Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery

by Coel, Margaret

  The old man stared across the table into space, as if the White Buffalo Woman might reappear. After a moment he waved a hand against any objection Father John might make. “White Buffalo Woman came to the Lakota. She gave them the sacred ceremonies and left them the sacred pipe. But she came for all the tribes. That’s why we revere her. Now with the troubles, some crazy guy shooting at cars for the fun of it, man getting murdered, she’s come back, just like she promised.” He craned his head and stared at Father John, a pleading look in the rheumy black eyes. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  Father John took a couple of seconds before he said, “It’s true.”

  “The sacred calf, here with us.” The old man started nodding, something peaceful and rhythmic in the motion, and for a moment Father John thought he might drop off into sleep. Instead, he straightened his shoulders, and said, “I got the news on the moccasin telegraph that the cops are canceling vacations and leaves. I knew they’re getting ready for the visitors. Won’t just be Indian people. White folks, all kinds of folks will come to see the sacred calf. I figure the calf is out there on the Broken Buffalo Ranch, and I heard you and Banner went there last night after that white man got killed. The widow tell you about the calf?”

  “She isn’t ready to make it public.”

  “Can’t stay secret forever. The cops know. Word’s already starting to leak out.”

  “She wants to see that her husband is buried and at peace.”

  Clifford pushed the chips around the plate and studied the design he had made. It resembled a buffalo head. “I seen something else in the vision,” he said. “A cloud black as a storm. The cloud moved real slow off to the west before it turned into a black hole that looked like it had been drilled into the sky. Then it was gone. Soon’s I heard about the rancher getting shot last night, I understood the vision: something sacred has come to the rez, but evil is still among us.”

  Father John sat very still for a long moment. There was no rational, logical way of explaining visions. Since he had been at St. Francis Mission, he had learned to accept that not everything could be explained.

  He left the old man in the living room sitting in his recliner, the toes of his boots splayed in opposite directions. He could hear the faint snoring sounds as he let himself out the front door. In the pickup, with the driver’s door hanging open, he checked his cell. A message from Sheila Carey. Could he stop by the ranch this afternoon? He had to jiggle the key in the ignition before the engine kicked over and the pickup shivered around him. He made a U-turn onto the dirt road, headed back to Seventeen-Mile Road, and turned west.

  * * *

  THE STACCATO SOUNDS of a hammer thumped through the soft noises of the wind. Father John slowed the pickup over the rough mounds of dirt that passed for a road across the plains to the Broken Buffalo Ranch. He could see two cowboys working on the fence that enclosed the pasture north of the barn. Out in the pasture, several buffalo nosed among a clump of cottonwoods and willows. By the time he pulled next to the house, one of the cowboys, brown straw hat pushed forward, came walking toward him. It was Sheila Carey.

  “Looks like we’re going to need some extra hands,” she said as he let himself out of the pickup. Beyond the house, he could see the tractor, flatbed, forklift, and trucks standing idle near the barn. “That agency in Riverton, Ranchlands Employment, is supposed to send over cowboys. Haven’t seen one yet. Don’t know any cowboys looking for a job, do you?”

  He stopped himself from saying, “White cowboys?” The woman looked flushed from the heat and the sun; little specks of perspiration glistened on the V-shaped patch of skin that showed at the collar of her blouse. A widow, her husband not dead twenty-four hours. “I can ask around.”

  “You do that.” She tossed her head back toward the fence where Carlos was positioning another post. “I hear word is out on the moccasin telegraph. People know something’s going on.”

  “It won’t be long before they figure out the white calf is here. When do you plan to make the announcement?”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The coroner released Dennis’s body today. I made arrangements to have him cremated. It was what he wanted,” she added hurriedly. “I’m planning to bury his ashes here tomorrow. There’s a real pretty place behind the barn, a kind of meadow. I was hoping you’d be willing to say a few prayers. Dennis wasn’t what you’d call a believer, but prayers would be nice. I thought maybe you could talk one of the Arapaho elders into doing a little Indian blessing. Give Dennis a proper send-off.”

  “I can ask Clifford Many Horses. I’m sure he would like to see the calf before the crowds come.”

  The woman was squinting up at him past the brim of her cowboy hat. “He can give Spirit the stamp of approval. Ten o’clock in the morning? You’ll arrange it?”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  11

  NIGHTTIME SETTLED OVER the mission. The Boy Scout meeting at Eagle Hall had ended an hour ago; pickups taking the kids home had stuttered through the cottonwood tunnel onto Seventeen-Mile Road. Father John had locked up Eagle Hall and checked to make sure the front doors of the administration building and the church were locked. In the residence, the bishop carried a cup of coffee upstairs and, for a little while, Father John had heard the faint tap-tap-tap of a keyboard. Then footsteps overhead, followed by silence. The bishop was usually in bed by ten o’clock. Father John poured himself another cup of coffee and carried it into the study across the front hall from the living room. He opened his laptop and watched the icons people the screen. Pipes gurgled somewhere in the walls of the old house.

  He searched for sites about white buffalo calves and their significance to Plains Indians. Dozens of sites came up, and he clicked on one that looked promising: the video of the keynote talk at a symposium on Indian spirituality by Professor Harold Jumping Elk of South Dakota State University. Father John recognized the name. Professor Jumping Elk’s book on the Indians as the Creator’s chosen people was in the stack of books on his bedside table waiting to be read.

  The video flickered and settled into the image of a wide-chested man with black hair slicked back into a ponytail and intense black eyes. He wore a black suit with a white shirt buttoned to the collar and no tie, like the chiefs in the bronzed photos from the Old Time. Dropping his gaze, he took his time checking the papers on the podium in front of him. Turning over one page, then the next. The audience was still.

  Finally the professor looked up, cleared his throat, and began speaking:

  When I think of the sacred white buffalo calf, I think of the beautiful young woman with the yellow-and-red scarf tied around her bald head. She stood at the fence next to the pasture on a farm in Wisconsin. Hundreds of people milled about, and I remember how this beautiful woman waited her turn to get close to the fence. She leaned against the post and stared out at the herd of buffalo. Off to the side was the new white calf, about the size of a lamb, sheltering in the great, protective shadow of her mother. The beautiful lady did not take her eyes away. I saw that she was crying.

  Later she told me that she had heard about the birth of the white buffalo calf as she finished chemotherapy. She got into her car and drove from Houston to Wisconsin because, as she said, she believed the sacred calf would be a blessing on her life.

  When I looked at the other visitors lined along the fence, staring off into the pasture, I saw that most had tears in their eyes. All kinds of people, not just Indians, although Indian people had come from across the country, Mexico, and South America. Whites, African Americans, Asians—a microcosm of the whole world. In some way, all these people understood that what they saw out in the pasture—a smallish, unassuming animal—was the most sacred creature they would ever see.

  I first learned about the sacred white buffalo calf from my grandfather. I remember sitting in a circle inside the tipi that Grandfather kept in his back yard. The government had built frame ho
uses on the Pine Ridge Reservation, but many of the old Lakotas preferred to sleep and eat in their tipis. It was rumored that some of the old ones stabled their horses in the houses while they continued living in their tipis. Anytime Grandfather began a story about the Old Time, the circle inside the tipi became very quiet. We knew the story was about us.

  In the very long ago time, Grandfather told us, when the people were alone and hungry, a beautiful woman came from the West. She was dressed in a white deerskin dress decorated in beads and quills. Her moccasins did not touch the earth. She floated toward the village, and the people knew she was a spirit. She was Wakan. She came from the Creator. The woman taught the people many things. To be respectful of creatures, the four-leggeds and the wingeds, who are our relatives, and to be respectful of the living Earth. She told us to be in a holy way. She spoke to the women especially and said their work was as great as that of the warriors who procured food for the people. It was the women’s work and the children they bore that kept the people alive. She taught us the sacred ceremonies and gave us the sacred pipe. The smoke from the pipe is the breath of the Creator.

  Before she left, the beautiful woman promised she would return in times of trouble so that we would know the Creator remained with us. She started off in the direction of the setting sun, then stopped. She rolled over and became a black buffalo. She rolled a second time and became a brown buffalo. The third time, she became a red buffalo, and the fourth time she became a white buffalo calf.

  After her visit, the plains were filled with buffalo. Enormous herds stretched as far as the eye could see. The ground rolled and shook like thunder under their hooves. The buffalo gave the people everything we needed to live. Food, clothing, shelter, tools. Today archeologists say seventy million buffalo once existed. The ancestors saw the herds and said the people would live forever. When the wars of the plains ended and the people were sent to reservations, the great herds had been reduced to a few straggly animals, one thousand or less. It seemed that the buffalo had been swallowed by the Earth, and that the Indian people would die.

  But throughout the generations, White Buffalo Woman kept her promise, and from time to time, a white buffalo calf was born. Scientists look to genetics and try to determine how many white calves might have ever been born, but the ancestors did not keep track of such numbers. They knew only that the white calf came to remind the people that the Creator was with them.

  White Buffalo Woman came to the Lakota, but the message she brought was meant for all people. All the other tribes, and all the non-Indian people. For that reason, the beautiful white woman with a bald head, a yellow-and-red scarf and tears in her eyes, had driven a thousand miles to see the sacred calf and pray for healing. For that reason, thousands of people had come, all of them praying for healing in their lives. They believed that the small white calf was a sign of the Creator among his creatures.

  Father John closed the site and glanced through the list of other sites, finally settling on one called Buffalo Today. “Walking Lightly on the Earth” ran across the top of several pages of text. He scanned the paragraphs. Buffalo were at home on the plains, with the lack of moisture and sparse vegetation. Once accustomed to roaming vast areas, they grazed as they moved without destroying the fragile environment. Confined to smaller areas today, buffalo feed sometimes had to be supplemented with hay. Still, environmentalists pointed out that buffalo lived in greater harmony with their surroundings than cattle. The low-fat, low-cholesterol buffalo meat was considered a healthful delicacy.

  Father John closed the site and sipped at the cool, bitter coffee. He swiveled toward the window and stared out at the streetlight dancing in the wind over the wild grass. A small white animal, a sacred sign that would bring thousands of people to the rez. He wondered if Sheila Carey had any idea of what was coming. Chief Banner might mobilize the entire police force, but he wondered if it would be enough.

  12

  ANNIE WAS AT her desk when Vicky let herself into the office. Printer humming, smells of fresh coffee wafting through the air, and Roger Hurst, the lawyer she and Adam had hired to handle what Adam called the “little cases,” standing at Annie’s shoulder, the invisible remnants of a conversation dangling between them. “Good morning.” Vicky headed toward the small table that held the coffeepot and stack of mugs.

  She adjusted her bag over her shoulder and, gripping her briefcase with one hand, managed to pour a cup of coffee. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Annie scoot her chair backward and jump to her feet. The secretary’s footsteps clacked behind Vicky as she went into her private office. She sat down behind her desk and let the briefcase and bag fall at her feet. Tiredness dragged at her. She had tossed and turned all night, a strange dream running through her head. She was walking across the plains, walking, walking toward some point on the horizon she could never reach.

  “You okay?” Vicky realized Annie had been watching her.

  “I’m fine. Got off to a late start this morning.”

  “I thought maybe you’d heard the news.” When Vicky didn’t say anything, Annie hurried on: “There’s a rumor on the moccasin telegraph—nobody’s confirmed it—that a white buffalo calf’s been born.”

  Vicky could feel her breath expanding in her throat. She forced herself to exhale. “Where?” she managed. She knew the answer, as if it were written in the air.

  “On the rez. Like I said, it’s only a rumor, but folks are really excited. Tribal cops are getting ready for a lot of visitors. I mean, thousands. There will be people everywhere. It will be a mess.” She stopped. “But if it’s true, it will be quite wonderful. You have to wonder, why us? Why would we be blessed?”

  “We don’t know if it’s true.” My God, Vicky was thinking. A white buffalo calf. The rarest of creatures, a sacred animal come to help the people in time of need. There was always a time of need, but the white buffalo had never come to the rez. Maybe the needs had accumulated, grown so great that the Creator decided the time was right. She tried to shrug away that line of thought. Rumors were always blowing about. Some turned out to be true, but most died away like the wind. “We’ll have to wait and see,” she said. Still the image of a white buffalo calf on the rez, a sign that the Creator had not forgotten the people, sent a chill through her.

  Annie nodded, but hope and excitement flared like firelight in her black eyes. “You’re right. We’ll just have to wait. You have an appointment in fifteen minutes. Lucy Murphy. She said she met you yesterday. She called first thing this morning. I was coming through the front door when the phone started ringing.”

  Vicky took a sip of the black coffee. Lucy Murphy, the girl hovering around Arnie Walksfast in the parking lot outside the court building. White girl, blond hair. She wasn’t sure she could pick the girl out of a police lineup. Annie had gone back into the outer office and closed the beveled-glass doors behind her. Through the glass, Vicky could see the distorted image of the secretary settling behind the distorted image of her desk, leaning into a computer that resembled a flying alien ship. She turned on her own computer and checked the day’s calendar. Lucy Murphy, 9:00 a.m. Howard Black Cloud, 10:00 a.m. Howard wanting to sue the mechanic shop that had fired him. Nancy Savage, 11:00 a.m. Nancy sure this time she wants to file for a divorce from Fred. Vicky had no idea what Lucy Murphy wanted. The afternoon looked free, but things always popped up, clients called or strolled into the office.

  Vicky brought up her e-mail. Thank-you notes from members of the women’s club at the tribal college, an invitation to speak about Indian law from the Riverton Lions Club, an invitation to lunch from a woman she didn’t know who was thinking about opening a law office in Lander. She closed the e-mail, took another drink of coffee, warm now and almost chewy, and allowed last night’s dinner with Adam to work its way to the front of her thoughts, the place it had been demanding all the previous night. Adam, seated across from her, steak and baked potato in front of him, and she with h
er own steak, both of them talking around the subject, observing the polite preliminaries: the weather, next week’s powwow.

  Finally Adam had apologized for wanting to leave the murder scene. He had been worried about their safety, the two of them standing out in the highway, prime targets if the shooter had happened by, or if the killer had come back. Maybe the same man, who really knew? Not the fed or the tribal cops. A murder on a dark highway, it would probably never be solved.

  She remembered hardly listening. His voice blended into the background noise in the restaurant, the clinking of dishes and swooshing of the steel door to the kitchen. She wondered who he was, the Lakota across from her with black hair streaked with silver, the little scar that ran across his cheek, the black eyes and intelligent face, and something about him—the confidence, like that of a warrior in the Old Time—so handsome that the two women at the adjacent table kept glancing his way, trying to catch his eye. So many years they had been lovers, with occasional breaks while he handled natural-resource cases for other tribes, but always he had come back. Always saying he wanted her, when he could have practically any other woman. Always finding a way to let her know that was the case, slyly, not reluctantly. Always hinting to the secret life she knew nothing about.

  It was sometime during the night, she guessed, wrestling with the sheets and pillow, half dreaming she was walking across the plains, that it had come to her: Adam Lone Eagle was who he was. The problem with their relationship was hers.

  The sound of the ringing phone cut like a knife through her thoughts. She picked up the receiver. Lucy Murphy was here.

  A blur, like that of a child in a funhouse mirror, the small, blond-haired girl was seated on the other side of the beveled-glass doors. Vicky opened the doors and smiled at the girl curled like a snail across from Annie’s desk. She looked up, an eager, frightened expression in her pale blue eyes. “Come in,” Vicky said.