Eye of the Wolf (20 page)

The old man closed his eyes, as if he were watching the images playing across his eyelids. “It wasn't Arapahos that killed them ranchers,” he said after a moment. “My grandfather was hunting in the area. He seen a raiding party of Sioux goin' to the ranches. It was Sioux that killed them people. The Arapahos that died at Bates, they was innocent.”

The elder took another drink of coffee, allowing what he'd said to drift through the room, like a shadow from the past. He stared over the rim of the mug a moment, then set it on the table. “Maybe that's the reason Chief Washakie said yes and let our people come to the reservation. 'Cause he'd found out that they'd killed innocent people. No Arapaho's gonna kill Shoshones, make them start thinking about how the reservation used to be theirs, and how, maybe, that's the way it oughtta be.”

Father John took the last bite of his sandwich and washed it down with coffee. He'd been worrying about Shoshones and Arapahos killing one another; he hadn't thought about
this
. . . . He took another swallow of coffee before he said, “You think the Shoshones might ask the government to remove the Arapahos? Send them somewhere else?”

The elder threw his head back in a single nod. “They could file one of them lawsuits against the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Claim their lives was in danger, that the reservation wasn't safe no more. There's government land all over the place they could move us to, if that's what suited them.”

Father John was aware that Eva had dropped her head, her gaze fixed on the mug cradled in both hands. They'd already discussed this possibility, he was thinking. He wondered how many other Arapahos were looking at their houses, their barns and pastures, and wondering if the government could do that. Transfer them over to some other lands. Ten acres someplace else for the ten acres they had on the rez.

He set the mug down and stared at the shadow it cast on the table. If the Shoshones could prove that Arapahos were behind the murders of their people, the government might settle a lawsuit by moving the Arapahos.

“What's got me worried,” Eva began, a reluctance in her tone, as if she didn't want to contradict her own father, “is that some fool like Frankie Montana doesn't realize what he's doing.”

Ethan looked over at his daughter. “
Tihko':no:ku'no: nihno':howo' ho'xei'hino
,” he said. Then—a glance at Father John—“When I opened my eyes, I saw wolves.” He paused a moment before going on. “There was wolf scouts that brought Washakie and the soldiers to the village. The
ho':xei
always sees what he's doing.”

It was a few minutes before Father John got to his feet, thanking Eva again for the sandwich and coffee, thanking the old man for his time. A few minutes, in which he'd talked about how the investigation hadn't proved anything, how they shouldn't worry about what might happen until the killer had been found. Platitudes. The logic of platitudes. And all the time, he was aware of the polite masks that had come over the faces of Ethan and his daughter. They hadn't wanted to contradict him.

He motioned the old man to stay in his chair, saying that he'd find his way out, but Eva reached the door ahead of him and held it open. “I hope you're right, Father,” she said, as he stepped out under the gray sky.

“
TRIBAL WAR ON RESERVATION
.”

 

Vicky spotted the headline splashed across the front page of the
Gazette
the minute she walked into the coffee shop. She stood suspended in the doorway, forgetting to shut the door, until the cool air sweeping past caused heads to turn in her direction, eyes glazed in impatience. She closed the door, walked over to the newspaper rack, and lifted out the top paper. Folding the newspaper in half to hide the headline, she walked over to the counter. Who was she kidding? Newspapers were spread open on every table. Everybody in the shop was fixated on the story. She could feel the eyes following her with new interest, boring into her with the obvious questions: Arapaho? Shoshone? Which side did she fall on?

Vicky asked the bored-looking girl behind the counter for a cup of coffee, black. She slid the newspaper under her arm and fumbled in her
bag for her wallet, withdrew a dollar bill, and pushed it across the glass countertop.

No, thank you, she didn't care for anything but coffee, she heard herself saying, although she'd planned on a Danish, something to get her through the morning. She no longer had any appetite. The sugary smells made her stomach jump. A hiss of conversation ran through the sounds of coffee sloshing into a mug. Yesterday, the news had been filled with the murder of another Shoshone, Eric Surrell. And now this! Headlines screaming what everybody on the reservation feared, giving the fear substance, making it real.

God, she hoped Frankie Montana had a solid alibi this time.

The eyes were still following her as she carried the coffee over to a table near the door and sat down, letting her bag drop at her feet.
Normal. Normal.
She would read the newspaper article. Drink the coffee. Go to the office just as she'd planned. Saturday morning—she'd have the office to herself. No phone calls, no interruptions. She would pack her files and take a final look at the notes she'd written for Adam on the wolf management plan. Everything neatly pulled into place before she left. And this afternoon, she'd look over vacant office space in Lander with a realtor.

She shrugged out of her coat and unfolded the newspaper. Halfway down the front page was the photograph of a middle-aged man and woman leaning on each other, faces contorted in grief. The caption said, “Martin and Lois Surrell, members of the Shoshone tribe, fear their son was murdered in old tribal feud with Arapahos.”

Vicky started skimming the article itself. It was worse than she'd expected, pounding out the same points over and over. Shoshones and Arapahos, traditional enemies. Ancient animosities resurfacing. Four Shoshones murdered where Shoshones had massacred Arapahos in nineteenth century.

And the quotes from people across the reservation: Shoshones saying that they never did trust Arapahos, that Arapahos had always been out for revenge, that they'd waited a hundred years for the chance. And
Arapahos talking about how Shoshones never wanted them on the reservation, how it must've been Shoshones themselves that shot those three other Shoshones, so they could blame Arapahos and have an excuse to get Arapahos off the reservation.

The article ran into the inside. More quotes and interviews with the families of the murdered men, all of them saying what fine young men they had been. Three of the victims had been students at Central Wyoming, the article said. Trent Hunter. Rex and Joe Crispin. They'd gone to the site as part of a class assignment. Investigators were not certain as to what took Eric Surrell there, except that he was Hunter's cousin and may have wanted to see where his cousin had been killed.

Another photo appeared on the inside page, an elderly man, with a full head of white hair, looking out over rimless glasses that sat partway down his prominent nose. The perfect picture of a professor, Vicky thought. Hovering near the man was a young-looking woman with black, curly hair. Professor Charles Lambert and his wife, Dana, according to the caption. Three of the Shoshone victims had been enrolled in the professor's class on the war on the plains.

Vicky read quickly through the rest of the article. Professor Lambert, described as an authority on the Bates Battle. The professor himself describing Trent Hunter and Rex and Joe Crispin as excellent students who immersed themselves in the details of various battles. They had been especially interested in the Bates Battle, and the professor had suggested that his students visit the site. Bookstores in the area had ordered large numbers of Lambert's latest book,
Tribal Wars
. According to Lila Benson at Books on Main, the publisher had moved up the shipping date by almost two weeks in order to accommodate the interest in a nineteenth-century massacre that threatened to reignite a tribal feud.

Vicky closed the paper and studied the byline, somebody named Liam Harrison. An AP article, it would be published in newspapers around the country, around the world. She was beginning to think she would be sick. She folded the paper down until it was a narrow, thick stack, as if she could fold the story away, then pulled on her coat, lifted
her handbag off the floor, and walked out of the shop, leaving the folded newspaper on the table.

She moved through a wall of cool, moist air that parted as she headed down Main Street. An imitation of the sun glowed through the layer of gray clouds. There was little warmth in it. She caught sight of the reflection moving beside her in the store windows: Indian woman clutching the top of the black bag slung over her shoulders, crystals of moisture glistening in her black hair. There was no one about, except for the occasional vehicle grinding down Main. There were so many issues, she was thinking, important issues such as managing the wolf population, handling the oil and gas leases, and preserving the water rights and the timber rights, that Arapahos and Shoshones had to work together on. They had to trust one another, or they couldn't live together at Wind River.

Who are you? Why are you doing this to the reservation?

Vicky let herself in the main door of the brick office building and climbed the stairs, the sound of her footsteps clacking into the quiet. In the office, cool air streamed through the vents, and she kept her coat thrown over her shoulders as she worked at her desk, organizing and shuffling papers, trying to concentrate, unable to push out of her mind the fear that the newspaper was right, that a tribal war was about to erupt on the reservation. Detective Burton was good at his job, she told herself. He'd arrest the murderer and everything could return to normal. Normal.

The sound of her voice in the silence startled her. She was talking to herself.

She slid some papers into file folders and set them in the cardboard boxes that she'd brought to the office last night, then taped the tops closed. The movers would bring the boxes when they came for her furniture. The other file folders would stay: They were part of the firm, hers and Adam's. Theirs. She laughed out loud at the idea that there had been a “theirs.”

The phone started ringing. She reached for the receiver, then pulled
her hand back. An old habit, that was all. Emergency calls came on the weekend. There was no need to take an emergency call to a firm of which she was no longer a part. The ringing stopped; the call went to the mailbox. Whatever it was, Adam would get the message Monday.

She taped up the last box and was about to crawl back into her coat when she heard a faint metallic sound, like keys clinking together, coming from somewhere in the building. There had been noises yesterday evening, too. When she was leaving, she'd run into the dentist from the office downstairs, on his way out after treating a patient with a toothache.

The ringing started again. She stared at the phone, counting the rings. Three. Four. She leaned across the desk and picked up the receiver.

“Vicky Holden,” she said.

“Oh, thank God you're there.” Lucille Montana's voice was edged with barely controlled hysteria. “I been calling your apartment, and I been calling the office. I didn't know what . . .”

Vicky cut in, “Tell me what happened, Lucille.”

“They came for him.”

“Lucille, start at the beginning.”

“Busting into the house, like that, Detective Burton with two deputies and some rez cops. What right do they got to bust in that way?”

“Wait a minute. You're saying they broke through your door?”

“Soon's I opened the door after I hear somebody pounding, they bust right in, not waiting for me to say it was okay, and that detective shouting, ‘Where's Frankie?' It scared the shit outta me. I think I said, ‘What d'ya want him for?' I can't even remember for sure. One deputy looks in the kitchen, then heads down the hall to the bedrooms, and Burton's saying they got a warrant for Frankie's arrest and they're executing the warrant.”

“On what charges?” Vicky sank onto the edge of the chair. She could feel the answer in the pit of her stomach. Burton had found the evidence to link Frankie to the murders.

“Homicide!” The woman was shouting down the line. “Four counts
of homicide. I told that detective he was crazy, and all the time, I'm looking down the hallway expecting to see that deputy dragging Frankie into the living room, and I'm praying, Vicky, like I never prayed in my life, that Frankie heard all the commotion and got himself hidden in the closet or something.”

“Try to be calm,” Vicky said. “They'll take him to the county jail. I'm on my way over. Frankie will have a court hearing first thing Monday, and I'll do my best to get him released. Can you put the house up to secure the bond?” She'd done that before, Vicky was thinking.

There was hesitation, then a sputtering noise, like a small engine trying to turn over. “There was gunshots, Vicky.”

“Gunshots!”

“Frankie must've heard the racket, 'cause the deputy comes running down the hallway and says, ‘He jumped out the window,' and they all went running outdoors. I went after 'em, and I see Frankie's footprints dug into the ground, like he was pounding hard, all the way to where he parked the pickup. I seen what the gunshots was all about. There was a cop out back, like they expected Frankie to run, and that cop went running after him. He was shooting off his gun, like he's a real big man gonna shoot Frankie in the back. It made me sick, Vicky. I thought I was gonna throw up, thinking Frankie could've been dead, but he made it to the pickup and he was out on the road. Those cops jumped into their cars and went after him, but he was gone, Vicky. It was like that road was bare.”

Except for the tire tracks, Vicky thought. The police had probably already caught up with Frankie Montana. The man was probably in custody, with more charges piled onto the homicide charges: resisting arrest, eluding officers. Burton would come up with a whole list of charges, enough to ensure that, even if Frankie beat the homicide charges, he was looking at prison.

“Listen, Lucille,” Vicky said. “I'll find out where Frankie is.”

“They didn't get him.”

“How do you know?”

“I called the sheriff. They said he didn't get arrested. They called him a suspect at large. They're looking all over the rez for him right now. They're gonna shoot him, Vicky.”

“Don't let yourself think like that.”

“I'm telling you. They blame him for all the trouble them murders have stirred up, and they want to put an end to it, so they'll just shoot him.”

“I'll get back to you,” Vicky said, then punched the off button. The receiver felt like a piece of lead in her hand. A crackling noise came from somewhere in the building, barely registering on her consciousness. Suppose Lucille was right? She could imagine the scenario. A couple of cops spot Frankie's pickup out in the middle of the reservation somewhere and force him off the road. Frankie takes off running again, and the cops shoot. Shoot to kill the crazy Arapaho who wants to start a war on the reservation. It would be over with, wouldn't it? The best solution for everyone, except Lucille. And Frankie . . .

Vicky closed her eyes a moment and pressed her thumb and forefinger against her eyelids, unable to stop the idea working its way into her mind: Frankie Montana could be guilty.

She tapped out the number for the sheriff's department and listened to the intermittent buzzing noise. “Fremont County Sheriff.” A woman's voice.

“This is Vicky Holden,” she said. “Put me through to Detective Burtton. It's an emergency.”

“He's not in the office,” The woman said. “I'll connect you to his voice mail.”

“Hang up!”

Vicky swung around in the chair. The receiver slipped from her hand and crashed against the edge of the desk before thudding onto the floor. Frankie Montana was bracing himself in the doorway, a hand on one side, as if he were holding up the frame. He was coatless, his blue shirt plastered against his chest with perspiration. The Velcro tabs on his boots hung at the sides. In his hand was a small, black gun.

“Now you're gonna help me,” he said, holding out the gun.

Vicky took a couple of seconds, trying to slow down the thoughts tumbling through her head. She was alone in the office, probably in the whole building, with a man running from the police, a desperate man with a gun.

“Come in and sit down, Frankie,” she heard herself saying. It surprised her, how calm her voice sounded. “We've got some options. Let's talk about them.”