Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery (18 page)

RED, BLUE, AND
yellow lights swirled in the darkness a block ahead. Traffic bunched together on Main Street, crawling past the strip mall where Ranchlands Employment was located. Father John switched to the far right lane and skimmed alongside the curb before swinging into the parking lot. Police cars were scattered about as if they had been dropped out of the night sky. Beyond the cars a half circle of yellow police tape flickered in the breeze. People stood around, heads bobbing, feet shuffling. Several uniformed officers huddled beside the cars, glancing at the notepads in their hands. Plainclothes officers in white shirts and leather vests moved about inside the police tape. Cameras flashed.

Father John drove around the bystanders, pulled in behind the police cars, and jumped out. A plainclothes officer nodded in his direction, lights flashing over the look of annoyance on his face. “Crime scene. You need to go back.” He waved toward the street.

“Father O'Malley from the mission.” He kept walking toward the police tape. He recognized the detective: George Samuels, Riverton Police Department. He had met him at other all-too-similar crime scenes. The play of lights, the stunned onlookers, the hush of voices. “I knew Steve Mantle and his family. Is his body still here?”

The annoyance in the detective's face melted into recognition. “Sorry, Father. Should've recognized your old pickup. Coroner took the body fifteen minutes ago. We're finishing up with forensics.”

“What happened?”

“Burglary, plain and simple. Professional job. Knew what they wanted. Computer's missing. Safe emptied. No sign of Mantle's cell phone. He was shot in the back of the head at his desk, execution style. No way did they want to be identified.”

Father John took a moment, fighting the wave of nausea that rolled over him. Execution style. Dear Lord, a few hours ago Steve Mantle had told him about the cowboys he'd sent to work at the Broken Buffalo. Two by two, hired together, left together. But Ranchlands Employment was only part of the man. He blinked at the image of the coach on the other side of the field when the Eagles played the Rangers. Checking the batting lineup, coaching in the runners, clapping his hands overhead when the kid in left field caught a fly. His son, Richard, loading up the bats and balls and gloves, hoisting bags over his shoulder, following his dad off the field.

“How about the family?”

“Wife drove over soon as she heard. Hysterical. One of the policewomen took her home. It's tough, real tough. I don't have to tell you. You seen it before.” Too many times, Father John was thinking. Too many senseless endings to too many lives.

The detective threw a glance around the parking lot and drew in a long, slow breath that expanded his chest. “How well did you know him?”

“We coached Little League teams. He was a good coach. Good man. I was here this afternoon.”

“What about?”

“I was curious about three cowboys who have gone missing. Steve had placed them on the Broken Buffalo Ranch. They worked for a while, then left. He didn't know where they might have gone.”

The detective nodded. “Cowboys don't always leave forwarding addresses.”

“Last March the fiancée of one reported him missing to the fed and the BIA police. You hear about it?”

“Probably came across my desk. I'd have to check. Are you suggesting it might have something to do with the killing?” The detective was shaking his head. “They came for what was valuable. Mantle's wife said he kept cash in the safe, probably a couple thousand. Sometimes he'd loan a cowboy money until he could find him a job. The killer came in here, forced Mantle to open the safe, then took off with the contents and the computer. Hit the jackpot.”

Father John waited a moment before he told the detective he was going over to the house to see if there was anything he could do.

Detective Samuels gave a quick nod, then ducked under the police tape and started toward the other plainclothes officers.

*   *   *

IT MIGHT HAVE
been a party. The two-story house lit up, lights flaring over the front yard and bouncing in the trees. Cars jammed the driveway and crowded the curb on both sides of the street. Dozens of people, probably neighbors, blocked the sidewalk. Father John had to drive to the next block before he found a parking space. He walked back, only half-aware of the conversations fading into the breeze as he passed people on the sidewalk. “The mission priest,” he heard someone say. A hushed, mournful tone, as if the presence of a priest somehow made the inexplicable real. He hurried up the narrow front sidewalk to the porch, where baskets of flowers hung from the ceiling. The door stood open. Silhouettes of people moved around the brightly lit living room; the faint smell of fresh coffee and the soft noise of voices wafted toward him.

He rapped on the door frame, then stepped inside. A crush of people, like in the grief-stricken homes he was used to visiting on the rez. Neighbors, family, all the relations—and, on the rez, everybody was related, it seemed—gathering together to comfort someone whose world had changed forever. The conversations died back. He could see the expectancy in the eyes turned on him, as if he, the priest, could make sense of this. A pathway seemed to part on its own across the room to the sofa against the far wall. Curled into the corner was Julia Mantle. He had seen her at the games, small and dark-haired, packed with energy, like a cheerleader for the Riverton Rangers. Jumping and shouting at every hit. All she needed, he used to think, were pompoms to wave overhead.

He walked over and sat down on the edge of an ottoman someone pushed toward him. “Julia.” He kept his voice soft, the voice of the confessional, of holy things. “I'm so very sorry.”

She shifted away from the back of the sofa and made an effort to turn in his direction. Her black hair was shiny and matted where she had been leaning against the cushion. She blinked into the lights that flowed from the ceiling and the assortment of table lamps as if she had just come in from the dark and needed time for her eyes to adjust. She lifted a hand, then let it flutter back to her lap. He wondered what she had taken, what kind of drug to mask the pain that, he knew, would come roaring back, a monster no drug or alcohol could tame. “You heard?”

Father John nodded. “I came to see if I can help you in any way.”

“Steve liked you. He said you were a good coach. Your kids play fair.”

“He was a good coach.”

She buckled under his words, face wrinkling, tears puddling in her eyes. “What will I do? Who will be the father to our children? Who will look after us and love us? Tell me, Father. What will I do? Oh . . .” She lifted her hand again. It looked as small as a child's, with thin fingers and pink nails. “Don't tell me to pray. Don't tell me God will take care of us. What kind of God lets a good man like Steve be shot like a dog? I don't want your God. I'm alone here. All these people, they'll go away, and it will just be me and the kids, and what are we supposed to do?”

“I don't think your family and friends will go away.” He glanced at the little groups hovering about. “They will help you find the way. You will gain strength from them.” He had seen it happen: the bereaved carried along on a wave of strength from family and friends. She didn't believe him, though. He could see it in the vacant look in her eyes, as if she were staring into an abyss.

She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. Moisture pooled on her cheeks. “He was here with us. He was here.” She opened her eyes and gave him a pleading look. “You understand? We were about to eat dinner. It's still in the oven waiting for Steve to come home. How can this be? I mean, his dinner's in the oven.”

“I'm sorry.”

“He's coming home, I'm sure. He never misses dinner. Dinner with the family is a big thing with Steve because he didn't really have a family. Just him and his mom. She was a waitress, so she used to bring home food from the restaurant. She always worked at dinnertime. He'd find something in the fridge and eat it by himself. Watch TV. Sometimes he wondered where she'd gotten the food. Scraped leftovers off somebody's plate? He never knew, but he was always hungry, so he just ate whatever was there. But what he was really hungry for was a family to eat dinner with. Talk over the day. Steve created the family he always wanted.”

Father John didn't say anything. He could almost feel the memories rolling through the small, dark woman across from him, staring off into the past, her legs tucked under her. Finally she brought her eyes back to his. “Steve's not coming home for dinner, is he?”

“No, Julia. He's not.” He took a moment before he said, “You said you were about to eat dinner. Why did he go back to the office?”

Now she was staring in the direction of the dining room that opened off the living room. There were people sitting at the table, sipping from coffee mugs. Richard and a little girl sat across from each other. Father John wondered if the kids were in the same seats they always sat in at dinnertime, as if everything were normal. A woman with white hair and an air of authority set a plate of food in front of each child and leaned down to tell them something, her voice lost in the voices around them and the clanking noise from the kitchen.

Julia kept her eyes fixed on the dining room table, as if she were picturing the family having dinner together.
How was
your day?
Finally she looked back. “A client called. Steve took good care of his clients. They put the food on the table, he used to say. Family came first, but clients supported the family. He pulled his cell out of his shirt pocket, got up from the table, and went into the kitchen. No media at our table, that was his rule. I knew from the tone of his voice that something had come up and I would have to put dinner back into the oven. ‘Sorry,' he said when he came back. He had to go to the office. It would only take thirty minutes. ‘We'll wait,' I told him. Oh God.” She dipped her face into her hands. “Why did I say that? Why didn't I say, ‘You can't go! You can't leave us!'”

“You told the detective about the call?”

“I told him.” She peeled her hands away. Little black streaks, like fine lines, ran down her cheeks. “He'll check Steve's cell records. He's got to find out who called! The client that needed to see Steve might have seen the killer hanging around the mall somewhere. He might have seen a car or truck. Detective Samuels has to find the client!”

Father John looked away. It hadn't dawned on Julia Mantle that the client might be the one who'd robbed and killed her husband. Clients were locals, part of their world. She and Steve went to church with clients, ate picnic suppers in the park with clients. Clients didn't rob and kill.
They supported the family.

“Steve didn't say who the client was?”

She was shaking her head.

“Listen, Julia. If I can ever help you or the kids in any way, please call me. Even if you just need someone to talk to.”

She stared at him wide-eyed, as if she had just realized who he was. “Steve always said you were a good man.”

Father John took her hand for a moment, then got to his feet. He made his way past the knots of people to the dining room. He saw Richard and the little girl watching him, dark eyes like their mother's, rounded with grief and confusion. He placed a hand on Richard's shoulder. It was thin and knobby, layers of muscles not yet laid down. “This is tough,” he said, looking across the table at the kid's sister. Big brown eyes and straggly brown hair. She looked even more fragile than Richard. “You've got friends and family here” he said. “They'll help your mom and you kids.”

The little girl pushed a fork through the macaroni on the plate in front of her. The kids might have been twins, except that the girl was smaller. “I seen you at the games.” Even her voice was small.

“Remember, you have your mom, and you have each other,” he said.

Both kids nodded, as if they understood more than should have been asked of them.

SIRENS ROSE AND
fell somewhere on Main Street. Vicky sipped at her coffee and watched Adam stir a spoonful of sugar into his cup. The sound of sirens was always unnerving, with their mournful sense of someone in need of help. The sirens had been going throughout dinner, starting up, quieting down, starting up again. Odd how everyone ignored them—the waiters bustling about the tables, the other diners. The café, a new restaurant they had decided to try, was packed. They'd had to wait twenty minutes for a table, and people still filled the entry. A few people looked familiar. They had been in the line to see the white buffalo calf this afternoon.

Adam took a drink of coffee and set the mug down. “Traffic accident nearby.” He had been watching her, she realized.

“It must be bad.” Vicky could sense people in the entry watching their table. So many visitors; every restaurant crowded. She'd heard there wasn't an available room in the motels. The campgrounds were full. Someone in line had mentioned the only available camping place they'd found was up by Dubois, a good hour's drive away. She gulped at her coffee.

“We don't have to hurry,” Adam said. “Let's talk a little.”

Talk! Vicky closed her eyes a moment. They had been talking for three hours. On the drive to and from the Broken Buffalo, during dinner. Talking and talking about the white buffalo calf. How helpless and vulnerable the calf had looked, Vicky had said. Adam had disagreed. Look at the way the rest of the herd hovered over her, a protective shield, as if even the buffalo knew she was different, a sacred creature they had to protect. On and on they had talked, recalling stories they'd heard as children. Arapaho and Lakota, allies once, in the Old Time. All the tribes tried to befriend the powerful Lakota or stay out of their way. The cultures were similar, the old stories the same.

“The offerings have about filled up the fence,” Adam had said. “Seems to me Sheila Carey should be setting another fence in front of it. Something nice about the way folks want to leave a part of themselves for the calf.” She had agreed. Yes, it was nice. She had left strands of her hair inside a little case. This afternoon, Adam had left a small bag of tobacco. Small talk, all of it.

Then he had mentioned the metal donation cans. “You ask me, Sheila Carey could make some serious money.”

She has serious expenses
, Vicky had told him, wondering even now why she had stood up for the woman. There was something about the redheaded Sheila Carey that was off-putting, as if she wasn't what she seemed—or perhaps was more than she seemed. “She's had to hire extra hands, repair and build fences, bring in porta potties.”

“I say she's still going to make more money than any buffalo ranch could hope to see in a lifetime.”

He could be right, Vicky thought now. What did it matter? The white buffalo calf was a blessing to all the people. The topic they should be talking about, she knew, had risen between them like a boulder fallen out of the sky, too large to push aside, too dense to see around. They had ignored it.

The sirens were louder. A couple of police cars, roof lights flashing, raced past the plate glass windows on the other side of the café. The waitress swung by and refilled Vicky's cup. “Do you know what's going on?”

The woman straightened up, a hand gripping the handle of the coffeepot, her eyes on Adam. She was small and blond and beautiful in a vapid, obvious way, Vicky thought. “Heard there was a burglary in the strip mall. Some guy got shot.” Adam waved a hand over the top of his mug, and she moved toward the next table, swinging the pot like a banner.

“Somebody walked in on a burglar.” Adam shrugged, as if walking in on a burglar and getting shot were normal occurrences. Things happened. He leaned toward her. “What do you think?”

“About somebody getting shot?”

“About Denver.”

Here it was, then. Vicky sipped at the hot coffee, bitter tasting now, leaving a sharp, unpleasant tingling sensation in her throat. She let the silence stay between them and looked away from the worry in his eyes. They had an uncanny sense about the lies they told each other, she thought. She would not lie. “I haven't had time to think about it.”

“Vicky . . .”

Yes. Yes. She gave him a little wave. What sense did it make? No time to think about an important, life-changing decision? “I've been preoccupied with a client. Worried about Arnie Walksfast.”

“I thought that case was settled. He's in rehab. You got him a better deal than he deserved, the way I see it. What are you worried about?”

“He could be involved in something bigger than an assault case. I can't talk about it.”

“If we were partners, we could talk about it. Maybe you would stop worrying about things you needn't worry about.”

Vicky set the coffee mug down and smiled at the handsome, self-assured man across from her. He worried, she knew, but always about important cases. Cases that mattered. Arnie Walksfast and most of the clients who found their way to her office—scared to death, helpless, locked in some tangled legal problem—hardly qualified. Hardly mattered in the glass-enclosed corporate offices of oil and gas companies, where Adam hammered out the best agreements, the tightest contracts to the advantage of tribes across the West. Now he had been offered a partnership in a Denver law firm.

“You should take the offer,” she said. “I'm sure the oil and gas companies sit up and take notice when they have to deal with Trent, Lawrence, and Vickery. It's what you want, a wonderful opportunity. You will be able to do a lot for our people.”

“I'm not going without you.”

“Don't say that.” Vicky clasped her hands in her lap; they felt cold and shaky. “Don't make me the reason you turn down a great opportunity. You would come to hate me, Adam. I don't want that.”

Adam pushed his own mug halfway across the table. “I was thinking about something else today when we were at the ranch,” he said. “The white buffalo calf is a sacred sign of the Creator's presence. Don't you see, Vicky? She's a blessing for our lives. A personal blessing for each of us. She's a sign we're on the right path, we can go forward together. It is what should be.”

The waitress was back with the coffeepot, but Adam waved her away. She stared at him for a long moment before turning toward the next table. The most handsome man in the restaurant, Vicky thought. Here with her, asking her to move to Denver with him. Start a new life together. Telling her the calf was a personal blessing.

Adam held up a hand in the Plains Indian sign of peace. “Let's not talk about it now. I don't want you to make a decision if you haven't thought about it.”

“Is there anything else I can bring you?” The waitress was back, all smiles and ingratiating bows toward Adam. Vicky felt as if she were invisible.

“You can bring the check.” Adam gave the woman one of his warmest smiles.

“I'd say she likes you.”

“Don't, Vicky.” Adam sat forward and pulled a thin wallet from the rear pocket of his blue jeans.

“It's a compliment.”

“I don't want it.”

Vicky dug into her bag on the bench beside her, extracted her wallet and tossed a twenty and a five into the center of the table. “Put that on the bill.”

He pushed the money back toward her. “Let me at least take you to dinner.” He smiled at her. “Peace?”

“Peace.” She took the bills, slid to the end of the bench, pulling her bag with her, and got to her feet. “I'll meet you outside.”

It had cooled a little, but it was still warm outside, the wind gusty and dry. Whirls of dust spun across the sidewalk and trailed along the curb. Headlights streamed up and down Main Street, campers and SUVs and cars with out-of-state license plates. People pushed around her and shouldered their way into the restaurant, where others were still milling about the hostess's desk. She wondered how long this pilgrimage would continue. A year? Two years? Until the white calf was no longer a calf?

The sirens had stopped, but there was still commotion in the next block, still people standing about. Adam was probably right. Somebody had walked in on a burglar. The thought sent a chill through her. It could happen to anyone. She dug through her purse for her cell phone. She had turned it off at the ranch—a ringing phone would have been incongruous, a sacrilege, an imposition on the sacred and timeless. She had kept it off during dinner. Now she checked her messages. There were four, all from Annie. She called her secretary's cell.

“Vicky, I've been trying to reach you.” Annie's voice was breathless and tense.

“What's happened?”

“Arnie left rehab.”

“What? When did he leave?”

“About five o'clock. The rehab nurse called and said he didn't show up for dinner. He seemed fine this afternoon, went to physical therapy and spent an hour with his counselor. They thought he was making progress. They checked his room, and he was gone. She has to report to probation.”

“Did he tell anyone where he was going? Leave any written messages?”

“Nothing. I think they were pretty surprised. Never saw it coming.”

Of course not, Vicky was thinking. Arnie Walksfast was a chameleon. He could be whatever you wanted him to be. “Have you talked to his mother?”

“I didn't know if I should call her.”

“I'll handle it.” If she could find him, Vicky was thinking, she might be able to talk him into returning tonight. The probation officer might look more favorably upon his leaving if he returned within a few hours. “Call me if you hear anything else.”

Vicky pressed the end key, aware of Adam standing beside her. “What's up?”

“Arnie left rehab.”

“Nothing you can do about it. He's made his own choices.” She could feel the pressure of his hand on her arm, steering her along the sidewalk toward the parking lot next to the restaurant. “The waitress told me she heard the guy who got shot was named Steve Mantle. Ran an employment office.”

Vicky pulled away and stopped walking. “Ranchlands Employment.”

“You know him?”

“He found jobs on ranches for cowboys. He placed at least six cowboys on the Broken Buffalo.”

Adam stood beside her, not saying anything. Waiting, she knew, for some explanation. What did this have to do with her?

“At least three of the cowboys are missing. One of them had pressed the assault charges against Arnie, then didn't show up for the trial. No one knows where he went.”

“You think Arnie might be involved in his disappearance?”

“I don't know.” Vicky started toward the lot, hurrying, catching a heel in a sidewalk crack, righting herself, aware of Adam's hand on the middle of her back, steadying her. She darted past the parked cars, waited for Adam to open the passenger door on the BMW, and slid inside.

“I'll take you wherever you want to go.” Adam slid behind the steering wheel and pulled his door shut. He was looking at her as he turned on the ignition. Lights from the dashboard striped his face.

“Just take me to the office.”

“Vicky . . .”

“There are some things I want to check on.” The car turned through the lot and burst into the traffic. The lie was like something heavy and unreal between them. She knew that he knew she was lying; she could sense the barely controlled anger in the sound of his breathing. She stopped herself from telling him that he wouldn't understand. They drove in silence.