Finally Buzz said, “I been feeling like somebody sucker punched me in the gut ever since I heard about the missing artifacts.” He pushed back, lifting the chair off the front legs and crossed his arms over his chest. The top of his head brushed the books balanced on a shelf. “Important part of our heritage, gone like so many other things.” He dropped the chair and frowned at a stack of papers. “It doesn’t matter how much money the artifacts are worth. They represented something. They showed how Arapahos were part of what happened on the plains. We fought for our lands. Protected our villages. Lost our people at the Sand Creek Massacre. Joined the Sioux, listened to Sitting Bull and rode with Crazy Horse against Custer. We even went with Buffalo Bill and reenacted the Old Time across Europe. Helped educate millions of people about who Indians really were. Those artifacts would have reminded us to be proud of our past. Young people could have taken a lot from them.”
He let his gaze run across the cluttered desktop, drumming his fingers on the edge. “Gone now,” he said, as if he were talking to himself, struggling to find acceptance for the reality. “I know how these things go. Burial sites dug up, artifacts taken. Indian stuff stolen out of museums and shops. Petroglyphs cut out of stone. There’s big money for antique Indian regalia, tools, weapons, you name it. The kind of money that doesn’t care how the items were obtained.” He locked eyes with Father John. “Rich people that got everything else, so they want what belongs to us.”
Buzz shook his head, as if what he had said was hard to imagine. “Arapaho regalia from the Wild West is pretty rare,” he said. “Fact is, not many Arapahos went with the show. Most of the Show Indians were Sioux and Pawnee. But Buffalo Bill took Chief Black Heart and about a hundred other Arapahos for the 1890 show. Black Heart’s regalia had history. Somebody put a lot of money on the table for that regalia.” He shook his head. “Ugly business. I hear the anonymous benefactor was murdered yesterday.”
Father John nodded. “Trevor Pratt. He was a dealer and collector. He might have confronted the thieves. The fed traced the artifacts to the Riverton area, which makes me think the thieves might still be in the area.”
Buzz considered this a moment. “A long shot,” he said. “Unless they’re waiting for a buyer to show up, but I doubt it. Usually the thieves get out of the area and make the exchange in another state. Even if the exchange took place here, my guess is it happened right away, and the buyer left with the artifacts.”
“What’s the chance the thieves are local?” Father John said. Arapahos like Cam Merryman or Mickey Tallman, stealing their own heritage. He didn’t want to believe it, but he had heard too many confessions, counseled too many parishioners to think that Arapahos and Shoshones were any different from everyone else.
“They’re out there.” Buzz tilted his head toward the window. A pickup lurched past, belching a cloud of black smoke. “Indians willing to sell their own heritage. It’s been quiet the last two, three years. Nobody digging where he shouldn’t be or hunting artifacts in sacred places.”
“Anybody you suspect might have stolen artifacts in the past?”
“One or two families the cops keep an eye on, but like I said, things have been quiet lately. If you’re fishing for a local tie to the stolen artifacts…” He pulled in his lower lip and looked at Father John out of narrowed eyes. “Could be somebody on the rez saw an opportunity. Certainly was enough publicity. Everybody knew Arapaho artifacts from Buffalo Bill’s Wild West would be at the museum for the exhibit opening. Wouldn’t have been difficult to watch for them at the airport. Small airport.” He gave a little shrug. “Only a few planes coming in every day. Somebody working there could have passed along the information when the artifacts arrived.”
Father John didn’t say anything. Something was missing, the minor premise in the logical syllogism. “You’re saying somebody saw the opportunity and jumped into the business of stolen artifacts? Where would a beginner find a buyer?”
“The internet,” Buzz said. He switched his eyes toward the computer screen at the corner of the desk. “I’ve been checking the obvious sites. Nothing suspicious, but there are a lot of sites.” He clasped his hands and rounded his shoulders forward. “Maybe the thieves didn’t have to go looking for a buyer. Maybe the buyer or his representative found the thieves.”
Father John worked the folds in his cowboy hat a moment. “You’re saying somebody showed up on the rez and found an Arapaho or Shoshone to steal artifacts?”
“You think greed stops at the rez border?” Buzz waved a thumb at the window as if he were hitching a ride. “It’s happened in the past. Outsiders show up, find somebody to help them steal petroglyphs or dig up grave sites. Outsiders need local help. We hear of outsiders working the powwows, trying to talk people into selling their regalia. They ingratiate themselves, dangle a lot of money in front of people’s noses.” He shook his head. “Some of them sell. Perfectly legal to sell their own possessions, even if the items are ancient. Treasures that should stay with the people. We try to discourage folks from selling. If they need money, and most of them do, the tribe tries to find a way to buy the pieces. Sometimes we’re successful, and sometimes we’re not. The pieces are already sold and gone from the rez before we hear about it. We have managed to save a few items. They’re in the museum.”
Father John nodded. The collection was growing. Families donated artifacts that belonged to their ancestors. Other Arapahos brought in items they wanted to sell, and sometimes Eldon found a benefactor willing to purchase them and donate them to the museum. Like Trevor Pratt, except that Trevor had found the museum.
He put on his cowboy hat and started to his feet. He felt as if a heavy load had been strapped to his shoulders, the same feeling that came over him after hearing confessions all afternoon. Buzz had confirmed what he had hoped couldn’t be true: somebody on the rez could be involved. Somebody Trevor had suspected and confronted. He could see Cam sitting at his kitchen table, talking about his new life. Wife, kid on the way, little ranch, part-time job. You think greed stops at the borders? Buzz had said.
He realized Buzz was still talking about outsiders approaching Indians. “Had some show up at the powwow in Arapahoe two weeks ago,” he said. “Nobody ever saw them before. Walked around, visiting with Indians, complimenting them on their regalia, saying they could get them good money. Making nuisances of themselves, you ask me.” He stood up and set his knuckles on a stack of papers. “Couple white men. Dark blue car. Colorado license plates. Far as we know, nobody took them up on any offers, so they drove off.”
“Who did they talk to?”
Buzz was studying him again. “You think they had something to do with the theft?”
“The fed’s looking for two guys in a dark sedan,” he said.
“Wilma RunningFast,” Buzz said. “Tried to talk her out of her great-grandmother’s deerskin dress. Made her mad. They didn’t understand what no means. She had to get her grandson to shoo them away. Guess they went off and bothered somebody else.” He wedged himself around the desk again and opened the door. A shaft of cool air shot into the small office. “Wilma’s not gonna want to talk to the fed, not with her grandson on probation for that bar fight he got into last spring. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”
“Maybe she will,” Father John said.
FATHER JOHN TURNED on the ignition and rolled down the windows. The hot breeze swept through the cab. He hit the button on the CD player and listened to “Oh, se sapeste” a moment, his thoughts on Wilma RunningFast. He had met Wilma on his second day at St. Francis Mission. Still unpacking his books and opera tapes—it might have been yesterday, the memory was so vivid. He could see himself back then, trying to settle into a new office, adjust to a new job on an Indian reservation, where he had never imagined he might find himself, unsteady on his feet and trying to ignore the thirst that clung to him like a bad odor, anxious not to disappoint Father Peter the way he had disappointed just about everybody else in his life. The provincial, the other Jesuits at the prep school
where he had taught American history, his own family. Everybody.
And there was Wilma. Short and almost as wide as the doorway, gray-haired, a grandmother in a pink dress with a red and blue shawl thrown over her shoulders and feet swelling out of black slippers. Everything you might ever want to know about patience and acceptance and forbearance written all over her. “Welcome to our place,” she had said.
She had plopped down on a side chair and, after a few minutes of niceties, told him she wanted him to be happy at St. Francis.
“Any advice?’ he’d said.
That’s when she told him to get to know the people. “Lots of outsiders come to the rez,” she’d said. “They already got their ideas of Indians. Even priests. They know all about us ’cause they seen old westerns. They read the newspapers about troubles some Indians get themselves into. So they think they got us all figured out. You’d be surprised how they go along, month after month, year after year, with all those ideas in their heads and they never shake them out so other ideas might come in.”
He had tried to remember Wilma’s advice for almost ten years now, and it had paid off. They were his family, the Arapahos. They had become part of him, and he felt part of them. This was home.
The gear was stiff and cranky as he shifted into low. Still the old Toyota kept going, and there was a lesson in that, he thought. He guided the pickup out onto Ethete Road, turned left at the intersection and drove toward Arapahoe where Wilma RunningFast lived.
15
FATHER JOHN PARKED close to the wooden stoop, let a couple of minutes pass, then got out and stood by the pickup. He had left the CD player on, and the sounds of Puccini floated around him. A hollow sound came from inside the small white house that duplicated itself up and down the dirt road. Squeals and shouts of children drifted on the wind from the school a short distance away. The community of Arapahoe spread over the flat, brush-smeared prairie west of the mission. At night, from the kitchen window at the residence, Father John could see the lights that broke through the layers of darkness on the rez.
The front door flung open and Wilma RunningFast stood with hands dug into her broad hips. She gave him a wide smile and motioned him inside.
“I been thinking you might show up,” she said.
“You must be reading my mind.” He stepped into a narrow living room about as big as the corridor outside his office, stuffed with a sofa and chairs that hugged the walls. The air was warm and filled with odors of simmering meat and something spicy.
“Let’s go out back where there’s some shade,” she said, leading the way across the living room and into an alcove that served as the kitchen. She wore a yellow print dress that hung loosely around her stout frame. The wide neckline revealed a patch of brown skin below the back of her neck. She glanced over her shoulder. “Just made a pitcher of herbal tea? Want some?”
He said that sounded good and waited while she plunked ice into two glasses and poured the tea. She picked up the glasses and, pushing the screened door open with one hip, stepped outside. He followed, took the glass of tea she offered, and sat down in a webbed folding chair. A rectangle of shade cast by the house stretched into the dirt yard.
“Minute I got the news on the telegraph,” Wilma said, settling into the chair across from him and foregoing the polite preliminaries, “I told myself, Father John’s gonna be stopping by. He’s gonna want those artifacts back. I figured sooner or later you’d hear about the white guys at the powwow. Looks like I figured right.”
“What about the fed? Has he been here?”
“I got nothing to say to him.” Wilma shook her head and snapped her eyes shut, as if that were the end of it. Then she said, “I can’t have him nosing around. Robert’s been staying with me—you know, my grandson.”
He nodded. A small brown boy with black hair and big eyes dodging away from Wilma and running off with other kids at the powwows. But that was almost ten years ago. Robert had gotten into trouble last spring and was on probation.
“Robert gets the shakes just thinking about going to prison.” Wilma was saying. “The fed shows up, he’ll take off. I know that boy. Needs time to readjust, get his life back together. He’s got himself a good job. This is a safe place for him, but no cops, no fed. You understand, Father?”
He told her he understood, then took a sip of the herbal tea. The sharp, spicy taste pricked at his throat; it smelled of sage and lavender. Wilma would tell him about the white men in her own time, if she decided to tell him at all.
After a few seconds, she said, “Never seen those guys before. Like they dropped out of the sky. Just showed up after I moved my chair into a shady spot at the powwow. Said they greatly admired the white deerskin dress my grandniece, Bonny, wore in the young woman’s traditional dance. They asked her about the dress. Went right up to her after she came out of the arena and said they wanted to buy that dress. Well, she told them it belonged to her ancestor and wasn’t for sale. She came and found me and told me to look out for a couple of white guys. The dress come down from my great-great grandmother. She made it herself, tanned the hide, sewed it up with sinew and sewed on the trade beads. She was one of Chief Black Coal’s wives, so she had to look good, make him proud whenever other chiefs came to the village. That dress has been in the family a hundred years or more. It’s part of us. Every time I take the box off the shelf, unwrap the tissue paper and take out the dress, I get a shiver up and down my spine.
“You told them how important the dress was?” The more history attached to an item, the more valuable it was, Father John was thinking. If the white men had stolen the artifacts, they might set their sights next on a dress handmade by a wife of one of the last Arapaho chiefs. He took another drink of the tea aware of the uneasy feeling clamping onto him. An old habit, the sense of danger. Perfected on the streets of Boston when he was a kid, walking home from baseball practice in the long shadows of Commonwealth Avenue, wondering if the sounds behind him were footfalls or just the wind rustling the branches, all his senses on alert. Not a bad habit. It had probably saved his life more than once.
“Of course I told them. I said my great-great grandmother’s dress was never leaving our family. It was gonna stay right where it belonged.”
“Did they offer a lot of money?”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars,” she said.
Father John tried not to choke on the tea he had just swallowed. “Not very much for a beautiful and authentic artifact with a history,” he said.
“I laughed in their faces.” Wilma said. “I wanted to tell them they was stupid if they thought I was stupid enough to believe that’s all it’s worth! I told them I wasn’t interested at any price. Turned sideways in my chair, quit looking at them. I was looking for Bonny, ’cause I was getting nervous about her walking around the powwow grounds in the dress. I was hoping she’d gone out to the parking lot and changed clothes in the trailer. She wasn’t gonna be in any more dances. Thinking about her out in the trailer alone made me even more nervous.”
“What did you do?”
“Turned back to those white guys. They was still standing there, like they was sure I’d change my mind. They don’t put off easy, I’ll say that for them. I started talking, you know, keeping them there so they wouldn’t see Bonny come out of the trailer and figure that’s where the dress was.”
“You thought they might just take it?”
“Steal it,” she said. “They wanted it bad, I could tell. I got a real funny feeling about those two. I said, ‘What else you looking to buy?’ The big guy with a lot of gray hair and scars all over his face, like a tornado run over him, said they wanted Indian stuff that had been on the plains and could tell stories. The way they talked! Like they wanted stuff that was alive and had memories of what it was like in the Old Time. Anyway they said they had people waiting to buy artifacts like that.”
Father John set the empty glass down in the dirt and leaned forward. “Did they say where they were from?”
&nbs
p; Wilma shook her head and kept her eyes on the ground, like a schoolgirl who hadn’t completed an assignment. “I tried to get it out of them,” she said after a long moment, “but they didn’t want to say. I asked them if they had a store somewhere. ‘Not exactly,’ the big guy said. What’s that mean—‘not exactly’? You either got a store or you don’t.”
“What was the other guy like?” Father John said.
“Younger, maybe thirty or so, looked Mexican. Light-skinned. The older guy could’ve been his father, except he didn’t act like anybody’s father. The young guy had a scary look, brown hair plastered to his head, and whiskers. Red nose, I remember, like he was a drinker.”
An older gray-haired man, a younger man with brown hair and the beginnings of a beard. A drinker. They could have been in the dark sedan speeding away from Trevor Pratt’s ranch. He couldn’t be sure. Even if he were to face the two men in a lineup, he could never identify them as the men in the sedan—a dark object hurtling by, his own attention on the Jeep gyrating over the road and veering toward the borrow ditch.
“Gianelli’s looking for them,” Father John said.
“Looking for who?” The man at the corner of the house was about six feet, in his twenties with a high, sloped forehead and black hair slicked back from a sculptured face with high, prominent cheekbones and a jaw that jutted forward. He kept his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans as he started over. “Mind if I join you? Find out what’s going on?”
“You remember my grandson Robert?” Wilma said.
“How’re you doing?” Father John wouldn’t have recognized Robert RunningFast if he had run into him somewhere on the rez. Another slightly familiar face, and he would have had the vague feeling that he ought to know the young man, remember him from somewhere.
“Go get yourself some iced tea,” Wilma said as Robert skidded a webbed chair across the dirt.
He hesitated a moment, looking from the chair to the back door. “Hold on,” he said finally. “Don’t want to miss the gossip.” A gust of wind plastered his denim shirt against his back as he headed toward the house. The mixture of dust clouds and tumbleweeds swirled around.
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