Killing Raven (A Wind River Reservation Myste)

by Margaret Coel

  Father John slowed for the turn into the casino. Cars and trucks, headlights blazing, were waiting to turn onto the highway. Other vehicles streamed out of the parking lot, jockeying for places at the end of the line. Groups of people spilled out of the casino entrance and headed toward the lot. He gripped the steering wheel hard. Something was wrong. People were usually heading toward the casino, not trying to get away.

  He swung into the drive and pulled up alongside a pickup about to leap into the highway. An Indian couple sat in front, heads bobbing sideways—man looking left, woman looking right.

  “What’s going on?” he yelled out the window.

  The man swiveled around. “That you, Father John?”

  He recognized the couple—Henry and Stella White-man, fourth pew from the back, ten o’clock Mass. “Fire alarm went off!” the woman yelled past her husband. A cacophony of horns had started up. “False alarm, but me and Henry decided to get outta there. Lotta other folks thinkin’ the same.” She threw her head back toward the string of vehicles.

  He gave the couple a wave and drove toward the casino. The tires whined against the asphalt. On the right, the parking lot was bathed in the white light shining down from poles scattered about. He glanced at groups of people walking toward the cars and RVs, hoping to catch sight of Vicky. She was nowhere.

  And then he spotted her—on the sidewalk in front of the casino standing with Adam Lone Eagle.

  The Lakota was holding her by the shoulders, leaning toward her. Vicky twisted about, in and out of the shadows. People flowed past. There was no one to help her—why didn’t someone help her? In the instant before a white van pulled alongside the curb and blocked his view, Father John saw the three men hurrying through the crowd toward them. He recognized the operations chief. What was his name? Barrenger. One of the others must be Lexson himself.

  An RV lumbered into the lane ahead and stopped. Father John jammed on the brake pedal and pulled up close to the front bumper. The headlights washed over him. The RV’s left signal started flashing, and the driver craned his head toward the line of vehicles moving toward the highway. Father John laid on the horn. The driver looked around and nodded before inching the RV sideways. Now it blocked the entire lane.

  Beyond the RV, Father John could see the white van pull away from the curb, horn bleating into the crowd. Several people jumped out of the way. Vicky was gone! Lone Eagle and the other three men—all gone.

  The van made a U-turn, careened into the parking lot, swerving around a couple of cars, then sped toward the highway. In the rearview mirror, he watched the van turn north, and in that instant he knew where they were taking her.

  Father John put the gear into reverse and jammed down the accelerator. The pickup lunged backward. A horn squawked, someone shouted, “Hey!” He hit the brake pedal. In the rearview mirror, he saw the driver shaking his fist into the windshield of a green sedan.

  He was blocked in. The RV in front, five or six vehicles stacked up behind. He felt sick with rage and helplessness. In the side mirror, he could see the van swing into the drive behind him and turn onto the highway. He shifted into forward and gave the steering wheel a hard right pull toward the curb that abutted the parking lot. He managed to move sideways a couple of feet, then had to back up to keep from sideswiping the RV. Forward. Back. Finally he bumped against the curb, then backed up one last time and stomped down on the accelerator. The pickup shot over the curb and bounced onto the asphalt.

  He drove across the lot, dodging around the parked vehicles, blasting the horn at the little groups of people. He managed to pull the cell phone out of the glove compartment and fumble with the buttons as he swung back into the drive. A dark sedan was coming off the highway toward him, and he tossed the cell phone onto the seat and gripped the steering wheel, turning out of the way. Headlights exploded in his eyes. There was the sound of brakes squealing, tires spitting out gravel. The sedan stopped sideways against the oncoming traffic, the driver hunched over the ignition, trying to bring the engine back to life. A cloud of black smoke puffed from the tailpipes.

  Father John took off again, around the sedan, back into the parking lot. He thumped across the barrow ditch, shot out onto the highway into the northbound lane, and pulled into the space between two trucks. He made a right onto Highway 26, the diagonal road across the reservation, the fastest route to Double Dives.

  The pickup shook around him, going all out at seventy, he guessed, although the speedometer registered the usual five miles per hour. The van had at least ten minutes on him; it could be ten or twelve miles ahead. He closed both fists over the steering wheel and peered at the asphalt flowing into the wash of headlights.

  “YOU’LL NEVER GET away with this,” Vicky said. The shadows of the reservation flew past outside her window. She was jammed against the side, the armrest poking into her ribs and Adam’s thigh pressing against her own. “The fed knows I was taken to the casino against my will. I left a message.”

  “Don’t say anything else.” Adam’s voice was low and firm, but underneath—what was that?—the faintest crack in the man’s confidence?

  “She’s lying, Stan.” Barrenger leaned forward, dipping his head toward the front seat, blinking rapidly behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “There wasn’t any message when we took her.”

  “Took her!” This from Adam. “Damn it, Stan. What’s going on?”

  “You must’ve screwed up, Barrenger.” Vicky glanced past Adam at the man still bent toward the front seat, nervousness and worry stamped on his face. They were speeding south on Highway 26, moonlight flickering through the darkness outside the windows. “I slipped a message onto the desk blotter before we left.”

  Lexson twisted around and glared at the operations chief. “You let her leave a message that could be found?”

  “I’m telling you, Stan, she’s a lying bitch trying to get herself out of this.” A note of terror rang like a bell in the man’s voice. “I didn’t take my eyes off her the whole time . . .”

  Adam interrupted. “You have no right to be taking us anywhere.”

  Us? Vicky tried to shift around. The armrest bit into her ribs. She stared at the profile of the man beside her. Us? She’d been so sure—why had she been so sure?—that Adam was in on the scheme to defraud her people. She’d convinced herself he must have known what was going on. If she had figured it out, why hadn’t Adam? And if he had, why did he stay on? Why did he bring her in?

  Adam glanced at her, as if he’d felt her eyes boring into him, and gave her a look mixed with caution and reassurance. She could sense the strain of it, the effort it cost. Still, she felt a sense of comfort. She might never know the answers, she realized, and it didn’t matter. Whatever happened, she was not alone. There was an “us.”

  FATHER JOHN SPOTTED the van taking a curve ahead, taillights glowing red like the butts of cigarettes tossed onto the highway. By the time he reached the curve, the vehicle had disappeared. He took the curve on two wheels, accelerator jammed against the floor, headlights flashing over the asphalt, moonlight dropping over the plains. The pickup was still shivering, and something had started knocking. No sign of the van now. For a moment, he feared it had turned off and cut its lights. It could be waiting on one of the dirt roads, Lexson and his thugs laughing as the pickup sped by.

  And then he spotted the tiny red taillights again. The van was slowing into the outskirts of Riverton. He kept his own speed up. The knocking sounded as if a rock had gotten inside the engine. Another mile, and he was in the traffic heading into town, and he let up on the accelerator.

  Gripping the wheel with one hand, he groped for the cell phone on the seat beside him. Finally he had it. Glancing between the road and the phone, he hammered at the keys, then pressed the phone against his ear.

  “Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Leave your name and message.”

  “They’ve got Vicky!” He was shouting. “Lexson, Lone Eagle, and two others in a white van. They’re taking
her to Double Dives. Get out there right away.”

  He cut off, then going through the ritual again—road, phone, road, phone—dialed the BIA Police. “Father O’Malley,” he said when the operator came on. “Get me Chief Banner. It’s an emergency.”

  “What’s going on, John?” Banner’s voice was like an island of reason bobbing into the turbulence of his own anxiety and fear. He told the chief about Vicky and the van, only part of his mind on the traffic ahead. “They’re going to execute her, just like they did Monroe and Pearson.”

  “Take it easy, John.”

  “I’m five miles from Double Dives,” he shouted over the chief’s voice. “They’re ahead of me. Get some officers out there, Banner.”

  “We’ve got patrol cars on the way. Let the officers handle this, John. Don’t get involved . . .”

  Father John pushed his thumb on the off button and tossed the phone across the seat. He tailgated an SUV and pounded on the horn.

  “ALL YOU HAD to do was handle the contracts. Law school 101.” Lexson threw a glance over his shoulder, then looked ahead again. They were on the outskirts of Riverton, flat-roofed buildings and small houses and vacant lots passing outside. “That too boring for a couple of hotshot Indian lawyers like you? You had to start looking into matters that were none of your business.”

  “Did you really expect us to sign off on your bogus contracts, Stan?” Vicky said.

  “Let me handle this.” Adam gave her a sideways glance. “Listen, Stan, anything we may have learned at the casino is privileged information, you know that. We couldn’t testify against you. What’s all this macho crap about? As your lawyer, I’m telling you the smartest thing right now is to pull over and let us out.”

  “Pull over and let you out?” Lexson gave a shout of laughter. “Let you run to the FBI and the Business Council with your accusations? That wouldn’t be very smart, would it? What a pity you couldn’t have just left things alone. We have a great business. Everybody was making money. The tribe was making more money than they’d ever dreamed of. You two lawyers were pulling in good money for shuffling papers around. And we were making money. Win-win situation, I’d call it. Everybody rolling around in dough and happy. But you’re a couple of do-gooders, the kind that blow whistles. Who’s going to thank you? Who’s going to want to know what you found out?” He looked back for a moment, then shook his head and laughed. “Nobody. Not the council, not the Indians at the slots waiting for the big jackpot, knowing a lot of profits are going right back to the tribe. You’d probably get run off the reservation. We’re doing you a big favor by removing you from the scene before you can ruin everything. Nobody likes troublemakers.”

  They were stopped at a red light, the right signal clicking.

  “Where are you taking us?” Adam’s voice sounded frozen, as if the shadow of death, like a raven, had flapped overhead, and Vicky realized that he knew the answer.

  And so did she. They were turning south onto Highway 789. They were going to a place where bodies routinely turned up, the casualties of drug deals gone bad or just bad blood between gangs. They were going to Double Dives.

  Light Stone glanced over at the boss. Click. Click. “You sure about this, Mr. Lexson? Police might start wondering if a couple more bodies show up there so soon after Monroe.”

  “Shut up and drive.” Lexson motioned toward the light that had changed to green a half second earlier.

  Vicky tried to fight back the rising panic as the van turned onto the highway. They drove south across the bridge with the moonlight shining in the Wind River on either side, then turned left onto the two-lane road. The cottonwoods and brush rushed by like specters from the other world.

  “So you’re going to kill us,” Vicky said. “Is that it?”

  She felt the pressure of Adam’s hand on her thigh. “Don’t say anything,” he said.

  But she understood now, and she pushed on. “Just like you killed Captain Monroe. He was also a troublemaker, wasn’t he?” Adam was squeezing her leg hard. “Monroe was onto the fact you’d made a deal with Matt Kingdom. Was he close to getting the evidence, Lexson? Is that why your errand boys killed him?”

  “Evidence?” Lexson shook his head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You think Captain Jack Monroe’s a do-gooder, concerned about Indian welfare? The man’s a mercenary. He’s on the corporate payrolls in Vegas. Who else do you think is going to pay to stop Indian gaming? Bunch of Christians?”

  “Be quiet, Vicky,” Adam said, but his voice sounded far away, beyond the jumble of her own thoughts. No matter who Monroe was, there was still more. Another white man had died at Double Dives. Had Lexson killed him, too? What was it the Indian gaming commissioner had said? Managers had subtle ways of skimming profits. Putting ghosts on the payrolls, inflating costs of supplies, inflating the fill.

  Except that . . . Pearson didn’t work at the casino. There had to be something else.

  And then she had it. “Pearson!” she spit out the word. “You loaned Pearson money, right? And he couldn’t pay you back. What did he do? Threaten to go to the police?”

  “You should listen to your lawyer.” Lexson was half-turned in the front seat and staring at her. It was as if a mask had slipped from the man’s face, and beneath the handsome, polished features were muscles, bones and skin set in a cold, unrelenting hatred. “The more you talk,” he said, “the more obvious it is what must be done with both of you.”

  “Gianelli’s looking for me now,” Vicky managed. God, where was Gianelli? They turned into the two-track that ran across the barren bluff, the headlights flashing over a wilderness of sagebrush and utility poles. There were no headlights shining behind them. She’d been clinging to a thread as thin as a spiderweb. A word scribbled on a Post-It. No one knew where she was. Not Gianelli. Not anyone.

  FATHER JOHN DROVE south on Highway 789 and turned left onto Gas Hills Road, the accelerator rammed into the floor. The engine was knocking, as if the metal parts were flying around under the hood, and clouds of steam blurred the headlights funneling ahead. He took the left turn onto the bluff on two wheels. He could make out the fresh tire tracks in the dirt. He was close, but the van was still ahead.

  THE VAN HIT something hard, and Vicky put out one hand to brace herself against the front seat. They were thumping down the steep two-track into the trees. Adam took both her hands, and the warmth of his palms against hers was like the sun flowing over her. They had survived in the sun, her people and his. Sun gave life, time to think. She had to think. She had to draw upon the gift of the sun.

  The van jerked to a stop, and the interior light flicked on.

  Light Stone crawled out from behind the wheel and walked around the hood. Barrenger was still leaning forward, his blue shirt and gray hair reflecting against the black window. “I told you, Stan,” he said, “no one’s followed us. No one knows where she is. This is a rough place. A lot of people have been killed here. Bodies probably buried all over the place. Even if the police find ’em, they’ll never trace anything to us.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” Lexson pushed open his door and ducked outside just as the side door slid open.

  “Let’s go,” Barrenger said, shifting himself out of the van.

  Vicky felt as if she couldn’t move. She wanted to run—she had to get out and run away—but her legs wouldn’t work. She couldn’t breathe. She was barely aware of Adam’s hand still holding hers, and then he let go.

  She watched him crawl across the seat and out the door.

  Now, it was her turn, and she was crawling after him, her arms and legs moving on their own with no direction from her, no connection to any wish of hers. She felt Adam’s hand closing on hers, helping her out. The light outside was dim, a mixture of moonlight and headlights splaying through the cottonwoods and brush. The beer cans scattered about looked like silver ingots on the ground. Through the trees, she could hear the sound of the river.

  For a moment, Lexson and the two other
men formed a half circle of shadows around her and Adam. Then Barrenger started toward the back of the van, his footsteps scuffing the dirt. The rear door snapped open.

  “Not unreasonable”—Lexson’s voice broke into the quiet—“for two Indian lawyers thrown together at the office to develop a powerful attraction for each other.” He glanced from Vicky to Adam, and in the dim light, Vicky saw that the mask had reattached itself to his face. He was the man who knew how to run casinos. Handsome. Genial. Deadly.

  Barrenger planted himself next to his boss. He was gripping the handle of a shovel.

  “I believe I might have hit upon the truth,” Lexson said, still glancing between them. “That’s wonderful. No one will be in the least surprised that they simply decided to run off together. Decamp in the night, one might say. No one will look for them.”

  “Think about what you’re doing,” Adam said. “Whatever’s happened is over. You can go forward from here. We walk away and decamp in the night, just like you said, and no one will be the wiser.”

  Lexson shook his head and laughed. Enjoyment shone like diamonds in his eyes. “I’m not a gambler, Adam. Never was. Never liked risks. I always make sure somebody else takes the risks. The house has to have the edge.” He turned to Light Stone. “Take them over there,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the clump of cottonwoods near the river. “The soil should be nice and soft.”

  Light Stone didn’t move. A couple of seconds passed before he said, “We’d better go.”

  It was then that Vicky saw the gun glinting in the man’s hand.