No, thank you, she didn’t care for anything but coffee, she heard herself saying, although she’d planned on a Danish, something to get her through the morning. She no longer had any appetite. The sugary smells made her stomach jump. A hiss of conversation ran through the sounds of coffee sloshing into a mug. Yesterday, the news had been filled with the murder of another Shoshone, Eric Surrell. And now this! Headlines screaming what everybody on the reservation feared, giving the fear substance, making it real.
God, she hoped Frankie Montana had a solid alibi this time.
The eyes were still following her as she carried the coffee over to a table near the door and sat down, letting her bag drop at her feet. Normal. Normal. She would read the newspaper article. Drink the coffee. Go to the office just as she’d planned. Saturday morning—she’d have the office to herself. No phone calls, no interruptions. She would pack her files and take a final look at the notes she’d written for Adam on the wolf management plan. Everything neatly pulled into place before she left. And this afternoon, she’d look over vacant office space in Lander with a realtor.
She shrugged out of her coat and unfolded the newspaper. Halfway down the front page was the photograph of a middle-aged man and woman leaning on each other, faces contorted in grief. The caption said, “Martin and Lois Surrell, members of the Shoshone tribe, fear their son was murdered in old tribal feud with Arapahos.”
Vicky started skimming the article itself. It was worse than she’d expected, pounding out the same points over and over. Shoshones and Arapahos, traditional enemies. Ancient animosities resurfacing. Four Shoshones murdered where Shoshones had massacred Arapahos in nineteenth century.
And the quotes from people across the reservation: Shoshones saying that they never did trust Arapahos, that Arapahos had always been out for revenge, that they’d waited a hundred years for the chance. And Arapahos talking about how Shoshones never wanted them on the reservation, how it must’ve been Shoshones themselves that shot those three other Shoshones, so they could blame Arapahos and have an excuse to get Arapahos off the reservation.
The article ran into the inside. More quotes and interviews with the families of the murdered men, all of them saying what fine young men they had been. Three of the victims had been students at Central Wyoming, the article said. Trent Hunter. Rex and Joe Crispin. They’d gone to the site as part of a class assignment. Investigators were not certain as to what took Eric Surrell there, except that he was Hunter’s cousin and may have wanted to see where his cousin had been killed.
Another photo appeared on the inside page, an elderly man, with a full head of white hair, looking out over rimless glasses that sat partway down his prominent nose. The perfect picture of a professor, Vicky thought. Hovering near the man was a young-looking woman with black, curly hair. Professor Charles Lambert and his wife, Dana, according to the caption. Three of the Shoshone victims had been enrolled in the professor’s class on the war on the plains.
Vicky read quickly through the rest of the article. Professor Lambert, described as an authority on the Bates Battle. The professor himself describing Trent Hunter and Rex and Joe Crispin as excellent students who immersed themselves in the details of various battles. They had been especially interested in the Bates Battle, and the professor had suggested that his students visit the site. Bookstores in the area had ordered large numbers of Lambert’s latest book, Tribal Wars. According to Lila Benson at Books on Main, the publisher had moved up the shipping date by almost two weeks in order to accommodate the interest in a nineteenth-century massacre that threatened to reignite a tribal feud.
Vicky closed the paper and studied the byline, somebody named Liam Harrison. An AP article, it would be published in newspapers around the country, around the world. She was beginning to think she would be sick. She folded the paper down until it was a narrow, thick stack, as if she could fold the story away, then pulled on her coat, lifted her handbag off the floor, and walked out of the shop, leaving the folded newspaper on the table.
She moved through a wall of cool, moist air that parted as she headed down Main Street. An imitation of the sun glowed through the layer of gray clouds. There was little warmth in it. She caught sight of the reflection moving beside her in the store windows: Indian woman clutching the top of the black bag slung over her shoulders, crystals of moisture glistening in her black hair. There was no one about, except for the occasional vehicle grinding down Main. There were so many issues, she was thinking, important issues such as managing the wolf population, handling the oil and gas leases, and preserving the water rights and the timber rights, that Arapahos and Shoshones had to work together on. They had to trust one another, or they couldn’t live together at Wind River.
Who are you? Why are you doing this to the reservation?
Vicky let herself in the main door of the brick office building and climbed the stairs, the sound of her footsteps clacking into the quiet. In the office, cool air streamed through the vents, and she kept her coat thrown over her shoulders as she worked at her desk, organizing and shuffling papers, trying to concentrate, unable to push out of her mind the fear that the newspaper was right, that a tribal war was about to erupt on the reservation. Detective Burton was good at his job, she told herself. He’d arrest the murderer and everything could return to normal. Normal.
The sound of her voice in the silence startled her. She was talking to herself.
She slid some papers into file folders and set them in the cardboard boxes that she’d brought to the office last night, then taped the tops closed. The movers would bring the boxes when they came for her furniture. The other file folders would stay: They were part of the firm, hers and Adam’s. Theirs. She laughed out loud at the idea that there had been a “theirs.”
The phone started ringing. She reached for the receiver, then pulled her hand back. An old habit, that was all. Emergency calls came on the weekend. There was no need to take an emergency call to a firm of which she was no longer a part. The ringing stopped; the call went to the mailbox. Whatever it was, Adam would get the message Monday.
She taped up the last box and was about to crawl back into her coat when she heard a faint metallic sound, like keys clinking together, coming from somewhere in the building. There had been noises yesterday evening, too. When she was leaving, she’d run into the dentist from the office downstairs, on his way out after treating a patient with a toothache.
The ringing started again. She stared at the phone, counting the rings. Three. Four. She leaned across the desk and picked up the receiver.
“Vicky Holden,” she said.
“Oh, thank God you’re there.” Lucille Montana’s voice was edged with barely controlled hysteria. “I been calling your apartment, and I been calling the office. I didn’t know what . . .”
Vicky cut in, “Tell me what happened, Lucille.”
“They came for him.”
“Lucille, start at the beginning.”
“Busting into the house, like that, Detective Burton with two deputies and some rez cops. What right do they got to bust in that way?”
“Wait a minute. You’re saying they broke through your door?”
“Soon’s I opened the door after I hear somebody pounding, they bust right in, not waiting for me to say it was okay, and that detective shouting, ‘Where’s Frankie?’ It scared the shit outta me. I think I said, ‘What d’ya want him for?’ I can’t even remember for sure. One deputy looks in the kitchen, then heads down the hall to the bedrooms, and Burton’s saying they got a warrant for Frankie’s arrest and they’re executing the warrant.”
“On what charges?” Vicky sank onto the edge of the chair. She could feel the answer in the pit of her stomach. Burton had found the evidence to link Frankie to the murders.
“Homicide!” The woman was shouting down the line. “Four counts of homicide. I told that detective he was crazy, and all the time, I’m looking down the hallway expecting to see that deputy dragging Frankie into the living roo
m, and I’m praying, Vicky, like I never prayed in my life, that Frankie heard all the commotion and got himself hidden in the closet or something.”
“Try to be calm,” Vicky said. “They’ll take him to the county jail. I’m on my way over. Frankie will have a court hearing first thing Monday, and I’ll do my best to get him released. Can you put the house up to secure the bond?” She’d done that before, Vicky was thinking.
There was hesitation, then a sputtering noise, like a small engine trying to turn over. “There was gunshots, Vicky.”
“Gunshots!”
“Frankie must’ve heard the racket, ’cause the deputy comes running down the hallway and says, ‘He jumped out the window,’ and they all went running outdoors. I went after ’em, and I see Frankie’s footprints dug into the ground, like he was pounding hard, all the way to where he parked the pickup. I seen what the gunshots was all about. There was a cop out back, like they expected Frankie to run, and that cop went running after him. He was shooting off his gun, like he’s a real big man gonna shoot Frankie in the back. It made me sick, Vicky. I thought I was gonna throw up, thinking Frankie could’ve been dead, but he made it to the pickup and he was out on the road. Those cops jumped into their cars and went after him, but he was gone, Vicky. It was like that road was bare.”
Except for the tire tracks, Vicky thought. The police had probably already caught up with Frankie Montana. The man was probably in custody, with more charges piled onto the homicide charges: resisting arrest, eluding officers. Burton would come up with a whole list of charges, enough to ensure that, even if Frankie beat the homicide charges, he was looking at prison.
“Listen, Lucille,” Vicky said. “I’ll find out where Frankie is.”
“They didn’t get him.”
“How do you know?”
“I called the sheriff. They said he didn’t get arrested. They called him a suspect at large. They’re looking all over the rez for him right now. They’re gonna shoot him, Vicky.”
“Don’t let yourself think like that.”
“I’m telling you. They blame him for all the trouble them murders have stirred up, and they want to put an end to it, so they’ll just shoot him.”
“I’ll get back to you,” Vicky said, then punched the off button. The receiver felt like a piece of lead in her hand. A crackling noise came from somewhere in the building, barely registering on her consciousness. Suppose Lucille was right? She could imagine the scenario. A couple of cops spot Frankie’s pickup out in the middle of the reservation somewhere and force him off the road. Frankie takes off running again, and the cops shoot. Shoot to kill the crazy Arapaho who wants to start a war on the reservation. It would be over with, wouldn’t it? The best solution for everyone, except Lucille. And Frankie . . .
Vicky closed her eyes a moment and pressed her thumb and forefinger against her eyelids, unable to stop the idea working its way into her mind: Frankie Montana could be guilty.
She tapped out the number for the sheriff’s department and listened to the intermittent buzzing noise. “Fremont County Sheriff.” A woman’s voice.
“This is Vicky Holden,” she said. “Put me through to Detective Burtton. It’s an emergency.”
“He’s not in the office,” The woman said. “I’ll connect you to his voice mail.”
“Hang up!”
Vicky swung around in the chair. The receiver slipped from her hand and crashed against the edge of the desk before thudding onto the floor. Frankie Montana was bracing himself in the doorway, a hand on one side, as if he were holding up the frame. He was coatless, his blue shirt plastered against his chest with perspiration. The Velcro tabs on his boots hung at the sides. In his hand was a small, black gun.
“Now you’re gonna help me,” he said, holding out the gun.
Vicky took a couple of seconds, trying to slow down the thoughts tumbling through her head. She was alone in the office, probably in the whole building, with a man running from the police, a desperate man with a gun.
“Come in and sit down, Frankie,” she heard herself saying. It surprised her, how calm her voice sounded. “We’ve got some options. Let’s talk about them.”
“Yeah, we got an option, all right. You’re my option.”
“Sit down, Frankie,” she said again.
“You and me, we’re gettin’ outta here.”
“Frankie.” She drew out the man’s name, reaching for the next words. “Don’t make things any worse than they are. I can talk to Burton, tell him you’re ready to turn yourself in, and maybe he’ll agree to overlook what happened at the house . . .”
“You gone psycho or somethin’? Well, ain’t that just great. All I need’s a psycho lawyer. You and me, Vicky, you’re drivin’ me out of here.”
“How far do you think we’ll get, Frankie? Every cop in the area is looking for you right now. It won’t take them long to trace you here and figure out that you took my Jeep.”
“Wrong on all the above. Them dumb cops are gonna find my pickup in back of a motel up on the highway, and it’s gonna take ’em awhile to figure out which piece of crap I hot-wired to get outta there. Even if they get real smart and figure I got you with me, they’re not gonna be shooting at no vehicle that you’re inside. Besides, by the time they know what happened, you and me are gonna be in a real safe hiding place. You’re my stay-out-of-prison pass. Get my drift?”
“You don’t want to do that, Frankie. You’d be making a huge mistake.”
“They’re not sending me to prison, I tol’ you before.” The gun was waving back and forth, like a pendulum. Vicky tried to pull her eyes away.
“You didn’t listen to me,” Frankie went on. “You tol’ me to go find another lawyer, when you should’ve been talking to the detective and telling him how I’m innocent so he’d get off my back. I figure you’re to blame for everything that’s come down, so you’re gonna keep me out of prison.”
“Let me call your mother.” A new tack. God, let it work. “She’s worried sick.”
The man dropped his hands and took a step inside the office. “You ain’t so high and mighty now, are you? Not like you was in the bar a couple days ago.” He let out a low guffaw. “She loves you, and God knows why,” he said, switching into a falsetto voice. Then he threw his head toward the outer office. “We’re gettin’ outta here now,” he said, pointing the gun at her face. “Let’s go.”
26
VICKY STOOD UP slowly, not taking her eyes from the black pistol that Frankie Montana was waving in her direction. The man was crazy. His eyes burned like coals in his skull; sweat glistened on his face. He was high on something. Alcohol? Drugs? Probably both. The slightest twitch of nerves and the gun would go off.
Vicky kept her gaze on the black metal gun moving back and forth. “Put the gun away, Frankie,” she said again, struggling to keep her voice steady. The calm courtroom voice, the one she reserved for the hostile witness who wouldn’t give up anything until, worn down by calmness and persistence, he might reluctantly let go of whatever he had been clinging to.
“I said we’re gettin’ outta here, you and me.”
Vicky didn’t move for a moment, and then she started to pull on her coat still draped across her shoulders.
“Hold it!” The gun protruded into the room, the muzzle gaping like an endless black tunnel.
“I was just getting on my coat,” she said, her gaze still fixed on the weapon.
“Real slow.” Now Frankie waved the gun up and down. “Don’t try any funny stuff or I swear, I swear I’ll pull the fucking trigger.”
Vicky stuffed one arm into the sleeve. Slow motion, pulling up the collar—how familiar it felt, the soft, comforting wool. “Can I get my handbag? It’s on the floor.”
Frankie seemed to consider this, the brown brow wrinkling with arguments playing out inside his head. He nodded finally, then motioned her forward with the gun. “Get a move on.”
Vicky reached down and picked up the black leather bag. “I’m g
oing with you, Frankie,” she said, locking eyes with the man. A crazy, drugged murderer. God, God, God. “So put the gun down. Those things can go off. I don’t think you want that to happen.”
Frankie didn’t move for so long that she feared it was exactly what he wanted to happen. Finally, he lowered the gun. His arm hung at his side, the gun brushing his pant leg, pointing to the floor. “You try anything . . .”
“I know, I know.” Vicky walked around the desk, across the office, and through the doorway, moving past the man who took a half-step back. She felt him lurch after her as she crossed the corridor and turned toward the elevator, the raspy sound of his breathing close behind.
“Take the stairs.” A sharp object poked through her coat into the small of her back, nudging her in the direction of the stairway. She went weak-kneed with the realization that he was poking the gun into her.
She dragged one hand along the corridor wall to steady herself and tried to hurry ahead. Frankie Montana stayed with her, the gun burning into her back. Their boots pounded on the stairs, an out-of-sync rhythm, and rising from below was a metallic clinking noise. Through the rails, Vicky caught the glimpse of dark hair above a tan overcoat leaning into one of the doors on the first floor. The dentist who’d been in yesterday evening was letting himself into his office. She grabbed hold of the top rail and hurled herself down the remaining stairs. Now she could see that standing about two feet farther down the corridor was a heavyset man bundled in a dark coat with a scarf hanging down the front.
A moment. She needed only a moment.
“Working this morning?” she called.
The dentist turned the key in the lock, pushed the door open a couple of inches, and glanced along the corridor toward where the stairs spilled into the entry at the same time that the man standing next to him also threw a pained, impatient look her way. In that moment, in the look she tried to hurl back at them both, she hoped they would see . . .
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