The Arrow Keeper’s Song (38 page)

Of course, Allyn denied he had anything to do with the oil companies until after the land rush and the termination of the reservation. Tom knew different, but the proof had perished in the fire that had gutted the BIA office a year and a half ago.

Tom followed his father and the priest into the living room, a simple, spacious room boasting ladder-back rocking chairs and two couches Seth had built himself, covered with raw-hide, and cushioned with bearskins and wolf pelts. The walls of the cabin were for the most part bare, although a war shield and feathered lance hung from one wall. A pair of buffalo hides covered the wooden floor. The log walls were thick and well chinked with clay and blocked the winter winds. A pair of Winchesters and a double-barreled shotgun, a Greener, hung from a rack to the left of the door. A buckskin shirt Seth was making for himself was stretched upon a willow rack in the corner. He was even doing the intricate bead-work across the chest, although Seth had never allowed anyone to see him at such woman's work.

A fire blazed in the fireplace, which Seth had built of natural stone with the help of the Capuchin. The chimney had an excellent draw, and very little smoke found its way into the living room. Tom sipped his coffee and studied the dancing flames.

“Allyn's family still lives here?” Tom at last said, fishing for news concerning the family to which he had once felt so close.

“Emmiline and her mother, yes,” Father Kenneth replied. Clay's the sherriff.” Tom looked up in amazement and dismay. “I know what you're thinking,” the priest chuckled. “But he's actually done a credible job. Maybe it's being out from under his father's roof.”

“And between the sheets of Miss Olivia Flannery, the schoolmarm,” Seth added with a lascivious grin on his face that the priest made a point of ignoring.

“I don't have much use for Clay Benedict,” Tom replied.

“People change,” the priest said. “You two are evidence of that. Seth quit drinking the day you left, Tom. And you sure aren't the same man who rode away from here.”

“That's the truth,” Tom ruefully observed, rubbing his gloved hand. It was as useless as a leaden weight attached to his wrist.

“Where'd you go, boy? Willem said you returned from Cuba before him. What happened to you?” Seth asked.

“I jumped a train, rode the rails north to the white man's cities. Baltimore, Washington, New York. And this time I did not see them through the eyes of Allyn Benedict. This time I saw them with my own eyes. And I found there was nothing for me there. I thought the white man's vision spoke to me once and called me by name. But it was the agent filling my head with images that had no more substance than smoke.” Tom glanced in the priest's direction. “There is much we can learn from your people, Father Kenneth. But I think there is also much your people could learn from us.” He fixed his gaze on the dancing flames, writhing and leaping like spirits imprisoned in the hearth.

“And so you have returned,” Seth said. “To stay?”

Tom did not reply. He crossed to the coffeepot and helped himself to a second cup of the strong black brew, then ambled over to the window and looked out at the night. He could not find the words for the turmoil in his heart, and yet he was confident this homecoming had been the right decision.

Seth accepted his son's silence and did not press the issue. He understood such moments and knew all questions were answered in time. “Lots of changes since you've been gone. They take some getting used to,” he said from his ladder-back rocking chair near the fireplace. The flames warmed his backside and soothed his aching muscles. He didn't like to admit it, but he was getting old. Then again, it was a sight easier to build a tepee than a barn.

“Father Kenneth told me about Willem. I don't believe he would have ever hurt Charlotte,” Tom said, studying the night shadows where the moon's frozen glare illuminated the front yard, delineating the line of trees bordering the creek, turning the tree limbs the color of bone, stark and spindly against the starry sky. He had arrived at a troubled time. Maybe that had been the plan all along.

“There's some think otherwise. Luthor White Bear's family, for a start,” Seth replied. “They've already tried him in their hearts, found him guilty and sentenced him to hang. White folks are calling him a woman killer. Women are afraid to venture outside alone. Yessir, if Clay brings Willem in, I doubt anyone will wait for the judge.”

Father Kenneth eased himself out of the chair and walked over to stand alongside Tom. “Still, some things have changed for the better, thanks to another friend of yours.” His blond eyebrows rose as they always did when the priest thought there was more to a situation than what he could immediately discern. “She came in on the train with Willem back in September. What a godsend she has been!”

Tom stared at the priest, a confused expression on his face.

“I was so surprised to see you in town, it clean slipped my mind,” the priest explained. “You passed her clinic. Dr. Joanna Cooper. You do know her? … Tom?”

The sheriff's office was a solid structure built of fieldstone and roofed with thick sheets of tin that had worn to a dusty brown. The outer office was furnished with a filing cabinet, a cot in one corner, a wallful of wanted posters, a gun rack and several belts of ammunition, a pair of kerosene lamps, another suspended from a wall mount. A desk dominated the rear wall and was set off to the side to allow passage to the jail cells at the rear of the building. Four cells, two to either side, faced one another across a dimly lit passageway that led to a bolted rear door.

Clay Benedict, sitting at his desk, had been forced to stand when his father had sat on the corner and crowded him out. From this perch Allyn Benedict had dismissed his son's two deputies and sent them home to their wives.

Allyn could have taken a seat in any of the three empty chairs, but he chose the corner of the desk. The founder and president of Benedict Exploration and Development was too proud and too powerful to sit dutifully before his own offspring like some errant child at his parent's knee, awaiting punishment.

Clay walked over to the Franklin stove that heated the office and lifted a blue enameled tin coffeepot off the iron plate, cracked the top, peered inside, and sniffed the soggy grounds while silently debating whether he ought to chance the remains of Abram Fielder's coffee. The gruff old deputy liked to brag that his coffee could float a horseshoe, and Clay was inclined to believe him. He added a dipper of springwater and sloshed the contents around.

Benje Lassiter, Clay's other deputy, often complained that frequent visits to the coffeepot had left him with a permanently soured stomach. Lassiter was tough but rail thin. Eggs, griddle cakes, and canned peaches made up the bulk of his diet. Clay had begun to suspect the man had a more serious problem than a “soured stomach” and suggested the deputy pay a call on the town's new doctor, but Lassiter said he couldn't see how some “pretend physician in skirts” could possibly be of help. The idea of a woman poking around at some stranger's innards left a pious soul like Benje Lassiter positively appalled.

On the other hand, a lecherous old bastard like Abram Fielder had warmed to the idea; after all, Doctor Cooper was a real looker. On more than one occasion Fielder had faked an infirmity just for an excuse to pay a call on the lady from New Orleans.

Tonight, however, the two men had been summarily dispatched without explanation. Clay regretted the abrupt way his father had sent the deputies from the office. Once again Allyn Benedict had usurped his son's authority. Sure, it was a matter of pride. Clay Benedict had grown accustomed to being treated and spoken to with a certain amount of deference for his office as upholder of the law. In this case the badge had indeed begun to make the man.

The trouble was that Allyn liked to snap his fingers and watch his underlings jump; he expected no less from his son. Clay could not help but resent his father's attitude. Recently their relationship had become even more strained—indeed, the tension in the room was thick enough to slice.

“You know, Father, it doesn't look right for you to go ordering off my deputies or treating me like just another of your hirelings,” Clay said.

“I simply wanted to expedite matters so we could talk in private,” Allyn replied. “You needn't raise a snit. I saw the light in the window while on my way back from the bank. Any luck?”

“Whoever saw Willem down south of here lied. Or they're blind. We didn't even come across a set of tracks.”

“Well, there may be more trouble in the horizon, and I thought you ought to know,” Allyn said.

“You mean Tom Sandcrane? I heard about him at dinner. Emmiline told me, since you weren't around to fill in the details.”

Allyn shifted uncomfortably. “I heard your mother tell Consuela to serve up those goddamn stewed tomatoes again. They remind me of something a cat coughed up after being stepped on by a horse.” He shuddered. “I had coffee and pie at Yaquereno's. But I didn't come here to discuss my habits at home.”

“Maybe we should,” Clay remarked, “the way you and mother have been acting. Just how much does she know?”

“Nothing!” Allyn snapped. “What passes between your mother and me does not concern you. Dammit, Clay, I'm here to talk about Tom Sandcrane. We don't need him around, stirring up the coals just when the fire's nearly out.”

“I don't see what I can do about it.”

“Run him out of the territory.”

“He hasn't broken any laws. I have no reason to …”

“You are my son. That ought to be reason enough. Set the blasted law aside and listen to your father.”

“I have done that already.”

“Then it ought to be easier the second time,” Allyn replied. He sighed and stood, thrust his hands into his coat pockets, searching in silence for an acceptable solution. The change in Clay was beginning to bother him. He walked to the window and peered out at the town just in time to see a carriage roll up and halt in front of the sheriff's office. He recognized the two women behind the harnessed gelding. “Look, son, you might be right. Perhaps Tom Sandcrane ought to stay. His presence might just draw Willem Tangle Hair out into the open. After all, they were friends. And when Willem makes his move, you can be there to cut him down.”

Clay started to speak, but the front door opened, allowing a briskly cold gust of wind to enter the office. The warmth generated by the Franklin stove seemed to be sucked out into the darkness as Olivia Flannery, the red-haired schoolmarm, swept through the doorway with Emmiline only a step behind. Both women were laughing at some private amusement that Clay suspected was at his expense. The wanted posters on the wall rustled as if stirred by some invisible hand.

The women seemed eminently pleased with themselves, as if they had intruded for the sole purpose of interrupting Allyn's meeting with his son.

“We were on our way back from Holy King Triumphant,” Olivia said, “when we saw the light in the window and Clay's horse in the corral.”

“What were Reverend Peltier and Mildred up to?” Clay asked, shifting uncomfortably as the schoolteacher stood at his side and took his hand in hers.

“Once I told her you were back in town, Olivia lost interest in planning the spring social,” Emmiline laughed, chiding her friend. Her gaiety seemed a trifle forced in the presence of her father.

“I must be leaving,” Allyn said. “If you will excuse me …” He nodded to his daughter and tipped his hat to Olivia Flannery. Glancing over his shoulder, he paused before the door and said to his son, “Be thinking about what I said. And don't forget all we've built here. And how it used to be. No man has so much that he cannot still lose it all.” He bowed—“Ladies”—and departed.

“Well,” Emmiline sighed. “I don't feel much like going on to the Peltiers' alone. I'd better go on home. Mother's had a bit too much sherry. Maybe I can put her to bed before she and father have another row.”

“At least she stands up to him,” Clay muttered, thinking of his own poor performance in that regard.

Emmiline appeared not to notice his reply as she watched from the window and gave her father ample time to climb into his buggy and head off down the road toward the center of town.

“I suppose he wanted to talk about Tom,” Emmiline said, probing for information. “And me.”

“The topic came up,” Clay lied. It was easier than telling her the truth.

“What I do is my own business.”

“Tom Sandcrane is trouble. You'd do well to stay clear of him. But you didn't listen to me before, and I doubt you will this time.” Clay chanced a swallow of coffee and grimaced. The damn stuff would take the rust off yard iron. He emptied the contents of the cup back into the pot and took it off the burner plate.

“Before was father's idea. He called the tune and we all danced and the song made us rich …,” Emmiline said. “But not happy.” She noticed Olivia standing quietly alongside Clay, their hands still entwined. Emmiline pulled her coat tightly around her shoulders, smiled at the couple, and vanished through the door. A gust of wind tugged at the hem of her dress and nipped her cheeks and nose, but Emmiline had no quit in her. She reached the carriage, climbed aboard, and soon had the gelding headed for home.

“Well, now,” Olivia Flannery said at last. The schoolmarm had been a silent observer of this family's dissolution for several months now, but for the life of her she could not fathom the cause of such unrest. The teacher was smart enough to keep her distance from so much pain and anger. Her role was that of listener, and once in a while, in the peace of night in the hours when she lay alongside Clay, sweaty from lovemaking, warm and satiated in the feather bed they shared, she offered counsel and encouragement.

“Escort a lady home?”

“Be my pleasure. Of course, I smell a mite trail-worn.”