22
“Bastards had it in for us.” Leonard Bizzel kicked at the glass shards that winked in the morning light, then positioned the metal ladder below the window space in Father John’s office. The Arapaho knew the grounds and buildings—the location of every hammer, box of nails, and cleaning fluid. He took the attack personally.
“Don’t you worry, Father. I’ll have the windows fixed in no time, and we’ll be back to normal.” He started toward the shed around the corner where he kept his tools. “Oh, almost forgot.” He looked back, eyes shadowed with concern. “Warriors are gonna hang around the mission, case those bastards decide to show their ugly faces again.” He threw a brown fist toward the cottonwoods.
Father John followed the man’s gesture. Parked in the trees along the drive was a green pickup. Two men inside the cab, as still as mannequins, cowboy hats pulled forward. He took in a deep breath. The warriors would have a rifle stashed between them, and he didn’t want anybody killed. On the other hand, he doubted that last night’s shooters would drive past the pickup. A part of him, he had to admit, was glad for the guard.
“Tell them thanks,” he called to Leonard, who was out of sight. He could hear the man jiggling the door of the shed.
“They don’t need thanks, Father,” the Indian shouted. “Just doin’ their job.”
Father John started up the front steps, his eyes on the truck. He wondered if the men were parishioners. It didn’t matter. They were warriors protecting what belonged to the people.
He shoved open the heavy wood door and stepped inside. The building felt cool, the night air still clinging to the stucco walls. The quiet amplified the thud of his boots on the floorboards. He could see the door at the far end of the corridor. Father George had left an hour ago for the Riverton Airport. At any minute, Father John expected the other priest’s sedan to roll around Circle Drive and disgorge the three new members of the board of directors, all former colleagues of his assistant, who would help decide the future of St. Francis Mission.
The hot breeze blew through the open space in the window and rustled the papers on his desk. He sat down, pulled the phone onto a stack of paper, and dialed Gianelli’s office. He listened to the mechanical voice that barely resembled the agent’s, then left his name. Gianelli would know he was calling to see if last night’s shooters were in custody. And the agent would know if the BIA police had anything new on Dean.
There was something else: By now Gianelli would also have the report on the twenty-two used to kill Ben Holden.
Both Vicky and Dean had been on his mind all night, threading their way through crazy dreams that made no sense: the dark pickup chasing them across the mission grounds, fire bursting through the windows, and he, trying to run after them, wanting to protect them, his legs paralyzed, two stumps frozen into the ground.
He woke in a tangle of sheets and perspiration, and he’d offered Mass this morning for them both. Let them be safe.
He held down the disconnect button half a second, then dialed Vicky’s office. The clank-clank sound of a chisel burst through the window opening.
“Vicky Holden’s office.” The woman’s voice was still unfamiliar, still tentative. The new secretary in Vicky’s new office. Everything seemed new and unfamiliar since she’d returned from Denver, as if she’d stepped into a life in which he had no part. No, Ms. Holden wasn’t in today. What was this about?
To reassure her, he supposed, and reassure himself that she was okay. He said, “Ask her to call Father O’Malley.”
She repeated his name, emphasizing each syllable, as if she were still trying to comprehend the purpose of his call.
“When do you expect her?”
“I really can’t say.”
He hung up and walked over to the window opening. Leonard was bent over a folding wood table he’d dragged from the shed, fitting a pane of glass into the frame. The ladder was still against the wall, the pickup still parked in the trees.
A blue sedan turned into Circle Drive.
Father John came down the front steps as his assistant sprang out of the sedan and opened the rear door. A tall angular man with a full head of white hair that framed a composed, aristocratic face unfolded himself from the backseat. Father Niles Johnston, president emeritus of two Jesuit colleges, dressed in black clericals and starched white collar. The man looked like an older version of the photos Father John had seen in the Jesuit magazines. It was Niles Johnston who had written him a letter insisting the board scrutinize the “long-term goals”—he’d ended with a question mark—of St. Francis Mission.
Father John walked over and shook the man’s hand. “Good to meet you,” he said.
Two other priests, also in clericals, were climbing out of the other side: Father James Bourne, an old friend from the seminary who’d taken a straight path, with no detours for treatment at Grace House, and was now a college vice president. Father John didn’t recognize the other man: Father Allen Beckner. Short, rotund, with a horseshoe of black hair laid around a pink scalp and alert, penetrating eyes behind the rimless glasses that rode partway down his bulbous nose. He looked like the artistic renditions of Thomas Aquinas. Fitting, Father John thought, for a philosopher and Thomistic scholar.
Father John walked around the sedan, shook hands, and welcomed the priests to the mission.
“What’s going on?” Father Niles was staring at Leonard clambering up the ladder.
“An unfortunate incident—” Father John began.
Father George cut in: “Four windows shot out last night.”
“Shot out, you say?” The philosopher stepped forward.
“Yes, well—” Father John began again, groping for the words that might allay the bewilderment in the philosopher’s eyes. There was no room for such incidents in the cool, logical contemplation of the higher truths. “We had a little trouble last night . . .”
Father George took hold of the philosopher’s arm. “A pickup with two crazy men sped through the grounds. There was a lot of rifle fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt.”
“Well, well.” Father Niles threw his white head back and straightened his thin shoulders, as if the suggestion, implied in his letter that St. Francis had outlived its usefulness, had just been confirmed.
The phone had started ringing inside the office, a faraway sound, oddly insistent. Father John started toward the steps, but the ringing stopped. Either the answering machine had picked up, or Elena had answered in the residence.
“Windows’ll be fixed by tomorrow,” Leonard called from his perch on the ladder. He was adjusting the new frame into the space. “Won’t be any more trouble with the warriors here.” He nodded toward the cottonwoods.
Father John saw the other priests turn in a precise maneuver and stare fixedly at the green pickup, their expressions dissolving from curiosity to dismay. “You have warriors here?” Father Niles said.
“What happened, John?” Father James, his old friend from the seminary, came around the sedan toward him, sympathy in the man’s eyes.
Father John started to explain that a cult had gotten started and the followers wanted whites off the rez. He stopped. It was complicated, and the sun was beating down on the bare heads and black clericals of the other priests, who were blinking in the brightness in an obvious effort to understand what in heaven’s name he was talking about.
He said, “Why don’t we go to the residence. You look like you could use a cool drink.”
The other priests threw each other a look of relief, then started trudging single-file down a path through the field of wild grasses in the center of the drive, Father George in the lead.
Father John started after the others. He caught snatches of the small talk: mission looked pretty much as they had imagined. Fewer windows, Father Niles observed. Everybody laughed.
They were crossing the far side of the drive when Elena burst from the residence and propelled herself down the steps, arms flapping ahead. “Father, Father,” she yelled, fear an
d hysteria in her voice.
Father John darted around the others and ran to her. “What is it?”
“They found him.” She was shouting, her chest heaving with the effort.
“Take it easy.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Who are you talking about?”
The other priests were pressing around, heads bending toward the housekeeper.
“Amos called. Says they found Dean Little Horse in the foothills west of Fort Washakie. He’s been shot, Father.”
The other priests jumped backward, as if she’d cracked a whip in their direction.
She let out a long wail: “Somebody shot him to death.”
23
Aphalanx of official vehicles stood at the side of the dirt road: five white Ford sedans with the blue and yellow insignia of the Wind River Police; Gianelli’s white Blazer; a paneled truck with FREMONT COUNTY on the side. A dozen blue-uniformed police officers and several men in slacks and sports coats milled through the trees about fifty feet off the road.
Father John parked behind the paneled truck and started through the trees. Pine needles snapped under his boots. He’d left Father George and the others staring after him and driven out of the mission. They were probably seated at the kitchen table now, sipping iced tea, discussing homicide on the reservation and last night’s shooting. He could hear the gravelly voice of Father Niles Johnston: We really must consider . . . In view of everything . . . A dangerous place.
Now he could see Ted Gianelli and two uniforms leaning over a dark object that looked like rags, a pile of bones. The agent broke away and came toward him. “Coroner’s about to bag the body,” he said. “You want to offer a prayer?”
Father John nodded and kept walking. The uniforms and sports coats stepped back, and he saw the mud-caked blue jeans and yellow shirt and brown flesh in a heap on the ground. He went down on one knee and caught his breath. The body had been hollowed out. Where the stomach and abdomen had been was a jagged hole with torn masses of flesh and intestines. The plaid shirt was bunched and ripped, the chest matted with brown blood. He pulled his eyes to the face smeared with dirt, the hollow eye sockets, and the expression frozen in fear and shock.
He made the sign of the cross. “May the good and merciful Lord remember you, Dean, forgive you your sins, whatever they may have been, and grant you the peace and love you longed for here.”
He tried to swallow back the knot of revulsion and anger in his throat at the senselessness, the absence of reason—there was no reason. The two men from the coroner’s office began smoothing a gray plastic bag across the ground a few feet away. Father John got to his feet and turned back to the agent.
“What happened to him?”
Gunshot wound in the chest. Bullet probably hit his heart. We’ll know after the autopsy. Coroner says he’s been dead several days. Killer tried to bury him.” He nodded toward clods of earth around a shallow trench several feet away. “Mountain lion probably dragged him out, started at him. Tom Hizer lives up the road. He spotted the body this morning.”
Father John looked away a moment, trying to force his thoughts into a logical sequence. He turned back. “What kind of gun?”
The agent was rubbing his fingers into his temple, squinting in discomfort. “Have to wait for the autopsy, but . . .” He paused.
“It’s a small wound.”
“A twenty-two? Like the gun that killed Ben Holden?”
“Don’t get your hopes up there’s any connection, John. We have the murder weapon in the Holden case. We know the owner. Registered to Lester White Plume, deceased husband of Rose White Plume.” He drew in a long breath that expanded the chest of his navy sport coat. “Look, John . . .” He paused. “We got a fingerprint off the barrel. It matches Vicky’s.”
The implications hit Father John like a fist in the chest. The physical evidence, the final piece that would tie everything together and convince a grand jury to indict Vicky.
“There has to be some explanation,” he said. “Vicky’s not capable of murder.”
“She killed a man once.”
“Give me a break. That was in defense of human life.” Defense of his life. “Now we’re talking about premeditated murder.”
“I don’t like the idea any more than you do.” Gianelli was digging his fingers into his temple again, as if to rub out some invisible pain.
“What if it turns out the same twenty-two killed Holden and Dean?” Father John pushed on. “Vicky didn’t even know Dean.”
“So you’re trying to tell me that two Lakotas shot Ben, then shot Little Horse? Put your famous logic to work, John. How the hell did they get the gun from Rose White Plume? And what beef would a couple of cowboys have with some guy like Dean, spent all day writing computer software. Where the hell’s the connection?”
Father John glanced away. Two sports coats struggled toward the road with the bulky gray plastic bag between them. They dropped the bag onto a gurney, then shoved the gurney into the paneled truck. There had to be a connection. What was the connection?
A new idea flitted like a shadow at the edge of his mind. Two men, Dean and Ben, Arapahos, born and raised on the rez. They belonged here. Two Lakotas, outsiders who might not care about the rez or the people. The idea was coming into focus, assuming logical order. The outsiders posed some kind of threat, created some kind of danger. Dean and Ben had tried to stop them. They’d been killed.
He said, “Dean stayed at the shadow ranch. The Lakotas could have been there at the same time.”
“Shadow ranch again.” Gianelli shook his head and glanced away a moment. Then he said, “Look, John. Let me do my job, okay? I’m gonna push Orlando and his bunch real hard. If there’s some connection, I’ll find it.”
“What about the guys that shot up the mission? Have you found them?”
“No vehicles at the ranch. Village was lit up with bonfires. The followers were doing their dance, dressed in white, circling around, holding on to one another. We interviewed Orlando himself and about a dozen others. They claimed they didn’t know what we were talking about. Without evidence . . .” He shook his head. “You want to give Dean’s grandmother the bad news?”
It was probably all over the moccasin telegraph, Father John was thinking. Minnie and Louise would have heard by now. He said, “I’ll stop by the house.”
24
“You bless the boy?” Minnie said.
Father John scooted his chair close to the sofa where the old woman sat with her sister, their hands intertwined. The living room was crowded with Arapahos seated on the other chairs, huddled in the corners. The low buzz of conversation ran like an electric current through the air.
He told the old women that he had blessed Dean’s body. The information seemed to give them some degree of comfort, as if Dean could now start on the road to the shadow world.
Someone handed him a mug of coffee and Father John took a sip. Then he told them he’d found Dean’s girlfriend. “She said Dean had been at the shadow ranch.”
Both women were shaking their heads. “That’s an untrue story,” Minnie said. “Dean wouldn’t stay with those Indians. They think the world is gonna end.”
Louise said, “I knew he got himself a girlfriend. He might’ve gone up there to see her.”
“I suppose.” Minnie patted her sister’s hand. “He would’ve been worried about her, if she took up with that cult. But he wouldn’t have stayed there. He had a future, that boy. He was going someplace.” Her voice began to crack, and she paused. “He didn’t think the world was ever gonna end.”
Father John didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he asked if Dean had known Ben Holden.
The two women stared at him out of eyes round with surprise. “Ben Holden? Everybody knew Ben Holden. He got murdered a few days ago. What’s that got to do with Dean getting murdered?”
“Did he ever work at the Arapaho Ranch?”
“What’re you saying, Father?” A rail-thin man sat down on the sofa armrest. “
You think the same bastard shot ’em both?”
“I don’t know,” Father John said after a moment. “I’m trying to figure out if there’s a connection.”
Louise waved away the idea. “Dean never took to ranching. He was a thinker, that boy. Stayed in school. Used his head. Nothing in common with Ben Holden.”
“Hell,” said the man on the armrest. “Ben was a whiskey man. Dean didn’t even drink.”
He was chasing shadows, Father John thought. Connections that didn’t exist. He tried to focus on the conversation: Minnie and Louise saying that Dean had to be buried within three days—buried at the mission, Father—so that his spirit could find the way to the ancestors, and he trying to explain the mysterious workings of the white bureaucracy. First, the coroner had to release the body. He promised to hold the funeral as soon as possible.
Then he got to his feet and made his way to the door, shaking hands, clasping shoulders as he went, trying to corral the sadness running inside him. He should’ve insisted that Minnie go to the police when he’d first talked to her—why hadn’t he insisted? And yet, what good would it have done? Dean was already dead by then.
Outside, the sun glistened on the open spaces. He climbed into the pickup and headed south. It would take most of an hour to get back to the mission. The other members of the board of directors had probably arrived by now. The first meeting would get under way in a couple hours. He was going to be late.
The offices of Blue Water Software had the vacant end-of-the-day look, but a light glimmered through the front window and the door opened when Father John tried the knob. A wall of refrigerated air hit him. The hum of an air-conditioning unit mingled with the click of computer keys.
The receptionist looked up from the papers she was arranging into neat stacks on the desk. “We’re about to close, Father,” she said.
He asked if Sam Harrison was still there.
The woman picked up the phone and pressed a key. “The priest from the other day,” she began, bringing the thin-penciled eyebrows together.
The Shadow Dancer (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 17