reverberated through the windowless room.

  Richard’s expression slid from understanding to panic. “I been locked up all night. You gotta get me outta here.” He crashed one fist down onto the table. The peaks of his knuckles showed white through his dark skin.

  “Sit down, Richard.” Vicky nodded toward the chair he had just vacated. She sat across from him and extracted a pen and legal pad from her briefcase. “Let’s start at the beginning.”

  The Indian dropped slowly onto his chair, shoulders hunched, head forward, as if he were about to launch himself out of the room. “They got it all wrong,” he said. “I just knocked off work yesterday when these two clowns in uniforms showed up and slapped on the cuffs. Said I shot some Indian named Clifford Willow. Hell”—both hands flew into the air—“I don’t know any Clifford Willow.”

  Vicky locked eyes a long moment with the man. He was lying. An innocent man did not lie. Last night’s dream had overcome her ability to think rationally. She shoveled the pad and pen back into the briefcase, rose from the chair, and started for the door. In an instant, Richard Running Bull was around the table, blocking her way. “Where the hell you going?”

  Vicky stepped past him, and he grabbed her arm. “I said, where you think you’re going?”

  “Take your hand off me.” Vicky wheeled toward him. They both knew the guard was just outside the door.

  Richard let his hand drop. “You got to help me,” he pleaded.

  “I can’t help somebody who lies to me. I
want the truth from my client. I want you to tell me about the call you made to Clifford Willow, about the drug buy you set up for yesterday.” The Indian flinched, as if she’d slapped him. A look of resignation came into his eyes. He turned and sank onto the chair. “All right,” he said.

  Vicky resumed her own seat. She retrieved the notepad and pen as he began explaining. He used to hang around with Willow, a long time ago. He gave a little shrug, as if it weren’t important. The two of them—well, the truth was, they did drugs together. A little marijuana. Some coke. No dealing. That was Clifford’s bag, not his. Just using once in a while, when he got stressed out, when he needed to party a little.

  “What happened yesterday?” On the pad, Vicky wrote: Willow sold drugs.

  The man drew in a long breath. His eyes travelled to a corner of the small room before resting again on hers. “I’ve been real stressed out lately. The boss, Jeffries, wants more work done every day. Walks around the site shoutin’ and yellin’. ‘Speed up, speed up. I’m not paying you guys to sit on your asses.’ Fact is, he hasn’t paid anybody for two weeks. Says his money’s all tied up. Says he’ll pay us next week. Only reason I been staying around is to get what’s owed me.”

  Vicky wrote down: Jeffries—money problems. She said, “So you called Willow.”

  Richard stared at her a moment, as if weighing his options. “Yeah, I called him. I been clean three months now, and where’s it gettin’ me? Workin’ for a crazy man and not gettin’ paid. Willow was supposed to meet me over by the alcove after work, but he didn’t show. I waited five, ten minutes. I was heading for my truck when I seen him over by a pile of boards. Geez, there was blood everywhere. I got outta there fast. I was just about to get in my truck when the cops showed up.”