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  THE DREAM STALKER

  “[D]eft storytelling and vivid characterizations . . . Coel’s writing is as clean and sharp as surgical instruments, her characters complex and believable, her storytelling quick and spare.”

  —The Gazette (Colorado Springs, CO)

  “A fine addition to a successful series.”

  —Library Journal

  “Coel weaves deeply human conflicts into her characters’ lives . . . Critics who have called Coel a ‘female Hillerman’ are right on the mark. Her breezy, fast-paced style and grasp of cultural details make The Dream Stalker a book that will keep you reading until late at night.”

  —Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)

  “Murder, romance, a nuclear storage facility and Indian lore blend appealingly in this third mystery . . . The nicely drawn Wyoming backdrop, capable plotting and engaging characters all add up to another coup for Coel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Margaret Coel’s

  THE GHOST WALKER

  “Margaret Coel guides us mystery lovers on another of her gripping tours of evil among the Wind River Arapahos.”

  —Tony Hillerman

  “Coel is a vivid voice for the West, its struggles to retain its past and at the same time enjoy the fruits of the future.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  “There is something so real, so good about the setting and the people in The Ghost Walker.”

  —Elaine Long, award-winning author of Jenny’s Mountain and Bittersweet Country

  “A tautly written, compelling mystery, grounded in and sympathetic to the Arapaho culture.”

  —Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

  “A corking good read . . . Coel’s Catholic Irish Jesuit priest and his Arapaho friends and neighbors, each with their individual worldviews and sensibilities, make for interesting contrasts in this excellent mystery that focuses on the strange place Native Americans occupy in their own land. An outstanding entry in a superior series.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “Engaging . . . Coel’s series in the Hillerman tradition finds a space where Jesuits and Native Americans can meet in a culture of common decency.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Sharp writing and poignant characterizations.”

  —Affaire de Coeur

  “The writing has grown smooth in a way that makes it clear that Margaret Coel and Father John O’Malley will both be around for a long time to come.”

  —Mostly Murder

  Praise for Margaret Coel’s national bestselling debut,

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  “Margaret Coel’s account of dastardly deeds among the Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation shouldn’t be missed by anyone interested in either new trends in mystery writing or contemporary American Indian culture. She’s a master at both.”

  —Tony Hillerman

  “The best parts of The Eagle Catcher are Coel’s portrayal of the dual cultures that exist uneasily on the reservation and an uncanny sense of dialogue that make her characters ring true. Coel merges her grasp of history with the mystery genre. The result is so successful, you wonder what took her so long!”

  —Denver Post

  “[I]nsightful commentary about Arapaho culture, well-drawn characters and a lively pace.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “The Eagle Catcher’s Native American theme will inspire comparisons to the work of Tony Hillerman, but its insights into the Arapaho way of life in our century are unique to this form.”

  —Loren D. Estleman, author of Edsel and City of Windows

  “Welcome Margaret Coel to the ranks of esteemed western mystery writers such as Hillerman, Hager, and Prowell. The Eagle Catcher is not only an alluring fresh mystery told with the authoritative voice of an historian, it is also a thoughtful testimony to the clash of cultures that endures in the West.”

  —Stephen White, author of Higher Authority and Private Practices

  “Intense and fascinating . . . Coel has gifted us with a western mystery full of characters we long to know better and a Wyoming setting that takes our breath away.”

  —Earlene Fowler, author of Dove in the Window and Goose in the Pond

  “The Eagle Catcher mines the Arapahos’ rich history and lore to stake out Coel’s territory among the growing body of western literature.”

  —Associated Press

  “The Eagle Catcher is a beautifully plotted novel with tension that builds with the speed of a stone rolling down a hill.”

  —Ann Ripley, author of Death of a Garden Pest

  “One can only hope that this is the beginning of a long and shining career for both Margaret Coel and Father John.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “A first rate mystery.”

  —Jean Hager, author of the Mitch Bushyhead and Molly Bearpaw Cherokee mysteries

  “The story begins at once and drives straight through. The theme is handled with a wonderfully deft hand.”

  —John Dunning, author of Booked to Die

  “Coel’s writing raises The Eagle Catcher to a level that’s rare in a first piece of work.”

  —Colorado Daily

  “A rousing mystery.”

  —Rocky Mountain News

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Coel

  Catherine McLeod Mysteries

  BLOOD MEMORY

  THE PERFECT SUSPECT

  Wind River Mysteries

  THE EAGLE CATCHER

  THE GHOST WALKER

  THE DREAM STALKER

  THE STORY TELLER

  THE LOST BIRD

  THE SPIRIT WOMAN

  THE THUNDER KEEPER

  THE SHADOW DANCER

  KILLING RAVEN

  WIFE OF MOON

  EYE OF THE WOLF

  THE DROWNING MAN

  THE GIRL WITH BRAIDED HAIR

  THE SILENT SPIRIT

  THE SPIDER’S WEB

  BUFFALO BILL’S DEAD NOW

  KILLING CUSTER

  NIGHT OF THE WHITE BUFFALO

  Anthologies

  WATCHING EAGLES SOAR

  The

  Dream Stalker

  Margaret Coel

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  THE DREAM STALKER

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 1997 by Margaret Coel.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-66364-6

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime hardcover edition / October 1997

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 1998

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For George, Kristie, Lisa, and Tom

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to Ron Ross and Jo Clark of the Western Governors Association for pointing the way through the intricacies of interim nuclear waste storage facilities;

  to Dr. Vi
rginia Sutter of the Arapaho tribe for sharing with me much invaluable insight into her culture;

  to the Rev. Anthony Short, S.J., for continuing to offer such good advice and encouragement;

  to Carl Schneider, Maura Schneider, Michelle Sirini, and John Dix, baseball aficionados, for looking over my shoulder in the baseball scenes;

  to Deborah Haws for teaching me much about horses and their ways;

  to Karen Gilleland, Ann Ripley, Sybil Downing, and Dr. Carol Irwin, for reading parts or all of this manuscript and suggesting the ways to improve it;

  to Jane Jordan Browne of Multimedia Product Development for believing in me;

  and to Judith Palais of Berkley Publishing for guiding me with such a deft hand.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for the Wind River Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Margaret Coel

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Special Excerpt from The Story Teller

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  1

  Rain pattered against the window and broke through the quiet in the study. Father John Aloysius O’Malley closed the thick, red-bound report and glanced at the clock on his desk. A little after midnight. The evening had gotten away from him. He switched off the lamp and, out in the front hall, scooped the phone from the small table before starting up the dark stairs of the priests’ residence. The long cord trailed behind. He always carried the telephone to the second-floor landing when he went to bed, in case someone needed a priest in the middle of the night.

  The phone began to screech, sending a kind of electric shock through his hand. He felt his stomach muscles tighten as he sank onto a stair and picked up the receiver. “St. Francis Mission.” He heard the edge in his voice.

  A hollow sound came over the line, then a whooshing noise, like a gust of wind. Father John could sense the human presence. “Hello?” he said. The tone was meant to be encouraging.

  “This the priest?” A man’s voice, raspy.

  “Father O’Malley. Do you need help?” He never got used to the late-night calls, although he’d been at St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation now for seven years, the last three as the Jesuit pastor. He didn’t want to climb back into the old Toyota pickup tonight. He’d spent the day driving through the rain across the southern half of the reservation where the Arapahos lived. The Shoshones lived up north, outside of his parish. He’d visited a few of his elderly parishioners—the lovely old people, as he thought of them. And he’d stopped at Esther Willow’s place to talk about the plans for her daughter’s wedding next month at St. Francis. Then he’d driven to Ethete and had lunch with Bobby Red Feather. Bobby was having a tough time since Mary left.

  Two hundred miles or more he’d probably put on the pickup. He didn’t know the mileage for certain; the odometer had conked out a few months ago. But he didn’t need an odometer to tell him that every ranch, meeting hall, gas station, convenience store, every cluster of houses on the reservation stood miles apart from everything else. Wherever the caller was, it was bound to be a long drive in the rain.

  “Do you need help?” Father John asked again.

  The man coughed, a muffled, distant sound, as if he’d laid a hand over the mouthpiece. “You could say I might be needin’ some help,” he said before the coughing came again. After a moment he continued: “I keep seein’ it in my dreams. It keeps comin’ back on me. I seen the old man get hit in the head with the shovel. Today’s the day. Can’t keep it inside no more.”

  “Who is this?” Father John was on his feet now, staring down the shadowy stairway, past the rain-blurred window next to the front door, trying to imagine the face of the man on the other end of the line. He was either drunk or sick—Father John wasn’t sure which—but the caller was Indian. He could tell by the familiar flatness in the voice, as if the man were speaking into the wind.

  “My ride’s drove up. You come to Johnstown Road. A mile past the big curve, you’ll see the old cabin I’m stayin’ at.”

  “Wait. Can’t you come to the mission?”

  The hacking started again, strained and helpless. After a moment he said, “You come to the cabin. I’m dyin’.”

  The click gave way to the monotonous electronic buzz, the voice of a machine. Father John left the phone on the stair and hurried down to the front hall. In the gloomy darkness, he pulled on his khaki jacket and set his cowboy hat on his head. He stepped into the study and grabbed the small leather bag in the top drawer of the desk. He might need his sacred oils tonight, he thought, slipping the bag past his jacket into his shirt pocket, next to his heart.

  As he came back into the hall, he heard the muffled scrape of footsteps. A dark figure towered in the shadows at the top of the stairs—his new assistant, Father Geoff Schneider. “What’s going on?” The other priest’s voice was sleep-filled.

  “I have to go out.”

  “Hospital emergency?”

  “Just somebody needing a priest.” Father John had a sense he should hurry; there wasn’t time for explanations.

  His assistant started down the stairs, a dark robe cinched at his waist, pajama legs flapping at his ankles. His feet were bare. “At this hour? Who is it?”

  “He didn’t say.” Father John yanked open the front door; the metal knob felt cool in his hand. The smell of moist earth floated into the entry. Rain drummed on the concrete stoop, a steady rhythm like that of horses racing across the hard ground.

  “Wait a minute. Where are you going?”

  “Johnstown Road.” Father John pulled the brim of his hat low on his forehead as he ducked outside. He was aware of his assistant in the doorway behind him.

  “Are you nuts? Going all the way out to Johnstown Road at midnight to meet some anonymous caller?”

  “He said he’s dying.” Father John started down the sidewalk. He felt as if the caller himself were pulling him forward. Specks of moonlight danced in the rain, like sand blowing in the wind.

  “He should’ve called 911!” the other priest hollered.

  “He called a priest.”

  “Wait, I’ll go with you.”

  “There isn’t time!” Father John shouted into the rain as he slid inside the Toyota pickup parked where the gravel of Circle Drive butted against the soggy grass. He stabbed the key into the ignition. The engine groaned and fluttered into silence.

  “Come on,” he muttered, stomping on the gas pedal. The sense of urgency was like a physical presence beside him.

  Finally the engine flared into life. Rain plunked on the roof, washed down the windshield. The wipers began carving out blurred half circles. He threw the gear into drive and wheeled past the buildings of St. Francis Mission: the old stone schoolhouse; the yellow administration building; Eagle Hall and the guest house; the new school; the baseball field, glistening like a black lake; the white church, its bell tower silver-blurred in the rain. It was the first Monday in May, the Moon When the Ponies Shed Their Shaggy Hair.

  He turned left onto Se
venteen-Mile Road, keeping the gas pedal to the floor as he passed two cars, the sense of urgency like a cold wind at his back. There was more traffic than he’d expected at this time of night. He slowed behind a 4×4 and waited for a line of oncoming vehicles before swinging again into the left lane. The Toyota vibrated around him. Past the 4×4, he pressed harder on the accelerator—a useless gesture. The Toyota was already wide open.

  Keeping his eyes on the road, he pulled one of his opera tapes out of the glove compartment and slipped it into the cassette player wedged on the seat beside him. The Toyota had never been equipped with a tape player, and the radio had conked out five years ago. He didn’t care. He preferred the company of opera. The opening notes of the overture to Faust filled the cab. Music was what he wanted, to sort his thoughts by, to assuage the uneasiness inside him.

  The call could be some kind of ruse. He’d heard enough confessions, counseled enough people—he knew what people were capable of doing. Maybe he’d been set up for robbery. The idea struck him as so ridiculous he had to stifle a laugh. He had a few dollars and some coins in the pocket of his blue jeans. Nobody would rob a priest from an Indian mission. Nobody who thinks straight. But drunks didn’t think straight, he knew. When he was drinking, that was when he’d thought he made the most sense.

  He turned north onto Highway 132, weaving past the traffic, pulling back into his own lane seconds ahead of oncoming vehicles. Another mile, and he let up on the gas and made a hard right turn, sending the pickup into a skid onto Johnstown Road. He’d left the traffic. Ahead was only the narrow gravel road caught in the headlights and the rainy darkness beyond. He passed an occasional clump of cottonwoods, an occasional oil pump—black shadows looming alongside the road.

  Suddenly headlights flashed out of the darkness ahead and bore down on him. He jerked the steering wheel to the right, squinting to keep in view the edge of the barrow pit that ran like a ditch alongside the road. A dark truck passed, pelting the Toyota with wet gravel.

  As he rounded a curve, he slowed down, scanning the darkness for a sign of the cabin. A mile past the big curve—he could still hear the caller’s raspy voice. He guessed he’d gone farther than a mile and was about to turn around when he saw the black hulk standing twenty feet back from the road ahead. He hit the brakes and stopped at an angle to the ditch. The headlights washed over a log cabin huddled close to the ground, its tin roof shiny in the rain. It looked deserted; there were no vehicles in sight. He found it hard to believe this was the cabin, but it was the only structure he’d seen on Johnstown Road.