Watching Eagles Soar (6 page)

* * *

V
icky could see the parked cars and pickups flashing through the stand of cottonwoods as she turned into St. Francis Mission. It might have been an ordinary Sunday, sunshine stippling the grounds, a warm breeze rustling the leaves in the branches. A mixture of relief and alarm washed over her. The mission wasn't deserted; there were people still having coffee in Eagle Hall. And yet, if anyone tried to enter the church, Kenny would start shooting. And the minute she stepped through the door, she knew, she and John O'Malley could both be dead.

She'd realized the truth of it back on Rendezvous Road, the brush and sunflowers in the ditches blurring past. She'd yanked her cell out of her bag and started to punch in 911, then dropped the cell into her lap. She could picture the police cars speeding into the mission, the uniforms rushing up the steps of the church. She could hear the gunshots. She pushed the next picture into the shadows of her mind: John O'Malley crumpling to the floor. She was still a couple of miles away—checking her watch. God. Only three minutes—when she knew what she had to do.

She drove past the church, turned into the alley, and slid to a stop behind the bumper of a pickup. Grabbing the cell, she slammed out of the Jeep. A group of kids were playing on the stoop in front of Eagle Hall. She brushed past and let herself through the door. The sound of voices hung in a haze of coffee smells. Little groups of people sat at the tables scattered about, while several women fussed over the empty plates and Styrofoam cups on the table against the wall on the left.

“Have you seen Leonard?” Vicky said, her eyes roaming over the crowded hall, aware only that someone was standing inside the door.

“Over there.” It was a man's voice. A bulky arm shot past her in the direction of the far corner.

Vicky started around the tables, barely registering the startled looks on the faces that turned up as she passed. She was in blue jeans and a tee shirt. She didn't remember combing her hair this morning; she hadn't put on makeup. God, she must look a mess. Someone called, “Hey, Vicky.” She dodged the hand reaching for hers and kept going, her gaze fixed on the back of Leonard's plaid shirt. The man was folding a chair. He stacked it against a pile of chairs in the corner.

“Leonard,” she said, coming up behind him. He swung around, then reared back a little, as if the breeze had just blown her through the door. He started to say something, but she cut him off. “There's an emergency. Kenny Yellow Plume has a gun on Father John over in the church.”

“What?” The man's face froze in disbelief. “I was just thinking about going over to see if Father John needed help with something.”

“We don't have any time.” Vicky hurried on. “We've got to get some men and get over there. Kenny called me almost twenty minutes ago. He's threatening to kill Father John.”

Leonard started past her, and she grabbed his arm. “I think Kenny locked the front door. He told me to knock.”

“Don't worry. I got the keys.”

“What about the back door, in case he locked that, too?”

“The back door?” He tossed her a sideways glance. “Yeah, I can unlock it. Let's go.”

He pushed past her, and Vicky followed the man across the hall, weaving around the tables, dodging the knots of people. Leonard pulled up at one of the tables, leaned down, and said something to Nathan Birdsong, then kept going. Behind her, Vicky could hear the scrape of Nathan's boots. A couple more stops, and two other men jumped up. They were a little crowd by the time they got out the door and started for the church, boots scuffling the gravel.

“We'll bust through the door and take Kenny down,” Leonard said.

“No!” Vicky shouted. She fumbled for the scrap of paper in her pocket and started tapping out Kenny's number on her cell. “We have to distract him first.”

* * *

T
he ringing phone seemed to startle the man, Father John thought. Kenny Yellow Plume rolled his eyes around the church, as if the phone might be in one of the pews. Finally he reached up and tugged the cell out of his shirt pocket.

“Yeah?” he said, still gripping the gun. An absent look came into his expression, and Father John braced one hand on the pew ahead and watched Kenny's expression dissolve into a half smile.

“Well, the lawyer lady finally got here,” the Indian said, snapping the phone shut and plugging it back into his pocket. “Won't be long now, Priest. She's waiting outside the door.” He began moving backward, a slow, unsteady gait. Two feet, three feet, until he'd covered the space between the pew and the door. He was still pointing the gun. Father John watched the black tunnel of the barrel bobbing and weaving at his chest.

Kenny reached around with his free hand and turned the bolt. The metallic click echoed in the stillness.

“Here I am, Kenny.” Vicky's voice came from the front of the church.

The Indian's head spun sideways, and for a split second, the pistol pointed down the aisle. Father John sprang out of the pew and slammed into the man, grabbing his arm and pushing it upward as the pistol dropped down and skittered over the floor. The double doors burst open and a blur of blue jeans, brown arms, and fists swarmed over Kenny Yellow Plume. The air was filled with the sounds of shouting and grunting. Father John lunged for the pistol and wrapped his fist around the handle. When he looked around, Kenny was belly-down on the floor. Two men were straddling the outstretched legs, while Leonard and Nathan Birdsong were yanking Kenny's arms behind his back. Someone had produced a belt, which Leonard set about circling around Kenny's arms. He jammed the end into the buckle and pulled hard as Kenny thumped his head against the floor, a sustained howl erupting from his throat.

Father John glanced around. Vicky was coming down the aisle, a cell phone pressed against one ear. She stopped beside him and slipped the phone into her jeans pocket. “Police are on the way,” she said.

* * *

T
hey stood outside on the sun-washed stoop as two uniformed officers led Kenny Yellow Plume toward the three white cars with Wind River Police stamped in blue letters on the sides. Groups of parishioners stood around the church, worry and shock stamped in their expressions. A few minutes earlier, the police cars had screamed into the mission and a phalanx of officers had come through the opened doors of the church. Now two of the officers pushed Kenny into the backseat of a car. In a moment, engines growled into life and the cars started around Circle Drive. Father John caught a glimpse of Kenny Yellow Plume, black head bobbing over his chest, and he realized that the Indian was weeping.

“Well, he's not gonna be causing any more trouble for a while,” Leonard said. Nathan and the other two men grunted in agreement. They were still breathing hard, gulping at the hot air as if they couldn't get enough.

“You took a huge risk. All of you,” Father John said, but he kept his eyes on Vicky. He couldn't shake the image of what might have happened if Kenny had fired down the aisle.

“We were just following instructions,” Leonard said. “Vicky said she'd distract the guy, so you could jump him and get the gun. We waited for the commotion inside before we came busting in.”

“I figured that you would only need a split second,” Vicky said.

Father John was quiet a moment; then he said, almost to himself, “I wasn't able to talk Kenny out of the gun.” He turned away.

“He'd made up his mind to kill us both,” Vicky said.

Father John was aware of the warm pressure of Vicky's hand on his arm as he stared across the grounds, past the sunshine dancing in the sprinkling water and past the stands of cottonwoods, until, finally, the last police car had disappeared.

Honor

The Fifth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother.

“T
he boy's dead.”

“What?” Father John O'Malley pressed the receiver against his ear, wondering whether he had misunderstood the faint, raspy voice on the other end of the line. A pale, wavy light from the streetlamps around St. Francis Mission filtered through the window, streaking the walls and carpet in the front hall of the priest's residence. Blackness bunched up at the far end. The old house sighed and creaked with the oncoming night. Only a few minutes ago, the clock over the mantel in the living room had chimed ten o'clock.

The man at the other end of the line said nothing. Father John could hear the stifled sobs, the quick, jagged breathing. “Who is this?” he said, struggling for a gentle, reassuring tone.

“This here's Randolph Whitebird,” the voice managed after a moment. “Scottie's been shot, Father.” The sobs started again, unconcealed now, long and scraping, like the tearing of canvas.

Father John waited. Then, still the gentle tone: “Where are you?”

“Over here at Scottie's place.” A forced control came into the man's voice. “He got himself a house on Route Two. Everybody's here—police and Scottie's girlfriend. She's the girl found him.” The voice cracked on the word
girl
. “Her folks just showed up.”

Father John said, “I'll be right over.”

* * *

T
he sky was a field of stars sparkling in the blackness as Father John drove west across the Wind River Reservation. As he wheeled the Toyota pickup into a sharp right onto Route Two, his headlights flashed over the white shingles of the little house. Light blazed out of the front windows, illuminating the scrubbed patch of dirt that served as a yard. A strip of yellow police tape wrapped around stakes driven into the ground formed a half circle in front of the concrete steps that led to the stoop. People gathered in groups outside the tape, shadows moving in and out of the pale streams of light.

Parked at the edge of the road was a line of vehicles: A couple of BIA police cars, the red Jeep that Ted Gianelli, the local FBI agent, drove, and the white van Father O'Malley had seen at other death scenes: the coroner's wagon. Father John parked behind the wagon.

As he started across the bare dirt yard, he spotted Gianelli coming toward him. A big man, with the rounded shoulders and thick neck and the long, graceful strides of the linebacker he had once been. The light pouring out of the house shone in his dark hair and cast his face in shadow. “What happened?” Father John asked when the agent was still a few feet away.

“Scott Whitebird took a slug in the back of the head, execution style.” The agent glanced back toward the house, and for a moment, light glinted in his deep-set eyes. “Seen too many homicides like this. Always mixed up with drugs. Coroner thinks he's been dead about two hours, which puts time of death at about eight thirty. Neighbor says he saw the roommate's truck peeling out of the yard around then. Girlfriend walked in about nine and found the body. Called her dad right away, and he called the BIA police.” Another glance backward, this time in the direction of the clot of people on the other side of the yard. “Tammy Dotson. You know her?”

Father John shook his head. The name huddled somewhere in his memory, but he couldn't pull it free. He followed the agent's glance. The girl huddled in the center of the group, a childlike look about her in the shadowy light. Head bent forward, long, black hair clumped around the shoulders of her white tee shirt, she stared at the ground, oblivious to the man and woman on either side of her, arms looped around her waist. Probably her parents, Father John thought. The woman was an older version of the girl herself—the same downward bent of the head, the same black hair flaring over her shoulders. The man wore a white cowboy hat that sat back on his head, as if it had settled into its most natural perch. He was tall—the two women came barely to his shoulder—and he stood with shoulders squared, squinting downward at the yellow tape flapping in the breeze, the people flowing back and forth between groups, stamping their feet, nodding, murmuring into the hushed quiet.

“You know the way the moccasin telegraph works,” the agent went on. “Scott's dad and the rest of the Whitebird family got here in about twenty minutes.” Gianelli cleared his throat, as if to clear away a minor nuisance. “No weapon around. Killer most likely took it, but we're checking anyway. Couple of BIA officers are combing the area down by the creek in back of the house. “

The front door swung open and a man stepped backward onto the stoop, pulling the end of a gurney, white sheet trailing over the sides. The man started down the steps and the gurney bumped after him, guided by an attendant at the other end.

“Go ahead.” Gianelli nodded. Father John stepped across the tape and walked over to the gurney. One of the attendants gave him a weary, here-we-go-again-another-homicide smile. Father John pulled back the white sheet, exposing the face of a young man, with black hair falling loosely over a high forehead, a finely sculpted nose and cheekbones, full mouth turned upward in a half smile of surprise, and eyes closed, almost peaceful in death. Father John made the sign of the cross over the still body. “May God receive you into your eternal home, Scottie, and look not upon your sins, but upon all the good you brought into the world. May you be at peace in His everlasting love.”

As Father John stepped aside, the gurney started rattling over the hard earth toward the coroner's wagon, an attendant still at each end. Randolph Whitebird appeared out of the shadows. Leaping across the yellow tape, he started after the gurney. “My boy,” he shouted. “Don't take my boy away.”

Father John hurried over and set one hand on the man's arm. “Take it easy,” he said. The man jerked backward, stumbling sideways, then seemed to catch an uneasy balance, as if he were unsure of the planes beneath his feet shifting into a new and strange alignment. His eyes were opened wide, startled and relieved at the same time. “You blessed Scottie, Father?”

Father John nodded.

“Tammy found him,” the man said. “Just sitting there in front of the TV, blood everywhere. Poor girl.” He threw his head back toward the people still in the same place near the house. “They was gonna get married. Tammy loved him, too. She's in bad shock, what with the fed asking a lot of questions. Good thing her folks're here to be some comfort. Girl's never gonna get over this, walkin' in and seeing him like that.” The man's voice cracked; low sobs started to thunder out of his chest. He raised a clenched fist to his mouth, as if to stop the noise. Moisture ran along his cheeks and trailed over his knuckles. Father John patted his shoulder, at a loss for the right words. Words were so inadequate.

Suddenly Randolph reared backward and, looking out to the road, shouted: “He's not gonna get away with it. Not gonna get away with killing my boy.”

“Who?” Father John asked, not really startled at the abrupt shift in the man's emotions.

Randolph slowly brought his eyes back, as if he couldn't comprehend the question. “That roommate of Scottie's. Who else?”

“Gianelli thinks drugs might have been involved. Could that be true?”

“Drugs!” The man turned halfway around, his boots kicking at the dirt. “The fed's wrong. Scottie didn't have no truck with drugs. It's his roommate, no-good drunk, that did it. That's why he's not around. He took off. He's hidin' somewhere, so the cops can't find him. But I'm gonna find him. I'm gonna find him, Father, and I'm gonna kill him.”

Father John gripped the man's shoulders with both hands. He stared into his eyes. “No, you won't, Randolph. You're not going to do anything like that. You're going to let the fed and the police handle Scott's killer.” He could feel the man's muscles begin to relax, the sobs gathering somewhere deep inside. After a moment, he said, “Who's the roommate?”

“Larson Bell.” The man spit out the words.

Father John was quiet. A picture took shape in his mind: The Alcoholics Anonymous meetings two or three months ago at the mission; the long, thin face, the dark eyes wise beyond the man's twenty-some years; the studied way he rose to his feet and took in the faces turned to him; the gentle, quiet voice:
I'm Larson. I'm an alcoholic.

It was not the picture of a murderer, but who knew? Who ever knew? Larson Bell was an alcoholic, and alcoholics . . . Well, Father John was one himself. Recovering, today at least, by the grace of God, but still an alcoholic. Larson Bell was in serious trouble. The police were looking for him, but Father John had a pretty good idea of where to find him. He decided to talk to the young man first, before the police picked him up, before Randolph Whitebird found him.

* * *

T
he cloud of smoke hung low and moist around the booths inside the Buffalo Bar, which occupied a narrow slot between the trailer court and a warehouse on Highway 26, just outside the reservation boundary. Father John set the door in place behind him and squinted into the smoke and the dim light. The odors of whiskey and beer floated around him, stinging his nose and cheeks like a thousand invisible bees. A shout of derision from the poolroom on the other side of a wide archway broke through the hushed conversations. Five or six men straddled the stools in front of the bar at the far end; most of the booths were occupied by small groups of men and women—Indians all. White folks in the area had their own places.

Father John started toward the bar. The voices trailed off into a hushed, surprised silence. Suddenly, a thin, wiry man rose out of the far booth and started toward him. “What're you doin' here, Father?” Larson Bell made no effort to disguise the astonishment in his voice.

“Looking for you,” Father John said.

The thin face crumbled in apprehension. He took a step backward, drawing his forces together, as if to ward off a blow. “Oh, God,” he managed. “Something's happened. It's my dad, isn't it? His heart? Is it Mom? Something's happened to Mom?”

Father John took hold of the man's arm. “It's not your folks, Larson.”

The man's sigh came like an explosion, sudden and jerky, leaving a little cloud of distilled beer in the air between them. Father John tried not to breathe it in, wanting to breathe it in. “Let's go outside,” he said.

* * *

L
arson Bell kept one hand on the hood of the Toyota pickup, as if to steady himself, even though he seemed mildly sober, Father John thought. Two or three beers, at the most. “It's Scott,” he said. “Someone shot him this evening.”

“Scott?” The young man blinked his eyes and leaned farther toward the hood. “No.” He shook his head. “Scott's at home. He's okay.”

“It's true, Larson. I'm sorry.”

The young man was quiet, staring out across the highway. After a moment, Father John said, “When did you last see him?”

“I don't know.” Larson brought his eyes back to Father John's. “I left the house maybe eight, eight thirty. Scott was watchin' some dumb show on TV. Tried to get him to come along, you know, shoot some pool.” He gave a little wave toward the bar. “Scott's been—what d'ya call it—preoccupied lately, what with that girlfriend of his. She takes up most of his time.” Now the young man raised his eyes and began searching the sky. “Used to take up most of his time. Jesus, I can't believe he's dead.”

Father John didn't say anything. He'd been watching the young man, searching for the signs—the quick blinks, the imperceptible trembles. He knew when people were lying; it was so transparent, once you understood what to look for. Larson Bell was telling the truth, but that didn't keep him from being in a lot of trouble. He had been at the house about the time Scott Whitebird was murdered. Father John said, “The police are looking for you. They want to ask you some questions.”

“Looking for me? Why? I don't know nothing. I didn't even know he was dead 'til you come here. They think I killed Scott? Jesus, Father. You gotta tell 'em. I'd never killed nobody.

“Oh, man.” Larson turned his hand into a fist and thumped the hood. “That's enough to send Tammy over.”

“What're you talking about?” There was the lonely wail of a siren somewhere in the darkness down the highway.

Larson shrugged. “My opinion, she's got a whole lotta problems, but Scott was hung up on her, you know what I mean? Didn't wanna hear nothing bad about her. Said all she needed was some help, and he was the one that could help her.”

The girl's image worked its way into Father John's mind: head bent forward, eyes fixed on the ground, her mother and father holding her close. “The fed thinks Scott's death was about drugs.”

“Drugs? Scott?” Larson gave his head a furious shake. “Get real, Father.”

“What about Tammy? Were drugs one of her problems?”

Larson stepped back from the Toyota. He turned sideways and stared at the brown siding on the Buffalo Bar for a long moment. Then he looked back. “I don't know for sure, Father. I asked Scott once. He said no way was she using drugs anymore. He said her problems come from her situation. Soon's they got married, she was gonna be out of that situation for good.”

“What situation? Some job? Kids she was hanging around with? What?” Nothing was making sense.

Larson looked out toward the highway. The sirens had risen to a furious pitch. Slowly he brought his gaze back, and Father John saw the raw look of fear transforming his expression. “It's her mom and dad,” he said. “Scott said he had to do whatever it took to get Tammy away from her mom and dad. He said they were killing her.”

The sirens welled behind them as a police car swung into the parking lot. Father John blinked into the headlights sweeping over the pickup, past the front of the bar. Suddenly, the sirens shut off, leaving only the soft shush of the breeze moving over the asphalt. Two policemen jumped out of the car. “You Larson Bell?” one of them called.