The Ghost Walker (12 page)

The girl’s pain filled the space between them, and he looked away, giving her a moment. Cold air moved through the window. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, making the afternoon seem flat and gray. It looked as if it might snow again. A green truck slid to a stop at the intersection and flicked on its headlights. Was it a Dodge? He couldn’t tell for sure. Everybody drove a truck around here. A lot of them were green.

Annie cleared her throat and said, “We was good together. I mean, Marcus stayed clean all year, and I stopped drinkin’. We was talkin’ about gettin’ married. Then he went and got mixed up with that white chick and tells me it’s just not workin’, me and him. It was working fine ’til he met her. I just lost it, you know what I mean?”

Father John looked back at her. “I know.”

Annie picked up the mug and slammed it down, sloshing coffee over the table. “You don’t say that, you hear me?” she shouted. The attendant leaned over the counter and stared at them. “What do you know about what I’m talkin’ about?”

It was familiar. The alcoholic’s quick anger at the misperceived words, the lack of understanding and sympathy. He’d flared out like that once at his own mother, and at his superior and the counselors at Grace House
more times than he wanted to remember. What did they know about the terrible thirst that controlled his life?

“Would you like to get drunk right now?” he asked.

The girl seemed to lift herself a fraction off her chair, then slumped back, regarding him, as if trying to make out whether he was taunting her or issuing an invitation.

“So would I,” he said.

She continued to study him. He sensed her wariness, the way she was groping to assimilate contradictory kinds of information.

“They say it’s one day at a time,” Father John said softly. “That’s not true, Annie. It’s one moment.”

The girl gulped a breath. “I didn’t start drinkin’ again ’til Marcus moved out. When I come home and saw all his stuff gone, I went and got a bottle of whiskey . . .” Her voice trailed off a moment. “I just felt so alone.”

Father John fished through the inside pocket of his parka and withdrew a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen. “We have a good group at the AA meetings at St. Francis,” he said, flipping back the notebook cover and jotting down the information. “Thursdays. Seven
P.M.
You would be welcome, Annie.” He ripped off the sheet and pushed it across the table.

She looked at it a moment before stuffing it in her pocket. He saw the half-heartedness in the gesture: the alcoholic wanting to toss it on the floor; the Arapaho too polite to do so.

“I’m sorry to ask you this,” he said, “but Marcus could be in trouble. Do you know the name of the white girl?”

Annie swallowed hard. “Jennifer somebody. I heard she’s new around here. Lives over in Riverton somewhere.”

White woman. Named Jennifer. Lives in Riverton. There could be a couple dozen. Father John felt as if he were slogging uphill in a blizzard with the trail disappearing in the snow.

“One more thing, Annie,” Father John said. “Did Marcus happen to mention a new job?”

The girl’s eyes widened. “A job? That’d be the day.”

Her answer didn’t surprise him. Marcus and Rich driving Jeeps to Denver, the large amount of cash Rich had on hand—this new job of theirs was probably anything but legal.

He regarded the girl a moment. From his own experience, he knew what she needed now was a friend. And it was possible the blond man would return. If he had found Marcus, he might start thinking about the fact that Annie could identify him. “Do you have anyone you could stay with? It might be a good idea for you to leave the apartment for a while.”

Fear shone in the girl’s eyes, as if she’d come to the same idea. “My grandmother in Rawlins,” she said, then stopped. “Only she don’t let me come around when I’m drinkin’. But my girlfriend’s got a place over on Sweetwater. I guess I can go there.”

Father John got to his feet, but Annie remained seated, huddled under the red coat, looking small and fragile. “Come on,” he said, pulling on his parka. “Get some things together. I’ll take you to your girlfriend’s.”

He held the door and followed her outside as a gust of wind swirled across the front of the store, showering them with snow. The temperature was making its usual late-afternoon descent.

While she went back to her apartment, he started up the Toyota, pushing the heat lever on high. Gradually the cold began to recede. After about ten minutes,
Annie appeared, gripping the handles of two plastic grocery bags that bulged with whatever clothes she had decided to bring.

Father John leaned across the seat and opened the passenger door. As she crawled inside and settled the bags on her lap, she directed him to take Fourth and turn right onto Sweetwater, assuring him the girlfriend would be home. “With two kids, where else she gonna be?”

He stopped in the driveway next to the small duplex, and Annie stepped out, clutching the plastic bags against the front of her coat. A young Indian with a baby slung on one hip and another child gripping her leg had already opened the front door and was waving.

“Soon’s you find Marcus, you tell him something for me, okay?” Annie said, leaning back into the cab. “You tell him he messed up my goddamn life.” She kicked the pickup door shut.

If
I find him, Father John thought, backing out of the driveway.

12

V
icky stuffed several folders into the open briefcase on top of the file cabinet. The street lights below shimmered against the darkened window. It looked heavy and still outside, and snow was falling lightly. She didn’t like the idea of driving up Sage Canyon in a snowstorm.

She sighed as she laid another folder on the bulging stack. How much work would she get done tonight? She was hopelessly behind. After she’d gotten back from Lean Bear’s ranch this morning, she’d spent the rest of the day trying to catch up, disoriented, Susan hovering in her mind. It was after five now, almost time to leave. She had told the man at the ranch she would be back at 6:30, and she meant to be on time. The office was quiet. Ginger had left fifteen minutes ago. As Vicky closed the briefcase, she heard the soft crush of footsteps in the waiting room. She whirled around.

A man filled up the doorway, in a navy blue parka and jeans, his arms at his sides, his left hand gripping the crown of a brown felt cowboy hat. “I wasn’t sure you were still here,” Father John said.

Vicky exhaled a deep breath. “John O’Malley. You scared me to death.”

“I seem to be good at that today—scaring women to death.”

Vicky sank into the leather chair behind her desk and motioned him to one of the barrel-shaped chairs on the other side. “I tried to get back to you this afternoon,” she said. And here he was, as if summoned by a phone ringing into the emptiness of his office across the reservation. She was immensely glad to see him.

Father John stepped into the office and took the chair, anchoring his cowboy hat on one knee the way her grandfather used to do. His hair was a rusty color, with a touch of gray at the temples. His eyes were pale blue, shot through with lights, and he had little laugh lines at the outer edges. He smiled easily, which made him seem even more handsome. He was smiling now, and she had to remind herself once again that he was a priest.

“I understand you’ve found another body in a ditch,” Vicky said.

“Only one, as far as I know.”

“You found Walks-on,” she reminded him.

Father John’s smile widened. “Oh, yeah. But he wasn’t dead.”

“More dead than alive. If you hadn’t gotten him to the vet as fast as you did, he’d be chasing Frisbees with his ancestors. Has he noticed yet he has only three legs?”

“He hasn’t mentioned it.”

Vicky leaned into the soft back cushion of her chair, the polite exchange of pleasantries over. Now for the purpose of his visit. He never called unless it was important, unless someone was in trouble. She was certain this had something to do with the body on Rendezvous Road. She asked, “Have the police found the body?”

Father John thumped the fingers of one hand against the crown of his hat. “Not yet. And it seems Marcus Deppert is missing.”

Vicky clasped her hands over the blue mat that occupied the center of her desk. It didn’t surprise her, Marcus Deppert being in trouble. “Is there a connection?”

“I hope not,” Father John said. “But I’m not having much luck tracking him down.” He told her about the white man who had gone to Annie Chambeau’s looking for Marcus and about the jobs Marcus and Rich Dolby had supposedly taken, driving Jeeps to Denver.

Vicky was quiet a moment. She had never heard of anyone ferrying vehicles out of the area. “I suppose Marcus’s grandparents don’t want the police involved.” She saw by the look of surprise in Father John’s eyes she’d guessed right. He was the only one looking for the Arapaho.

Ordinarily she didn’t have much sympathy for people like Marcus Deppert who raised hell, made drunken spectacles of themselves, and generally confirmed all the stereotypes she and every other Indian had to fight everyday. It was the great white denial that every group had its Marcus Depperts, that all Indians weren’t like him. But this white man didn’t see a disreputable Indian. He saw somebody in trouble, who might need help, who might be dead. She found her own attitude toward the young Arapaho softening.

“I can ask around,” she said. “See if anyone knows anything.”

“Good.” Father John nodded.

She held his eyes a moment, wanting to tell him about Susan, but she sensed there was something else he was worried about. She waited.

After a few seconds, he said, “St. Francis Mission is about to be sold.”

She moved forward in her chair, a reflex. “You must be joking.” She saw immediately he’d never been more serious.

“The Z Group from California intends to develop the mission into a recreation center. Movies, bowling alleys, something for everybody.”

“I can’t believe the Jesuits would sell the mission,” Vicky said. It was unthinkable. Wind River Reservation without St. Francis? It was her own great-grandfather, Chief Black Night, who had marked out the land for the mission, who had ridden all the way to Omaha to ask the Jesuits to come and teach the people.

Vicky saw the anger in Father John’s eyes. This had hit him even harder than it hit her. She said, “I haven’t heard a word. Not one bleep on the moccasin telegraph.”

“It’s the new economic development director who’s behind it,” Father John said. “He would like to sign, seal, and deliver the deal before anyone finds out.”

“It’s a matter for all the people,” she said. She knew the truth of this in the smallest fiber of her being.

Father John nodded. “I intend to talk to Thomas Spotted Horse about the possibility of calling a general council.”

Vicky leaned back against the soft cushion, the shock of the news still reverberating through her. At least this was a man who would not pack his bags and move on, not without putting up a good fight. But it would be tough. A recreation center meant jobs, and God knew the reservation needed jobs. But the price? What price were the people willing to pay?

She pulled a yellow legal pad out of the drawer and
flopped it onto the desk. Removing the pen from the bubble-like wooden holder she’d bought for herself when she graduated from law school, she started writing. “Z Group, out of California,” she said. “I’ll see what I can find out. And one of my law school friends worked with Eden Lightfoot at the Cheyenne agency before he came here. She may have some insights into our new director of development. I’ll also call a couple friends on the business council to see what they think about this.”

Glancing up, Vicky caught the flicker of hope in Father John’s eyes. “It may not help.”

“It can’t hurt,” he said, getting to his feet.

A kind of heaviness came over her as she saw him turn to leave. She stood up, pushing back her chair. The gliders screeched against the plastic mat that protected the carpet. “Susan’s back,” she blurted.

He turned and faced her again. He didn’t say anything.

“She’s staying with three white men at Lean Bear’s ranch where we used to live.” Vicky stopped, then hurried on, telescoping a part of her life she didn’t like to think about. “She’s been here a couple weeks, and I just found out.”