The Dream Stalker

by Margaret Coel

  She forced her mind onto what Legeau was saying: The dream had come to him when he was seventeen. It was in the summer, and he had gone into the mountains seeking a vision to help him know how to live his life. He had fasted and prayed for four days. And on the fourth day, weak with hunger, he’d fallen asleep in the midday sun. A black bull with horns like ivory, fire snorting from its nostrils, haunches as hard as steel, appeared before him. The bull reared up on its hind legs and turned into a man—an untrue man. Look around you, the untrue man instructed. Alexander had looked about. It was then he saw the herds of cattle rolling across the land, like waves of a brown ocean.

  He awoke and made his way back to the reservation, weak but filled with joy. He didn’t understand the dream, of course. No one can understand his own dream. He went to his grandfather, who was his dream guide. His grandfather explained that the Dream Maker had breathed life into the spirits to enter his mind. The bull was the symbol of his dream spirit. The dream spirit would give him power, and he should trust his power to lead him through life. He should always use his power for the good of his people. If he used it for harm, it would bring destruction to him.

  Ten years later, Legeau said, his uncle Tinzant had died and left him the ranch. He then understood his destiny. He had tried to run the ranch for the good of his people. Always hired on a dozen cowboys. Always Arapahos. Always paid them a good portion of his own profits. The audience burst into a rhythmic, appreciative applause.

  Legeau smiled and nodded, then went on: “Soon’s Lily and I heard about the nuclear power plants back East lookin’ for stable ground to store spent fuel rods, we started thinkin’ the ranch might be the place. So I went to Matthew Bosse.” He turned toward the tribal officials. “And he hired this fine young man, Lionel Redbull.” A nod toward the man next to him. “Next thing I know, consultants are all over the ranch fixin’ to write up their environmental reports.”

  Legeau stopped, gazed about the hall a moment. “Like my grandfather said, I gotta trust my dream power. Well, my power’s led me to a way for my people to have real good jobs and a lot of benefits. We’re gonna get us a real strong economy on the rez.” Legeau threw both arms into the air, fists clenched, as if his horse had just crossed the finish line.

  People were out of their chairs, stamping their feet, shouting, cheering. Beyond the crowd, Vicky could see the white protesters crowding around the opened door, pushing to get out. She felt a strange ambivalence: She hadn’t intended to bring them here, but she didn’t want them to leave. At least they weren’t afraid to oppose the facility.

  Alexander Legeau swung around and took his wife’s arm. The couple marched down the stairs and along the center aisle—smiling, grasping the offered hands—and disappeared through the opened door with the knots of protesters.

  Vicky got up and stepped to the podium. “It’s my turn,” she said to Redbull. The mike picked up her words; they echoed back on her.

  “Make it short.” The Indian stood at her elbow. Vicky realized she’d left the speech she’d intended to give on the table. It didn’t matter. Most of the people were still on their feet, gathering jackets and bags. Some had begun herding children down the aisles toward the door. She could sense the tension in the hall—the restless motion of cramped legs and made-up minds. She had only a moment.

  She leaned into the mike. “This is about trust,” she said. Her voice rang across the hall. People stopped moving and turned toward the stage. Groups of people began sitting down. She could feel the eyes on her.

  “My great-grandfather, Chief Black Night, brought the Hinono eino to the Middle Earth.” It was a risk, she knew, speaking the name of an honored leader. The people might not think her worthy of it, even if he was her own ancestor.

  She hurried on, “Chief Black Night trusted us to protect this sacred place, enclosed by the four sacred shrines—the Wind River, the Little Wind River, the mountains, and the sky. Now the experts tell us to trust them. They have written a report that says the facility will be safe. But forty years ago, experts assured us a uranium mill would be safe, and the people allowed the mill to be built. How many members of your families got cancer from the radon gas?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Vicky saw Redbull reach for the mike. She held onto it. “The experts tell us not to worry, to trust them. But what if, as Mr. Bryant says, the unthinkable occurs? If some disaster strikes the facility? a tornado? a plane crash? What if one of the missiles the Air Force fires over Wyoming goes astray? If anything like that happens, the casks could be thrown together with enough force to cause the fuel rods to break free. And that could cause a chain reaction—a meltdown. Radioactive materials would escape into the air and water. How would we handle that kind of emergency?”

  Redbull yanked the microphone away with a sharp violence. He stepped into her, forcing her to move aside. “We all know this woman’s been tryin’ to scare people,” he said. “Chances of some disaster happening are”—he gave a quick snort—“one chance in more than a billion. It’s not gonna happen, folks.” He glanced toward the tribal officials. “Chairman Lee just gave me the sign to close this hearing, so I declare it officially closed.”

  Vicky walked back to the table and began stuffing the pages of the speech and the yellow pad into her briefcase. She was aware of Redbull and the tribal councilmen filing down the stairs, Matthew Bosse in the lead. Aware of the crowd jamming the aisles and pushing toward the front door. She was thinking that if Redbull were behind the threats, he hadn’t succeeded. She had made her point. This was about trust. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction.

  She snapped the briefcase closed and glanced at where Father John had been sitting. The chair was empty. Her eyes searched the crowd pouring through the door. He must have already gone outside. She felt a stab of disappointment. He hadn’t waited for her. She wanted to find out what he thought about the hearing, the facility. She might catch him, she realized, if she hurried.

  She nearly stumbled into Paul Bryant standing behind her chair. It took her by surprise; she had thought he’d left the stage with the others.

  “I’m very interested in what you had to say,” Bryant said. “I wonder if we might discuss it further.”

  Vicky stepped around him. Father John could be in the Toyota pickup by now, heading out of the parking lot. She started down the stairs, Bryant behind her, saying they weren’t as far apart as she may think. He kept pace beside her, weaving past the men and women in the center aisle, talking about the importance of trusting the right people. Suddenly he stepped in front of her. “What I’m trying to say, Vicky, is would you have dinner with me tomorrow?”

  “What?” Vicky said, her attention now on the roar of angry voices, the sounds of shouting and scuffling that burst past the front door, coming from the parking lot. The crowd surged forward, jostling them, trying to get through the door. Two policemen came running down a side aisle and pushed their way outside.

  “Something’s going on,” Vicky said, shouldering past the white man, past the crowd pressing around.

  “Wait, Vicky,” Bryant called. “Don’t go outside. It sounds like a riot.”

  She was already squeezing through the doorway into the rainy night, the blurred headlights splashing over the parking lot, the mass of bodies surging around her. Signs waved in the rain, black ink streaming across the white poster boards. People were shouting and yelling. A woman screamed, a high, piercing wail. Another woman called out a name—a child’s name—panic in her voice. There was the hard thudding sound of fists against bone and flesh.

  She was in the middle of a nightmare, caught in frantic, grappling arms, holding up her briefcase to shield her face, darting toward an opening in the crowd only to be pulled into another gulf of bodies. Someone slammed into her, nearly knocking her off her feet. She stumbled sideways, groping for balance. Gravel jabbed and stung her right foot. She realized in a dazed, half awareness that she’d lost a shoe.

  Then she felt a hard grip on her f
orearm and tried to glance back, but in the blur of moving bodies she couldn’t make out who was pulling her through the angry crowd, steering her toward the darkness at the far edges.

  13

  “Where are you parked?”

  A wave of relief flowed over Vicky at the sound of Father John’s voice. He slipped his arm around her shoulder, propelling her through the shouting, scrambling crowd, past several men wrestling across the ground, their boots shooting up hard sprays of gravel.

  “The west side,” Vicky shouted. She was aware for the first time of the rain stinging her face. They pushed toward the edge of the crowd and hurried past a group of men jabbing at one another. A couple of policemen attempted to hold them apart. Vicky felt Father John’s arm tightening around her. She gripped the briefcase, the purse, the slicker, hobbling in one shoe, her right foot scraping against the wet gravel. They dodged around the west corner of the building, threading their way among the pickups and cars parked there since she’d arrived, past another knot of people shouting into the night, past the group of men standing around her Bronco.

  Vicky dug into the black bag for her key, feeling the men’s eyes on her. Finally she found the key and began jabbing it at the notch: She couldn’t locate it. Then Father John’s hand was on hers, and the key was turning. She pulled the door open, threw in her purse and briefcase and the slicker, and slipped in behind, pushing them along the seat. “Lock the door,” he said, leaning into a narrow opening. “I’ll follow you home.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Just lock your door.” The door slammed shut—a loud clap against the shouts in the front parking lot.

  The engine flicked into life. Pinpricks of rain danced in the beam. A couple of the men ducked their heads and turned away as Vicky started backing out. The others walked along the side of the Bronco: belt buckles, bulging jacket pockets, clenched fists slipping by the window. She couldn’t see John O’Malley; she was leaving him in the darkness with the men who had been waiting for her. She hit the brake pedal as hard as she could with her stockinged foot and peered through the windshield at the dark figures moving about. He wasn’t among them. No one as tall; no one who walked the same way.

  She slammed the gear into drive and took a sharp turn to the right, tires harrowing the gravel. The Bronco barreled across the ditch, up the incline onto Ethete Road. In the rearview mirror, she saw the wavy line of trucks and cars pulling out of the lot. Sirens screamed as four police cars swung past her, red and blue lights flashing on the roofs. She wheeled onto Highway 132 and pressed down on the accelerator, aware of the hard grooves biting into her foot. The wipers waved across the windshield as she sped south, the moon a blurred silver disc in the sky ahead, shadows of cottonwoods passing outside her window, the dark bulk of the foothills riding on the right.

  “My God, my God.” Her voice rose over the growl of the motor. The highway took an abrupt jog, and she tried to concentrate on driving, her mind back at Blue Sky Hall. What was happening to her people? So much money tied to the facility, more than anyone could imagine, as plentiful as the rain that fell from the sky. And people willing to tear apart anyone who stood in the way. She felt sick to her stomach. She had brought the outsiders here, had stirred up the emotions that burst into a riot. She had never intended, had never imagined . . .

  She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat and glanced again at the rearview mirror. One vehicle behind her now, coming out of a curve, far enough back she couldn’t tell if it was the Toyota. What if John O’Malley hadn’t gotten away? What if the men waiting for her had turned on him because he was her friend? She felt numb with the realization she had placed him in danger. She slowed down, considering whether to go back. But how would she find him in the angry, brawling crowd he’d just pulled her out of? It would be foolish. The police had called in reinforcements. She had to trust he was okay, that he was behind her, as he’d said.

  The headlights were still in the rearview mirror as Highway 132 joined Highway 287, still behind her in the northern reaches of Lander. As she turned left into the neighborhood she had called home for almost three years, the vehicle drew close, passing under a street light. She saw it was larger than the Toyota and so black that, outside the scallop of light, it faded into the darkness behind its own headlights.

  She jerked the steering wheel to the right, spun around the corner, and pressed on the accelerator. She sped down the street before making a quick turn at the next corner.

  Out again on 287, she drove south through Lander, passing a 4×4, a couple of pickups, trying to put as much metal between her and the black truck as possible. She was close to the edge of town when she realized that, in another minute, she and the truck would be on a deserted patch of highway. She wheeled right, past a strip mall, a darkened gas station, and into another quiet neighborhood. Then another quick turn, unsure of whether she’d lost the truck or was just staying ahead of it. On she wove through the neighborhood, making one turn after the other, her breath coming hard and fast, as if she were running.

  Only darkness lay behind her now, and she could feel her breathing begin to slow, the naked panic subside. She drove back across 287 and headed north through the side streets. She was almost home when it hit her that the black truck could be waiting there. Whoever was following her would find John O’Malley. He’d said he would follow her home, and she knew he would do whatever he said.

  She drove faster, her heart beginning its familiar race. At the intersection close to her house, she slowed the Bronco and scanned the vehicles parked along the street. The usual neighborhood cars stood at the curbs and in the driveways, except for one—the truck in the shadows of the trees in front of her house.

  14

  For a moment Vicky’s breath stopped in her throat, a hard lump she couldn’t expel. Then she realized the truck was smaller, lighter colored. It was the Toyota. She turned down the street and pulled into her driveway. John O’Malley was beside her door as she stepped out. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said.

  She pulled the briefcase, purse, and slicker out of the Bronco, jamming them into the crook of one arm, and shut the door with her body. Then she kicked off the remaining shoe, reached down, and picked it up before hurrying across the yard, her stockinged feet squishing the wet grass, the rain cool on her face. In a moment she had the front door unlocked and they were inside. She flipped on the wall switch. The lamp on the table across the room sent a flood of soft light over the gray carpet, the flowered sofa, the worn cushions of the easy chair, the books on the shelves against the far wall, the desk beneath the shelves.

  She leaned against the door a moment, grasping her pile of things, her eyes on the man in front of her. She felt overwhelmed with gratitude to Nih’a ca, who holds all creatures in his hand, who makes all things possible. Gratitude that she had made it home safely, that John O’Malley was with her.

  “What happened to you?”

  “Someone followed me. A black truck.” She saw the little nerve pulsing at the side of his temple, the color rising in his cheeks.

  “Damn,” he said, slamming one fist into the other. “I got caught behind the police cars. It was a couple of minutes before I could get out of the lot.” He drew in a long breath, then said, “The same truck that tried to run you down?”

  Vicky nodded. She wasn’t surprised he knew. The moccasin telegraph was efficient. He’d probably heard about the threatening notes, too.

  “You’d better call the police,” Father John said, but she’d already dropped her things onto the sofa and crossed to the desk. She lifted the receiver and tapped 911. While she explained to the operator what had happened, she watched the tall, redheaded white man shrug out of his jacket, lay it across the back of the sofa, and set his cowboy hat on top, as if he were at home. She set the receiver back in its cradle. “They’ll notify the patrol cars to stop any black trucks. And Detective Eberhart left orders for the patrol to swing by here every twenty minutes or so.”


  Father John’s eyes held hers. After a moment he said, “Perhaps you ought to go away for a while, Vicky. Go to Denver and stay with friends until things calm down around here.”

  “You think so? Would an Irishman walk away from a fight?”

  He exhaled a long breath. “Not likely.”

  “Not likely for an Arapaho either.” Vicky strode into the dining alcove. Threads of rain ran down the sliding glass doors that gave out onto the little brick patio. A counter with a wooden stool on either side divided the alcove from the kitchen. She stepped past the counter and flipped the wall switch. Light burst over the wood cabinets, the white countertop, the gleaming steel sink, the window gaping black behind the yellow curtains tied at the sides.

  She extracted a can of coffee and a white filter from one of the cabinets while Father John perched on a stool. She placed the filter into the Mr. Coffee, measured out the grounds, and poured in the water before taking the stool across from him.

  “I’m not the only one who’s been threatened.” She saw by the expression on his face this was something new. “The others are too scared to go to the police.”

  Father John was quiet. She could sense him marshaling his arguments into the most logical order. From the counter behind them came the rhythmic drip, drip, drip of liquid into the glass pot. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee.

  “Look, Vicky,” he said after a moment, “somebody’s trying to kill you. You’ve got to leave for a while. The reservation’s torn apart. There’s already been one murder.”

  “Some poor Indian alone in a deserted cabin. What does that have to do with the nuclear waste facility?” Vicky stood up and pulled two mugs from a cabinet and filled them with the fresh coffee. Little curls of steam rose toward her smelling of wild berries. She placed the mugs on the counter and sat back down.