The Man Who Fell from the Sky

by Margaret Coel

  “She wanted to see where Robert died.”

  “So what did she see? Nothing. The investigators have already checked the place. They should let Robert’s spirit rest in peace.”

  Vicky continued eating, half-aware of the sound of Cutter’s voice going on about Ruth and Robert. It was the second time today someone had mentioned Robert’s spirit being unable to rest. She thought about telling Cutter she had gone back to the lake this afternoon, then pushed away the impulse. This afternoon, there had been something—a torn, charred piece of map. There had been the white truck and the anonymous caller who said he had a message from Robert. She felt a chill run through her. Spirits sending messages made no sense in the world where she lived now, the white world, a law office, the courts. And yet the old ways were still part of her. Robert’s spirit would not rest until his body had been properly buried and sent to the ancestors. She wondered if the Arapaho across from her would understand; he had been away so long.

  “Are you okay?”

  Vicky tried for a reassuring smile. Yes, of course, why wouldn’t she be okay? Straddling two worlds, not at home in either. “What were you saying?”

  “It’s best if Ruth can put this behind her, instead of dwelling on it.”

  “Put behind her husband’s death?”

  “Sooner or later, she has to. I think we can help her start now.”

  Vicky ate a little more, then set her fork down. “How do you propose we do that?”

  “By not encouraging her to ask so many questions. I understand she wants to know how the accident happened . . .”

  “How do you think it happened? How could Robert have accidentally drowned?”

  “See? That’s what I mean. Those are the questions Ruth keeps asking. No one else was there, so no one knows.”

  “What if someone else was there?”

  “What? Are you saying someone else was there?”

  Vicky could hear the low, tense voice of the caller. My name don’t matter. He was murdered. “I have no idea,” she said. “Any time someone dies alone in what appears to be an accident, there are always questions.”

  Cutter pushed his own half-eaten dinner aside and leaned toward her. “Look, Ruth needs to start healing. The longer this investigation goes on, the harder it will be for her to move forward. We’re her friends, and we have to help her.”

  Vicky didn’t say anything. She wondered if Ruth was the reason he had wanted to have dinner with her. She could see Ruth on the day Robert had died, pivoting toward the front door every time someone new arrived, tense with expectation. Who else had she been expecting except Cutter, the cousin who had come back to them, made himself welcome in their home?

  “How well do you know Ruth?”

  “Like I said, we were just getting reacquainted when Robert died. All I remember about Ruth from when we were in school is that she was annoying. Robert was my cousin. I want to help his widow in any way I can.”

  “Walking Bear? That you?” A large man in a tan cowboy hat and a blue-striped shirt stopped at the booth. In his hand were a dinner check and a credit card that he waved at the table. “I heard you were back. Good to see you.”

  “Help me out.” Cutter smiled up at the man. “You look familiar, but I’ve been away so long I’ve forgotten more names than I ever knew.”

  “Wayne. Wayne Shadow. Hell, we used to shoot hoops over at the mission school.”

  “Wayne! Sure I remember.” Cutter stuck out a hand and gripped the other man’s hand. “You know Vicky Holden?”

  The man gave her a dismissive sidewise glance. “Ben Holden was a good friend of mine,” he said.

  Vicky remained quiet. People on the rez still remembered Ben Holden—handsome, friendly. He could do anything, tame a wild horse, ride a bronco, round up a herd of cattle. Bring the world crashing down around her. They didn’t know him.

  “You back to stay?” The man gave his full attention to Cutter, as if she weren’t there, and she realized that, in some way, when she had divorced Ben Holden, she had ceased to exist on the rez.

  “That’s my plan. I have a line on a job with Fowler Oil in Casper, but I’m hoping to work in the oil fields on the rez. I’m here to make up for lost time. What have you been up to?”

  “Hired on with the school district as a bus driver couple years ago. Still live in the family place. You remember how we used to race the ponies out in the pasture?”

  “Yeah, but I’m drawing a blank. Where was the place?”

  “White Horse’s place west of Ethete. Been in the family since Arapahos came to the rez. Butch Cassidy himself used to hide out there after a job. You see that movie bunch on the rez? Making a film about old Butch? Hell, we got stories in the family that film crew would like to get ahold of. They offer enough money, I’d be glad to talk to them.” He turned to Vicky, a slow, reluctant motion. “You know how I could get in touch with them?”

  Vicky shook her head. “Sorry.”

  The man rolled his shoulders in a shrug. “Lot of stories on the rez about Butch and his gang. Trouble is, people are going to give them away. I’m thinking about getting up a union of all the old families with stories. We agree on a price, and everybody’s paid the same or nobody talks. What do you think?” He gave Vicky a half glance. She remained quiet.

  “Makes sense to me,” Cutter said.

  “Sorry to hear about your cousin. Is it true he was looking for old Butch’s buried treasure?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Claimed he had the original map that Butch himself drew up. What a crock of you-know-what. Walking Bears was poor as prairie mice. Never had a place where Butch could’ve hid out. My bet is, no Walking Bear ever laid eyes on Butch except if he happened to ride by. Hey!” He stuck out his hand again. “Don’t be a stranger. Stop by the place for dinner next Sunday.”

  “Thanks.” Cutter looked at Vicky. “I may have other plans.”

  Wayne Shadow gave a two-finger salute and started for the front of the restaurant. A black-haired woman with a baby on her back and a toddler in hand hurried after him.

  The waitress cleared the plates and brought cups of coffee. Vicky sipped at the hot liquid a moment before she said, “Ruth said Robert got his map from his grandfather.”

  “I hear you can buy maps lots of places.”

  “You think that is what he had? A map for tourists?”

  “Listen, Vicky, I tried to talk him out of looking for treasure. It’s a fool’s game. But the man was obsessed. Let’s forget Robert for a while, okay? I want to talk about you.”

  Vicky finished her coffee and set the mug down. “I’m a lawyer with a pile of work to review, and I’m afraid it’s time for me to say good night.” She slid to the end of the booth and got to her feet.

  Cutter stood up beside her. He picked up the check the waitress had laid at the end of the table. “Let me take care of this first and I will follow you home.”

  “That’s not necessary.” She thanked him for dinner and headed for the front door.

  * * *

  SHE WAS COMING around the curve into Lander when she realized the dark truck had been behind her for the last couple of miles. Cutter behind the wheel, she knew, by the tilt of his cowboy hat, the straightened set of his shoulders. He was taking the long way to the rez. He was following her.

  She eased up on the accelerator and turned into the residential area. Past brick bungalows with lights flickering in the windows, in and out of circles of light from the streetlamps. She pulled into the parking lot, hurried to the glass-enclosed entryway, and jabbed a finger at the elevator button. There was the truck again, parked at the curb, Cutter waving as she stepped into the elevator and pressed the floor button. Then she hit the close button and braced herself against the metal railing as the elevator clanked upward.

  Cutter Walking Bear, she was thinking. Making s
ure she reached home safely. A warrior looking out for women and children, the helpless. God, she wasn’t helpless. When she saw him again, she would thank him and make it clear she wasn’t helpless. When she saw him again, she thought. He would be back.

  She hurried down the corridor, let herself into the apartment, and flipped on the light switch. She walked over and looked out the side of the window. The truck was still at the curb.

  12

  1899

  MARY SPRINKLED A handful of flour on the dough and thumped it onto the table. She leaned into it, rolling, pushing, and kneading until the dough became soft and pliable, then added more flour and repeated the process. Finally she plunked the dough into a metal pan and spread a cloth over the top. The kitchen was warm and muggy, filled with the smells of simmering meat, potatoes, and onions. She put another chunk of wood into the stove and stepped out onto the back porch. The hot breeze washed across the floor planks and rattled the thin metal chairs where she sat sometimes in the afternoons, getting her breath before Jesse and the hired hand came in from the pasture. This last week, there had been four men to feed, but she hadn’t minded. It had been nice to settle in with George at mealtimes. The evenings, sitting out here, George and his friend Sundance on the steps, she and Jesse in the chairs. George as sunny and friendly as she remembered. He had lit up her life once, before she met Jesse.

  She stretched her legs and massaged the cramps in her fingers. This was a hard place, but it was all they had. They had started from nothing, a patch of dry dirt scrambled with sagebrush and buffalo grass. They had built the house and barn and the outbuildings themselves. At times she had feared the place would kill them, with the hot winds that blew all summer and the blinding winter blizzards that piled snow against the doors and locked them inside for days. Jesse had gone to the bank a few years ago, desperate to keep what they had built. Borrowed enough money to buy hay to keep the cattle alive over the winter when the snows raged and the temperatures stayed below zero. Paying the interest had eaten up every extra nickel. And now the principal was about to come due.

  She swatted at a mosquito. Banks were getting rich all over the county by foreclosing on ranchers who couldn’t pay off their loans. If that happened, Jesse would have to hire out on other ranches. She would have to try to get work somewhere. They could lose the place, lose everything.

  “Mary! What is it?”

  Mary shifted around. George stood at the end of the porch, holding his hat in one hand, patting the top of his head with the other, as if to brush off a nest of mosquitoes. His hair looked thinner, lighter than she remembered. It was ridiculous, the way old times kept jumping in front of her.

  “Just taking a little rest before dinner.”

  George walked around and sat down on the step. He looked up at her. “Are you happy?”

  “What a silly question.”

  He turned toward the pasture. “I like to think of you as happy. Jesse’s a good man.”

  Mary was quiet. She stared at the back of his head, the round, sunburned bald spot getting started. Finally she said, “I waited for you to come back like you promised.”

  He was staring out at some point far away. “Didn’t have anything to offer you, Mary. No kind of life to give you. Around these parts, I was a horse thief, and that’s all I was.”

  “You were a rancher.”

  “Didn’t work out, so I went back to stealing horses. On the run from the law all the time. You were a lady. Deserved better.”

  “I guess that was my decision.” She started to say that he never said good-bye, then stopped herself. George Cassidy hated good-byes.

  “I had to decide for both of us. Soon as they let me out of prison, I took off. Been running ever since.” He leaned back on the palms of his hands and turned his head toward her. The familiar smile creased his face. “Leastways I got a plan now. Get myself a big-enough stake and take off for parts unknown where nobody ever heard of the Hole in the Wall gang. Get me a nice spread and settle down. Nice place like this. No more running.”

  “This will be the bank’s soon.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Principal due on a loan Jesse had to take out to keep body and soul together a couple winters back.”

  George sprang to his feet and slapped his cowboy hat against his thigh. “I’ll speak to Jesse.”

  “Not your business, George. You got your own worries. The law could come riding out here anytime.” She thought she had heard the hooves pounding the ground last night. Lying there, next to Jesse, staring into the darkness, and wondering if that was the posse coming and if they’d shoot first and ask questions later. She stood up, smoothed her apron, and made an excuse about having to check on dinner. Jesse would not have wanted her spilling their business to strangers.

  * * *

  GEORGE SEEMED THE same at dinner, as if he didn’t know the place was collapsing around them. The wide grin, the big laugh that rang around the walls, the way he thumped his fist against his thigh as he told about the bank teller who had turned to stone, eyes bugged out, mouth stuck in a circle, when bank robbers told him to hand over the cash. How one robber had held a gun on the customers while another had jumped over the counter and scooped the cash into a canvas bag. How the bank teller had stood there like a statue, except for the big puddle at his feet that the robber tried to avoid when he jumped back over the counter.

  “What bank was this?” Anthony, the hired hand, was the only one not laughing.

  “Just a story I heard around,” George said.

  Anthony mopped up the last of his stew with a piece of bread, then sat back and folded his arms across his chest. “Seems to me you and Sundance here live a right dangerous life.”

  George let out a shout of laughter. “Nah. Pretty tame life, isn’t that right, Sundance?”

  Sundance hadn’t said anything during supper, but he had been a man of few words since he and George had arrived. Sitting back, watching. It was George who made the party.

  “You say so,” Sundance said after some consideration.

  Anthony scraped his chair back and got to his feet. “I thank you, Mary, for a fine meal. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna retire now. We’re branding calves tomorrow.”

  It was like a cloud drifting out of the house, Mary thought, as the hired hand’s boots clicked across the kitchen floor. The screened door opened and snapped shut.

  “What do you know about him?” Sundance set his elbows on the table and leaned toward Jesse.

  “Never asked questions,” Jesse said. “Law of the West. Man does his job, that’s all that matters.”

  “I was thinking the Union Pacific has probably put up a nice bounty on us by now.”

  “Any man works for me and blabs our business to the outside is a dead man.”

  Now it was Sundance’s turn to get up and thank Mary for the supper. He was going to take a walk, he said, and have a smoke. When the door slammed after him, George turned to Jesse, and Mary felt her neck muscles tighten into the familiar knot that usually brought on a headache. She rubbed at her neck.

  “How can I help you, my friend?”

  “You’re helping me plenty. Got the fences fixed, cattle rounded up. Finish the branding tomorrow.”

  “I mean help you keep this place.”

  Jesse shot a glance down the table at Mary. “We got our problems, but I intend to work things out with the bank.” The words sounded empty and hopeless. “Anyhow, it’s our business.”

  “Well, I don’t mean to interfere. But this is a real nice spread that you and Mary have put your sweat into for how long now?”

  “Four years.”

  “You have Mary here to think about, and I don’t want to see you lose what you’ve worked for like a lot of other ranchers in these parts. Banks are a bunch of vultures. They always know when to swoop down.” George took his time
getting to his feet. Without saying anything else, he went outside.

  “You shouldn’t have told him,” Jesse said.

  “It’s been on my mind, Jesse. Nothing else I been able to think about, so I blurted it out.”

  She could hear George’s footsteps receding across the porch. The tension in her neck was shooting into her head. Then the footsteps came back, the screened door opened and closed, and the footsteps reverberated across the kitchen and into the dining room.

  George walked over to his place at the table and set down a metal box. The lid squealed as he lifted it, as if the hinges needed oiling. Stacks of bills sprang free around columns of gold coins. “How much you need to get free of those vultures?” He had fixed Jesse with that determined stare he had used when he meant business.

  “I can’t take your money,” Jesse said.

  “Well now, it’s not exactly my money, is it?”

  “If the railroad catches up to you, they’ll want their money back.”

  “Let them get it out of the bank. Here’s an idea. Let them rob the bank.” George threw his head back and laughed. Then he started counting out bills. “What’s it gonna take? Thousand? Two thousand?”

  Mary put her hand to her mouth. “You said that was your stake,” she said, the words muffled and queer against her fingers.

  “There’s lots more where this came from.” George leaned across the table and set the bills in front of Jesse.

  Jesse stared at the bills for a long moment. Then he peeled off the top two and pushed the rest back toward George. “This is all I need, and I thank you. Soon as I’m able, I’ll pay you back.”

  “You’ll have to find me,” George said. “I’ll be off on my own place somewhere.” He set the bills back in the box, closed the lid, and held the box against his chest. “All the same to you, I’m going to ride into the mountains first thing in the morning and find a safe place for this loot. I’ll be back in time to help finish up the branding.”