Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery

by Coel, Margaret

  “You shake their hands anyway.” Father John said loud enough so all the kids could hear. “Doesn’t matter what they say. You tell them they played a good game. You show them how to be good sports.”

  They started to turn around, a slow, reluctant motion, and slot themselves into a single line that started toward the other line. He could hear the voices calling, “Good game. Way to go.” The lines moved fast past each other, palms barely touching. It was the ritual that counted. Marcy was grinning beside him. “What a sweet win,” she said.

  Father John waited until the kids had finished the show of sportsmanship, then fell in beside Marcy and headed for Steve Mantle and a couple of other coaches on the Ranger’s team. “I hear it was a great game,” he told Mantle.

  “For your kids.” Mantle was about six foot two, almost as tall as Father John, with sandy-colored hair that stuck out in tufts around the red baseball cap with Rangers on the front. He towered over Marcy, who had plastered an earnest look on her face and begun assuring the other coaches their kids had played very well.

  “We look forward to our next game,” Mantle said. He shot a meaningful look at the two coaches next to him, probably other fathers on the team. Father John recognized the look. Extra work at practice on whatever the coach thought the kids had messed up.

  When they got back to the dugout, the kids had picked up the bats, balls, and catcher’s gear and stuffed them into bags that they were lugging across the grass toward the parked cars. Father John thanked Marcy for coaching today and doing such a good job, gathered up a glove and bat he found in the dugout, and started down the outfield foul line.

  “Hey, Father!” Mantle came jogging across the field, waving one hand as if he were feeling his way, a brown equipment bag slung over his shoulder. Father John waited for the man to fall in beside him. He was breathing hard, flushed. “Is what I heard about the rez true?”

  “What did you hear?” Father John knew what the man would say; the moccasin telegraph usually ran into Riverton.

  “White buffalo calf born.”

  Father John stopped and faced the man. “It will be on tonight’s news.”

  “Born on the Broken Buffalo a week before Dennis Carey got shot? Sure surprised me. I expected a white buffalo calf would get born on an Indian ranch, not on that spread.”

  “You know the Careys?”

  Mantle shrugged and adjusted the wide strap over his shoulder. They started walking again. Out in the street, pickups and cars were pulling away from the curb. A few kids climbed into the waiting cars, excitement still leaking from their waving hands and bobbing heads. “Visited with them once or twice when they came into the office. I run Ranchlands Employment over on Main Street, try to match ranches that need help with cowboys looking for work. Dennis and Sheila came in a year ago last spring after they had the ranch six months or so. Came back last fall. I sent a few cowboys their way. Made some connections.”

  They had reached the curb, and Father John set the glove and bat in the back of the pickup. He looked at the man, who readjusted his own bag, then started moving his baseball cap back and forth as if he were scratching his scalp. “Don’t like speaking ill of the dead, but I never could figure out what they were doing out there. Sat across from me and said how much they needed help. I sent them perfectly good hands that they turned down. Only ones they hired came from out of state.”

  Father John didn’t say anything. He could still see the small, thin girl with black hair and blue eyes and skin as pale as the dawn sky. Nuala O’Brian, a pretty Irish girl with a brogue that had followed her to the U.S. and to some small town in New Mexico he had never heard of. He could still hear the panic in her voice. She was looking for her fiancé and she’d thought, well, because Jaime Madigan was Catholic, he might’ve come by the mission. He’d hired on to a buffalo ranch on the rez and had gone missing. Had Father John heard of him? He’d told her he was sorry, but he hadn’t met Jaime. If he was missing, she should report it to the tribal police.

  She had put out her hand, as if to stop that line of thought. Jaime wouldn’t want the police looking for him. It’s not that he was ever in serious trouble, but, you know, he’d sown a few wild oats before he’d met her. They were going to get married. The owners at the Broken Buffalo said he decided to leave one day. Packed up his bags and drove off. They had no idea where he went.

  “Ever hear of a cowboy named Jaime Madigan?”

  Mantle tipped his head back and stared at the sky a moment. The sun had set over the Wind River range an hour ago, and the clouds were fading into pinks and reds. There was a pinkish cast in the air. “Sounds familiar, but I can’t be sure. Out of state?”

  “New Mexico.”

  “We get a lot of cowboys wandering in, looking for work. I might’ve placed him on the Broken Buffalo. Stop by tomorrow if you get a chance. I can take a look through the records.”

  * * *

  THE PALE FLUSH of daylight hovered in the sky when Father John drove through the tunnel of cottonwoods and swung around Circle Drive. The mission had a deserted feeling. No parked cars about; a warm breeze tinged with the scent of wood smoke drifted into the cab. The Women’s Society had met at five thirty for a carry-in supper at Eagle Hall. The odors of enchiladas, spaghetti, and stew clung to the walls of the old hall after every meeting. He circled past the alley that divided the administration building from the church. Eagle Hall stood behind the church. No cars in the alley.

  Walks-On was waiting in the residence on the other side of Circle Drive, tail wagging, eyes shining. The dog had the ears of Superman. He would have heard the old Toyota pickup lumbering through the cottonwoods and coming around the drive. Father John went down on his haunches, rubbed the soft fur behind the dog’s ears, and closed his eyes as Walks-On lavished wet kisses on his cheeks. “Good boy,” he said. Walks-On had that odd look on his face, as if he were trying to smile.

  Television noises, voices talking over one another, floated out of the living room. He stood up and walked into the dimly lit room with curtains pulled and television lights flashing over the carpet and the sofa. Bishop Harry looked settled and comfortable in the recliner next to the sofa.

  “You’ve heard about the white buffalo calf?”

  “All over the TV, my boy. Couldn’t miss it.” The bishop looked up and gave him a smile of gladness and wariness. “You see her?”

  Father John perched on the armrest of the sofa, Walks-On dropping at his feet. The bishop muted the television voices and, for a moment, they watched in the silence as the small white calf strolled alongside her mother. At one point she veered off sideways, as if she might scamper away. She looked healthy and energetic. Whatever invisible sign the mother had sent, the calf turned back and started nuzzling beneath the shaggy hair on her mother’s stomach until she latched onto the teat. “I saw her this afternoon. She’s small and helpless looking, like a lamb. The tribes believe she is a symbol of the Creator with us. Her name is Spirit.”

  “The Creator has blessed us with many symbols in the world.” The bishop kept his eyes on the small white creature sheltering beneath the enormous, powerful-looking buffalo. It struck Father John that the dam would kill anyone—any creature—if she perceived any danger to her calf. “We must open our hearts to see them,” the bishop said. “I think the Creator sends signs to get our attention. There were many signs in India.” He shook his head. “The Brahman bull. The sacred cow, the sign of all life. The Gaja.” He seemed to be staring into a space inside his head, as if he had located a lost memory. “The elephant, the sign of the Creator’s heavenly throne. Sometimes we just don’t see the signs around us.”

  “The Arapahos believe the calf is a manifestation of White Buffalo Woman, who . . .”

  The bishop held up one hand. “Who brought the sacred rituals and ceremonies to the Lakota, but meant them for all Indian people. I did some research this afternoon.”

/>   Father John told him what Clifford had said: the birth of the white calf was like a visitation from the Blessed Mother.

  “Then the calf is very holy, indeed. What bothers you?” He shifted sideways toward Father John. His blue eyes were bright and watery.

  “The owner of the ranch, Dennis Carey, was shot to death. A young man who worked there last fall has disappeared.”

  “You sense evil about the place?” The bishop hurried on, not waiting for a response. “Perhaps that is the reason the white buffalo calf was sent there.”

  17

  THE CAMPING SPACE was perfect. Bordered by two huge boulders and a stand of ponderosas that muffled sounds from the other campers. Past the ponderosas, Reg could see a slice of Lander in the distance. He had pulled the pickup in close to the campsite, set up his pup tent, and put the rolled sleeping bag inside. Then he had gathered twigs and started a fire in the fire pit. Someone who had been here before had left a stack of logs, and he had rolled the top one into the fire and balanced the small grill he kept with his camping supplies on the sides of the pit. He worked his pocketknife around the top of a can of pork and beans, which he set on the grill. When the brownish liquid started bubbling, he had lifted the can off the grill with a pair of tongs, set it on a flat rock that served as a table. Squatting in front, he had opened the metal triangle that held a knife, fork, and spoon and eaten the hot chunks out of the can.

  Reg liked the sound of the wind in the pines, the muffled noises of other campers preparing dinner, the faraway sounds of cars pulling into the campground. He liked the privacy, the lack of ties. He was used to eating and sleeping outdoors, used to the feel of the wilderness. He had been a kid, barely sixteen, when Dad died and he’d dropped out of school and gone cowboying. He had followed his cousin onto a ranch on the Colorado plateau, a great swath of land that bound Colorado and Utah together. You could ride for days without seeing another soul. Cattle. Sheep. Mountain lions. He had seen a wolf once, although no wolves were supposed to range that far south. A thousand creatures scampering about, but no people. From time to time, he’d collect his pay and go back to Grand Junction. No family there anymore. Mom had died years ago; he hardly remembered her. Most of his friends had gone cowboying. They had ties. Parents and sisters and brothers. A few of his friends had even gotten married, although months went by between visits home. Oh, he liked girls, all right. Sometimes he longed for a girl. But most of the time, that fire was put out after a few days in town, a couple of dances, a roll in the hay.

  Married life had never appealed to him. Born to be a loner. That was how he thought of himself.

  Josh was different, always had been. It had surprised Reg when his buddy told him he was going to hire onto a ranch out on the plateau. Long way from family, Reg remembered saying. You’ll get lonely. Cowboying wasn’t for everybody; he had tried to make Josh understand. He could still hear Josh’s voice: “Hell, I’ll come back to see the folks whenever I like.” Then he had gotten fascinated with buffalo and gone to Wyoming to work on a buffalo ranch. He hadn’t come back.

  Reg finished the pork and beans. He felt warm and drowsy. The sun was out of sight, but the western sky was on fire with tongues of magenta, orange, and purple. The other campers seemed to have settled down, although he could hear a faint medley of voices and a strumming guitar. Shadows moved across the campsite; it was starting to get cool, despite waves of warmth from the campfire. A deep tiredness dogged him. He had driven most of the day to get to Wyoming.

  He forced himself to his feet and went about the routine motions of cleaning up the campsite. Always keep a clean camp! Pounded into him by the first foreman he’d worked under, the summer he turned sixteen. He put the used can in a bag he kept for trash, poured a little water from his water bottle over the utensils and folded them back into the triangle. Then he used the rest of the water to douse the fire, because you could never leave an unattended fire. The first rule of living in the outdoors.

  Ten minutes later, Reg was driving the winding roads out of the campground. He turned onto the straightaway that led down into town and stepped on the accelerator. Lander was a small town, Main Street stretching ahead with hanging baskets of flowers that looked dried, past their prime; people strolling sidewalks, licking ice cream cones; and the streetlamps coming on, shooting little circles of light over the pavement. He kept the map open on the seat next to him, even though he had studied it earlier at the campsite, imprinting the network of roads in his mind, and he turned onto Highway 789, past the sign that said Riverton.

  Another small town, but quieter, it seemed; only a few people strolling the sidewalks. Lights flickered in the windows of small bungalows, a steady traffic crawled down the streets. He drove north on Federal until he spotted the blinking sign on the corner. Behind the sign was a squat brick building with a flat roof and a light over the door that flared onto the parking lot. Reg parked in the lot between two trucks with the figure of a cowboy riding a bronco on the Wyoming license plates.

  Smells of beer, sweat, hot grease, and dust hit him as he stepped into the bar. He had been in a hundred bars across the West, places where tourists never went. He smiled at the idea of himself, the stranger, walking into a local hangout, cowboys leaning against the bar, sipping beers, watching him beneath the brims of their hats. Hoping for excitement. What have we here? Somebody new. And the girls in cowboy boots and tight jeans and shirts opened halfway to their belly buttons, giggling. Tension shot like electricity through the whole place.

  He wedged himself into a vacant space at the bar between two cowboys. The bartender, who looked as if he’d stepped out of an old western movie, caught his eye, and Reg motioned to the beer tap. There was an economy of movement, an economy of language among cowboys. Familiar, all of it. He might have been in Arizona or Idaho or back on the Colorado plateau.

  “New to these parts?” Reg realized the big guy on his left, with scabs on his hands, had been eyeing him.

  “Passing through.”

  “Not a lot of work, if that’s what you’re wanting. Where you from?”

  “Drove up from Colorado. You work around here?”

  “Looking to get hired on at a spread tomorrow, if I get lucky. Raise buffalo, them crazy ranchers. Now they got themselves a white buffalo calf. You ever hear of that?”

  Reg took a long drink of the beer the bartender had set in front of him, swiped at the foam on his lips, and nodded. So that’s what was going on out at the Broken Buffalo, folks showing up to see the calf. Somewhere he had heard about white buffalo calves. “Indians believe they’re sacred,” he said, unsure of the memory he had pulled that from. He turned around and leaned his back against the bar, his eyes accustomed now to the dim light. Hanging around the booths in the back of the bar was another batch of cowboys—Indian cowboys. “You talking about the Broken Buffalo?”

  “You heard of it? Jesus. They’re looking for hands in Colorado?”

  “I came here to find my buddy. He hired on there last spring.”

  “Must be a white guy.” The cowboy on the other side joined in. He had a big belly that rolled over a silver belt buckle and a grizzled look about him, as if he’d just ridden in from the prairie. “Don’t hire Indians out there.”

  “Why not? It’s on the rez.”

  “Just their way.” The first cowboy shrugged. “Owner got shot the other night. From what I hear, he wasn’t no Santa Claus. Works his hands pretty hard. Holds off the pay for months until he sells some stock and gets a big contract to supply buffalo meat.”

  “I heard he lost a contract with a national supermarket chain last spring.” The other cowboy jumped in. “Meat underweight. You ask me, he ran a lousy business. Couldn’t afford to buy enough hay to supplement the grass, so the buffalo didn’t get as big as he was expecting, and he lost his contract. Ranchers I’ve worked for, they get a loan from the bank to run their business. Pay it back after they make s
ome money.”

  “Heard he couldn’t get a bank to give him a loan.” The first cowboy lifted the glass of beer to his lips. The scabs looked like flies on his hand. “I hear they only had a couple hands until yesterday, when they started hiring. Carlos somebody is the foreman. That your buddy, Carlos?”

  Reg took another swig of his own beer. “Josh Barker. You heard of him?”

  Neither cowboy said anything. They made a sucking noise as they drank. An argument had started up over in the booths, a couple of guys shouting. Then quiet as the Indians shifted about, moving between the booths and tables. A cowboy with a lazy eye in a sun-wrinkled face walked over and leaned in toward Reg. “Josh your friend?”

  “That’s right. His mother’s dying. I came here to find him. Cowboy out at the ranch said nobody by the name of Josh Barker ever worked there.”

  “I’d say he’s a damn liar.” The man was big, blond, and hard-jawed. Reg knew the type. Quick to call things as he saw them, ready to back up words with fists. “Josh came in here once in a while. Tall, skinny guy, but nobody messed with him. He could handle himself.”

  “He say he was working at the Broken Buffalo?”

  “That’s the place. Liked working with buffalo, he told me. Unpredictable beasts. Have to stay on your toes. Don’t turn your back on them.”

  “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Been a while,” the first cowboy said. The others nodded. “Couple months at least.”

  “He say he was planning on going somewhere else?”

  “He sure as hell wanted to get off the Broken Buffalo.” Reg wasn’t sure if the lazy eye was looking at him or someone else. “Said he was getting out soon as he collected his back pay. Going to Montana.”

  “Did he say why?”

  The cowboy shrugged. “Ready to move on. The Broken Buffalo was a lot of hard work, not much time off.”