“Where can I find Tommy Willard?”
Mary shook her head. “All I know is, Lela said he lives with a bunch of rangers.”
“Rangers!”
“That’s what they call themselves. They roam around the reservation like some kind of army. Leader’s an old guy, Jack Monroe. Vietnam vet. They call him the Captain.”
Father John had followed the stories about the man in the Gazette. After the man had failed to stop the casino, he’d stayed on the rez, telling the Gazette the fight had only begun.
“Listen, Mary, I want you to give Lela a message.” He hurried on before the woman could voice the protest forming on her lips. “Tell her she can’t hide forever. Sooner or later, Tommy or Jack Monroe or whoever she’s afraid of is going to find her. Tell her to call me.” He plucked the small notepad and pencil out of his shirt pocket and wrote down the number at the mission. Then he tore off the sheet and set it on the table. “I’ll try to help her,” he said.
The young woman stared at the paper, but made no effort to reach for it. She was still leaning against the counter when he left, some kind of argument playing out in her expression.
Father John drove back down the dirt road and made a left onto Highway 789, then a right into the reservation. The sun was almost lost behind the mountains ahead, and tiers of reds, magenta, and orange rose through the sky like flames. There was no traffic, only the asphalt unfurling ahead and a flock of black birds, ravens, most likely—a conspiracy of ravens, he thought, circling over some carrion on the plains, their harsh cries bursting through the quiet.
He kept his speed at a steady forty, judging by the flash of the telephone poles outside his window—his speedometer hadn’t worked in years—and tried to arrange the scraps of information he’d picked up so far into a cohesive, logical story. A fifteen-year-old girl had discovered the body of Rodney Pearson and had run away. Most likely she was running away from Tommy Willard, which meant that Mary might be right. Willard could be involved in Pearson’s murder, and Lela knew more than was good for her.
He felt chilled. Logic demanded its own truth. Lela Running Bull was in danger. Mary and her two kids could also be in danger.
Dear Lord, he thought. Let Lela call.
9
IT WAS HIS favorite time of the day, that moment during early Mass with the pale sunlight flaring through the red, yellow, and blue stained-glass windows, when time seemed to stand still, and all that had happened yesterday and the day before, all the yesterdays and all the tomorrows, collapsed into the sacred silence.
Father John finished the last prayers of the Mass—“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for his great love is without end.” A chorus of amens, hushed and reverent, like a quiet rush of air, came from the elders and those parishioners who had taken to stopping for early Mass on their way to work.
He walked down the aisle and stood at the door in the vestibule shaking the gnarled, work-roughened hands as people filed out into the morning. Last month, he’d spent a week on retreat in the mountain wilderness of Colorado, a quiet time of prayer and reflection that had brought him back to himself, renewed his spirit, his vocation. Everything had seemed different and new when he’d returned: the church with the steeple lifted into the sky, the cottonwoods rustling around the old buildings. He remembered driving around Circle Drive and thinking he’d come home. The mission was all he had ever wanted in a home.
After the Mass, Father John hung his surplice and chasuble in the sacristy closet and helped Leonard Bizzel straighten the cabinets and store the Mass books. As long as Father John had been at St. Francis, the caretaker had assisted at daily Mass. No matter the weather, no matter the icy roads in the winter, at five forty-five in the morning, Leonard’s old truck rattled around Circle Drive. He was as dependable as the sun, as the wind blowing across the plains.
The church was quiet as Father John made his way across the altar and genuflected before the small, tipi-shaped tabernacle that the grandmothers had made from tanned deerskin. The faintest odors of aftershave lingered in the air. He let himself out the front door into the orange-tinged daylight and headed across the grounds to the residence.
“Pancakes? Waffles? Scrambled eggs? Name your poison, Father.” Catherine Bizzel stood in front of the stove waving a spatula toward him like a maestro conducting the brindisi in La Traviata.
“Pancakes,” Father John said. The moment he’d come through the front door, the aroma of pancakes and hot oil had rushed over him. He sat down across the table from Father George, who had already sliced away at the half-mountain of pancakes on his plate.
“Your wish is my command.” Catherine gave a final swirl of the spatula and turned back to the stove. She scooped some batter out of a bowl and poured it onto the frying pan. Scoop. Pour. Tiny specks of oil popped and jumped around her hands. She worked quickly, going through motions she’d practiced a thousand times.
One of the little miracles, Father John thought, this fifty-some-year-old woman, short and squarely built, with thick brown arms and quick, capable hands. She wore blue jeans and a pinkish blouse that draped around her hips. Her hair was black, streaked with silver and curled about her flat face. There was a perpetual look of surprise in her dark, round eyes.
Two months ago, Elena, who had been the housekeeper longer than even she could remember, had taken a week off to help her granddaughter look after a new baby in Nebraska. The week lengthened into ten days, two weeks, a month. He and Father George had stumbled past each other, burning the eggs, frying granite-hard hamburgers, brewing coffee that looked like ink and tasted like paint thinner, producing laundry with multihued, tie-dyed underwear.
Finally Elena had called Father John to say he might want to get somebody to help out, but it was her job—he shouldn’t forget—her house to look after, her mission. He promised he wouldn’t forget and wondered who might want a job that belonged to Elena.
The next morning, Leonard Bizzel had planted himself in the kitchen doorway and announced that his wife, Catherine, would like the job.
Father John’d had to restrain himself from jumping up and hugging the man. It wasn’t until a week later, after Catherine had returned the residence to running order, that she’d confided how she and Leonard needed the extra money. It had surprised him. Leonard never missed a day at the mission. He fixed the plumbing, touched up the paint, pruned the cottonwoods, cleared the wind-blown debris from the grounds, and generally kept St. Francis Mission presentable. He and Catherine ran a small ranch—ten head of cattle, a couple acres of hay. Father John had assumed that, between the ranch and what Leonard took home from the mission, they were making ends meet. And Leonard was a private man. He hadn’t said anything.
Father John pushed a forkful of pancakes into the syrup and took another bite. After a moment, he lifted his eyes to the woman. “Tell me something, Catherine. You think Arapaho women served pancakes on the plains?”
The woman set another stack on the table. “Thought you got done with all that history research when you come to the mission.”
Father George let out a guffaw, then helped himself to the new stack.
“Catherine. Catherine. Research is never done.” Father John took the remaining pancakes, spread on a slab of butter, and drizzled on some syrup, allowing the memory to linger: he, the graduate student and then the American history teacher at the Jesuit prep school in Boston, lost in the library stacks, searching for one more document, one more piece of evidence to explain the past and restore something of all that had been lost.
“It’s the joy of research,” he said. “It has no ending.”
“Ah, just like heaven.” Father George pointed his fork across the kitchen, as if he were pointing to some demonstrable proof that had just materialized in the doorway.
“Just like the work around here.” Catherine dropped into a vacant chair, clasped her hands over the table, and stared at the ceiling a moment. “The grandmothers got flour and sugar and cornmeal from the w
hites,” she began. “They already had buffalo tallow. Wouldn’t surprise me none if the warriors got pancakes.” She paused and wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure how they tasted.”
Father John took another bite, while Catherine went on about how the grandmothers had picked wild asparagus and turnips and beat the bushes with sticks until the ripe berries covered the blankets they’d spread underneath, then pounded the berries into strips of buffalo and dried the strips to make pemmican for the winter. “Oh, they knew what they were doin’, all right,” she said.
His own thoughts had already returned to Lela Running Bull, fifteen years old, half-child, half-woman, caught up in something too big to grasp, and too frightened to pick up a telephone.
He’d offered the Mass for her this morning. Dear Lord, he’d prayed. Let her call, and let me find a way to help her.
“BY THE WAY, ” Father George said. They were walking through the field surrounded by Circle Drive, the wild grasses crinkling under their boots and the morning sun already hot on Father John’s shoulders. The breeze made a whistling noise in the cottonwoods. “I went to the bank in Riverton yesterday and talked to the manager. There’s a discrepancy between the bank records and ours.”
“What’s the discrepancy?” Father John said, following the other priest up the concrete steps in front of the administration building.
“Deposits for the last three weeks seem to be missing.” The other priest stopped on the landing and turned to face him. “Not likely they were all lost somewhere.”
Father John leaned against the metal railing and watched a tumbleweed scuttle across Circle Drive and lodge behind the rear wheel of the Toyota pickup in front of the residence. He was trying to remember if he’d been the one to drop the deposits at the bank. Usually Father George handled the deposits—the Sunday collections, the donations—but a couple of times, his assistant had given him the envelope. You going into town? Take the bank deposit. Once he’d found the thick deposit envelope under the front seat of the pickup two days later, and when the bank statement arrived, Father George had stomped into his office and demanded to know why the deposit had been late. But three deposits missing?
He looked up at the other priest who was at the door, rattling his key in the lock. “What did the manager say?”
“He agreed to reexamine the bank records for incoming deposits.” The other priest gave the door a hard shove and stepped inside, a mixture of worry and frustration outlined in the slope of his shoulders.
Father John followed. The warm, musty odor of past decades and old problems clung to the plastered walls. He turned right and went into his office.
“You can imagine what the bank manager was thinking.” George had propped himself against the door frame. “Maybe you priests forgot to bring in the checks and cash? Maybe there weren’t any checks and cash?”
“How much are we missing?” Father John sat down at his desk, his eyes on the bills stacked in the small wooden box, waiting to be opened and handed over to his assistant.
“Three thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eight dollars and twenty cents. All in checks, except for a couple hundred from the collection baskets. We’re overdrawn by more than a thousand.”
Father John groaned. A fortune. The checks had come in from around the country—the little miracles that had kept St. Francis afloat for more than a century, mailed in from people who had never seen the mission, never met an Arapaho. Use this to help somebody. He hadn’t even finished thanking the donors. Now he’d have to explain that the donations were lost and ask for new checks. It could be weeks before they arrived.
“There’s something else, John.” The other priest stepped into the office and perched on one of the side chairs, hands clasped between his knees. “I didn’t want to bring it up until the bank looks into the matter. Always the chance,” he shrugged, as if he didn’t believe what he was about to say, “that the bank donated our deposits to some other account.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Last four weeks, Leonard’s volunteered to run the deposit envelopes over to the bank.”
Father John kept his eyes on the other man. It wasn’t unusual for Leonard to take the deposits. Over the years, the caretaker had often stuck his head in the door. “Anything for Riverton, Father?” he’d say. “Gotta go to the hardware store,” and Father John himself had handed the man the envelopes. He would trust the man with his life.
And yet . . .
“We can use the extra money,” Catherine had said.
Father John got up and walked over to the window. Leonard’s green truck was parked at an angle in front of the church. Ah, yes. Leonard had mentioned this morning that he intended to fix the two broken pews.
“He turned back to the other priest. “The bank screwed up somehow.”
“I don’t have to tell you, this has me worried.” Father George got to his feet and headed for the door.
The man was right about that. He didn’t have to tell him. “They’ll find the deposits,” Father John said, but he was talking to himself. His assistant had already left, and only the clack of the man’s footsteps in the corridor indicated he was still close enough to have heard what Father John said. And probably wasn’t any more reassured than he himself felt.
Father John sat back down at the desk and looked at the phone, debating whether to pick it up. This was the kind of problem he would have liked to talk over with Vicky, hold it up to the light of her sharp, legal mind. Friend, confidante, partner in how many cases? Divorces, adoptions, DUIs. Always the first person he’d called when somebody else had a problem. So what would be wrong with calling her now?
Who was he kidding? It was only an excuse to hear the sound of her voice. There had been times when he’d used any excuse to call her, but there hadn’t been an excuse all summer. He hadn’t looked for one. And during his retreat, he’d come to understand that he could love her, that love was God’s most precious gift. He could love her and let her go.
He had no idea how she was doing. Fine, he supposed, because, otherwise, someone might tell him. He wondered about that. None of the gossip on the moccasin telegraph about Vicky ever seemed to reach him, although he suspected there was always gossip. But lately, it was as if an invisible bubble had descended over the mission, intercepted everything about Vicky and sent it bouncing back, so as not to disturb the pastor or upset the resolution he’d made during his retreat. It was as if the people wanted to protect him from his own weakness.
He jumped to his feet and strode out of the office, grabbing his cowboy hat from the rack as he went. He’d promised to have coffee with the elders over at the senior center this morning. He was about to let himself out the front door when the phone rang.
He walked back into his office and lunged for the receiver among the piles of papers on his desk. “Father O’Malley,” he said into the mouthpiece.
There was no response, only a dead quiet, but Lela Running Bull was at the other end. He could sense the fear pulsing down the line. “Talk to me,” he said.
“This is Lela.” Her voice was small and hesitant. “Mary said you been looking for me.”
“Don’t be afraid, Lela.” He kept his own voice steady. “I want to help you.”
“I ain’t afraid of nothing.”
“Where are you?”
Silence, except for several quick intakes of air.
“Tell me where you are,” he said. “I’ll come there.”
“You can’t come here!” The words burst down the line like the scattering of buckshot. “Tommy’ll . . .”
“Tommy! You’re with Tommy?”
“It’s okay, Father. That’s what I called to tell you. Everything’s okay, so you don’t need to be worrying about me.”
“You’re afraid of him, Lela.”
She didn’t say anything, and he knew he’d guessed right. “It’s true, isn’t it?” He was talking fast against the possibility that she might hang up. He could picture her moving the rece
iver away from her ear, hesitating, trying to decide what to do. “Listen, Lela, if you know anything about the man who was murdered at Double Dives, you could be in danger. Let me come and get you.”
He realized that she’d started crying, and now she was gasping and sniffling. Finally she said, “You’d run to the fed, and Tommy’d kill me for saying anything.”
“Why, Lela? What is Tommy afraid of?”
“The guy they dug up was a white guy.” The words came like a gasp, as if they had a will of their own. “Tommy didn’t have nothing to do with any white guy.”
“Rodney Pearson?” And then he understood. Lela Running Bull had expected the body to be somebody else, which explained why she was afraid. She thought Tommy had been involved in another murder at Double Dives. It also explained why Tommy had taken Lela from her father’s house. He wanted to make sure she didn’t talk to Gianelli. Which only confirmed his own fear that Lela was in serious danger.
“You can stay at the mission,” Father John said, hearing the urgency in his voice. “You’ll be safe here until all of this is straightened out.”
“I’m telling you, I’m okay.” She was shouting. “Tommy didn’t have nothing to do with the white guy that got shot. Pearson, whatever his name was.”
“What about the other guy, Lela? Who did you expect to be in that grave at Double Dives?”
Killing Raven (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Page 7