“What’s Trent’s last name?” Father John asked, trying to lead her back. He was aware of the front door thudding shut, the scrape of Father Ian’s boots in the corridor.
“Hunter,” the girl said. “Trent tol’ me the name used to be Man Who Hunts Buffalo, but it got shortened.”
He’d heard the name, Father John was thinking, but he didn’t know the family. St. Francis Mission was on the southeastern edge of the reservation, close to the Arapaho communities. The Shoshones lived to the west and north. It was as if each tribe had staked out its own territory.
He reached over and dragged the phone across the desk. “Why don’t I call Trent’s family,” he said.
“Oh, Father, would you?” The girl leaned so far forward that, for a moment, he feared she might topple headfirst out of the chair. Before he could dial for information, she was rattling off the number. He punched in the keys and listened to the rhythmic buzz of a ringing phone.
“I know the number by heart,” the girl was saying. “I called it so many times.”
The buzzing stopped. A loud clanking sound came down the line, as if somebody had dropped the phone at the other end. Then a cough, and finally a man’s voice, deep and tinged with annoyance. “Hello.”
Father John gave his name and asked to speak with Trent.
The line seemed to go dead. Finally, the voice came again. “You the priest over at the Arapaho mission?” Annoyance had given way to surprise. “My boy doesn’t live here anymore, Father. He’s going to school in Riverton, lives over in town. Got himself a job there. Keeps pretty busy. You want his number?”
“I was wondering if you saw him this weekend?”
“This weekend? Nah. Trent works on Saturdays, and spends all day Sunday studying, that is . . .” He hesitated, then plunged on. “Got himself a girlfriend that takes up his time, even though I been telling him, ‘Son, you don’t need to get yourself all tangled up with women now. Just gotta get yourself through school.’ I want my boy to make something of himself, Father.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe couple weeks ago. What’s going on, Father? Yesterday, the tribal attorney calls, says that Trent’s supposed to show up at the court. I told that attorney he had the wrong Shoshone. Trent’s over in Riverton, minding his own business, like I wish a lot of people around here would do.”
“Listen, Mr. Hunter,” Father John said. “Trent’s girlfriend is here with me. She hasn’t seen Trent since Friday, and she’s worried about him. Do you have any idea where he might be?”
The line went quiet a moment before the man said, “Let me tell you something, Father. If I knew where Trent’s holing up, I sure wouldn’t tell that white girl. Sounds like Trent finally got away from her, all right. My guess is he doesn’t want her knowing his whereabouts.”
Father John thanked the man and set the receiver back in the cradle. The girl was still leaning forward, clasping her hands so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had turned bloodless.
“His father hasn’t seen him,” he told her.
“Oh, God.” She sank back against her chair. “I did right, coming here. Trent always said to me, Edie, if there’s any trouble, you go to the Indian priest at the Catholic mission. You ask anybody, they’ll tell you how to find him. So I came here. I didn’t know where else to go.”
“What kind of trouble, Edie? Was Trent expecting trouble?”
She shrugged, lifted her chin, and locked eyes with him again. “There was some guy over at the Cowboy.”
“The Cowboy?”
“Bar and grill over in Riverton. Sometimes we go there for a burger. So we’re just sitting in the booth, me and Trent and these other guys from class, and this Indian at the bar starts mouthing off, saying how Shoshones oughtta get the hell outta there, that nobody wants ’em. And Trent told him to shut up, and the guy says, ‘Yeah? You wanna go outside and party?’ And Trent says for him to go . . .” She paused. “You know what I’m saying.”
Father John nodded. “Any idea of who he was?”
“Arapaho, that’s all I know. Trent says to me, ‘Take a good look, ’cause that’s an Arapaho and he’s nothing but trouble. One of these days, we might have to teach him a lesson. All I know is, he was a skinny guy with tattoos on his arms and a long nose that made him look like a horse. He even had his hair pulled back in a ponytail.”
Father John didn’t say anything for a moment. He could think of two or three young men who might fit the description. Troublemakers, young men who got drunk and hung out at the park. Park rangers, they were called. Like the fort Indians in the Old Time, hanging out at the forts where the alcohol was always available. Usually harmless, except to themselves.
“That’s it?” Father John said. But that wasn’t all of it. He could tell from the way the girl’s blue eyes shifted away. “Suppose you tell me the rest,” he said.
“It’s no big deal.” The girl shrugged again. Moisture glistened on her cheeks. “I mean, we got things settled so there wasn’t any more trouble from my boyfriend, I mean, before I met Trent. Jason Rizzo’s his name. He’s one of them white supremacist guys, always talking about the pure Aryan race and how it can’t be contaminated, and all that crap. I don’t know why I ever got involved with him, except I was real lonely, you know, and this girl I was working with over at the thrift shop says her boyfriend’s in prison, and he’s got this buddy, Jason, that’s looking for somebody to write to. So I figure, what the heck. Poor guy’s in prison, probably lonely like me, so we start sending letters back and forth, and he seems like a real nice guy. Then he gets out of prison and moves to Riverton, and he’s expecting me to be his girlfriend, but I see he’s real scary. I was his girl for a while, but I was looking to get away from him, and then I met Trent. He helped me get away. Said, ‘Come on, Edie. You can go to school. You can make something of yourself.’ Gave me the guts to walk out, ’cause I knew that he was gonna protect me if Jason came after me. So I moved in with Trent in a little house behind a big, old mansion over on Pershing.” The girl caught her face in both hands. Her shoulders began shaking, the sobs coming in jerky spasms.
Father John waited until the sobs were quiet, and then he said, “What happened, Edie?”
She dropped her hands and started lacing and unlacing the tissue again, keeping her gaze on some point beyond his shoulder. A moment passed before she said, “It pissed Jason off real good, Trent being Indian and all. About a month ago, Jason and two guys he hung out with waited outside for Trent to get home from work. They beat him up real bad.”
Father John sat back against the wood chair, turning over in his mind what the girl had said. Shoshone man, missing four days. And out at the Bates Battlefield, three dead Indian men who might be Shoshone. Dear God, was it possible? Somebody had followed Trent Hunter around, waiting for a chance to kill him? Finally corralling him and two other men and shooting all of them? Then mistaking Father Owens for the Indian priest and sending a message to make certain the bodies were found?
He tried to shake off the idea. He was catching the girl’s fear. It was like a virus. The bodies hadn’t been identified. There was no proof that they were Shoshone. No proof that Trent Hunter was dead.
The answer was probably simple, straightforward, logical. It was possible—he didn’t like the idea—but it was possible that Trent had simply decided to disappear into the reservation. Maybe he’d had enough of the white world: classes, work, a pregnant, white girlfriend with a violent ex-boyfriend. Maybe he’d just walked away.
And yet the girl could be right. Maybe it wasn’t like Trent Hunter to walk away.
He said, “I think you should go to the Riverton Police.”
“Police?” Her voice rose in surprise. The blue eyes went large for an instant, then narrowed into slits of concentration. “Trent never wanted to call the police, even after Jason beat him up. He said the police don’t like Indians. They never side with Indians.”
“Listen,
Edie.” Father John tried to catch the girl’s eyes, but they were darting about the office. “Trent could be hurt. He might have had an accident. His car could be off the road somewhere.” He was thinking about the pickup Burton had found at the battlefield. He hurried on. “I know a detective who will take his disappearance very seriously. He’ll check with the sheriff’s office. He won’t stop looking until he finds Trent.”
He got to his feet, not waiting for a reply. Leaning across the desk, he picked up the receiver and tapped out the number to the Riverton Police Department. One ring, and an operator was on the other end. He gave his name and asked to speak to Detective Mike Perry.
The girl pushed her thin body out of the chair, stumbling forward a little, shaking her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I should go to the police.”
“Hey, Father John. How’s it going?” The detective’s voice boomed down the line.
“Hang on a minute,” Father John said. Then, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece he said, “I can go with you, Edie.”
She stared at him a moment with bleary, hopeless eyes, then shrugged and turned away.
He removed his hand and said, “I have a young woman here, Mike.” Then he told the detective that Edie Bradbury’s boyfriend had been missing since last Friday. His name was Trent Hunter, Shoshone, a student at the college. He’d had a couple of run-ins recently with a white supremacist, and he might be in trouble.
The detective let out a little whistle. “Sounds like we better have a talk. How soon can she get over here.”
“We’re on the way.” Father John replaced the receiver and turned to the girl who had moved into the doorway, glancing between the office and corridor, the front edges of her coat bunched in one hand.
“It’s okay, Father,” she said. “I can do it.”
8
THE ADMINISTRATION BUILDING was suspended in quiet for a moment. The ringing phones, clack of Father Ian’s computer keys, banging doors, and boots shuffling in the corridor as people came for counseling or meetings—the usual noises seemed to have stalled. Father John stood at the window and watched the blue sedan snake around Circle Drive, engine clanking, black clouds of exhaust spitting from the tailpipe. Then the girl was gone. The clanking blended into the hum of traffic out on Seventeen-Mile Road.
He stepped back to his desk, picked up the phone, and dialed the number to St. Aiden’s.
“John!” Father Nathan Owens’ voice burst down the line. “My God, are you all right?”
Father John assured the man that he was okay.
“The radio says you were wounded.”
A small wound. Still assuring the man. Nothing that wouldn’t heal in a couple of days.
“You could have been killed.”
True, Father John was thinking. He might have died out there with the other three men.
“If anything had happened to you,” the other priest was hurrying on, “I never could have forgiven myself. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved, John. It was unconscionable. I should have figured out the message and gone there myself.”
“You didn’t know someone would try to shoot me, Nathan.”
The line went quiet for a moment. Then the other priest said, “I don’t like this, John. That frightening message, and three men shot to death. The moccasin telegraph says they’re Shoshones. I hope it wasn’t an Arapaho who did this. It’ll tear the reservation apart.”
“Listen, Nathan,” Father John said, “Detective Burton from the sheriff’s office will probably want to talk to you.”
“He’s already called. He’ll be here in thirty minutes. I intend to give him the tape.” The other priest paused. “Be careful, John,” he said. “Whoever killed those poor men is very evil. There’s no telling what else he may do.”
Father John thanked the man and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. Then he went down the corridor in search of Father Ian. He found the man hunched over sheets of paper lined up in front of him, elbow braced on the edge of the desk, chin resting on one fist.
“How’s it going?” Father John swung a wooden side chair around and straddled it, folding his arms over the back. He hadn’t meant to leave the new priest alone so much. Here only a few weeks, still getting a feel for the place, and yesterday evening, it had been up to Ian to explain the bleak financial situation to the parish council and assure the members—this from the pastor, himself—that no programs would be cut in the summer. There had been no chance to talk to the man since the meeting. Ian had gone to bed by the time Father John had gotten back to the mission last night, and he wasn’t around this morning. And Edie Bradbury had appeared first thing.
He could see that his assistant was poring over the budget, which the man had volunteered to handle. Good at numbers, John. BA in finance, you know. Father John had thrust the budget into the man’s hands, wondering if it was just a stroke of good luck that his assistants usually had a background in finance or accounting that made them eager to take over the budget, or if the Provincial, knowing the pastor’s lack of interest, made a point to send a man who might put St. Francis Mission in the black.
“You could say everything’s hunky-dory.” Ian looked up. Flecks of light seemed to have attached themselves to the man’s eyes, like paint splashed on dark stones. His hair was mussed, as if he’d been combing it with his fingers. Beneath his eyes were the dark half-circles of a man who hadn’t been sleeping well. “That, of course, is not the case with the budget.”
“Sorry I missed the council meeting,” Father John said.
“No problem.” Ian backed his elbow off the desk and leaned into the armrest of his chair. “A couple of phone messages when I got in this morning. People wanting to know about the bodies you found at someplace called Bates.” The man shrugged and cracked a thin smile. “Priest stumbles onto dead bodies in the middle of nowhere? I must have missed something in the job description. That the usual routine around here?”
Father John shook his head and looked away a moment. God, he hoped not. The images of the bodies were still there, floating in front of his eyes.
“So, how’d you get that?” Ian jabbed a finger toward the Band Aid on his face.
Father John lifted his hand and pressed at the edges of the small wound. A burning sensation ran through his cheek, which surprised him. Sometime during the night, the pain had receded into a dull throb, and this morning, the throb had dissolved into numbness. He locked eyes with the other priest and told him about the telephone message and the fact that he’d guessed the bodies might be at the site of an old massacre, all of which Ian seemed to take in with mute acceptance, as if figuring out the clue in obscure phone messages were just another part of the job that he would become accustomed to. He didn’t want to talk about dead men. He didn’t want to relive the horror. Father John asked how the meeting had gone.
“Ah, the meeting.” Father Ian gripped the armrests, pushed himself to his feet, and walked over to the window. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, John,” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Run this mission on hope and prayer and convinced the parish council that hope and prayer are legitimate business tactics. The council is in complete agreement with you that there’s no need to cut back on anything. What are we going to pay the religious education teachers with? Prayers?”
Father John drummed his fingers on the top of the chair, listening to the click click click noise that punctuated his thoughts. This was his fault. He’d never wanted to dive into the abysmal swamp of the mission’s finances, never wanted to admit that St. Francis couldn’t afford the programs it offered, never wanted to cut back. Just the opposite. He’d added programs every year, and he had convinced the parish council that the little miracles would arrive in the mail, unsolicited and unexpected—checks falling out of envelopes with return addresses in towns he’d never heard of and scribbled notes that read, “Use this to help the Indians.” The funny thing was, the little miracles
had occurred, and the mission had gone along, lurching from one potential financial disaster to the next, always bailed out at the last minute.
He got to his feet and, leaning over, gripped the top of the chair. Donations were always smaller as summer approached, but this year, they had been almost nonexistent. He should have been the one to break the bad news to the council that the miracles hadn’t arrived. Ian was right. They would have to cut back.
He said, “We’ll schedule another meeting.”
“Already done.” Father Ian jammed his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “I suggested that we revisit the situation next Wednesday evening. That work for you?”
Father John nodded. He waited a couple of beats before he said, “How are things with you?”
The other priest took a step backward, tilted his head, and stared up at the ceiling, as if the answer might fall out of the cracked plaster. “You mean,” he locked eyes again with Father John, “am I avoiding the temptation of demon rum, whiskey, vodka and staying off the bottle?”
“This can be a lonely place.”
“Loneliness.” The other priest drew in his lower lip, considering. “Was that your excuse?”
Father John didn’t take his eyes away. The man not only had a finely tuned way of avoiding uncomfortable subjects, he was also good at turning things around, so that, all of a sudden, the conversation between the superior and the priest under his supervision was about the superior.
He said, “There are a lot of excuses. Take your pick.”
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