Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery (23 page)

The roar of the tractor broke the stillness. “Open the gate.” Carlos gripped the steering wheel. The huge machine shook around him.

“Too late,” Reg called back. “Better let them settle down before we go out there. She's under the hooves now. She got what she deserved.” He turned away from the gate, as if he had seen enough. “It's not like they wanted to crush her.” His voice low now, as if he were talking to himself. “They're just protecting their place.”

Doors slammed behind them, cracking the air. Father John looked around. Shadows moved toward them, in and out of the swirling lights, and stopped in a half circle in front of them. “Come down off that tractor,” an officer shouted. “Drop your weapons.”

Carlos kicked the two guns out of the tractor and jumped down after them.

“All of you, hands in the air!”

Father John put his hands up and watched Reg and Vicky do the same. “I'm Father O'Malley,” he said. “This is Vicky Holden, and these two cowboys work on this ranch. Sheila Carey, the owner, has just been killed out in the buffalo herd.”

THE MORNING WAS
already hot, the sun a white blaze overhead and the heat just starting to build. Father John left the pickup in the parking lot and headed for the gate. The cowboy nodded him past. Everything on the Broken Buffalo Ranch seemed quiet, subdued, almost peaceful. Visitors stood inside the gate, waiting their turn to go out and see the calf. He could see the cowboys leading other groups along the fence toward the viewing spot, as if nothing had changed.

He walked down the road, past the house, which had a forlorn look about it, chairs rocking and squeaking on the porch, inhabited by ghosts. Past the barn, the green tractor crouching behind it, the flatbed next to the stacks of hay. The cemetery was shielded by a six-foot-high wall of black plastic that snapped in the wind. Behind the plastic, he knew, were six excavated graves. He had been here when the bodies were uncovered. Blessing each body, praying for the souls of the cowboys, aware of the quiet helplessness with which the officers and the coroner had worked.

Was it only one week ago that Sheila Carey had killed herself? It seemed like yesterday. They had taken the tractor and flatbed out into the pasture, Carlos at the wheel, a police officer in the passenger seat; he and Reg and two medics had balanced themselves upright on the flatbed. Reg had used the forklift to drop bales of hay onto the flatbed, and while Carlos maneuvered the metal machines close to the crumpled body of Sheila Carey, he and Reg had broken up the bales and thrown out the loads on the other side of the flatbed. The buffalo had wandered away from the body, and he and the officer and the medics had jumped down. One of the medics shone a flashlight onto the body of Sheila Carey. She was mauled and bruised, face blackened, clothes soaked in blood. She might have been struck by a semi on the highway.

The medics had rolled a canvas stretcher under the body and lifted it onto the flatbed. He had blessed the body as Carlos turned the tractor and flatbed in a wide half circle, inching through the herd, finally breaking out and heading back to the gate.
Dear Lord, take care of her soul, look into her heart and into whatever had turned her into a murderer, and forgive her sins
. The woman was in God's hands now. He alone was her judge.

Vicky had flung open the gate and closed it behind them. No one spoke as the medics had lifted the woman's body into the ambulance, which started down the road with sirens off. The red taillights jittered into the darkness.

Apart from the scrape of boots on the hard ground, a ghostly silence had descended over the ranch. Cowboys had emerged from the bunkhouse and shuffled behind the police officers, shock and disbelief imprinted on their shadowy faces. Father John wasn't sure how much they had heard or what they might have put together. They looked confused, lost, as if they had found themselves in a nightmare. The night had spiraled forward then, with Chief Banner asking questions and jotting notes in a notebook the size of his palm. They had made their way in the flare of flashlights to the cemetery, a peaceful place, something sacred about it, and the officers had stretched yellow tape around the ground.

Now Father John walked around the end of the black plastic wall. Three men in blue jeans and cowboy hats were moving around the six excavated graves—long, narrow holes. They kept their eyes locked on the ground. One dropped onto his knee, produced a tiny brush, and swept something into a plastic bag. Huddled together with two other men on the far side of the graves was Gianelli. He looked over, as if he had detected a disturbance in the atmosphere, a new presence. Lifting a hand in acknowledgment, he started along the wall.

“I stopped by your office,” Father John said. “You weren't in, so I took a chance I'd find you here.”

“Forensics is checking to make sure we didn't miss anything before we fill in the holes.” The fed threw a sideways glance at the men examining the ground. “What's on your mind?”

“I reached Nuala O'Brian, Jaime Madigan's fiancée. She plans to take his ashes to Ireland. She said it was where he would want to be. She can ID his body.” Not much left of the bodies, he was thinking. Dirt-clogged faces, sunken eye sockets. Carcasses barely recognizable as human.

Gianelli nodded. “Folks in the coroner's office have been working around the clock to ID the bodies. We found Steve Mantle's computer in the Riverton dump, where Sheila Carey had tossed it. The IT guys retrieved records for the cowboys Mantle placed here, including photos. So far we have positive IDs on Jack Imeg, Lou Cassell, Rick Tomlin, and Josh Barker. Reg Hartly identified Barker's remains. He arranged to take him back to his folks in Colorado. They'll bury him on the family ranch. If the fiancée identifies Madigan, that leaves only one unidentified. Name of Hol Hammond. Lonely looking guy in the photo, long face, half-closed eyes. Looks about fifty, although the record says he's thirty-two. Could be any cowboy drifting across the West.” He looked away for a moment. Murder never gets easier, Father John was thinking. It shouldn't get easier.

“I'll let Nuala know she can claim her fiancé's body.” Father John started to walk off, then turned back. “What will become of the ranch?”

“The woman died intestate.” The fed gave a half shrug. “We're still looking for relatives. Also trying to find relatives of her husband's. So far we're drawing a blank. Seems like Dennis and Sheila Carey were alone in the world, with no family, no connections. Most of the cowboys are staying on. Carlos will continue as foreman until we get things sorted out. Visitors keep coming.” He shook his head. “The murders haven't stopped them.”

Father John said he would call when Nuala arrived, then he pulled his cowboy hat down against the sun and headed back toward the parking lot. He had reached the house when he spotted Vicky standing at the gate, staring out into the pasture. He walked over and took up a place beside her. He didn't say anything. A group of visitors came along the fence, made a half circle around them and kept going.

“If you look carefully,” Vicky said after a long moment, “you can see Spirit out by the trees. Not as clear a view as from farther along the fence.” She nodded in the direction the visitors were walking. “But it seems more private and intimate without a lot of other people gawking at her. Just Spirit and me. And now, you.”

Father John looked out at the clump of cottonwoods, branches swaying, shadows dancing on the ground. The sun burned through the back of his shirt. He squinted against the bright sunlight and watched the trees for the faintest movement. He saw the mother first, head thrust forward, power moving in her body. And there she was, huddling close to her mother, a white blotch in the shadows. Sure on her feet now, graceful and confident, tossing her head.

“She won't be white for long,” Vicky said. “She will start changing colors in a year or two. Black. Brown. Red. But she will remain sacred, and eventually she could become white again. I remember Grandfather telling the story of what happens with a sacred white calf.”

Vicky turned toward him and lifted her face. “I came out here hoping to find answers. Why here? Why this ranch with killers? The calf could have been born anywhere.”

“Did you?”

“What?”

“Find answers.”

Vicky was quiet. He was aware of her beside him, the soft weight of her against his arm, the in and out of her breathing. Finally she said, “I've been going over and over Grandfather's stories of the white buffalo calf. How she comes in peace, and yet . . .” She drew in a long breath. “Sheila Carey died a brutal death. Oh, I know.” Vicky put up a hand. “She wanted to die. She knew she would be crushed.”

Father John set his arms over the top of a metal bar and clasped his hands on the other side. His hands were freckled and sun-burned. He could almost hear Reg Hartley's voice. Standing in this same place, looking out over the pasture, the night silvery, the sky filled with stars.
They're just protecting their place.

“What else did your grandfather say?”

“The calf is always a blessing, no matter where she might be born. What is important is that she was born and she is here. A symbol that the Creator is always with us.”

“Then you did find answers.”

Vicky turned toward him. The sun shone on her face; light glowed in her black eyes. “I remembered something Grandfather had said. The white buffalo divides time. What happened in the past is over now, and we have to let it go. She gives us the confidence to go into the future. She comes to help us start over. Start again.”

Tears had welled in her eyes, and she swatted at them with the tips of her fingers. “It's not easy, starting over, because you don't know where you're going or what you will find.”

“It takes trust.”

She was shaking her head. “The Jesuits sent you here, and now they could send you somewhere else. Nicaragua, Ghana, back to Boston. Would you have the trust to go? Just step off into a future you know nothing about and can't imagine?”

The thought caught him up in itself like a tornado, and he knew he had been ignoring it, keeping it at the edges of his mind. He would leave here. That was the only certainty about the future. Coming here had been like setting out across the empty vastness of the plains, not knowing which direction he should take or how he would
be.
Somehow he had found the strength—the grace, he thought—to trust. Strange, when he thought about it now, how this place and the people had filled his mind and his days. He never wanted to think about leaving.

“What's going on?” Father John said. Vicky started walking along the fence toward the parking lot, and he fell in beside her. Another group of visitors passed, voices subdued, faces serious.

“Adam is moving to Denver. He's joining a firm that specializes in natural resources law. A great opportunity for him. He's the best at what he does.”

“Are you going?” A mixture of feelings ran through him. He would miss her if she left. Miss seeing her at powwows and celebrations. Miss working with her. And yet, it would be easier.

“I'm not a natural resources lawyer. Oh, I've tried, and Adam's right that representing tribes and making sure we aren't exploited for our oil and gas, timber and water is the most important thing we could do for the future. But I keep thinking of people like Arnie Walksfast and his friends. They have rights. They're important, too.” She stopped and looked up at him. “Arnie has settled down. The probation officer cut him some slack and didn't revoke his probation. I think he might make it this time.”

She was filled with hope, he thought. This time, the clients who found their way to her door, scared and hungover and coming down from a high, this time they were going to make it. He hoped with her.

“What about you?” Vicky asked. They had reached her Ford, and Father John held the door while she lowered herself behind the wheel. A burst of heat blew out of the inside, like the blast of a furnace. She started the engine and rolled down all the windows. The breeze whipping through the car ruffled her hair.

“I'd like to stay here,” he said.

“I know what you would like, but . . .”

“I'm here now.” The time would come when he would have to leave, he was thinking. It was inevitable. He pushed the thought away and closed the door. Then he set his hand on the window frame as if he might stop time and hold everything in place. He could feel the tremor running through the vehicle as it started to back up. He stepped out of the way and watched Vicky make a U-turn and start out of the parking lot.

She was almost to the dirt road when she stuck her hand out her window and waved and called: “I'll be seeing you.”