The Drowning Man

by Margaret Coel

  “The tribes would like to get it back,” Father John said.

  “What for? They can’t put it back up in Red Cliff Canyon.”

  “They can protect it and keep it with the people. Petroglyphs are sacred.”

  “You ask me, whoever took that sucker’s gonna make a whole lot of money. He ain’t givin’ it back to the tribes, not after all the trouble he went to.”

  “Maybe the tribes would pay to get it back. I was thinking,” Father John hurried on, pushing against his own hope now, “that you could put the word out on the antiquities telegraph that the tribes are interested in making a deal.”

  “What’s in it for you?” The dealer cocked his head back, and Father John had the feeling that he was being appraised, as if he were some type of Indian artifact.

  “I’d like to see the petroglyph back where it belongs.”

  “You want my opinion, you’re too late. That sucker went to the same place that other stolen glyph went to some years back. They’re both sittin’ in the gardens of mansions out in California or maybe New York. Maybe Aspen or Santa Fe. Fact is, they’re gone. Rich folks sittin’ around, sippin’ cocktails, sayin’, ‘My dear, wherever did you find that?’” He’d switched into a falsetto and lifted an invisible cocktail glass in a mock toast. “‘ Oh, just something I picked up,’” he went on, still in the falsetto. “‘ Nothing, really.’ Yeah, nothin’,” he said, his usual voice now. “A little quarter-million, maybe half-million nothin’.”

  Father John was quiet. Don’t let it be true, he was thinking. And yet the logic was there. Logic was relentless. Why would the thief hang around and wait? There were too many uncertainties, too many maybes. Maybe the tribes would agree to buy back the petroglyph. Maybe the tribes could raise the money. Maybe the thief could hand over the petroglyph and collect the ransom without getting caught. Maybe. Maybe. And all the time, there were buyers with the money and the desire for something different, something unlike all the other things they owned, something with a hint of scandal and danger that made the petroglyph all the more attractive.

  “I’d appreciate it if you put the word out anyway,” Father John said. He could hear the note of hope sounding in his voice, like the last note of an aria before the curtain drops.

  “Yeah, whatever.” The dealer lifted his shoulders in another shrug, and Father John thanked the man and made his way back through the rows of display cases and the motes of dust floating in the columns of sunshine. He glanced at his watch as he crossed the dirt floor of the garage. Almost three thirty. He was going to have to break a few speed limits to get back in time for baseball practice.

  THE KIDS WERE already on the diamond when Father John drove into the mission. Helmets and gloves milling about, a couple of bats swinging, a ball sailing out of sight behind the residence. He parked next to Del Baxter’s brown pickup. Del’s son, Cody, had pitched a winning game against the Riverton Cowboys last Saturday, and afterwards, the parents had taken up a collection in the bleachers and everyone had come back to the mission for a pizza party on the grass in the middle of Circle Drive.

  “Busy afternoon, John?” The voice came out of nowhere. Father John glanced around as he got out of the pickup. Standing near the tailgate was Father Lloyd, like a ghost that had suddenly materialized. Father John hadn’t seen the old man on the grounds. Maybe he’d come out of the church and walked across the grass while Father John had been parking. He just hadn’t noticed. Earlier, when he’d driven out of the mission, he’d spotted Father Lloyd strolling in the cluster of cottonwoods, stooping to examine something on the ground, nearly disappearing behind a trunk, then starting out again, head and shoulders bent. A solitary, lonely old man, Father John had thought. It might be good for him to have a little work.

  “I believe the office will work just fine.” Father Lloyd moved along the side of the pickup until he was a couple of feet away. The cleft in his chin looked like an ink mark. “Your maintenance man—Leonard, I believe he said his name was—has been most helpful. He’s already started clearing out the space. Just as you predicted, there was a desk under the cartons. Leonard assured me he’ll find a chair and lamp and maybe even an extra telephone in the attic. We should be up and rolling in two or three days. I see no reason why you couldn’t begin to schedule counseling sessions.”

  “You’re sure, Lloyd? Why not take a little time, get acquainted with the place? You don’t have to go to work right away.”

  “Ah, but there’s always the need, is there not? Always people in need of help.”

  Father John nodded. The fact was, there were always calls, always people stopping by to talk to one of the priests. There were days when he and Ian did nothing other than counsel people who had dropped by. Everything else—preparing agendas for upcoming meetings, writing next Sunday’s homily, visiting parishioners in the hospital, stopping by the senior center—came to a stop. There was no doubt that this old man, a trained psychologist, could be a big help.

  “You like baseball?” Father John started toward the curb, then waited for the other priest to catch up. The voices of the kids shouting to one another reverberated around the mission grounds.

  “Followed the game a bit in my time,” Father Lloyd said.

  “We have a good team.”

  “With much enthusiasm. I watched the boys running out to the diamond a few moments ago.”

  “We don’t mind visitors at practice.”

  The old man gave a hesitant nod, Father John thought. Finally, he said, “That might be fine. Yes, quite possibly I would find it entertaining, if you’re sure you don’t mind.”

  “Come on.” Father John took hold of the man’s arm and steered him toward the path across the field to the diamond. He was surprised at how frail he seemed, his arm as light and fragile as a twig beneath the thin fabric of his shirtsleeve.

  14

  THE RESIDENCE SEEMED unnaturally quiet even for nighttime. No ringing phones or footsteps in the corridor. Turandot had ended some time ago, and Father John had allowed the quiet to settle over the study rather than swivel around and insert another opera into the tape player on the shelf next to his desk. Then Walks-On had wandered off. The click of the dog’s nails in the hallway was the last sound to break the quiet.

  Father John finished writing a thank-you note and stuffed it into an envelope. Another donor to St. Francis. No one he knew or would probably ever meet, just someone who had heard of the mission and had written one of the checks that kept the place afloat. He was about to start another thank-you note when the phone rang. There was something unsettling about the sound, erupting as it did into the quiet. He glanced at the black oblong box beyond the puddle of light from the desk lamp. Green numbers blinked on the little clock next to the phone: 11:46. Emergency calls came in the night. Someone in trouble. Automobile accident, heart attack. Someone arrested on a DUI or assault charge. But even as he reached for the receiver, he had the sense that this was not an emergency. It was the call he’d been waiting for.

  “Father O’Malley,” he said.

  “You deliver the message?” A man’s voice, low and raspy, like the sound of leaves crunched under a boot. The words were clipped and impatient.

  “Who is this?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “The tribes have your message.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Father. I don’t have time for games. Do they want the petroglyph or not?”

  “They’d like to have the petroglyph returned. Maybe you don’t know what it means.”

  A guffaw floated over the line. “Why do you think buyers are lining up? There’s not a lot of two-thousand-year-old artifacts with spiritual meaning on the market. The petroglyph’s holy, and that makes it real valuable.” There was the rumbling sound of a cough on the other end. “The price is a quarter mil. The Indians got the money?”

  “They’re trying to raise it.”

  “Not good enough. I have buyers at my door with cash in hand. Cash, you hear tha
t? Indians have to match it.”

  “How do I know you have the petroglyph?”

  “What?” The man waited, and when Father John didn’t say anything, he said, “What the hell do you think?”

  “I think you could have read about the stolen petroglyph in the newspaper and decided to try and collect a lot of money.”

  “I don’t have time for bullshit.” The voice was heavy with warning. The man coughed again. “Tell the tribes to get the money. They have twenty-four hours.”

  Father John pushed on, Gianelli’s voice ringing in his head: Play him along. Make him want to stay in the game. “The Arapahos and Shoshones want proof you have the petroglyph. When they see the proof, they’ll make a deal. You’ll get the money.”

  “You put them up to this? Jesuit priest thinks he can outsmart everybody? Buy some time while you bring in the cops? That what this is all about?” The man stopped. A hissing noise floated down the line now. “No cops,” he said. “You bring in cops or feds and the petroglyph goes away. You got that? The tribes’ll never see it again. They can say bye-bye to their sacred spirit.”

  “I told you, we’ll have a deal as soon as we see the proof.”

  A second passed. Father John could hear the hissing noise at the other end again, as if the man were blowing through clenched teeth. Finally, he said, “I’ll be in touch.” The line went dead.

  Father John set the receiver in the cradle. He kept his gaze on the phone. Gianelli was already involved, a fact that the man obviously didn’t know. How long before word reached him? Sooner or later news that the Indian had made contact would leak through the tribal offices and onto the moccasin telegraph. There was bound to be speculation about Gianelli getting involved; people would assume the fed was on the trail of the Indian and the petroglyph.

  And something else. He glanced across the study at the shadows striping the walls and bookcase, trying to grasp the idea forming in his mind, fit it into a logical sequence. The man understood that Arapahos and Shoshones considered the petroglyph sacred. He knew they would want it returned and would do whatever they could to raise the money. Chances were, the man was local.

  There was more. The logic propelled itself to another conclusion. If the man were local, he could have someone watching the mission to make certain Gianelli’s SUV didn’t drive onto the grounds.

  He would have to be careful, Father John realized. Gianelli had already come to the mission. They had to watch their steps. The man could disappear, just as he’d disappeared seven years ago. If he had been involved in the theft of the first petroglyph. If the Indian was the same messenger. If. If. If. There were so many ifs, so many conjectures. Where was the evidence to link the two thefts? A local would have known about the first petroglyph. He could have copied the theft, down to sending an Indian messenger, hoping to frighten the tribes into raising the money quickly—no questions, no cops—before they lost another petroglyph.

  But that left another problem. Suppose the tribes refused to pay the ransom? Then what? What kind of local had buyers around the country lining up to give him a quarter of a million dollars? The proprietor of Duncan’s Antiques? A converted warehouse with a layer of dust on the display cases and paintings askew on the walls? Father John could picture a few tourists plunking quarters in the Coke machine out front, maybe buying a few souvenirs. But serious collectors willing to spend a lot of money? It was hard to imagine anyone like that buying from Duncan Barnes.

  Who, then?

  Father John rolled his chair back and got to his feet. In two strides, he was around the desk and in the entry. He let himself out the front door and crossed the mission. A field of stars blinked against the black sky. He took the steps in front of the administration building two at a time. He had to bend over to fit his key into the lock lost in the shadows. He let himself into the old building and headed for his office, past the photographs of former Jesuit pastors. He flipped on the ceiling light in his office, walked around the desk, and pushed the chair over to the small table with the used computer that the owner of a tire store in Riverton had brought over one day. “Just got us some new equipment,” he’d said. “Any chance you can use this?” There was every chance, Father John had told the man.

  He perched on the chair, turned on the computer, and watched the gray monitor shimmer into life. Another couple of minutes, and he was surfing the Web for articles on stolen Indian artifacts. There were dozens of sites. It was impossible to read them all. Most were tied to the West: Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Montana. He skimmed the pages for some mention of Wyoming, then did another search: “Theft Indian Artifacts Wyoming.” Nothing came up. Nothing.

  He scrolled back to an article on Colorado. The Indian drove a pickup with Colorado plates. The headline crossed the top of the monitor: “Museums Acknowledge Dark Past.” He skimmed down the text: Museums across the country concede that in the red-hot artmarket of the twentieth century, they had purchased prized Indian artifacts from third parties who did not or could not substantiate the provenance of the artifacts. Many artifacts include burial and other ceremonial objects of great cultural significance. Under NAGPRA, federal legislation passed in 1990, museums must return certain items to tribal owners. Curators have been combing museum records, reviewing documents in efforts to repatriate cultural artifacts. Museums now adhere to strict rules of provenance for any artifacts offered to their collections. Prospective sellers must be able to prove that the artifacts were obtained through legitimate…

  Father John clicked on the next article and watched another headline take shape: “Collectors Play Role in Looting.”

  The Indian carving on stone that is the centerpiece of your neighbor’s art collection may have emerged from a dark secret of the art world only now beginning to come to light. Authorities say that the willingness of wealthy collectors and art investors to look the other way and not question how their latest prize art was acquired has contributed to looting. “People with a lot of money to throw around like to impress their friends,” said Evan Holwell, owner of Holwell Galleries in Santa Fe. “They’ll thumb their noses at pieces of Indian art and sculpture with provenance in favor of a petroglyph or other unusual artifact that was most likely looted and shouldn’t be on the market. What they’re interested in is ‘wall power,’ owning the kind of piece that nobody else has. The fact that the artifact may have been illegally obtained only adds to the mystique. The element of danger makes the piece even more desirable.”

  Other gallery owners and museum curators agree that the willingness of wealthy clients to invest in illegal artifacts drives the illegal market. One curator, who asked not to be identified, estimates that collectors have bought up millions of dollars in illegal artifacts in the last two or three years. The curator bases that figure on the value of artifacts offered to the museum. “Collectors looking for large tax write-offs will approach us with offers to donate artifacts,” she explained. “They back away quickly as soon as they readour procedures for proving provenance, because, of course, they cannot prove where the artifacts came from or whether they were legitimately obtained.”

  Lucianne Newport, owner of Newport’s Gallery in Scottsdale, pointed out that wealthy collectors are looking for ever more unusual objects. “The market is red hot,” she said. “When clients say they want to purchase an ancient petroglyph or an unusual Indian funerary relic, I always explain that very few such objects come on the market. There must be evidence that the objects have been in a family for generations and that the seller has the right to put the objects on the market. Absent the evidence, you can conclude the objects have been looted. It is illegal to purchase or own them. I’ve had clients shrug off the warning. Next thing I know, they’re bragging about the ancient petroglyph they happened to find. I used to believe they didn’t know what was going on, but now I’m convinced that some collectors simply don’t care. As long as they are buying, looters are looting not only the Indian cultural heritage, but part of our national herita
ge.”

  Father John skimmed through several other articles. More of the same, from various art centers: Santa Fe, Scottsdale, Aspen, all lamenting the market that encourages theft and looting. Another headline came up: “Gang Suspected in Artifact Thefts.”

  This was it then, the article he’d been looking for. He read through the text, hoping to pry out of the words some sense of the way a local man might connect with “lines of buyers” looking for something even more unusual than what they already had, willing to write a check for a quarter of a million dollars.

  A gang of thieves is suspected of pilfering Indian artifacts across Nevada, authorities said. The artifacts are believed to include tools, pottery, fiber sandals, bracelets and pendants, breastplates, and carved stone knives, as well as ancient petroglyphs cut out of rocks.

  “The gang appears to be well organized,” said David Hane, Assistant U.S. Attorney in Las Vegas. “They research the locations of grave sites and other areas, uncover the sites, and loot the artifacts, which are sold on the illegal market.” Hane said that the gang alsoseems to target specific artifacts. “We believe they may be pilfering certain objects ordered by dealers for their clients. There are any number of dealers willing to buy and sell below the radar,” he said.

  Father John exited the site and turned off the computer. He picked up a pencil and began tapping at the edge of the table, working through the information, his eyes fixed on the monitor settling into a blank grayness. A theft ring could be operating locally. What was it the article had said? Certain objects ordered by dealers for their clients. It was possible that the man on the phone was an outsider—a dealer. But it was locals who would know about the ancient petroglyphs in a remote canyon that nobody traveled to most of the year. Locals that the dealer had counted on seven years ago to get a petroglyph for one of his clients. And when another client wanted a petroglyph, he’d gone to the same locals…