Authors: Margaret Coel
Vicky snapped off the radio and pushed hard on the brake pedal. The Bronco skidded in the gravel near the barrow pit before coming to a stop. She gripped the steering wheel, trying to still her trembling. “My God, my God.” She kept repeating the words, a kind of incantation against some evil spirit.
Slowly the realization crept over her, like fog moving over the plains: Her hunch had been right. Bosse had started to have doubts about the facility. Why? What had he found? Nothing she had said or written had
changed his mind, she was sure of that. After her articles had appeared, the councilman had sent letters to the editor of the
Gazette,
determined to refute every question she’d raised about long-term safety.
But what if whoever killed Bosse thought she had found something and turned it over to the councilman? Exactly what she would have done—had she found anything. The train of thought made her blood run cold: the threats, the black truck screaming down on her and following her, last night’s prowler. She’d been kidding herself, pretending somebody was just trying to scare her off. Whoever had killed Bosse intended to kill her.
Vicky clamped her foot on the accelerator and whipped the Bronco into a tight turn across Highway 132, heading back the way she’s come. The sun-streaked plains flashed past her window. She had to get to Bosse’s house. It was possible Bosse’s wife, Agnes, knew whatever the councilman knew. She had to talk to the woman before the FBI agent cautioned Agnes against talking to anybody.
She wheeled the Bronco left onto Seventeen-Mile Road, then right on Yellow Calf Road, tires squealing into the morning stillness. Not far from the turn she saw the councilman’s pickup, nose sloped toward the barrow pit, yellow police tape stretched around the periphery. She gasped, pressing harder on the accelerator. There was nothing else in sight, nothing to break up the sunshine on the endless plains.
She drove on, rounding one curve then another, until she spotted the trail of pickups and automobiles parked in front of a white frame house. She slowed. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, coming to pay condolences, to question the widow, when the house was filled with family and friends. Everybody knew she’d fought Bosse as hard as she could on the nuclear waste facility. They probably wouldn’t even let her in.
Maybe she should turn around, drive to Ethete, and
call John O’Malley. No one would turn him away; he could talk to Agnes. Then the thought occurred to her he was probably here. She couldn’t spot the red Toyota, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t parked up ahead somewhere. She drew in a deep breath and set the Bronco into a space behind a black truck.
She grabbed her purse and got out, eyes glued to the truck. It looked like the truck from last night, the truck that had come screaming down on her in Lander. But there were dozens of black trucks in the area—on every highway, every road crossing the reservation. It was ridiculous to think whoever was stalking her would show up at Bosse’s house, especially if her theory was right and the same person trying to kill her had shot the councilman.
She threw her shoulders back and forced herself to walk past the truck. She had to think straight; this was no time to panic. It was just another black truck. Then it occurred to her the killer wouldn’t expect her to show up at Bosse’s house. She fished a pen and envelope out of her bag, turned back, and jotted down the license number before heading toward the house.
The knots of people around the cars in the driveway lapsed into silence as she moved through them. Before she reached the concrete stoop, the front door swung open. One of the grandmothers filled the doorway, the belt of her red-print housedress tied loosely around her middle, black bobby pins set at the temples of her gray hair. Vicky didn’t remember the woman, but she saw in her eyes that the woman remembered her.
She expected the door to slam in her face. Instead the old woman reached out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her forward. “Agnes been hopin’ you’d come,” she said. “She wants to see you.”
The name came in a flash: Goldie, Agnes Bosse’s sister. Vicky stepped into the hushed living room: elders and grandmothers whispering to one another from
chairs pulled into circles; knots of people standing around, heads bent together; kids dodging and giggling around the legs of the adults. Who drove the black truck? Vicky wondered. It could be anybody in the house.
The house felt warm and close, as if the air had been sucked out. The smell of fresh coffee mingled with the odors of perspiration and aftershave. Her eyes roamed the room again; John O’Malley was not here. But through the archway that led to the kitchen, she glimpsed a small group: Lionel Redbull, the Legeaus, Paul Bryant. She hurried past, following Goldie down the hallway.
“Agnes been restin’,” the old woman said, rapping on a closed door. “She’s real tired and confused. That fed showed up soon’s they found poor Matthew out in his truck. Asked her all kinds of questions, actin’ like she oughtta know why some bastard shot her husband.”
Vicky felt her stomach muscles tighten. Gianelli had already been here; she wouldn’t learn anything. She followed the other woman into the small bedroom. Agnes Bosse lay on the bed, eyes closed, her housedress bunched around puffy, arthritic knees. Two strands of gray hair spread over the pillow, like the clipped wings of a hawk. The room had the medicinal smell of cherry cough syrup.
“Agnes,” Goldie said, stepping to the bed and touching her sister’s arm. “Vicky Holden’s come here.”
The other woman opened her eyes, pushed herself up on her elbows with the quickness of a woman much younger. Then she swung her legs to the floor and patted the side of the bed.
Vicky sat down beside her. “I’m so sorry,” she began.
Agnes Bosse laid a hand over hers. “I gotta know, Vicky. Else I ain’t never gonna have no peace.”
“I don’t know who killed your husband.”
The old woman shook her head so hard, the bed gave a little jiggle. “You gotta tell me what you told Mattie.”
For a moment, Vicky said nothing. It struck her Agnes was in shock; she wasn’t making sense. “What do you mean?”
“Matthew come home from that meeting real upset.”
“The public hearing?”
“No. No.” The woman’s black eyes blazed with frustration. “That meeting last Sunday.”
“Sunday? I didn’t see Matthew last Sunday.”
The old woman stared at Vicky a long moment, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. Then she said, “It must’ve been you. Who else would’ve told him stuff about that nuclear place that got him so mad?”
“Told him what?”
Agnes squeezed Vicky’s hand. “Matthew wouldn’t tell me; said it was best I didn’t know. Said it was dangerous, and he was just gonna handle it. All’s he was tryin’ to do was help the People. Then that riot started up outside Blue Sky Hall, and somebody bumped into him real hard, and he come home with this bruise on his chest, and he was too old for that. And now somebody’s killed him.” The old woman’s voice broke.
Vicky clasped the woman’s hand in hers. It felt lifeless and cool. “Did Matthew say he’d met with me?”
The old woman raised her eyes toward the dresser with a wood-framed photograph on top—a younger Agnes and Matthew, an anniversary perhaps. Vicky saw the grief and longing mingling in her expression. “Not exactly. I just thought . . .” She drew a tissue out of her dress pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “You was fightin’ him so much, I thought it had to be you.”
“I’m sorry, Agnes.” Vicky patted the old woman’s hand and got to her feet, fighting back her frustration
and fear. She had thought Agnes might know something that would explain Matthew’s death, but Agnes thought she was the one who knew.
Goldie slipped an arm around her sister’s shoulders and laid her onto the pillow as Vicky backed toward the door. Suddenly Agnes raised herself again. “You better get away, Vicky,” she said, a wildness in her tone. “They’ll come lookin’ for you, too, just like they did Mattie.”
Vicky retraced her steps through the crowded living room, avoiding the eyes on her. The killer could be here—the thought sent an involuntary chill across her shoulders. But now she had a license number. She had something. She let herself out the front door and hurried past the Arapahos hovering in the driveway, aware of their quiet gasps of breath. No one spoke to her. She was the outsider here. As she slid into the Bronco, she checked her watch. Still two hours before the hearing at the tribal court in Fort Washakie. Time enough to seek the help she needed now.
* * *
Vicky drove to Highway 287 and stopped at a trading post and convenience store that drew mostly tourists. Inside, she selected a pouch of tobacco, three cans of beef hash, and a packet of cotton fabric with the blue, red, black, and yellow geometric designs of the Arapaho. After making her purchases, she drove into Fort Washakie and turned west on Trout Creek Road. After a few miles she wheeled right into a dirt yard, setting the Bronco in front of a small frame house painted the color of rosewood. White sheets and pink and blue towels danced in the breeze on lines next to the house. A white propane tank on metal legs shimmered in the sun. For a moment her mind switched back to other springs, when she and her cousins—brothers and sisters in the Arapaho way—would skip across the yard, darting through the sun and shadow.
Vicky forced her concentration to the present. Gathering her purse and the purchases, she let herself out of the Bronco and walked to the house. She rapped her knuckles against the front door. A hollow thwack. In an instant the door swung open, and Grandmother Ninni was hugging her close. The old woman was her mother’s aunt. Only in the Arapaho world did that make Ninni her grandmother.
“We knew you was comin’ by,” the old woman said.
“How did you know? I didn’t know if I could get by today.”
“We seen you comin’.”
Vicky understood. Perhaps Ninni had seen her coming in a dream. Or Grandfather Hedly, one of the guardians of the sacred truths, may have had a dream.
Vicky stepped into the small living room with the green linoleum floor, the round rug woven out of rags, the gray sofa sloping in the middle, the TV with rabbit ears sticking in the air. Grandfather Hedly sat in a green lounge chair against the far wall, and she walked over and took his hand. It felt rough against her palm. Then she offered him the plastic bag containing the tobacco, the cans of food, the fabric.
“Grandfather,” Vicky began, in a tone of respect, “I have been having a hard dream. I don’t understand what it means. I have come to ask you for guidance.”
The old man nodded, his eyes ancient and blurry. Vicky knew he rose every day at dawn to pray for the People. He was the keeper of the sacred wheel, the
Hehotti.
He was also one of the Four Old Men—the
Bhe’uhoko
—who represented the spirits that guarded the four quarters of the world, the north and south, the east and west, and that controlled the directions of the wind so the creatures would have air to breathe. Only men with great composure and control ever became one of the Four Old Men. They had great self-discipline, even over their thoughts, since whatever
they thought could become true. If they were to think bad thoughts, it could mean disaster for the People.
Grandfather Hedly indicated she should sit, and she sank down onto a chair near him. Grandmother Ninni’s hand rested on her shoulder with a calming pressure as Vicky related her dream: She was struggling to climb up the butte; the thick, shiny green water swirled below her; the bear lumbered ahead and became a person, beckoning her onward and then disappearing.
Quiet fell over the little house, except for the sound of a clock ticking somewhere. After a moment, the old man pushed himself out of the lounge chair and said, “We must ask
Hehotti
for help.”
Vicky and Grandmother Ninni followed him across the kitchen and out the back door. They crossed the soft dirt yard to a small shed. The old man fumbled with the combination lock on the metal bolt. The plastic bag she’d given him swung off one arm. After a moment, the door pulled open. A shaft of sunlight split the darkness as they stepped inside, moving to the right. Against the wall opposite the door, above a shelf, hung a large bundle wrapped in buffalo hide and tied with rope.
The old man approached the bundle, praying softly in Arapaho.
“In a sacred manner, I am walking.”
Vicky realized with a kind of shock that she understood the words. She couldn’t speak Arapaho, but sometimes, when she wasn’t struggling to understand, the meaning of words floated into her mind. The old man was asking
Nih’a ca
—the Great Mystery Above—to come and live with the People, to hear them in their supplications. He set the cans of food in front of the bundle, the tobacco on the left, the fabric on the right.
The old man stepped back outside, passing to the left. After a moment, he reappeared carrying a large pan covered with a lid. Inside the pan, Vicky knew, were hot coals of cottonwood and chips of cedar. He carried the pan slowly by Vicky and Grandmother Ninni and set it
on the shelf. Removing the lid, he allowed the cedar smoke to rise into the air. Then he passed his hands through the smoke and drew it toward him, blessing and cleansing himself in preparation to touch the sacred wheel.
Gently and reverently the elder reached up and removed the sacred bundle from its place against the wall. He laid it on the shelf next to the pan and began untying the rope and pulling back the buffalo hide. Again he placed his hands into the cedar smoke, then unwrapped the next layer of hide and fabric. He repeated the process until, finally,
Hehotti
lay open to the air.
A hush enveloped the little space. Vicky felt as if she had stopped breathing, as if all of time had folded into the moment as Grandfather Hedly lifted the wheel, circled it above his head, like the movement of the sun, and turned toward her.
She heard herself gasp. She’d seen the sacred wheel many times at the Sun Dance. It filled her with a wordless awe. It was round, formed of a single branch, with ends shaped like the head and tail of a snake—a harmless water snake, meek and gentle, like the snakes that lived in the buffalo wallows. Blue beads were wrapped around the top, and eagle feathers hung from four points around the wheel. Carved into the wood were the symbols of the Thunderbird, which represented the spirit guardians of creation;
Nahax,
the morning star;
He thon natha,
the Lone-Star of the evening; and the chain of stars, the Milky Way. All of creation, all of its harmony, was contained in the sacred wheel—a reminder through time to her people that
Nih’a ca
was always with them.