The Spider's Web (23 page)

“The office . . .”

“Will get along fine.”

“I don’t know, Vicky.” Roger leaned forward, twisting part way around, and she could see the pain in his face.

“It’s my law firm, and I’m telling you I don’t want either of you there,” Vicky said. “Go to Casper and keep Annie there until it’s safe.”

Until Robin can’t hurt her again, she was thinking. Until he was in custody. Locked away. She closed the door and waited as the car lurched forward, the red taillights blinking faintly and finally dissolving into a single red dot in the darkness down the road. Then she walked back to her Jeep. The ambulance was gone. She started the ignition and was heading around the curve when her cell rang. She fumbled in her black bag on the passenger seat, finally pulling out the thin piece of plastic and flipped it open. John O’Malley’s voice on the other end: “Marcy’s gone,” he said.

THE CEMETERY CAME into view ahead, parched, rolling plains between Seventeen-Mile Road and the mission grounds. A little group huddled around an opened grave, heads bowed, the wind plucking at their clothes. Vicky turned onto the dirt road that circled the cemetery and parked behind the line of cars and pickups. Holding her hair back in the wind, she made her way around the white crosses that jutted out of the earth at the head of mounds of dirt covered with plastic flowers, crumpled and wilted in the sun. So many of the ancestors were buried here. Lone Bear, one of the last chiefs, was here. Her own parents and grandparents, buried in the far corner, the gravesites in the shade of an old cottonwood.

“Grant, we ask you, Almighty God, eternal pardon and rest to Ned Windsong, who has left this life and gone into the everlasting life you have promised the souls of the faithful.” Father John’s voice drifted out over the graves.

“Amen,” someone said, followed by a chorus of amens coughed into the wind.

Vicky stopped a few feet away and listened to the rest of the prayers, her eyes on John O’Malley. He had on a blue shirt and dark trousers. Around his shoulders was the white stole that one of the grandmothers had embroidered in Arapaho symbols for him. He moved around the coffin balanced on leather straps over the grave, dipping a small sprinkler into a pottery dish and sprinkling the holy water. She had attended dozens of funerals, watched the priests go through the same rituals. She accepted the rituals, just as other Arapahos accepted them. Not as their own, but brought to them. A gift, another way of praying. She could almost hear her grandfather’s voice.
Pray and pray and pray
.

Marcy Morrison wasn’t in the crowd. She had called the girl’s cell a dozen times since she had gotten John O’Malley’s call last night. She might have been dialing into a void. She stopped by the office this morning and tried Marcy again, then called Larry Morrison and told him his daughter had left the mission and was not returning calls.

The man had remained quiet for so long that she thought his cell must have cut off. “She’s very unpredictable,” he said finally. “I’m sure she’ll show up in her own time.”

“Mr. Morrison.” Vicky wondered if her tone had betrayed the shock she felt. “Your daughter is in danger. She has witnessed a murder and identified the killers.” She told him what John O’Malley had said about Dwayne Hawk and Lionel Lookingglass coming to the mission last night, looking for Marcy. “If they find her, they may kill her.”

“I understand,” Morrison had said, as if she had just told him that one of his checks had bounced. “But you must understand that my daughter also knows this and is taking evasive action. She is very good at taking care of herself.”

“She shouldn’t be alone,” Vicky said. Then she told him the rest of it: the breakdown yesterday afternoon, Father John’s belief that she needed professional care. “He’s a pastor, a counselor,” she went on. “He’s seen people pushed to the end of their ability to cope.”

“I see,” Larry Morrison said, and for the first time, she had detected a faint note of worry in his voice. “She may have gone back to Jackson. I believe she has a few friends there, an old boyfriend. I can’t fly to Wyoming until tomorrow. There’s choir practice this evening, and my couples’ ministry—”

She cut him off and told him that she would drive up to Jackson Hole, find the girl and make sure she was all right. He told her that Marcy owned a place at Alpine Meadows Condominiums, number 224. She had hung up then, called the cleaning service and arranged to have the mess in the office cleaned up. The office was silent, smelling of pizza, when she let herself out and locked the door. She was at the outskirts of Lander when it occurred to her that Marcy might decide to attend her fiancé’s funeral, a last chance to say good-bye. She had turned onto Highway 789 and driven to the reservation through the white sun and the bright, blue sky, the wind banging against the sides of the Jeep.

Vicky could see Ella in front, close to the grave. Marie sat next to her, an arm flung around her sister’s shoulders. On the other side, Jerry Adams stood straight-backed and wide-shouldered, holding his cowboy hat to his chest, his bald scalp reddening in the sun. A sense of discomfort, of not belonging, came over Vicky, and she stepped back a little. Ella believed that Marcy Morrison was involved in Ned’s death. And here she was, Marcy’s attorney, defending the white outsider in the murder of one of her own people.

Jevaneatha yesawathawid hinenida hevedathu.
Donald Little Robe had stepped forward, his voice booming over the bowed heads and reverberating around the empty cemetery. John O’Malley was beside him, his own head bowed while the elder prayed.

Vicky tried to make out the meaning of the words; the rhythm and cadence were like that of a familiar melody. Something about God having breathed a soul into every human. Yes, our bodies will die and return into dust.

Heko, hevedathuwin nenaidenu jethaujene. Hethete hevedathuwin nehathe Ichjevaneatha haeain ichjeva.
Our souls will live forever with the Creator in our home on high.

The elder went on for a while, speaking in the formal manner, Vicky knew, the way the chiefs and the holy men had spoken to the people in the Old Time, calling them together. Our People. Saying that Ned had chosen the good Arapaho road, turned his life around, and was working hard to prepare for the Sun Dance. Saying that now the ancestors would escort Ned’s spirit into the afterworld and that the people should be at peace and know that Ned was at peace.

Vicky glanced at the men grouped behind the elder. They were also preparing for the Sun Dance, she guessed. Ned would have danced with them. Then she looked out over the cemetery toward the mission, the voice of the elder still rolling over her. Through the cottonwoods, the white steeple swayed against the blue sky, and the roofs of the mission buildings were washed silver in the sunlight. A place of refuge, the mission, for more than a hundred years, she thought. And yet, Marcy Morrison hadn’t felt safe. She had fled.

The drums started now, a slow, rhythmic pounding, each thud hanging in the air before giving way to the next. The singers sat around the drum on the far side of the grave, black heads nodding. Slowly the casket began to fall into the earth, the pulley and leather creaking in rhythm with the pounding drums. Then the little crowd formed into a single line and began dropping flowers onto the casket as they moved past: symbols of life and hope.

Vicky stayed where she was as the line moved around the casket. Then people bunched together and started across the cemetery toward the parked vehicles. A space opened between her and the gravesite. Still, she didn’t move. John O’Malley clasped Ella’s hands and leaned down close, telling her how sorry he was, Vicky knew. She saw the gratitude and even a kind of peace in the woman’s expression as Ella turned and started after the other mourners, Marie and Jerry Adams at her side.

She and John O’Malley were the only ones left, and Vicky started over. He glanced around and came to meet her. “Heard from Marcy?” he said.

“I was hoping she might be here.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t expect her to come.”

“You think her breakdown was serious?”

“Any breakdown is serious,” he said. “She needs help.”

“I’ve spoken with her father,” Vicky said. “He’ll be here tomorrow.” Then she told him she was going to Jackson to see if Marcy was at her condo. “I’m worried about her,” she said. “She’s so alone. Her fiancé’s dead, her father is ...” She took in a gulp of air. What is the word she would have used to describe the years she was in Denver going to college and law school while her children were growing up with her parents? “Preoccupied,” she finished. “It doesn’t help Marcy.”

They started walking across the cemetery. The Toyota pickup and her Jeep were the only parked vehicles, a long, empty gap between them. The other cars and pickups snaked out of the cemetery trailing great puffs of dust. They stopped at the pickup, and Father John said, “Ned’s boss in Lander said that he had a contact at Sloan’s Electric in Jackson. That’s how he got the job. I wonder what he told them when he left to come back to the rez.”

“I have to find Marcy,” Vicky said. “I was hired to look after her interests, and God knows, she doesn’t have anyone else.”

Father John held up one hand between them. It was his way, she knew, of letting her know he understood.

 

 

THE TWO-LANE HIGHWAY to Jackson Hole was almost empty. A few trucks and RVs, sunlight glinting off the chrome bumpers, crawling south out of Yellowstone Park, an occasional pickup appearing in the rearview mirror, then turning off onto a dirt road, herds of antelope galloping alongside the highway before giving up the chase. Every once in a while, black oil derricks appeared on the horizon, spindly legs and arms moving against the sky. Vicky settled into the rhythm of the tires humming beneath her, the music of George Strait filling the Jeep. There was a sense of intimacy and seclusion about the vast, open plains that always made her feel at home. This was the country of her ancestors, the place where she belonged. The phone calls still came from time to time: law firms in LA or Denver looking for an Indian lawyer experienced in natural resources law. She wasn’t interested. The idea of a city teeming around her, concrete covering the earth and skyscrapers blocking the sun, always left her with a cold, clammy feeling.

She followed the highway northwest past Crowheart and Burris and on through Dubois before turning south and heading through the Grand Tetons toward the valley known as Jackson Hole. Pines and boulders covered the slopes outside the windows, and white pillows of clouds rolled across the sapphire sky. The traffic was getting heavier. More sedans and late-model SUVs gliding around the curves that hugged the mountainside. Log cabins came into view, partially hidden among the trees or tucked away in little canyons.

Finally, the outskirts of the town of Jackson, with more cabins and houses lining the highway. She was deep in the valley now, mountains rising on the west and rolling ranch lands to the east. High on the slopes, she could make out the long, cleared runs of the ski areas and, in the distance, the red cars of a tram skimming over the mountainside. She slowed and followed the traffic toward the town square. She felt as if she had driven into the past, an old Western town with board sidewalks and flat-faced brick buildings and wooden balconies. A stage coach perched on the roof of the corner building with Jackson Hole Museum painted on the front window. There were other signs out of the past painted on some of the buildings: Saloon. Spirits. Billiards. But inside the old buildings were boutiques, galleries, and restaurants. When the traffic stalled, she fished her cell out of her bag and checked the GPS map to Alpine Meadows. Past the square, she turned onto a narrow road that wound upward along the banks of a creek with a thin stream of water falling over the boulders. She imagined Marcy driving up this road, panicky and scared, trying to get away from the men she had seen kill her fiancé. The same men who would kill her.

ALPINE MEADOWS WAS a cluster of cubelike buildings three stories high, with dun-colored siding and long balconies stacked on top of one another. Other condominium clusters huddled among the pines, set back from the road, but Alpine Meadows stood in a field of wild, spiky grasses wilted in the sunshine, with a paved lot at one end. Vicky left the Jeep next to the sign that said Visitors and went in search of unit 224. Brass numbers marked each building. Between the buildings were rolling hillocks of lawn and rose bushes with sprinklers that made a buzzing noise as they shot water into the air. She followed the sidewalk to the second building and took the wooden stairs to the second floor. A moist breeze caught at her blouse as she walked along the balcony. She paused in front of the door with the brass number four and listened for sounds of someone inside, a radio or TV. There was nothing. The building itself had the vacant feeling of mid-day. When she knocked, it was a hollow noise.

Vicky knocked again, then leaned in close. “Marcy,” she called. “It’s Vicky Holden. Are you there? I’m here to help you.” Not the slightest hint of movement or change in the atmosphere to suggest that anyone was inside. “I know you’re frightened,” she said, feeling a little foolish, talking to a closed door. She was thinking that she could take Marcy to Casper, move her into an apartment where she would be safe. What was clear was that Marcy Morrison would not be safe in her own condo in Jackson. How long before Hawk and Lookingglass figured out she was hiding here?

“Open the door, Marcy,” Vicky said. “We can figure things out together.”

“She’s not there.” Vicky started at the voice. There had been no sound of a door opening or closing, no scuff of footsteps. No one else was around, and yet here was a young woman with long brown hair gliding out of the shade farther along the balcony.

“I’m looking for Marcy Morrison,” Vicky said. “Do you know where I might find her?”