Killing Custer (14 page)

“You're holding out on me. I can't work with secrets.” God, what did this black-eyed girl blinking back the tears know? Murder? Abduction? What was she involved in? “I'm trying to level with you. I may have a conflict of interest here. For your own good, you need another lawyer, someone you can open up with. Maybe you should think about going back to the rez for a while.”

Angela jumped out and leaned down, peering into the Ford, eyes fierce and blazing. “You don't know me. You don't know anything about me. Don't tell me what to do. You're not on the rez. You got off. I'm not going back.”

The girl slammed the door and marched across the patch of dried grass, head high and shoulders square. Vicky waited until she had disappeared into the little house before she backed onto the street. She was thinking she had never wanted to get off the rez and leave everything behind. Kids, parents, grandparents, the ceremonies and celebrations, the sense of home and belonging. It had just happened.

18

THE BALL FL
EW
high but shallow to center field. Father John watched Jimmy Feathers position under the ball, glove up and ready, eyes never leaving the ball. He had it, and with a quick crow hop, he fired it into his cutoff man, Jeremy Antelope, positioned just below the pitcher's mound. Jeremy held the ball because the runner on third base never tried to tag up and score. Had he tried, he would have been out thrown. This was the best team Father John had ever fielded. Strong, dedicated, talented kids determined to be winners. He could see himself in them: Martin Whiteman on the pitcher's mound, tall and scrawny, the way Father John had been, stars dancing in the kid's eyes about pitching for the Rockies. Father John had dreamed of pitching for the Red Sox, but the dream was the same.

“Batter up!” he called, waving over Rex Black Wolf. Today's practice was batting and fielding and keeping the eye on the ball. The essentials never changed. So far the Eagles were 10–0, but the season was still early, and the Riverton team was out to break the winning streak on Saturday. It would be the Eagles' biggest challenge so far. “Let's see what you've got,” Father John said. Then he shouted to Martin. “Don't hold back. Make him work for it.”

Martin fired a couple of pitches hard and inside to Rex, who swung and missed. “Weight back! Focus!” Father John shouted. Next up in the batter's box was Lester Makepeace. Behind him should have been Ollie StandingCloud. The two boys were like twins, one always following the other. Rex connected with a loud whack and sent a single up the middle. Rex rounded first while the center fielder scrambled, then threw the ball to second base, forcing Rex to trot back, settling for a solid single.

Father John cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out to the field. “Good work. Let's keep going. We'll show Riverton what we've got.” Indian kids, he was thinking. They would get a lot of razzing in town.
Hey, Injun. How'd you get off the rez? Go back where you belong
.

He started to motion up Lester. “Where's your buddy?” he said. No sign of Ollie in the dugout. Sometimes Ollie's mom watched practice, but she wasn't there today with the other mothers scattered around the bleachers.

Lester shrugged and sprinted over to home plate, bent his knees, shifted his weight back, fidgeted with his bat, and got ready for the pitch. He tipped the first ball and sent it over the backstop. On the next pitch, he connected and drove a monster fly ball deep into right field that finally dropped into the tall grasses behind the residence. The right fielder and center fielder were chasing it while Rex rounded third base with Lester close on his heels. Rex was safe. Lester dove for home. Father John patted both boys on the back and walked them over to the dugout. “That's the kind of aggressive baserunning I want to see,” he said. “Think Ollie's going to make practice?” He looked at Lester.

“He's walking over.”

“Walking over?” When he'd checked the temperature before practice started, it was ninety-three degrees with a hot, dry breeze. The kid lived at least eight to ten miles out in the center of the rez.Father John motioned up the next batter.

“His mom's gone again,” Lester whispered, as if he didn't want the rest to know. It wasn't anybody else's business.

“How long has she been gone?”

The kid shrugged. “I don't know. Two or three days.”

“Who's looking after Ollie?”

“He looks after himself pretty good. He didn't want to miss practice.”

Father John patted the kid's shoulder and walked over to the bleachers. Judy, Lester's mom, was seated between two other women. He was about to climb up through the seats when she started down, as if she'd divined that he wanted to talk to her. “Can you take over for a little while?” he said.

She nodded and jumped off the lower bench. “Keep them batting and chasing after the ball in the field,” he said. “When everybody in the dugout's had another turn at bat, change them around.”

She nodded. He could see the mixture of curiosity and concern working through her face, but she didn't say anything. It wasn't polite to ask for a gift, and information was always a gift. He went over to the cooler, took out a bottle of cold water, and headed down the baseline, breaking into a jog when he'd reached third base. He jogged past the residence and out across Circle Drive. The pickup was parked in front of the administration building. Two minutes later he had cleared the tunnel of cottonwoods and turned west onto Seventeen-Mile Road.

He drove hunched over the wheel, scanning both sides of the road. It was dangerous to walk along the edge of Seventeen-Mile Road. No one did it, unless he was drunk. Father John had gone about six miles when he saw the small, dark figure shimmering like a mirage ahead. Coming across the open, sunburned prairie, through the sage brush, running a little, then walking. Father John pressed down on the gas pedal and sped ahead until he'd drawn parallel with the kid. He slammed to a stop, jumped out, and ran around the pickup, waving both hands in the air. “Ollie!” he shouted. “Over here, Ollie.”

The kid pulled up, like a pony reined to a stop. He looked over, waved, and then started running toward the road. Sweat glistened on his face and neck and sopped the front of his tee shirt when he got to the pickup, and Father John handed him the bottle of water. “Get in,” he said, walking around to the driver's side. “I'll take you to practice.”

“Thanks, Father.” Ollie crawled inside and sank down, as if he might melt into the seat. He had already gulped half the bottle of water. “How'd you know?”

Father John waited for an old sedan to lumber past, then made a U-turn. He wasn't sure what Ollie would think about his friend divulging the truth. “We coaches have our ways,” he said, glancing over and smiling.

The kid finished off the water and looked out the window. The sagebrush looked like rolling tumbleweeds; the plains passed like waves of a brown ocean. “Lester tell you my mom took off?”

“I heard it somewhere,” Father John said. “When do you think she'll come back?”

“Soon's she runs out of money.”

“You eating okay?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the kid give a noncommittal shrug. “We got cereal, and I been making myself bologna sandwiches,” Ollie said. The wind blowing through the open windows chopped at his voice. “Got some Coke to drink.”

Father John didn't say anything. Ollie had told him enough. He could fill in the blanks. Claire was an alcoholic, a binge drinker, sober most of the time. A mom in the bleachers watching practice and the games, hugging Ollie after every win, tears of pride in her eyes. Then she was gone. Two days, three days, until, as Ollie said, the money ran out. Alcoholics were different, no two cut out of the same cloth, all drinking in their own way.

He slowed for the turn into the cottonwoods. “Anybody you can stay with for a while? Family?”

Ollie was quiet until they emerged onto Circle Drive. “My uncle went to North Dakota to work construction. I got an auntie, but she's left the rez for good.”

Father John pulled up at the administration building and got out. He tried to sort out the family tree. He had known Marcia Running Bear before she died, and he knew her daughter Claire. He had heard of another daughter, but he had never met her.

The kid had jumped out and fallen in beside him as they walked back along the side of the residence to the baseball field. The sharp whack of a bat against leather and the shouts of kids broke through the wind. A hot gust spewed dust on the dirt path and slapped at Father John's face. He pulled his cowboy hat down hard. It struck him that he knew who the other daughter was. Her name had been in the
Gazette
.

“Angela?”

“She's in Lander.” The kid took long strides, pulling ahead toward practice and baseball and the rest of the team as if he were coming home. “She don't want nothing to do with us,” he said. “Can't blame her none.” He took off running, hands in the air like a sprinter breaking past the final ribbon.

“Hey, Ollie.” Judy ruffled the kid's hair. “Your turn to bat.”

“How'd it go?” Father John said.

“Outfielders definitely need more work. Those Riverton kids can really hit.” She stepped away from the dugout, watching him over her shoulder, and he followed her. “Lester finally told me,” she said, throwing a glance over at Ollie, who was hunched over home plate, ready for the pitch. “He said Ollie didn't want anybody to know. The kid is independent as a mule. Whole family's like that. He can stay at our place until Claire gets back.”

“That's good of you.”

“She always comes back, you know.”

* * *

FROM CIRCLE DRIVE,
Father John could feel the vibrations in Eagle Hall. He rounded the corner of the church and stopped on the graveled strip that separated the church from the hall, trying Angela Running Bear's number again on his cell. The evening was hot, the front door to the hall thrown open. The loud thumping noise of what passed for music blasted the air. He stepped back a few feet and pressed the phone hard against his ear. The sky was alive with the sunset—reds, magentas, oranges, pinks streaking over the reservation. Over the faint buzz of a cell ringing somewhere in Lander, he heard the gravel crunch behind him and wheeled about. A pickup with three teenagers in the front and four in the bed shot past and slid to a stop. The kids started piling out, like puppies scrambling out of a box. Waving at him, hollering at one another, white teeth flashing in dark faces. They disappeared into the dark figures moving about inside Eagle Hall.

“Hi! This is Angela.” There was a strained note of cheer in the voice. “Love to talk to you, so leave the details. Will get back ASAP.”

He ended the call and slipped the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. He'd been trying to get hold of Ollie's aunt for the past couple of hours. He had memorized her message and left at least three of his own. No response. A strange feeling settled inside him. It wasn't like Arapahos to turn their backs on family. Not like an auntie to ignore her nephew. He told himself the young woman had her own troubles. He'd followed the article in the
Gazette
yesterday morning. Skip Burrows, prominent lawyer in Lander, abducted from his office
.
It had been Angela Running Bear, his secretary, who'd found the man gone and the office in disarray.

He headed across the gravel, drawn and repulsed by the loud noise at the same time. Last year he'd started a social evening for teenagers. Eagle Hall, all the food and soft drinks they could consume, their own music—God knows, they wouldn't have liked his—a place to be with friends. A safe place. More and more kids came each week, and he'd had to put out an SOS to the mission's donors.
Need help keeping the teenage evenings going
. It was truly amazing the amount of food they could consume.

Some of the kids were dancing at one end of the hall. The other end was set up with Ping-Pong, billiards, and a video game that one of the merchants in Lander had donated. Seated on metal chairs along the side walls, sipping Cokes, were three men he'd asked to keep an eye on the party tonight. Two were dads, the other an uncle. On the opposite wall was a table piled with food overseen by several moms and grandmothers. Usually older kids, some pushing twenty, would drop by because . . . He shook his head at the thought pulsing inside him. Because there was nothing else to do. One of the older kids was showing a younger kid how to grip a Ping-Pong paddle. Even the bishop had stopped by. Seemed the bishop enjoyed playing Ping-Pong. He was showing two kids who looked about thirteen how to play.

Father John made his way around the hall, chatting with the adults, high-fiving a couple of the kids, watching the bishop show the boy how to slam back a serve. He helped himself to a cookie and thanked the women for preparing the food—stacks of hot dogs and fry bread, chips with melted cheese, cake, cookies, and coolers of soda.

“It's good,” Imelda Plenty Horses said, gripping his hand.
“Ni isini.”

He left the music pounding, the kids swaying, gathering in groups, breaking apart, moving on to other groups. The noise receded, filled in by the soft whoosh of the wind as he walked back along the graveled path. He took the concrete steps to the administration building two at a time, fished the keys out of his jeans pocket, and let himself into the coolness of the corridor.

In his office, he pulled out his cell and tried Angela's number again, dropping into the chair at his desk. The buzzing noise, the same forced cheerfulness in the voice, the familiar message only reinforced the uncomfortable feeling he couldn't shake. “Father O'Malley calling again,” he said. “I thought you'd like to know your nephew Ollie is staying with the Makepeace family.” He paused. He had already told her everything. “Let me know if I can be of any help.” He had the sense that he was speaking into a black void.