Eye of the Wolf (12 page)

“My father, or whatever you want me to call him, took off so long ago, I don't remember what he looked like,” she said, the words coming in a rushed whisper. “And Mom . . .” The girl tried for a laugh that sounded like a small hiccup. “Soon's I turned fifteen, her boyfriend told her to tell me to get lost, so that's what she did. So it was just me and Trent and the baby. Now it's just me.”

“And your baby.”

“It's not gonna be enough, Father.” She was sobbing now, a skim of moisture running over her temples and glistening on her cheeks.

“If you like,” he said, “you can come to the mission. There's a guest house . . .”

“Sorry, Father.” The doctor slipped past the door. “We have a room ready for her now.”

He pressed the girl's hand a moment, trying to impart as much reassurance as he could, and said that he'd be back tomorrow. Then he made his way past the doctor and the two attendants who had crowded into the room and headed back down the corridor.

As Father John walked into the waiting room, a large man spun around, blocking the path to the exit. He looked about thirty, with short reddish brown hair and a black mustache that curled upward toward flushed cheeks. He had on a black leather jacket that hung over the waist of his blue jeans and sported silver chains draped in a half-circle over the top of the sleeves and silver studs on the wide collar folded back over half of his chest.

“You the priest?” He hooked his hands onto his hips.

“Who are you?” Father John said. So this was Jason Rizzo, he was thinking.

“I'm here for Edie, okay? You got a problem with that?”

“What do you want?” Out of the corner of his eye, Father John saw
the woman behind the counter on the left get out of her chair and step backward until she'd disappeared past the edge of a cabinet.

“How come they let you see her, and they won't let me? You must be special, that it? You being the Indian priest around here. Guess people like to lick your boots.”

“Maybe she doesn't want to see you,” Father John said.

“That what she told you?” The man started tossing his head, a horse fighting the reins.

Father John ignored the question. “How'd you know she was here?”

“I got friends. Neighbor lady gave me the news when I stopped by the house. I hear Edie's Indian sleazebag got himself shot. Few less redskins around here, and that's okay by me. She should've listened to me. I warned her not to take up with Indians.” He was shaking his head, emitting a strangled noise, like a half-laugh. “What's she thinking? That I'm gonna tolerate that kind of disrespect?”

Somewhere behind them, a door squealed on its hinges. Father John glanced around. A burly guard in dark blue trousers and a light blue shirt, holstered gun riding on his hip, walked over and stopped next to Jason Rizzo. “You're gonna have to leave,” he said.

Rizzo's lip curled back into his mustache. “You ain't got no cause.”

“Let's go.” The guard took hold of the man's arm and, turning him around, walked him toward the exit. Leaning forward, he yanked open the glass door and waited until the other man had sauntered past.

“I'll be back,” Rizzo was shouting. Then he was darting around a brown pickup parked at the curb, lowering himself behind the steering wheel. He turned his head and glared through the passenger window as the pickup shot forward, laying down a trail of black exhaust that floated toward the door.

QUIET HAD SETTLED
over the office, except for the sound of warm air escaping from the vents and the dim hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Traces of moisture clung to the window in the conference room. Vicky read through the last page of the Endangered Species Act, then set the page onto one of the stacks that she'd arranged in rows along the polished table. She had the office to herself. No clacking keyboard, no telephone ringing. Adam had left for lunch fifteen minutes ago, and a few minutes later, Annie had poked her head through the door and said she was going to lunch. And—just to let her know—Adam would be back later than usual.

Vicky pulled over a copy of the Wyoming Wolf Management Plan and thumbed through the pages. Then she fanned out the pages in one of the stacks. The sections matched. Ah, but here was the problem. In the first plan the state had submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wolves would be trophy animals in the northwestern part of the
state. Everywhere else, wolves would be predators. They could be shot on sight. And what kind of place would it be? she thought. Everything tamed and controlled, and no more wildness? No more wolves? The plan had been rejected.

She set the copy of the state plan to one side and picked up the folder marked “Proposed Wind River Wolf Management Plan.” Leaning back in the rounded leather chair, she opened the folder against the edge of the table and skimmed the first page. They were walking a fine line, she was thinking. The tribal plan had to agree with federal regulations as well as with whatever new plan the state was drafting. Adam was right. They would have to go to Cheyenne and meet with both the federal and state wildlife people.

There was the smallest change in the atmosphere, an almost imperceptible stream of air rippling over the pages spread in front of her. Vicky sat very still. Nothing but the background noises of the office, the muffled noise of traffic on Main Street. Surely Annie had locked the front door when she'd left.

And yet . . . someone was here. Vicky could
feel
another presence.

She got up from the table, opened the conference room door, and walked down the hall that emptied into the front office. No one was there. The upholstered chairs, the small oak tables in the corners, Annie's desk facing the door, file folders stacked next to the computer, the oak chair pushed into the well—all normal. Yet there was something unfamiliar about the room. She had the sense that she was seeing it for the first time through the eyes of a stranger.

She was about to turn back into the hall when she heard the muffled scuff of footsteps on carpet. Across the office, next to one of the upholstered chairs, the door to her private office was closed. But Adam's door a few feet farther along the wall—Adam's door was ajar.

Vicky walked past the secretary's desk. “Adam?” she called, pushing the door open. The tentativeness in her voice hung in the air.

“Oh, hello.” The woman across the room turned away from the window that framed a view of the redbrick building across the street,
the gutters tipping forward under a ridge of snow. “I'm waiting for Adam. He must've stepped out for a moment.” She paused and gestured with her head toward the front office. She could be an actress, Vicky thought. Tall and gorgeous and young—How old could she be? Mid-twenties? Light brown hair sharply cut in slices dipped to the shoulders of her dark leather jacket, and black boots wrapped around her legs all the way to the hem of her tweed skirt. “I've been dying to see Adam's office. You must be Vicky.”

She was advancing across the carpet, past the desk, the side chair, blue eyes lit with enthusiasm, a slim hand extended. “I'm Samantha Lowe,” she said.

She'd known who the woman was even before she'd heard the name. “Adam's at lunch,” Vicky heard herself saying. She took the outstretched hand, aware of the tiniest whiff of perfume.

“He's left already?” The light in Samantha Lowe's blue eyes dimmed with disappointment. “Oh, I was hoping to give him a ride to the restaurant. She wrapped both hands around a green bag and began kneading the leather. “He's probably already there, wondering where I am.”

“You're meeting Adam for lunch?” Vicky heard the note of surprise in her voice.

“Oh, I can't tell you how helpful Adam's been,” the woman bubbled on with all the lightness and enthusiasm of a teenager. “I guess I was pretty naïve thinking I could just move to town, hang out my shingle, and clients would beat a path to my door. Lander seemed like a great town to live in. All those historic buildings restored on Main Street, and flower planters and old-fashioned streetlights. I loved it, but I really didn't know anything about the business side of setting up a practice. Thank goodness for Adam. He's taken me under his wing and kept me from making a lot of costly mistakes.”

She paused and drew in a long breath. “Well, I guess I don't have to tell you,” she said, waving the slim white hand toward the front office. “I'm sure he's done the same here. You and Adam must be very busy.” A confidential tone now, as if they were two girlfriends discussing their
latest dates. “It must be wonderful to be in a firm with a lawyer who has so much experience. Adam says you've agreed to send clients my way. I'm very grateful.” She stepped forward.

Vicky moved to the side of the door. “I'm sure Adam's waiting,” she said, weak with the sadness and disappointment washing over her.

The young woman slipped past. She was as slim as a shadow, Vicky thought, except for the high, rounded breasts that filled out the front of her leather jacket, the shapely hips, and the curve of her calf muscles beneath the leather boots. She opened the outer door and turned back. “We know,” she said, as if she wanted to underline the unspoken comment hanging between them, “that Adam Lone Eagle isn't the type of man who likes to be kept waiting.”

Then Samantha Lowe was gone, the blond hair and dark leather jacket moving past the rectangle of glass next to the door, starting down the stairs, as graceful as a ballerina.

Vicky walked across the outer office and threw the lock on the door. Then she went into her private office, took her coat off the hanger behind the door, and pulled it on. Leaning over the desk, she scribbled a note for Annie: “I'm working at home this afternoon.” She lifted her briefcase and leather bag out of the desk drawer and went back to the conference room where she stuffed the management plans inside the briefcase before walking back through the quiet of the office and letting herself out, making sure the lock was set before she closed the door.

Fool. Fool. Fool. What was she thinking? She headed around the corner of the building and down the narrow walkway that divided the brick walls from the parking lot, lifting her face into the chilly, moist air, the briefcase rigid at her side, one hand gripping the handle of the bag slung over her shoulder. From behind her came the slushy noise of traffic and the faint smell of exhaust. Why had she thought that a man like Adam Lone Eagle—who stopped women in their tracks when he walked by—could ever be faithful? He was like the chiefs in the Old Time. It was their duty—responsibility—to take many wives. But that was the Old Time, when a woman needed a man to hunt and bring her food to eat
and skins that she could make into clothing and tipis. So she looked the other way when he took other wives. But this was now.

Vicky stabbed her key into the lock of the Jeep until, finally, the lock button jumped up. She didn't need Adam Lone Eagle. She yanked open the door, threw her briefcase and bag across the front seat, and got in behind the steering wheel, shutting the door so hard that the vehicle seemed to rock. It was ironic, when you thought about it. After ten years with Ben Holden—ten years of lies—she'd sworn that she would never be so trusting again. So naïve, as naïve as Samantha Lowe peering out at the world through blue eyes that cast a lovely hue on everything.

She had to jiggle the key in the ignition before the engine sparked into life. She'd have to break things off.
That
was as clear as the red sedan parked ahead. There could be nothing more between them. No more late dinners and long nights where he made her feel warm and comforted and not alone. Where he made her forget all that had been with Ben and all that would never be with John O'Malley—all the memories and yearnings—as she and Adam had floated together in what was present and possible.

There would be nothing personal between them. Nothing but the law firm. Vicky shifted into reverse and shot backward into the lot. A horn blared. She hit the brake and glanced over her left shoulder at the orange sedan stopped behind her. Then she pulled back in and waited for the sedan to drive past, her thoughts on the law firm. Who was she kidding? Adam was not the kind of man to walk into the office every day, nod a pleasant good morning, sit down on the other side of the conference table, and hammer out some legal document, as if they'd never been lovers. There was a good chance he would want to dissolve the firm. He could open another office in Lander, go his own way. And take the tribal business with him.

God, the horn was still blaring, like a cow bleating into the cold. “I'm waiting for you to go,” she said out loud. Then she dipped her head against the rim of the steering wheel. Adam would go, she thought.

Well, she had options. She lifted her head and straightened her shoulders. Now that was funny. She had to laugh at the options, and the choked sound of her own laughter caught her by surprise. She swallowed back the impulse to go on laughing, afraid that she might burst into tears. She could continue to be one of Adam's women, walking around with blinders on, like a mare at the edge of a cliff, or she could return to her one-woman law practice and spend her days working on DUIs, divorces, adoptions, and parking tickets, and forget about practicing Indian law.

She stared at the red sedan ahead, aware now of the silence that floated around her. The orange car must have driven past, and she'd been too preoccupied to notice. She'd started backing out again when a blurred figure appeared silently outside her window. A gloved hand tapped on the glass. Vicky stepped on the brake and looked into the brown eyes of Lucille Montana, head bent toward the window, breath making little gray clouds on the glass.

“I've got to talk to you.” The woman looked as if she were mouthing the words, but the muffled sound of her voice cracked through the glass and metal.

Vicky pressed the window button. A shaft of cold air peppered with moisture drifted over the lowering glass. Lucille stuck her face into the opening. Her eyes were red rimmed, her cheeks flushed with cold and worry. If she invited the woman into her office, Vicky was thinking, Adam could return before they finished talking.

She said, “I'm on my way home. We can talk at my place.”

“Can't we go to the office?” Lucille clasped her gloved hands together like a microphone in front of her mouth, which made her voice tremble, laced with hopelessness.

Vicky had to look away to keep from jamming down on the door handle and getting out. It was just as she'd expected. A sheriff's investigator was probably taking a hard look at Frankie Montana for the Shoshone murders. But she did not want to return to the office. She did not want to face Adam yet. She needed some time.

“I'm working at home this afternoon,” she began, averting her eyes from the woman still pressing her face a few inches from her own. “We can talk there.”

There was a moment before Lucille Montana began to drift back along the Jeep. Another moment before the orange sedan lurched across the parking lot and turned onto Main, bouncing in the rearview mirror, the woman's dark head bobbing over the steering wheel.

“
FRANKIE DIDN'T KILL
anybody.” Lucille gripped her gloves in one hand and slapped them against her thigh. She was sunk into the middle of the sofa, the cushions angled upward on either side. “I don't care what the detective says. He wants to arrest some Arapaho for killing Shoshones, so he can make himself look like a big man. He don't care what Arapaho he arrests.”

“Better tell me what happened.” Vicky lifted a yellow notepad out of her briefcase and located the pen tucked in the side pocket. She sat down in the upholstered chair across from the other woman.

Lucille squared her shoulders, tilted her head back, and studied the ceiling a moment, as if the images were moving across the white plaster. “First thing this morning, he's knocking on the door.”

“Who?”

“Detective Burton. Knocking on the door, and soon's I opened it, he says to me, ‘Go get Frankie,' and I say, ‘Frankie's still sleeping, so come back later.' He says, ‘Go get him now,' and give me that look like he's gonna haul me off to jail if I don't do what he says.”

Vicky held the pen close to the notepad balanced on her lap and waited.

After a moment, Lucille went on, “I told Frankie to get up 'cause Burton was there and wasn't gonna leave. Then I went back out to the door, and I said, ‘Guess you better come in, so I can close the door and keep the cold outside.' The house was already getting cold from him standing there. Pretty soon Frankie comes down the hall. He's got his
blue jeans on and the dirty tee shirt he was sleeping in. He's still half asleep, and he says, ‘What're you doin' here?' and Burton says he has a few questions he'd like Frankie to answer.”

“I warned Frankie.” Vicky could hear the exasperation leaking into her voice. “He didn't have to talk to him.”