Authors: Margaret Coel
F
ather John awoke to a loud growling noise like the sound of a truck bearing down a mountain. It took him a moment to realize it was a chain saw. Leonard Bizzel, the caretaker, was probably pruning dead branches from the cottonwoods that sheltered the grounds of St. Francis Mission.
Sunshine burst past the half-drawn blinds at the bedroom window and washed over the yellow walls, the faded brown carpet. The sunshine surprised him. He’d been dreaming of rain. Rain pattering on the tin roof of the old log cabin as the cowboy struggled to sit up, struggled to tell him something.
He’d slept badly, and a dull ache crept across his shoulders and made its way up the back of his neck into his head. It had been close to four o’clock before he’d dropped into bed, every bone in his body screaming for sleep. But his mind had kept rerunning the telephone conversation, like a cassette player replaying the same tape, trying to fix the caller’s words, to understand how a man—a drifter, perhaps, a drunk, it didn’t matter—how he had ended up shot to death in a deserted log cabin. And hovering in the background, like some silent witness, was his own sense of failure.
Now the hands on the alarm clock on the bedside table stood at 8:27. The day had started without him. Leonard was already tackling the spring cleanup on the
mission grounds; Father Geoff would have said the early Mass and put in a half hour at the office; and, judging by the sound of water swishing through the pipes, Elena, the housekeeper at St. Francis for more years than anyone could remember, was in the basement carrying out her self-imposed task of making sure no washable items in the priests’ residence escaped a frequent encounter with the washing machine.
He swung out of bed. In twenty minutes he was showered and dressed in a clean, stiff pair of blue jeans and a long-sleeved plaid shirt worn into comfort. He shaved quickly, hardly noticing the gray hair mixing with the red at his temples, the little lines at the edges of his eyes. He would be forty-eight in a couple of weeks, but he still stood close to six feet four and was as trim as in his pitching days at Boston College. He could still hurl a ball dead center over home plate.
Downstairs in the kitchen, he stared through the window over the sink as he washed down bites of buttered toast with gulps of stale coffee, his sense of failure and guilt as sharp as the pain coursing through his head.
Out in the yard, Walks-on-Three-Legs, the golden retriever who had stumbled into his life—one of the unexpected gifts life sometimes offers—lay on his side in the buffalo grass, basking in the sunshine. The dog had been on his side that day last fall when Father John had caught a glimpse of something in the barrow pit along Seventeen-Mile Road and stopped to check, fearing it might be a child. He’d scooped up the animal and laid him on the front seat of the Toyota. Then he’d broken the speed limit all the way to Riverton. The vet had saved the dog’s life, but at the cost of his mangled back leg.
Risen out of a ditch, Father John often thought, much as he himself had risen out of Grace House after his treatment for alcoholism and had come to an Indian reservation, the last place on earth he had ever thought
to find himself. Had come here, like Walks-on, to begin a new life.
A few feet from the dog, a cluster of cottonwoods marked the boundary of the back yard. Leonard perched halfway up a ladder, maneuvering a chain saw among the branches. The saw sputtered into life, a loud, intermittent growl. Beyond the trees was the baseball field, matted and soggy-looking in the morning air. No telling when the field would dry out enough for the Eagles to practice. This would be the eighth season he coached the Indian kids, the eighth season they would show the teams in Lander and Riverton what baseball was all about. But spring was slow in arriving: a few mornings of sunshine, followed by afternoons and nights of pelting rain. Dark clouds drifted over the mountains. The rain would come again today.
Father John took another gulp of coffee. He forced his thoughts to the work awaiting his attention in the office. The minutiae of running a mission: Ladies’ Sodality and men’s meetings; religious education and adult literacy classes, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, liturgy services—all to schedule and preside over. There were messages to answer, calls to return, bills to pay.
Always the bills. At least this was one area in which his new assistant had some expertise. Along with a master’s degree in finance, Father Geoff Schneider had the propensity of his German ancestors for order and precision. He’d arrived two weeks ago, and Father John had handed him the books. Since then, the mission’s finances had moved to the back of his worries. There was always the chance his new assistant would hit upon some brilliant plan to keep St. Francis Mission solvent.
He rinsed out the mug and started across the kitchen just as Elena stepped into the doorway, blocking his path. She wore a blue, flower-printed dress under a yellow apron that hung from her neck. Part Arapaho and part Cheyenne, she barely reached his shoulder. She was
in her sixties, though not even she knew exactly where in her sixties. He could see the pockets of pink scalp shining through her gray hair.
“You sit yourself right down,” she ordered, turning her round face upward and fixing him with blue-black eyes. “You’ll have your oatmeal in no time.”
“The office beckons.” He threw out both hands. The matter was beyond his control.
“Office can wait.”
“There are bills to pay. . . .”
“You ain’t got no money.”
“Didn’t you hear? We got a check for a million dollars.”
“What I hear is the pastor’s havin’ some wild dreams.” The old woman gestured toward the round table in the center of the kitchen. “Sit yourself down. You need your oatmeal after bein’ out half the night.”
He sensed the conversation lurch toward the real point of his sitting down and eating breakfast: The old woman could ply him with questions about last night, and, maybe even gather information to transmit over the moccasin telegraph. Most likely she had arrived at seven this morning, as usual, and Father Geoff had mentioned the late-night call. And she had clucked over the stubbornness—the Irish could be so stubborn—that had driven the pastor of St. Francis Mission out into a miserable, rainy night when anyone with good sense would know to stay home. It was only by the grace of the good spirits that looked after fools and stray animals that he’d gotten back safely, and now she wanted to know all the details.
He said, “I promise to eat two bowls of oatmeal tomorrow.”
The old woman fixed both hands atop her hips and gave him a long look of exasperation. He was impossible. She did her best to take care of him and contribute to the flow of news on the reservation. What else could
she do? After a long moment, she said, “Somebody’s waitin’ to see you in the study.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’re supposed to eat your oatmeal first.”
* * *
Father John expected to find Ted Gianelli, the stocky, black-haired FBI agent and former cornerback for the Buffalo Bills. He hailed from Quincy, Massachusetts, practically Father John’s old backyard, he sat in the front pew at the ten o’clock Mass every Sunday with his wife and four little girls, and, Father John had to admit, the agent probably loved opera even more than he did. In the couple of months Gianelli had been assigned to central Wyoming, they’d become friends.
But as Father John walked into the study, two men rose from the blue wingback chairs in front of his desk. One was a white man he’d never seen before. The other was Lionel Redbull, an Arapaho in his mid thirties, close to six feet tall and slender in a muscular way, with the high, smooth forehead, prominent cheeks, and hooked nose of his people. His black hair hung in two braids down the front of a black blazer, which rode on his shoulders with ease. He had been tapped by Matthew Bosse, one of the Arapaho councilmen, to oversee the plans for the nuclear waste facility. Redbull was one of the
Kuno’utose’i o,
Father John thought, the Indians without blankets, the progressives.
“Sorry to show up unexpected,” Redbull said, stepping forward, a brown hand outstretched. Discomfort and embarrassment mingled in his dark eyes. There was almost no excuse for an Arapaho to breach the forms of politeness.
“The fault is mine,” said the white man, leaning past the Indian to extend his hand. “Paul Bryant, president, United Power Company. I flew into Riverton about an hour ago and suggested to Lionel we take a chance on finding you in your office. Father Schneider—I believe
he said he’s your assistant—directed us to the residence. I hope you can spare a few minutes.”
The man’s grip was firm and full of purpose. Father John guessed he was close to his own age, medium height and broad shouldered, with neatly trimmed dark hair and an intelligent face. He wore a gray suit, the jacket unbuttoned, a red tie knotted smartly at the collar of his white shirt.
Father John waved both men to the wingbacks as he sank into the worn leather chair behind the desk. A shaft of sunlight broke through the window and splashed over the papers in front of him; the washing machine hummed from below the floorboards. His headache had receded into a dull throbbing. He wished he felt a little more up to what was sure to be a discussion about storing nuclear waste on the reservation. He said, “What brings you to St. Francis Mission, gentlemen?”
“We hope to gain your support, Father O’Malley.” The white man crossed one gray-panted leg over the other, relaxed and confident.
“My support?”
“Let me explain. My company was formed by thirty utility companies in the East, all of which generate electricity through nuclear power. Specifically, the plants rely upon nuclear fuel rods that contain uranium dioxide. Bundling the rods together causes fission, which, of course, creates the heat necessary to generate steam and produce electric power. Unfortunately it also creates a by-product—nuclear waste.” The man shrugged, as if the matter couldn’t be helped. “The spent fuel rods contain unused uranium and some transuranic elements, such as plutonium. When handled correctly, however, these radioactive materials can be stored with absolute safety.”
“I’ve read the report.” Father John nodded toward the red-bound book still on his desk where he’d left it last night. “It didn’t mention radioactive materials that
might leak into the groundwater or plutonium dust that could escape through vents.”
“You must understand, Father,” Bryant continued, his tone unchanged. “We’re proposing a state-of-the-art storage system that eliminates such problems. The spent fuel rods will be contained in casks made up of three layers: stainless steel cylinders, heavy metal shields, and steel shells. Engineered to withstand impact, puncture, fire, immersion in water. They should remain impermeable for at least a hundred years.”
“Plutonium remains radioactive for thousands of years,” Father John said. “What happens after the casks disintegrate?”
Lionel Redbull shifted in his chair, both hands gripping the armrests. The white man kept his eyes on Father John. “We must trust the science of the future to address that problem. In any case, plutonium is not the bugaboo everyone assumes. It emits alpha radiation, which, as you know, cannot even penetrate the human skin.”
Father John said, “Plutonium can be deadly if it’s inhaled. Or if it’s swallowed, say, in water.” The room went quiet a moment. He continued, “What about the other waste products—cesium and strontium? They emit gamma and beta radiation. Even more dangerous.”
Paul Bryant cleared his throat. “Only if released into the atmosphere or into the water. Impossible with the facility we intend to build. The casks will be stored in air-cooled concrete buildings, set on pads twelve feet thick. The entire facility will resemble a lovely industrial park, fenced and guarded, of course. It will be licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Every precaution will be taken.”
Redbull leaned forward, clasping his hands together—a nervous gesture. “You gotta understand, Father. We’re only gonna have the facility on the rez for thirty or forty years. Just until the federal government
gets around to building a permanent storage place somewhere else. The Arapaho Business Council is behind this interim facility one hundred percent. So’s the Shoshone council. Two weeks from now the proposal’s gonna go before the joint Arapaho-Shoshone council for a final vote. It’s gonna be approved.”
The Indian drew in a long breath and hurried on: “This here’s our chance to bring in ten million dollars every year as long as the power companies rent the facility. Sure, a couple million a year will go to the Legeaus. Hell, it’s their ranch gonna be leased.” He shrugged, resignation crossing his face. “But the rest is gonna build and operate the facility and pay for a lot of benefits. We’re talkin’ new houses, schools, clinics, roads. Not to mention some high-tech jobs Arapahos and Shoshones can count on. No more goin’ begging in Lander and Riverton for some low-paying job sweepin’ out a warehouse. . . .”
Bryant cleared his throat, an interruption. “My company has given the Arapahos a grant to determine the safest location for the facility. Lionel here hired the best consultants available, and they all agree the Legeau ranch is an ideal storage site. The water table is safely below the surface. The soil is stable. No evidence of slippage or erosion. No bentonite that could cause expansion. No underground faults to cause an earthquake. And no known oil or mineral deposits in the area, which eliminates any drilling that could upset the ground stability. So you can see, Father O’Malley, every indicator points to a safe and profitable facility.”
Father John picked up a ballpoint and tapped it against the edge of the desk. “What exactly do you want from me?”
“I believe you could be of great help, Father,” Bryant said.
“To your company?”
A slow smile spread across the white man’s face, as
if he had just taken the full measure of an opponent. “Unfortunately we must contend with the professional activists, the alarmists who come out of the woods at the mention of the words ‘plutonium’ and ‘radioactive.’” Bryant squared his shoulders, as if to accept an unpleasant reality that must be faced. “Alarmists influence a lot of people, especially if they’re Arapaho themselves, like the attorney, Vicky Holden.”