The Lost Bird

by Margaret Coel

  “You gotta leave,” James said. There was a crack of fear and uncertainty in his voice. He started pulling the girl toward the shadows of a hallway.

  Vicky ignored him. “A man’s life depends on you telling the truth, Lucy. I know the FBI agent. His name is Ted Gianelli. He’s going to come back here tonight. I’m a lawyer and I can stay with you while you talk to him.”

  “She ain’t talkin’ to nobody.” James pushed the girl into the hall. His face grew darker, his eyes squinted with intensity. “Lucy tells the fed she seen Sonny Red Wolf’s truck out here this afternoon, you know what Sonny’ll do to her? He’s been givin’ us enough grief, drivin’ by, shouting ‘white whore’ and a lot of other stuff. Last week he drives by and fires off a round of buckshot. We was just lucky Lucy and me didn’t get killed. Most likely he come out here today to keep on harassin’ us ’cause he wants Lucy outta here.”

  “Have you reported this?” Vicky knew the answer even as she framed the question.

  “Yeah, right. I’m gonna report Sonny to the police ’cause I’m real tired of livin’.”

  “Listen to me, James.” Vicky moved toward him. “If Sonny killed Father Joseph, he’ll kill again.”

  “Well, it ain’t gonna be Lucy gets killed, and it ain’t gonna be me. So I don’t care what you heard. Lucy didn’t see nothin’, and she ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”

  Abruptly he let go of the girl, crossed the room, and yanked open the front door. “Get outta here.”

  Vicky held her place, her gaze on the girl hovering in the shadows at the end of the hall. “Sonny will keep making your life hell.” She spoke slowly, deliberately. “You can put a stop to it by telling the truth.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vicky saw James reach for her. She slid sideways, dodging his grasp. “My office is on Main Street in Lander,” she said as the young man’s hand came down hard on her arm, propelling her backward. She jerked herself free, swung around, and walked out the door.

  • • •

  Vicky gripped the steering wheel as the Bronco fishtailed over the gravel road. Warm air poured out of the vents, but she was still cold with worry. She’d wanted to convince Lucy Travise to tell the truth. She’d believed—mistakenly, naively—that if she, a lawyer, stayed at her side, the girl would talk to Gianelli. Instead she’d given James the excuse he’d probably been looking for. She knew what they would do: pack some things, leave the house, lose themselves in the clan, who, they believed, would protect them from Sonny Red Wolf. She had to reach Gianelli or Banner before that happened.

  As she came over a rise, she saw the lights of Ethete blinking in the darkness ahead. Within a few minutes she was slowing past the small houses lining the road, past the Sun Dance grounds lost in the darkness. At the intersection, she swung onto the cement apron in front of the café and filling station. Her headlights played over the white letters on the plate-glass window: BETTY’S PLACE. Behind the window was blackness.

  She drove around the gas pumps and braked in front of the telephone mounted on the brick a few feet from the door. Leaving the engine running and headlights on, she dragged her bag across the seat and hurried toward the phone, digging through her bag for coins as she went. The wind plucked at her face and hands and whipped her suit coat back as she slipped a quarter into the slot and punched in Gianelli’s number.

  The same message as before: You have reached . . . She hit the pound button and spoke into the hollowness of the machine, elaborating on the message she’d left earlier. Now she’d talked to Lucy Travise and her boyfriend, James Holden. Now she knew for certain they were scared of Sonny Red Wolf. Gianelli had to get to them before they disappeared.

  She pulled down the disconnect lever, slipped another quarter into the slot, and tapped the numbers for the BIA police. Her fingers felt numb with cold. A woman’s voice answered. Vicky gave her name and asked to speak to Chief Banner.

  “What is this about?” A calm, just-doing-my-job tone.

  “Tell him I’m on the line.”

  “Well, there’s lots of people wantin’ to talk to the chief. He can’t take everybody’s call.”

  “This is Vicky Holden.” She identified herself again. “I’m an attorney, and this is an emergency.”

  “Hold on.” The woman might have been stifling a yawn. “Maybe I can patch you through.”

  The line went quiet. Vicky huddled against the phone box, shivering in the wind that sent little eddies of dust swirling about her. There was the sound of tires screaming out on the road. Then the ragged thump of a truck careening over pavement. Lights flared around her. She whirled about, squinting into the brightness of a spotlight mounted on a white truck that was swerving past the gas pumps and heading toward her. She jumped sideways, gripping the receiver, stretching the metal cord around the edge of the box.

  The truck squealed to a stop about ten feet away. The spotlight switched off, leaving pinpricks of red lights dancing in front of her eyes. She blinked frantically, trying to see in the dim light of her own headlights.

  “Vicky, that you?” The chief’s voice burst over the receiver.

  “I’m in front of Betty’s Place at Ethete.” Vicky struggled to keep her voice calm. “I think Sonny Red Wolf just drove up.”

  “You alone?”

  “I’m alone.”

  “Jesus, Vicky.” She heard the chief take a gulp of air. “I’ll get a car there as fast as possible. Stay on the line, you hear?” A click, and the hollowness returned.

  Vicky gripped the receiver tight. She could see now: the truck door swinging open, the massive figure of Sonny Red Wolf sliding out. The man gave the door a gentle push with one leg, as if there was all the time in the world, as if there was nothing she could do, nowhere she could run. Even if she bolted for the Bronco, he could grab her before she got inside. Slowly he started toward her.

  The headlights cast an eerie yellow glow over the chiseled face and long black hair, the dark leather jacket and blue jeans. With her free hand, Vicky groped inside her bag for some kind of weapon. Her keys! Where were her keys? Panic rose in her throat, a stifled cry. She’d left the keys in the ignition. She felt as if the air had been sucked from the earth and she couldn’t breathe. She backed into the edge of the phone box.

  “Chief Banner.” Her voice was loud. It echoed into the receiver, a cold, dead thing in her hand. Sonny stopped, and she hurried on, repeating what she’d said a moment ago. She could feel the Indian’s eyes on her. From the distance, across the sounds of the wind, came the howl of a police siren.

  “Vicky!” Banner’s voice again. “One of my boys is on the way. You all right?”

  She saw Sonny throw a backward glance toward Ethete Road. The siren grew louder. Abruptly he stepped back, pulled open the truck door, and ducked inside. In a half second the engine growled into life. The truck started across the cement apron and shot out onto the road just as a white BIA police car rolled under the streetlight at the corner.

  “Vicky?” Banner’s voice boomed in her ear.

  “I’m okay.” She was shivering. “He’s gone.”

  “Wait till the patrol car gets there.”

  “I’ll wait,” she said, before setting the receiver in its cradle.

  The patrol car had turned onto the pavement and was coming to a stop where the white truck had stood a moment before. A patrolman lifted himself out as she walked over. The wind snapped at her suit coat and flattened her skirt around her legs. She felt chilled to the bone.

  “What’s going on?” the patrolman asked.

  She told him about Sonny Red Wolf driving up, fixing her with a spotlight, approaching her.

  “He do anything else?”

  Vicky shook her head. Sonny Red Wolf had not done anything else.

  “Say anything?”

  “No.”

  “Threaten you?”

  “Scared me,” she said.

  “Well, no crime turnin’ in here. Maybe he was waitin’ for you to get off the phone.”
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  “I don’t think so.” Vicky pulled her jacket tight around her. She couldn’t stop shivering.

  There was a burst of static from the radio inside the car, followed by the bark of the chief’s voice: “Put Vicky on.”

  The patrolman opened the rear door and nodded. Vicky slipped inside, taking the small black microphone he handed over the seat. Warm air flowed around her, but she was numb with cold.

  “Everything okay?” the chief asked.

  “For the time being.”

  “So what did you do to get Sonny’s interest?”

  Vicky drew in a long breath, then explained that a white girl named Lucy Travise had seen Sonny’s truck on Thunder Lane about the time Father Joseph was killed.

  “You sure? We canvassed the houses out there, talked to that white girl. Said she didn’t see anything.”

  “She’s scared, Banner. I’ve been leaving messages for Gianelli.”

  “Okay.” The chief’s voice sounded fainter. “You take yourself home, you hear? And Vicky, stay out of this investigation. I don’t want to have to worry about you. Bad enough I gotta worry about Father John gettin’ himself involved. At least we got his Toyota locked up. Should keep him close to the mission, but you’re just gonna have to promise me you’ll tend to your own business. Red Wolf’s not somebody you wanna get real mad at you. You don’t want any more run-ins with that Indian.”

  Vicky handed the microphone back to the patrolman and got out of the car. The chief was half-right. She didn’t want another run-in with Sonny Red Wolf. She wanted the man behind bars.

  9

  The Escort’s steering wheel felt strange in his grip. The plush seat and hum of the engine—strange and annoying as Father John drove west on Seventeen-Mile Road. Flat, gray wind clouds stretched over the mountains, but the afternoon sun glinted off the asphalt and warmed the car. The plains crept into the far distances, the only signs of human habitation an occasional dirt road, a frame house hugging the earth. The wind battered the sides of the car and echoed the dull pounding in his head.

  He’d slept badly, waiting for morning, half-aware of the shadows flitting across the bedroom, the light growing around the curtains. He’d awakened feeling stiff and sore, his temples throbbing. After a quick shower and shave, he’d pulled on a clean pair of blue jeans and flannel shirt. Downstairs he’d coaxed Walks-On off his rug and out into the cool morning air, then headed for the church. The sky was ablaze in purples, reds, and golds as the sun lifted itself over the horizon. A line of trucks and pickups stood in front of the church—he could not stop people from coming. Not unless he closed the mission. He didn’t want to close the mission.

  There was a scattering of people in the church. Leonard moved about the sanctuary, setting the Mass books into place on the altar. Seated in the pews were the faithful elders who came to Mass every day to pray for the people. The Creator would listen to their prayers. They had reached the fourth hill of life, close to the Creator, a sacred place. Those who dwelled there were also sacred. Father John knew that today the elders would ask the Creator to remember Father Joseph. He offered the Mass for the murdered priest. Requiescat in pace.

  In the sacristy following Mass, he had reminded Leonard he wanted him to take the day off.

  “Lotta work around here.” The Arapaho puttered about the small room, setting the Mass books on the shelves, placing the chalice inside the cabinet. “Dead cottonwood branches gotta be hauled off today. All them tumbleweeds that blew in front of Eagle Hall gotta be cleaned out.”

  “It’ll wait, Leonard.”

  The man had stopped puttering and locked eyes with him. “We been talkin’”—a little wave toward the church and, Father John knew, the parishioners—“and we decided we ain’t leavin’ here, Father. We gotta keep things runnin’ like normal. People comin’ and goin’—that’ll keep the murderer from comin’ round.”

  Father John had exhaled a deep breath. He was up against stubborn people. He could order them off the grounds, but he wasn’t sure they would go. St. Francis Mission belonged to them. It was a sacred place. They would not relinquish it to a murderer. Besides, he had no intention of waiting for the murderer to return. He would draw him out, put him on notice, perhaps stop him from trying again.

  He’d asked Leonard if he could get Father Joseph’s car running.

  The Indian had stared at him a long moment, wariness creeping into his expression. “Dunno,” he said finally.

  “I need the car.”

  Leonard began running a cloth over the counter. “That a good idea, Father? Chief Banner said yesterday it’s best you stay close to the mission.”

  “I’d appreciate your help, Leonard,” Father John had told the man.

  It was noon before he heard the engine rattle into life outside his office. He glanced out the window as a plume of blue-gray smoke burst from the Escort’s tailpipe. Leonard was bent under the hood.

  Now Father John guided the car through a gust of wind and punched the radio scanner. Nothing but twangy western music and talk-show hosts shouting and screaming about government, taxes, schools, roads, and life’s unfairness. He switched off the radio. He missed his opera tapes. When he’d called Banner that morning to see when the Toyota would be returned, the line had gone quiet. Then the chief had told him: “Bad news, John. The killer cleaned out the glove compartment.”

  Father John had thrown his head back and stared at the ceiling. That’s where he kept his favorite tapes. La Bohème, Tosca, La Traviata—all gone.

  “What else was in the glove compartment?”

  “Flashlight.” Father John thought a moment. “Tire gauge.” That was all he could think of. “Why would the killer want a bunch of opera tapes?”

  “My guess is he grabbed whatever was there. Flashlight and gauge are gone, too. Maybe he thought some of the tapes might be to his liking. Must’ve gotten a shock when he found out all he had was opera. Lab boys are still checkin’ the pickup,” the chief went on. Father John heard the hedging. “Wanna make sure we get every trace of fingerprints and hair. It’ll be a while before I can release the pickup. Anyway, it’s best you stay close to the mission until we get the killer.”

  Well, he was miles from the mission. He turned north on Highway 132 and angled west through Fort Washakie. And then he was climbing into the foothills alongside the Little Wind River. As he rounded a wide curve, Sonny Red Wolf’s compound came into view: a cube of a house set among the pines and boulders, gray boards visible through the white paint. Beyond the house, a cluster of unpainted outbuildings and trucks parked at indiscriminate angles, as if they’d been dropped from the sky. A slight distance upslope in a stand of pines, a white truck sat high on fat tires beside the rectangular-shaped brush shade.

  Father John turned into the dirt yard and drove past the house and buildings. The Escort bounced over washboard ruts, gravel pinging against the undercarriage. He stopped in front of the brush shade, got out, and pulled down his cowboy hat against the glare of the sun. A warm wind hissed through the pines and rustled the willow branches that formed the roof and three sides of the shade. An opening faced the east.

  Just as he started toward the opening, Sonny Red Wolf stepped outside. A big man, close to six feet, with rounded shoulders and broad chest that sloped into a slightly protruding middle. He wore a black leather jacket over a dark shirt and blue jeans. His long black hair was brushed straight back, exposing the high forehead, the eyes set wide apart over fleshy cheekbones, the determined jaw. “What d’ya want?” he said.

  “A friend of mine was murdered yesterday.” Father John heard the barely controlled rage in his voice. “He was an innocent man. A priest just trying to do his job.” It was an opening. Father John held his breath, waiting for the man to say something he hadn’t intended to say. Truth had a way of slipping past barriers, demanding to be told.

  The Indian shrugged and walked over to the white truck. “What’s that got to do with me?” he said, lifting two dead rabbits out
of the bed. Locked in a frame across the rear window was a shotgun, and Father John wondered where the man kept his rifle.

  Red Wolf walked back into the brush shade, dangling the rabbits by the hind legs. Father John followed. Daylight flitted past the willow branches and dappled the hard-packed dirt floor. A metal table stood against the leafy wall. There was another table, a scattering of webbed chairs. In the shadows in back, he could make out several cots and boxes heaped with clothing. This was home, he thought. Just like in the Old Time. Except that in the Old Time, Sonny and his followers would have moved their cots into buffalo-skin lodges for the winter, not into a frame house with fading paint.

  “You’re the guy who wants the mission closed,” Father John said. “You blocked the road last spring.”

  The Indian slung the carcasses across the metal table and turned around. “Sendin’ you a message, was all. We don’t want you people here. We don’t need white government people and white priests tellin’ us how to think, how to talk, how to pray. We can run this res the Indian way. Follow our own traditions. We know how to live off the land.” He nodded toward the dead rabbits on the table behind him. “So take your white road right on out of here and leave us be.”

  “I’ll leave when the people tell me to go.” Father John kept his eyes locked on the Indian’s.

  Sonny Red Wolf folded his arms and leaned back against the table. “There’s gonna be a new council election this winter, and I’m gonna get myself elected, along with some other real Indians. Soon’s that happens, we’re gonna invite you and a lot of other whites to go home where you belong.”

  “And if we don’t go?”

  “We’ve got ways to make it real uncomfortable. You white people . . .” A sneer. “You like your comforts.”

  “How about murder, Sonny? Is that one of your ways? Did you kill Father Joseph? Was he the man you were after, or am I the man you wanted?” Father John kept his eyes on the other man, watching for the flickering eyelids, the twitching muscles—the faintest sign that he had hit upon the truth.