The Drowning Man

by Margaret Coel

  Vicky was dimly aware that she’d started pacing, carving out a small circle in the stubby grasses, trying to carve a path through the tangle of thoughts. “If Travis was part of the theft, why didn’t he try to help himself? He could have cooperated. Named the other people involved and helped the tribe recover the petroglyph. He was charged with first-degree murder. He could have gone to prison for life. As it turned out, the jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. Fifteen years in prison! That’s eternity for an Arapaho. A big black hole that stretched in front of him, and he was dropped into it. Yet he kept maintaining that he was innocent.”

  Vicky stopped pacing and stared at the tall, redheaded man watching her from the riverbank. “I’m going to Rawlins to talk to Travis. I’m thinking about representing him, filing a petition for post-conviction relief, getting the judge to grant a new trial.”

  “What’s bothering you, Vicky?”

  My God, how well John O’Malley knew her. She felt the blue eyes fix her in place. It was a moment before she said, “Norman asked me on behalf of the tribe—an unofficial request—to stay out of the case. Let Travis serve the rest of his time in prison. If I continue—he didn’t say so, but I heard it loud and strong—the tribe won’t be sending any more business to the firm.”

  Vicky walked over and dropped onto a fallen log. “The thing is, John, I can’t shake the notion that Travis Birdsong was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit. I keep thinking the prosecutor could be partly right. Maybe Raymond was involved in the theft, and someone wanted him dead. It just wasn’t Travis. Whoever shot Raymond got as far away from the reservation as possible and took the petroglyph. That would explain why the tribes were never contacted again. Now another petroglyph’s been stolen. Probably the same Indian that contacted the tribes seven years ago delivered the ransom message to you. I think the same people took both petroglyphs, and one of them is a murderer who’s been walking around free for seven years while Travis Birdsong’s been in prison.”

  That’s when John O’Malley told her that he’d gotten a call the previous night from a man who wanted to make a deal with the tribes. A quarter of a million dollars for the petroglyph. “I told him we need proof that he actually has the glyph. He said he’d call back.”

  “Then it hasn’t been sold yet.” Vicky felt a surge of hope, like a jolt of electricity that immediately dissolved into a new worry. The thief was still hoping to collect from the tribes without the risk of selling the petroglyph on the illegal market. But what about the risk of collecting the ransom? Everything would have to go smoothly, quietly. No police or FBI agent, no newspaper articles and interviews that might link the two stolen petroglyphs, no television anchor blathering on about a lawyer trying to reopen the case of an Indian shot to death after the first petroglyph was stolen, no newspaper reporter writing front-page stories. Nothing that might lead to a new investigation of Raymond Trublood’s death. Nothing that might scare off the real killer.

  “You may not hear from the man again,” she said.

  “Why do you say that?” Father John sat down on the log beside her.

  “The moccasin telegraph already knows I might try to help Travis. If the news gets to the Indian or the man who called you, they’ll leave the area.”

  “You can’t turn away from a man who might be innocent.”

  “Travis deserves another chance. He deserves a good defense.” She hesitated a moment, then got to her feet and started back along the path toward the center of the mission, aware of the reluctance seeping through her. There was tranquility in this place. The sky was turning into shades of blue and purple; a strip of sunlight hovered over the mountains in the distance. The feeling of evening had begun to settle in ahead of the evening itself. John O’Malley would have people waiting for him, things to do. She was aware of the sound of his footsteps behind her.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful, Vicky,” he said as they crossed Circle Drive toward the Jeep. “We don’t know why Raymond was shot, but if your theory is right, he must have posed some kind of threat. Whoever shot him got away with it. There’s nothing to stop the killer from killing again if he feels threatened.”

  Vicky gave him a smile meant to be reassuring, but she had the limp feeling that she was only trying to reassure herself. She got behind the steering wheel and started the engine. John O’Malley stepped away as she pulled out onto the drive, but he remained in the rearview mirror, looking after her, until she turned onto the road shaded by rows of cottonwoods.

  She passed the school and was about to turn onto Seventeen-Mile Road when she pulled the cell phone out of her bag and punched in the office number. The secretary picked up on the first ring. “Vicky? Thank God. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”

  “What’s going on?” Vicky said, trying to focus on the office, the ordinary problems that might arise.

  The hum of a passing pickup cut through the sound of Annie’s voice: A man had come to the office this afternoon. Arapaho, but she didn’t know him; well, maybe she’d seen him somewhere on the rez, but she couldn’t place him and he wouldn’t give his name. He’d walked out, and thirty minutes later he was back.

  “What did he want?”

  “You, Vicky. He wanted to see you. He made me nervous, the way he kept pacing around.”

  “Did he say what it was about?”

  “‘ When’s she gonna be back,’ that’s all he kept asking. I said he should make an appointment, but he walked out again. Slammed the door, too.” She was hurrying on, notes of alarm sounding in her voice. “I don’t like him, Vicky.”

  “Is Roger still in the office?” The Indian could be in some kind of trouble and needed a lawyer—the kind of case Roger handled.

  “Roger? Roger went over to the jail to see the guy that got arrested on a DUI last night. He’s not back yet. I’m here alone. I’ve been waiting for you to call.”

  “Okay,” Vicky said. Someone in trouble. DUI, divorce, job discrimination. “Lock up and go on home. If he comes back tomorrow, Roger can see him.”

  She was about to punch the end key when Annie said: “Wait, Vicky. I forgot to tell you, it’s all set. You can see Travis Birdsong at the prison tomorrow, first thing after lunch.”

  THE SKY HAD turned to slate, and dusk was closing in when Vicky slowed along Main Street in Lander. Traffic consisted of a few cars and trucks straggling home. An occasional pedestrian hurried along the sidewalk, past storefront windows that had darkened. A man was locking up one of the shops. Vicky turned into the lot next to the flat-faced yellow brick building where the office of Lone Eagle and Holden took up a corner of the second floor. She parked in her reserved slot, turned off the motor, and considered calling Adam on her cell, then thought better of it. She’d check the messages at the office first, see if there was any word from Bud Ladd. Adam would want an update. She’d call him later.

  She let herself in through the outside door, crossed the tiled entry past the upholstered chairs arranged around a small glass table, and started up the stairs that curved along the wall on the left, her footsteps echoing around her. The air conditioner hummed overhead, and as she climbed, she moved in and out of columns of cool air. Below were the rows of doors to the first-floor offices. They looked as if they’d been sealed. Every other tenant in the building had probably left for the day.

  She walked along the railing that overlooked the first floor, digging in her bag for the key. The doors across from the railing were closed and mute. White letters on the placard next to the first door glinted in the light that streamed from the fluorescent fixture at the top of the stairs: Lone Eagle and Holden, Attorneys at Law. She crossed the corridor and started to insert the key.

  “About time you showed up.” A man’s voice boomed into the quiet.

  Vicky spun around. Stepping out of the shadows of an alcove that led to the elevator was a heavy-set man with black hair pulled back from a broad forehead that loomed like an arch over his shadowy eyes. Then he was coming toward he
r—thick shoulders and enormous chest, silver belt buckle lodged between his blue jeans and the folds of his red plaid shirt.

  “What do you want?” Vicky took a couple of steps backward toward the railing, out of the man’s path. She could guess who he was: the long nose and flared nostrils, the way his mouth curved up at the corners in a kind of perpetual sneer. Everyone in the Trublood family shared the same traits. She tried to remember what John O’Malley had said about Raymond’s older brother: Hugh had spent time in prison on an assault charge.

  “You remember my little brother, Raymond?” The man was close now, no more than two feet away. Little pricks of sweat stood out on his forehead.

  “I remember him.”

  “Went to the powwows, Raymond did. Rode in some rodeos.”

  “Why are you here?” Vicky stepped back into the railing.

  “You know what I did when that jury said Travis Birdsong was guilty of killin’ my little brother? I took my shotgun and went out on the prairie and started pullin’ the trigger. I shot up the ground and I shot up the air. If that no good sonofabitch had been around, I would’ve shot him to pieces. He deserved to be dead for what he did to Raymond, but instead he was gonna be sittin’ in prison for fifteen years. And you know what?” He was shaking a fist in her face, and Vicky moved backwards, the top rail digging into her hip. “That didn’t make me feel much better. Travis Birdsong should rot there like the stinkin’ shit he is.”

  Vicky threw a glance at the row of closed doors. The building was vacant. There was no one else here. She slid the key along her palm, until it protruded between her fingers, and locked eyes with the Indian leaning toward her. His breath reeked of tobacco and something else, something spicy. “What makes you so certain Travis killed your brother?” she said.

  “You gotta be kiddin’ me.” He glanced around the building—the corridor, the stairs, the entry below. “Everybody knows Travis killed him. That’s why he’s gonna stay in prison, you understand?” His jaw was clenched now, the words forced past tight lips.

  “I think you’d better go,” Vicky said. Her fingers were clasped so hard around the key that it felt like part of her hand.

  His arm shot around her. He grabbed the railing, blocking the way to the stairs, enclosing her in a little circle. “You ain’t told me what I want to hear,” he said.

  Vicky was aware of the intermittent hum and thrust of traffic on Main Street, the screech of a truck grinding down. It was as if the noise came across a far distance. She locked eyes with the man leaning over her. “I remember Grandmother Missy,” she said.

  “What?” Hugh Trublood jerked his head backward. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “I remember Grandmother at the powwows. She used to make delicious fry bread. She raised you and Raymond, didn’t she?”

  The man was staring at her, the mixture of disbelief and questions moving through his black eyes. “Broke her heart when Raymond got killed,” he said.

  Vicky nodded. “It must have also broken her heart when you went to prison for assault. That wasn’t what she had hoped for you.”

  A long moment passed before Vicky sensed his grip on the railing begin to relax. Hugh Trublood stepped back. It was a long moment before he said, “We got an understanding, all right?”

  Vicky started around the man, conscious of the warm feel of the key jammed between her fingers, almost expecting him to grab her. He didn’t move. She crossed the corridor to her door, jammed the key into the lock, and looked back. Hugh Trublood was still watching her, and she realized he was waiting for her answer.

  “I’m going to Rawlins tomorrow to talk to Travis,” she said. “I’ll know then what I have to do.”

  “That Indian gets out of prison,” he said, “I’m holdin’ you responsible.” He left his gaze on her a moment, then turned and started down the stairs, taking his time, thick arms rigid as logs at his side. Then he was out of sight, his boots thudding across the tiled entry below. The door slammed shut, sending a little vibration through the floor.

  Vicky let herself into the office, shut the door, and leaned against it, giving herself a moment to quiet the trembling that had taken hold of her. It was a potent combination, she was thinking. Grief. Frustration. Anger. A man like Hugh Trublood could be dangerous.

  18

  “FIRST TIME I heard the stories of the petroglyphs…” Ellie Nighthorse paused, and Father John watched the black eyes dart among the other members of the liturgy committee. She was a large woman, leaning back against her chair, the dark flesh of her arms crossed over a white blouse. The stories weren’t for everyone, he knew, and for a moment he wondered if he should leave, make some excuse about having to finish some work this evening. The meeting had gotten under way an hour ago. Nobody had even looked at the agenda. Nobody was interested in anything other than the fact that another sacred petroglyph had been taken.

  Amos Walking Bear shifted in the chair beside him. “It’s okay,” the elder assured the woman. “Nobody here but us.”

  Us. The word fell like a soft blanket over everyone at the table. He was one of them, the Indian priest. Ellie cleared her throat and went on with her story: How Grandfather was still a boy when he went up to Red Cliff Canyon. Rode his pony there by himself in the winter, ’cause he wanted to be with the spirits. Wanted to ask the spirits to show him the road he oughtta follow. There was snow everywhere, Grandfather said. Snow covering the ground and pushing down the branches of the pines, and it was real quiet. That was what he remembered about the canyon, how quiet it was, like the world had stopped.

  Ellie Nighthorse hesitated again. She tilted her head back so that her black hair folded like a scarf below her head, her eyes gazing upward, as if there were an image on the ceiling of the boy riding into the white silence. She went on: Turned the pony up the mountain, and the snow was so deep, that pony got to be a high trotter. Grandfather couldn’t see the petroglyphs and he was getting worried, he said, like he wasn’t worthy to see the images of the spirits. So he closed his eyes and hung on to the pony, and he prayed. He said, “If I am worthy, please show yourselves.” When he opened his eyes, he seen them. Up the slope, straight ahead, and it made him laugh, he said, he was so happy. So he laughed into the silence, and the sound of him laughing kept coming back at him.

  That was when he heard the sounds of the village, he said. That was the special part, the sounds of drums and singing, the horses neighing and dogs barking. He heard the clinking sounds of the warriors making tools. The village was right in front of him, spread in a circle all around the petroglyphs, the white tipis lifting up like snowdrifts, little campfires burning in front, and people coming and going, women tending the cooking pots over the fires with babies strapped on their backs. He seen all of it, he said, before the village and the ancestors vanished into the boulders, and all that was left was the pictures they’d carved in the rocks, so we’d remember. That’s what the ancestors want, Grandfather said, for us to remember who we are.

  The room went as quiet, Father John thought, as that winter day. The boy had most likely fallen asleep on his pony and had seen the village in a dream, except for the note of certainty that rang in the woman’s story. That logic of yours, Amos had told him when he’d first come to St. Francis, it don’t account for everything.

  Amos cleared his throat, and the dark heads above the table swiveled in the elder’s direction. “Thank you for that story, Ellie,” he said. “We gotta get the petroglyph back for the people. That’s what Travis wants, too.” The old man held his shoulders in a straight line, like a bulwark against the sudden coldness in the atmosphere. “That’s a fact,” he said. “Travis has got respect for the ancestors. He didn’t take the Drowning Man. Didn’t take our other petroglyph seven years ago. Didn’t kill nobody, either.” He turned to Father John, the deep-set black eyes of an old warrior sending out an appeal for backup. “That’s the truth, ain’t it, Father?”

  “If anyone can find out what happened, it’ll be Vicky,�
� Father John said, trying to meet the elder’s expectations. He was aware of the way the other pairs of eyes had begun scouring the surface of the table. Respect for an elder invaded the room like the memory of a melody. No one would contradict Amos, yet everyone at the table, Father John realized, had decided seven years ago what had happened.

  Ellie reached across the table and coaxed the agendas that she’d distributed earlier back in her direction. “Maybe we better set up another meeting,” she said, arranging the papers into a neat stack. “That okay, Father?”

  Father John said that was okay. There was only one thing that mattered, one thing on everyone’s mind. He waited until the committee members had filed out of the hall, Amos first, the others marking the same halting pace behind the old man, ready to leap forward should he falter. Then Father John folded the chairs and stacked them against the wall. He turned out the lights and headed across the mission.

  Red taillights flickered through the cottonwoods toward Seventeen-Mile Road. The growl of engines reverberated across the mission. The only vehicles left on Circle Drive were the old Toyota and Father Ian’s blue sedan in front of the residence. The religious education meeting must have also let out early. No one could talk about anything but another lost petroglyph. A deserted feeling fell over the mission, like that of an Arapaho village that had been abandoned. The people made the village; they made the mission.

  Father John heard the high-pitched notes of a ringing phone, like the sound of a train in the middle of the night. He hurried up the sidewalk to the residence. The front door swung open before he could reach for the knob. Father Ian stood in the doorway, backlit by the light in the entry.

  “Call for you,” his assistant said, thrusting the cordless phone toward him.

  Father John took the cool plastic object and, shouldering past the other priest, crossed the entry into his study. He knew who was on the other end; he could sense the malevolent presence. He dropped into his chair behind the desk and pressed the receiver hard against his ear. “Father O’Malley,” he said.