The Dream Stalker (17 page)

She started scribbling down the margins—lines and circles, a mishmash of angry marks. Even if she were right, if Bosse had come across other information, why would he tell her? It was doubtful he’d even meet with her, after all she’d done to stop the facility. Nevertheless she made up her mind she had to talk to Bosse. When he arrived at his office this morning, she would be waiting.

17

T
he first light of day shone through stained glass windows, casting a pink glow over the interior of St. Francis church as Father John said the ancient, familiar prayers of the Mass. At the Our Father, some of the old people in the front rows joined in softly, speaking Arapaho:
“Heesjeva hene Sunauneet: Heneseet vedenau
. . .” The solemnity of the words gave him a sense of comfort. There was only one God, and His Name was Wonderful. One God to whom the people brought themselves in all their poverty and richness; one God they petitioned in the Sun Dance and appealed to in the Sweet Lodge; one God they encountered in the Mass. Enough prayers could never rise into the heavens for the poor and forsaken and weak, all the lost and troubled creatures.

Leonard Bizzel, kneeling at the side of the altar, gave the little metal bell a jangle as Father John elevated the Host. Behold, the Lord with us. For an instant, in the stillness, he felt as if time had stopped, and he was at peace. He offered his prayers for the murdered cowboy, for all the people of the reservation, for Vicky, for himself. A prayer for peace and acceptance in all of their hearts.

*   *   *

“If it ain’t rainin’ today, Ralph says he’s gonna stop by and see about fixin’ that leakin’ roof,” Leonard said.
He was placing the Mass books and the chalice in one of the cabinets in the sacristy.

“He’ll do a good job,” Father John said as he fit his chasuble onto a wooden hanger. He hung the garment in the closet and set the door in place.

“You gonna pay him?”

“Absolutely.” Father John was struck by the bravery of the statement. It was a good thing Father Geoff wasn’t around to hear it.

“What you gonna use? Wampum?”

Father John laughed. He tried to keep the financial condition from the staff. They had their own worries; this was his. But there were no secrets from the moccasin telegraph. “Don’t worry, Leonard,” he said. “The Lord has taken care of St. Francis Mission for a long time now.”

*   *   *

He was surprised to see the young woman in the foyer as he came down the center aisle. He hadn’t noticed her at Mass. Everyone else had left, and the church was quiet, except for the wind whistling through a partially opened window. The faint smell of hot candle wax hung in the air.

“Hello,” he said. She looked to be in her early twenties, slender, with a pretty face and long, black hair that hung around her shoulders. She wore a jeans jacket over a pinkish dress. Her legs were bare, and she had on flat, brown shoes.

“My grandfather said for me to stop by on my way to work this mornin’. He wants to know about Gabriel.”

“Gabriel Many Horses?” The young woman had his full attention. “Was he a friend of yours?”

She shook her head in a slow, deliberate gesture. “Grandfather wants to know when the funeral’s gonna be.”

“Who’s your grandfather?”

“Clarence Fast. You hearda him? He was a real
good cowboy. Used to call him Fast Clarence in the rodeos.”

Father John didn’t recognize the name. He said, “Tell your grandfather I’ll let him know when the funeral has been set. Where can I find him?”

“He’s been stayin’ with me and my kid last couple months, ever since he give up wranglin’. He looks after Jamie while I go to work. I got me a job cleanin’ rooms in a motel over in Riverton.” She stopped, letting a smile play at her mouth. The job was an accomplishment. “Jamie and me and Grandfather live in the white house on Blue Cloud Road close by the river. You can find Grandfather there most anytime.”

Father John opened the front door and followed the woman outside. The air was cool with a hint of rain, but the sun sparkled on the leaves unfolding in the cottonwoods. The woman hurried down the sidewalk and across Circle Drive to a parked yellow truck with a streak of rust along the side. He watched as she made a U-turn and sped around the drive toward Seventeen-Mile Road. He felt glad at the woman’s news; the cowboy hadn’t been alone in the world after all.

*   *   *

Elena had insisted he take a thermos of coffee, but he had tried to beg off, explaining she would have to brew another pot, and he didn’t have time—an idea foreign to the old woman, he knew. People had nothing but time. Now the thermos wobbled on the seat next to the cassette player, and
Don Giovanni
filled the cab of the Toyota. He loved the music, the sense of space: the Wind River Mountains floating ahead in the haze, the sky an enormous blue bowl inverted over the earth, and the sun patterning the wild grasses and clumps of sagebrush on either side of Seventeen-Mile Road.

He swung left onto Rendezvous Road and drove south through Hudson into Lander. He slowed along Main Street, focusing on the asphalt ahead as he passed
the red brick building where Vicky’s office was. Then he was on the highway again, racing through land broken by buttes and arroyos, jammed against the foothills on the west. He passed one ranch after another, tapping on the brake, slowing to read the names on the mailboxes at the edge of the highway. What did he expect? What would identify an Arapaho woman with a white man’s name?

A big ranch, LuAnn Fox had said. Runs up into the foothills. A good description of every ranch he’d passed so far. Suddenly he spotted the rock outcroppings ahead, as if the foothills had broken off and tumbled downward. An expanse of meadow disappeared into a canyon. He slowed past the mailbox with the name Cavanaugh and turned into a driveway lined with evergreens and cottonwoods. He parked next to the two-story ranch house with white board siding that gleamed in the morning sun. A porch extended across the front. As he walked up the steps, a gust of wind caught one of the webbed metal chairs stacked along the railing and sent it sprawling over the plank floor. He clacked the brass knocker against the door and waited.

The only sound was that of wind rustling in the evergreens and cottonwoods. He gave the knocker another clack before walking back down the steps. Around the corner of the house he could see the buildings out back—a series of sheds and barns. The door in the nearest barn stood open, and he started down the driveway through the shadows of the branches.

He could see two cowboys inside the barn, currying a couple of horses. Suddenly a woman emerged, leading two quarter horses—a sorrel with a blaze on its face and a gray. She was probably in her thirties, with curly gold-red hair pulled into a thick bunch and tied with a yellow bandanna at the nape of her neck. She wore blue jeans that revealed the curve of her thighs and hips. Her jeans jacket hung over a white blouse. White ruffles
flared along the lapels of the jacket and dangled around her wrists.

Father John set one boot on the lower rail of the fence and leaned onto the top, caught by the ease and fluidity with which she moved with the horses, as if the stroll across the bare yard were some kind of dance. They must be her best companions, he thought, the horses.

She glanced up and caught his eye.

“I’m sorry if I frightened you—” he began.

“You didn’t.”

She came toward him, not hurrying, bringing the horses along, the leadropes resting in each hand. He could see the green of her eyes, the sprinkling of freckles across her cheek and nose and in the plunging V of her blouse. She was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in a long time, a fact that gave him a momentary pang of homesickness. So like the Irish girls he’d grown up with in Boston, the striking women they had become. He introduced himself.

“A priest,” she said, as if this piece of information held some fascination for her. She brought the horses close to the fence, light dancing in her green eyes.

“I’m trying to find a woman whose maiden name was Many Horses.” He was aware of her perfume as she set one booted foot on the railing not far from his.

“My stepmother’s in the upper pasture with most of the cowboys. They’re moving the herd to higher ground.” She allowed her smile to last a long moment. “Perhaps I can help you.”

He said, “I believe your stepmother may know someone I’m trying to locate.” A kind of Jesuitical evasion, he knew. In a way he was trying to locate a murdered man, place him in a context. But he didn’t want to discuss the murdered cowboy with this beautiful, self-possessed woman who, he suspected, might decide her stepmother had nothing to say to him.

“I was just about to ride up to the pasture to give her a hand,” she said. “Todd was coming with me”—she gave a little nod toward the barn—“but you can come instead. Take Beauty here.” She raised the lead of the gray mare, which kept trying to nudge the sorrel gelding. “Think you can handle her?”

Father John was reminded of the first time he’d been asked if he could handle a horse. Jamie Little Bear and Dick Wooly had invited him on a four-day pack trip in the Wind River Mountains. It was his first summer at St. Francis; he’d never ridden before. He had learned by doing what they did. It was the way the Arapahos taught their children to ride. He’d gone on pack trips many times since. He and horses seemed to get along.

He climbed up to the middle railing, swung himself over the top, and jumped down on the other side. She was already leading the horses to a hitching post where she tied the halter reins. Then she walked toward a shed, and he followed. Swinging open the door, she stepped inside and pulled two blankets from the saddles straddled over a post. She handed one blanket to him—blue-and-red-striped wool, soft in his hands. They walked back to the horses, and he laid the blanket on top of the mare, pulling it along the spine just below the withers.

They walked back to the barn for the saddles. “Beauty likes that one,” the woman said, nodding toward the saddle with the tooled leather skirt. He lifted it off the post, walked outside, and gently set it on the mare. Then he shook it backward by the horn, making sure it fit comfortably before he cinched it up. After giving the mare a moment to get used to the straps under her belly, he tightened them. Another moment, another tightening.

The woman handed him a bridle. He removed the halter, threw it over the hitching post, and slipped the bit in the mare’s mouth. He lifted the bridle over her ears and flipped the reins over her crest. Then he swung
into the saddle, settling his weight slowly. It took time to get used to a man’s weight.

The woman was already mounted. “You learn how to saddle a horse in Boston?” she asked, amusement in her eyes.

“What makes you think I’m from Boston?” He crossed the reins behind the pommel, holding them loosely.

She smiled. “Dead giveaway, that accent of yours.” Leaning toward him, she extended a slim hand, the back brushed with freckles. “Sheila Cavanaugh. I’m impressed.”

“And do you ride every morning, Sheila Cavanaugh?”

“Every morning? Every morning I ride the Powell-Hyde Cable to Union Square. I’m an investment banker.”

“Then I’m impressed.”

“No, you’re not.” She lifted her hand, moving it slightly forward. The horse started across the yard. He let the mare walk alongside.

Past the barn, she leaned forward and applied a little spur. The horse broke into a trot, and Beauty followed. In an instant they were galloping across the meadw the breeze cool on Father John’s face, the sun warm on his shoulders. They reached a path that started uphill through a clump of boulders and the overhanging branches of ponderosas. Sheila Cavanaugh reined in. He brought Beauty to a halt a few feet away.

The woman tossed her head back and laughed. After a moment she said, “I used to ride every day when I was growing up. But my mother died when I was fourteen, and Dad took a look at the ranch hands and at his nubile, adolescent daughter and said Off to boarding school with you. So you might say I’m from Boston, too. I spent the next eight years there. One Christmas I came back and found I had a stepmother. Alberta Many
Horses. Arapaho. To say I was shocked wouldn’t quite say it all. Dad died a couple years ago and left the ranch to both of us.” She turned the gelding and started up the path, a slow walk, both horses picking their way through the ponderosas.