The Spirit Woman (18 page)

H
ighway 132 was a ragged road that shot north before bending into the east. A white-frame house rose out of the expanse of plains ahead, like the last surviving tipi in an Indian village after the cavalry had swept through. Father John eased up on the accelerator and turned on to Rabbit Brush Road, then into the yard, bumping across the ridges of bare earth. As he started toward the front door it swung open.

“Come on in out of the cold.” Theresa Redwing, gray hair curled tightly around her face, one hand stuffed into the pocket of the white apron tied at her waist, looked out from the shadowy interior. “I wasn't expectin' visitors,” she said, letting herself down on a brown sofa with white crocheted doilies arranged along the top that reminded him of the sofas in his youth. “Always good when folks stop by.”

Just as he was about to take one of the upholstered chairs against the opposite wall, a young woman with shiny black hair and a trim figure in blue jeans and white T-shirt walked out of the hallway. “You know my granddaughter Hope?” Theresa said. “She's back home from Laramie for a couple days doin' some research for the book she's writing on our ancestor.”

“A dissertation, Grandmother.” The woman started across the small room, hand extended. “Nice to see you again, Father.” Her hand felt cool, her grip surprisingly firm. “How can we help you?”

He waited until she'd taken a straight, high-backed chair before he sat down. “I'm worried about Laura Simmons,” he said, addressing the older woman. “She's missing from her apartment.”

“I seen the
Gazette
this morning,” Theresa said. “Sounds like that white woman's got herself some man troubles. Must be the reason she didn't come out here Thursday, like she said.”

“Did you hear from her again?” Father John leaned forward.

The old woman was shaking her head. “I must've scared her off, Father. I told her about Hope here.”

“Grandmother simply told her the truth.” Hope stared at him with frank, steady eyes. She crossed her jeans-clad legs, letting one foot swing freely. “I know what Professor Simmons is after. She thinks she's going to find Sacajawea's memoirs. Does she really believe any Shoshone will give them to a white woman? I'm the one my people will give them to.”

The words jolted him.
Toussaint will bring the memoirs tonight.
And Laura had thought she would get the memoirs. Now this young woman. “You must know the man who has the memoirs,” he said. “Toussaint?”

Theresa made an impatient
hrmmmp
noise. “I told you, Father, nobody by that name. And I never heard about any memoirs either. Sacajawea told her stories, and the agent's wife wrote 'em down. What she wrote was burned up, but it don't matter. Writing them down don't make them true. Lots of folks heard the stories and passed them down. We got 'em in our hearts.”

“I'm sorry, Grandmother, but you don't understand,” Hope said, a calm, patient tone. “Stories that are written down while they're still fresh are more important than stories passed down orally.”

“Oh, she says I don't understand.” The old woman threw up both hands and spoke to some point on the side wall. “Well, we been keepin' stories for a long time without the help of historians telling us what's good and what isn't.” She rearranged herself on the sofa and faced her granddaughter. “Why you wanna do what Robert Crow Wolf's doin' anyway, Hope? Why you wanna make him look like he's not special?”

“We've been over this, Grandmother.” The younger woman's expression remained calm and reflective, and Father John wondered at the effort. “Robert doesn't feel that way. He's my adviser, and he's been a great help. You know that some of the elders wouldn't have talked to a woman if Robert hadn't asked them to.” She lifted herself up and started backing around the chair. “I hope you'll excuse me, Father. I have some work I want to finish.”

“Hope, wait.” Father John was on his feet. “Laura Simmons expected to get the memoirs, and now she's missing. Twenty years ago Charlotte Allen believed she'd get the memoirs. She was murdered. Who is it that promised them to you?”

“The elders,” she said.

“One of them has told you he has the memoirs?”

“I don't know who has them, Father.” Calm, assured of her position. She might have been fielding the questions in an oral exam. “But I'll have them in the next day or two. Don't worry about me, Father. I can take care of myself.” She gave him a slow, confident smile before she turned into the hallway.

Theresa's eyes followed the fading shush of her granddaughter's footsteps. She shook her head. “I don't know, Father. All this trouble about some memoirs that I never heard of. All Hope has to do is listen to the stories, but she says they're not good enough for her anymore.”

Father John walked over, took the woman's hand, and thanked her for her hospitality. “Try not to worry about her,” he said, forcing a note of confidence into his tone to mask his own worry.

Minutes later he was guiding the Toyota back across the yard and onto the highway, leaning onto the accelerator, an alarm sounding in his head. Unwittingly, trustingly, Hope Stockwell had come across the man who called himself Toussaint. He was here, and he knew where Laura was. They had to find him. Hope Stockwell could also be in danger.

 

There was something strange about the cultural center, Father John thought as he pulled into the curb. An unsettling quiet, as if the two-story, white-frame house had suddenly been vacated. He checked his watch. Four-thirty. Phyllis Manley had probably closed for the day. There was no sign of Vicky's Bronco. The drive out to Theresa's had taken longer than he'd anticipated. Vicky could have gotten tired of waiting and gone back to Lander.

Except he knew she would wait for him here, just as she'd said. He got out of the pickup and went up the sidewalk. The door was unlocked. “Anyone here?” he called, stepping into the small entry. He took the stairs two at a time.

Phyllis Manley sat at one of the long tables in the library, stacks of papers piled in front of her. A pathway of white paper wound around the floor. She looked up out of eyes shadowed with grief and fatigue.

“What's going on?” he said, the alarm in his head as loud as a gong. Toussaint was ahead of them, a spirit darting about, striking wherever he wanted, leaving destruction behind.

“Oh, Father. You see what they did?”

“Who did this?”

“Some kids, the police say. Broke out a back window last night and got in. Pulled all the files and cartons off the shelves. Tossed everything around. I don't know how I'll ever get it back in order.”

Father John felt his stomach muscles clench. This wasn't the work of kids. This was the work of a man desperate to find a journal that could link him to a twenty-year-old murder. And what he wanted was in the library at the Arapaho Museum. The man could show up there.

“May I use your phone?” He stepped over to the desk and dialed the museum's number. He waited, beating out a rhythm with his fingers on the wood. Pick up.
Pick up
. Finally Lindy's voice on the other end. “Arapaho Museum.”

“Has Gianelli been there?” he said, not bothering to identify himself. She knew his voice.

“About two hours ago, Father. He got the folder okay.”

Good. He could feel his muscles begin to relax. “Listen, Lindy,” he said. “I want you to close the museum, lock all the doors, and go home.”

“What? The elders are still here reading through some letters.”

She wasn't alone. “The minute they've finished, lock up and go. If you see Father Kevin, ask him to keep an eye on the place. I'll be back as soon as possible.”

He could feel the director's eyes on his back as he replaced the receiver. “You think those kids'll do the same thing to the Arapaho Museum?” she said.

He faced her. Ignoring the question, he said, “Have you seen Vicky Holden?”

“She was here earlier, Father. She left—oh, I'd say a couple hours ago. I can't be sure. The day has been so terrible, I'm afraid I haven't been very focused.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“I think she might've gone up to Willie Silver's place. She asked me who Laura Simmons might've talked to, and I told her about Willie.”

“Where's the man live?”

“Up on Sacajawea Ridge. Take the wide dirt road off 287 just past Dinwoody Lakes. You'll see his old black truck before you see his shack back in the trees.”

Forty-five minutes each way. Still, Vicky should have been back by now. He started for the door. “If she should return, ask her to wait for me here,” he called over his shoulder.

 

The Toyota bounced over the ruts carved into the dirt road, the rear end swerving about. He was going too fast, he knew. The sun had disappeared, and thick, dark shadows drifted over the ponderosas flashing by the windows. It would be totally black in the mountains soon. He flipped on the headlights. He'd insisted they take separate vehicles. To save precious time! And now—Vicky had gone to see the same Shoshone Laura had talked to. She could be with Toussaint himself.

T
he headlights caught the glint of chrome as Father John rounded a curve. He slowed down. The tailgate of a black truck jutted over the dirt path, spilling into a road on the right. He turned past the truck, headlights jumping around the ponderosas. In the clearing ahead was the Bronco, parked next to a small gray shack. Vicky stood a few feet away, wrapped in the black coat, staring into the headlights, a mixture of astonishment and relief on her face. Between her and the Bronco was the large, hunched figure of a man.

Father John pulled in behind the Bronco and got out. “Any trouble?” he called, walking toward Vicky.

The man came toward him, blinking in the light. The odor of whiskey, at once sweet and bitter, floated ahead of him. “Who the hell are you?”

He brushed past the man and placed his arm around Vicky's shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I was just leaving.” She spoke slowly, defiantly.

The man threw up both hands, a gesture of surrender. “Yeah, your lady friend here was just leaving. Said she didn't want my company no more. I was just tryin' to change her mind. Hey, no offense, man.”

Father John opened the Bronco door and Vicky folded herself inside. “I'll follow you out,” he said as he closed the door, one eye on the Indian swaying a few feet away. The engine roared into the scattered light, the headlights flashed on, and then the Bronco was backing out, swerving around the Toyota. He waited until it had backed onto the road and started down the mountain. Then he walked past the man, got into the pickup, and followed.

When he reached 287, he saw the Bronco stopped alongside the road. He pulled in behind and walked up to the passenger side. The window was dropping. “What happened back there?” he said.

“Can we talk over some food?” Vicky's voice was low and tight.

“I'll meet you at Lana's,” he told her.

 

“What about Willie Silver?” Father John said. They sat across from each other at a table near the window. Outside, the neon lights—Lana's Café—blinked over the parking lot. An occasional headlight flashed in the darkness of Highway 287 beyond the lot. The café was noisy, most of the tables occupied by families with young children squirming in the chairs. A group of Indian men lingered over coffee in one of the back booths. Lana herself, blond curls springing about her head, pad and pencil in hand, had taken their order: two hamburgers, two coffees.

Vicky was shaking her head slowly. “I thought I was going to have to fight my way out of there.”

“He threaten you?” Father John heard the sound of his own voice, measured and tight.

Vicky glanced away, then looked back. “It hadn't reached that point yet. I was very glad to see the headlights bouncing up the road.”

Father John waited as Lana delivered the plates of hamburger and poured two mugs of coffee. Then he said, “What does Willie know about Laura?”

“She came to see him Wednesday. That means Toby Becker's telling the truth that Laura was fine on Tuesday night.” She drew in a long breath, then went on: “Willie says Laura was going to write the real story about Sacajawea's husband, Toussaint—what a great man he was, nobody knows the truth, that sort of thing—and he was going to help her.”

“Help her?” Father John took a bite of hamburger.
Toussaint's been a great help to me.

“Get her the real stories, even some records.”

“What about the memoirs?”

Vicky was holding her hamburger in both hands, chewing thoughtfully. A moment passed. “He claims he knows where the memoirs are. He said he told Laura to come back Thursday and he'd give them to her. According to him, she never came back.”

She set the hamburger down and stared at him. “He could be lying, John. Laura could be on the ranch somewhere. He could be holding her in an outbuilding.”

“We've got to let Gianelli know.” Father John got to his feet and, fishing a quarter from his jeans pocket, started toward the wall phone next to the entry. Vicky's footsteps sounded anxious behind him. He plugged the coin into the slot and tapped out the number. The bump and clatter of dishes and the sound of laughter rose from the tables. Finally the answering machine came on. He left a message.

“Let's try Eberhart.” Vicky took the receiver, pushed in another quarter, and dialed a number. A half minute passed. “Detective Eberhart,” she said. Then: “Bob? Have you found Laura?” In her eyes, Father John saw the answer.