The Spider's Web

by Coel, Margaret

  “Then I get a flash,” she went on, “like I’m back in my normal life, only it’s not normal anymore. There’s a big hole in the middle. Everything’s going on around me, people in and out, the food laid out on the counter, everybody saying they’re sorry, and I’m just stuck in this hole.”

  Marie was at her sister’s side. “Come on, sweetheart,” she said. “I’ll take you to the bedroom. You need to get some sleep. I’m gonna give you one of my sleeping pills.” She started leading Ella along the sofa, past an armchair. “It’s gonna help you,” she said, her voice fading in the hallway.

  Roseanne took hold of her backpack and started to get up. She could feel the energy draining out of her arms and legs, the fatigue settling like a rock inside her. She would crash wherever there was an extra bed.

  “Hold on a minute.” Adams put up a beefy hand, and Roseanne dropped back onto the sofa. “How’d you figure it out?” he said.

  Roseanne didn’t say anything. She threw a glance down the hallway. Ella and Marie had disappeared.

  “Ella doesn’t know what Ned was up to,” the man went on. “I seen the way you was trying to keep it from her. How did you find out? Who told you?”

  Roseanne clasped her arms around the backpack and drew herself in close. “How do you know what Ned was doing?” she managed.

  “He talked to me,” Adams said. “I’m his uncle. He knew I’d help him, give him good advice. He said he wanted out of the burglary ring. He had enough money saved up for his ranch. That’s all he wanted, but Dwayne and Lionel weren’t gonna let him out. They needed him to disable the security systems. Those dumb shits weren’t gonna figure it out, even though he showed them how to do it. They’d probably electrocute themselves.”

  “You think they killed him because he wanted out?”

  “The fed’ll figure it out, sooner or later.”

  “Ella will have to know.” Roseanne closed her eyes, remembering how she had felt when Mervin told her, as if he had driven a fist into her stomach.

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Adams said. “You haven’t said how you found out? The telegraph? People talking about it? How many people know?”

  “Nobody knows,” Roseanne said. She was thinking of Mervin, just a kid. He didn’t need to be dragged in by the fed and asked a lot of questions. Ned had kept him out of it. “I put it together,” she said. “I remembered some things.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Adams said. “Like what?”

  “Nothing important. Boxes that Ned stored in an old barn out on North Fork Road. We went there once.” She could feel herself in the passenger seat of the van, the dusty road unrolling ahead. Ned had made a couple of turns, then they were jolting down a rutted track, equipment banging in the back, an old barn rising out of the plains ahead.

  “Ned made me stay in the van,” she said, “but soon as he opened the doors, I saw the boxes. Dwayne and Lionel showed up and they loaded boxes into their truck and drove off. I didn’t know what was in the boxes, but I figured it wasn’t drugs. Ned wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs. Ned told me it was just some stuff he’d been storing for them. But I’ve been putting things together, and I figure the stuff was stolen. That’s how he was getting money for our ranch.”

  “Old barn, you say? Who else knows about it?”

  Roseanne shrugged against the backpack. “How would I know.”

  “The fed might wanna hear about the barn.”

  “I’m not talking to him,” Roseanne said. “He’ll think I was part of it. I don’t wanna go to jail.”

  Adams didn’t say anything, and Roseanne stood up.

  “Dwayne and Lionel came after you, right?” Adams said, getting to his feet in front of her. “That the reason you don’t have anyplace else to go? You’re hiding from them?”

  Roseanne nodded. “Dwayne was waiting for me after work. He warned me to keep my mouth shut.”

  “I’ll bet he did. Didn’t say what hole they’ve crawled into on the rez, did he?”

  “Why would he tell me?” Roseanne slipped past him and started down the hallway toward the bedroom at the far end. She knew where Dwayne and Lionel were hiding, she realized. God, she had known all along. Adams’s voice followed her: “Nobody’s gonna be at peace around here ’til those bastards get caught.”

  15

  FEWER THAN TWO dozen parishioners occupied the pews this morning, wrinkled, brown faces turned up to the altar, missals and rosary beads gripped in knobby, swollen hands. They sat in the same place every morning, as if the places had been assigned. Mary Hunting, second pew on the left, James White Eagle, last pew on the right, Jonathan HisManyHorses, middle pew behind Josephine Yellowbear. Father John knew them all—the regulars who came to daily Mass, steering old pickups and Chevy sedans around Circle Drive, stopping outside the church.

  “Let us pray for the soul of Ned Windsong,” he said. The heads dipped in front of him. Everyone was thinking about Ned, he knew. Another one of the younger generation gone. All that might have been, the good Ned might have done, the children and grandchildren he might have had—all gone.

  He said the first prayers of the Mass slowly, waiting for the gravelly voices to catch up. Then he lifted the paten, a pottery plate a young woman had made for him when he first came to St. Francis. Her name was Jo Eastman, he remembered; she had died in an accident a few months later. This is my body. Then he lifted the chalice. This is my blood. Shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

  Amen. The word rippled softly around the pews, and Father John felt the familiar sense of peace come over him. This was the heart of the Mass, the heart of his own priesthood. Without this—the faith in the Real Presence, that Jesus was among them—nothing made sense. This was the reason he had become a priest. Walk with me. Walk with my people. Sometimes he wondered if he had actually heard the words when he was struggling with the notion that had come out of nowhere, like a bolt from heaven, that he should become a priest, or whether he had only dreamed them.

  He stepped into the aisle and distributed the consecrated pieces of bread to the elders and grandmothers moving toward him in a solemn line. The morning sun glowed in the stained-glass windows, and thin columns of sunshine lay over the pews. The church was suffused in quiet broken only by the shush of footsteps on the carpet, the sounds of people settling back into the pews, heads bent in prayer. This was his favorite time of the day, when, for a moment, everything seemed whole somehow.

  When the Mass was finished, he walked down the aisle and waited at the door, shaking hands with the old people who filed past. “Who would’ve wanted to kill that boy?” Mary Hunting asked, holding on to his hand. He was surprised at the strength in her fingers. “Nobody deserves to die like a dog.”

  “Don’t worry.” Jonathan HisManyHorses had come up behind and leaned around the old woman. “What gets sent into the world always comes back. Them men that killed Ned are gonna pay a heavy price.”

  Father John gave a little nod of what he hoped looked like affirmation. It was a comforting thought; it might be true. But there were killers who walked around free, never brought to justice. He pushed the thought away. He could see Ned Windsong bounding across the grounds, arm raised: Hey, Father. How’s it going? He didn’t want to think of his homicide left unsolved, a box of evidence in the back of a warehouse.

  He waited until the last pickup had disappeared down the tunnel of cottonwoods toward Seventeen-Mile Road. Then he headed back inside, checked the pews for any items left behind, and hung his vestments in the sacristy closet. Five minutes later he walked across the field of wild grasses moving in the sunshine and let himself into the residence. Walks-On was at the door, wagging his tail, hopping about. “Later,” Father John said, patting the dog’s head. “We’ll play Frisbee later.”

  The dog trailed him down the hall to the kitchen where Elena was scooping oatmeal into a bowl and helped himself to a cup of coffee. Walks-On curled up at his feet when he sat down at the round table. “Bishop Harry already eaten?
” He could hear the man moving about upstairs. They took turns saying daily Mass, but even on the days when it was Father John’s turn, Harry was up early, a thousand plans running through the old man’s head.

  “Good thing somebody around here eats.” Elena set the bowl of oatmeal on the table. She had already sprinkled on brown sugar and some raisins. He reached for the carton of milk and poured it around the edges.

  “You know how I eat everything you put in front of me,” he said. “I’m a grateful man.”

  “When you’re around, you eat,” she said. “The bishop could eat you under the table. That man likes food.” For a moment, he wondered if she appreciated the bishop’s appetite or was going to complain about the extra work. She had looked after the priests at St. Francis Mission for longer than anyone could remember. Part Arapaho and part Cheyenne, sharp-featured and round-faced at the same time, probably in her mid-seventies, but that was a subject Father John never brought up. He couldn’t imagine the place without her.

  Elena plopped down on the chair across from him, and tucked a piece of gray hair into place. “That girl staying in the guesthouse never touched a bite of dinner I brought her last evening. Left the plate on the stoop, never even brought it inside.” She lifted a hand before he could say anything. “I knocked on the door, told her I brought dinner, and she calls out, ‘Just leave it.’ Like I’m the maid. What’s she think this is? Some fancy hotel?”

  Father John took a sip of coffee and tried not to smile at the idea of Elena as the maid. “I guess she didn’t know she was speaking to the boss,” he said. Then he saw the frozen look on her face, the worry in her eyes. “Look, Elena.” He set the mug down. “The girl’s still in shock. She probably wasn’t hungry.”

  “She needs to keep up her strength.” Elena raised her eyes over his head. “Could be more coming at her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was the only one in the house, besides Ned,” she said, bringing her eyes back to his. “Maybe she had something to do with it.”

  Father John took a bite of oatmeal, then another bite. He hoped that wasn’t true. The girl loved Ned. They were going to be married. And yet there was something about her that was not quite whole, as if an invisible fracture ran through her. “She seems very sad,” he said. “It doesn’t mean she had anything to do with Ned’s murder.”

  “He had a real nice girlfriend,” Elena said. “Roseanne Birdwoman. Why’d he ever get mixed up with that white girl?”

  Father John laughed. “You expect me to explain that?”

  She swooped a hand along the table and got to her feet. “Everybody’s wondering the same thing,” she said.

  “When they figure it out, let me know.” He finished the oatmeal and drained the coffee, watching Elena move about the kitchen, wiping the counters, his thoughts on the gossip weighing down the moccasin telegraph, the urge to blame the white girl, the outsider. He felt a stab of pity for the girl. She would be convicted before Gianelli had the killers in custody.

  He thanked Elena for another gourmet breakfast and retraced his steps down the hall, Walks-On clipping behind. Outside he threw the Frisbee a half-dozen times, squinting in the sun as the dog ran through the grass, pivoted on his single hind leg, leaping in the air, and trotted back with the red Frisbee clenched in his jaws, a triumphant look on his face. Across the grounds, at the far side of the administration building, Bishop Harry was swinging his fishing rod, casting into Circle Drive.

  “Gotta go to work,” Father John told the dog. Still he gave the Frisbee another toss before he started across the grounds. The morning sun burned through the back of his shirt and pricked his neck. Walks-On trotted ahead, tossing and catching the Frisbee himself.

  “Morning,” Bishop Harry called, waving the fishing rod like a flag. Father John laughed at the sight of the man in the middle of the plains, a long walk from the river, in a fisherman’s vest with bulging pockets and brown waders, too large for his skinny legs, pulled up to his hips.

  “Caught anything?” Father John called back.

  “Not yet.” The old man reeled in the line and started over. “I have high hopes,” he said. “How’s our guest doing?”

  Father John walked over. “Elena says she’s not eating.”

  The bishop nodded. “I remember a girl who came to the mission in Patna. Pretty little thing, big brown eyes. Scared-looking most the time, expecting her father to find her. She’d been sold in marriage, you see, and she’d run away.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “The father came with a whole phalanx of police. Dragged her away.” He gazed out over the grounds. “I had an old Flintlock somebody had left at the mission. Probably hadn’t been fired in fifty years. Type of weapon people carried when they rode out in the howdahs on top of elephants. Used to shoot lions that tried to scale the elephants. It was of no use against armed policemen. I couldn’t protect her. I try not to imagine what happened to her.”

  Father John took a moment before he said, “I’m not sure we can protect Marcy if the killers find out she’s here.”

  “The police are on her side,” the bishop said.

  Father John gave the bishop a little wave and bounded up the steps to the administration building. The phone was ringing inside. He pushed through the heavy door, cut a diagonal path across the corridor into his office. He leaned across the desk and picked up the receiver. “Father O’Malley,” he said.

  There was no response. He could hear the faint sounds of breathing. “How can I help you?” he said.

  “You don’t know me.” It was a woman’s voice, tentative and trembling. “I’m calling about Ned.”

  He waited for her to go on, but the line went quiet again. “Is this Roseanne?” It was a guess, but he heard the truth of it in the gasp that came down the line.

  “How do you know?” she said.

  “I know you and Ned were once . . .” He hesitated. Ned Windsong had planned to marry Marcy Morrison. “Together,” he said.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  “No.” She seemed to go away, and Father John wondered if she had pressed a button that ended the call. Then she said, “The Sun Dance grounds in Ethete. Can you come there now?”

  He told her he was on the way.

  FATHER JOHN DROVE west on Seventeen-Mile Road, the sun bursting through the rear window, the wind crashing through the open windows. “Salome, komm trink Wein mit mir” blared from the CD next to him. He had left Bishop Harry plodding down the corridor to the back office in his waders, the fishing rod upright in one hand like a spear. “You go along,” the old man had said when he told him there was an emergency call. “I’m reporting for duty.”

  He tapped on the brake pedal, turned onto Yellow Calf Road and drove toward Ethete. The old pickup lumbered up a rise, coughing and sputtering. The Sun Dance grounds lay below, surrounded by golden plains that melted into the blue distances. “Go to the Sun Dance, if you want to know the Arapahos,” Father Peter had told him that first summer at St. Francis. The old pastor had taken pity on him and given him a job when no one else wanted him. “Nobody knows how old the ceremony is,” Father Peter said, “but the people say it has always been part of them. Arapahos come from all over and camp in tipis. It’s like all the people coming home.”

  Father John had driven out to the Sun Dance grounds alone that first summer. He remembered feeling like a grad student again, off to do field research. At the crest of the hill, he had pulled off and gotten out. He felt as if he had stepped into the past. Spread across the grounds below were hundreds of white tipis, like a village in the Old Time. Sounds of children playing and dogs barking flowed up from the camp. A baby was crying. He could imagine warriors preparing for the hunt, women tanning buffalo hides, grinding wild vegetables into the meat and drying it for winter. A whole people going about their lives, unaware of the storm about to break across the plains and change everything. He remembered getti
ng back into the pickup and driving down into the village, feeling humbled before all that was lost.

  He turned into the grounds, stopped on the flat expanse of wild grass and got out. The sun burned down, unforgiving. He walked away from the pickup. Then he saw her, a slight figure with black hair blowing back in the wind, dressed in jeans and a dark tee shirt and white sneakers that flashed in the sunshine. She kept her hands in her jeans pockets. Surprise crossed her face as she came closer. “You the priest?” she said.

  “Father John,” he said, aware of her eyes taking him in, the blue jeans and plaid shirt, the scuffed boots and cowboy hat. “And you’re Roseanne.”

  She nodded. “I hope it’s okay, meeting out here. I didn’t know where else to go. I don’t want anybody seeing me.” She glanced over her shoulder, a hunted look about her. “It’s always quiet here. Sacred grounds, you know. We come here for the Sun Dance. Otherwise, nobody’s here.”

  “What are you afraid of?” he said.

  “Can we walk?” she said, swinging about and starting off. He fell in beside her. “I guess I was hoping the ancestors might help me. Ned was going to dance this year, you know. He said the spirits would give him courage, the Creator would take pity on him. That’s where the Sun Dance Lodge will be placed. The Rabbit Lodge will be right behind it. It’ll be taken down as soon as the Sun Dance Lodge goes up.” She gave a little wave. “The Rabbit Men have already completed their vows to dance the Sun Dance, and they help the Four Old Men run the dance.” She stopped and turned toward him, a searching look in her expression. “Do you understand?”

  “The Four Old Men are the ceremonial elders. They preserve the traditions.”

  Roseanne nodded and started off again. “The ceremonial people pray for three days in the Rabbit Lodge before the Sun Dance starts. They pray for the Creator’s blessings. On the fourth day, the center pole that the dancers dance around is brought to the grounds. It’s a special time,” she said. “Traffic is stopped on the roads outside the grounds, and everything becomes very quiet. It’s like the whole world goes silent. The dogs don’t bark and children stop crying; it’s amazing. I remember how much I loved watching the men bring in the center pole. Then volunteers start to erect the Sun Dance Lodge. Over here,” she said, picking up her stride and waving him on. “Have you ever seen that?”