“You won’t get off the rez,” Father John said. He moved sideways to the wall and began sliding down. “Every cop in the county is looking for you.”
“We’ll see.” Eldon motioned to the others to resume packing the artifacts. Across from him, in piles along the wall, Father John could make out the beaded vest and wrist guards; the red, white, and blue flag shirt; the tanned and beaded leggings and moccasins. An aura about them, he thought, of age and history, of old battles and Wild West Shows and cheering crowds.
“You surprise me,” he said to Eldon. The gun looked like a bazooka. He was thinking that he had missed seeing into Eldon. So many signs, yet he hadn’t seen them. “I never expected a man with your credentials to steal Indian artifacts.”
“My credentials?” The Arapaho gave a shout of laughter, and the gun jumped in his hand. “Where’d my credentials get me? A series of dead-end jobs in third-rate museums! Hell, with my credentials, I can work twenty-four-seven the rest of my life and still not have anything. Take Trevor Pratt. He had everything except the credentials. But he made himself an expert. He knew how to buy and sell Indian artifacts, and that made him rich.”
“He didn’t want to hijack any more artifacts. Isn’t that what happened?” Father John said. He sat on his haunches next to the wall, keeping his eye on the gun. Chambers and Luna moved quickly stashing the artifacts into small cartons. Sandra moved behind them, turning down the flaps and slapping on the tape.
“Trevor was a fool!” Eldon started coughing, then he gathered some phlegm and spit it sideways. It wiggled and glistened on the concrete floor. “Playing the high and mighty authority on Indian artifacts, holed up at his ranch like a king. Well, I found out he wasn’t all that great. He got his start stealing artifacts and selling them to rich people all over the world. That was the man you thought so much of. Too high and mighty to go along with his old buddies here…” He tossed his head toward the other men. “He made his stash. Didn’t give a damn about anybody else getting a chance.”
“Shut up.” Chambers straightened himself over one of the cartons and waved a thick hand at Eldon. “You talk too much.”
“What difference does it make? Father here is not gonna be talking to anybody else.”
“So Trevor turned down his old friends, and they came to you and formed a new partnership.” Father John hurried on, not waiting for a reply. He could read the truth of it in the way Eldon’s eyes flashed between the other men. “Problem was, Trevor threatened to go to the fed, and his old partners couldn’t have that. Didn’t it make you wonder who you were mixed up with, when they killed him?”
“Hold on!” Chambers booted a carton out of his way and moved toward Father John. “You got it all wrong, Padre. Maybe we’ve lifted some artifacts and dumped them on the black market, but we’re not killers.”
“I saw you and your friend here racing away from the ranch just after Trevor was killed,” Father John said.
“Don’t prove nothing. Trevor was our old buddy. Sure, he turned down the chance to make some big bucks on the Wild West artifacts, but that was no reason to kill him. He would never have turned us in. All he wanted was for us to return the artifacts. He wanted us to come to the ranch and talk it over. Trevor would’ve paid us for our trouble ’cause that’s the kind of guy he was. Yeah, we drove up to the ranch, but Trevor was already dead.”
Sandra dropped the plastic container of strapping tape. It clanked and rolled across the floor. She reached over and grabbed Eldon’s arm. “You filthy liar,” she screamed. “Filthy, filthy liar! You told me they killed Trevor. All we had to do was get our money, then we’d cut them loose. Never see them again. You! You killed that nice man! What did Trevor ever do to you?”
“Stop it!” Eldon flung his hand at the girl, but she dodged the blow.
Both white men started moving toward Eldon, as if they were stalking a wild animal. Except that the animal had the gun. “Back off,” he said, waving the gun from one to the other. “Let’s just get on with it here. Load the cartons into the car, take them to Santa Fe like we agreed. We’ll collect our money from the buyer that, let me remind you, I found. We’ll go our separate ways. What’s done is done.”
“You sonofabitch!” Chambers bent his massive head toward Eldon. “You swore you had nothing to do with Trevor getting murdered. You said he’d had trouble with some rancher, and that’s who killed him.”
“He was gonna blow everything,” Eldon said.
Luna’s mouth hung open in an O of shock. “He wanted the artifacts. He would’ve paid us.”
“Paid us? Don’t make me laugh. He offered peanuts. We’re the ones took the risk, everything going just like we planned. It was my chance. My ticket out of nowheresville. What right did he have to blow it? I offered to cut him in, but he wouldn’t listen. He came at me with a club! What choice did I have?”
Sandra was bent over herself, shoulders shaking. The sound of moaning expanded into a long wailing noise that filled the small room. “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” she screamed. She flung her arms about, wild-eyed, on the edge of hysterics. Then she locked eyes with Father John and seemed to steady herself. “I don’t know anything about murder,” she said. “You gotta believe me, Father. I didn’t want to steal the artifacts. Eldon said he’d see that I never worked at another museum if I didn’t go along. He made me do it. You gotta help me. You gotta tell the cops I’m innocent.”
“I told you to shut up!” Eldon said, swinging the gun toward the girl.
In that split second, that half breath, Father John threw himself upward and lunged for Eldon’s arm. He knocked the arm sideways and clamped his fingers over the man’s wrist, trying to dislodge the gun. A gunshot splintered the air. A patch of concrete wall exploded. Little pieces of concrete trickled onto the floor. Father John twisted Eldon’s hand, but this time, he realized he wasn’t the only one trying to make the man drop the gun. Chambers’ burly arms locked across Eldon’s neck, yanking his head backward. Eldon’s eyes bulged; he was gasping for breath. Still he held on to the gun until Father John grabbed his hand, pried open his fingers, and pulled the gun away.
In another second, Chambers drove a boot into the back of Eldon’s knees, and Eldon crumbled onto the floor. “I told you, we aren’t murderers,” the big man said. “We’re thieves.” He grabbed something from behind his back, then spun toward Father John. The silver revolver glistened in the dim light. He took a step closer. “Drop the gun, Padre before you get a bullet in the knee. Drop it, I said!”
Father John let the gun slip out of his hand. It banged against the floor, and Luna swept it up. “Okay, this is how it’s gonna go,” Chambers said. “Raphael and me are gonna load the cartons into the sedan outside and drive out of here. We’re gonna leave you with Eldon and this crazy girl locked inside the vault until somebody misses you and comes looking. Could be awhile.” He chuckled at this scenario. “On the floor, Padre,” he said, gesturing with the gun. “You, too.” He nodded at Sandra. The girl started whimpering as she folded herself downward.
“You won’t get off the rez,” Father John said.
“Do it!” he shouted.
Out of the corner of his eye, Father John saw Sandra throw out her arms and dive downward next to Eldon. As Father John dropped to his knees and started to stretch onto the floor, he saw the shadowy motion on the stairway.
“Don’t move.” It was Curtis Soldier Wolf, one of the men he’d seen talking to the bishop outside, and cradled in both hands was a shotgun pointed at Chambers’ heart. Filing down the stairs behind him was Lucky Talkman, and behind him, Bishop Harry. “You’re gonna hand over the guns real peaceful like, or you’re gonna get shot,” Curtis said.
The big man seemed to hesitate. He glanced at Luna who stood motionless, looking befuddled and scared, as if he had wandered into a battle he didn’t want to fight.
“I suggest you do as you were told,” the bishop said. “These men are very upset at your attempt to steal their
heritage. I’m afraid neither Father John nor I have any control over what they might do.”
Chambers took hold of the muzzle of the gun with his other hand and held it out to the bishop, grip first. Luna did the same. “We aren’t killers,” Chambers said.
“I’ve called the police,” the bishop said. “We’ll wait until they arrive.”
“Father John was on his feet again. Through the thick, old walls of the museum, he could hear the faint sounds of commotion—people milling about outside, voices muttering, feet stomping about. Beyond the sounds came the high-pitched, mournful wail of sirens somewhere out on Seventeen-Mile Road.
VICKY PUSHED THE gas pedal into the floor as she came out of the curve on Rendezvous Road. The road was empty, flanked by the winking lights of Arapahoe to the west and St. Francis Mission to the east. She tried to hold the steering wheel steady, but the car had a way of jumping about. She was going too fast, she knew, and yet she was unable to ease up on the pedal, as if every muscle in her body propelled her forward, faster and faster. She had called Gianelli again before she was out of Lander and left another message. Shouting over the noise of the engine. He had to get to the museum. John O’Malley was in danger. Then she had called 911. She remembered telling the dispatcher to get the police to the mission, that killers and thieves were there, that they could kill Father John.
She managed to slow down and roll through the stop sign at Seventeen-Mile Road, then sped up again until the billboard loomed ahead. She took her foot off the gas and made a wide, shaky turn into the tunnel of cottonwoods. Flickering in the branches were the red, blue, and yellow lights of police cars. As she emerged onto Circle Drive, she saw the ambulance parked between the cars and Gianelli’s white SUV. Other cars lined the curbs and were parked here and there in the field. Groups of people stood about, huddled near the porch of the museum as if they were at a wake. It was that thought that made her start shaking. She gripped the wheel hard, trying to control the spasms that moved up and down her arms and legs. Her stomach was lurching, and for a moment, she was sure she would be sick.
She stopped the car alongside an SUV at the curb and slid out. “What happened?” She was shouting into the night, to the people huddled about, to no one in particular.
“Looks like burglars in the museum,” somebody said.
“There was a gunshot.” A man’s voice this time.
Vicky dodged past the bystanders and ran for the porch, gasping for air. Her lungs burned as she ran up the steps. A uniformed officer at the door held up a hand. “No one allowed inside,” he said.
“You know who I am,” she shouted. “My client is in there.”
He stepped back, reluctance written in the shadows of his face. “Who’s your client?”
She had already run past him down the corridor and was in the back hall, following the sounds that the old building gave up and the dim light that ran up the basement stairs. She had been right. The killers and Eldon were here for the artifacts. The answer to the cop’s questions pounded in her head. John O’Malley was her client. He was always her client. And now, oh, God, he could be dead.
She threw herself into the stairwell and started down the steps. Lights flickered below, then the blinding light from overhead bulbs burst over the stairs and the basement, the walls lined with stacks of cartons and shelves filled with dark objects. Sounds of voices and scraping footsteps rose toward her, like a wall of noise thrust up from the depths of the earth. At the bottom she spotted the door hanging open to a small room. The muffled sounds came from the room.
Just as she started across the basement, Gianelli walked out, one hand gripping the shoulder of Eldon White Elk whose arms were pulled back. He walked with his head down, as if he were picking his way over the potholes of a battlefield. Vicky stood still and watched the rest of the parade file out of the room. Four uniformed officers, two men in handcuffs, and Sandra Dorris. The girl walked ahead of the last officer, throwing her eyes about as if she might grasp the chance to make a run for it. When Vicky saw Bishop Harry emerge at the end of the line, she felt as if the muscles in her legs would melt into liquid. She reached for the rough concrete wall to support herself.
“Father John?” she managed as Gianelli came close. “Is he…”
“He’s back there,” Gianelli said.
Vicky waited until the last officer had started up the stairs before she walked over to the room. A vault, she realized now, with a heavy steel door that hung open. She stood in the doorway a moment and watched John O’Malley lift an eagle-feathered headdress, examine it, run his fingers along the woven edges of the headband.
“Are you okay?” she said.
He swung around. “How did you get here?”
She smiled. “I was afraid you would walk in on Eldon and the others.”
“So you figured it out.” He spoke with certitude, as if he were stating the obvious, and she knew that he knew she had also called Gianelli and the police. “All the artifacts are here and in good shape,” he said.
She felt the smile freeze on her face. It was as it should be, she thought. John O’Malley at St. Francis Mission, where he belonged.
34
THE CHURCH WAS jammed, rows of brown faces, gratitude and sorrow mingling in black eyes. Hard-worked, knobby hands thumbing daily missals and fingering rosary beads. Everyone had heard about the recovery of the Wild West artifacts last night and the arrest of the museum director, the two outsiders, and Sandra Dorris, one of their own. Father John tried to imagine how the news had passed so quickly. Cell phones, text messages, internet. And yet, the moccasin telegraph had been carrying messages with lightning speed as long as anyone could remember, even in the Old Time.
He was nearing the end of the Mass now. Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
He was sure he had come to himself again, as if he’d been lost on the plains and found his way back to the sanctuary of the mission. Nodding to his parishioners as he walked down the center aisle. This was what he had been called to do. He stood out in front and shook hands with the usual old men and the old women who attended daily Mass, as well as the younger generation who were here this morning.
Bernard Tallman held onto his hand for a long moment. “Black Heart’s things will be with us, just like he wanted,” the old man said.
“As soon as possible,” Father John said. Two Riverton police officers had pulled into the mission last night after everyone else had left and taken the artifacts to a secure place—they had given their word—as evidence. Eldon would be charged with first-degree homicide along with larceny and conspiracy and other crimes that the county attorney would decide. As accomplices, Chambers and Luna and Sandra were also looking at felony charges of murder, larceny, and conspiracy. After the trials, the artifacts would come home. It would take time. “We’ll have a big celebration,” he told the old man. “We’ll give the artifacts a place of honor in the Wild West exhibition, just as we’d planned. We’ll have cake and lemonade.” The old man’s eyes filled with tears. “Everyone on the rez will come,” Father John said.
Lord, let it be, he prayed silently. He would have to find a replacement for Eldon, someone who loved small museums and the chance to bring the history of the people to life.
Bernard squeezed his hand with the strength of a man half his age. “Thank you, Father,” he said.
HE WAS IN the office by eight o’clock, after a quick breakfast of oatmeal, toast, and coffee, and a torrent of questions from both Elena and the bishop, who had demanded a play-by-play account of everything that happened last night. How had he figured out Eldon was involved? Nice enough man, smart, too, Elena had said. Well, maybe she could picture him wanting to steal the artifacts. But murder? She had swung back to the stove, shaking her head. She never would have pictured him as a murderer.
Father John had exchanged a quick glance with the bishop. There was nothing they hadn’t heard in the confessional, nothing that either one couldn’t
picture. So many terrible acts that only God himself could forgive. He had excused himself and headed over to the administration building, stopping along the way to throw a Frisbee for Walks-On. Seven or eight tosses, and still the dog wanted more, trotting back with the Frisbee between his jaws, eyes cocked with the eternal look of hope. “Later,” Father John promised, then he had climbed the steps and let himself through the heavy, old wooden door. Sun rays danced down the corridor in the floating moats of dust.
He had slept badly. A deep tiredness and sense of futility dogged his footsteps. He crossed the office and sank into the old leather chair that probably bore permanent imprints of his body. Most of the night he had spent sipping coffee in his study, looking out over the shadows and moonlight rolling across the mission grounds. An endless sea of bright stars shone against the black sky. His thoughts had catapulted about. Crazy thoughts about other paths, other possibilities, and at the center, Vicky, as real as if she were in the study with him. Finally he had dragged himself upstairs and dropped off into a series of dreams that made no sense, grasping hands, jumbled voices calling his name, and Vicky, always moving away, walking into the distances where he couldn’t reach her. He had awakened with a start, surprised at the dawn and the deep magentas and oranges underlining the massive white clouds. He had to let all thoughts of her go, he told himself. For her sake.
The laptop whirred into life when he switched it on. He kept his eyes on the blue screen, peopling itself with small, colorful icons, and tried to bring into focus a thought that had followed him from the day Trevor Pratt walked into his office. He typed in a search for “Indian regalia, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show” and ran his eyes down the materializing Web sites. Halfway down the screen was a link to a New York Times article. Black headline blazed across the top when he clicked on it. “Swiss Museum Returns Artifacts.” He read through the text. A museum in Geneva has arranged to return Sioux artifacts to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The artifacts consist of numerous headdresses and items of clothing worn by members of the tribe during European performances of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. All of the items had been purchased by the museum from Herman Marks, an interpreter with the show who used his position to acquire many unusual pieces. “We learned recently that Colonel Cody had terminated Marks’ employment after it came to his attention that Marks had pressured Show Indians to sell their regalia,” said Martin Grublitz, museum curator. “Given the conditions under which Marks may have come by these items, we decided they should be returned to the tribe.”
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