Eye of the Wolf Page 9

  There was a sharp knock, and the door swung open. An attractive young woman dressed in blue jeans and a long gray coat stepped into the office. “Ready, Charles?” she said, throwing a glance at Father John. “Sorry. I didn’t know you had an appointment.”

  “Perfectly all right, my dear.” The professor was leaning back in his chair, chin tilted up, a hungry look in the blue eyes fixed on the woman. “Allow me to introduce my lovely wife, Dana,” he said, not taking his eyes away. “This is Father O’Malley, the mission priest we’ve heard about. A fellow historian.”

  The woman turned to Father John and thrust out a small, gloved hand. “Nice to meet you,” she said. Her grip was nearly as strong as her husband’s, the leather glove smooth and cool against his palm. She looked like one of the professor’s students, still in her thirties and strikingly beautiful, with green eyes shot through with questions, a sprinkling of freckles across her finely shaped nose, and a mass of curly black hair that she’d fastened in the back somehow, except for a few loose strands that fell toward her cheeks. She was small, barely coming to his shoulder.

  “Excuse me if I seemed surprised.” She removed her hand and smiled up at him. “I always picture priests as rather stout and nondescript. Thick glasses, that sort of thing. Rather like some of your colleagues, Charles.” Tossing a glance at her husband, she gave a little laugh that ran up the scale, like the notes of a brief melody. “I can wait outside, if you like,” she said, a serious tone now.

  “No need, my dear. We’re finished here. You may as well know that the unfortunate men killed at the Bates site could be one or more of my students.”

  “Whatever makes you think so? The newspaper said the men haven’t been identified.” Father John realized that the woman was still observing him. “You’re the one who found the bodies, aren’t you? How dreadful. And you were wounded yourself.” She paused, then hurried on. “Did you know the victims?”

  “No,” he said.

  “How did you ever happen to wander onto the site? Is that what you do in your spare time, Father? Hike to old battlefields?”

  Father John told her about the telephone message and the cryptic clues.

  “How interesting.” Dana Lambert lifted one hand and tucked a black curl back into place. “No doubt clues that only a historian could understand.”

  She pivoted toward the man seated behind the desk. “I hope this hasn’t upset you, Charles. No sense in working yourself up until the authorities release the victims’ names. They may not be your students at all. We must keep a positive outlook, as you always tell me.”

  “Nevertheless, I intend to contact the police and tell them about the altercation I witnessed in the parking lot.”

  “Are you sure you’re up to the strain, Charles? You don’t have to get involved in such a sordid business.”

  “What would you have me do, dear? If Trent Hunter has been shot to death, it’s possible the culprits are the men who harassed him.”

  The woman shot a sideways look at Father John. “I hope you’ll excuse us, Father. I must get Charles over to the newspaper. They’re going to interview him about his new book, which is coming out soon.”

  Charles Lambert leaned toward the far side of the desk, slid a metal walking stick along the carpet, and jabbed one end into the carpet. Gripping the top in both hands, he pushed himself upward, a slow, jerky motion. “I may be retired,” he said, leaning on the cane, “but my lovely wife is a slave driver.”

  “Nonsense,” Dana said. “No one drives himself harder than you, Charles.” The woman had removed a black topcoat from its hanger on the door. “My husband’s an authority on Indian warfare,” she said, holding out the coat. “No other scholar can match his accomplishments, yet he’s still waiting for his best seller, while so-called popular historians publish shoddy history and make millions. It’s hardly fair.”

  “My dear, please.” Balancing on the cane, Professor Lambert managed to slip into the coat. He crooked his head around and gave his wife an affectionate smile while fumbling with the coat buttons. “I’m afraid Dana’s my biggest fan,” he said.

  “You know it’s true, Charles.” The woman stepped around and began slipping the buttons through the slits, which the professor seemed to enjoy. Father John had the sense that all the fumbling had brought about the intended result. “Tribal Wars will be your best seller. It’s truly brilliant.”

  “With your help, my dear.”

  “Nonsense, I’m only your assistant.”

  Professor Lambert shifted sideways and smiled at Father John. “And the most brilliant graduate student with whom I’ve ever had the privilege to work. Dana is now in the process of writing her dissertation.” The man held out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Father,” he said. His grip was still strong, despite the fact that he leaned on the walking stick as if he were holding himself upright against a wall. “It’s unfortunate we couldn’t have met under more fortunate circumstances. Be so good as to let me know when you learn of the identities.”

  Father John snapped up his jacket and set his cowboy hat on his head. “The names will be in the newspaper,” he said.

  “Yes, yes, the newspaper.” The professor swatted at the suggestion, as if the interview he was about to have was a pesky annoyance. “We must have a chat again soon.”

  Dana Lambert had found a briefcase and opened it on the desk. She was arranging the stack of folders inside under her husband’s fond gaze when Father John let himself out the door and headed down the deserted corridor, the muffled pounding of his boots bouncing off the beige wall.

  10

  “BOTTOM LINE IS, wolves are back.” Bob Posey, director of the reservation’s natural resources department, hunched forward and let his gaze roam around the perimeter of the small round table in the corner of his office. Vicky lifted her pen from the legal pad she’d been scribbling on and waited for the man to go on. Across from her, Adam had also stopped writing, his eyes on the director. Somewhere down the corridor, a phone was ringing. Gusts of wind rattled the window behind the table and deposited splotches of moisture on the glass.

  “We’ve had sightings as far south as Rawlins,” Posey said. The man was Shoshone, about her age, Vicky guessed. Black hair dipped over his forehead above a long, narrow face while graceful fingers flipped a ballpoint like a cartwheel over the file folder in front of him. “Some of the gray wolves that the Fish and Wildlife Service reintroduced into Yellowstone have made their way south looking to establish new territory. Several packs could be settling into the Wind River and Owl Creek mountain ranges right now. Alpha wolf says, ‘Hey, this looks like a good place. Lots of elk and deer and we can get an occasional lunch on calves and lambs. Let’s hang around.’ Now that they’re on the reservation, we gotta make certain our plan to manage the population meets both state and federal regulations. Here’s where you come in.” He opened the folder and pushed a stack of papers across the table toward Adam.

  For an instant, Vicky felt as if she were invisible, a specter at the table, like the specter of wolves that had been almost exterminated decades ago. “I’d like a copy,” she said.

  “Have one for you right here.” Posey sent another stack of paper-clipped papers skimming over the table toward her. “We got ourselves some legal minefields to walk through. Soon’s the federal government takes wolves off the endangered species list, the state’s gonna manage the population in Wyoming. Except for the reservation. That’s our jurisdiction.”

  Vicky began thumbing through the pages: synopsis of court decisions, Ninth Circuit, Tenth Circuit, federal regulations on managing the reintroduced wolves, and a copy of Wyoming’s management plan.

  “Whole reintroduction thing has been controversial from the get-go,” Posey continued. “Tourists love the idea. Drive up to Yellowstone, stop on the highway, and watch the Druid pack gamboling about, like a wildlife zoo. Once the wolf population started growing and heading out of the park, it was a different situation. Ranchers don’t apprecia
te their livestock gutted in the pastures, so folks started bringing lawsuits, asking the courts to halt the reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rockies. Tell you the truth, sometimes in the middle of the night out on my place, I hear wolves howling up in the foothills. So I get up—three a.m. or whatever—pull on my boots and go out into the corral. The horses are real skittish, like they hear the howling, too.”

  The man sat back and smiled off into the space. “Tell you the truth, I’m glad they’re back. Maybe they never went away completely. That’s what some of the old Indians say.” He nodded toward the window and the reservation beyond. “Fact is, we need wolves to protect our forests. Keep the trees and brush from being browsed to death by too many deer. They cull out the herds, too, keep ’em the right size for the range, only no rancher’s gonna admit it.”

  “What about the reservation plan?” Adam was thumbing through the pages.

  The director turned his attention back to the contents of the file folder. He pushed another pair of paper-clipped pages toward them. “We gotta comply with both federal and state regs, and we gotta manage the wolf population. Don’t want them destroying all the elk and deer and other wild animals on the reservation. Of course, we gotta pay attention to the concerns of Shoshones and Arapahos trying to raise their cattle. We can designate wolves trophy animals and control the population by the number of hunting licenses we issue. Any wolves that become predators, however, can be shot. That doesn’t mean anybody can pick up a gun and go looking for wolves, and we sure as hell don’t want ranchers around the area coming onto the rez and doing any precautionary killing.”

  Posey snapped the empty folder shut and started tapping the pen on top. It made a muffled, skittering noise. “Naturally it’s important that everybody on the rez rides the same horse about this issue. We’ve got to be united on our plan—Shoshones and Arapahos—’cause if we’re not, the state’s gonna want to take over the management. Any questions about our plan, I’m at your disposal. Any questions about the regulations or court decisions, you’ll have to talk to wildlife people in Cheyenne. We want to get things into place so we can implement the plan the minute the wolves come off the endangered list. We’d like your opinion, let’s say, yesterday.” He stuck the pen into the pocket of his white shirt and got to his feet.

  “We’ll get back to you pronto.” Adam was also on his feet, reaching across the table to shake the director’s hand. “Appreciate the business,” he said.

  Vicky could hear the purr of satisfaction in Adam’s voice. An important job with the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes, an important issue. She slipped the papers into her briefcase, stood up, and also shook Posey’s hand. Then she brushed past Adam, who was holding the door open, and started down the corridor, conscious of his boots scraping the vinyl floor behind her, wondering if her name would have ever crossed Bob Posey’s mind if Adam Lone Eagle hadn’t been her partner.

  VICKY STARED OUT the passenger window at the gray clouds crawling down the slopes of the foothills and the mixture of rain and snow drifting over Highway 287. She was vaguely aware of Adam’s voice—something about how Wyoming’s first management plan had failed to meet the federal standards, which delayed removing wolves from the federal endangered species list and turning management over to the states. A jazz piece was playing softly on the radio.

  Her thoughts were on the wolves, out there somewhere in the clouds and trees, roaming wild. Sometimes in the night, when she was driving across the reservation, she thought she heard wolves howling, and she told herself it couldn’t be true. Wolves had been exterminated decades ago. But some of the elders said no. A few wolves had managed to escape. They stayed close to the people.

  There were so many stories, she was thinking, stories her grandfather told when she was a child about wolves circling the camps in the Old Time. They were hunters, quiet and fierce. They always found their prey. We learned from wolf. Grandfather’s voice was in her head now. He taught us many things. How to scent the buffalo. How to track the deer and elk. How to scout the enemy. How to work together so that no one was hungry. All of this, wolf taught us. And when the warriors went out to track the enemy, grandfather said, they pulled wolf skins over their heads and shoulders. They became wolves.

  Vicky realized that Adam’s voice had gone quiet. “Where are you?” he asked.

  “What?” She shifted around and stared at the feathers of moisture on the windshield.

  “You’re not here, Vicky.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You have a way of doing that, going off. I can’t find you.”

  “I was thinking about the wolves out there. I’m glad there’s still a place for them.”

  “The first cattle they kill on the rez will start an uproar. If a Shoshone owns the dead cattle, Shoshones’ll have Posey fired. If it’s an Arapaho rancher, they’ll blame the Shoshones, since one of them is in charge of management. It’s a no-win situation, as far as I can see. It’s only a matter of time until wolves are killed off again.”

  “Is that why you want to see the Druid pack?”

  He glanced over and smiled at her. “You still on for the weekend?”

  Vicky nodded. “Looks like one of us will have to go to Cheyenne and meet with the fish and wildlife people.”

  “We’ll both go,” Adam said, rapping his knuckles against the edge of the steering wheel. “It’ll give us another chance to get away together, get to know each other better.”

  Vicky leaned her head back onto the cushion. She felt lulled by the sense of well-being settling over her, like the snow tracing the sagebrush along the road and flouring the ground, the jazz riffling against the soft sounds of the tires. At the periphery of her vision was Adam’s profile, the black hair streaked with gray, like rain, the prominent nose and firm set of his jaw, the large, capable hands gripping the steering wheel, and all about him, a calm, steady presence. Maybe we don’t get everything we want, John O’Malley had once told her. God, she could still hear his voice in her head, summon it up, reintroduce it, the way wolves had been reintroduced. We don’t get everything we want, but what we get is good.

  “We interrupt this program to bring you late-breaking news.” The woman’s voice sounded small and hesitant. She might have been reading a note someone thrust into her hands.

  Vicky lowered her head and glanced at the yellow numbers flickering in the little window of the radio. A half-second passed before the voice continued: “The Fremont County coroner has confirmed the identities of three Shoshone men found shot to death Monday at the Bates Battlefield. The victims are Trent Hunter and Rex and Joe Crispin, all from the Fort Washakie area. The coroner estimates that the men had been shot by a rifle at least forty-eight hours before their bodies were discovered by Father John O’Malley, the pastor of St. Francis Mission. Father O’Malley told investigating officers that he had gone to the battlefield after a suspicious telephone call.”

  “God!” Vicky lifted her bag off the floor and started digging inside until her fingers wrapped around her cell.

  “You know them?”

  “They filed the assault complaint against Frankie Montana,” she said. Now she was fumbling for the little directory where she kept the telephone numbers relating to current cases. She found the book, flipped to M, and started punching in Frankie’s number.

  “You’re telling me they’re the three men who didn’t show up at the hearing Monday?”

  “They were already dead.” She pressed the cell against her ear, listening to the electronic noise of a phone ringing in the stretch of whiteness behind her.

  “This isn’t your dogfight, Vicky.”

  The noise stopped, and Lucille Montana’s voice came over the line. “Hello?”

  “It’s Vicky. Is Frankie around?”

  “There isn’t any trouble, is there?”

  Adam’s hand shot out next to her and punched the off button on the radio. “Why are you doing this?” His voice cut into the space between them.

  “Ple
ase put Frankie on,” Vicky said into the cell. She shifted toward the passenger window. Thank God Lucille hadn’t heard the news on the radio.

  “He’s not your client anymore, Vicky. For Godsakes.”

  The cell had gone quiet, and for a moment, she wondered if she’d lost the connection. Was it her imagination, or were they driving faster, the wheels thumping at a louder rhythm?

  “Yeah, Vicky, what’s up?” Frankie was on the line, a mixture of boredom and annoyance in his tone. She could almost see the way he’d probably grabbed the phone out of his mother’s hand, the hunched shoulders and insolent stance.

  “Listen to me, Frankie,” she began, and then she repeated what the radio announcer had said.

  “No shit! You telling me they’re all dead? Hallelujah!”

  “Frankie!” She was pressing the cell so hard that the edge bit into her jaw. “Don’t you get it? They were murdered. Who do you think the fed is going to think killed them?”

  “What? Give me a break. They don’t have nothing on me. I didn’t kill them bastards. Wait just a fucking minute,” he went on, the reality sinking in. “They can’t come around here accusing me of something I didn’t do. I ain’t never killed nobody.”

  Vicky was aware of Adam beside her, the short, quick intakes and exhalations of breath. “They’re going to come around,” she said. “Are you hearing me, Frankie?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m hearing you.”

  “They’re going to come around and want to ask you a lot of questions.”

  “Like the police? I ain’t afraid of talking to the police.”

  “Like the police, Frankie, and the Fremont County Sheriff. It doesn’t matter. You don’t talk to them. Understand? You don’t say anything. You tell them . . .” Vicky glanced over at Adam. He was staring at the road, the muscle twitching along his jawline. “You tell them to call your lawyer.”