The Spirit Woman Read online

  The crowd in Eagle Hall seemed even larger. A paper banner hung from the wall opposite the entrance: GOOD LUCK, FATHER JOHN. WE WILL MISS YOU. Below the banner were long tables laden with chicken, Indian stew, fried bread, potato salad, red and green Jell-O, and cake. A line moved slowly past; other people had already filled their plates and were seated at the tables set up around the hall.

  Father John made his way among them, talking with different families, thanking them for coming. Father Kevin, he saw, was doing the same. He half expected the new pastor to whip out his tape recorder and settle at one of the tables where the elders were gathered. He saw Howard Elkman across the hall, waving, and he walked over. “Thank you,” he said, taking the vacant chair next to the old man. “You gave it a heck of a good shot.”

  Howard folded his arms across the white braids hanging down his red shirt and leaned back, studying him. “What I wanna know is, how come it didn’t work?”

  “The provincial’s a stubborn man,” Father John said. He stopped himself from saying that it didn’t make any difference. He had decided to go.

  Howard wadded up a napkin and tossed it across the table. His gaze took in the other elders—Roger Bancroft, Elton Knows-His-Horse—at the adjacent table. “Used to be tribal elders had something to say about the holy men we got around here. There’s some things your boss don’t understand, and he sure don’t know what stubborn is.” The old man slowly raised himself to his feet. Picking up the empty mug in front of him, he walked stiffly over to the coffeepot on one of the food tables.

  Father John resumed his rounds, shaking hands with the other elders, patting the toddlers on their heads. “You goin’ away?” Bobby Red Owl ran over and tugged at his pant leg.

  He lifted the child up to eye level. “I’m coming back to see you.” Then he hoisted him overhead until he almost touched the ceiling. “I expect one of these days you’ll be this tall.”

  The little boy surveyed the floor far below and giggled. “I’ll be a giant,” he said.

  As Father John set him back down he thought he saw Vicky at the food table, but it was someone else. He’d looked for her at Mass. Had he really thought she might come? After all he’d said last night? He would call and apologize the moment the feast ended. He didn’t want to leave this way.

  He made his way over to the table where Alva Running Bull was sitting alone. “How is everything?” he asked, dropping onto the chair beside her.

  The woman’s dark eyes flickered in comprehension. “Fine. Fine.” She threw a glance toward her husband, standing with a group of men near the door.

  She’s walking on eggshells, Father John thought. In his mind he saw Vicky, slumped against the wall. She has to leave him, Vicky had said. Even Sacajawea left. What had he done? Alva had made up her mind to get a divorce, then she’d come to him for help. What had he said? What inadvertent remark had shot like an arrow into the woman’s heart and caused her to change her mind?

  He leaned closer, his voice low: “Promise me, Alva, that if you feel the tension starting to build, you’ll get away.”

  “I’m sure things are gonna be fine.” Alva’s eyes slid toward the door again.

  “You’ll call the Eagle Shelter?”

  “Oh, Father. You worry too much.” Her voice trembled.

  “Promise me, Alva.”

  The woman bent over, lifted the floppy, ruglike bag from the floor, and patted at the folds. “Next time Lester gets drunk and starts after me, I won’t be the one goin’ anywhere. I got me a gun.”

  Father John sat back against the chair, his eyes locked on the woman. Dear Lord, he thought, what kind of counselor misses all the signs?

  “Listen to me, Alva . . .”

  A small girl rushed around the table and began pulling at Alva’s skirt, begging for more cookies. “You’ve had enough,” the woman said.

  “We have to talk,” Father John hurried on. “Can you stay after the feast?”

  She was shaking her head, patting the child’s shoulder. “Don’t let me hear no more about cookies.” Her eyes skittered again to the door.

  “When can you come? First thing in the morning?”

  Slowly the woman turned toward him and nodded.

  By the time Father John left the hall, the only people still there were Elena and some of the other grandmothers, cleaning up the tables. He walked back to the residence, taking a diagonal path through the snow that glistened like diamonds in the sun. At his desk in the study, he tapped out Vicky’s number. An answering machine again. He asked her to call him.

  Suddenly it occurred to him that Ben might have fought off his driver and gone back for her. He flinched at the idea. Surely she wouldn’t go with him—unless . . . unless he forced her. A sinking feeling washed over him. He called her office. Another answering machine.

  He tried her again in the afternoon after the liturgy meeting, and later in the evening, the minute he’d returned from the AA meeting. The last time he tried, it was ten-thirty, the click-click of Father Kevin’s printer upstairs echoing through the quiet of the old house. Still no answer. A new thought had begun to shadow him, chilling him to the bone. What if Toussaint thought Laura had entrusted the journal to her friend? He could have come for Vicky.

  Father John picked up the phone again and dialed Gianelli’s number. After one ring, the agent was on the line, sleepiness in his voice. Father John asked about Laura.

  “Told you I’d call first news we get.”

  “I’m worried about Vicky,” Father John said. “I’ve been trying to reach her most of the day. She’s not at home or at the office. She’s Laura’s friend, and she was on the res yesterday looking for Toussaint . . .” He let the conclusion hang in the air.

  The agent drew in a long breath. “I’ll ask the Lander PD to check out her house and office.”

  “Something else.” Father John hesitated, reluctant to divulge her secret. Finally he said, “The BIA police better send someone out to talk to Ben.”

  Another sigh drifted over the line. “Vicky having trouble with her ex?”

  Father John didn’t say anything. After a half second the agent’s voice broke the quiet. “Sit tight, John. We’ll find her.”

  Father John set the receiver down, every muscle tense with alarm. Charlotte Allen wasn’t found for twenty years, and Laura Simmons was still missing. How long would it take to find Vicky?

  He waited by the phone, drinking a pot of coffee, watching the shadows merging beyond the light from the desk lamp. It was after midnight when the phone rang.

  Gianelli’s voice: “Lander police say the house and office are undisturbed. No sign of a break-in or anything out of the ordinary. The Bronco isn’t around. Ben Holden says he hasn’t seen her since last night. You got him plenty worried, though. He’s likely to go out looking for her.”

  My God, Father John thought. Vicky had probably gone off somewhere to get away from him, and now he’d sent the man after her.

  “Look, John”—a comforting tone—“let’s not jump to conclusions. Most likely Vicky’ll be in her office tomorrow morning. You can ask her where she went, but if she has any sense, she’ll tell you it’s none of your business.”

  The agent was right. What did he want? To keep her safe, to control her? He was the same as Ben Holden, he thought as he hung up.

  The red numbers on the nightstand clock winked 3:10 when he sat up in bed, half-asleep, trying to place the noise. Part of a dream, he decided. He’d been dreaming since he fell into bed, crazy dreams that he knew made no sense even while they cascaded through his subconscious. The noise came again. It was outside.

  He was wide awake now. He got out of bed and walked over to the window. The mission slumbered in the snow; circles of yellow light floated down from the street lamps. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for the tracks of a fox crossing Circle Drive and disappearing among the cottonwoods. An animal, that was all.

  He started to turn away when he saw the light, like that of a firefly bat
ting against the library window in the museum. He pulled on his blue jeans and ran down the hall, stopping at the phone to call 911 and report a prowler before he headed downstairs, taking the steps two at a time. He threw on his jacket and was out the door, running through the snow to the museum.

  26

  The pinprick of light was still jumping in the library window as Father John ran up the porch steps and grabbed the doorknob. It froze in his hand. The prowler must have broken in through the back. He drew the master key out of his jeans pocket and pushed it into the shadowy slot, leaning into the door, then stepped inside. In the sliver of light from the streetlamps, he could make out the broken window beyond the staircase next to the rear door. Tiny shards of glass glistened like icicles around the perimeter of the frame. Footprints marked the pieces of glass scattered about the floor.

  He moved along the wall on the left until his fingers found the light switch. He flipped it up. Light cascaded along the corridor, like water tumbling down a mountainside. He held his breath, listening for the faintest noise in the quiet. Nothing but the tinkling of broken glass in the drafty entry. He walked slowly to the library and stepped through the open door, flipping on the light as he went. The fluorescent bulb flickered a half instant, then burst into a preternatural white light that shoved the cartons and stacks into the shadows.

  The library looked the same as it had when he’d found Vicky and Laura almost a week earlier, except for the carton balancing partway off a shelf. The prowler had just gotten started, he thought. Another few minutes—he shuddered at the thought of documents and records from the past strewn about.

  A loud scraping noise came from the entry. He stepped back into the corridor just as a figure dressed in black with the wide shoulders and slim waist of a man, a dark ski mask pulled over his face, threw himself out of a shadowy corner. He had walked right past the prowler! The man bolted toward the rear door, head thrust forward, as if some force were propelling him faster than his feet could get a purchase.

  “Stop!” Father John ran down the corridor. The man was already fumbling with the door, yanking on the knob. Suddenly the door flew open, and he was gone.

  Father John ran after him through the snow on the grounds behind the school. The man raced ahead, kicking back white, puffy clouds. Except for the whoosh of footsteps and the sound of his own breathing, there was only silence. The figure veered toward the river, weaving and dodging among the long shadows of the cottonwoods until the shadows blurred together, a gathering darkness outside the scrim of light.

  Father John stopped. He stood absolutely still, his breath hard in his throat. From somewhere ahead came a faint, labored chuffing noise, like that of a small bellows. And then, only the rustle of snow dropping from the trees.

  He turned back. Pain stitched his ribs together; his breath came in sharp gulps. He wasn’t in as good shape as he imagined. He entered through the rear door, then threw the bolt. There was the sound of an engine cutting off in front. Red-and-blue lights flashed through the windows, creating a colored mosaic on the wood floor. He crossed the entry and walked outside just as two Wind River police officers rushed up the steps, Walks-On trailing along, sniffing and licking at one of the officer’s hands. He must have left the residence door ajar, and the dog had nosed his way out.

  “What’s going on, Father?” the first officer said. He held a long, black flashlight that shot a column of yellow light over the porch.

  “Someone broke in. He just ran out the back.”

  “You run him off?” the other officer asked.

  “I tried to catch him.”

  “He might’ve had a weapon, Father.” Both men were shaking their heads. “What direction was he goin’?”

  “Toward the river.”

  “Maybe we can head him off,” the first officer said. As if they were yoked together, they swung around and hurried down the steps past the dog, who sauntered over to Father John and licked his hand.

  “Some watchdog you are,” he said, rubbing the dog’s neck. The passenger door was still swinging shut as the patrol car backed up. It cut a half turn, then started around Circle Drive.

  Father John went back inside. The thump of his boots and the click of the dog’s paws on the wood floor resounded through the corridor. In the storeroom, he found a large sheet of cardboard and a staple gun. He laid the cardboard over the broken window and shot in the staples. If Toussaint came back, he’d kick out the cardboard in two seconds, but it was the best he could do until Leonard, the caretaker, could replace the windowpane tomorrow.

  He walked back to the library, Walks-On at his heels, and checked the cartons on the shelves, removing the lids, reassuring himself that the contents had not been disturbed. Then he checked the boxes stacked along the wall, the yellowed pages nestled quietly inside. “How fragile, the past,” he said out loud. Then he realized he was philosophizing with a dog. He headed outside, feeling almost sick with relief that Toussaint hadn’t had the time to accomplish whatever he’d intended to do.

  He locked the front door, aware for the first time of the icy temperature. Tires thudded through the snow behind him, and he turned in to the yellow headlights and followed Walks-On down the steps as the police car pulled to a stop. The officers jumped out.

  “Sorry, Father,” the first officer said. “We missed the guy.”

  “Saw his tracks.” The other officer now. “He made it to a vehicle he’d left over on Mission Road. Vehicle’s gone. Any idea who he is?”

  Father John nodded. “The same guy who ransacked the cultural center yesterday. He’s after some documents I gave to Gianelli.”

  The first officer snorted. “Well, he should’ve broke into the FBI office.”

  “The agent will want to know about the break-in here,” Father John said.

  “We’ll take care of it, Father.” The first officer opened the passenger door and folded himself back inside. His partner was already behind the wheel. The engine spurted into life, wipers slashing back and forth as the car backed up, then stopped. The driver leaned out the opened window. “We’ll keep an eye on the mission tonight, Father, in case the guy comes back. He doesn’t know the materials he’s after don’t reside here anymore.”

  Father John waited, one hand on the dog’s head, until the police car had wound out of the mission grounds and disappeared past the cottonwoods. The taillights glowed red in the darkness, like two cigarettes burning down.

  “Learned something about your new master,” he told the dog as they started for the residence. “Father Kevin McBride can sleep through anything.”

  27

  “I’m not letting go of this gun, Father.” Alva had taken one of the side chairs, and Father John had pulled the other around a stack of boxes and sat down across from her, trying not to bump the woman’s stick-thin legs clad in blue jeans. She gripped the floppy bag with one hand and brushed back a strand of black hair with the other. Her red coat draped open over a blouse the caramel color of her long, smooth neck. She was an attractive woman, he thought, despite the worry lines fanning from the dark eyes and the thin mouth set somewhere between apprehension and determination.

  “Why did you buy it, Alva?” he probed. “Is Lester drinking again?” The man wasn’t at last night’s AA meeting. He wondered if Lester was still going to the anger therapy group.

  Alva stared off at an angle beyond his shoulder, as if she’d anticipated the questions and prepared the answers, which she knew by rote. “He’s trying to stay sober. He’s been goin’ to anger therapy, but the trucking company he started driving for is cutting back, and he’s gonna get cut.”

  And then he’ll get drunk. Father John knew the pattern. Such a thin line between sobriety and drunkenness, and losing a job was the perfect excuse to step over. He’d been wanting a drink since the provincial had called to say his replacement was on the way. The woman stiffened at the crack of the front door shutting, the footsteps in the corridor. Her eyes skittered to the door, as if Lester might w
alk in.

  Father John leaned over and patted Alva’s arm. “Father Kevin,” he said. Beneath the folds of her coat sleeve, he could sense her muscles begin to relax.

  “Shooting Lester won’t solve any problems,” he began, searching for the logic to change her mind.

  “He comes at me—”

  He interrupted. “He’ll take the gun away, Alva. You’ll only give him a weapon to use against you.”

  The woman flinched, as if he’d tossed her a fastball she wasn’t expecting. Then she issued what passed as a laugh and shook her head. “Not if I shoot him first.”

  Father John kept his eyes on hers. Another tack, another stab at logic: “If you shoot Lester, Alva, you’ll go to prison.”

  “Nobody’s gonna send me to prison for protecting myself.” The line of her mouth tightened.

  “Prisons are full of battered women who bought guns to protect themselves.” The logic, the relentless logic. “You’re no different from them.”

  She shifted against the back rungs of the chair, suppressing a shudder, and he pressed on. “What about your children? You have to think about them.”

  Suddenly the woman’s face started to crumble, like spider cracks running through glass, and she began to sob. “It’s not that I wanna hurt Lester, Father. I love him and the kids.”

  “I know.” His voice was gentle. “You’d better let me have the gun.”

  She hesitated. Then, dropping her head, she fumbled at the bag. She reached inside and slowly pulled on an object that bulged through the fabric like a snake wiggling forward. “I just want us to be a real family again.” She had the pistol out now, a black metal tube shape lying loosely in her hand. “I just don’t want him to hurt me anymore.”