The Spirit Woman (5 page)

“Sorry I'm late,” he said.

“You runnin' on Indian time now, Father?” There was amusement in Howard's tone.

“When in Rome . . .” Father John tossed his cowboy hat and jacket on a vacant chair. He was thinking that Indian time made a lot of sense. Things didn't take place until everyone was ready, and he hadn't been ready for the meeting until now. His phone had started ringing at eight o'clock—at least ten calls: Was he leaving St. Francis? Why did he have to go? Yes, to the first question. He'd ignored the other. He hadn't found the answer.

He sat down next to Howard, who had picked up the metal pitcher and poured steaming coffee into a mug, which he shoved along the table toward him. “This'll curl your toes,” he said.

Father John took a sip. The coffee was bitter, but hot, and he still felt chilled by the November cold. The elder talked on—winter was coming, gonna be lotta snow and cold this year, bones already aching. The other men joined in—Roger saying he was gonna get the roof fixed so he could stay home, Elton telling him he'd better get his old truck fixed so he could go places. Preliminaries, Father John knew. A polite prelude to stating the reason they'd asked him here.

After a few minutes—Father John had drained half of the mug—Howard fixed his gaze on the men across the table, as if he'd suddenly spotted a couple of warriors riding over the crest of a hill. “We wanted to ask you about that skeleton your dog dug up,” he said.

Father John understood. If the skeleton was an ancestor, it shouldn't have been disturbed. The elders were traditionals:
ne'3ne:teyou'u:wut
. They clung to the Indian religion and the old ways. Still, he often looked out over the congregation on Sunday mornings and found the three men in a back pew, heads bent in prayer. “You gotta pray all the time,” Howard told him once. “You can't slack off.”

“I doubt it's an ancestor,” he said, hoping to allay their fears.

“You know for sure?” Roger leaned toward him.

He had to admit that he didn't. It was his own theory. Something about the bones had seemed so—new. “Ted Gianelli's in charge of the investigation,” he said. “He'll have a report soon. I trust him.”

“Well, you're a white man.” Roger again. “ 'Course you trust him.”

“We want those bones back so we can bury 'em and give 'em the right blessings so the Creator'll take good care of 'em.” Elton stared over the glasses riding partway down his nose. “We don't want 'em desecrated and left to rot on some shelf.”

“I'm sure Gianelli will release them as soon as he makes an identification,” Father John said.

“Hold on.” Howard raised his hand. “We don't want nobody poking and hacking at the bones trying to identify them. You can't identify an ancestor.”

Roger slammed down his mug. Drops of coffee splashed over his brown hand and dotted the cuff of his light blue Western shirt. “The fed's never gonna release 'em. Soon's white people get ahold of Indian bones, they wanna study 'em. They don't like it much when we start jumpin' up and down, demanding to get the bones back. So I figure some bones show up, they're gonna say they come from modern times. That way the tribe won't cause trouble, and they can do their studies.”

Howard scooted his chair toward him. “We been talking,” he said. “We want you to get the skeleton back with the people, where it belongs.”

Father John drew in a long breath. “Look,” he began, searching for the words. What they expected was impossible; he could only let them down. Yet they trusted him. He wondered if his superior, his fellow Jesuits, would ever really trust him again. He said, “The fed has his job to do. He has to let the lab determine if the skeleton's ancient or from the present time. Nothing I could say will change that.”

The elders were quiet. Father John realized the conversations around them had died back. The air was thick with tension. “You explain to the agent what we say,” Howard said finally.

“I'll do my best.” Father John got to his feet and grabbed his jacket and hat.

“You leavin' the res, Father?” Howard asked.

“Not before I talk to Gianelli.”

“I mean next week. We don't like the news we been hearing on the telegraph.” The other men were nodding in unison.

“I don't like it much either.”

“Then why you goin'?”

Here it was, the question that had been running through his head ever since the provincial had called. “I've been here almost eight years,” he started to explain, then gave it up. It was complicated. “My boss has found a new pastor for St. Francis. He'll be here any day.” The man's belongings had already arrived, several neatly taped cartons that he'd put in the extra bedroom upstairs.

“Kevin McBride's the new man's name.” Father John hurried on. And they would accept him, he was thinking. Just as they had accepted
him
. An alcoholic trying to recover, fresh from treatment, with the thirst still upon him.

“Another Irishman?” Howard's eyebrows rose in mock incredulity that the powers that be could impose such a penance upon them. He shot a glance at the men across the table. “You hear anything about the people askin' for a new pastor? Maybe it's time we had a talk with the boss.”

Father John tasted the backwash of coffee in his throat. A call from the elders and the provincial would pull him out of St. Francis tomorrow. Forming attachments wasn't part of his job description. He was to remain free and independent, a solitary man ready to go anywhere, at any time, with no backward glances. “I'll be here until Tuesday of next week,” he said hurriedly, an awkward attempt, he knew, to forestall any telephone calls. He had ten more days here and he wanted every moment of time he had left. “I'll call you as soon as I talk to Gianelli.”

He could feel the elders' eyes on him as he started across the hall, shrugging into his jacket as he went, squaring the cowboy hat on his head, nodding to the upturned faces of the other elders. Still watching as he let himself out the door.

 

It was snowing lightly, and Seventeen Mile Road disappeared into the clouds bunching up over the plains. The Toyota felt like the inside of an icebox. Father John jiggled the heater knob, trying to coax more than the occasional promise of warmth from the vents. He'd replaced Mozart with Puccini—
La Bohème
—as if the tender, melodious music could compensate for the cold.

He banked around a curve, tires skittering on the asphalt. As he slowed for the turn into St Francis Mission, the roar of an engine, like a truck grinding up a mountain, cut through “Che gelida manina.” Suddenly a motorcycle swung in front of him, bike and rider a perfectly harmonious unit. He stepped hard on the brake pedal, sending the pickup bucking toward the barrow ditch. Dead stalks of thistles and sunflowers scratched against the door as he fought to keep the tires on the asphalt. The motorcycle disappeared in the mission grounds.

F
ather John followed the tracks in the thin snow on Circle Drive. Past the yellow stucco administration building, past the church with the white steeple riding in the clouds, past the old school building that was now the Arapaho Museum. He pulled up in front of the two-story, red-brick residence, next to a black Harley-Davidson, moisture glistening on the chrome.

The rider, encased in black leather with a black helmet encircling his head, was in the process of swinging one leg over the bike. He jumped to his feet, then began rolling his shoulders, boots planted a couple of feet apart, arms stretched outward, like a large, grounded bird trying to take to the sky. Father John got out of the pickup and walked over. “Can I help you?” he asked.

The biker dropped his arms, then reached up and pulled off the helmet. Snow peppered the dark hair flattened about his head. “You wouldn't know where I can find Father O'Malley, would you?” He cradled the helmet under one arm.

“You found him.”

The other man bounded forward, right hand extended, his gaze traveling over Father John: the cowboy hat and jacket, the blue jeans, the boots. “Kevin McBride,” he said. “I wasn't expecting a cowboy.”

“I wasn't expecting a biker.” His replacement, Father John realized, the new pastor of St. Francis Mission, probably still in his thirties—ten years younger than he was—with a doctorate in anthropology. Kevin McBride stood close to six feet and had the look of a man used to regular workouts in a gym, although it occurred to Father John that the leather jacket and trousers could give a false impression of well-defined muscles. He had the laughing blue eyes and open, handsome face of the Irish. A familiar face, Father John thought. The man might have been one of his own relatives, or a neighbor back in Boston. His smile revealed a row of perfect white teeth.

“Just got here from the East,” Kevin McBride was saying. His gaze shifted to the bike, and he stepped over, drawn by the machine, and began running his glove over the shiny black fender. “Rode this beauty all the way from New York. Just me and the road and the wind in my face. Man, what a sensation. Got to the middle of Nebraska before a blizzard grounded me, so I spent a couple days on a farm. Nice house. A bit like a bed-and-breakfast with lunch and dinner thrown in. Had a chance to interview the family about life on a modern-day farm.”

He glanced away, smiling at the memory, and Father John wondered if everyone Kevin McBride encountered was an opportunity for anthropological scrutiny.

The other priest removed his gloves and began flicking the snow from the front of his leather jacket. “Looks like I got here ahead of another blizzard.” His eyes were still roaming around the buildings circling the grounds and, beyond, the plains lost in snow and clouds. “It must get lonely here.”

“No more than other places,” Father John said. Less than some, he thought. As he followed the other priest up the walk, boots snapping against the snow, he assured him that his things had arrived safely and were in an upstairs bedroom. “Elena probably has lunch ready,” he said.

“Elena?” Father Kevin turned around, curiosity flashing in the blue eyes.

“The housekeeper,” Father John said. Did the man think he kept a concubine? “She's been here thirty years or more. Does the cooking, looks after the house.” He walked up the steps to the stoop and opened the door, ushering the other priest inside. “Truth is, she pretty much runs things around here.”

The odor of simmering chicken floated from the kitchen at the end of the hallway. There were the sounds of water cascading out of a faucet and pipes groaning beneath the floorboards, so familiar, he thought, that he would probably hear them after he'd left. He hung the other priest's leather jacket over the coat tree and draped his own beside it, then tossed his cowboy hat onto the bench next to the helmet.

Elena appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on the white apron draped from her neck. She stood just over five feet tall, part Arapaho, part Cheyenne, with the cushioned build of a woman who had borne and nursed eight children. The kitchen light glinted in the gray curls tightened around her head. Her face was in shadows.

“Meet the new priest,” Father John said. He'd meant to say pastor.

Father Kevin was already striding down the hallway. “Kevin McBride,” he said, taking her hand. “You must be Elena.”

The housekeeper stared up at him as if she were trying to place him in some category: trustworthy, not trustworthy. Then she moved backward, managing to pull her hand free.

“I got some chicken sandwiches,” she said, peering past the new priest toward Father John.

 

They sat across from each other at the oak table. Father John washed down bites of sandwich with gulps of Elena's fresh coffee as Kevin went on about the ride from New York, gliding along the highways nose to nose with the best sports cars, the most determined semis. Elena moved between the stove and the refrigerator, preparing chili for dinner. The moist kitchen air was now thick with the smell of onions and seared hamburger and hot chilis.

Two things he'd always known he would do, the other priest said. Well, three if you counted riding a Harley. Yes, he'd always wanted to ride a Harley. He munched thoughtfully on a bite of sandwich for a minute. And he'd known he would be a priest and an anthropologist. He was always interested in ancient people. A bit like historians, huh? He gave a long glance in Father John's direction. You had to love the past to be a historian, wasn't that true?

It was true. Father John had nodded and taken another sip of coffee. Kevin hurried on. He intended to make the most of his stay here. Six years? He wasn't sure he'd be around that long. As a matter of fact, he doubted it. He'd probably return to teaching before that. But there was a book in this assignment. Oh, yes, indeed. He intended to interview as many of the old Arapahos as possible. See how the Arapaho traditions have been transposed into the present. He had a new, state-of-the-art tape recorder that could pick up a pin dropping across a large hall. So small no one realized it was there. Never inhibited an interview.

“What about you, John?” The other priest lifted up his mug and held it in front of his mouth. “You do any writing on the history of the Arapahos?”

Father John laughed. He couldn't imagine when he might have found the time. There wasn't enough time to answer the letters stacked on his desk.

Suddenly the other priest swung toward Elena, as if he'd just realized she was there. “Were you born on the reservation?” he said to the woman's back.

The housekeeper turned and looked at Father John. “I expect so,” she said tentatively. It was impolite to ask personal questions.