The Ghost Walker (21 page)

H
is boots scattered the snow as Father John walked along Circle Drive. The powder rose light as air, then settled into little piles. Tiny flakes floated downward, spaced far apart, like miniature white birds circling a nest. The sky was lighter in the east where the sun glowed behind the clouds. The east: one of the four sacred directions, the symbol of hope. Despite the beauty around him, he didn’t feel hopeful. Everything was spiraling downward. The murdered girl. Marcus missing. Vicky angry at him. The mission about to pass into history. He couldn’t shake the feeling he had let them all down.

A stream of pickups pulled into the parking lot behind the elementary school, and Father John followed, spotting Loretta about to enter the back door. He called out, and the woman turned around, shoulders slouched. She dropped the mesh bag she was carrying. It crumpled in the snow at her feet. She was bundled in a long gray coat with a red scarf wrapped around her head, covering part of her face. For a moment he wasn’t sure he’d hailed the right person.

“I’m still looking for Marcus Deppert,” Father John said when he reached her.

Annoyance and disapproval flashed in the woman’s eyes. “I told you, Father, me and Rich don’t know
nothin’ about Marcus Deppert. He was nothin’ but trouble for my boy. Rich is a lot better off now that he broke with him.”

“Is Rich back from his trip?”

“Tomorrow,” she said hurriedly. “He’ll be home tomorrow for sure.”

“You’ve heard from him, then?”

Loretta’s eyes followed a couple of pickups pulling into the parking lot. “Not exactly. He said he’d be home Saturday, but he didn’t show up last weekend, so I figured he must’ve meant this comin’ Saturday. I was the one confused, is all. He’ll be here day after tomorrow.”

“Ask him to get in touch with me, will you?”

“Father, I told you a hundred times now—”

“Please, Loretta,” Father John interrupted. “It’s very important.”

The woman shrugged and started toward the door, dragging the mesh bag along the snow. It made a soft, squishy noise.

“Are you okay, Loretta?” Father John asked.

She looked back. “Soon’s they get that body buried proper like, I’ll be okay. Ghost comes every night and wakes me up. It can be calm everywhere, but out back in the field, it’s blowin’ like fury, ’cause ghost’s there. I went over and talked to my grandfather yesterday. He’s gonna come out and bless the field this weekend, maybe give ghost some peace ’til they find his body. You oughtta come out and bless the field, too.”

“Good idea,” he said. The earth was sacred; all created things were sacred. What harm could there be in standing in the middle of a field to acknowledge the sacredness and give thanks to the Creator? Besides, saying a few prayers and sprinkling holy water around might give the poor woman some peace.

*    *    *

After trekking back along Circle Drive to the administration building, Father John spent some time at his desk, which overflowed with notes of calls to return, meetings to arrange, and letters to answer. One of the religious ed teachers had taken a job at the Holiday Inn in Riverton, which meant Father John had to find someone else to teach the tenth-grade religion class this evening. Within a few phone calls he had found a replacement. The generosity of Arapahos always amazed him. They gave what they had. Usually all they had was time.

He returned two calls, both of which turned out to be from Arapahos wanting to know if St. Francis was really closing. Then he stacked the rest into a pile and set it aside. What could he tell people? Yes, it’s true, unless a miracle happens? Pray for a miracle?

He punched in the numbers of the law enforcement center. Within seconds, Banner was on the line. “Just about to call you,” he said. “My boys paid a visit to Lean Bear’s ranch yesterday. Made contact with three whites: Gary Rollins, Ty Jones, and Morrissey Porterfield.” It sounded as if the line had gone dead. Then Banner’s voice again. “And white people think Indians have funny names. Anyway, looks like we got some weirdos wanna play Indian on the rez. No crime in being weird.”

“What about Annie Chambeau?”

“Said they never heard of her. Gary Rollins swore up and down he wasn’t anywhere near Rendezvous Road last Sunday night when you say he gave you a ride. The other two back him up. Claim they were all at the ranch watching TV.”

“You believe that?”

“Hell, no, I wouldn’t believe ’em if they told me my own name. Trouble is, we don’t have proof they’re up to anything. Just a feeling in the gut. Another thing,
John. My boys didn’t see any sign of drugs. ’Course, we’d need a warrant to search the place, but we need some evidence to get a warrant.”

Susan might be able to provide it
, Father John thought. If she would. If her mother were willing to entertain the idea. He had to try talking to Vicky again. He said, “What now?”

“All we can do is keep an eye on the weirdos. I passed our report on to Loomis at the Lander PD. He’s gonna interview Gary Rollins based on your belief he’s the guy that threatened the Chambeau woman.”

The Chambeau woman. At least she had been upgraded from victim-object to human being. Father John replaced the receiver, a heaviness weighing on him. Now Gary knew the police were suspicious. The next move would be his. What would it be? To make sure no one could tie him to Annie Chambeau? To make sure Susan Holden didn’t talk to the police?

The ringing phone startled him out of his thoughts. It was Nick Sheldon. Father John detected the imperious tone of a man used to being obeyed even before the lawyer identified himself. “I’ve been trying to reach you, Father O’Malley. I have something you will want to see. Are you free this afternoon?”

“I can be.”

“One-thirty, then,” said the lawyer.

Father John jotted down the address. It was in a residential neighborhood in Lander. The vultures, he thought, are circling for the kill. Next to call him would probably be the Provincial. He decided to leave before the phone rang again.

Grabbing his parka off the coatrack, he strode down the corridor and looked in on Father Peter’s office. The old man was slumped in the chair at his desk, softly snoring. He let him sleep.

24

A
head of him the Wind River Mountains shouldered into the clouds, their great blocks of granite, their ponderosas and lodgepole pines swept with white powder. Snow was falling lightly over Seventeen-Mile Road. He would miss this sacred space, the Middle Earth, a gift to the Arapaho people from Shining Man Above.

Father John turned onto a narrow road and headed north alongside the mountains for several miles, snow glancing off the Toyota’s hood. Just as the road veered west, he swung into the drive to Thomas Spotted Horse’s ranch. The white, two-story house and the unpainted barn stood among a cluster of cottonwoods, like the tipis in the Old Time. He parked in the wide clearing between the barn and the house and walked around to the front. Wind whistled through the leafless branches as he rapped on the door.

From inside he heard a scraping sound. Then the door swung open, and Mardell Spotted Horse stood in front of him. She was somewhere in her seventies, in a blue dress with a yellow apron tied around her wide waist, with black oxfords and brown stockings rolled at her ankles. Her gray hair was parted in the middle and braided into two ropes that hung over her ample bosom.

“I knew you’d be along, Father,” she said. “So I
baked up a batch of cinnamon rolls. Come on in. You and me and the old man gotta eat ’em.”

Removing his cowboy hat, Father John stepped into the living room filled with the moist, sweet odors of a bakery.

“How’d you know I like cinnamon rolls?”

“’Cause you’re a man.” Mardell led the way past the sofa with a star quilt spread over the cushions, the twin easy chairs, the television on a wood table. He set his hat on top of the television and followed the old woman into the kitchen.

She pulled a chair away from a round oak table. “Sit here,” she instructed. “You looked mighty handsome on television last night. And Father Peter talkin’ his gibberish sure got those white people confused before you showed up. We was lovin’ it.” The old woman let out a hearty laugh. Then a kind of sadness came over her, like a curtain slowly falling. “It’s a no-good thing, this closing down St. Francis.”

He hung his parka over the back of the chair and took his seat. Cabinets ringed the walls, and the counters overflowed with bowls and spoons, jars of flour and sugar. A percolator sat on the stove. Over the sink, a block of windows faced the barn and the back fields. He guessed that the door a few feet from the sink led onto a porch.

Mardell was at the window. “Here comes the old man now. Must’ve heard your truck.” She gave a little shake of her head. “Much slower and he’s gonna be walkin’ backwards.”

They heard the loud bang of an outside door closing, followed by a clumping noise on the porch. Then the kitchen door opened, and Thomas Spotted Horse came in leaning on a wooden cane. He stood six feet tall,
weighed probably three hundred pounds, and wore blue jeans, a tan canvas jacket, and a black knit cap. He hooked the cane on the counter then yanked off the cap and turned toward Father John. The old man’s eyes bulged behind his thick glasses.

Father John got to his feet in a gesture of respect. Thomas belonged to the Big Lodge People, those entrusted to care for the sacred objects, including the sacred pipe. They were the most revered people of the Arapahos. “How are you, Grandfather?”

“Ah,
be:hi’:hehi’:nino.
I am an old man. But for a three-legged, I am excellent.” Thomas shuffled across the kitchen and sat down heavily in the chair on the other side of the table. Mardell leaned over and began helping him withdraw his massive arms from the jacket, which she then cushioned between him and the chair.

“See that Japanese tin can of yours got a new name. Ioyota.” Thomas laughed. It was a large bellow that filled the kitchen. “There’s a can of white paint out in the barn, if you wanna get the old name back. But if I was you, I’d get some rich white friends to buy me a good American truck.”

Father John laughed as he resumed his own seat. His friends seemed fewer and fewer these days. Nobody was rich.

Mardell swung the percolator from the stove and filled three mugs with coffee. She set the mugs in front of them, then placed a pan of cinnamon rolls and a stack of napkins on the table. After layering out three portions of rolls, she sat down next to her husband.

The warm brown sugar and frosting ran along his fingers as Father John bit into his roll. It took him back for a moment to his own home, when he was a boy. He
grabbed a napkin and mopped his hands. “Thank you, Grandmother,” he said. The old woman beamed.

Eat first, then talk; that was the Arapaho Way. Any other sequence was impolite. When they had finished a couple of rolls each, Thomas cleared his throat. “My grandson Lester,” he began, then drew in a long breath. “Whites’ll say Lester’s my brother’s grandson.”

Father John gave a nod of understanding. There was no concept of aunt, uncle, or cousin on the reservation. Your brother’s child was your child. Thomas and Mardell had no children of their own, but they were not childless.

“You remember Lester got himself elected to the business council last fall?” Thomas’s gray eyebrows shot up. “Well, he come to see me yesterday to tell me outsiders wanna close down the mission. That’s before we heard it on the television. Lester says that economic development fellow the council hired has been workin’ with the outsiders and gettin’ the plans together real secretlike. The council just found out, but the whole matter’s gonna be brought up at next Tuesday’s meeting. Eden Lightfoot’s got a majority of councilmen lined up behind it on account of new jobs.”

Father John was aware of the knobby slats of the chair against his back. Sheldon and Keating held all the aces. Now they were about to play them. What councilman wanted to take a stand against jobs?

Mardell’s chair scraped across the linoleum as she got to her feet. She grabbed the coffeepot and refilled their mugs. “You ask me, not all them council members wanna see the mission disappear. Lester, for one. When Eden Lightfoot come to him to line up his vote, he got real mad. He went to school at St. Francis. He’s got good memories.”