The voice drifted into the sound of the wind sighing through the canyon. Then the only sound was that of the wind. Ethan stepped back, and now it was the Shoshone elder, Hanson Tindall, moving forward, lifting his hands. “God is with us,” he said. “Dam Apua dame mash. God’s spirit fills everywhere on earth and above us. Dam Apua Swap bash meripegan oiont dam sogovant des damevant.” He went on for another few moments, asking the Creator for forgiveness and peace, and when his voice had faded into the quiet of the wind, the music started again, the drumming and the singing somehow louder and freer than before.
The two elders were stooping over the fire. Finally they stood upright, each holding out a large pan, smoke pouring over the rims. Inside the pans, Father John knew—there had been so many ceremonies—sage burned in the hot coals of cottonwood chips. They held up the pans so that the smoke floated toward the sky and the Creator before it began drifting into the crowd. Then the elders turned and held the pans toward the canyon, moving toward the right, and then the left, until the cleansing smoke seemed to be everywhere, reclaiming the canyon floor and slopes above. Facing the crowd again, the elders kept the pans aloft, letting the smoke bind all of the people together.
The blessing ceremony was over now. Knots of people began drifting back toward the vehicles parked outside the canyon. The noise of engines bursting into life erupted over the scuff of boots in the grass and brush and the subdued buzz of voices. Father John made his way among the small groups hanging back, reluctance in the slope of their shoulders, as if in leaving the place where the young men had died, they would sever contact with them. He told the families again how sorry he was, grasping hands, patting shoulders. He lingered with Trent’s parents for a few moments, and when other people who had come up to pay their condolences had finally peeled away, he said, “Trent’s girlfriend is here.”
“Figured that’s the white girl you brought along.” Trent’s father said, and his tone had a forced note in it, punctuating the point that the information had nothing to do with the family.
“She’s staying at the mission awhile,” Father John pushed on.
Trent’s mother looked up from the ground that she’d been studying, eyes lit with interest, as if a new thought had started growing. “Where is she?” the woman said.
Father John scanned the groups of people still picking their way out of the canyon. He saw her then, the blond head weaving through a cluster of black heads. “She’s going to the pickup,” he said, aware that the woman’s gaze was following his own. Then he told the woman about Edie. A job as a receptionist in Riverton. Plans to return to school in the fall. Plans for the future.
The man looked away and launched into a commentary on the ceremony and how the evil spirits would no longer dwell at Bates, how the spirits of his son and the other dead men could now rest in peace.
Father John said he hoped that was the case. He searched the man’s eyes, looking for the faintest shadow of interest in Edie Bradbury. There was none. Finally, he shook the Shoshone’s hand, patted the woman’s arm, and fell in with the other relatives who had started toward the vehicles. Walking alongside them, step by step. Thinking this was right, the Indian priest at this time and in this place, the brown faces turning to him filled with the expectation of comfort and understanding and he trying to summon the words.
He spotted Edie Bradbury’s blond head again, bobbing among the black heads clustered around her. And he realized that Trent’s mother and father had moved ahead somehow and were talking to the girl. And they were smiling. My God, they were smiling and nodding, and Trent’s mother was patting the girl’s belly. Father John watched them for several moments. A lightness had settled over the battlefield, it seemed, as if the last of the darkness had been banished. It was right.
He found himself looking around.
Vicky would be here. Surely, she was here. It wasn’t until he glanced back at the canyon that he spotted her, standing alone near the spot where he had found Trent Hunter’s body, the spot where the Lamberts had died. He broke away from the others and retraced his steps, past the place where he’d stood, past the place where the elders had made the circle and blessed the battlefield.
“How are you?” he said when he came up to her.
“I’ll be fine.” Not looking up, her gaze trained along the canyon, and he had the sense that she’d been waiting for him. “I’m giving Lone Eagle and Holden another chance,” she said, turning to him, an almost imperceptible flash of hope in her eyes.
“I’m very glad, Vicky,” he heard himself saying, and he meant it. Yes, he meant it, he told himself. It was right that she and Adam should build a life together. Partners in a law firm, partners in life. It was right that it should work out.
Footsteps were coming up on them. Those would be Adam’s footsteps, he knew, even before the man stepped next to Vicky. Then Father John heard his own voice again, the stream of platitudes: congratulations, good luck, wish you both well. Grasping their hands for a moment, his and hers, he backed away. Finally, he turned and headed toward the groups of people converging on the few pickups that were still left. He did wish them well, God knew that was the truth. He wished Vicky a happy and fulfilling life. He wished her—everything good.
He hurried to catch up with his people.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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