The Lost Bird

by Margaret Coel

  Vicky asked to see the local newspapers for 1964.

  The woman sighed and rose from the chair, allowing her gaze to drift slowly from the screen. Stepping around the desk, she threw Vicky a sideways glance that indicated she should follow. They walked past the book stacks on the right and into a small cubicle with filing cabinets against one wall and a microfilm machine on a table against the other. She opened a cabinet drawer, extracted a small box, and tipped out a roll of film. Then she sat down at the machine and, with quick, efficient fingers, threaded the film through the spools. “There you are,” she announced as she stood up.

  Vicky thanked her and took the chair in front of the blinking black-and-white images. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the librarian slip past the door. There was the soft stitch of footsteps across the reading room. Vicky turned the focus knob until the flickering light settled into the typed lines and photos of the front page of the Gazette, January 1, 1964. The pages began to slip by: snow piled over houses, a truck crushed against a telephone pole, school kids visiting the courthouse, boys running down a basketball court—ordinary news of ordinary days.

  Halfway through the month, she found a two-inch column at the bottom of an inside page. The small headline read: RESIDENTS COMPLAIN ABOUT WATER. She glanced through the article. People living around Ethete complain to tribal council about red-colored water in faucets. Council asks county health department to investigate.

  The pages move past—January, February. Finally another article appeared: initial tests confirm water is safe. Further tests to be conducted. Vicky hunched toward the screen, watching for an article on the test results. She found it in the first week of March. Tests on local water indicate possibility of small levels of contamination. Health-department officials believe problem caused from drainage of old gold mines in the mountains.

  “Are you going to be long?”

  Vicky took her hand off the knob and looked around. A gray-haired woman stood in the doorway, an anxious look in the large eyes behind pink-framed glasses.

  “I’m afraid this may take a while,” Vicky said.

  “Oh, dear.” The woman sighed and glanced back at the reading room, as if she expected the librarian might come to her assistance. “I’m working on my genealogy.” She gave another sigh. “I guess I’ll have to wait.” She turned and walked to a table a few feet from the door, pulled out a chair, and sat down, facing the cubicle.

  Vicky turned back to the screen, aware of the woman’s eyes on her as she turned the forward knob and glanced through the moving pages. She stopped on the front page dated March 12. Large, black headlines ran across the top: RESERVATION WATER CONTAMINATED. Slowly she brought the page into sharper focus, then read through the article. Further tests conducted at county lab confirm uranium, sulfate, and molybdenum in surface soil, groundwater, and well water in area near Ethete. Source of contamination unknown, but officials of company that operated the uranium mill on the reservation in the 1950s deny responsibility. Health department assures residents that the levels of contamination do not exceed acceptable safety limits. There is no cause for alarm. Since toxicity may damage fetuses, however, pregnant women are urged to avoid piped water as a precautionary measure.

  In the newspaper dated March 30, Vicky found the first newborn obituary. Eric Morning Star, son of Aly and Merwin Morning Star, died at birth. Cause of death: meningitis. She stared at the names a moment, searching her memory. The Morning Star family, a small frame house at the edge of Ethete. The light-skinned, pretty girl in her class for a time at St. Francis Mission School. She hadn’t heard of them in years. Most of the people have left, Aunt Rose had said. Vicky found the notepad and pen in her purse and jotted down the name. From the reading room came the impatient sounds of the gray-haired woman clearing her throat and chair legs squeaking against the hard floor.

  Ignoring the woman staring at her through the doorway, Vicky started the pages moving again across the screen. The following week’s paper reported the death of another baby, and Vicky wrote down the name. Then other obituaries began appearing every week, sometimes two in the same week. Always the same story, newborn infant died. Cause of death listed either as infectious virus or meningitis. Funeral services scheduled at St. Francis Church, Father Joseph Keenan presiding. Only the family names were different. She added the new names to the growing list. The microfilm machine whirred into the quiet.

  The obituaries continued throughout the summer, along with scattered, front-page articles on the water contamination. There were veiled acknowledgments from the health department that the contaminated water might be a factor in the deaths of newborn babies. Gradually suggestions gave way to urgent warnings that pregnant women should not drink piped water.

  Then, in the August 15 paper, Vicky found the article she had been looking for: an interview with Coroner David Stresky placed inside the paper next to a large advertisement for a local hardware store. The coroner stared out of a photograph, a pinched-faced, middle-aged man with dark hair flattened across the top of his head and a tie knotted at a collar too large for his skinny neck. “Contaminated water may be the source of the infectious viruses that have caused the recent deaths of several infants,” the coroner was quoted as saying. “But until further tests establish without a doubt that a virus is in the water, we must proceed with caution. In the interests of public safety, the caskets must be sealed to prevent any possibility of the virus spreading through the community.”

  There were more obituaries through August and into September. Vicky stopped at each one and wrote down the family name. The list of names now covered two pages of the notepad. She glanced up at the square white tiles on the ceiling a moment, then brought her eyes back to the screen and the possibility of still more names. There was a sense of vacancy beyond the doorway. The old woman must have left. Vicky kept her eyes on the pages slipping by in front of her.

  Something caught her attention, and she stopped the machine. A plain, serious-eyed girl with a fluff of dark hair under a starched white hat and hands primly clasped in the lap of her white nurse’s uniform smiled into the camera. Above the photo was the headline LOCAL NURSE FOUND DEAD. The caption identified the woman as Dawn James, nurse at the Markham Clinic, and Vicky realized that the words Markham Clinic had drawn her eye. She read through the article. The twenty-four-year-old woman had been found shot to death on the banks of the Wind River. The coroner had ruled the death a suicide. Vicky stared at the photo a moment, wondering why a young nurse at the Markham Clinic had decided to take her own life.

  In the newspaper two days later Vicky found Dawn James’s obituary. The funeral Mass was to be held at St. Francis Church. The priest who would conduct the services was not Joseph Keenan, however, but the other priest who had been at the mission at that time. Vicky barely remembered the man. She moved through the pages for the rest of the week and then, in the Sunday paper, she found a small article about the sister of the dead nurse, Mary James, protesting the coroner’s ruling, claiming her sister had been murdered. The coroner and FBI agent in charge of the investigation stated that there was no evidence of homicide.

  Still the pages rolled past. More obituaries for infants, and in late September Vicky found the obituary for Ben’s brother. She added her own name, Holden, to the list. Now there were fifteen names. October slid by, then November. The obituaries seemed to have stopped.

  In an early December issue, two-inch headlines jumped across the page. NEW WATER SYSTEM APPROVED. The article stated that the new system would bypass the contaminated groundwater and deep wells in the Ethete area. Water would be piped from reservoirs in the northern part of the reservation.

  Vicky sat back, staring at the black-and-white images on the screen. Something didn’t make sense. If the water was contaminated, why were only newborn babies infected? Wouldn’t the mothers have also been infected? And what about other people on the reservation? And if that were true, why was it necessary to seal the caskets to protect people already exp
osed to the virus?

  She turned the knob and watched the images slide in reverse to the first day of January. Then she began slowly moving through the pages again—looking for what? She didn’t know. In February, she found a small notice about an outbreak of gastroenteritis at one of the elementary schools on the reservation. In March, another article about the high absenteeism in the schools. Doctors cautioned parents in the Ethete area to boil the drinking water. Another article two days later: residents of a new housing area complained to the tribal council about having to boil water. “Water oughta be safe in brand-new homes,” one of the elders told the council.

  Vicky leaned forward, reading again through the article. Then she glanced up and began rubbing her neck, trying to work out the stiffness. She’d found what she was looking for. The water had been contaminated, all right, but not by toxic chemicals. If the water had contained chemicals, boiling wouldn’t have done any good. The water was contaminated by microbes, most likely from sewage, and she would bet everything she owned that the source was the new housing area outside Ethete. Where had the developer dumped the sewage? Directly into the nearby creeks, where it would eventually work its way into the drinking water? How much had the developer paid the building inspectors and health-department officials to look the other way? To blame the contamination on old gold mines and uranium mills?

  When people took sick, when the babies began dying, a new water system was quietly built that bypassed the contaminated creeks. No blame was ever attached to the housing developer. There was no accountability, no chance for lawsuits. It all made sense.

  And yet, and yet . . . It didn’t explain the closed caskets. The families of dead babies had the right to view the remains in private, even if the caskets were closed for the funeral services. But the coroner had ordered the caskets sealed. Why had David Stresky taken such extreme measures? To protect people already exposed to an infectious virus? Or to prevent the families from seeing what was inside the caskets? And why had a young nurse at the Markham Clinic committed suicide? What had made her life so impossible?

  Vicky turned the knob again, trying to concentrate on the pages slipping toward the end of the year. She was about to start rewinding when her eyes fell on a headline on the front page of the December 29 issue: CORONER FOUND DEAD. Embedded in the article was the same photo—dark hair flattened to one side, pinched face, skinny neck. She read quickly. David Stresky found shot to death on the banks of the Wind River. Twenty-two-caliber pistol in right hand. Wind River officials call the death a suicide.

  Vicky felt her heart thump against her chest. The sound of her own breathing filled the cubicle. She rewound the film to September and reread the article on the death of Dawn James. Then she moved back to the coroner’s death. The two deaths were identical. Both had been shot in the right temple with a twenty-two-caliber pistol. Both had been found on the banks of the Wind River.

  Vicky turned the rewind knob to top speed, her gaze fixed on the stream of light flashing across the screen. The nurse at the clinic where the babies died, the coroner who ordered the caskets sealed—both had committed suicide. Yet a woman named Mary James believed her sister had been murdered. What if Dawn James and David Stresky had both been murdered? Suddenly the cubicle seemed hot and stuffy. Vicky felt slightly sick to her stomach with the realization that the shadowy idea hovering in her mind was not preposterous. It made sense. Dawn James and David Stresky had been murdered to protect a terrible secret, and now she understood clearly what that secret was.

  22

  Father John spotted the small frame house among the cottonwoods ahead, the only house he’d seen in the last several miles. The wind swept across the plains and knocked at the sides of the Escort. He let up on the accelerator. The air was wavy in the afternoon sunlight.

  He’d picked Megan up from the hospital in the morning and brought her back to the mission, where he left her at the guest house with instructions to rest. They both understood that she had no intention of doing so. He had been in his office about an hour when she showed up, complaining that the walls were closing in and that she preferred to work rather than die of boredom. The morning had slipped by him: phone calls, people dropping by, and his own unsuccessful attempts to get some work done. He managed to complete the arrangements for Father Joseph’s memorial Mass and the feast that would follow. Finally, after a quick lunch of tuna-fish sandwiches with Megan at the residence, he’d driven out of the mission and headed west on Seventeen-Mile Road.

  Now he wheeled into the dirt yard in front of the house. Esther Tallman was pulling laundry off a line that stretched between the cottonwoods on one side. The sheets and towels billowed in the wind, like the sails of a boat slipping across the plains. He let himself out and started toward her, holding down the brim of his cowboy hat in the wind. She stuffed the last towel into a basket at her feet. Stepping past her, he picked up the basket. “Let me give you a hand!” he shouted over the wind.

  He followed the old woman up the cement steps to the little stoop at the front door. She stepped inside and waited as he brought in the basket and deposited it on the floor. Then she closed the door against the noise of the wind. A hush fell over the small living room. Faint smells of detergent and stale coffee wafted through the door to the kitchen in the rear of the house. “Get you some coffee or cola?” Esther asked, heading toward the door.

  He said a cola sounded good, tossed his hat onto the sofa, and sat down next to it. In a moment she returned with two cans of cola. She handed him one and took the chair next to the television. After straightening her skirt over her knees—a prim, nunlike gesture—she pulled the tab on her can, took a long drink, and fixed him with a steady gaze. “It’s good to see you, Father. Don’t get many visitors out this way.”

  He followed the old woman’s lead and kept up his end of small talk: there was a cool bite to the wind; winter was coming. Finally, the exchange of pleasantries over, he set his cola can on the small table next to the sofa and leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, hands folded between his knees. “Grandmother,” he said in a supplicant tone, like that of a sinner, “I’d like to know about Father Joseph.”

  A questioning look came into the old woman’s face. “He came by here last week.”

  Father John nodded. “What can you tell me about when he was here before?”

  “Like I tol’ you, he was a real good man.” The old woman’s features relaxed, like a mask slipping back into place. “He come here every day while Thomas and me and the kids was havin’ our bad time.” The dark eyes swept the room with an expectant look, as if a dead husband and grown children might materialize. “Sat right where you’re sitting. Had the sense not to say anything. Just grieved with us, real quiet, and tried to take some of the pain off us. That was when we lost the boy. He was our last baby. We’d thought we was too old to be havin’ any more, then we found out another baby was on the way. Well”—she paused, gathering the memories—“Thomas was like that stallion we had out in the pasture, prancing ’round, proud as all get out.”

  The old woman took in a long breath and continued: “Guess that’s what made it so hard when the baby got that meningitis. Doctor took it real hard, too. There was tears in his eyes when he come into my room that mornin’ and told me our baby was dead.”

  Father John nodded slowly and gave the woman a smile of sympathy. “Where was the baby born?”

  “Over there in Lander at that real nice clinic. We thought that was where I oughta go, me bein’ older and all.”

  “The Markham Clinic?”

  “How’d you know? Dr. Markham’s been gone a long time. He’s real famous now.”

  “Do you remember Dawn James, the nurse who worked for him?”

  “Dark-haired girl, small, with strong, comforting hands.” The woman gave a quick nod. “Seemed pretty smart. Knew what she was doin’. She was a real good nurse. I felt bad when I read about her shooting herself down by the river. Guess she just couldn’t take it—workin’ aro
und all the babies that died. There was a lot that year.”

  Father John waited a moment before he asked how many babies had died.

  The old woman threw her head back and stared at the ceiling. “Twelve, fifteen. All lost because of that bad water. The doctor said don’t drink the water. But where was we supposed to get good water? There wasn’t fancy water for sale, those days. A lot of women was lucky. Maybe they was able to do like the doctor said. Their babies was fine. It was hard seein’ those chubby babies on the res and watchin’ them grow up.”

  “What else happened, Grandmother?” Father John heard the persistence in his voice. “What did you hear about Dawn James and Father Joseph? Did anything happen that they would have wanted to keep secret?”

  The woman’s expression dissolved into puzzlement. “What’re you gettin’ at, Father?”

  “I don’t know exactly,” he admitted. He didn’t want to explain how Dawn James’s sister was convinced the woman had been murdered. “It must have been a sad time for Father Joseph. I can’t understand why he wanted to come back.”

  “That’s easy, Father. He never forgot us. He wanted to see how all us folks that lost our babies was makin’ out.”

  “Who else did he visit?”

  She listed the names of several families he didn’t know. Then she said, “A couple families are all dead now. Some others left the res. Went off to Denver or Cheyenne or Casper or someplace that didn’t remind ’em of what they lost. Lucas Holden—that’s Ben’s father—died some years back. Cyrus Elk’s been dyin’ up at Riverton Hospital.”

  Father John swallowed hard. He’d intended to ask Father Joseph to stop by the hospital and see the old man. The request would have been unnecessary. If Joseph had been visiting the families still on the res, he’d probably visited Cyrus.