Eye of the Wolf

by Margaret Coel

  “You know him?” Father John took another sip of coffee.

  “Frankie Montana? Yeah, I know that Arapaho and that piece of shit, Rizzo.” He leaned down over the bar, and the sour smell of his breath floated upward. “They’re the same, you ask me. Troublemakers. Couple months ago, I made Rizzo persona non grata, you get my drift. Shows his butt around here and my buddies”—he tossed his head toward the cowboys shooting pool in the back—“are gonna make him wish he’d gone someplace else.”

  The man pulled a white towel out from beneath the counter and began snapping it against the edge. “Should’ve tossed Montana out the same time. Sitting over there.” He nodded toward the table in back. “Hell, I didn’t mind pouring his beer, long as he was paying. He was always watchin’ the Shoshones. Sometimes he’d start shouting how he was gonna beat their asses, show ’em Arapahos was boss, stuff like that. One night he came roaring in here shouting how the Shoshones stole his rifle out of his pickup and how it was my fault ’cause I don’t run a secure parking lot where folks can leave things without them damn Indians making off with ’em, and how I was gonna pay him for his rifle. That’s when I said, ‘Montana, shut up, or you’re outta here.’ Hell, should’ve run him out then, except I’d get charged with discriminating against Indians. Should’ve done it anyway. Turns out he’s a fucking killer. They ain’t never gonna catch that Indian. Guy like that knows how to run and hide.”

  “Why did you ban Rizzo?” Father John said.

  The bald head was shaking, lights dancing across the scalp. The towel snapped two or three times. “Started a fight out in the parking lot with the Shoshones, ’cause one of ’em, Trent Hunter it was, took up with his girlfriend.” He gave a snort that sounded like he was blowing his nose. “White supremacist sure as hell didn’t like that! One time he barged in here, took hold of the girl, and dragged her out of the chair. Dragged her across the floor like she was a rag doll. Would’ve dragged her on out the door, you ask me, if them Shoshones hadn’t jumped up and went after him. I jumped over this here bar, and me and my buddies let him have a taste of this.” He made a fist and shook it over the bar like a club. “That’s when I tol’ him, ‘Don’t show your butt around here.’ ”

  Father John kept working at his coffee. He didn’t say anything. He knew from years of counseling not to interrupt a train of thought after it had started.

  The bartender rolled his thick shoulders and went on, “She was a pretty thing, real thin and pale. Looked like a good wind would knock her over. Looked scared all the time, but for a couple months there, Hunter seemed to be looking out for her, you know what I mean? After a while, that Shoshone cooled off, you ask me. Maybe got tired of taking care of her, how do I know? Maybe got tired of waiting for Rizzo to jump out of the shadows, but I seen that she wasn’t coming in with him lately. Couple of times she came in looking for him, that’s all I know.”

  “When was the last time you saw Montana?” he said.

  “Bastard didn’t show up for last couple of weeks. Happiest weeks in my life. Then, three, four days ago, he’s back there in his so-called office, drinking beer.” He jammed a finger at the coffee mug. “Want a refill?”

  Father John gave the mug a nudge. It was making sense, he thought, watching the steaming liquid arch out of the pot. Then the bartender turned around and began swishing the empty pot through the water in a sink. Frankie’s story about somebody stealing his rifle out in the parking lot, and Lou Hunter’s story about Trent breaking up with Edie. All making sense, adding up to . . . what? He was juggling a lot of propositions, none of which fit into a logical pattern. There was no logical conclusion.

  But there was something. He took another draw of coffee. It washed down easily, lukewarm now. Neither Rizzo nor Montana had come to the Cowboy Bar and Grill before the murders, which meant they couldn’t have overheard the Shoshones talking about going to Bates. And there was something else; Father John could still hear the voice of Lou Crispin: My boys said they was gonna meet somebody. Trent and the Crispin brothers had gone to Bates to meet somebody they had trusted. They would never have trusted Montana or Rizzo.

  But there was still the girl. Hunter would have trusted the girl.

  Father John drained the last of the coffee, pulled a dollar bill out of his jeans pocket, and pushed it across the bar. “Thanks,” he said to the bartender’s back.

  The man was still swishing the glasses. He stopped and turned around, wiping his hands on the towel tied at his waist. “You ask me, neither of them white girls oughtta be hanging around them Indians. Sooner or later, there’s gonna be trouble. See what happened to them Shoshones? Shot dead out on some old battlefield. Could’ve happened to them girls, too, you ask me.”

  “There was another girl?” Father John straddled the stool again.

  “A real looker.” The bartender spread his hands under his chest, as if he were palming two basketballs. “You get my drift? Every cowboy in the place had his eyes bugging out when she came in the place.”

  “Any idea of who she is?”

  “Student, like them others, you ask me. Always carrying books. Propped ’em up on the table like the rest of ’em.”

  “When was the last time she came in?”

  “Right before them Shoshones got themselves shot. I remember it real clear, ’cause after I read about the murders, I got to wondering if she was ever gonna come back. Sure enough, I haven’t seen hide or hair of her since. What a shame. Always tried to treat her real good. Fill up her Coke glass for nothing. I was hoping maybe she liked more about the place than just them Shoshones. It was good for business, with her popping in. Like I say, the cowboys got themselves a real eyeful.”

  “What did she look like?”

  “Like I say, a real eyeful. Some kinda body, I mean, like in your dreams. Real pretty, lots of dark hair and big, gorgeous eyes.”

  Father John thanked the man again. This time he got to his feet and crossed to the door, one eye on the table where the cowboy and his girlfriend had their heads bent together, drawing on cigarettes, blowing smoke out of the corner’s of their mouths. The same table where Trent Hunter, the Crispin brothers, Edie Bradbury, and another girl—a real looker—liked to sit.

  He hurried past the building to the pickup, the wind whipping the snow about, pushing him along. There was another student, a girl. Somebody else who might know about Bates. Somebody else who might have had reason to lure the Shoshones to their deaths.

  THE MISSION LOOKED deserted. The windows in the administration building were dark and no vehicles were outside Eagle Hall; the meeting was over. Father John parked next to Ian’s sedan in front of the residence. A faint light from the television flickered in the living-room windows.

  Walks-On was waiting in the entry. He scratched the dog’s ears, then set his coat and hat on the bench and went down the hall, the dog’s nails clicking beside him. Through the arch to the living room, he glimpsed the figure of his assistant slumped on the sofa, legs extended across the coffee table. The man might have been asleep; Father John wasn’t sure. Quiet, peaceful even, the dim light washing over his face.

  In the kitchen, they went through the same routine, he and Walks-On. He shook out the dog’s food, waited until he’d finished slurping the bowl clean, and let him out the back door. His own dinner was waiting in the oven, the odors of grease and fried chicken hanging in the air. After a few minutes, the dog was scratching at the door. Father John let him in and went back down the hall. He walked into the living room and stared at the television. The hawk-nosed, dark-haired woman on the screen, brushing at the snow blowing into her face, stood outside the convenience store in Ethete. Brown boards covered the store’s windows. “This afternoon, a mob of Shoshones attacked the Arapaho community of Ethete. Authorities believe the attack was in reprisal for . . .”

  Father John had lifted the remote from the coffee table and pushed the power button. He turned to the priest slumped on the sofa. “I want you to go back into rehab, Ian,” he
said.

  The man jerked upright and planted his feet on the floor. “We’ve been over this.”

  “You’re stopping at bars several times a week.”

  “So what’s the big deal? I can control it.”

  “You say you like it here,” Father John said. “I think you hate it. So you’re setting yourself up. You know you can’t stay here and drink.”

  The other priest began studying the dark television screen, as if he were trying to figure out what had become of the program. “You plan to take this up with the Provincial?” he said.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t.”

  “I don’t care what you tell the Provincial about me, Ian.” Father John went over to the phone on the table under the window. He picked up the receiver and held it out to the other priest. “Call him now, if you like.”

  “He’ll reassign you.”

  “He’s going to do that sooner or later.”

  Ian waved the receiver away. He set his elbow on the armrest and blew into his fist a moment. “What’re we talking about? How many weeks?”

  “There’s an outpatient program in town,” Father John said. “You could start there, see how it goes.”

  It was a couple of seconds before the other priest said anything, and when he did, his voice was so low that Father John had to lean over the back of the sofa to catch the words. “I’ll think about it,” he said, leaning forward, patting the surface of the coffee table. Finally, his fingers wrapped around the remote, which he pointed at the television. The news returned, a gray-haired man behind a desk, another story.

  33

  IT WAS ALMOST noon by the time Father John drove out of the mission grounds and turned toward Riverton. The sky was gray, shot through with white streaks from the sun that lingered somewhere behind the clouds. It had stopped snowing sometime in the middle of the night, but it might start again; there was the feel of snow in the silence pressing over the trailers and warehouses that passed outside the pickup’s windows.

  He’d said the ten o’clock Mass and spent an hour over coffee and doughnuts in Eagle Hall, trying to calm the fear and worry in the eyes of his parishioners. There wasn’t going to be any tribal war. Yes, a gang of Shoshones had gone on a rampage yesterday, but the police would arrest them. And the Sunday newspaper—the black, inch-high headline—had stated that the killer had been arrested. Last night, at a house in Sinks Canyon, Frankie Montana was taken into custody.

  And all the time that he was assuring his parishioners, he’d tried to shake off the sense that the truth was something else, that the killer was still walking around free.

  He slowed into the rhythm of the traffic moving north on Federal. He wasn’t sure where he’d find Edie Bradbury. A couple of miles back, he’d punched in her number on the cell. Three rings, then a mechanical voice at the other end: “The number you have reached has been disconnected.” He’d tossed the cell onto the passenger seat and headed west for the little house behind the Victorian.

  “WHAT’RE YOU DOING here?” The voice was low and wispy. The door had slid inward as Father John was knocking, and now the girl was moving backward, pulling the door open. She reminded him of a child again, swallowed up in dark sweatshirt and baggy pants. There was a disheveled look about her: mussed hair, lips set in a thin white line, and dark shadows under eyes that looked hard and hopeless.

  “I’d like to talk to you, Edie,” he said.

  She took a half-step forward, craned her head around the door, and peered up and down the street. “Okay.” Still the wispy voice. Then she pivoted toward one of the webbed folding chairs with clothes and towels stuffed onto the seats and spilling over the armrests. Her sneakers made a scraping noise on the floor. Above the chairs, the oblong window with the crooked shade framed a view of the elm branches. There was a musty odor about the place—dirty clothes, spoiled food, and stale air.

  “Sit down, if you want,” Edie said, giving a little wave toward the futon across the room.

  Father John waited until she’d swept the pile of clothes from one of the chairs and dropped onto the seat, and then he perched on the futon. He took off his hat and, bracing his elbows on his thighs, leaned forward, holding the hat between his knees. “How are you getting along?” he asked.

  “You come over here for that?”

  “Partly.”

  “Partly!” Her head started shaking, almost like an involuntary spasm. A faint red flush moved up her throat and into her cheeks. “I know what you want. You wanna help that Arapaho that killed Trent. Well, he’s going to prison for what he done, and I hope he rots there.”

  “I want to know how you’re getting along, Edie,” Father John said.

  She leaned into the webbed back of the chair, something new moving behind her eyes, as if she wasn’t so sure now that the two realities fit together: the Indian priest sitting in her living room and the Arapaho arrested for homicide. “Jason’s looking out for me,” she said finally.

  “You and the baby?”

  The girl looked away, her gaze traveling across the wall, the dark spots in the vinyl floor, finally moving to her hands clasped in the lap of her baggy pants. “He doesn’t want the baby. You can’t blame him none. I mean, an Indian baby. Everything’s gonna be okay. I got an appointment at the clinic.”

  Father John waited until she’d brought her eyes back up to his. “You don’t have to stay with him, Edie,” he said. “You can come to the mission. You can come with me right now.”

  She gave an abrupt laugh that sounded almost like a sob. “Then what? Where do I go?”

  “You’ll go on, Edie. You and the baby will go on.” He waited a moment, and then he said, “You know what Moses said?”

  “You gonna quote the Bible to me now?”

  “No.” Father John smiled at the girl. “Just Moses. When you have a choice between life and death, Moses said, choose life.” He let another couple of beats pass. The girl’s face was rigid, her lips pulled again into the hard line, but her hand—he noticed her hand—lay flat against her belly. “Nobody knows where they’re going in the future,” he said. “That’s the thing about life. Life is full of possibilities.”

  “I made up my mind.” She was staring again at the wall. “So maybe you oughtta go. Jason could show up, and he wouldn’t like your being here.”

  Father John got to his feet. “There’s something else, Edie,” he said.

  The girl tilted her head back and turned her face up to him, one hand still on her belly. “Did you know that Trent planned to go to Bates on the day he was killed?”

  “What, so I could go out there and shoot him?” She started shaking her head again—another spasm. “You don’t get it, do you? I loved Trent. I really loved him, and he loved me. So maybe he was pulling away; so what? Maybe he was scared about the baby. Maybe he needed some time to think. Everything would’ve worked out.” Her voice was cracking now, and she started to sob. She lifted her hand and pressed it over her mouth.

  “Then he went and got killed,” she managed. The words were blurred and broken. “I wanted to go with him to Bates. The professor said we all ought to go, and I wanted to see the place. I would’ve gone if Trent had told me he was going. I would’ve been with him. I would’ve died at Bates, too. I wish I’d died there.”

  Father John walked over and set his hand on the girl’s shoulder. He could feel the tremors erupting from someplace deep inside her. “You’re alive, Edie. You have your life, and your life is important and necessary. You must remember that.”

  It was a moment before she nodded, wiping the palm of her hand over her cheeks, pushing away the moisture. When she looked up at him again, he said, “I know you loved Trent.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut a moment and bit at her lower lip. “Frankie Montana killed him,” she said. “He killed all of them. He’s the one tried to cause trouble over at the Cowboy Bar. Why don’t you just forget it?”

  Father John took his han
d from her shoulder. “There were other students who came to the bar with you and Trent, weren’t there?”

  “Rex and Joe,” she said. “We all hung out together, until Trent started getting weird on me, saying go back to the house, he’d catch up with me later. I knew he was gonna go get a burger with the others and didn’t want me around.” She shrugged. “So I just came back here, and I waited.”

  “Anybody else?”

  She lifted her eyes, as if the names were scrawled on the ceiling. “Different guys. I mean, it wasn’t like we were some kind of exclusive club. Class got over just before five, and whoever felt like it would head for the Cowboy and something to eat.”

  “What about the other girl.”

  “Other girl?” Edie’s head snapped back. “What other girl?”

  “Another student. The bartender told me he saw both of you there a couple of times.”

  “Oh, God.” She looked away and shook her head. “You had me worried for a minute. She isn’t any student, not at the college anyway. I guess she’s writing her dissertation. You mean Mrs. Lambert, the professor’s wife.”

  “The professor’s wife hung out with students at the Cowboy Bar?” Father John could hear the incredulity in his voice.

  “It wasn’t like she was one of the gang.” The girl laughed at this. “I mean, she helped out the professor a lot in class. Passing out papers, giving exams. You ask me, Professor Lambert’s not in great shape, so sometimes she was looking after him, like if he was having a bad day. She’d be there, hovering over him. I mean, she’d look like she was ready to pick him up off the floor. So we got to know her, that’s all, and she was real interested in the class. I heard she helped the professor write his book on the tribal wars. Couple times she showed up at the bar and had a hamburger with us. You ask me, she liked being with people closer to her own age once in a while. I mean, the professor’s a great man and all, but he’s so . . .”