The Drowning Man

by Margaret Coel

  “I suggest you take them.” Father John reached around and opened the door for her. A rush of hot air shot into the coolness of the building.

  She stepped onto the concrete landing at the top of the steps and gave another backward look. “I’ll have to write that you refused comment,” she said. “Some readers could conclude you’re unwilling to help the tribes retrieve their treasure. Everyone here…” She hesitated a moment, as if she’d lumbered down a road she wasn’t certain she should follow; then she said: “I’ve done my homework, Father, and everyone in the area thinks that you’re a friend to the Arapahos. The Shoshones, too. They call you the Indian priest. My article will probably change their opinion.”

  “I’ll have to take my chances, won’t I?” He tried to keep his tone friendly. She was so young.

  “All right, then,” she said, squaring her shoulders in an attempt, he thought, to make him think she was older, an experienced reporter, hardly someone venturing into uncharted territory. “I’ll be in touch again, I’m sure,” she said, before she swung around and hurried down the steps toward the small green sedan parked next to his pickup.

  Father John watched the sedan back into Circle Drive, then start forward, gravel shooting from beneath the tires. He thought about the sources the girl had quoted in the article: Ted Gianelli, who confirmed that the petroglyph had been stolen, and the antiques dealer…what was his name? Duncan Barnes. Duncan Barnes, the man who happened to know how much the petroglyph was worth.

  He waited until the sedan had disappeared into the tunnel of cottonwoods, then went back into the office. There were things to take care of—phone calls to return, mail to answer. Then he intended to drive over to Duncan’s Antiques and see what else the man might know about the stolen petroglyph.

  10

  MICHAEL DEAVER, A good 250 pounds of muscle, with a massive head set on a thick neck and sleeves of a blue shirt rolled up over clublike forearms, took up most of the doorway between the entry and the inner sanctum of the Fremont County and Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said.

  Vicky doubted that was true. There was a harried, annoyed look in the man’s gray eyes. “Do you have a few minutes?” she said. She’d been pacing the small entry, carving a little circle past the plastic chairs pushed against the wall, the front door, the counter below the glass partition that divided the entry from the rest of the office, the metal communicator next to the door. She’d taken a chance that Deaver would be in, and that the phone call from her secretary would hold him for a few moments if he was on the way out. The blond woman on the other side of the partition had warned that the prosecuting attorney was very busy. Vicky had ignored the annoyed expression on the woman’s face and continued pacing.

  “Come on back,” Deaver said, leading the way down the corridor past rows of closed doors. “All I have is a few minutes.” He tossed the words into the empty corridor ahead. They were on the lower level of the new brick courthouse with light streaming through the windows and the faint odor of fresh paint permeating the air. Their footsteps made a hushed noise against the carpet. Somewhere in the building, a phone was ringing. The buzz of conversation floated through a closed door.

  “Appointments all day. Here we go.”

  Vicky followed the man into a spacious office twice as large as her own, with a bank of windows that framed the branches of cottonwoods. Past the branches, she could see the tan walls of the Fremont County Jail and the top of a pickup moving down Railroad Street.

  “So what’s this all about?” Deaver nodded toward one of the wood-framed, upholstered chairs arranged in front of the desk. He walked around and dropped into a swivel chair that emitted a sound like air escaping from a punctured tire.

  White people, Vicky was thinking, were so quick to get right to the point. No time for the exchange of pleasantries, no time to move onto common ground, to connect—one human being with another—before launching into business.

  She took her time sitting down; then she said, “I’ve been reading the transcript of Travis Birdsong’s trial. You were the prosecuting attorney.”

  Michael Deaver stared at her with an expression as blank as the polished surface of his desk. “Refresh my memory,” he said after a moment, clasping his hands together and leaning over the desk. “I’ve tried a couple hundred cases in my career. Indian, I take it?”

  “Arapaho. Convicted of the shotgun slaying of his friend, Raymond Trublood.”

  “Okay.” Deaver drew out the word so it sounded like Youuuu Kay. “Don’t hear any bells ringing.”

  Vicky had to swallow back the sense of indignation. “Seven years ago, you put Travis Birdsong in prison for fifteen years,” she said. “It was after the first petroglyph was stolen in Red Cliff Canyon.”

  The district attorney blinked a couple of times. He pushed his bulk into the chair, which rocked backward against the window frame. “Got it,” he said. “Tall, skinny Indian with hair smoothed back like it was glued on his head. Attitude. Man, did that Indian have an attitude. By the way, the U.S. attorney never got around to charging him with theft in the missing petroglyph case. Most Birdsong could’ve gotten for that offense was five years, and that’s if the judge was in a real bad mood and gave him the maximum. We had him for twelve to fifteen on voluntary manslaughter, so the U.S. attorney saved a lot of time and trouble, not to mention taxpayer money, by filing the case away under ‘unsolved.’” Deaver rolled his head back. “Birdsong and Trublood,” he went on, his gaze somewhere on the ceiling. “What a couple of princes. Cut out the sacred art of their own people and sold it. Tell you what kind of guys they were?”

  “I’m trying to understand Harry Gruenwald’s defense strategy,” Vicky said, working to keep the indignation out of her tone. “It was a lousy defense.”

  “Old Harry had himself a lousy case, Vicky. You read the transcript. We had all the evidence we needed. Shotgun with Birdsong’s fingerprints all over it. We had the motive. Birdsong and Trublood had gotten into a fight two days before. They got into another fight in the barn, and Birdsong went for the shotgun. Had all the markings of a crime of passion. Jury was right about that. Witness saw Birdsong running from the murder scene. Cases don’t come much tighter.”

  “That’s just it,” Vicky said. “It was a little too tight. Gruenwald could have made your job a lot more difficult, Michael. He could have thrown doubt on every piece of evidence. Fingerprints on the shotgun? Travis may have used the same gun to kill coyotes. Ballistics test, where was it? Motive? It was a joke.”

  “Joke? The victim still had the bruises when he was shot.”

  Vicky ignored the interruption and pushed on: “They grew up together. They’d probably gotten into fights before. So what if Travis found the body and ran? He was scared. He probably figured he’d be a suspect, and he wasn’t thinking straight. Gruenwald could have cross-examined Marjorie Taylor and her foreman. Confirmed that it was normal for Travis’s prints to be on the shotgun. He could have made the point that Travis wasn’t the only one at the ranch when Raymond was shot. He could have thrown doubt on all of your so-called evidence.”

  Deaver crossed his arms over his chest and smiled at her, swiveling the chair from side to side a little. “So I should be grateful you weren’t defending the guy, trotting out a lot of alternative scenarios and explanations, right? Some little old lady on the jury might’ve started thinking maybe that poor Indian was innocent as a newborn baby. Wasn’t that what his grandpa testified? Travis couldn’t’ve killed anybody. That Indian could still be walking around, instead of sitting behind bars where he belongs.”

  “Why didn’t Gruenwald go ahead with an appeal? He’d filed a notice of intent and ordered the trial transcript.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Come on, Michael. We both know he should have appealed Travis’s conviction. There were grounds for appeal in the trial. I would ask him, if I knew where to find him. I thought he’d left the
state.”

  “Last I heard, he’s living on a little ranch south of town. The case was tight. Maybe he figured an appeal would’ve been a waste of time and money.”

  Vicky glanced away. There was a neatness about the office, books aligned by height in the long, mahogany bookcase against the wall, drawers tightly shut in the filing cabinets against the other wall, everything in order as it should be. Snatches of conversation sounded from the corridor. She could feel the atmosphere begin to change, the impatience leaking across the desk.

  “If the case against Travis was so tight,” she said, “I’m surprised Gruenwald didn’t try for a deal. Agree to an involuntary manslaughter plea, argue for a shorter sentence.”

  “We tried to cut a deal, if I recall. Yeah. We were working with the fed, you know, quietly. Travis Birdsong gives up the location of the stolen petroglyph, the names of whoever he sold it to, helps the Indians get their sacred art back, and lets the fed dump that case into the closed files, and we let him take a plea and save the taxpayers of Fremont County a lot of money, and me and my staff a lot of trouble. Didn’t fly, Vicky. Gruenwald took it to his client, who turned it down flat. Kept saying he was innocent. Wasn’t gonna cop to any murder he didn’t do.”

  “Maybe Travis is innocent,” Vicky said. The idea was beginning to take hold, settle into her mind, and she knew it wouldn’t be easy to dislodge. A guilty man would’ve grabbed at the chance of a plea bargain. He would have seen himself walking out of prison after a shorter sentence. It would have been a light shining at the end of a long, dark tunnel. But Travis had turned down the chance, which could also mean—this was the rest of it—that he didn’t have anything to trade. Not only hadn’t he killed Raymond; he hadn’t stolen the petroglyph and didn’t know where it was. And Deaver had realized that. She could feel the warm flush of anger working through her.

  “What brought up all this old history?” the prosecutor said, lifting himself to his feet, a signal that he’d run out of time. “Oh, I get it,” he went on. “The glyph that was just stolen from the same canyon. No connection, Vicky, if that’s what you’re thinking. How could there be? One thief’s dead; the other’s down at Rawlins. The old man got to you, right?”

  Deaver came around the desk, and Vicky stood up, fixed the strap of her bag over one shoulder, and faced him. “You didn’t believe Travis had taken the petroglyph seven years ago, did you?”

  The man walked around the desk and yanked open the door. He held it open. “You got information to trade to save even a little bit of your skin, you’re gonna trade it. Travis wasn’t trading. You led the jury to believe that Travis and Raymond had stolen the petroglyph and fought over the money.” Vicky ignored the outstretched hand ushering her into the corridor.

  “We proved the motive, Vicky. Those Indians had been in a violent fight. Over what? Who knows. Maybe a bottle of whiskey, some woman. Doesn’t matter. They had a beef. Travis had a grudge. That’s all that mattered.”

  “The stolen petroglyph was in that courtroom. You introduced it as evidence toward motive…”

  “Wrong, counselor.” The fleshy hand was waving in the corridor. “The judge instructed the jury not to consider the theft. No way was it part of the trial.”

  “We both know how that works, Michael,” Vicky said, her voice a barely controlled whisper. “I’m going to file a petition for post-conviction relief.” She stepped past the man.

  “On what grounds?” There was the faintest hint of alarm in his tone. “Don’t tell me you have new evidence.”

  “How about ineffective assistance of counsel? Prejudicial statement on the part of the prosecuting attorney?”

  “I heard you and Adam were only taking on big civil cases, advising the tribes on natural resources, that sort of stuff. What’s Adam think about you getting involved with a convicted felon?”

  “If the petition is denied…” Vicky said, louder now, firmer. A secretary walking past them in the corridor gave her a quick, startled look.

  “Which it will be after seven years.”

  “I’ll ask the parole board to reduce his sentence to time served.”

  “Oh, Vicky, Vicky,” Deaver began, a placating tone now, but she’d already turned and started down the corridor, anger burning like coals in her face.

  “You’ll hear from me, Deaver,” she said, halfway down the corridor now, not caring whether he’d heard.

  VICKY PULLED THE cell phone out of her bag as she hurried along the sidewalk past the sedans and trucks parked at the curb. Two messages showed in the display window: Adam Lone Eagle. Lone Eagle and Holden. She slid behind the steering wheel of the Jeep, started the engine, and rolled down the windows. There was a hint of coolness in the breeze that wafted across the front seat.

  She played the first message: “Hi, Vicky. Looks like I’ll have to stay here another day or so. Trust everything’s going okay with the BLM proposal. I’ve been thinking a lot about us. Call me when you get this.”

  Vicky deleted the message, then played the next. Annie’s voice, saying Adam had been calling the office, wanting to know when she was expected. Probably wanted to know where she’d gone, the secretary added—she couldn’t resist, Vicky thought—but she hadn’t told him, just that Vicky was out on business.

  Another delete. Vicky tapped the key for the office. The sound of a ringing phone buzzed in her ear, then Annie’s voice, as close as if the secretary were in the passenger seat. “Lone Eagle and Holden.”

  “It’s me.”

  “Adam’s real anxious to talk to you.” Annie’s voice sounded breathless, as if she’d been running. “I told him you got the BLM proposal finished. He felt better about that.”

  Vicky tried to ignore the comment, but it was like ignoring the prick of a cactus. Adam felt better? He should have trusted her.

  “Just got off the phone with Norman,” Annie was saying. “He wants you to call him right away. Says it’s important.”

  Vicky said she’d take care of it. “Any luck in finding Gruenwald?”

  The secretary said that she was still working on it.

  Vicky told her that the man could be living on a ranch somewhere south of town. Then she pressed the end button and tapped out the number to the tribal offices. The sun bounced and glittered off the hood of the Jeep. There was the thrum of tires on pavement as a truck drove past.

  Finally a woman’s voice came on the line: “Arapaho Business Office.” Vicky gave her name and started to say she was returning Norman Yellow Hawk’s call when the woman interrupted. “Hold on, Norman’s been waiting to hear from you.”

  “Vicky?” A defeated note in the chairman’s voice. “He’s not going for the alternate route.”

  “Who?”

  “Bud Ladd, over at the BLM. Notified the Joint Council an hour ago. Said the logging company’s all set to widen Red Cliff, and it’s too late to consider some other route.” The man waited a couple of beats, and Vicky could hear the labored sound of his breathing. “They don’t care they’re gonna tear up one of our sacred places. Council voted on moving forward. We notified Ladd that we want a meeting between him and our lawyers. It’s set for eleven tomorrow.”

  Vicky told the man that she’d be there. “We can’t give up, Norman,” she said, but she could sense that the man had already given up. It was still with them, the century-old futility of trying to protect what was theirs while watching it being taken away. It clung to her people like a stain that couldn’t be removed.

  The line had gone quiet, and for a moment, Vicky thought she’d lost the signal. Finally, Norman’s voice again. “Maybe you can change his mind,” he said, the faintest hint of hope in his voice now. She wondered if she had imagined it, if her own people were finally beginning to believe in her. And yet, back at the office, Norman had warned her not to get mixed up with Travis Birdsong.

  She stopped herself from bringing up the subject again, trying to convince the chairman that Travis had deserved a better defense. Better defense? The thou
ght made her want to weep with frustration. Travis Birdsong had deserved a defense.

  She told the councilman she’d do her best, then pressed the end button again. For the briefest moment, she considered calling Annie back and asking her to set up an appointment with Marjorie Taylor. She decided against it. Suppose the woman refused to see her? Refused to talk to a lawyer with questions about the man convicted of killing one of her employees? Sometimes it was better to catch people unaware, before they had time to summon up any objections.

  Vicky tossed the cell on top of her bag in the passenger seat. Then she turned onto Main Street and drove west toward the reservation.

  11

  HIGHWAY 287 RAN through open spaces luminous in the sunshine. A sense of peace pervaded the plains, Vicky thought. The way the land dissolved into the sky always called her back to herself. She was different here than in the white world. Part of something larger than herself, part of the stories that had shaped her life: women in the villages, preparing food, tanning hides; children playing about; warriors riding out for buffalo. And always the old stories of Chief Black Coal and her own great-great-grandfather, Chief Sharp Nose, leading the people onto the reservation—the reserved lands cut from a corner of the vast lands that had once belonged to the Arapaho. Time collapsed into the present on the reservation, a circle encompassing the past and the future, not like the ribbon of asphalt shooting straight into the horizon.

  It struck her with the sharpness of a whip how terrible it must be for Travis Birdsong, locked up in a cell so far away—a million miles away—from the endless sweep of the plains. She gripped the steering wheel hard and tried to fight back the nearly physical sense of pain. Deaver had deliberately linked Travis to the stolen petroglyph, even though he didn’t believe Travis was guilty. Who could guess how Marjorie Taylor’s comment had influenced the jury?