The Lost Bird (11 page)

He’d asked Leonard if he could get Father Joseph’s car running.

The Indian had stared at him a long moment, wariness creeping into his expression. “Dunno,” he said finally.

“I need the car.”

Leonard began running a cloth over the counter. “That a good idea, Father? Chief Banner said yesterday it’s best you stay close to the mission.”

“I’d appreciate your help, Leonard,” Father John had told the man.

It was noon before he heard the engine rattle into life outside his office. He glanced out the window as a plume of blue-gray smoke burst from the Escort’s tailpipe. Leonard was bent under the hood.

Now Father John guided the car through a gust of wind and punched the radio scanner. Nothing but twangy western music and talk-show hosts shouting and screaming about government, taxes, schools, roads, and life’s unfairness. He switched off the radio. He missed his opera tapes. When he’d called Banner that morning to see when the Toyota would be returned, the line had gone quiet. Then the chief had told him: “Bad news, John. The killer cleaned out the glove compartment.”

Father John had thrown his head back and stared at the ceiling. That’s where he kept his favorite tapes.
La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata
—all gone.

“What else was in the glove compartment?”

“Flashlight.” Father John thought a moment. “Tire gauge.” That was all he could think of. “Why would the killer want a bunch of opera tapes?”

“My guess is he grabbed whatever was there. Flashlight and gauge are gone, too. Maybe he thought some of the tapes might be to his liking. Must’ve gotten a shock when he found out all he had was opera. Lab boys are still checkin’ the pickup,” the chief went on. Father John heard the hedging. “Wanna make sure we get every trace of fingerprints and hair. It’ll be a while before I can release the pickup. Anyway, it’s best you stay close to the mission until we get the killer.”

Well, he was miles from the mission. He turned north on Highway 132 and angled west through Fort Washakie. And then he was climbing into the foothills alongside the Little Wind River. As he rounded a wide curve, Sonny Red Wolf’s compound came into view: a cube of a house set among the pines and boulders, gray boards visible through the white paint. Beyond the house, a cluster of unpainted outbuildings and trucks parked at indiscriminate angles, as if they’d been dropped from the sky. A slight distance upslope in a stand of pines, a white truck sat high on fat tires beside the rectangular-shaped brush shade.

Father John turned into the dirt yard and drove past the house and buildings. The Escort bounced over washboard ruts, gravel pinging against the undercarriage. He stopped in front of the brush shade, got out, and pulled down his cowboy hat against the glare of the sun. A warm wind hissed through the pines and rustled the willow branches that formed the roof and three sides of the shade. An opening faced the east.

Just as he started toward the opening, Sonny Red Wolf stepped outside. A big man, close to six feet, with rounded shoulders and broad chest that sloped into a slightly protruding middle. He wore a black leather jacket over a dark shirt and blue jeans. His
long black hair was brushed straight back, exposing the high forehead, the eyes set wide apart over fleshy cheekbones, the determined jaw. “What d’ya want?” he said.

“A friend of mine was murdered yesterday.” Father John heard the barely controlled rage in his voice. “He was an innocent man. A priest just trying to do his job.” It was an opening. Father John held his breath, waiting for the man to say something he hadn’t intended to say. Truth had a way of slipping past barriers, demanding to be told.

The Indian shrugged and walked over to the white truck. “What’s that got to do with me?” he said, lifting two dead rabbits out of the bed. Locked in a frame across the rear window was a shotgun, and Father John wondered where the man kept his rifle.

Red Wolf walked back into the brush shade, dangling the rabbits by the hind legs. Father John followed. Daylight flitted past the willow branches and dappled the hard-packed dirt floor. A metal table stood against the leafy wall. There was another table, a scattering of webbed chairs. In the shadows in back, he could make out several cots and boxes heaped with clothing. This was home, he thought. Just like in the Old Time. Except that in the Old Time, Sonny and his followers would have moved their cots into buffalo-skin lodges for the winter, not into a frame house with fading paint.

“You’re the guy who wants the mission closed,” Father John said. “You blocked the road last spring.”

The Indian slung the carcasses across the metal table and turned around. “Sendin’ you a message, was all. We don’t want you people here. We don’t need white government people and white priests tellin’ us how to
think, how to talk, how to pray. We can run this res the Indian way. Follow our own traditions. We know how to live off the land.” He nodded toward the dead rabbits on the table behind him. “So take your white road right on out of here and leave us be.”

“I’ll leave when the people tell me to go.” Father John kept his eyes locked on the Indian’s.

Sonny Red Wolf folded his arms and leaned back against the table. “There’s gonna be a new council election this winter, and I’m gonna get myself elected, along with some other real Indians. Soon’s that happens, we’re gonna invite you and a lot of other whites to go home where you belong.”

“And if we don’t go?”

“We’ve got ways to make it real uncomfortable. You white people . . .” A sneer. “You like your comforts.”

“How about murder, Sonny? Is that one of your ways? Did you kill Father Joseph? Was he the man you were after, or am I the man you wanted?” Father John kept his eyes on the other man, watching for the flickering eyelids, the twitching muscles—the faintest sign that he had hit upon the truth.

“You’re a brave man, O’Malley.” Red Wolf was shaking his head. “I gotta hand it to you, coming out here to my compound and accusing me of killing some white man.”

“I came out here looking for answers.” Father John struggled to control his own fury.

“I was born a warrior, O’Malley.” The Indian’s gaze was steady. “’Nam gave me some modern training, that’s all. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. You wouldn’t see me coming. Just like those jacks . . .” A backward nod. “They never heard me
sneaking up on them. All of a sudden they were looking down the barrel of my shotgun, eyes as big as saucers.”

Father John didn’t say anything. Silence settled between them, except for the shush of the wind in the willow branches. He had a sense that the man was telling the truth. Sonny Red Wolf was the kind of warrior who didn’t make mistakes.

And yet, and yet . . . A man who hated whites. Who wanted the mission closed. That man might have come after him and shot his assistant who happened to be driving the Toyota. He said, “The FBI agent is going to want to know where you were yesterday afternoon.”

Red Wolf gave a little snort and shifted his weight against the table. “So I got you to thank for siccin’ the FBI on me this morning. Too bad you didn’t get here sooner. Could’ve seen the look on that fed’s white face when he couldn’t find anything in this compound to tie me to the murder. Went scurrying out of here with his tail between his legs.”

Suddenly the Indian pushed himself away from the table and stepped closer. Father John could see the tiny specks of dried blood, like red gnats splattered on his leather jacket. The faint odor of blood wafted through the air.

“Why don’t you do the same, O’Malley? Get on outta here. I know what you white folks are up to. You and that fed and that lawyer lady that hangs around with you, a white wannabe. You’d like to pin this murder on me and get me out of the way before I take over the res. It’s not going to work. I’ve got a lot of people with me.” He shot a glance around the
brush shade. “I’m not getting mixed up in your white fight.”

Father John kept his eyes on the Indian’s. “What do you mean, white fight?”

Sonny Red Wolf lifted his chin and stared. A look of disbelief flashed in his eyes. “Listen in on the moccasin telegraph once in a while, why don’t you? There isn’t an Arapaho on the res that’s got a clue why that old man was shot. You’re a Jesuit. Figure it out. The people don’t know anything because nobody had anything to do with it. Some white guy had it in for that priest and went out to Thunder Lane and killed him.”

Father John glanced through the opening at the sun slanting gold across the hood of the Escort. It wasn’t Father Joseph the killer had been after. The old priest had been here only two weeks. Yes, he’d been at St. Francis before. But the possibility that someone had been biding his time for thirty-five years, waiting for Father Joseph to return so he could kill him, didn’t make sense. No one could have expected Joseph Keenan to return to St. Francis. Father John hadn’t even known the man was coming until a few days before he arrived. Yesterday, both Gianelli and Banner had dismissed the possibility, and in their expressions Father John had seen the reflection of his own skepticism. The fact was, Joseph Keenan had been driving
his
red Toyota pickup.

There was another possibility, he realized now. One not so easily dismissed. Maybe Joseph Keenan had been the intended victim. Maybe the killer wasn’t someone Joseph had known on the reservation. Maybe he had followed the priest here. What better place than the open spaces of the reservation to commit
a cold-blooded, anonymous murder? A white fight, Sonny Red Wolf called it.

Father John brought his eyes back to the Indian’s. “If you’ve got a beef with me, Sonny, take it up with me. I don’t want any innocent people hurt.” He swung around and walked through the opening.

“Tell that to your white friends,” the Indian called after him.

•   •   •

The Escort’s engine growled into the mountain quiet as Father John drove downslope past the buildings and the house. He turned onto the road. A dark truck was hurtling toward him, dust rising from the tires like a swarm of mosquitoes. He hit the brake pedal, and the Escort skidded to a stop at the edge of the barrow ditch. The truck screeched to a halt, and a small, wiry man jumped out. Robert Cutting Horse, one of Red Wolf’s followers. Father John recognized him from the demonstration last spring.

The Indian started toward the Escort, bobbing and weaving around the hood. Even before he thrust a brown face into the opened window, Father John could smell the whiskey. Instinctively he leaned away.

The Indian blinked, comprehension working slowly into his expression. “I gotta talk to you, Father,” he said.

“Is this about Father Joseph’s murder?” Father John asked.

“Murder? I don’t know about no murder.” Another blink. “I gotta get my life turned around. I hear you run some AA meetings.”

Father John sighed. The man had probably been at a drinking house and hadn’t heard about the murder.
“Come see me at the mission when you’re sober, Robert,” he said.

“I wanna stop this drinkin’ shit.”

“Come to the mission, and we’ll talk.” Father John eased up on the brake, and the Escort started to creep forward. The Indian stepped back. As he wheeled around the truck and started down the road, Father John saw the man blinking after him in the rearview mirror, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans. The odor of whiskey drifted in the air, as clear and strong as a memory.

•   •   •

He drove forty miles across the reservation, the sun fracturing the rear window into a kaleidoscope of colors, his thoughts on Sonny Red Wolf. A clever man. Deflecting suspicion from himself by suggesting someone else was to blame was the oldest ruse of a guilty man. But truth rang in what he said, like the faint, distant clang of a bell. Father John had often heard the sound in the confessional, in counseling sessions: the irrelevant, offhand remark that caused everything to click into focus, as if the binoculars had been adjusted and what was once hidden and obscure had suddenly snapped into view.

Father John stared at the empty stretch of road ahead, searching for the logical connections. A white fight, Sonny had called it. What was it the Provincial had said? Joseph Keenan had
insisted
upon coming back to St. Francis Mission. Why had he wanted to return to a place he hadn’t seen in thirty-five years? What had he been running from? What had followed him here?

He slowed for the turn into the mission. Cottonwood branches swayed overhead, leaves shimmering
gold in the last flare of sunlight. As he banked around Circle Drive, he saw that the grounds were empty, except for Elena’s old Chevy parked next to the residence. Like Leonard, the housekeeper had come to work today, despite the fact that a killer could show up at any moment looking for him, if his own theory was correct.

What proof did he have otherwise? The remarks of a man who might be guilty of murder? Who had killed a man in the past? Who had every reason to send the investigation in another direction—away from himself? Still . . .

He thought about the papers and books in Joseph’s room. Gianelli and Banner could have missed something. The image of himself raging through the man’s possessions brought a stab of pain. He hadn’t found anything unusual, but he’d been looking for a bottle of whiskey, not something to explain a murder. He decided to have another look.

The unmistakable odor of beef stew floated into the dim hallway as he let himself through the front door of the residence. From the kitchen came the sounds of metal scraping metal, tap water gushing. He tossed his cowboy hat onto the bench in the entry and started up the stairs.

“That you, Father?” Elena appeared below, dabbing her hands onto the apron. “We been waitin’ for you.”

“We?” He stopped halfway up the stairs and leaned over the banister.

“You got a visitor. Been here most the afternoon. I was startin’ to get worried, you bein’ so late.”

Father John turned and came back down the stairs.
“Who is it?” he asked, heading toward the closed door of the study.

“She’s waitin’ out on the patio.”

Vicky
, Father John thought. She’d talked to somebody, learned something. He’d been worrying all day about what she might do, the danger she might put herself into. It was the worry about the people around him—the people he loved—that had made him decide to pay a visit to Sonny Red Wolf.