Wife of Moon

by Margaret Coel

  Catherine gripped the edge of the table and pushed to her feet. “I been checking the map boxes. There’s no way I can be sure he didn’t take something. I shouldn’t’ve left him . . .”

  “It’s okay, Catherine.” Father John stopped the woman. “You handled things very well. What about Black Mountain?” he asked, trying to get hold of a memory moving in the shadows of his mind. “Any old buildings or caves or shelter?”

  Catherine was shaking her head. “Nothing but the land. We could ride forever and never come across anything.” She drew in a breath and closed her eyes a moment.

  “What about the old cabin?” he asked, bringing the memory into clearer focus now. What was it she had said—tossed off—three days ago about the cabin that Curtis had stayed in?

  “Couple miles from my uncle’s ranch was this old cabin, the one that’s in the photograph. Still there, far as I know.”

  “Who owns it now?”

  The woman contemplated the top of the table for a moment, as if she were studying a picture of the site and the cabin. “That’s all tribal land, Father. I guess anybody can go out there and use that cabin to hunt and fish. I expect lots of people working at the tribal offices go there.”

  “Christine could be hiding there,” Father John said. He was thinking out loud. He could see by the expression on Catherine’s face that she was making her own connections.

  “I guess her husband could be right,” she said, her head bobbing up and down. “Maybe Christine went out to Black Mountain and walked around until she found the old cabin.”

  Or maybe, Father John thought, T.J. told her about it. “How do I get there?” he asked.

  The woman pushed herself to her feet, walked over to the desk near the door, and, leaning down, jotted something on a sheet of paper. Stepping back, she held out the paper. “You gotta keep watching for the turnoff soon’s you cross Sound Draw. Take the bridge over the Wind River and keep driving north. Don’t pay attention to the dirt roads going off in all directions, just stay close to the draw even after the road wears out. Keep going, and when you find a flat spot between the bluffs, bear east. You’ll see the cabin.”

  He stood up and headed back down the hallway. He’d grabbed his jacket in the office and was already in the entry, about to open the front door, when Catherine called out from the library, “What’ll I do if Loftus comes back?”

  “He won’t be back,” Father John called before letting himself outside. Pulling on his jacket, he plunged across the grounds for the pickup.

  31

  FATHER JOHN HAD no idea of how far he’d driven. The odometer, like the speedometer, hadn’t worked in years. He’d gotten pretty good at gauging distances by guessing at his speed—hard shimmying meant he was pushing sixty-five miles per hour—and counting the telephone poles flashing past the window. He’d run out of telephone poles ten minutes ago.

  He’d never been to Black Mountain, but he’d driven Highway 287 many times. A spider web of dirt roads intersected the highway, and he squinted into the sun setting like fire over the mountains for the turnoff.

  Outside the passenger window, a dark line of trees trailed the Wind River, but ahead, another line veered north away from the river. He let up on the accelerator, hunting for Sound Draw, the engine grinding to a slower pace. It was another five minutes before he spotted the draw, like a dark cut in the earth. He eased on the brakes and bumped into a narrow two-track that lengthened into a rickety wooden bridge spanning the river. He bounced over the bridge, then back onto the two track, staying with the trees, avoiding the temptation to turn onto another road that emptied into the two-track.

  Two or three miles passed—he wasn’t sure—and what passed for a trail had run itself out. He kept his boot steady on the accelerator and kept going, crawling over rocks, bouncing through the hard depressions that ripped the ground. Darkness was coming on, bringing a mix of shadows and light under a blue sky that had started to change into silver, the full moon shining in the east, bathing the slopes of Black Mountain in a pale, white light.

  He kept going. Then he saw the cabin—nothing more than a shadow, an anomaly in the landscape, brown and small, hunkered down in a clump of junipers. He slid to a stop at the edge of the trees and got out. There was no sound apart from the wind rustling the branches and the crunch of evergreen needles and dried brush under his boots. The trees obscured the last daylight clinging to the mountain ridge on the west. At first he thought the faint odor of smoke in the air was the smell of the overheated engine, but the odor was stronger as he neared the cabin, and he saw the thin trail of gray smoke winding over the treetops.

  The cabin was a small rectangular structure of logs fitted together and chinked with mortar. Built a hundred and fifty years ago, smoke floating out of the rock chimney that ran up the side wall. The roof sloped forward over a narrow porch where the wind had blown sprays of twigs and pine needles. A path had been worked through the needles.

  As he started around the porch toward the step, a woman emerged from the trees, a small figure in dark waterproof jacket and pants and thick-soled lace-up boots, the kind of gear that people hereabouts carried in the back of their pickups for emergencies. She wore a knitted cap pulled down around her face, which made it difficult to make out her features. Her hands were encased in outsized gloves that gripped the piles of logs she cradled in her arms.

  “Christine,” he said.

  Her head jerked up, as if she’d been yanked backward. The logs rolled out of her arms and thudded onto the ground. She let out a high-pitched noise like the howl of a wild animal caught in a trap, then wheeled about, ran past him across the porch and into the cabin. The door slammed shut.

  Father John picked up the logs and went to the door. “Christine,” he shouted. “I’m here to help you. Let me in.”

  He waited. Nothing but the swoosh of the wind. He had to stoop over to brace the pile of logs against the door while he grappled with the metal latch, half-expecting it to be locked. There was a clicking noise and the latch shot upward. Something gave, and the tension fell away. He gripped the logs again, kicked the door open, and stepped inside.

  The cabin was small; the air stuffy and hot. Gray light seeped through the window across from the door. A fire burning in the stone fireplace on the left cast fingers of light across the log walls and the plank floor.

  Christine sat on an old wood bench pushed under the window, the butt of a rifle wedged against one shoulder, the barrel pointed at his chest. He could see down the barrel—a black tunnel that looked as though it went on forever.

  “Go back to the mission, Father O’Malley,” she said, drawing out the words in a monotone, like the simulated voice of a machine. He felt a wave of shock at the change in the woman. She’d removed the cap, and her dark hair was matted against the curve of her head, stringy around her neck. Her face was pale and sunken, her lips tightly drawn, almost white.

  “Are you planning to shoot me?” He tried to keep his own voice calm. He could feel his heart pumping.

  “This has nothing to do with you. It isn’t your business.”

  “You worked for the mission. That makes it my business.”

  “This is between me and T.J.” Exhaustion pulled at the woman’s voice. “Everything will be over in a few more days, and you’ll never see me again. Please leave.”

  “T.J.’s dead, Christine.”

  The white lips parted, but she didn’t make a sound. The rifle was bucking in her hands, and Father John could see that she had to tighten her grip to hang onto the barrel.

  “Dead.” It was barely a whisper. “What happened?”

  “I think you know what happened.” Father John was still holding onto the logs, his eyes locked on the rifle. “Put the gun down,” he said.

  The woman leaned back against the log wall and allowed the rifle to drop slowly until it lay on the floor at her feet, the barrel still pointed at the door.

  Father John waited a moment, his heart still thumping.
Finally he walked over and set the logs down at the side of the fireplace. He backed away from the heat pouring out of the grate toward the draft of cool air that blew through the opened door. The cabin contained a couple of weathered benches that looked as if they had once been joined, a sleeping bag rolled up against the wall opposite the fireplace, and a cardboard carton stuffed with packages of food that looked like dried noodles and crackers. Next to the carton was a plastic case of bottled water.

  He lifted one of the benches, carried it across the cabin, and sat down facing the woman. “I know who you are, Christine,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I never meant for this to happen.” Her voice was shaky. She drew in a series of quick breaths, her eyes darting about the cabin as if she expected someone to materialize at any moment. It was a while before she said, “It was supposed to be simple. I could get some money and get the hell out of here, make a new start where my husband would never find me.” She turned her head and stared at whatever images leaped at her in the fire. “You don’t know what it’s like to be married to Eric Loftus. I’m nothing to him, nothing more than his own shadow. I’ve tried to leave him, but he wouldn’t let me go. He always found me. One day, I offered to run an errand for him. He was busy in the gallery with an important client, and he let his guard down. I walked out, got in the car, and drove away. I had twelve hundred dollars hidden in the lining of my bag—money I’d been squirreling away for two years. A week later I had a little furnished apartment and a job at an Indian museum.”

  She gave a tight, strangled laugh and turned her head back to Father John, as if she’d sensed him studying her. “Eric would never suspect that I’d gone only a hundred and sixty miles over the mountain to an Indian mission. Funny thing, I liked working in the museum. I liked arranging the Curtis exhibit. I could have gone on for a long time, but I knew I didn’t have a long time. Sometimes I’d wake up at night and sense his presence, as if he was in the bedroom watching me. Then I found out that people on the reservation had original Curtis photographs. No telling how many vintage photographs were here. It was my way out. I could sell the photographs, pay off the owners, and have enough for a plane ticket to the east coast. But nobody wanted to sell me the photographs. Then T.J. pulled me aside after a meeting and said, “My wife’s a descendant of Sharp Nose. She has something you might find interesting.”

  “Photographs of a woman’s murder.”

  Christine blinked, then gave him a half smile. “Not only photographs, but glass negatives. The murdered woman was Arapaho, and she was the wife of Senator Evans’s grandfather. How did you know?”

  Father John shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You should know that your husband is looking for you.”

  “Eric? Here?” She jumped to her feet. “Oh, God. T.J. said the cabin would be safe.”

  “Eric might find it.”

  “He’ll find me. I have to get out of here.” She was lunging for the black bag wedged between the log wall and the cardboard carton of foods.

  Father John stood up. “I’ll take you to the FBI agent. You can tell him what you know about Denise and T.J.’s murders.”

  “FBI?” She moved toward the door, hugging the bag to her like an infant. “Are you crazy? The minute I walk into an FBI office, Eric will know where I am. Don’t you understand? He has contacts everywhere.”

  She threw herself past him and headed outside. He went after her. It was getting darker, the moonlight striking through the branches. “I’m parked beyond the trees,” he said, trying to take her arm.

  She shook herself out of his grasp and veered in the opposite direction. “I have to get the Range Rover. I have to get away.”

  He grabbed her arm and turned her toward him. “Listen to me, Christine. You could be facing serious charges. The best thing you can do for yourself is come with me to see the FBI agent.”

  She stared up at him, a flicker of comprehension in her eyes. He could feel her muscles relax beneath his grip, and he began guiding her—half pulling her—through the trees to the pickup. There was a mixture of reluctance and resignation in the way she slid onto the passenger seat. He shut the door behind her, then walked around and got in behind the wheel. Leaning sideways, his shoulder crammed against the window, he pulled the keys from his jacket pocket and jiggled the ignition a couple of times before the engine coughed into life. Then he reached past her and dragged his cell out from beneath the piles of papers in the glove compartment. He pressed in the number for Gianelli’s office. It took a moment before the buzzing noise started in his ears.

  “No,” she said, grappling for the door handle. “I can’t go to the FBI.”

  “You’ve reached the offices of . . .”

  “Two people are dead, Christine,” he said over the recorded message. “I don’t see that you have a choice.”

  The woman pushed down on the handle and spilled outside. A burst of cool air filled up the cab. “I’m with Christine Loftus,” Father John told the answering machine. “She’s at an old log cabin west of Black Mountain.” The cell was clicking in and out. He wasn’t sure if he’d gotten through.

  He hit the off button, tossed the phone onto the dashboard, and went after the woman. She was about a dozen yards ahead, weaving like a drunk down the tracks left by the pickup. He sprinted to catch up. When he tried to take her arm, she jerked away and turned on him. “That was a rotten thing to do.”

  “What did you do, Christine? Try to sell the photographs of a murder?”

  She gave a shout of laughter, the sound cutting through the wind. “For a few thousand dollars? What good would that do me?” She swung around and took off running into the trees.

  Father John stared after her, feeling as if the images were flashing across a screen dropped in front of him. Images of glass plates made by Curtis were worth more than a few thousand dollars.

  He cut a diagonal path through the trees and came out ahead of her. When she tried to duck past, he took hold of her shoulders, surprised at how small and fragile she was. He loosened his grip. It took so little to hold on to her. “You tried to sell the glass plates to Senator Evans,” he said. “You wanted to blackmail him.”

  “Why don’t you talk to the FBI if you know everything?”

  “Who did you go to? Quinn? Russell? Which one of the senator’s people?”

  “The senator’s people? We went to the great man himself.” She looked away, as if the realization had hit her that she’d said too much. She started tossing her head about, like a wild animal looking for an escape route. A couple of seconds passed before she looked back at him, her face glowing white in the moonlight. “What difference does it make?” she asked.

  He could feel her beginning to fold, as if she might fall to the ground. He kept hold of one shoulder and threw his other arm around her to hold her upright. “Take it easy,” he said.

  She drew in a stuttering breath. Then she said, “T.J. called the senator’s office and left a message that there was material on the reservation he might be interested in. The senator understood. He called back within the hour. Said he’d be at the ranch the next day. T.J. made copies of the photos, and we gave them to the senator, but it wasn’t necessary. The senator knew about the photos. The family has been trying to get them for a hundred years. Well, we gave him the opportunity. One million dollars. A fair price, don’t you think?”

  “He agreed to pay you?”

  “For the photographs and the glass negatives. He didn’t want any more Indians trying to get money out of his family. He said he wanted to be done with it. We set up the exchange with Evans’s people for Monday night, behind Great Plains Hall. The place will be deserted, T.J. said. I waited fifteen minutes, but no one came. So I went to T.J.’s He was there. He was a wreck. Disoriented almost incoherent. It took me a while to get it out of him that Denise was in the bedroom. Dead.”

  Christine lifted her head, her nostrils flaring for air. “T.J. said he’d gone home to get the
photographs and negatives, but they weren’t there. He said that Evans must have sent his people to find the evidence, so he wouldn’t have to part with any of his precious money. Evans was ruthless, and whoever he’d sent had left us a message by killing Denise. T.J. said I should go and stay at the log cabin until he figured out what to do.”

  “They didn’t find the photos and plates,” Father John said. “They ransacked your apartment looking for them.”

  “I never had them.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Don’t you understand?” She lifted a fist and hammered against his chest. “They belonged to her. Denise! She’d kept them in the shed behind the house for years. T.J. showed them to me. If Evans didn’t get them, then she must’ve taken them. She must have put them somewhere else.”

  They didn’t know, he was thinking. Quinn and Russell didn’t know where the evidence was. They had tortured and killed T.J. and searched the house. They were still looking.

  Dear God. They were looking for Christine.

  “Look.” He nodded toward the headlights jumping across the ground in the distance.

  Everything about her seemed to freeze. She stared at the lights. “Eric!” she said a whisper, dry and breathless.

  32

  CHRISTINE TURNED ABRUPTLY and started running toward the pickup. Her boots kicked up little dust clouds that hung in the air behind her before settling onto the ground.

  Father John glanced around at the shafts of light bearing down on him, riding high. The pickup could never outdistance an SUV.

  He darted through the lights. “Wait,” he shouted. The SUV’s engine thrummed behind, the tires scraping the ground. “We can’t outrun them.” He came up beside her and reached for her arm.

  “Let me go.” She slapped his hand away and kept going.