The Drowning Man (2 page)

HE WASN'T SURE
how long the gray sedan had been behind him. Somewhere along Seventeen-Mile Road, Father John Aloysius O'Malley had glanced in the rearview mirror and seen the vehicle hugging his bumper. He'd turned right onto Blue Sky Highway, the sedan following, then pressed down on the accelerator and lurched ahead. The sedan had dropped back before sprinting for his bumper again. The noise of tires humming against asphalt drifted past Father John's half-opened windows. He caught a glimpse of the driver in the mirror: dark eyes that flashed in a square, brown face and black hair cut long, tangled around the collar of a reddish shirt.

Father John held the old red Toyota pickup steady at about forty miles an hour and kept driving north.
Turandot
blared from the tape player on the seat beside him, mingling with the rush of wind through the cab. He'd just visited Hiram Whitebird, who had gotten out of the hospital yesterday. And he'd promised Mickey and Irene Wolf he'd stop by to see their new son this afternoon. He glanced at his watch: almost five o'clock. He didn't have time for the gray sedan.

They were the only vehicles on the road. Outside his window was a stretch of scrub brush that bumped into the barren foothills of the Wind River Range, and on the other side nothing but the flat, open plains of the Wind River Reservation melting into the blue sky. It was the third Monday in May, the Moon When the Ponies Shed Their Shaggy Hair, in the way that the Arapahos kept track of the passing time, and the wild grass that checkered the plains looked green against the brown earth. Houses were scattered about, set back from the road with rounded white propane tanks, pickups and old cars dropped onto the bare dirt. An assortment of clothes and towels flapped on lines strung between poles.

The roofs of Ethete flashed ahead, and Father John started to ease up on the brake pedal. The sedan stayed with him, the driver staring into the specks of sun that danced on his windshield. He was Indian, Father John was sure, but no one he recognized. No one from the reservation. He considered pulling over to let the pickup shoot ahead, then thought better of it. There was a chance the vehicle might put him in the ditch. He could almost feel the resolve and—that was it—the anger in the man's stare.

Anything could have triggered the anger. Father John had been the pastor of St. Francis Mission on the reservation now for almost nine years. Nine years of counseling parishioners, listening to a hundred different problems—the alcoholism and abuse, the breakups and divorces, the lost jobs and rebellious teenagers, the lingering despair. And he, a white man, trying to talk Arapahos through to the other side where there was hope. But there was always the risk that when someone found the way to go forward, someone else was left behind, someone who blamed the pastor and decided to look for revenge.

He followed the road through the outskirts of Ethete, mountain peaks floating into the sky on the west. The sedan was still on his tail. Ford, with an out-of-state license plate. A couple of houses passed outside his window, kids playing in the yards. A truck was stopped at the light swinging over the intersection ahead.

Father John made a sharp left turn across the highway and into the parking lot of the gas station and convenience store on the corner, the sedan right behind. He skidded to a stop at the curb that ran alongside the sidewalk in front of the store, got out, and walked around to the car drawing into the next slot. The license plate was from Colorado.

“What do you want?” he said as the Indian lifted himself out of the front seat. There was a defiance about the man in the way he thrust his shoulders forward, tilted his head back, and stared straight at him—the cockiness of a bully, Father John decided, sizing up his opponent. The leathery look of the Indian's face, the weathered hands and tobacco-yellow nails might have put him at about fifty, but something about him—an uncertainty just below the surface—made Father John think that he was younger. No more than forty, a good eight or nine years younger than Father John, and close to the same height—six feet, three and a half inches—with rounded, muscular shoulders and brown, powerful-looking arms.

“Thought you was never gonna stop,” the Indian said. The hard stare dissolved into a grin that seemed to affect only the lower half of his face. “I seen your red pickup back on Seventeen-Mile Road. Saved me drivin' over to the mission.”

“Do I know you?”

The Indian jutted out his chin and let out a guffaw. “Me and the mission priest friends? I don't think so.”

“How did you know what I drive?” Father John knew the answer even before he'd asked the question. Whoever the Indian was, he'd been watching the mission.

The man shrugged.

“What's this all about?”

The Indian let his black eyes roam across the parking lot: people banging in and out of the front door of the convenience store, two pickups parked at the pumps, blue sedan sliding next to a vacant pump. A car door slammed shut, and there was the muffled sound of a dog barking in one of the vehicles. Out on the highway, a line of pickups waited for the traffic light to change.

“Man I know,” the Indian said finally, “has a message for the Arapahos and Shoshones here.”

“You need to talk to them.” Father John jerked his head toward the Indians moving about the parking lot and coming out of the store. “The Arapaho tribal offices are down the road,” he said. “Shoshone offices are over at Fort Washakie. Take your pick.”

“Well, I got to thinkin' about it, and you know what I come up with?” The Indian was grinning again. “Soon's this here Indian walks into one of them tribal offices and delivers the message, they're gonna call the cops and slap me in their jail. I betcha they got one, right? And I don't much like the idea of goin' to jail, so I called up the man I know and said, ‘You gotta deliver your own friggin' message 'cause they're gonna throw me in jail.' Well, he starts shoutin' why the hell'd he send a dumb Indian like me on this job, and if I didn't deliver the message, he was gonna take the pay he give me outta my hide, and I was gonna wish I was in jail, and a lotta shit like that. So I says, ‘Hey, take it easy; take it easy. I'm gonna deliver the friggin' message.'”

The Indian hesitated, as if he'd gone further than he'd intended and wasn't sure whether to go on. His gaze ran around the parking lot again. After a moment, he shrugged and brought his eyes back to Father John. “So I got an idea. All I gotta do is tell somebody else and let him tell the tribal mucky-mucks. Who better than the mission priest? So I checked out the mission yesterday, seen you comin' out of church with all them people around, seen that beat-up red pickup in front of the house, and I put two and two together. I was on my way over to the mission when I seen you comin' the other way, so I turned around.”

“Find another messenger.” Father John started back toward the driver's side of the Toyota, taking in the Indian's license plate as he went, fixing the numbers in his mind.

“I think you're the messenger.” The Indian's boots scraped the pavement behind him. “I think,” he said, “that you, bein' the mission priest, are gonna wanna help these Indians get back what rightfully belongs to 'em. Get my drift?”

Father John turned back and faced him. “What are you talking about?”

“Rock art.”

The Indian was standing so close that Father John could smell the sour mix of sweat and tobacco about the man. He'd read the article in this morning's
Gazette,
below the black headline, “Rock Art Stolen.” The petroglyph had stood at the entrance to Red Cliff Canyon for two thousand years. The article said it was worth a quarter of a million dollars. Father John wondered if this was the thief who'd chiseled the image out of a boulder and hauled it away. And for what? To sell it? The irony in the man's tone still hung in the air. The Indian intended to sell the petroglyph back to the tribes.
What rightfully belongs to them.

“You have the petroglyph?”

“Me?” The Indian shook his head so hard that his shoulders swung back and forth. “I'm just deliverin' the message.”

“The man you work for has the petroglyph.”

“Hey, Father, you ever get close to warm, I'll let you know. The man knows his way around art and artifacts, all that stuff. You know what I mean? People that, let's say, come into possession of stuff know how to find him. He arranges things, that's all.”

“So the thief wants the tribes to ransom their own petroglyph.”

“The tribes, yeah, that's right.” The black head nodded. “Doin' 'em a favor, you ask me. Givin' 'em first shot at it before…” He hesitated, glancing around again.

“Before what?”

“Hey, could be lots of rich folks out there wouldn't mind showin' off rock art on their big patios. Maybe they'd like to put it on the walls of their great big fancy living rooms. How do I know? I'm just tellin' you that, if the tribes want their art back, they better move fast.”

“How much?”

“How much?” The Indian reared back and blinked at him. “Them rich people are gonna pay what that art's worth, and the newspaper says it's worth a quarter mil. Only fair, don't you think, that the tribes come up with the same amount? The man's not gonna take less than the fair amount. So you gonna deliver the message or what? Sho-Raps are gonna have to make up their minds real fast. The man's got rich people bangin' on his door, know what I mean?”

“What if the tribes can't raise that kind of money?”

“Now that would be a shame, wouldn't it? That rock art hangin' on some rich guy's wall. Decoratin' his big yard. A stinkin' shame, I'd call it. You know what I think? I think the tribes are gonna get the money 'cause the rock art is sacred and they want it back, and they'll do whatever it takes to get it. Thing is, something sacred like that, they're gonna want it right here on the reservation. Put it in a park someplace. Maybe some museum. There's museums around here, right?”

“What's your name?” Keep him talking, Father John was thinking. Get more information. All he knew about the Indian was that he drove a dirty Ford sedan with Colorado plates and he was big and determined.

“Sitting Bull. Any friggin' name you like.” A strangled laugh came out of the man's throat.

“Let's say I deliver the message. How will I get back to you?”

“You don't need to worry none about that.” The Indian lifted one fist and knocked it in the air toward Father John's chest. “I'll be hangin' close, keepin' an eye on you. You'll be drivin' down the road, and there I'll be, right behind you. Next time, do me a favor and pull over, instead of draggin' me miles and miles through nothing. Jesus, there's a lot of nothing around here.” He jabbed the fist out toward the road. “So we got a deal?”

“How do I know you aren't just a con artist?” Father John said. “Maybe you read about the petroglyph and you're trying to cash in. You want me to convince the tribes you can deliver the petroglyph, and you're hoping they'll be stupid enough to give you a lot of money.”

“Yeah, maybe you got it all figured. Maybe you heard so many sins in that confessional of yours, you know all about con artists. You wanna give the tribes the chance to get their sacred art back? It's your choice.”

“If I turn you down, you'll find somebody else,” Father John said. “Your man wants the message delivered. I don't think he has any rich people lined up, or he wouldn't bother trying to sell it back to the tribes.”

“Wrong, Father. Maybe I'll just tell the man the tribes ain't interested, so go ahead and sell the friggin' rock. Maybe I'll do that.” The Indian turned back toward the Ford. He kicked at a pebble, sending it spiraling over the pavement.

“I want to talk to him,” Father John said.

“What?” The Indian looked back.

“You heard me. I want proof he has the petroglyph. I want to make sure you aren't trying to scam the people here.”

“Maybe the man don't want to talk to you.”

“His choice,” Father John said. “St. Francis Mission is in the telephone book.” He stepped off the curb, got into the Toyota, and started the engine. As he backed out, he could see the Indian folding himself behind the sedan's steering wheel and pulling the door shut behind him.

Father John turned onto the road and fit the pickup between two SUVs. He checked his watch: 5:42. The tribal offices were already closed. The Indian could have gone to the offices earlier, asked to see one of the councilmen, delivered his own message. But he hadn't.
This Indian walks into one of them tribal offices, they're gonna slap me in jail.
He hadn't gone to the tribal offices because somebody might have recognized him. It was making sense now, the logic falling into place. Somebody on the reservation knew who he was, and that explained something else. He'd tried to pull him over on Blue Sky Highway where there wasn't much traffic. He could have delivered his message and been on his way. The Indian hadn't wanted to talk to him at the mission. He hadn't wanted to talk to him in the parking lot of a gas station and convenience store. He hadn't wanted to be where people were about.