The Thunder Keeper (20 page)

Suddenly, like a rattler striking out, Nathan Baider sprang across the room and began pushing his son backward. “You think I don't know about the kimberlite pipe at Bear Lake?” Pushing. Shouting. The phone thudded on the floor. “I found that pipe forty years ago and kept it secret all this time. Bear Lake is holy, you fool. You think I wanted some bozo up there desecrating a sacred place?”

Vicky had the sense of watching a film fast-forwarding: Roz rolling backward into the dining room, the old man's fists crashing into his face and chest, pummeling his stomach. “You ruined my name. Ruined the company I spent my life building.”

“You crazy son of a bitch.” Kurt lunged after them and threw his weight against the old man, who stumbled sideways, fists flailing in the air. Kurt's hand shot out, his
palm sliced at the man's neck, and, in slow motion now, Nathan Baider began falling forward, dropping onto his hands and knees, collapsing at his son's feet. Kurt raised his hand again, but Roz grabbed hold of it and wrenched it to the man's back. “My father! Stop, you idiot! He's my father!”

Vicky was on her feet, darting around the coffee table. She scooped up the telephone as she ran, aware of Kurt pulling free and starting after her. She was through the entry, out the door, across the porch—running down the cement walk, rain slapping at her face, fingers groping for the 911 keys, scarcely aware of the shadowy figure coming up the steps until she had run into him.

“Vicky. Vicky. What is it?”

She stared up at Steve Clark, trying to make out if he was real or only a vision conjured up out of her own need. She'd prayed for help, and a spirit had arrived.

She grasped the smooth, moist fabric of his raincoat and pressed against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding. He
was
real.

“They're inside!” she heard herself scream.

“What happened?”

“Nathan Baider. I think they killed him.”

Beyond Steve, coming up the steps, were two officers. They stopped on either side of them, and Vicky could sense the coiled energy beneath the dark uniforms.

“Who else is inside?” Steve's voice.

“Roz and his security chief, Kurt. I think Nathan—”

“Stay here,” Steve cut in. He brushed past her, pulling out a small black pistol from beneath his sport coat, issuing orders to the officers. “Johnson around back. Adler, you and I go in front.”

Vicky sank onto a small boulder in the flower garden next to the sidewalk and lifted her face into the rain and thanked the spirits.

T
he quiet awakened her. Even the drumming of rain against the roof had stopped. Vicky stretched against the rough fabric of the sofa in the study upstairs and winced at the pain that stabbed at her head and chest. She adjusted the ice pack on her cheek and glanced at the clock on the table next to the phone. The green numerals floated in the shadows: one-thirty.

She'd dozed for almost an hour. It surprised her. She hadn't expected to fall asleep; she'd still felt coiled for flight when Steve had led her upstairs. When did the noises downstairs stop? The footsteps scuffing the floor; the buzz of voices, the squawk of a police radio?

She listened to the silence, wondering if the officers and technicians had left. After a few moments she heard the footsteps on the carpeted stairs, followed by a soft knock. The door swung open, and Steve Clark stood in the opening. “You awake?” he said softly.

“Come in.”

He stepped into the room and stood looking down at her, like a hesitant visitor to a hospital room, unsure if the patient was still alive. Finally he reached around, pulled the desk chair over, and sat down. “How are you feeling?”

“I'll be okay.”

He was quiet a moment. “The techs have pretty much finished up downstairs,” he said finally. “Just got word from the emergency room. Looks like Nathan will recover.”

Vicky closed her eyes a moment. She found that she was shaking with relief. The image of the man in the black raincoat karate-chopping the old man's neck, was burned into her retinas. “He saved my life,” she said. “If he hadn't come when he did—”

“I know.” He placed a hand over hers. Outside, a car splashed through the wetness.

“I've spoken with Detective Slinger up in Lander. He'll be here tomorrow to interview Roz and Kurt. I expect we'll have enough evidence to charge them with masterminding the murder at Bear Lake, as well as the murders of Vince and Jana Lewis. Not to mention charges of conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, and attempted murder.” He drew in a long, considered breath and exhaled slowly. “I'll need a full statement from you tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch. “Make that this afternoon.”

She'd already told him everything. After the officers had taken Roz and Kurt out the front door, hands cuffed behind their backs, and the ambulance had driven off with Nathan Baider, and the medics had handed her an ice pack, she'd sat at the dining-room table across from Steve, pouring out a torrent of words, as if the words could dispel the terror and pain. Why had he come when he did? she'd asked him.

Her friend had called, he'd explained. Father O'Malley. Said to get to the house. A killer could be there. He'd had the dispatcher send a car, and he'd come as fast as he could.

Now he said, “You shouldn't be alone, Vicky. Why isn't Lucas here? I'll call him for you.”

“No.” She shook her head.

“He's your son. He should be with you.”

“I don't want to upset him.” She drew in a breath. “I'll talk to him later.”

He didn't say anything for a moment. “Is there someone else I can call. A friend?”

She pressed the ice pack into her face. Laola, a young woman with next Saturday's date the most serious thing on her mind; colleagues at the law firm—she didn't even have their home numbers; a couple of neighbors with whom she exchanged good mornings. There was no one. She was alone.
Hisei ci nihi.

He said, “I can stay downstairs if you like.”

“I'll be okay,” she told him with as much confidence as she could muster. “Thanks.”

He sighed and got to his feet. “I'll lock up on my way out,” he said. Then: “By the way, I hung up the phone downstairs. It's working now.”

The phone. She'd run outside with it, trying to dial 911, and then she'd bumped into Steve. She vaguely remembered setting the phone down somewhere—the dining-room table?—after Steve had brought her back into the house. She must have left it turned on. Anyone trying to call would have gotten a busy signal.

“Call me if you need me,” he said, heading into the hallway. She heard his footsteps pounding on the stairs. After a moment the muffled thud of the front door shutting.

She started to get up, then dropped back. The room whirled about, and her head throbbed. She'd spend the night on the sofa, she decided. As she reached for the
throw at the end, the phone rang. She leaned over to the table and lifted the receiver.

“Vicky. Thank God.” John O'Malley's voice. She knew it instantly. “I've been trying to reach you all night. Are you okay?”

She curled up against the back cushion and allowed the comfort of his voice to wash over her. “Steve got here in time,” she heard herself explaining. “I'm all right.” She pushed away the memory of the blows and hurried on, telling him how Nathan Baider had walked in, like a spirit suddenly appearing out of nowhere, and how she had run out of the house.

The line went quiet a moment. “One of Baider's men died tonight at Bear Lake,” he said. He told her about Wentworth and Delaney, how Delaney had broken down and told the detective everything. How Wentworth had spotted Grover at Bear Lake, the Indian who had worked for him at the Kimberly Mine. He'd assumed Grover had found out about the deposit somehow and had come to Bear Lake to spy on them, intending to blackmail Baider Industries or blow the whistle. He went up to the ledge to kill him. Delaney had gone along, but he hadn't expected Wentworth to kill the Indian.

Vicky tried to follow what he was saying through the throbbing in her head. Nothing was making sense. “Grover was on a vision quest,” she managed.

That was right, he said. “The irony is, Grover didn't know anything about the deposit. Neither did Eddie, but when Wentworth spotted Eddie in Lander, he figured Grover and Eddie were working together. Eddie also had to die. They went after him. When they picked him up this afternoon, the guy was so scared he told them Ali Burris knew they'd killed Grover and was going to tell the sheriff, so they picked her up, too.”

Vicky didn't say anything for a moment. It made sense now, the picture was clear. She uncurled her legs and set her bare feet on the carpet. “There's another irony,” she said. “There won't be a mine at Bear Lake after all.”

“I know,” he said. “Delaney told Slinger how he and Wentworth had salted the mine. They sent Baider soil samples that included gem-quality stones, which Baider used to prove that the deposit was valuable. He was determined that his scheme would succeed, Vicky. He was willing to have people killed. He would have had you killed.”

“You, too, John O'Malley,” she said. Then she got up and walked over to the window, still feeling shaky. Outside, a section of pavement shimmered like a diamond under the street lamp. But it wasn't a diamond. Was nothing as it seemed? Everything an image of something else?

“I'd like to see the kimberlite pipe,” she said.

“I have a good idea where it's located.”

“Well, I know the exact location. And . . .” She drew in a long breath. A car broke through the diamond of light. “I want to come home.”

F
ather John saw Vicky standing next to the Bronco by the clump of willows. She was peering up through a pair of binoculars, seemingly lost in another reality. He turned into the parking area and stopped a few feet away.

It had been six weeks since the night they'd talked. Six weeks, and his ribs were still sore. Her call this morning had caught him by surprise. He knew she'd come home for a visit, but he didn't know when.

“I'm here for the weekend,” she'd said, lightness and anticipation in her voice. “How about a hike in Bear Lake Valley this afternoon?”

Not until he got out of the Toyota and slammed the door did she seem to realize he was there. She took the binoculars away and walked toward him. She resembled the image of her he carried in his mind: dressed in blue jeans and a jean jacket, unbuttoned over a white T-shirt. Her black hair trailed around the collar. A red backpack dangled on her back. Her beaded earrings shimmered in the sunlight as she moved. There was a flush of color in her cheeks, a hint of red in her lips.

She handed him the binoculars and nodded toward the ledge where he'd gone after Eddie and Ali. “Look up
there,” she said, as if they'd been having an ongoing conversation.

He lifted the binoculars and focused beyond the lakeshore, moving slowly up the mountainside. The petroglyph leaped out at him: white arms, hands, and feet, the masked face, the round eyes. An otherworldly figure—spiritual—floating in space, so close he could almost reach out and touch it.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” Vicky said beside him.

“Yes.”

After a moment she said, “Look this way.” He felt the cool touch of her hand on his, guiding the binoculars toward another petroglyph, another spirit. “They'll leave here, you know, if the land is disturbed.”

He understood. The spirits had been sent here by the Creator to help human beings and, when necessary, to chastise them.

He found another petroglyph, smaller, with deeply chiseled eyes and an upturned mouth that gave the face an amused expression. Spirits manifesting themselves in stone? It defied scientific theory and all the Jesuit logic he had absorbed through the years, both of which seemed inadequate to account for the reality. He believed in spirits. He believed in angels and saints. He believed in sacred places where the Creator was close, very close. Often he felt an unworldly presence at St. Francis.

He took the binoculars away and turned to Vicky. She was studying a small black box in her hand.

“GPS,” she said. “The data analyst who found the pipe insisted I bring this along. He loaded the coordinates. All we have to do is follow the directions. A satellite up there somewhere”—she glanced at the sky—“will take us to the pipe.”

She started walking, glancing now and then at the GPS
in her hand. He stayed in step beside her. The wild grasses and brush spreading across the valley were dappled in sunlight. Clouds as white as snow billowed over the mountain peaks.

They headed in a slightly different direction than he would have chosen. He'd seen the movement when he'd first gone to the ledge. He was pretty sure he could find the pipe without the gadget, but it was probably taking them by the most direct route.

“I'll be moving back,” Vicky said. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

“When?” He wasn't surprised. The moccasin telegraph had been weighted down with rumors: she was moving this weekend, next weekend, next year.

“Next month.” She stopped walking and looked around, taking into herself the mountains and cliffs, the creeks meandering through the valley to the lake. “This is mine,” she said.

“What about Lucas?”

“He's all for it. We've had long talks, he and I. He thinks I'll be safer here, where his father is.” She gave a little laugh and started out again.

Father John walked alongside her without saying anything. He knew she'd gone to Denver to get away from Ben Holden. He wondered where he'd be next month. At St. Francis, he hoped, but he could never be certain. He was on borrowed time here. Every day precious, to be enjoyed while it lasted.

“I have some business to finish up at the firm,” Vicky went on. She swung her backpack around, removed a bottle of water, and took a long drink. Then she handed the bottle to him. Her lipstick on the rim had a sweet taste. “But now that the appellate court has overturned the ruling in the Navajo Nation case . . .”

“Congratulations,” he said. He'd read about the ruling in the
Gazette
a week ago.

She gave him a smile that betrayed her satisfaction. “Anyway,” she went on, “the firm doesn't have any other important cases affecting Indian people at the moment. A good time to come home.”

She drew in a long breath. “Even after I get back, I'll have to return to Denver to testify at the trials of Baider and Kurt. They're looking at the death penalty, and that's before Wyoming gets a shot at them.”

Father John didn't say anything for a moment. He was thinking of Jimmie Delaney. He'd visited the man yesterday. Shrunken with remorse against the cement wall of a cell at the county jail in Lander, he'd pleaded guilty to accessory to murder, conspiracy, assault. After he testified against his bosses, he'd probably be sentenced to a long prison term.

They were headed up an incline now, and Father John felt the same pull in his calves he'd felt running up the mountain to the ledge. It had been raining then and dark. Now the sun burned warm through the shoulders of his jacket, despite the clouds building over the mountains. In the distance, he could hear the faintest rumble of thunder, sputtering like an engine trying to turn over. It would rain later.

Vicky dropped down on a boulder and took another drink. A little row of perspiration glistened on her forehead, just below her hairline. He sat next to her and took a drink after she'd finished.

“What about the lawsuit?” she said.

He took a moment before answering. “We're going to settle with the woman.”

“What?” Vicky turned toward him. “She followed
Father Ryan here. That hardly makes her an innocent party. You might have won in court.”

“So the lawyers say.”

“Well, who suggested settling?” She stared at him a moment. “Why?”

Father John shrugged. “The man made promises he couldn't keep. She believed him, gave up her job, moved to Riverton. It'll take her a while to get over it.” He held her gaze a moment. “A man shouldn't do that to a woman,” he said.

“Oh, John.” She shook her head. “Some developer will put up a box store on the land and cover the earth with an asphalt parking lot.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “The Provincial's trying to convince a wealthy benefactor to buy the land and donate it back to the mission.”

“You have the luck of the Irish, John O'Malley.”

“Yes,” he said. “And usually it's—”

“Well, let's hope this time it'll be good.” She stood up. “The GPS says we have another couple miles. We'd better get going before it rains.”

He followed her up another incline. On the far side, he could see the parallel tracks of flattened grasses and scrub brush. The tracks wound to the left, but Vicky continued straight ahead: the direct route, guided by an invisible satellite.

They were in a wide meadow now, mountains curving around the far side. Vicky stopped and studied the GPS a moment, then walked past a grove of willows and stopped again. He followed.

Erupting through the grass and brush, barely visible, was a large circle of gray-black rocks. In the center, a slight depression where the earth had a bluish cast.

Father John stooped down and picked up a rock the
size of his hand. He turned it over, testing the weight and heft. It looked like hardened lava. “Hard to believe diamonds make their home in such simple rock,” he said. Like the spirits, he was thinking, in the sandstone cliffs.

Vicky started walking again, holding out the GPS. He went after her. “Baider's crew was digging here.” She gestured toward a small area. The earth had been tamped down, and clusters of wild grasses struggled to get a foothold, unlike the grass flourishing nearby.

“Looks as if Gus Iron Bear and the other elders had the damage repaired,” he said.

Vicky stooped over and brushed at the stand of new grass. It sprang up under her hand. She stood up and turned toward him. “Maybe the spirits repaired the damage. This is their home.”

She smiled and went on: “What if the spirits played a trick on Baider and his crew? What if the spirits salted the area?”

He held her eyes. “You mean, put the lesser-quality diamonds near the surface where they'd find them and hid the gem-quality stones far below?”

“Well, Father O'Malley,” she said, “what does your Jesuit logic say to that?”

“It says we don't know everything.”

She started laughing, and the sound of her laughter mingled with the first clap of thunder over the mountaintops, like the pounding of horses' hooves far away, drawing closer.

He said, “Jesuit logic also says it's going to rain.”

She shook her head. “It's only thunder guarding this place.”

“All the same, we'd better start back.”

“We're walking softly here,” she said, taking his arm as they started back across the meadow, retracing their steps. “We don't have anything to fear. Thunder won't harm us.”