He told her that he had come to the Sun Dance every year since he had been on the rez.
“Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you agree?” she said. “Funny, how I remember all of it. I can almost see it taking place. The volunteers bringing in lodge poles and laying them out in a circle, and people tying pieces of cloth onto the poles. Prayer flags, symbols of our own prayers. Then volunteers set up the center pole and build the lodge around it. They set up other poles and pile up cottonwood branches between them for the walls, and then they lay the poles with the prayer flags across the top and push them up to the center pole. The prayer flags dangle over the lodge.”
She turned and started toward the opposite corner of the grounds, wandering through her memories, he thought. “The White Bulls always camped over there.” She waved toward a sweep of wild grasses. “The Yellowmans were next to them, then the Water family and behind them, the White Horse camp. Every family has a place, like in the Old Time. We were here.” She stopped and stared at the vacant patch of land. “The Birdwoman family. Grandmother and Grandfather ran our camp. My aunt Martha was the camp cook—every camp had a cook that either volunteered or got drafted. She used to be real pretty, I remember, flipping pancakes on the little portable stove, brewing coffee on the campfire. You could smell coffee everywhere.”
“What are you afraid of, Roseanne?” Father John asked again.
The girl took in a gulp of air. She looked as if she might burst into tears, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowing. She turned to the side and pressed her fingers against her eyes. “I’m afraid of losing all this,” she said, lifting a hand toward the grounds. “I can’t stop thinking about Ned. How he should be one of the dancers. He should dance every morning to the rising sun, pray all day in the lodge. Not eat anything. Not drink anything. Make a sacrifice for the people. It’s all gone for him.” She dropped her face into both hands and sobbed, her thin shoulders shaking.
He found a handkerchief in the back pocket of his blue jeans, handed it to her, and gave her a moment. “Are you afraid someone will try to kill you?” he said, taking a stab at it.
She crunched the handkerchief and ran it over her cheeks. Finally she looked up at him, and he saw that he had hit on the truth. The girl was not only mourning Ned Windsong, she was mourning her own life. “I know Ned trusted you,” she began, the words ragged and halting. “Did he go to see you after he got back?”
The sense of regret washed over him again. There were sins of commission and sins of omission, he was thinking. He said, “I had the sense he might have been in some kind of trouble. I’m sorry.” He took a moment. “I didn’t find out what it was.”
“I just found out.” The girl was searching his face, he thought, for anything he hadn’t told her. “He got mixed up in a burglary ring. First in Lander, then in Jackson Hole. I know Ned,” she said. “I know him better than anybody, better than that white girl he got involved with. He didn’t want to do that kind of thing. It wasn’t like him.”
“He did it anyway,” Father John said. This was what had been weighing on the young man, what had brought him to the mission. A need to confess, be absolved, go forward? But he hadn’t said anything about confession. What, then? The desire to talk about what was going on? Ned knew what he would have advised him: get out, make restitution in any way he could, do the right thing.
“It was his chance,” Roseanne said. “His only chance to get enough money for the ranch he wanted. All his life, he wanted his own ranch. We were gonna live there.” She was choking up again, swiping at her eyes with the balled-up handkerchief. “Soon’s he got enough saved up, he would’ve gotten out.”
“That’s why he was killed?”
“Lionel Lookingglass and Dwayne Hawk,” she said. “They wouldn’t let him out. They were afraid he’d snitch to the fed, but Ned would never have done that.”
“Anyone else involved?” Something wasn’t right, Father John was thinking. Ned and two other Arapahos—how did they plan the burglaries? Fence the stolen goods? Keep the whole operation quiet on the rez?
“Lionel and Dwayne, that’s all I know. I think they were running it. I think Ned must have been working for them. That’s why they killed him.”
Father John watched the girl a moment, the quick, nervous movement of her hands, the way her eyes shifted between the road and the place where the Birdwoman family had camped and Aunt Martha, who used to be pretty, had been the cook, as if what was coming down the road might erase the memory. “They’re afraid you’ll talk to the fed?” The white girl was in danger for the same reason, he was thinking. Not only was she a witness, she could provide the motive.
“They’re convinced I knew all about the burglary ring,” Roseanne was saying, “but, I swear, Ned never told me anything. Dwayne warned me to keep my mouth shut.” She looked hard at him. “They think Ned talked to you. They could come after you, too.”
“Is there someplace you can go until they’re in custody?” Father John said.
She gave a bark of laughter. “Like the fed’s gonna find ’em? They know the rez inside and out. They’ll move from house to house, and nobody’s gonna turn ’em in.”
“They killed an Arapaho.”
“That’s why nobody’s gonna call the fed, ’cause they don’t wanna be the next one to get shot.”
“What about you?” he said. “Any relatives they wouldn’t know about?” She was shaking her head, and he pushed on. “In Casper or Cheyenne?”
“Aunt Martha and me,” she said. “All that’s left of the Birdwoman family, except for some cousins in Denver. We hardly ever see them.” She looked away. “Now Ned’s gone. I don’t have anybody.”
He wanted to tell her she could stay at the mission, but Marcy Morrison was at the guesthouse. “How can I reach you?” he said. He was thinking of the parishioners, the brown faces in the pews this morning, the grandmothers and the elders. Someone would take in a girl with nowhere to go.
A light flickered in the girl’s eyes, as if she had guessed his thoughts. She recited her cell number, and he took out the pad and pencil that he carried in his shirt pocket and wrote it down.
16
THE SUN WAS like a blowtorch when Father John drove into the mission. On Seventeen-Mile Road, the pickup rattling, Salome blaring, Ned Windsong had consumed his thoughts. How did Ned get involved in a burglary ring? Who brought him in? Why? The need always came first, the fertile ground. Ned had wanted his own ranch. Then came the reality. On an electrician’s wages, it would mean years of saving, scrimping, dreaming. Then the opportunity had presented itself, and he had made a choice. He had chosen the ranch.
Father John pulled in close to the administration building and turned off the ignition. “Und wars die Hälfte meines Königreichs” rose into the wind a moment before he turned off the CD. He raced up the concrete steps, a question still pulling him: Who had brought the opportunity? Two men he tried to avoid and didn’t like?
He had yanked open the door when the Jeep came out of the alley, past the corner, and pulled to a stop. Vicky jumped out. The wind whipped at her skirt, and she held her hair back with one hand. “Where’s Marcy?” she said, hurrying up the steps.
“I don’t know,” Father John said. The girl’s pickup had been parked at the guesthouse this morning. He hadn’t checked on her, but Elena had taken over a bowl of oatmeal and a plate of toast. At least Marcy had opened the door—half-asleep, Elena said—and taken the food. “Bishop Harry might know,” he said.
“Your assistant is a bishop?” A flash of mirth replaced the worry in her eyes.
“Harry Coughlin,” Father John said. “Retired bishop, spent the last three decades in India. He’s supposed to be recovering from a heart attack.” He shrugged. “He likes to help out.”
Vicky brushed past the door he was still holding open, and he could see that the worry had implanted itself again. “Marcy shouldn’t have left,” she said over her shoulder. Father John followed her into the corridor, and she turned to
face him. “She’s scared, John. She’s like a little girl. She doesn’t realize the danger she’s in. Now she’s gone off somewhere ...” She lifted both hands, as if nothing made sense.
“Ah, John, you’ve returned.” Bishop Harry’s voice came down the corridor. The fluorescent light glinted in the old man’s glasses, and the soft soles of his shoes made a squishing noise on the old wood floor. “I’m afraid your guest has flown the coop,” he said.
Vicky let out a gasp. “Flown the coop? Her things are still there. You don’t think . . .” She broke off, and Father John could sense the apprehension in the stiff way she turned toward him.
“Bishop Harry, meet Vicky Holden,” he said. “Marcy Morrison’s attorney.”
“Always good to have an attorney close by.” The bishop extended a thin, vein-riddled hand, which Vicky took for a brief moment.
“Did she say anything to you?”
“Oh, yes.” The bishop nodded. “Stood right in the doorway.” He tilted his head in the direction of Father John’s office. “Demanded to know where you were, John. I explained you were out. She didn’t like that very much. Naturally I offered my assistance, and she asked me to convey the message that she had to get out of here.”
“Did she get a call?” Father John said.
Bishop Harry shook his head. Calls to the mission came through the office. Still, she could have gotten a call on her cell.
“I spoke to Gianelli this morning,” Vicky said. “Every cop and deputy in Fremont County is looking for Hawk and Lookingglass. They’ve burrowed in somewhere. It could take days to find them. I should have insisted that Gianelli arrange for a guard.” A hint of reproach had come into her tone, and Father John knew that she reproached herself. “Her father could have hired a guard. Marcy’s like a child, and she needs protection.”
“May I interject?” Bishop Harry leaned forward, and Father John realized the old man had stepped back and had been watching him and Vicky. “The girl strikes me as quite headstrong. I believe she will do as she pleases. She said she was going stir-crazy—those were her words—locked up in a chicken coop.” He shook his head, and specks of light danced in his glasses. “I had the distinct impression that had you been in, John, she would have made the same announcement. Nothing you could have done would have stopped her, aside from physical restraint, and I assume we are not in the business of physically restraining our guests.”
“Did she say where she was going?” Vicky asked. She would go after the girl, Father John was thinking, if she had any idea of where to go.
“I’m afraid I did not have the presence of mind to inquire,” the bishop said. “May I add that I doubt she would have told me.”
“Anybody could spot her red pickup,” Vicky said, resignation seeping into her tone. “Hawk and Lookingglass could hear about it.”
“I’m afraid I must leave you to sort it out.” The bishop wheeled about and started back down the corridor.
“Do you have a minute?” Father John said, indicating his office. Vicky moved ahead of him. “Coffee?” he said. The coffeepot on the metal table behind the door was empty. It would take five minutes to brew another pot, but she shook her head. He tried not to smile. Somehow he had known she would refuse. He walked over and half-sat on the edge of the desk. “It’s possible that Ned was part of a burglary ring, along with Hawk and Lookingglass,” he said. “Others could be involved.”
Vicky was quiet, not moving from the center of the faded rug, her black bag dangling from her shoulder. “How did you hear this?”
“Someone told me,” he said.
She locked eyes with him for a moment before she said, “You think my client was involved?” She hurried on. “She’s not involved, John. She didn’t have anything to do with whatever Ned might have been up to.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said.
Vicky drew in a long breath that flared her nostrils. “You don’t like her, do you?”
“I don’t know her,” Father John said. He was wondering if she could read his thoughts, the way he sometimes read hers. Something about the girl was off key, not quite right. He looked away, but he could feel Vicky’s eyes on him.
“You do think she was involved in Ned’s homicide?” she said. “Even though there is no evidence. She loved Ned Windsong. She was going to marry him. You’re the last one I ever thought would fall into this trap.”
“What are you talking about?”
Vicky started moving about, carving out a little circle on the rug. “Blame the outsider. An Arapaho man is shot to death, the white girl is in the house, so she must have something to do with it. The outsider, the other, must be guilty. She swung around and faced him. “It’s easy to turn against outsiders. They never really belong, you know.”
“That may be.” He felt as if she had hurled a dart into his chest. “It has nothing to do with my misgivings about Marcy Morrison.”
“You admit that you don’t like her.”
“What difference would it make?”
“Gianelli will pick up on it. He’ll wonder why the pastor doesn’t trust the white girl. He’ll want to interview her again, probe into her life, instead of arresting the killers and letting Marcy Morrison go back to Jackson Hole and forget about this nightmare.” Vicky made another circle around the rug, slower this time, as if some of the anger had begun to dissipate. “You don’t understand her,” she said, stopping in front of him. “She’s absurdly naïve. Her mother left when she was six. Something stops when that happens, some emotional development. A part of her is still six years old, wanting her mother and trying to understand why her life has changed.”
“Vicky,” Father John said, reaching for her, then pulling his hand back. “She is not your daughter.”
She stared at him a long moment, then looked away. “You think I’m too involved,” she said.
“What do you think?”
“I want to help her. I don’t want her charged as an accomplice to a murder she couldn’t have committed.”
He could hear the thrum of an engine on Circle Drive, the sounds of scattering gravel. He pushed to his feet and went over to the window. The red pickup slowed past the administration building, the girl hunched over the wheel, blonde hair folded around her shoulders. The pickup disappeared into the alley.
Father John turned back to Vicky. The way she was looking at him made him feel as if he had failed her somehow. “Your client is back,” he said. Vicky swung around, hurried into the corridor, and slammed the door. Little tremors ran through the old floorboards.
Father John sat down at his desk. He could hear the bishop’s footsteps approaching. The old man stopped in the doorway a moment, then walked into the office and settled into a side chair. “Couldn’t help but overhear,” he said.
Father John waited for the rest of it: the innuendos and accusations that surfaced from time to time, like little campfires never completely put out. The pastor and the lawyer—such good friends. What else was between them? Even the old man had heard the rumors.
“She seems like a very nice lady,” the bishop said.
“She’s a good lawyer,” Father John said. “She cares about her . . . clients.” He had started to say “people,” but Marcy Morrison was not Arapaho.
The bishop remained quiet, like a confessor waiting for the penitent to continue.
“It’s not what you think,” Father John said, and the bishop nodded.
“I make no judgments about the lives of others,” he said. “When I was sent to India, I was young, wet behind the ears, and lonely as hell, stuck out in Jharkhand for five long years. Not many of my own kind around. There was a young woman, red-haired, beautiful, working in a dispensary. She was a nun. Went out with a cart every day, collected sick children, brought them to the mission. We often worked together, and I must admit, I thought about leaving. The priesthood, you understand. I had dreams that she and I could do the same work, but we would be together. I came to love her.”
“Wh
y didn’t you leave?” Father John said.
“The same reason I became a priest in the first place. It was my journey.” He set both hands on the armrests and lifted himself to his feet. “In time I was transferred to Patna. I heard she was transferred to the Philippines. I daresay our lives went on as they were meant to do.” He started for the door, then turned back. “I tell you this so you’ll know you are not the first priest to find yourself attracted to a worthy woman.”
Then he was gone, the soft noise of his footsteps in the corridor, the muffled sounds of a chair scraping the floor in the back office. Father John set his elbows on the desk and dropped his face into his hands. He could still see her—that first time she had come to his office. Black shoulder-length hair and large black eyes, and not beautiful exactly, but something about her—intelligence, intensity, and compassion shining through. So you’re the new pastor I’ve heard so much about. He had felt his heart stop.
He supposed he had decided even then that he could love her from a distance.
17
VICKY STARTED THE Jeep and left the gear in park. Sunlight splayed the administration building. Behind the windows on the right, John O’Malley had probably gone back to his desk. She felt a sharp pang of guilt over what she had said. After all, there were times when she felt like the outsider, and he was the insider. He cared about the people as much as she did. They had always been on the same team, and that was what had stung her, she knew. She had expected him to see Marcy Morrison as she did: a young woman caught up in something dreadful, with consequences that were more serious than she realized. But something about Marcy Morrison bothered him. She had sensed that and lashed out. She slammed a fist against the edge of the steering wheel. She wanted John O’Malley to be with her, on her team.
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