The Man Who Fell from the Sky

by Margaret Coel

  “Your law practice must keep you busy.” Cutter worked at his taco with a white plastic knife and fork he’d taken from a glass on the table. “All work and no play . . .” He shrugged. “You know how it goes. When do you have time to spend all your money?”

  “All my money?”

  “Come on, don’t be coy. You’re an attorney. The attorneys I know live pretty high. Big houses, fancy cars. Why not? You work hard for it.”

  “Attorneys in the oil regions of Oklahoma and Texas? Maybe so.” This was a small, rural community, she wanted to say. Instead she took a bite of the taco and wondered what difference it would make to Cutter Walking Bear that few people lived high here, that most of her clients came from the rez, that a lot of them couldn’t pay.

  She sliced off another bite of taco. Hot and spicy, the way she remembered her grandmother’s Indian tacos, the way she used to make them for her own kids, a lifetime ago. After a moment, she said, “How about you? Any luck with the job hunting?”

  “Still waiting to hear from Fowler Oil in Casper. Job’s perfect for me. Managing the drilling on the rez.” He looked out across the fair grounds, as if his thoughts had wandered somewhere else. The drums had gone quiet, and the dancers were strolling about, crowding in front of the booths, digging bills out of small, beaded bags. A small plane buzzed overhead and cut through the hum of conversations, the swish of people passing by.

  “Anyway . . .” Cutter looked back at her. “The interview went pretty well. God knows I have the right résumé. Engineering degree, years of experience. It helps that I started out working the rigs. I know the oil business from the ground up.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”

  Vicky took a drink of the icy tea and let a moment pass before she said, “I spoke with Ruth this morning.”

  “I know. She told me. I went over to help her out with a few things.”

  “It’s good of you, Cutter.”

  He shrugged and bent over the last of his taco. Vicky went on: “She claims Robert always went alone to the mountains.”

  Cutter kept chewing. He took his time before he said, “Has it occurred to you that Robert didn’t tell his wife everything?” He leaned over the table, so close that she could smell the spicy odor of his breath. “Maybe Ruth didn’t tell him everything, either. Couples keep secrets from each other. This isn’t a perfect world.”

  Vicky drew back, surprised at his sharp tone, and he went on: “Don’t tell me you and Ben Holden never kept any secrets. I suspect you kept quite a few, and I’ll bet he had his.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Now the sharpness was in her voice, which surprised her. But wasn’t that how it went? The anger in Ben’s voice, the shouting and yelling, and she had given it back, everything she received. Not the blows. She hadn’t been able to give those back.

  “I apologize.” Cutter moved his glass around, making small wet circles on the table. “It’s just that I don’t lie, and I don’t like being accused of lying.”

  “I haven’t accused . . .”

  “Ruth did, if she said I never went with Robert. I can give you dates and times. I can tell you exactly where we went. The parking lots where we left his truck, the trails we hiked, the time we went to the lake. Evidence, isn’t that what you call it? He was always so sure that this was the day he was going to dig up the treasure. He kept saying he was getting so close he could smell those old bills. Thousands and thousands of dollars. Enough to set him up for the rest of his life. Said he’d give me a share. I told him I didn’t want any of it. I was along for the ride, you might say. Making up lost time with my cousin.” He watched her for a moment, as if to make sure she understood. “Tell you the truth, I started to think the phantom treasure had driven my cousin round the bend.”

  Vicky laughed. She could feel the tension dissipate into the atmosphere of the fair, the booths and people, the music starting up again. “Did Robert carry a map?”

  “You ask me, he never went anywhere without his precious map.” Cutter shook his head and allowed a half smile to play around his mouth. “An old map, practically falling to pieces. I don’t know how he could make sense out of it. Ruth probably has it. She could show it to you.”

  “Robert’s truck and his things are still impounded.” She had found a piece of the map, she was thinking. Burned and torn, and for a moment, she considered telling him, then decided not to say anything. The old piece of paper she found might not have anything to do with Robert’s map. It was Gianelli’s business now. She changed the subject. “I worry about Ruth. She’s eager to have Robert buried in the traditional way, but with the investigation still going on, the coroner won’t release the body. I assume you’ve heard the rumors.”

  “Robert was murdered.” He shrugged. “The fed’s been talking to the family and everyone else that knew Robert. Showed up at the house I’m renting first thing this morning. Asked crazy questions. Anybody have a problem with Robert? Want revenge? Want him dead?” Cutter was leaning forward again, elbows planted on the table, the empty taco plate and glass pushed aside. “Ticks me off the way he’s trying to work the cousins, pit us against one another, trying to turn us on our own relatives. You ask me, who hasn’t gotten mad at a relative over some stupid thing? Anybody could say anything. Accuse anybody.”

  “What if there was a witness?” Vicky drank the rest of her tea, watching over the rim of her glass at the way his face changed, as if another storm were brewing inside him.

  “A witness? What are you talking about?”

  “Someone who claims he saw the murder.”

  Cutter threw his head back and laughed. “What’s he smoking?”

  “Maybe Robert took someone else with him the day he died. A couple of other people. How do you know he didn’t?”

  Cutter kept his head back, looking up at a sky that had turned steel gray, the laugh silent in his throat. “Okay, I give you that, counselor.” He looked back at her. “We don’t know for sure, except Robert didn’t trust a lot of people. He said the cousins were always trying to get their hands on his map. You understand why I’m ticked off at the fed? He talks to the cousins that wanted the map, no telling what they’re going to tell him.”

  “You mean, about you?”

  “Sure, about me, since Robert took me up there a few times. About any of the relatives. Pitting one against the other—it’s a dirty trick. Doesn’t mean people are going to tell the truth.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “What witness?”

  Vicky hesitated. The anonymous caller was hardly a secret. Gianelli knew, Annie and Roger knew. Almost nothing could be kept secret on the rez; if one person knew, sooner or later, everyone knew. She drew in a long breath, then told him she had heard from someone who claimed he witnessed Robert’s murder.

  Cutter clenched and unclenched his fists a moment, then clasped his hands together, as if he wanted to contain the force. “Does this so-called witness have a name?”

  “He didn’t give one. If he had, I would have told Gianelli. It’s his investigation.”

  “So you know nothing about a man who called you out of the blue. You believe him?”

  “It’s not up to me.”

  “So that’s why the investigation never quits. Jesus, Vicky. I’m surprised you took a nameless caller seriously. You tell Ruth about this?”

  Vicky nodded. “I’m sure she would have heard anyway.”

  Cutter stood up and surveyed the crowds circling about. “Let’s take a look around,” he said, as if the possibility of murder had been set aside, forgotten.

  * * *

  A PALE DARKNESS had descended when Vicky drove home through the quiet residential neighborhood that lay between City Park and her apartment building. The sky was clear and gray, the stars beginning to come to life. Streetlights cast wavering circles of white light onto the asphalt. John Fullbright singing “When You’re Here” on the
CD mixed with the shush of the wind blowing across the half-open windows.

  She held on to the steering wheel with one hand and thought about the times she had spent with Cutter. Yesterday evening in Hudson, this evening at the fair, strolling along the booths, looking at the jewelry, the paintings, stained glass, carved wooden figures. Cutter beside her, strong and dependable. An Arapaho like herself, struggling to find his place among his own people. And yet, there was something odd about him, off-putting, as if he moved in his own impenetrable space. He had walked her to her car and offered to follow her home. No thanks, she had said. This was good, this was enough, slowly getting to know each other.

  Vicky slowed for the turn into her parking lot and drove to her space past the shadowy rows of cars. Light glowed from the glass-enclosed entry to her building and trailed out onto the sidewalk. She let herself out, locked the car, and glanced about. A habit she had cultivated, all those dark nights working late at the office and coming home alone. She had started up the sidewalk into the edge of the light.

  “Vicky Holden.”

  The man’s voice came from nowhere, from the air, the lawn, the bushes. She swung about, scanning the area. There was no one.

  “You disappointed me. I waited an hour at the café.”

  “Who are you?” She hurried up the sidewalk; she was almost to the entry door when she spotted the white truck parked across the street. The man was in the shadows somewhere, crouched down among the bushes, where she couldn’t see him.

  “The fed is making a fool of himself, playing for time so it looks like he’s done his job. Don’t step inside!” Vicky had pulled open the front door. She stopped, aware of the tension in her shoulders. Her eyes fixed on the elevator button. It would take a couple of minutes to get the elevator, minutes in which whoever was out there could rush inside. A hundred scenarios ran through her head: push her into the elevator, drag her down the corridor, force her to open the apartment door. She dug into her bag for her keys and fitted them between her fingers like brass knuckles.

  “Listen to me. The killer is getting desperate. He’s getting ready to kill again. If you don’t convince the fed that time is running out, you’ll have to pay.”

  Vicky let the glass door slam behind her, lunged for the elevator, and jammed her palm against the button. Somewhere inside the building, wheels and pulleys emitted small screeching sounds. Inside the elevator, she found her cell and called the FBI office. “This is Vicky Holden. Put me through to Agent Gianelli,” she said, half running down the corridor, the cell in one hand, her apartment key isolated in her other hand.

  A minute passed before the voice said, “He’s not picking up. I’ll keep trying.”

  “It’s an emergency!” Vicky heard her own voice shouting. “I have to talk to him immediately.” She jammed the key into the lock, pushed through the door, then slammed it shut, turned the lock, and leaned against the hard surface, finding her breath now, the quick intakes of air burning her chest. The apartment was dark except for the seams of light from the streetlamps that lay across the floor, the desk, the chairs and sofa. The cell was cool and inert in her hand.

  It was five minutes before it rang. Call from Unknown flashed on the screen. Her legs had turned to liquid, scarcely holding her up. Anonymous calling from outside somewhere, watching the building, watching for her lights to come on. She realized she was still leaning against the door; the door holding her up.

  She slid her finger over the screen. “Yes?”

  “Vicky?” The fed’s voice. “What’s going on?”

  “The anonymous caller was just at my apartment building.” The words tumbled out, bunching against one another. She could feel her heart racing, and she made herself draw in a deep breath. “He said that the killer is getting desperate. He’ll kill again. The caller could be heading back to the rez now. He drives a white truck. You can have the tribal cops pick him up. He’s your witness, Gianelli. He saw the murder!”

  18

  A CIRCLE OF light fell over the stacks of papers, notebooks, and laptop that littered the surface of the desk. At the edge of light stood the chair Father John kept for parishioners who tracked him to the residence. The notes of “Vesti la giubba” rose and fell against the nighttime creaks and groans of the old house. The bishop had gone upstairs to bed an hour ago. Walks-On snoring at his feet, twitching in a dream. A good time, the last, quiet minutes of the day.

  Father John tried to ignore the tiredness running through him. It had been a busy day, driving to the nursing home and the film set, having lunch at the senior center with some of the elders, visiting the sick, the dying, at the hospital in Riverton, driving, driving. Walks-On had either trailed along on the visits or slept in the pickup under a shady tree.

  Following him through the day were thoughts of the man who had once lived in the same area—ridden a horse along the trails that were now asphalt roads, and who might have returned, when everyone thought he was dead. Risen from the dead. He smiled. It had happened only once.

  Father John turned the desk lamp toward the bookcases and ran his finger over the spines of Western history books until he found what he was looking for. Outlaws and Other Legends. A clear imprint outlined by dust clung to the shelf when he removed the book. It must have weighed two pounds; the cover, a tooled, navy blue leather, the title printed in gold. He ran his fingers over the cover a moment, then opened the book carefully. A delicate thing, like film that might disintegrate in his hands. The end sheets were cream-colored, stamped with tiny light blue half circles. He thumbed through the heavy, ragged-edged pages: desperate, narrow-eyed men looked out from sepia-toned photographs. Then he turned to the table of contents. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid appeared halfway down the list. He turned to page 70.

  The photograph of Butch Cassidy smiling out at the world took up the top half of the page, light-colored hair slicked back from an open, friendly face, eyes deep set, amused yet watchful, full cheeks and square jaw. In his thirties, hard-driven, experienced. The caption read: Robert LeRoy Parker, known as Butch Cassidy, about 1899.

  On the lower half of the page was the photo of another man, smaller and slimmer, also in his thirties, but with black hair and dark complexion and the wary eyes of a man who had seen and absorbed too much. Harry Alonzo Longabaugh, the caption read, known as the Sundance Kid, about 1904.

  He turned the page and found a photo of five men in suits and ties, black fedoras, and polished shoes, a successful bunch of merchants or bankers, perhaps, photographed at a wedding. Except the caption identified the men as members of the Wild Bunch. Butch Cassidy and Sundance were seated in front, on either side of Ben Kilpatrick. Behind them stood Will Carver and Harvey Logan. A tiny smile played around Butch’s mouth, as if he were the only one in on a highly amusing joke.

  On the opposite page were crowded lines of black type that ran into narrow margins. Father John skimmed through the text, then turned to the next page and the next. Looking for the dates, the details that grounded a life. Butch Cassidy, born Robert LeRoy Parker in Utah in 1866. Large Mormon family, honest and hardworking, so Butch changed his name to spare them the embarrassment and heartbreak at the turn his life had taken. Rustled cattle and horses at first, and Butch was good at it. Bank robberies came next, more dangerous and more lucrative. The San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride, the Denver National Bank, and more robberies whenever a bank looked promising. Then the train robberies, the big payoffs, $50,000 or more at a crack, more than a man could make in a lifetime of ranching. Often he hid out with friends in Wyoming. He was generous with the money he had stolen, helping friends pay taxes and mortgages to save their ranches.

  And Butch Cassidy was a man of meticulous planning. He planned the bank robberies and the train robberies by working out every detail. He left nothing to chance.

  Still, at times, Butch had tried to leave the outlaw life behind. Homesteaded a ranch north of Dubois, Wyomin
g, about 1890. Became part of the community, another rancher at the carry-in dinners, a dancing partner for the single girls. Handsome and fun-loving, popular with everybody. Always willing to lend a hand on the neighboring ranches. It lasted almost two years, those normal days, until the lure of horses waiting to be rustled became too strong to resist. Arrested for rustling a horse in the Bighorn Basin, which he claimed he had purchased legitimately, and sentenced in 1894 to two years in the Wyoming penitentiary in Laramie. Released in January 1896.

  Father John skimmed the next page: How Butch went back to robbing banks. Idaho, Utah, South Dakota. How Harry Alonzo Longabaugh joined the Wild Bunch sometime in the 1890s. How the gang was hardly a gang, forming and reforming, taking in new outlaws as others rode off. Then, halfway down the page, Father John stopped skimming and read the text:

  On June 2, 1899, the gang turned to robbing trains. As the Union Pacific Overland Limited Number 1 thundered down track near Wilcox, Wyoming, an emergency lantern swung ahead. The engineer stopped the train and the gang rode out of the shadows. They ordered the train crew to cut off the baggage and express cars and move them across a bridge ahead. Using the new explosive, dynamite, they blew up the bridge first, then proceeded to blow up the express mail car and the safe. No one was killed. They rode north with $50,000 in gold, silver, and banknotes.

  Butch Cassidy himself did not take part in the actual robbery, but he had planned the event and the getaway route. He rendezvoused with the gang nearby, and they divided the loot and went their separate ways. It is believed that Cassidy and Sundance hid out for a time on a nearby ranch with friends Butch had made in his ranching days.

  The Wilcox robbery led to the largest manhunt in Wyoming history. One hundred men—posses, state militia, private citizens, and Pinkerton detectives hired by the Union Pacific—rode across the state, but the gang had disappeared into the wide, empty spaces of the West. Posse leaders believed the gang had gone to Brown’s Park, a narrow, remote valley on the Utah-Colorado border controlled by outlaws. The posses gave up. No one wanted to venture into Brown’s Park.