The Story Teller (24 page)

After a moment her breathing became quiet. Removing her hand, she bent toward the keyboard and scrolled to the bibliography page.
Manuscript Materials
appeared at the top. Halfway down the page:
Ledger Book, by No-Ta-Nee, Arapaho. Denver Museum of the West Collections.

Father John felt the rim of his chair hard against his ribs. The student had left. They were alone in the lab, alone with the proof that No-Ta-Nee’s ledger book had existed last week. “You’ve got what you need,” he said, his voice soft. “We’ll take this to your detective friend tomorrow. He’ll find whoever killed Todd and Julie. We’ve got to trust him to do his job.”

“Trust him?” A note of hysteria sounded in Vicky’s voice. She shifted in the chair, turning toward him. “Steve is looking for the drug connection. As far as he’s concerned, the Sand Creek ledger book is a fantasy, a story that exists in the mind of an old man and a graduate student who wished it were true. Rachel Foster, Bernard Good Elk, and I don’t know how many other
experts will convince him the ledger book doesn’t exist. There are no records, and Steve wants proof. I’ve got to find it.”

“No, Vicky,” he said. “It’s dangerous. Two people have already been killed. You should go back to Lander. Wait until the police complete the investigation. Sooner or later they’re bound to stumble onto the truth.”

Vicky shook her head. She pushed the save key; the computer made a soft rumbling noise. Then she pulled out the disk and slid it inside the envelope. Setting the package inside her bag, she pushed back the chair and got to her feet.

He hadn’t convinced her, he knew. There were no words to convince her. He walked her back across campus, aware of the low rumble of traffic from the highway a mile away. As she got behind the steering wheel he leaned toward her. “Will you call me and let me know what you decide to do?”

She gave her head a little nod before she pulled the door shut. It was some consolation.

23

F
ather John had slept badly. The dreams were jarring and nonsensical, urgent and demanding, propelling him toward some idea he couldn’t grasp; something he should know, should understand. Why didn’t he understand? The closer he came, the farther away he was from the key that would help him understand. He’d awakened in a sweat, gotten out of bed, and cranked open the window, breathing in the cool air, his thoughts switching between the horror he’d read of in Todd’s thesis and the meeting earlier with Bernard Good Elk. A man capable of murder to keep a ledger book secret? He couldn’t imagine it, but then he couldn’t imagine murder. It always took him by surprise, the ugly and unexpected twist in the logical unfolding of human life.

But what if Good Elk were responsible for Todd’ murder? Father John forced himself to move on to the logical conclusion looming dark and terrible at the edge of his mind: Vicky was also in danger. She knew about the ledger book; she wouldn’t stop until she proved what had become of it. And who would help her? A homicide detective who had convinced himself Todd was killed over drugs?

He wasn’t sure how long he’d stayed at the window but the first red light of dawn was flickering in the dark sky when he laid down again, propping his hands behind his head. He would call Vicky first thing, he resolved.
Try to convince her to return to Lander. Two murders already—enough! If they were right—if Todd had been killed over the ledger book—the detective would eventually figure it out. He was a good detective—Vicky said so herself.

It was still early when he’d given up all pretense of sleep. The air floating through the window was cool with the smell of pine that reminded him of the reservation. He’d showered, dressed, and shaved, then eaten a bowl of cold cereal and downed a mug of hot coffee in the dining room. Except for Brother Timothy, he’d been the only one up at that hour. Afterward he walked to the lake again, his thoughts on Vicky. If anything happened to her—he couldn’t make his mind grasp the possibility. He couldn’t imagine a world she was not in.

He tried to call her when he got back to his room. A woman said Vicky had left, and when he pressed for answers, she insisted she had no idea where Vicky had gone. He’d set down the phone, his thoughts a pool of worry. Where was she? She’d promised to call and let him know what she was up to. He felt angry and helpless.

Now he waited outside a closed door down the corridor from the dining room. The sounds of the other priests at breakfast—the clanking of dishes and scraping of chairs, the occasional laughter of Jesuit camaraderie—floated around him. Behind the closed door was the provincial. Before Father Stanton had stepped inside, Father John had made it clear he intended to wait until he saw their boss.

Suddenly the door opened. Father Stanton—black suit, puffy red nose, and thick neck—filled the doorway. “Five minutes, O’Malley. That’s all you get.”

Father John moved past him into a room as large as the living room in a well-to-do home, with twin sofas angling toward a wall of windows that overlooked the grassy slope he’d walked across earlier. Beyond was the
lake, striped in blues and whites in the morning sunshine.

He crossed behind the sofas to the dark wooden desk where Father William Rutherford sat hunched over a paper of some sort. Almost twenty-five years earlier, they’d been in the seminary together. Two young men, ambitious and idealistic, eager for the careers ahead. A teaching position in philosophy at Georgetown for Rutherford; a position in history at some equally prestigious Jesuit University for him. It was a goal Rutherford had achieved, until the father general in Rome had made him a provincial in charge of his fellow Jesuits.

While Father John—well, he’d never made it to a university faculty. He had found himself on a different path, shunted there by the terrible thirst that, even now, had a way of coming over him at unexpected moments.

“How are you, John?” the provincial said. He did not look up.

“There’s an important matter I’d like to discuss with you,” Father John began. “I want to open a museum in the old school building at St. Francis.”

William Rutherford lifted his eyes. There was tiredness, a kind of disillusionment in his expression, and for an instant Father John wondered if he had also found himself on an unintended path. “So I’ve been given to understand,” the provincial said. He waved toward an upholstered chair next to the desk. “Have a seat.”

Father John sat down and began explaining the importance of a museum large enough to hold collections now scattered about the reservation, the importance of their history to the Arapahos. He was about to explain the importance of the old school when voices erupted outside. The door burst open.

“Beg your pardon, Fathers.” Brother Timothy shuffled into the room, Father Stanton behind him. “I tried to tell him,” the priest said.

“What is it?” This from the provincial in an irritated tone.

“A visitor for Father O’Malley,” Brother Timothy said. “She says it’s urgent.”

Father John was on his feet, striding past the two men and down the corridor toward the entry, vaguely aware of Father Stanton’s voice behind him. “This is highly irregular, O’Malley. Highly irregular.”

Vicky stood inside the door, dressed in blue jeans and T-shirt, black hair hanging loose and brushing her shoulders, not pulled back the way he was used to seeing her. The voices of Father Stanton and Brother Timothy burst from the corridor, an angry chorus, and he took her arm and led her outside. It was quiet. The parking lot below lay dappled in the morning sunshine.

“I’m going out onto the plains,” she said. “To southeastern Colorado.”

“What?” This woman was full of surprises. He could never guess what she might do; it was never the logical, the most prudent course.

She said, “I’ve been awake most of the night, trying to figure out the missing piece. Suddenly it hit me. Emil Coughlin said Todd had gone to southeastern Colorado to talk to ranchers about two weeks ago. When he got back he immediately went to the museum and requested the Smedden Collection. It wasn’t luck, John. He knew exactly where to look, which means he found out about the book on his trip. Someone told him. Someone down there knows the book was in the museum. All I have to do is follow Todd’s footsteps.”

Father John shook his head. There were probably dozens of ranchers in the area; how would she ever find the one who knew about the book? And what if she did find the right person? She might seal her own fate, and probably that of the rancher. The whole idea was crazy.

“Do you want to come?” she asked.

Father John kept his eyes on hers a long moment.
What she was proposing could get her killed. The kid who knew about the ledger book was dead; so was a girl who might have known. Yet Vicky was determined to find proof the book existed.

He took his eyes away and stared out over the campus. Inside the building behind him was the provincial he’d come to Denver to see, and he’d only begun his argument for the museum. It was entirely possible he would never have another opportunity, even more possible his boss would consider him unredeemable—a man who would walk out of a meeting, a recovering alcoholic, never to be trusted, never to be counted upon.

He looked back at the woman beside him. She had pushed herself away from the railing: a bird poised for flight. There were no words to make her reconsider, no sensible, logical argument to steer her away from danger. He said, “Let’s go.”

*   *   *   

Vicky drove the Taurus—an unaccustomed situation, someone driving him around—but she’d balked at his suggestion they take the Toyota. The rental car had air-conditioning, she’d pointed out, and the early-morning sun already burned with ferocity. It would be even hotter on the plains.

They caught I-70 and headed east across Denver, sunshine streaming over the stockyards and coliseum, the miles of block-shaped buildings on both sides of the highway. Vicky kept her eyes straight ahead, talking about the two dead kids, the ledger book that would be destroyed, pages cut out and sold around the world. If it hadn’t already happened. “We’ve got to find the proof it was in the museum,” she said, taking one hand from the wheel to push back her hair. “Before anyone else is killed.”

Exactly, Father John was thinking, which was why he was here. All they had to do was retrace Todd’s steps.
That could be hard. He let out a long sigh, and Vicky glanced at him. He gave her a smile of encouragement.

Gradually the city fell away and traffic became lighter: a few semis and pickups ahead, an occasional car whipping by in the passing lane. The plains stretched around them—a great expanse of flat, grass-stubbed land. Outside his window, Father John could make out the gentle dips and swales, the arroyos that broke the earth into jagged pieces, like the shapes of a jigsaw puzzle.

They sped on. The air-conditioning hummed softly; the car felt cool and comfortable, but the sun created sparkling mirages on the asphalt ahead. At Flagler, they stopped for gas and bought a couple of sandwiches and two cups of coffee. Then they drove down the wide, shady streets to a little park where they ate lunch at a picnic table under the sprawling branches of an oak tree. At a nearby table sat another couple. Several toddlers tumbled over the grass, giggling and squealing. Across the park, a baseball game was going on. He watched a kid in a white uniform race around the bases. A shout went up from the grandstand behind home plate. This was how other people lived, he thought. Saturday in a small town. Picnic in the park. Coach the Little League game.

When they got back to the car, he took the wheel and turned south onto a ribbon of asphalt flung across the open plains. It looked like the reservation—Indian country. An occasional ranch house, a clump of barns rising against the horizon. Vicky seemed relaxed beside him, her breathing quiet and regular. For a long time he thought she was asleep. He switched on his tape of
La Traviata,
glad he’d gone up to his room for the tape player and his cowboy hat. He’d need the hat on the plains. He was used to the opera on long drives.

Vicky stirred beside him, and he took his eyes off the road, glancing at her: she had been awake all the time.

“Every time I cross the plains,” she said, her voice mingling with the music, “I imagine warriors riding in the distance, and great buffalo herds, and tipis in the cottonwoods along the streams. Sometimes I think I see children playing, the women fetching water or gathering wild fruits. Sometimes I think I’m with them.” She shifted in the seat; he could feel her eyes on him. “I know it doesn’t make sense.”