“He didn’t kill the Shoshones.” Vicky’s voice was so soft that Father John had to lean closer to hear.
“Listen to me, Vicky,” he said again. “Do you know where he is? We can’t leave him out in the cold.”
“We’re leaving him,” Adam said. The tires had settled into the tracks, and the pickup was rocketing dangerously backward down the road.
“Hold up, for Godsakes!” Father John heard himself shouting. His own sense of disbelief filled the cab like an unseen presence.
“All I care about is getting Vicky to the hospital and making sure she’s okay.” Adam didn’t take his eyes off the rear window.
“Stop the pickup and let me out.”
“What? Are you nuts?” For the briefest moment, Adam glanced across Vicky and locked eyes with Father John. “You want to die out there with a murderer?”
Father John felt the pressure of Vicky’s hand against his and he realized that she was trying to say something. He bent his head close to her.
“The house,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “We ran out of gas. We had to hike to the house.”
“Frankie’s in a house?” He repeated, making certain he’d heard it right.
“Up there.” Vicky tossed her head sideways toward the mountain sloping into the darkness. “I got away.”
For the first time, Father John felt himself begin to relax. Vicky was beginning to sound like herself. She was herself. Somehow she’d gotten away from Frankie Montana. She’d fled whatever house he’d taken her to. The man might not even know she was gone, but when he figured it out—when he figured it out, he would come after her.
Father John held her close for a moment. Thank God. Thank God. They’d gotten to her before Frankie had found her. He could almost sense the same wave of relief washing over Adam, still twisted around, peering out the rear window, one hand gripping the wheel.
“Frankie’s innocent,” Vicky said.
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Adam said, but in a gentle way. He might have been correcting a child. “You want to believe he’s innocent, that’s all. He took you hostage at gunpoint. Drove you up here where there’s nobody around. God knows what he might have done if you hadn’t gotten away. The man’s capable of anything.”
“What makes you think he didn’t kill the Shoshones?” Father John kept his eyes lowered on Vicky. She’d reached up, pushed away the blanket, and leaned her head back against the seat. Light from the dashboard glowed on her face. There was a hint of color coming into her cheeks.
“He didn’t do it, John,” she said.
They might have been the only ones in the pickup, Father John thought, or maybe it was just that she sensed that he was the one who believed her.
“He’s scared,” she went on. “He’s out of his mind with the fear of prison.”
“So he kidnaps you?” Adam didn’t try to hide the disdain. “He just bought himself a one-way ticket to prison, Vicky. He’s guilty as hell.”
“Not of homicide.” She hesitated. “I feel sorry for him.”
“My God, Vicky,” Adam said.
“He didn’t make the tape recording, John,” Vicky said. They were alone again.
“What are you talking about?” Adam slowed the pickup until it skidded to a stop. Squaring himself to the front, he shifted into forward and, giving the wheel a sharp turn, began maneuvering the pickup around a depression in the road. Then they were hurtling forward down the tracks.
“The taped messages about the bodies at Bates,” Father John told the man. The tracks emptied into the highway ahead, and Adam eased on the brake and pulled the steering wheel into the turn. The tires made a thumping noise against the asphalt under the snow. Far below, flashing through the trees, were the signs of life: headlights flashing, dots of lights flickering through the black expanse of trees.
“The radio station threatened to call the cops if Frankie showed up in the parking lot,” Vicky went on, as if the interruption hadn’t occurred. “He says he hasn’t been near the place.”
“He’s lying,” Adam said.
Maybe not, Father John was thinking. Vicky had spent most of the day with Frankie. He’d held her at gunpoint. She had every reason to hate him, and yet . . . she felt sorry for him. She had the sense that the man was desperate. Father John had learned to trust her feelings, even when he hadn’t understood, even when they had seemed so—What was it? Illogical? Someone could have gone to a lot of trouble to make Frankie Montana look like the killer. A perfect setup with the perfect fall guy.
They were plunging down the highway, the glow of lights in Lander rising toward them. Adam had pulled out a cell and was holding it in one hand, the tips of his gloved fingers working the keys while his other hand gripped the rim of the steering wheel. He pressed the cell against one ear. “Patch me through to Detective Burton,” he barked. A moment passed, then, “Adam Lone Eagle here. We found Vicky in Sinks Canyon. Montana took her to one of the houses he broke into last fall. He’s still holed up there.”
“I left him tied up,” Vicky said.
Father John dropped his head and peered at her, aware that Adam had taken his eyes off the road and was also staring at her. “You tied him up?” Adam said.
The incredulity in the man’s voice matched his own surprise, Father John thought. Beneath the layers of the blanket and her coat, he could feel Vicky give a little shrug of her shoulders. “Frankie was passed out,” she said.
“Montana could be tied up,” Adam said into the cell. “That’s right. Tied up.” Another pause. “Yeah, maybe he’s gotten himself free by now. The pickup’s out of gas. He can either try to hike out or stay put. I’d say he’ll stay put.”
Adam hit another key and slipped the cell across his chest into the inside pocket of his sheepskin coat. “It’ll be awhile before Burton can get a couple of cars up there,” he said, his eyes glued to the windshield and the snow-slicked street running into the western edges of town. “They’ll get that bastard.”
A couple of blocks back, Father John had spotted the blue sign with the white H and the arrow pointing in the direction of the hospital. The inside of the pickup was beginning to feel like a sauna, but Vicky was still shivering. He could feel the sudden, jerky spasms beneath the layers of blanket and coat. He stopped himself from telling Adam to step on it. There was no need. Parked vehicles, trees, bungalows flashed by in a blur of falling snow and shadows. The man had the accelerator floored.
FATHER JOHN AND Adam left the hospital and walked together in silence across the parking lot to the spot where Adam had left the pickup after they’d taken Vicky to the emergency entrance. She would be fine, the doctor had assured them. A big man, blond hair, reddish face, green scrubs, and white athletic shoes, exuding confidence. Just fine. Oh, she’d been close to hypothermia, but they’d gotten her body temperature back up, almost normal. She had some frostbite on her toes and fingers, a little frostbite on her nose and ears. And a mild concussion. They’d keep her for observation tonight. If all went well, and he certainly expected that would be the case, she could go home tomorrow. She should rest a few days, take it easy.
“I’ll get Vicky at the hospital in the morning,” Adam said.
They were at the pickup, and Father John opened the passenger door and got inside.
“Look, John.” The Lakota settled himself behind the steering wheel and went on. “I owe you an apology.”
“You don’t owe me . . .”
The man cut in, “I owe you an apology.” He started the engine, guided the pickup across the lot, and turned onto Bishop Randall Drive. “I knew you’d figured out where Montana had taken her the minute you called me. I didn’t want to admit that you knew where to find her. I wanted to find her, you see. I wanted to be her hero. I’m in love with her. I’m sure you can understand that.” He’d hurried on, not waiting for a response, and Father John had been grateful for that. There was no response. “I’m hoping she can learn to love me,” Adam said
.
Father John left his eyes on the man a moment, then turned back to the windshield. They were on Main Street now, pickups and sedans lumbering past, snow fanning from the wheels. The reflection of headlights shone in the storefront windows. “I’m not holding onto her,” he said.
“Oh, but you are,” Adam said.
IT WAS WHEN the road bent into Circle Drive and the headlights switched through the trees that Father John saw the vehicles in front of the administration building: a white van with a satellite dish fixed to the roof, two SUVs, and a couple of sedans. He pulled in next to the van with black letters sprawled across the side—KLTV—and slammed out of the pickup.
A half-dozen people began rising off the bench and peeling themselves away from the walls as Father John came through the front door. Father Ian was paddling through the crowd. “You have visitors, John,” he said.
Liam Harrison stepped around the other priest. “A few questions, Father O’Malley. Hope you don’t mind.” He ran his tongue over the tip of his index finger, flipped back the pages of the small pad cupped in his fleshy hand, and hurried on. “Looks like Arapahos and Shoshones are at war again, just like in Professor Lambert’s book. Shoshones are looking for revenge for the four men killed at Bates. What can you tell us, Father? They send you any clues, like the Arapahos did?”
“Clues about what?” Father John let his gaze run over the reporters craning around Harrison, two women, four men, clutching notepads and pens, with the stretched faces of wolves catching the first sniff of prey in the air.
“I tried to explain, John.” Ian elbowed past Harrison. “I told them you probably haven’t heard the news, but they insisted upon hanging around.”
“You’d better tell me, Ian.” Father John said. He could feel the tenseness in the atmosphere.
“Bunch of Shoshones went on a rampage in Ethete.” This from Harrison, waving the notepad. “Smashed up seven or eight vehicles with bats, hurled rocks through the windows at the gas station. Police arrested two men, but the rest got away. Hightailed it back to their own territory. Folks over in Fort Washakie are claiming they don’t know anything about the attack, putting on real innocent faces.”
“Looks like the first counterassault in a modern tribal war,” one of the women put in, dark haired with a bony, hawklike face, and the note of authority in her voice. “Did they send you any messages, Father?”
Father John was still trying to get his mind around the news. Skulking like a shadow at the back of his thoughts, he realized, was the possibility that Shoshones might retaliate for the murders at Bates, but he hadn’t wanted to admit it. He hadn’t wanted the shadow to emerge into the light.
“Was anyone hurt?” he asked.
“Not this time,” Harrison announced. Then he began hammering the questions: What do you know about Montana’s escape? Is it true his lawyer helped him get out of the county? You and Vicky Holden are friends, right? What’s their plan? Keep Montana out of jail while they plot a defense? Where d’ya think they went?
The questions rang like a gong in Father John’s head. And his answers would determine what came next: the black headlines waving like banners in tomorrow’s newspapers, proclaiming war between the tribes, summoning people to war. He could imagine the television news, the urgent voices filled with regret about the war that they had proclaimed.
He stole a glance at his watch. Ten minutes before the religious education meeting. Pickups would start rattling around Circle Drive at any moment. The reporters would have a field day swarming over his parishioners.
“You’re asking the wrong man.” Father John stepped back and pulled the door open. The cold whipped through the corridor, and a couple of the reporters set about turning up their collars and snapping the fronts of their jackets. New questions were crowding into his mind, now. If Frankie Montana didn’t lure the Shoshones out to Bates and murder them, who did? Who wanted to cause trouble on the reservation? Set Arapahos against Shoshones? Rip open old wounds and give the reporters the story they’d been hoping for?
He was only partly aware of ushering the reporters through the door, one arm swinging back and forth like a traffic cop—get out, get out—as if the motion of air could propel them outside. “Take your questions to Detective Burton,” he heard himself say, his thoughts stuck on Edie Bradbury and Jason Rizzo. He could see the girl, small and pale and blond, scared and hurt because Trent was going to break up with her. Turning to Rizzo . . .
She had turned to Rizzo at the hospital, it was true. Now the image of the man was in his head: big and round shouldered in his black leather jacket with all the metal studs and chains, the squinting eyes that had watched an Indian take his girl, the tattooed wolf running across his knuckles. Maybe Rizzo had worked out an elaborate scheme to get revenge, prove to Edie how tough he was. Maybe he’d overheard Trent Hunter and the other Shoshones at the Cowboy Bar and Grill, talking over plans to visit the Bates Battlefield last Saturday. Or maybe Edie had told him . . .
Maybe. But where was the evidence? It was Frankie Montana that Burton had charged with the homicides.
He’s not guilty. The sound of Vicky’s voice kept punctuating his thoughts, like the underlying rumble of a drum.
The reporters were out the door now, filing down the snow-swept steps glistening in the streetlamps, shoulders hunched against the falling snow. Liam Harrison was the last to leave, and Father John could see the reluctance in the forward pitch of the man’s head. He was halfway down the steps when he swung around. “You surprise me, Father O’Malley,” he said, turning his face up into the glow of light. “You think that not telling us what you know is gonna stop the war? You got your head stuck in the sand, Father. This war’s just getting started.”
Father John shut the door hard. He could still feel the tremor in his hand as he turned to the other priest stationed a few feet down the corridor. “The religious ed meeting is yours tonight,” he said.
Ian stared at him a moment. “Oh, that’s great,” he said. “What am I supposed to tell them when they ask where the pastor is?”
“You’ll think of something.” Father John reached around for the knob, pulled the door open, and headed out. He was backing the pickup into Circle Drive when he caught a glimpse of his assistant standing in the doorway, tracks of surprise and anger shadowing his face.
Father John shifted into forward and followed the other vehicles out to Seventeen-Mile Road. A few minutes later he was heading north on Highway 789 toward Riverton.
32
“COWBOY BAR AND Grill.” The red and yellow neon letters blinked into the snow from the sign over the parking lot. Pale streams of colored lights ran over the two or three pickups nosed against the brick building and across the snow churned up in the parking lot. Father John parked close to the front. The minute he opened the door, the smells of whiskey and beer slammed into him. He held his breath a moment and peered through the dim, smoky light of what might have been a log cabin, with log walls and plank floor. A couple of cowboys and their girlfriends sat at tables in the middle of the room, lingering over the remains of hamburgers and fries in plastic baskets with paper napkins poking over the tops, sipping at tall glasses of golden colored beer. Through a wide doorway, he could see other cowboys shooting pool.
Father John unsnapped his coat, headed over to the bar that hugged the wall on the right, and straddled a stool. The bartender moved down the other side of the bar. He had the look of a drill sergeant with a pale, clean-shaven face and a bald head that shimmered in the lights flashing from the Coors sign over the bottles lining the back wall.
“What’ll it be?” He slapped a white napkin onto the bar and fixed Father John with an annoyed stare. “You planning on eating, better get your order in right away. Kitchen’s getting ready to close.”
“Coffee,” Father John said.
The man drummed his knuckles on the bar. The knocking sound cut through the buzz of conversations behind them. “You come into a bar for a cup of coffee an
d that’s it? How about something to warm up the coffee?”
Father John lifted the palm of one hand off the bar and pushed away the suggestion. “I’m looking for somebody,” he said.
“If you’re a cop, you gotta be new around here. I know all the cops. What’re you? New FBI agent?”
“The pastor at St. Francis Mission.”
The man rocked backwards. New flecks of interest came into his eyes. “No kidding! You wouldn’t be looking for your partner, now would you? Haven’t seen him tonight, but sometimes he comes in later. Not looking for food, just like you. Only he likes a couple shots of Jim Beam.”
Father John didn’t say anything. He glanced around at the smoke wafting over the tables, the cowboys leaning on elbows, balancing cigarettes between thumb and first two fingers, never moving the cigarettes more than an inch from their lips. It explained so much, he was thinking. It explained everything: the evenings away from the mission—just visiting folks, Ian said—the visits to the hospital that turned into long afternoons and missed dinners. Ian was here. But then, hadn’t he known? Ian was a controlled alcoholic, wasn’t that what he called himself? He could control his drinking, and it wasn’t his fault—now was it?—that Father John couldn’t do the same.
He turned back to the bar. A mug of coffee sat in front of him, a little ribbon of steam curling upward. He picked up the mug and took a sip. He could feel the hot liquid burning a line down his chest. “I’m looking for a man named Jason Rizzo,” he said. “Does he come around here?”
“Ah!” The bartender thumped his fist on the edge of the bar. “I know who you are now. The Indian priest that found those dead Shoshones at Bates. You ask me, them Indians was nice guys. Never give me any guff. Used to come in here two, three times a week, order up hamburgers and coffee, maybe some beer, sit over there.” He nodded toward the table near the door where a cowboy had slipped his arm around the woman beside him and was blowing into her blond hair. “They was students at the college. Liked to sit around here and kibbitz, you know what I mean? Talk about whatever they was studying. Sometimes they’d sit over there with their books propped up in front of ’em, eating their hamburgers and not talking, just reading. Cops get that Arapaho that killed them yet? Hear him and his Arapaho lawyer hightailed it out of the county.”
Eye of the Wolf Page 26