The Shadow Dancer (A Wind River Reservation Myste) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  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

  Praise for Margaret Coel’s national bestselling series ...

  THE THUNDER KEEPER

  “Coel has obvious respect for the land and people who populate it . . . She creates dense and compelling characters in complex stories to entertain her loyal fans.”—The Denver Post

  “Coel gets the atmosphere just right. She is on original and interesting ground.”—Publishers Weekly

  THE SPIRIT WOMAN

  “Intriguing Arapaho and Shoshone history and realistic treatment of contemporary Native American issues make this cozy a winner.”

  —Library Journal

  “A well-drawn tale. Margaret Coel changes the direction of the series so that there is an added freshness that doesn’t lose the essence of the Wind River mysteries.”—Midwest Book Review

  “Gives the readers a rare look into the lives of the Arapahos, and they can feel the pain of a nation forced to live by the white man’s standards. This is one of those books that keeps the blood pumping. Tight tension keeps it moving at an accelerating pace.”

  —Rendezvous

  THE LOST BIRD

  “A truly touching story . . . the whole book is infused with the spirit of the Arapaho community.”—Sarah Smith, author of The Knowledge of Water

  “Among the best mysteries of the year. She writes vividly about western landscapes and Native American customs . . . Coel is clearly at the top of her game.”—Booklist (starred review)

  “An engrossing mystery and a great read. Margaret Coel manages to have enjoyable characters and a super mystery—not an easy task.”—The Literary Times

  THE STORY TELLER

  “Vivid western landscapes, intriguing history, compelling characters, and quick, tight writing that is a joy to read . . . Holden is a unique mix of the modern and the traditional. One of the best of the year.”—Booklist (starred review)

  “All the strengths of this fine series are present here: Coel’s knowledge of and respect for western history, a solid mystery with a credible premise in Indian lore, and the struggles of Holden and O’Malley with their powerful, but so far unconsummated, attraction to each other.”—Publishers Weekly

  THE DREAM STALKER

  “Seamless storytelling by someone who’s obviously been there.”

  —J. A. Jance

  “Critics who have called Coel a ‘female Hillerman’ are right on the mark.”—The Boulder Daily Camera

  “Murder, romance, a nuclear storage facility, and Indian lore blend appealingly in this third mystery . . . Another coup for Coel.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  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.”

  —The Dallas Morning News

  “A corking good read . . . Excellent . . . An outstanding entry in a superior series.”—Booklist (starred review)

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

  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

  “An uncanny sense of dialogue . . . Coel merges her grasp of history with the mystery genre. The result is so successful, you wonder what took her so long.”—The Denver Post

  “Insightful commentary about Arapaho culture, well-drawn characters, and a lively pace.”—Publishers Weekly

  If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  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.

  THE SHADOW DANCER

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

  Copyright © 2002 by Margaret Coel.

  All rights reserved.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without

  permission.The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the

  Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is

  illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic

  editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of

  copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-4406-2774-3

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published

  by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME

  CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Acknowledgments

  Many people read all or parts of this manuscript and contributed the expertise and good judgment to make the story much better than it otherwise would have been. I am very grateful. My sincere thanks to:

  Thomas D. Lustig, senior staff attorney, Rocky Mountain Natural Resources Clinic, National Wildlife Federation; Thomas Dougherty, senior advisor, office of the president, National Wildlife Federation; Mike Pease, bomb disposal officer, Boulder Police Department; J. David Love, Ph.D., retired research geologist, U.S. Geological Survey, and Jane Love, friends and excellent advisers, as are Swede Johnson, attorney, and Elizabeth Girard, M.D.; Elaine Long, author of Jennie’s Mountain, a friend and writer whom I’ve long admired; Arthur Long, expert on many subjects, including dynamite; John Dix, my nephew and the best baseball player I know; Carl Starkloff, S.J., and Anthony Short, S.J., valued friends and consultants, both formerly of St. Stephen’s Mission on the Wind River Reservation; Beve
rly Carrigan and Carl Schneider, also valued friends and sharp-eyed readers; Karen Gilleland, another excellent friend and gifted writer; Virginia Sutter, Ph.D., member of the Arapaho tribe, long-time friend who has taught me much about the Arapaho Way; and Kristin Coel Henderson, my daughter, and George Coel, my husband, the best consultants and toughest critics of all.

  Dedicated to

  Eleanor Margaret Henderson

  Father, the morning star!

  Look on us. We have danced until daybreak.

  We have danced until daybreak.

  Take pity on us.

  Take pity on us.

  Hi ’i ’i ’!

  Stand ready!

  Stand ready!

  So that when the crow calls you,

  You will see him.

  You will see him.

  —ARAPAHO SONGS

  1

  My relations, stand ready, stand ready. I bring you the words of the father himself, Hesuna’nin. The father sent the lightning that cleansed and burned me into the ground. He took me to the shadow land, where I saw the ancestors: Black Coal, Sharp Nose, Yellow Calf, Little Raven, Medicine Man, Left Hand. I saw the beautiful women standing tall and proud and the children running and playing with hoops and sticks. The father told me to tell you that the new world is coming. Already crow is flying on the clouds and bringing the ancestors back to us. They come with the mighty herds of buffalo, deer, and elk. Once again the white lodges will spread beneath the cottonwoods. Green grass will cover the plains. There will be wild fruits and vegetables, and the rivers will run clean. The father will keep his promise to us. The new world will slide over the old, like the right hand over the left.

  From a half-mile down the road, Father John O’Malley could see the small, white house reflecting the late afternoon light, stark and solitary in the empty expanse of the plains. The second act of Faust, “De l’enfer qui vient,” rose from the tape player beside him and mixed with the sound of the wind over the half-opened windows of the Toyota pickup. It was the last Monday in May, the Moon When the Ponies Shed Their Shaggy Hair, in the Arapaho way of marking the passing time. For a week, the temperature had been setting record highs.

  He turned into the bare-dirt yard and stopped next to the concrete stoop at the front door. The curtains in the front windows were half-closed against the sun, making the house seem inviting, a shady oasis. A twenty-year-old sedan with the rear bumper bent at one end was parked next to the house. He let the tape play a moment, then hit the off switch and got out, giving the door a hard slam that sounded like a rifle shot in the quiet. Anybody inside would know he’d arrived.

  He leaned against the pickup and pulled his cowboy hat down against the sun. It was not polite to bang on the door and call attention to yourself. If someone wanted to see you, he’d come out and say so. Beyond the house, the plains ran into the dun-colored foothills of the Wind River mountains. The white peaks lay along the blue sky like a serrated knife.

  In his eight years at St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation, Father John had come to love the quiet vastness and the way the plains revealed their secrets when you happened upon them unexpectedly—the swell of a bluff, the cut of an arroyo, the patches of sagebrush and pink, blue, and yellow wildflowers. So different from Boston, where he’d spent most of his forty-eight years. He was an Irishman, from a long line of Boston Irish with the same red hair and blue eyes and white skin that always looked flushed in the sun.

  He’d been a drunk in Boston, alone in his study, grading papers for his American history classes at the Jesuit prep school, sipping whiskey—a harmless relaxation after the long day, he’d told himself. He’d found so many ways, dozens of ways, to hide from the truth there, until the day the Superior had confronted him. He’d spent a year in Grace House, and afterward—still recovering, always recovering—no one had offered him a job. Except for Father Peter at an Indian mission in Wyoming that Father John had never heard of. Three years later, Father Peter had retired and Father John had become the Superior. You couldn’t hide here, with the earth stretching into the sky. He was grateful for that. Your shadow was always alongside you.

  “There you are, Father.” Minnie Little Horse stood in the opened door, patting at the white apron draped over her pink housedress. The sound of her voice surprised him. When had the door opened? She was in her seventies, with tightly curled gray hair that matched the pinched look on her dark face. Squinting into the sunshine, she waved him inside.

  “How are you, grandmother,” he said, using the term of respect. He followed her into the L-shaped living room that extended into the kitchen in the rear. Another elderly woman—this would be Minnie’s sister, although she looked frailer and more sunken into herself than the last time he’d seen her—sat on the sofa: needle in one hand, white thread dangling over a piece of tanned deerskin in her lap, an embroidered design of colored beads taking shape on the skin.

  “You remember Louise,” Minnie said.

  “Yes, of course.” Father John walked over, and the old woman slipped her free hand, small and rough as bark, into his. Her face was crosshatched with wrinkles, the thin hair only partially concealing patches of pink scalp. She looked up at him out of ancient eyes, like the eyes of grandmothers in the Old Time, staring out of the bronze-tinted photos.

  “Eat, eat,” Louise said, removing her hand. “We got cold chicken in the fridge. Minnie’ll get you a plate.” The other woman was already starting for the kitchen.

  He had to laugh. The people were always trying to feed him. A habit from the Old Time, he knew, when Arapahos fed everybody who wandered into the villages.

  He thanked the sisters and said he’d take a raincheck. The afternoon was wearing on, and Elena, the housekeeper at St. Francis, served dinner at six. It was Monday. That meant stew. Elena ran the residence like a drill sergeant. She expected promptness, and he was usually late. He would be late today, but his new assistant, Father George Reinhold, in all his German exactitude, would no doubt be on time, which, Father John knew, would only partially mollify Elena.

  “Cup of coffee, then?” An impatient let’s-get-this-over-with note seeped into Minnie’s voice.

  “Coffee would be fine,” he said. He took the chair across from Louise, set his hat on the side table, and made small talk for a few moments: the hot weather, the wild grasses burned brown in the sun. The old woman smoothed the deerskin in her lap. What’s it gonna be like in July, when the real summer heat comes on? They oughtta move to Alaska, she said. Finally she laid the deerskin on the cushion beside her.

  “I been saying to Minnie,” she began again, and he knew this was what the sisters wanted to talk about, “we can’t keep our worrying all bottled up. We gotta call Father John.”

  The call had come this morning. Minnie’s voice, breathless and hurried. She didn’t want to bother him, but she didn’t know what to do, and he, being a white man . . . Could he come over? He’d glanced at his daytimer. A married couple due in for counseling in thirty minutes, social committee meeting this afternoon, parish council meeting tonight. And he wanted to finish writing the annual report for the board of directors meeting next weekend.

  He dreaded the annual board meeting—the bishop himself from Cheyenne and seven Jesuits from around the country, all scrutinizing the financial and spiritual conditions of St. Francis Mission. And always the possibility that the board would decide the mission had outlived its purpose—a nineteenth-century anachronism adrift in the twenty-first century—and recommend to the Provincial that it be closed.

  He’d told Minnie he’d try to swing by about four-thirty or five.

  Minnie was back with two mugs of coffee—one for him, the other for her sister. She sank onto the far side of the sofa, clasped her hands over the white apron, and drew in a long breath, composing something inside her head. Finally she said, “Louise and me, well, we been real worried about my grandson, Dean.” The words came in a torrent, as if a dam had burst.

  “What’s going o
n?” Father John could still see Dean Little Horse running around the bases after he’d hit the ball into left field, long legs stretching out to take him home. Another score for the Eagles, the baseball team Father John had started his first summer at St. Francis. Dean was fifteen then, tall and thin-limbed, with black hair that fell over his forehead and dark eyes lit with curiosity and intelligence. He’d gone off to college three years later, and the last Father John had heard, he’d landed a job with a software company in Lander.

  Minnie bit at her lower lip, then she said, “We can’t find him, Father.”

  “What do you mean?” Father John set his mug on the table next to his chair. The house was stitched with tension.

  “Four days now, since last Thursday. Ain’t that right, Louise?” Minnie glanced over at her sister. “We been calling and calling. He don’t answer the phone. I went to his apartment in Lander yesterday, but nobody was there.”

  “What about his office?”

  “That’s just it, Father.” The woman sat perfectly still, frozen with anxiety. “I went to his office, and they said he didn’t come to work Friday and didn’t show up today.”

  Father John leaned forward. He set his elbows on his thighs and clasped his hands, trying to fit what the woman had said into some kind of logical context. Dean Little Horse might have decided to get away for a few days. Maybe he went fishing or decided to take a trek into the mountains.