The doctor was shaking his head, coming closer. Father John could see the steel glint in his eyes. “You’re a stubborn man, O’Malley. I could order Randy to shoot you right now.” He gave a nod toward the cabin.
“But then you wouldn’t know where I put the tape. You could spend a lot of time looking for it in this meadow, and then you might not find it. But sooner or later someone else would find it.”
The doctor stopped. The thin lips drew inward, the eyes narrowed in a conscious assessment. He turned and walked back toward the cabin. “Bring her out!” he shouted.
In an instant Megan stumbled past the door, looking like a thin, scared child, Father John thought, in a white blouse and tan slacks, clumps of red hair falling about her face. Behind her was a young man with a thick neck and wide shoulders inside a bulky denim jacket. One hand pushed a pistol into Megan’s ribs; the other jerked her upward, maneuvering her across the porch and down the steps to Markham. Then they started forward into the wind, the doctor gripping the brim of his Stetson.
“Don’t believe anything they say, Uncle John!” Megan cried out. “They’re going to kill us both. I heard them talking.” She gave a sharp yank and pulled free. The guide lunged at her, snapping an arm around her chest and jamming the gun to the side of her head.
“Let her go,” Father John said as he moved toward them, fists clenched.
Markham stepped in front of Megan. He lifted one hand and grasped the brim of his hat. “Now, Father . . .” A projected shout, as if he were addressing a crowd. “We are both reasonable men. You see that the girl is alive and well. But you haven’t told me where the tape is. How do I know you brought it?”
Father John pulled the plastic box from his pocket and held it up. It rattled in the breeze. “Let her go!” he shouted.
“You can’t expect me to do that until I’ve confirmed you’ve brought the correct tape.” Markham tilted his head toward the parked vehicles. “I must ask you to step over to the Jeep, Father O’Malley. It has a very good tape player.”
“Come on, Markham,” Father John said—grasping, stalling. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed something in the trees—a movement. Stay away, Vicky! He kept his gaze on the doctor. “Do you think I’m fool enough to bring you the wrong tape? This is what you want.” He waved the plastic box and plunged on, taking a chance. “Everything Joanne Garrow told Father Keenan.” He saw the flash of affirmation in the doctor’s eyes, followed by a series of blinks. “She admitted everything. How you took healthy, light-skinned infants and told the mothers their babies had died. How you sold the infants on the black market.”
“My God!” Megan struggled to turn toward the doctor.
“Shut up!” the guide shouted, jerking her back.
“Then you murdered your nurse and the coroner, didn’t you, Markham? What happened? Did they have enough? Did they tell you they didn’t want any more part in stealing the babies?”
The doctor flinched; he looked paler. “If that is what Garrow said on the tape, she was lying. I am not responsible for murder. I have never killed anyone, Father O’Malley. Nor did I condone murder then or now. Unfortunately my associate thought such actions were necessary. My own actions were the best for the infants.” The doctor drew in a long, considered breath. “Surely you know the problems the infants were spared, the poverty and alcoholism. They were very fortunate. I can assure you they were placed with the finest families. Given opportunities they would never have had on the reservation. I’m sure today they are productive, happy people.”
“They are lost,” Father John said. “They are like the birds that flew away and never found their way back.”
The doctor gave a brittle laugh. “You’ve been on the reservation long enough to know what I say is true, Father.”
“How much were the babies worth?” Father John said, his throat tight with anger and alarm. The figure in the trees at the edge of his vision was slowly advancing.
A look of mock surprise came into Markham’s eyes. “Do you think it was about money?”
“Of course it was about money, Markham. You wanted a clinic in a big city like Los Angeles. You had big plans, big dreams. But your theories were controversial. Thirty-five years ago the banks probably laughed at you, isn’t that right? So you found a way to accumulate a large amount of cash very fast.”
Markham reared back, and for a moment Father John thought the man would lunge toward him. His muscles tensed in readiness.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” The man’s voice cracked, and Father John caught the hint of desperation in his tone. “I have devoted my entire career to the well-being of infants. I have always done the best for them that was in my power. You’ve lost touch with the wider world, Father O’Malley. That is the world I sent the infants into for their own good. But people like you refuse to understand. That is why I must have the tape.” He held out a hand and came forward. “Give it to me.”
“Here it is.” Father John snapped his arm back and pitched the tape into the air, spinning it over the doctor’s head, like the curveballs he’d once sailed across home plate. The guide let go of Megan’s arm and grabbed at the wind as the tape spun away.
“Run, Megan!” Father John shouted, but she was already dodging, running—a white blur—as he lunged past the doctor. He swung his leg back and brought it forward with all of his strength, kicking at the pistol in the guide’s hand. There was a sharp crack, like a tree snapping in lightning, followed by a howl of anguish. The black pistol flipped up and hung in the wind before dropping into the grass. Like watching a film in slow motion, Father John saw the guide folding to the ground, clasping his hand to his chest and rolling in the grass; Markham bending forward with Megan clutching his back, nails raking his face; Vicky running, running, and throwing herself onto the grass.
Suddenly Megan fell back, and the doctor swung around, a fist raised over her. Father John slammed into the man, knocking him sideways as Vicky started screaming, “Stop! Stop!”
She was kneeling on one knee, working herself upright, the pistol in one hand, the other hand steadying her grip. The gun was pointed at Jeremiah Markham, who stared up at her from the ground, eyes wide in disbelief. Little trickles of blood had started from the red scratches across his cheeks.
“Put the gun down,” he said in a shaky voice. “There is no need for this kind of violence. We’ve made our deal. You can leave. I have the tape.” He glanced nervously toward the place where the tape had landed. The other man was rolling and moaning a few feet away.
Vicky kept the gun on the man. “You monster. I could kill you myself.” Her voice was thick with fury.
Father John moved to her side. Reaching out, he ran his hand along the curve of her arm to her hand. It trembled under his own. Slowly he slipped the gun away.
“Stay down,” he ordered the doctor. Still keeping the gun on the man, Father John motioned to Megan and Vicky. “Go to the car.” He waited until they had run past the cabin and were out of sight before he began moving backward after them. “I don’t want to have to shoot you or your friend,” he said. “Stay where you are until we get out of here.”
When he reached the corner of the cabin, he jammed the gun into his jacket pocket and started running across the patch of meadow toward the trees. Megan and Vicky were ahead. He caught up, and they turned onto the dirt road. A man stood in front of the Escort, swaying from side to side. He had on blue jeans and a tan jacket. In one hand was a rifle. Father John grabbed the women and pulled them to a stop.
The man slowly raised the rifle and aimed it at them.
30
“Luther Benson!” Vicky’s voice rang into the wind. Father John shoved Vicky and Megan into the cluster of willows as the shot exploded in the air and reverberated against the trees. He pushed the women ahead, running, stumbling, crashing through branches that sliced at his hands and tore at his jacket. Megan went down on one knee, and he lifted her up, pushing her after Vicky toward a stand
of ponderosas. The wind hissed around them. Then another crash, like thunder. There was the sharp splintering of wood, the sound of Megan screaming: “He’s going to kill us!”
Father John spotted some fallen trees and a thicket of scrub brush ahead. Still gripping Megan’s arm, he caught up with Vicky and, taking her hand, guided both women to the thicket. Then he stepped ahead and lifted a clump of branches. Wordlessly the women scrambled inside. Just as he dropped the branches, a loud clap split the air. Then: the quiet of the forest, the whoosh of the wind through the ponderosas.
He stayed low, trying to get his bearings. Markham and the guide were in the meadow beyond the stand of trees to the west; Luther Benson, on the road to the east. “Stay here,” he said into the thicket.
Vicky pushed back a branch and grabbed his arm. “You don’t know Luther. He’s lived here all his life. He’s an expert hunter. He’ll see you.”
He’s a drunk, Father John wanted to say. He had seen the unsteadiness of the man, the sideways lurch as he’d raised the rifle.
Father John shook himself free of Vicky’s grasp. Bending over, he ran among the trees, moving to the southeast. He thought he heard the sound of sirens in the distance, but the sound faded in and out, like that of sirens in a dream. Through the trees he caught intermittent flashes of Luther Benson’s tan jacket. Keeping the man in view, Father John worked his way behind him. The leaves rustled beneath his boots, and suddenly the lawyer swung around. He lifted the rifle.
Father John remained still, his breath hard in his chest. After a moment the man turned and resumed his unsteady walk along the edge of the trees. Father John stepped when Luther stepped, stopped when he stopped—a pas de deux—as he pushed through the branches. He was within ten feet, staring at the man’s back. He slipped the pistol from his pocket.
Suddenly Luther raised the rifle. Another crack broke the air, as if the clouds had collided, and in that instant Father John sprinted into the road and jammed the pistol through the tan jacket and into the man’s spine. “Drop the rifle!” he shouted into his ear.
The man stood motionless. Slowly he let the rifle drop to his side.
“I take it you’re that Indian priest.”
“Set the rifle on the ground.” Father John pushed the pistol harder against the man’s back. The odor of whiskey drifted between them.
“I don’t think you’re gonna shoot me,” Luther said. “I don’t think you or any other priest’s got the guts.”
“Don’t bet on it.” Father John drew out the words. In his mind was the image of Vicky and Megan huddled in the thicket. He would do what he had to do to protect them. He kept one eye on the road ahead, half expecting Markham and the guide to appear.
“You’re just like that other fool priest.” The lawyer’s voice was raspy—the voice of alcohol and cigarettes, of dim nights in smoke-filled bars. The rifle jerked at his side. “Why couldn’t you let things be? What happened is over and done with. People gone on with their lives. Why did that old fool have to come back and stir it all up?”
Father John drew in a sharp breath. He understood. “You’re the man who shot Father Joseph,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “You killed a helpless man.”
“Helpless!” the lawyer barked. He tilted his head sideways and spat a large chunk of phlegm into the wind. Specks of moisture prickled Father John’s face. It smelled of whiskey.
“You got that wrong!” Benson yelled. “That priest was gonna blow everything to hell. Couldn’t live with it any longer, he said. What the hell did he have to worry about? He wasn’t in on anything. Just happened the little nurse went and got religion and thought she was goin’ to hell if she didn’t confess all her sins. Well, I sent her to hell all right. Just too bad I didn’t do it sooner, before she unloaded on the priest.” He gave a quick shrug. “What’s it matter? I told Markham. The priest’s wettin’ his pants, he’s so scared. He’s gonna beat the hell out of here. That’s exactly what he did.”
He stopped. Father John could see the muscles in the sides of his neck bulging. “I told Markham, quit worrying. That priest’s got that confessional-seal thing. He’s never gonna spill his guts. For thirty-five years I was right. Then, what d’ya know, here comes Keenan, back to the reservation. Pays a visit to Garrow and tells her she’s gotta come clean.” He threw his head back and gave a hard, tight laugh. “The man was crafty. I’ll give him that. He was a crafty old buzzard. He had a tape recorder on him. So he gets her to talkin’, and all the time he’s tapin’ away. Then he lowers the boom. Says he’s gonna take the tape to the police. That she doesn’t have any choice but to tell the truth. Well, he was wrong.”
“You killed the woman,” Father John said. At the edge of his vision he saw a flicker of movement in the willows next to the road, like a sudden burst of wind. “Why, Benson? Did Joanne Garrow start to get nervous? Did she want to tell the truth? Did she come to you and say it was time to tell the truth? Is that what the coroner did thirty-five years ago? Get nervous and want to tell the truth? Is that why you killed him?”
“Oh, Jesus.” The man shook his head. “You don’t understand anything. I couldn’t have him and the nurse shootin’ off their mouths and ruinin’ the reputation of Benson and Benson in these parts. We were the most important law firm around. Everybody respected the firm. Dad was still alive then. I wasn’t gonna let them destroy everything he’d worked for, so I took care of them.” He stopped for a moment. Then he said, “Why do you care, anyway? You’re not getting out of here alive. Markham and Randy are up there.” He tilted his head toward the meadow. “You’re not going to shoot us. You’re not going to shoot any of us.”
Suddenly he lurched forward and swung around. Father John saw the tremor in the man’s hand as he lifted the rifle and the blurred, dazed look in his eyes. “Shoot-out time at the O.K. Corral, O’Malley,” he said. “Let’s see who’s gonna shoot first.”
Father John stared into the black tunnel of the rifle barrel, his finger brushing the pistol’s trigger—a tiny, cold piece of metal that could snuff out a man’s life, a murderer’s life. He was sure of one thing: he could pull the trigger faster than the half-drunk man in front of him. And his shot would be more accurate.
In the distance, floating through the trees, came the sound of sirens, definite and real. He had faced down drunks before, but never one with a gun. Still, if he could keep the man talking a few more minutes . . . He let his hand fall, pointing the pistol to the ground. “You hear that, Benson? The police are on the way. You can’t shoot me and get out of here before they arrive. They’ll block you off. They know everything.”
“They don’t have any proof.” The rifle drifted sideways in the wind.
“They have the tape.”
“You’re lying!” The yell burst like the cry of a wounded animal. Benson hunched over the rifle.
Father John stared into the barrel, a circle of blackness. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the figure of a man careen out of the willows. The man slammed into the lawyer, knocking him off his feet and sending the rifle scuttling across the road. Father John dove for it, gripping the smooth, cold metal barrel. As he got to his feet, he saw Leonard kneeling on the man’s stomach, pounding a fist into his face.
Father John rammed the pistol into his pocket and grabbed the caretaker’s shoulder. “Enough,” he said, pulling the Indian back.
Leonard got to his feet. His breath came hard and fast. His face was dark with anger. “Arnold and me knew you was gonna need some help,” he said, gasping. “We come up the main road. Heard the shooting, so we parked the pickup. Arnold grabbed a tire iron, and we started through the trees. He seen those other two guys about to get into the Jeep out in the meadow. He says one of ’em was the guy that took Megan, so he went after ’em. I came after the sound of gunshots.”
The sirens were closer now, a shrill wail into the wind. The sound of tires crunching gravel and engines straining uphill came from the road behind. Leonard grinned. “Hope you
don’t mind, Father. Soon’s you left the mission, I called Agent Gianelli and Chief Banner.”
• • •
Father John waited at the Escort. Vicky stood beside him, hunched inside his jacket. He had taken it off and placed it around her shoulders against the chill of the wind. Megan had slipped into the backseat. The door was slightly ajar. No one spoke. A string of police cars stood at the side of the road, blue and red lights flashing against the trees, radio static sputtering. Gianelli’s 4×4 stood in front of the line. Several policemen had headed into the meadow. Others were milling about. Every once in a while one stooped over, scooped up something, and held it out, examining it. A bullet. A cartridge.
Markham and the guide sat in the backseat of the nearest police car. Luther Benson had been hustled into the back of another car. Father John tilted his face into the wind. It smelled of dry leaves and dust. The sun had disappeared beyond the treetops, and there was the bite of fall in the air. He glanced at Vicky. “It’s over,” he said.
He heard her gasp. “It will never be over.”
Gianelli and Banner broke from the policemen and started up the road toward them, twin expressions of grimness on their faces. As they approached, the rear door pushed open, and Megan stepped out. Gianelli faced her. “I just put the best-known doctor in the country and one of the local luminaries under arrest for kidnapping and possible assault. There better not be any misunderstandings.”
Father John slipped an arm around his niece. “You forgot murder and conspiracy,” he told the agent. “Check Luther Benson’s rifle. You’ve got the man who killed Father Joseph and Joanne Garrow.”
“What I don’t have is the motive.” The agent looked from Father John to Vicky. “Okay, let’s hear that theory of yours.”
Vicky began talking. She explained about the clinic, the stolen babies, the elaborate black-market operation Markham had set up, the nurse and coroner who had ended up dead, and Sharon David, one of the stolen infants, whose father Vicky had found. The agent never took his eyes off her. Banner moved in closer, arms folded, eyes rigid in anger. As Vicky talked, Father John could feel Megan begin to shiver, as if a winter storm had blown through.
The Lost Bird Page 21
