The Spirit Woman Page 9

  Laura perched on the edge of the cushion, keeping her bag in her lap. “I understand you’re a descendant of Sacajawea,” she said in a firm, businesslike voice. He was different—rougher—than the men she was used to. An outdoorsman with squint lines fanning from hooded eyes and bulky, chapped hands.

  “Yeah, that’s me.” Willie Silver straddled the sofa armrest. “Come down from Baptiste himself, natural son of Sacajawea and Toussaint Charbonneau. Bazil, he was her nephew, born to her sister. She might’ve adopted him, but that didn’t make him her natural son, like Baptiste.”

  “Bazil took care of her in her last years.” Laura heard the lecturing note in her tone. “The 1880 census identified her as Bazil’s mother.”

  The Indian flapped a hand at the air, as if he were swatting away a pesky fly. “Baptiste was out hunting when they made that census, gettin’ food for the people. He was a helluva guide, too, like his old man. Guided people all over the mountains, some of ’em real important, like that so-called explorer Frémont. Couldn’t explore his ass without Baptiste.”

  Laura shifted in her chair. “Mr. Silver,” she began.

  “Willie.”

  “I’ve been asked to complete a biography of Sacajawea.”

  “You gonna tell the truth?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The truth about Toussaint, her old man. None of them history books—” He hesitated. The dark eyes narrowed, deepening the creases in his forehead. “Don’t be lookin’ so surprised. I read about my own ancestors. Them books don’t tell the truth. Toussaint was one helluva guy. Made his way from Montreal across the plains, learned to speak Indian, lived by his wits. Trading with all them tribes up north, guiding folks about. Old Lewis and Clark never would’ve made it west without Toussaint.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no evidence to support that theory.” Laura felt a spasm of irritation.

  “Hell there ain’t. He was one helluva man.”

  “He was a wife beater.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe his woman needed some discipline once in a while for her own good.”

  “Listen, Willie,” Laura began again, struggling to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Twenty years ago a historian named Charlotte Allen came here to research Sacajawea. Did you know her?”

  “That’s a long time ago. Been a lot of women around since then.” The man’s gaze flitted around the room. A vein pulsed in his temple. “If I remember right,” he went on, “she got lost up here on the ridge. She’d been goin’ around the res, trying to get folks to talk to her. Lots of folks don’t trust white people much.” He winked, as if to make sure she understood he wasn’t one of them.

  Laura opened her bag, drew out the red journal, and began flipping through the pages. “Let me read you what Charlotte wrote. ‘Toussaint came today. He told me the most incredible news. His great-grandfather rescued Sacajawea’s memoirs from the agency fire. They’ve been in the family ever since.’ ”

  She glanced up. “Can you help me find the memoirs?”

  “You thinkin’ I’m that Toussaint she wrote about?” Willie Silver swung out a scuffed boot and kicked at the sofa. His boot made a muffled, pounding noise.

  “Are the memoirs in your family?” Laura could hear her heart beating. She was close, close.

  “They’d be valuable, right?”

  Laura didn’t respond for a moment. “I’m certain my publisher would compensate you,” she said. She was thinking that she didn’t even have a publisher yet.

  “I sure wanna help a pretty professor lady like you.” The man kicked at the sofa again. “I’ll ask around the family, see what I can come up with. I’ll get back to you. Where you staying?”

  Laura told him. Then she rose to her feet and started for the door, limp from the rush of excitement. She was so close to the memoirs, she could almost feel the weight of the old notebook in her hand. She was about to let herself out when the man set his hand on her shoulder.

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  She spun around. “I told you, my publisher—”

  “I mean you, lady.” An array of smells engulfed her—sweat and stale cigarettes and the inside of barns.

  She braced herself against the edge of the door. “Bring me the memoirs, Willie, and we’ll discuss it.”

  The man reared back and gave a bark of laughter that dissolved into a choking noise. A second passed before he caught his breath. “Oh, you can bet I’ll get you them memoirs, sweetheart. You come back tomorrow, and I’ll have ’em. That’s a promise.”

  Laura gripped the steering wheel to stop the wave of nausea flowing over her as she drove out of the mountains. Robert Crow Wolf had tried to warn her: I suggest you get out there before noon, while he’s still sober. She should have guessed what Willie Silver would be like. And yet . . . Charlotte had trusted Toussaint, believed in him. Notes of excitement and expectation ran through every mention of him in the journal. If Willie were the man Charlotte had called Toussaint, how had he changed so much?

  And then a new idea hit her. Suppose Charlotte had been so blinded by the idea of the memoirs she’d overlooked the man? What arrangement had she made with him? What had she agreed to do for the memoirs? Suddenly she understood Charlotte’s longing to go off into the wilderness by herself. I have to clear the fog in my head, she had told her mother. The memoirs were valuable, all right. They commanded a high price.

  She regretted telling Willie Silver where she was staying. She could have arranged to call him back. She hadn’t been thinking straight. My God, she thought. She was like Charlotte. All she cared about were the memoirs.

  The apartment looked vacant and lonely, black windows staring down on the driveway, light flaring yellow over the door. Laura pulled in close and made her way up the stairs, her fingers brushing the soft leather of the journal as she drew the key from her bag. For a moment she wished Toby were there, that things were different—the way they had been at first. She would tell him about Willie Silver: the thinning gray hair, the way he sat on the armrest because there wasn’t another clear spot. They would have a good laugh. Toby’s obligatory laugh. While she talked he would have been working out the perfect opening sentence of a paragraph.

  She reached the landing and stopped. A white sheet of paper fluttered from the piece of tape stuck on the door. She yanked the paper free. The manager’s loops and curlicues flowed over the page: Lindy Meadows called from Arapaho Museum. Found letters you want.

  Laura jammed the key into the lock and tried the knob. It held fast: she’d just locked the door. She must have left it unlocked when she left this morning. And then she saw the tiny scratches, the workings of a knife between the door and the jamb. She tried the key again and stepped inside, taking in the small room awash in shadows. It looked the same—bedspread tidy, makeup bag on the dresser next to the television. But there was something different, like an invisible presence floating toward her. She turned on the lamp, then walked over and flung open the door to the bathroom. Empty. She whirled about and checked the closet. An extra pair of jeans, a couple of blouses, a black skirt, just hanging as she had left them.

  Laura set her bag on the bed and walked back across the room. Surely the manager would have used a key. But the manager hadn’t come in; she’d left the message on the door. Laura heard the sounds of her own breathing in the quiet. Toby had returned. What was he looking for?

  She moved to the table, lifted the flap on the folder, and pulled out Charlotte Allen’s manuscript. And then she knew. The manuscript was like an extension of herself, an extra arm or leg, the shapes and variations of color familiar. The blue Post-its that she used to mark various sections protruded from the pages at odd angles; the paper clips were in the wrong place. Toby had gone through the manuscript.

  Frantically she began checking the pages. Sacajawea’s childhood among the Shoshones. The capture by the Minnetarees. The forced marriage to Toussaint. The birth of Baptiste. The chapters on the expedition, the long years of
wandering the plains, the final years with her people. All in order.

  She stacked the pages carefully. It didn’t make sense. Toby could have read the manuscript months ago. He’d never shown any interest in her work. Someone else had broken in and gone through the pages. She felt a wave of relief that the manuscript was still here, still intact. She’d left a copy in Boulder, but a copy wasn’t the same as the original, with Charlotte Allen’s handwriting in the margins. Whoever was here wasn’t interested in the manuscript itself, only in its contents.

  And yet the manuscript didn’t contain anything that wasn’t already known. Suddenly it hit her. It was the journal that contained new information, the journal that mentioned the existence of Sacajawea’s memoirs. Someone had come for Charlotte Allen’s journal, which she had taken with her.

  She had to think. She hadn’t made a copy of the journal. She could take it somewhere and copy it, but it wouldn’t matter. The original was important. The original couldn’t be altered. After the biography was published, other historians would want to see the original record of Charlotte Allen’s research.

  She replaced the manuscript, then withdrew the journal from her bag and set it in the folder. She knew exactly where she had to take the documents to keep them safe while she was here.

  14

  There were the faint odors of desperation and transience that mixed with the smells of beef stew simmering on the stove at the Eagle Shelter, Vicky thought. The kitchen was like a hundred kitchens on the reservation. Cabinets and Formica countertops, cartoons on the refrigerator, gauzy curtains drooping in the window, an archway leading to the living room.

  She took a drink from the mug of coffee that Myra Bushy, the director, had handed across the table, and tried to concentrate on what the woman was saying. There were three guests now, two women and a three-month-old boy. With the tightly curled gray hair, the pink-framed glasses bisecting the placid face, the director might have been a grandmother, gossiping about visiting relatives. Was she really talking about the blasted dreams, the upended lives?

  A woman darted past the archway, a specter in blue jeans and T-shirt, long black hair falling around her shoulders, arms crooked around a package of diapers, head turned. Vicky flinched at the memory: she herself, sidling into a store, tilting her face, hoping no one would notice the bruises lengthening on her cheek. The old sense of shame burned in her cheeks. It was as real as the chrome-legged, Formica-topped table someone had donated to the shelter.

  Vicky realized that Myra Bushy had extracted a form from the manila envelope on the table and was explaining the financial situation, the reason she’d asked Vicky to come by this morning. “We can expect funds from the county and the tribes.” She glanced over the top of her pink-framed glasses. “Thanks to your efforts, Vicky.”

  Vicky shrugged. She had filed the proper forms for nonprofit status, set up the corporation and board of directors, written grants. Any paralegal could have done the same.

  “Fact is, we need more money.” An unsettled note invaded the other woman’s voice. “Always more expenses than we were counting on. Things like towels and soaps.” She nodded toward the archway. “Janet there”—her voice lowered to a whisper—“had to get out fast. Not even enough time to grab a diaper for the baby. Naturally I had to go out and buy more diapers and formula.”

  The director straightened herself against the back of the chair. “I was thinking we could sponsor a powwow and run an article in the Gazette asking for donations.”

  Vicky sighed. Temporary solutions. A few thousand dollars, some cast-off household items. And in the next few months another powwow, another call for donated goods. What the shelter needed was a dependable income. “There are organizations that support women’s shelters,” she began. “I can apply for other grants.”

  Myra Bushy’s dark eyes glinted. “Oh, Vicky, you don’t know how I’ve stayed awake nights, worrying about the women and their babies. We been open two weeks, and we’ve had six residents. The other shelters are always full. You can’t have women and kids sleeping on the floor. They gotta have someplace comfortable, where they can feel safe for a while.”

  The woman kept her eyes on the window curtains, breathing in the warm air blown from the floor vent. “We gotta do the best we can for them here, even if most of ’em go back.”

  Vicky finished the coffee and set the mug on the table. We go back, she thought. It should be a simple matter, breaking away from a batterer, but it was so complicated. It had to do with family and home and a sense of belonging someplace in the world. It had to do with fear, an odd kind of fear that masqueraded as love. Thirteen years, and she’d gone back to Ben. How could she expect anyone else to walk away? Alva Running Bull? Laura Simmons? How bad did it have to be before a woman left? How deep the shame? She stayed until he almost killed her. That wasn’t true, she thought. The stories said Toussaint had whipped Sacajawea in front of his young, Ute wife. Sacajawea had left because of the shame.

  She said, “Has Alva Running Bull called the shelter?”

  The director shook her head; a puzzled look crept into her expression. “I heard she was gonna divorce Lester.”

  “She’s changed her mind.” Vicky unhinged her bag from the back of the chair and got to her feet. “Please ask her to call me if she comes.”

  “She’d probably be callin’ you anyway.”

  “I don’t think so,” Vicky said. “She’ll be too ashamed.”

  In her office, Vicky flipped through the messages Laola, her secretary, had piled on the desk. No calls from Laura. She’d been trying to reach her since yesterday, wondering how the research was going, whether she’d talked to Theresa Redwing yet. Surely if Laura had located Toussaint, she would have called. Vicky rummaged through her bag for the piece of paper with Laura’s number on it, then dialed the Mountain House.

  A woman answered. No, Laura Simmons wasn’t in at the moment. Could she take a message? Vicky gave her name again and said she was a friend of Laura’s. “Ask her to call me,” she said.

  There were three messages from Ben. A message from Jack Old. His son had been picked up as a DUI last night. And Mary Heat wanted to sue the guy who had rear-ended her pickup on Seventeen Mile Road. Another call from Wes Nelson in Denver. Anxious for her decision.

  Vicky closed her eyes. She’d been putting off the decision, appalled at the thought of moving back to Denver, appalled at the idea of staying. The days and months stretched ahead, a parade of DUIs and petty lawsuits and nonprofit boards like the one at the shelter, and what difference did any of it really make? How in the name of heaven did it help her people?

  Wes offered the chance to make a real difference. And yet, and yet . . . this was home. This was where she wanted to belong. She tossed the messages to one side and opened the folder containing Jake Longman’s lease. The man would be here in five minutes to pick up the final copy. She tried to push away the idea that had taken hold of her lately: John O’Malley was leaving. She could leave, too. She wondered how she would ever get away from Ben this time.

  15

  Father John hung his vestments in the sacristy and set the chalice and Mass prayer books in the cabinets, acutely aware of last things. The last days at St. Francis, the last Masses and meetings, and, the day after tomorrow, the last Sunday Mass.

  The morning quiet had already settled over the church. From outside came the sounds of motors and of tires munching the snow. The elders and grandmothers who drove across the reservation to early-morning Mass—the old faithfuls, he called them—heading home. He switched off the light and made his way across the altar, genuflecting in front of the tipishaped tabernacle. Then down the aisle, checking the pews for anything left behind. He let himself out into the icy air. A pale pink light was spreading across the sky as he walked to the residence.

  “Pancakes?” Father John said, taking in the sweet aroma in the kitchen. He pulled out a chair and sat down at the table across from Father Kevin. Elena stood at the stove, her back
to them. “How come this Irishman gets pancakes when you’ve been feeding me oatmeal for the last eight years?”

  The housekeeper turned and set a plate of saucer-size pancakes on the table. “You like oatmeal. Father Kevin likes pancakes.” She stepped back, then set down two mugs of coffee. “I’ll have your oatmeal in a minute.”

  Kevin pushed the plate toward him. “Help yourself,” he said. Then he glanced at the housekeeper. “Thank you, my dear woman. You’ve brought sunshine into my dreary life.”

  “Don’t give me your blarney.” Elena ran a spoon around the large bowl cradled in her arms.

  “No need for any oatmeal this morning, Elena.” Father John helped himself to several pancakes, which he drenched in syrup. He felt almost grateful to the man across from him. “I see you two have reached a truce.”

  “Truce?” Elena’s head swirled sideways. “If that’s what you wanna call it. Father Kevin’s not gonna ask me any more darn-fool questions, and I’m gonna get my work done.”

  “That’s right,” Kevin said. “No more questions. Besides, I had a good interview with Betty Crooner yesterday.”

  “What did she say, that old woman?”

  “Told me how the Arapahos and Shoshones learned how to farm.”

  “Hah! Her people are Sioux. Didn’t marry up with the Arapahos till the thirties. What’s she know? You asked the wrong woman, but I’m not talkin’ anymore.”

  “I understand, Elena.” Father Kevin took a bite of pancake, his eyes fastened on the woman.

  “My grandfather learned all about farming.” A plop on the griddle, a little sizzling noise. “How to plow and sow the seed and run the irrigation lines. Real hard work, and they weren’t used to it, none of them warriors. They liked riding out and getting buffalo. They were hunting experts. Could show some of the hunters around today a thing or two.”

  Kevin said, “I asked Mary how they had managed to keep the values they lived by as warriors—you know, honor, courage, and generosity—when they became farmers.”