Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery

by Coel, Margaret

  He had focused on the foreman, Carlos. He and the cowboy Lane Preston had been at the ranch the longest, three months now, but Lane had proved another stone wall. Reg made opportunities to talk with Carlos, riding over to where the cowboy was working, offering him a cigarette. Taking a break, smoking together. Carlos wasn’t much for words. He had never heard of Josh Barker, he’d said, until Reg came around asking about him. Boss lady says nobody by that name ever hired here, so lay off. She’s got her hands full. Then Carlos had let something slip: He had heard that Dennis Carey had the temper of a grizzly. You didn’t want to cross him.

  What if Josh had crossed him? Made him angry for some reason? Reg let the story play out: They had gotten into an argument, and Josh was never one to back down if he thought he was right. The argument turned physical. Josh threw a few punches. He knew he had to clear out, so he grabbed his gear, threw it into the back of his pickup, and drove off.

  It made sense, except that nobody had heard from Josh.

  Reg walked over to the barbed-wire fence. The pasture lit by stars, the buffalo swaying like shadows on a lake. Some were lying down, great brown hulks that broke the flat expanse of the ground. He couldn’t make out Spirit. Probably huddled in the trees with her mother.

  He supposed he should make another stab at sleep. The bell would ring at five. Forty-five minutes to wash up and eat breakfast at the long table. The morning air cool, the sun glowing in the eastern sky, faint and drained of warmth. The work would begin. Hardly a moment to breathe, unless he took a moment and offered a cigarette to some other cowboy. Probing, asking what he had heard, what he had forgotten.

  He turned back to the bunkhouse, but it was the storage shed that grabbed his attention. The rough plank building half the size of the barn, an important part of the ranch. He had never seen anyone go inside. He knew the bunkhouse, and he had been inside the barn, the horse stalls, the smell of manure and dried hay, the sounds of horses stepping about, the swishing of their tails. Like a hundred barns and bunkhouses across the west. But storage sheds told different stories.

  He picked his way across the gravel and clumps of brush to dampen the sound of his footsteps. A rusty-looking lock hung off the metal bar on the door. He pulled the ring of keys out of his jeans pocket and thumbed through until he came to the small, metal flashlight. He couldn’t remember when he had last used the flashlight. He held his breath and pushed the button on the end. Dead. He pumped the button a few times until, finally, a small light burst on. By maneuvering the lock sideways he was able to shine the light directly on it. A key lock. He was in luck. He clicked through the keys again until he found a metal fingernail file, which he inserted into the keyhole. He jiggled the file up and down, back and forth, then jiggled again. Finally, he heard the faintest clicking noise. He snapped the lock loose.

  Reg slipped the lock out of the bar and shoved at the door. It squealed like an animal caught in a trap. He waited, glancing about, expecting a cowboy—Carlos—to roar out of the bunkhouse. After a moment, he shoved again until there was enough space to slide inside. He pushed the door shut behind him. The beam from the tiny flashlight lit up the darkness. Tack, blankets, saddles stored everywhere, hanging off hooks on the walls, sitting on shelves. Barrels and metal troughs with water marks on the inside, shovels and tools and wood toolboxes. He flipped open the top of one of the boxes and shone the light around the screwdrivers, hammers, saws.

  Then he stepped farther into the shed and shone the light across the tack, harnesses, and bridles. On one of the shelves were a number of saddles, piled together so that it was hard to tell how many there were. He played the light over them. Worn looking and yet—useful. Spare saddles, waiting in case one of the hands needed a different ride. The heavy leather, browns and tans, gleamed in the light. He ran his fingers along the leather edges, hard and soft at the same time. And here was something under the flap on a tan saddle wedged between two chocolate brown saddles. A mark etched into the leather in black, like a brand. Inside a circle, the initials JB.

  He kept the light on the mark. The saddle Josh had won in a rodeo in Sedona when he was seventeen. Getting started on the circuit and already one of the best bronco riders. Josh loved that saddle. It meant something. It meant everything. A sign, a reminder of who he was and what he was good at. Josh Barker would never have left his saddle.

  From outside came the scraping sound of footsteps on the gravel. Reg shut off the flashlight and held his breath. The footsteps came closer, then stopped. He could feel the presence of someone on the other side of the door, hear the rapid breathing. He had to get ahold of himself, not let his imagination get the better of him. One of the cowboys on duty was probably checking that all the buildings were locked for the night. He stayed frozen in place, willing the footsteps to move on.

  But they didn’t move on. A sharp clinking sound cut through the quiet. He could almost see the cowboy pulling at the lock, feel the cool metal against the man’s palm. Feel the shock that the lock was open. There was a loud sigh, an expulsion of breath, or was he imagining it? Another clinking noise, but this was definitive as the lock was shoved back into place. The footsteps crunched the gravel again, moving on.

  He couldn’t believe it. He was locked inside the shed. He could be here for days before someone came looking for a tool or saddle. He thought about banging against the door, shouting, bringing the cowboy back. But what would he say? That he couldn’t sleep, so he had picked the lock and gone snooping in the storage shed? That he had found Josh’s saddle?

  He had no intention of explaining to any cowboy. This was a matter for Sheila Carey.

  He turned on the flashlight and followed the beam to the tool chest. The lid creaked when he pushed it back. He waited a moment, half expecting the cowboy to return. Nothing, apart from the wind sighing through the cracks in the old building. He ran the light over the hammers and screwdrivers and handsaws until he glimpsed the long, black metal handle of a crowbar. He laid the other tools on the dirt, lifted out the crowbar, and went back to the door. He set the flashlight upright on the ground so that the light flared over the small, square metal plate on the frame, screws tightened and rusted in place. He poked at the edge of the plate until he managed to insert the tip between the metal and the wood frame. He pulled hard, but the crowbar slipped and bounced upward, swiping at his ear. He went back to trying to work the metal plate loose. Welded into the wood, he thought, it had been attached so long.

  Finally the plate popped off. He felt a sense of release as the identical plate outside let go. That plate, he knew, held the U-shaped metal hasp that was secured by the lock. He rammed his shoulder against the edge of the door. It groaned, then settled back into place, and he rammed it again. Pain cascaded down his arm, and for a moment he thought he had dislocated his shoulder. He rubbed at it and rammed again. The door creaked open. A sliver of starlight burst into the shed.

  Reg pushed the door open about a foot until he could see the area around the barn and bunkhouse. No one about. He slipped outside, closed the door behind him, and went about trying to screw the metal plate back into place. Finally the shed looked as if it were still locked.

  He glanced around again, not trusting that no one was there—Carlos, Lane, one of the other cowboys could appear at any moment. The night was quiet, the stars burning overhead. From out in the pasture, as if from a far distance, came the gentle shuffling sounds of the buffalo. Josh had been here. Stood on this ground, rode in the pasture, checked the fences, stood on the flatbed and forked hay to the buffalo. He had been a cowboy here; his saddle was in the shed. But where was his truck? He hadn’t seen any abandoned trucks on the ranch.

  He crossed the hard, uneven space between the outbuildings and the back of the house. The plastic tablecloth rustled in the stirred currents of air. He walked down the side of the house, something tightening inside him, hard and focused. He understood now, as if he had absorbed the truth in the s
hed, running a finger over the carved initials. JB. But he wanted to hear the truth from Sheila Carey herself. She would tell him what happened on this ranch. She would tell him, or he would kill her. Just as somebody on this ranch had killed Josh.

  He mounted the porch steps, not caring about the loud thud of his boots, wanting to awaken the woman, to frighten her. He banged on the door with his fist, again and again. The reverberation came back to him like the sounds of a horse stomping the ground. The wooden door shook under his fist.

  Sheila Carey wasn’t home. He should have known. The black truck was gone, and he hadn’t seen her since this afternoon. He had gone to talk to her earlier this evening about ordering another delivery of hay, but she had waved him away. Not now, she’d said. Something else on her mind, something more important. Do your job. Let me worry about running the ranch.

  From behind came the roar of an engine, the thump of tires on hard earth. Reg swung around. Headlights beamed in the darkness as a man in a cowboy hat pushed up the gate. Then the vehicle came bouncing along the ruts. A smaller vehicle than the truck; he could see that. It swayed from side to side, going too fast for the road. He went down the steps and walked toward the headlights.

  The pickup stopped across from him. The doors flew open. A tall man in a cowboy hat unwound from behind the steering wheel, and a smaller figure—a woman—jumped out of the passenger side. They came across the road, side by side, like policemen, he thought, bringing bad news. Sheila Carey. Something had already happened to her!

  “Reg!” It was the woman’s voice, and in the dim light from the mixture of headlights and starlight, he recognized the Indian lawyer. “Are you okay?”

  The man with her—only a few feet away now—was the priest he had talked to at the mission. “What are you doing here?”

  “You could be in danger,” Father John said. “Get in the pickup, and let’s get out of here. Somebody tried to shoot us tonight, and somebody killed Steve Mantle at his office. We think others have been killed.”

  “Josh.” Reg heard the flat and incontrovertible acceptance in his voice. “I found his saddle in the shed. Josh would never have left his saddle.”

  “Please,” the lawyer lady said. There was a breathless intensity in the way she spoke, as if she were running from the shooter. “The cops are on the way. They’ll investigate what’s going on here. You need to come with us now.” She swung around and stared out at the narrow road. “Here they are.”

  “It’s not the cops,” Reg said. He knew by the way the truck drove straight ahead, as if Sheila Carey knew by heart the best route through the washboard ruts.

  33

  FATHER JOHN URGED Vicky toward the pickup. “Come on!” he called over one shoulder to Reg.

  “I’m not going.”

  He looked back at the cowboy outlined in the dim light, a shadow plastered against the dark earth. The truck skidded to a stop behind the pickup and blocked the road. He stepped between Vicky and the woman in the cowboy hat, who swung both feet out of the cab and dropped to the ground with the agility of a rodeo rider jumping off a bronco.

  “What’s this?” Sheila Carey threw a glance at Father John and Vicky, then glared at Reg. “You got up a welcoming party?”

  “Time for answers.” Reg’s voce was low and steady and filled with menace.

  “Take it easy,” Father John said, not taking his eyes from the woman. The cowboy hat, the short figure in the bulky jacket, the way her shoulders propelled her forward. Not long ago she had tried to run them into the ditch. She had intended to kill them. Before that, she had shot Steve Mantle.

  Vicky had moved up alongside him. In the way she kept her eyes fixed on the woman, he knew that she knew the truth.

  “Get off my ranch, all of you. Go back to wherever you came from.” Sheila Carey did a half turn and brushed past the cowboy. “I could shoot you for trespassing.”

  “Is that what you did to Josh? Shot him?”

  The woman halted, as if she had been pulled up by a rope. She took her time turning back. “You’re crazy.”

  “I found Josh’s saddle,” Reg said. “Who killed him? Your husband? Is that what he did? Shot the hands instead of paying them?”

  “Get out of here.” Sheila Carey folded herself into a crouch, shoulders pulled together, head thrust forward, like a buffalo ready to charge.

  “What about the other missing cowboys?” Vicky said. “Did you shoot them? Where did you bury them? Out behind the barn where you buried your husband’s ashes?”

  Sheila took a long moment, her gaze fixed on the darkness that spread over the pasture behind them, a mixture of thoughts moving through her face, as if she were weighing which one to settle on. The dim silvery starlight glowed in the night; the edges of the pickup’s headlights played over the ground. “You don’t know anything,” she said finally, her voice laced with panic. The light flashed in her eyes—something wild in her eyes. “Dennis did what he had to do. You don’t understand. This is all we had, this ranch. We sank everything into this ranch, all our hopes and dreams. All those cowboys wanted was money. Money. Money. Money. They were all the same. Threatened to take us to court. Take the ranch away.”

  “My God,” Father John said under his breath. He could hear the breathless voice—the agony—of the man in the confessional. I committed murder . . . I had no choice. Dennis Carey. He had come to the mission twice, a man with something on his mind, stumbling around the words, unable to bring them forth. He had come a third time, and in the dim solitude of the confessional, he had blurted out the words. How many times had he committed murder by then? What was it that had finally driven him to the confessional?

  “So it was your husband who shot the cowboys,” he said. “It weighed on his conscience.”

  “Please!” Sheila Carey threw out both hands. “Spare me your psychobabble. Dennis couldn’t shut up. Kept feeling the need to talk about it, saying he needed forgiveness. Jesus, he was going to blow up everything we worked for. Destroy the ranch, his own dreams, like they were nothing.”

  “The guilt was tearing him apart,” Father John said. “He came to the mission wanting to talk about it. You were afraid he’d go to the police, confess everything.”

  “Shut up! Shut up!”

  “You shot your husband,” Vicky said. A controlled voice, calm, Father John thought, but he knew it was like a heavy blanket she pulled over her to cover the shock and fear. “You tried to kill us tonight. You killed Steve Mantle and stole his computer. Why? To destroy the employment records? A lot of folks around here knew the cowboys who worked on the ranch.”

  “I keep my own records. I could deny any cowboys worked here. Without Mantle’s records, what would the police have? Cowboys bragging about their jobs? Bar gossip.”

  “What about us, Sheila? You tried to kill us tonight. We were asking too many questions, getting too close to the answers, isn’t that right?”

  Reg twisted his shoulders about, as if he were trying to break out of a nightmare. “What about me? Coming around here, asking questions. You put me next on your list?”

  A look of uncontrolled panic glinted in the woman’s eyes. Father John wasn’t sure where the gun that materialized in her hand had come from. What pocket had she pulled it out of? Which folds in the bulky jacket? He realized she’d probably had her hand on the gun when she descended from the truck.

  Vicky gasped.

  “Look, Sheila,” Father John said, trying to ignore the gun—the silvery metal with the dark shadows and the enormous black hole—as if they were in his office, talking, exploring options, reaching for an understanding. “The BIA police will be here any minute.” He hoped that was true. “They will excavate the depressions in the field where you buried your husband’s ashes. It’s over now. You don’t want to kill anyone else.”

  She was holding the gun in both hands, knees bent in the shooter’s stanc
e, the wildness still in her eyes. “I’ll tell you what we are going to do. We are going to walk to the barn. I keep a shovel outside in case I need it. We will get the shovel and walk over to the . . .” She hesitated and, for a moment, Father John thought she might crumble, fall to the ground. “Cemetery,” she said. “That’s what Dennis called it. The cemetery. This ranch was all we had. No one was going to take it from us. Soon as we hired on the first cowboys, we knew they were going to make trouble if they didn’t get their pay. And how were we supposed to pay them? Nothing but work on this place, and very little money trickling in. You know what happened? Some fool Indians took a shot at the cowboys.” She tossed her head and gave a sharp crack of laughter. “We figured they’d up and leave. What idiot wouldn’t take off after getting shot at? But they didn’t leave. Threatened to report us to the police if we didn’t pay up. That’s when we figured out how to make them disappear so they couldn’t cause us any trouble, and people would think they’d been scared off.”

  The woman seemed to be bearing down, gripping the gun harder. “Dennis was smart,” she said. “He figured everything out. Hire white guys so the Indians will keep shooting. Don’t hire anybody from around here. We didn’t want girlfriends snooping around after they disappeared. It worked perfectly.” Her eyes were dark marbles, unblinking, unmoving, staring at an image inside her head. “You understand, don’t you? We had to save the ranch. Dennis wanted that more than anything. He just couldn’t take it—he couldn’t take what we had to do.”

  She seemed to come back from wherever she had drifted. “Walk!” she said. “Don’t think you are smarter than this gun. I can shoot you here and drag your bodies to the cemetery.”

  “Drop the gun, Mrs. C.” Carlos strolled into the stream of headlights. He was gripping a rifle. “Drop it, I said!” His voice sounded ragged and harsh.

  Sheila Carey looked stunned and confused, as if she had lost her way down a familiar path. She didn’t move.