Wife of Moon

by Margaret Coel

  “Part of it.” Coming through the night from far away was the faint wailing of a siren.

  “Well, here’s the rest,” Loftus said. “My wife’s not mixed up with the deaths of anybody connected to Senator Evans. She wasn’t here, you understand? You can tell the police what you want, but Christine’s coming with me. Maybe she was staying at the cabin for a few days, but she left before this happened, and I’m gonna swear to it. You see, she was with me all evening.”

  “How are you going to explain her fingerprints on the rifle?”

  Loftus ran a tongue along the inside of one cheek, so that the skin poked out like a sudden swelling. “Well, I’m gonna have to dump the rifle where it’s never gonna be found.” He tossed his head back, as if he’d finally heard the sirens swelling behind the line of trees. “Maybe you don’t understand,” he went on, a conciliatory tone now. “My wife is bipolar. That means days of extreme euphoria where she believes herself all powerful, capable of hanging the moon. Then she crashes and spends weeks in bed curled in a fetal position. Do you hear what I’m saying? She’s not responsible for what happened here. She could not stand up to a trial. It would destroy her.”

  “Your wife won’t stand trial. She shot both men in self-defense.”

  “Ah, self-defense. Of course. She’d been hiding from them, and when they arrived . . .”

  “She thought it was you.”

  This stopped the man, as if he’d taken a punch in the solar plexus. He rocked back on his heels and tossed his head sideways. The sirens were loud and distinct now, arrows of noise piercing the darkness.

  Loftus steadied himself. “You’re as crazy as she is,” he said. “Get out of the way.”

  “You won’t get more than thirty yards before you’re stopped. Then Christine will have to explain why she left.”

  “I’m taking my wife.”

  “She doesn’t want to go with you.” The sirens were filling the air around them, and headlights jittered over the ground.

  “You gonna stop me?”

  Father John tightened his hands into fists. “Maybe we’ll have to find out.”

  The sirens cut off, leaving a vacuum that absorbed all sound, apart from the short, quick, gasps of the man standing a few feet away, his face contorted by shadows and rage. Then, car doors slammed shut, and footsteps scraped the ground. “Over here,” a man’s voice shouted.

  “Your wife’s in shock,” Father John said. “If you care about her, you’ll let the medics look after her.”

  A second passed before the rage in the other man’s face began to give way to something that was even more disturbing. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’m gonna let you have this one, but only because I’m thinking about Christine. She’ll get better again, then she’ll want to come home where she belongs.”

  VICKY KEPT HER eyes on the headlights bouncing over the tire tracks that flared across the asphalt ahead. Gianelli was ahead in the darkness somewhere. The sky was cloudless, suffused with the pale-gray light of a moon that looked as if it were plunging toward the line of trees that ran alongside the road. Look at the moon sideways, grandmother said. You can see the face of a white man.

  Vicky eased on the brake, watching for the turn-off ahead. A half mile, and she pulled onto the two-track and bounced across the hard ground toward the glow of light swelling through the trees. When the two-track disappeared into clumps of grass, she kept going. Ahead was a cluster of vehicles—red, blue, and yellow lights flashing in the trees like bursting firecrackers. She pulled in behind one of the police cars, threw herself out the door, and started past the vehicles toward the log cabin.

  Dark figures were milling about the porch, ducking in and out, merging into little groups before dissolving back into the shadows. Two of the figures were bent over humps that trailed down the porch step and out onto the ground. One of the figures straightened up and started toward the ambulance parked halfway between the cabin and the trees. She recognized Gianelli.

  John O’Malley was nowhere.

  Then she spotted him, the tall man in the cowboy hat standing at the back of the ambulance. Through the opened doors she could see two medics hovering over someone on the gurney. She felt John O’Malley’s eyes on her as she walked over.

  “Are you all right?” she asked when she was still a few feet away.

  He nodded. “They’re looking after Christine.”

  Vicky was aware of the enormous sense of relief, like a warm wind wafting over her, at the sight of him and the sound of his voice. She did not want to imagine a world without John O’Malley.

  It was a moment before she noticed the bulky figure of another man on the other side of the ambulance. He raised one hand and bent into the cigarette clasped in his fingers. A red bullet of light flared and faded, then flared again.

  “Loftus found her?” Vicky could barely expel the words. She kept hoping the answer was no, even when Father John gave her a quick nod yes.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Suppose you tell me, John.” Gianelli’s voice came from the right, and Vicky realized that the fed had planted himself beside her with hardly a disturbance in the air.

  Father John was quiet a moment, then—his voice low—he began explaining that Russell had fired at the door. Christine was inside, and she’d fired back, hitting both men. And as he explained, Vicky struggled to fight back the panic crashing over her like the wind and blotting out the scream in her mind: You could have been killed!

  “So all this over some old photos.” Gianelli sound resigned, as if he already knew and only needed the confirmation.

  Vicky tried again to focus on what John O’Malley was saying: How T.J. and Christine had offered not only photographs but original glass plates to the senator for a million dollars, how the exchange was supposed to take place Monday night, and how Quinn and Russell had gone to T.J.’s house intending to take the photographs and plates.

  “Denise happened to be there.” The agent was shaking his head. “It probably went down the way you’d guessed, John. The poor woman had convinced them that T.J. had removed the photos and plates to keep them safe. They believed her. After all, she was pleading for her life. After they shot her, they decided T.J. must have given them to Christine.”

  One of the medics jumped out of the ambulance and righted himself against the door. “We’ve got to take her to Riverton Memorial,” he said.

  Looming behind the medic was Eric Loftus, smoke pouring from his nostrils and a cigarette glowing in his fingers. “I’ll take custody of my wife now,” he said. “I know what’s best for her when she hits bottom.”

  Gianelli stepped forward, and as he did so, the medic dodged to the side. “I can arrest your wife,” he said, moving in until he was in Loftus’s face. “I can arrest her on charges of double homicide and take her into the custody of the federal government.”

  “She’s guilty of nothing other than protecting her own life.” Loftus gestured with his head toward Father John. “Here’s your witness.”

  Gianelli didn’t move. “Your choice, man.”

  Loftus didn’t say anything. The ambulance doors snapped shut. The engine kicked over and the vehicle began inching forward, then made a tight turn through the scrub brush and trees and headed toward the two-track.

  “I intend to interview your wife as soon as she’s able,” Gianelli said.

  “Not without my lawyer, Howie Forman. Heard of him? He’ll be in touch.” Loftus took another drag of his cigarette, then turned around and started toward the pickup wedged between two police cars.

  Gianelli kept his gaze on the man lumbering through the shadows. “So he’s going to lawyer-up with Howie Forman,” he said, under his breath. “Celebrity gun-for-hire. Specializes in keeping the rich and famous out of prison.”

  Vicky glanced away. When she was in law school, she’d gone to the courthouse to watch Forman at work. Short and bald with the round face and tortoiseshell glasses of a professor and a pleasant, unassuming
demeanor. But in the courtroom he turned into something else—a rattlesnake, she remembered thinking at the time, with a pink tongue darting at the opponents, inflicting its fatal poison. He was good. God, he was a good lawyer.

  “No telling what big guns the senator’s going to bring in now that his campaign people have been killed,” Gianelli was saying. He shifted toward Father John. “Christine Loftus tell you about the Curtis photos and plates?”

  “She doesn’t have them.”

  “Ah, that’s what the wife of Eric Loftus told you, is it? Photographs and glass plates that might bring her a million dollars, if she plays her cards right and avoids whatever mistakes she and T.J. made on the first attempt at extortion. Maybe she hid them. Biding her time until the senator might be more receptive, perhaps after he gets the party’s nomination. When Russell fired at the door, she let them have it, rather than take a chance on their finding her hiding place.”

  “I don’t think so,” Father John said.

  “No? Well, indulge me, John. We’re going to tear up every floorboard in that old cabin. We’re going to look in all the nooks and crannies and check the ground for any signs of disturbance, in case she decided to bury them. Christine Loftus came this far, and for the moment, I’m going to assume that she might be willing to go a lot further.” He stared after the ambulance threading its way through the trees, headlights jumping ahead. “Tomorrow morning, my office, John. I’m going to need all the details. Go home now, both of you,” he said, shifting his glance between Father John and Vicky. “There’s nothing you can do here.”

  “Come on,” Father John said, and Vicky felt the weight of his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll walk you to the Jeep.”

  They’d cut through a clump of trees and emerged in the clearing where the vehicles were parked when she glanced up at him. “Evans will claim total ignorance of everything that happened, you know,” she said. “He’ll say that Quinn and Russell feared for his safety on the rez after T.J. denounced the senator’s drilling plans.”

  Father John didn’t say anything, and she pushed on, reeling out the story: “He’ll say they must have gone to T.J.’s house to discuss their concerns over the senator’s safety. He’ll say they were worried—and rightly so—that T.J. blamed the senator for Denise’s death. After all, T.J.’s people wouldn’t have turned against him if it hadn’t been for the senator’s determination to open the rez to the drilling. He’ll say that an argument must have broken at with T.J. and somehow—oh, Evans will regret it very much—his campaign advisers lost their heads and committed a heinous crime. He’ll be shocked by the brutality. He won’t have any idea of why Quinn and Russell had later gone to the cabin unless, again, it was out of concern for the senator’s safety. After all, Christine Loftus was T.J.’s mistress and might have been in on any plans to harm the senator.”

  “They came to the cabin with a gun, Vicky,” Father John said. His hand tightened on her shoulder.

  “They were overzealous, loyal to a fault. The senator will very much regret the unnecessary deaths, but he won’t be able to duck the fact that he’d hired psychopaths to manage his campaign. There’ll probably be a Senate investigation that will embarrass Evans. It will probably stop his bid for the presidency, but he’ll come back to his ranch and live like the local baron. He’ll go on, John, just like Carston Evans went on.”

  When they reached the Jeep, Father John opened the door and she slid behind the wheel. “The plates and photos could still be found,” he said. “And if they are, Bashful’s murder will be brought to light.”

  Vicky jabbed the key into the ignition and listened to the motor whir for a moment. “You’re wrong, John,” she said. “They’ll sink back into the reservation until somebody else in the Sharp Nose clan decides he can force the Evans family to repay a small part of what they stole. He’ll approach the senator, and another body will turn up on the riverbank with a gunshot to the head.”

  Vicky started to close the door, but it remained rigid. She looked up at John O’Malley. He was staring out across the top of the Jeep into the moonlight and the darkness beyond. “You know where they are, don’t you?”

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  34

  October 1907

  JESSE GALLOPED DOWN the dirt road, his eyes on the cluster of squat buildings that interrupted the horizon ahead. The pony’s hooves kicked up clouds of dust that rose around him and pricked his hands and clung to the sweat on his face. His mouth was gritty with dust. He turned the pony into the dirt yard and rode past the big house, past the cabin where Bashful had lived with Auntie Sara, past the storage shed. He reined in at the barn, jumped down, and unbuckled the saddle bag.

  Stands-Alone appeared in the doorway, a pitchfork in one hand. He wore a brown shirt that hung over denim trousers. His hair was caught in braids wrapped with red ribbon and tiny feathers. He had on tiny, wireless spectacles that, on his broad face, looked like glass coins set over his eyes.

  “Why do you ride in here like the whirlwind?” he asked.

  “I got the proof of Bashful’s murder.” Jesse held up the saddlebag like an offering.

  “What are you talking about.”

  Jesse lifted the leather flap, yanked out the sheets with the blue images, and thrust them at Stands-Alone. “I made the cyanotypes first,” he said.

  Inside the barn, Jesse saw a shadow move. Then Thomas stepped into the light. Almost as large as his father, but with a narrower face and a receding jaw that made him look weak and untrustworthy despite his broad shoulders and thick hands. “What is this?” He nodded at the cyanotypes.

  Stands-Alone gripped the sheets in both hands, his gaze frozen on the top image. “It is as we suspected,” he said. “The white man killed Bashful.” He slipped the top sheet behind the stack and stared at the next, then the next.

  “These are blue images.” Thomas bent his head around his father’s shoulder. “They are not clear.”

  “These are clear.” Jesse took three white sheets of paper from the saddlebag. “The agent will not trust the blue pictures, but he will have to trust these images.” He handed Stands-Alone the three black-and-white photographs that he had made after he’d realized what was in the cyanotypes. In the first image, the white man held his rifle close to Bashful. The next image showed Bashful falling backward. In the last image, Bashful lay in a heap on the ground, Carston Evans looming over her.

  “The photographer captured the moment Bashful died,” Jesse said, freeing the plates from the saddlebag. “The moment is here . . .” He held up the plates, struck by the sorrow moving through Stands-Alone’s eyes. The sorrow would be there forever, he knew, like the images on the plates.

  “Where did you find these things?” Stands-Alone dropped his eyes back to the photographs and cyanotypes in his hands.

  “The photographer left the glass plates in the cabin with some of his chemicals and papers. I figured he left them for her people. He meant for me to find them and make the pictures, so we’d know the truth. I made the cyanotypes yesterday. This morning I printed the photographs to show the agent.” He drew in a stream of air. “We must gather the men. There must be many of us to take this proof to the agent. Otherwise he will say that he does not believe the truth that his own eyes can see. We must ride to Fort Washakie with our weapons and demand that the agent allow Thunder and the others to return to their families.”

  Thomas let out a loud guffaw. “You come too late.”

  Jesse felt the moment freeze, as if the sun had stopped in the sky and the air had turned into a solid mass that he could not breathe in. “What do you say?” he managed.

  Stands-Alone lifted his eyes blurred with grief. “Last night the train brought the executioner. Thunder, Pretty Lodge, and Franklin—they were all hanged this morning.”

  “No!” Jesse shouted. “The hanging is tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.”

  “I tell you,” Stands-Alone said, “the moment of the execution has come and gone. It is no mor
e.”

  Thomas moved forward. “What makes you think the agent would’ve believed these pictures? Against the word of a white man?” He let out a loud guffaw. “The agent would’ve sicced the soldiers on us if we rode into Fort Washakie with these pictures.”

  Jesse swung around, walked back to the pony, and leaned his head into the warmth of the animal’s neck. What Thomas said was true. The photographs and the images on the glass plates—what were they? Nothing next to the word of the white man.

  He turned back to the men in the doorway, the shadows dropping over their faces. “I must kill the white man,” he said.

  “So you can also hang at Fort Washakie?” It took Jesse by surprise—the calmness in Stands-Alone’s voice. It pulled the air out of him.

  “She was your sister,” he said. “You should come with me to revenge her.”

  “I will come,” Thomas said. “The white man has taken Bashful’s land. We will take it back.”

  “There will be many hangings.” Stands-Alone faced his son. “You are hotheaded, and you have much to learn. Let the white man keep the land.” He waved the photographs in Thomas’s face, then turned to Jesse. “She is dead, Jesse. Killing the white man will not bring her back to us, but part of Bashful lives. We will use this evidence to make an agreement with the white man. We will take what is important.”

  FROM THE GATE at the road to the ranch house, Jesse could see Carston Evans on the porch of the two-story house, rifle raised, head bent alongside the stock. Jesse spurred the pony forward, his eye on the rifle barrel. It held steady in the white man’s hands. Stands-Alone rode to the right, and out of the corner of his eye Jesse could see the head of Thomas’s horse coming up on the far side of his father.