Watching Eagles Soar (10 page)

“Try to have hope,” Father John said.

“I brought Myrna home yesterday. Fixed her a little dinner, but she couldn't eat. Finally got her to sleep—God, she was exhausted. So was I, but I had to go out on patrol. We were shorthanded, and we had a tip Montecon was on the rez looking for Redbird. Redbird got to him first. Shot him in the head this morning. The bastard deserved to die. Redbird's gonna get what he deserves, too. Gonna be sitting in prison the rest of his stinking life. Soon's my shift ended, I took Myrna back to the hospital. Nothing had changed.” Howie pushed himself off the sofa. “Will you talk to her?” he said. “I'm awful worried about her.” He raised a palm, then made his way around the sofa and opened the door. His boots made a clacking noise in the hallway. In a moment he was back. “She says come on in.”

Father John followed the Indian down the darkened hallway and into a small bedroom. Myrna was propped up on the bed, facing the opposite wall, her expression as rigid as the wood headboard she leaned against. She was dressed in blue jeans and a tee shirt, her face red and puffy, her black hair flung across the pillows around her. Clumps of tissues lay on the floor beside the bed. A faint light glowed in the closed curtains, giving the room the feel of twilight.

“I'm so sorry about Patsy,” Father John said, perching on the chair that Howie had pushed behind him. “She's in God's hands, Myrna. Try to believe God is taking care of her.”

“She's gonna die.” Myrna turned her head toward him—a slow, robotic movement.

“Patsy's gonna live.” Howie leaned over and ran his hand over his wife's forehead, as if she were a patient with a delusional fever. “That scum that got her on the stuff is dead. The other druggie killed him. They won't be hurting her again. She's gonna get on with her life.”

The woman swallowed hard, then leaned into the pillows and went back to focusing on some point across the room. Another painting, Father John realized, another picture of the black stallion.

“Let's pray together,” he said. “Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .” Howie's voice joined his own. Then, after a moment, the timid, frightened voice of Myrna.

* * *

F
ather John hurried through the front door of the administration building and nearly collided with Vicky on the concrete stoop. “Whoa!” he said. “I wasn't expecting you.”

“It's a bad time. I'll call you later.” She turned toward the steps. The sunlight glistened in the black hair brushing the shoulders of her blue blouse.

“Hold on,” he said. Vicky never came to the mission unless something important had come up. “Is everything okay?”

Vicky turned back and locked eyes with him. “I wanted to thank you for advising Ernest Redbird to turn himself in. He surrendered to the police in Denver yesterday.” She gave a little wave, letting her hand drift in the space between them. “Somebody's probably waiting for a priest.”

“Howie Thunder,” he said. “His daughter's taken a turn for the worse. I'm on my way to the hospital.”

“Oh, my God. Poor Myrna and Howie. I'll ride along, if it's okay.”

Of course it was okay, Father John thought, conscious of her presence next to him in the pickup. They'd worked together on a lot of cases, more than he wanted to think about. He hated the homicides, suicides, and arrests—the tragedies—they'd been involved in, yet he couldn't bring himself to regret the time they'd spent together.

“Ernest has been cleared of any connection to Montecon's death,” she was saying. Father John glanced over. Vicky kept her eyes straight ahead, her profile backlit by the sunshine flaring in the passenger window. “He was at a party in Denver with his girlfriend until two in the morning the day of the murder. At least fifty people saw him. Nine o'clock in the morning, he showed up at a day-care center to drop off his girlfriend's little boy. There's no way he could have been on the reservation around six.”

Father John glanced over at her again. “Six? The newspapers and radio said Montecon was killed in the middle of the night.”

Vicky met his eyes for a brief moment. “That's what the FBI and the police thought at first, but the coroner determined that Montecon had only been dead about an hour before Howie got there. Ernest still faces charges for dealing drugs. He's being transported here from Denver.”

“The coroner's certain about the time of death?” Father John gripped the steering wheel hard. Something about this latest piece of news made him uncomfortable.

“About six, the autopsy said. Even without a murder charge, everyone's clamoring for Ernest's head. I intend to ask for a change of venue. He doesn't stand a chance of a fair trial close to the rez. Too many families have been hurt by the meth that Montecon brought here. A local jury won't want to hear how Montecon forced Ernest to sell the drugs. How he was an addict, out of control, doing what he had to do to get his own drugs. He's sorry for what he did. He's cleaned up his life, John. I think he deserves a break.” Father John turned right into the parking lot of Riverton Memorial Hospital, the time of Montecon's death still running through his mind. Before the autopsy report, everyone had believed Montecon had been killed in the middle of the night.

Everyone, he was thinking, with the exception of Howie Thunder.
Shot
him in the head this morning
, Howie had said.

Death invaded the hospital corridor like an invisible gas. It fell over the sloping shoulders of the doctor in green scrubs coming through the metal swinging doors and two white-clad nurses hovering over papers inside a glass-enclosed cubicle. Vicky was aware of the synchronized rhythm of her footsteps with Father John's on the hard vinyl floor.

“The family's with her,” the receptionist at the desk outside the intensive care unit had told them. “They're having a ceremony. You can go back.” Father John stopped outside an opened door, and Vicky stepped past into the small room crowded with people—a blur of brown faces and black hair, blue denim shirts and blue jeans propped against the tan walls and perched on the windowsill. The odor of sage filled the air, pushing back the scent of death. She moved to the side to make room for Father John. Patsy Thunder lay on the narrow bed, face turned upward, eyes closed. The thin contours of her body rose against the white blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Myrna and Howie occupied two chairs at the side of the bed.

Will Standing Bear, one of the elders, stood at the foot. His gray hair was pulled back into a ponytail, his face skull-like beneath the wrinkled brown skin. Slowly he lifted a metal pan over the dead girl. A faint trail of smoke from the burning sage drifted around the edges of the pan.
“Hevedathuwin
nenaidenu jethaujene,”
he prayed in Arapaho.
“Hethete hevedathuwin nehathe
Ichjevaneatha haeain ichjeve.”

Vicky felt the words falling over her like a cool rain. She understood the meaning; she'd heard the prayer so often.
Your
soul will live forever. Your soul goes to God to our home on high.

When he'd finished the prayers, he lowered the pan and set a lid on top. The cuffs of his blue shirt stood out from the thin, knobby wrists. Someone pulled a chair around and he dropped down onto the seat, not taking his eyes from the dead girl. The room went quiet, except for the sounds of breathing. After several minutes, the elder stood up. Leaning over, he patted Myrna's shoulder, then Howie's. Then he nodded at Vicky and Father John as he made his way out into the corridor. The others started stirring about the room. One by one they leaned toward the couple and whispered condolences before following the elder through the door.

“She's with the ancestors now,” Howie said, after they had all left. Myrna let out a little sob and curled toward the bed, dropping her head onto the edge.

“I'm so sorry,” Vicky said, aware of Father John's words blending with her own.

Howie got to his feet and turned toward them. “She had hopes and dreams. She was gonna be a great artist, show her pictures in big museums. She was gonna get married and have lots of kids like she wanted. He stole all that from her. Stole all that.” His voice trailed off. He stared past them, and in that moment Vicky saw something move behind the black eyes, almost like the shadow of the images that the man himself was watching.

She stepped back and leaned against the doorframe. The edge bit hard into her back. Let it not be true, she thought.

Howie continued talking, his words measured and deliberate, like a slow-motion rerun of the tape playing nonstop in his head. “Stole her life,” he said.

The words filled the room like physical objects, as real as the chairs or the bed of the dead girl. “Stole her from us, stole everything. He deserved to die.”

Father John placed a hand on the man's arm, and it was then that Vicky knew it was true. “God have mercy on you, Howie,” he said.

“Bless our little girl, Father,” Howie said, turning slowly toward the bed. “It's too late for me.”

The Woman Who Climbed to the Sky

The Ninth Commandment: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife.

V
icky Holden followed the gray-uniformed guard through the cell block of the Fremont County jail. The crash of a steel door behind her echoed off the cement-block walls and metal bars on either side of the corridor. The air was thick with odors of sweat and disinfectant. Someone was shouting above the jumble of radio and TV noise that pressed around her. Who was it—which client?—who said that the worst part about being in jail was the noise?

The guard stopped at a closed door on the right and leaned forward, peering for a moment through the small window. “Sure you wanna go in alone? He's one mad Indian.”

Vicky swallowed back the impulse to admit the truth. She didn't especially like the idea of being alone in the consultation room with Phillip Blindy. The Arapaho had a reputation on the Wind River Reservation for being a hothead, somebody you walked across the road to avoid. Once, he took a wrench to a customer who didn't like the way Phillip had repaired his truck. Now he'd been indicted in the shooting death of James Moon.

Midmorning yesterday, the telephone had rung at her one-woman law office in Lander. “Vicky?” The federal magistrate's voice. “Indian named Phillip Blindy needs a defense. You're on the case, Counselor.” She'd been half expecting the call. The only Arapaho lawyer in the area—why wouldn't the magistrate appoint her?

She'd spent the rest of the day and most of the night going over the charging documents and grand jury transcript, a knot of futility tightening inside her. There was a witness who'd seen the two men fighting outside Phillip's garage about an hour before Moon was shot on Cedar Butte Road. The murder weapon was found next to the body—a .22- caliber pistol registered to Phillip. He admitted he was involved with Moon's wife, Gloria, and, to make matters worse, he had no alibi.

Vicky said she'd be fine alone with Phillip.

The guard lifted a bushy eyebrow, regarded her for a moment with renewed interest, then jammed a key into the lock. “We got him handcuffed,” he said, pushing the door open. “Press the button if you need me.”

She stepped past the guard's protruding stomach and set her briefcase on the metal table in the center of a small room that smelled of oranges and baloney, as if somebody had eaten lunch there not long ago. A large red button projected from the wall on the side of the table where she sat down. The door clanged shut, sending a ripple of noise through the quiet.

Across the table, a muscular man about six feet tall stood with his back to her, forehead pressed against the square, mesh-covered window. His black hair was tied into a ponytail that bisected the back of his orange jail jumpsuit.

“About time you got here,” he said, turning away from the view of the sheriff's cars lined up in a row in the parking lot. The dark eyes narrowed in accusation as he swayed forward, wrists cuffed in front, arms pulled into a V. “You know what it's like? Locked up in hell?”

“Sit down, Phillip.” Vicky waited while the man kicked at the chair across from her until it was far enough out that he could slide onto the seat. The handcuffs clanked against the metal table.

“I'll need your story,” she said, unzipping her briefcase. She withdrew a yellow legal pad and pen.

The Indian was quiet a moment—head tilted back, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The fluorescent light spilled over the wide brown face, the clenched jaw. “Moon got what was comin' to him,” he said, lowering his gaze to her. “Somebody shot his sorry ass.”

Vicky took a deep breath. “Whoever killed him used your pistol.”

“It got stole out of the garage.”

“Did you report it stolen?”

“How'd I know it was gone?” Phillip shifted forward, scraping the handcuffs over the table. “I kept it under the counter for emergencies, some warrior coming in and eyeing the cash register. Haven't been any emergencies lately.”

“Who knew about the gun?”

He shrugged. “Everybody on the rez. What's the good of protection, nobody knows you got it?”

Vicky made a quick note:
pistol stolen from garage
. Then she said, “You were having an affair with Moon's wife, right?”

The man kept his gaze steady. “Wasn't no secret. She's a good woman, Gloria. Traditional, you know what I mean?”

Vicky nodded and he went on: “Been learning the stories from Regina Old Bear. Someday Gloria's gonna be a storyteller herself, so she can pass on the Arapaho Way to the younger generation.” The brown, bulky arms slid forward on the handcuffs. He kept his eyes locked on hers. “All me and Gloria wants is a little happiness. She's been trying to get a divorce, but that bastard Moon was fighting her. Wouldn't let her go.”

Vicky swallowed hard. There it was—the motive. She could hear the prosecutor's voice in her head:
The only way Phillip Blindy could have Gloria Moon was if James Moon was dead.

“What about the afternoon of the murder?” Vicky said. “Martin Greasy saw . . .”

“Yeah, well, he don't know . . .”

“What, Phillip? What doesn't he know?” Vicky could hear the hope in her voice. Maybe the prosecution's key witness had missed something.

The Indian threw another glance at the ceiling. “He don't know how scared Gloria was when she come running into the garage. Said Moon was gonna kill her. Next thing I know, Moon's wheeling his truck in behind Gloria's Honda. He comes stomping inside, screaming like a wounded bull. ‘Told you to stay away from this SOB.' He grabs Gloria, pulls her outside, and starts slapping her around.”

“What did you do?” Vicky held her breath. It was like watching the first act of a play when you knew the final act was murder.

“What d'ya think?” The handcuffs pounded the table. Vicky could feel the vibration in her chest, like the aftermath of a drumbeat. “I run outside and pull him off her. The bastard turns on me and throws a sucker punch to the gut, and I go down on all fours.”

“What about Gloria?”

“She's outta there. I seen the Honda driving off and Moon's truck peeling out after her. I seen Greasy's truck parked across the road. He's watching everything.”

Vicky wrote:
Greasy saw Moon assault wife
. Then she said, “According to Greasy, Gloria and Moon drove off about ten minutes before three. You went back into the garage, then left a few minutes later. You know what that means, don't you? The prosecution will argue you went back to get your gun. Then you followed Moon, forced him onto Cedar Butte Road, and shot him.” She watched the Indian's face for some sign that what she'd said was true—the tiniest nod, the faintest twitch. There was nothing.

She hurried on: “The prosecution will also say you intended to bury the body, so it would look like Moon disappeared. You started to dig a hole next to the road, but something happened. A car coming, maybe. So you drove off in a hurry . . .”

“Yeah, and I'm stupid enough to leave my gun there.” Blindy let out a loud guffaw, an explosion of breath. “And I'm gonna hang around to bury that bastard? You look in my toolbox. You'll see my shovel's busted. What'd I use to dig a hole? A stick?”

He leaned back, the self-mockery in his expression edging toward despair. “Like I told the fed that come around asking questions, I went back inside to lock up. Then I drove straight over to Gloria's place. She never showed, so I went driving around the rez looking for her. After a while I went home, thinking maybe she went to my place.” He shook his head. “Moon'd kill her for sure, he found her there. Pretty soon she calls, says she drove right to Regina Old Bear's. Should've figured she'd go there to get some comfort from the stories.”

Vicky sat back, aware of the jail sounds coming from far away, the smell of perspiration, like fear, in the man across from her. She could imagine the prosecutor's summation—she could write it herself:
Blindy wants us to believe he spent an hour just driving around. No one saw him. No one talked to him until four o'clock when Gloria finally got ahold of him. Where was he, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? Out on Cedar Butte Road shooting James Moon.

Vicky felt a sense of hopelessness pouring through her like a cold rain. She had nothing—Phillip's story; that was all. The prosecutor would demolish it in five minutes. And yet, and yet . . . the story rang true. Why would a killer leave the murder weapon at the scene, unless the killer wanted to frame Phillip Blindy?

She said, “I believe you, Phillip.” God help us both, she was thinking as she stuffed the tablet and pen into her briefcase and started to her feet. The door opened behind her, and a wave of air—not fresh, just different—floated into the room.

“Father O'Malley waiting to see you, Blindy,” the guard said.

The Indian jumped to his feet, as if a lifeline had been tossed out that he meant to grab. In his eyes, Vicky saw a surge of hope that matched her own. She and the pastor of St. Francis Mission had worked on many cases together. He was logical—relentlessly logical. If anyone could find the missing piece of logic in the evidence against Phillip Blindy, it would be John O'Malley.

“I'll be in touch,” she told the Indian. She brushed past the guard and hurried down the corridor to the lobby.

“How's he doing?” Father John was just outside the double security doors—tall and redheaded, in the usual blue jeans and plaid shirt, slapping his tan cowboy hat against one leg. He looked out of breath, worried, as if he'd been called to the scene of an accident.

“He's scared,” she said. She stopped herself from adding:
So am I.
“He wants to talk to you. I'll be waiting outside.”

* * *

T
hirty minutes later, Vicky spotted Father John coming out of the glass-fronted entrance. She got out of her Bronco, where she'd been going over the grand jury transcripts once again, and hurried across the parking lot. The hot asphalt grabbed at her heels; the sun burned through the back of her suit jacket. “What do you think?” she said when she reached him.

“He's innocent, Vicky.”

“The evidence says otherwise.” An engine turned over. A car backed out of a slot and drove past, emitting a blast of gray exhaust.

“Phillip's not the only one with a motive,” Father John said after a moment. “Gloria Moon also had a motive . . .”

Vicky cut in: “She has an airtight alibi, John. Regina Old Bear says Gloria came to her house at three, ten minutes after she'd left the garage. Regina's spent her life memorizing the old stories and telling them exactly as they've always been told. She tells the truth. She wouldn't lie for anyone.”

Father John glanced at some point across the parking lot. After a moment, he brought his eyes to hers. “Phillip's worried about Gloria. He says she's so upset, she's been staying with Regina since the murder. Why don't we drive over and have a talk with them?”

* * *

T
he house was painted pink, fading to gray. The woman in the doorway looked bent and ancient, wearing a blue dress that brushed the top of her white moccasins, clasping a red shawl about her shoulders. Her hair was almost white, pulled back from a narrow, creased face with wide-set black eyes and a thin slash of a mouth. Pinned in one side of her hair was a tiny black feather—her only jewelry.

“Well, Father John and Vicky, come in, come in.” Regina Old Bear swung the door back and motioned them inside.

Vicky felt as if she'd stepped into the Old Time. The oblong living room resembled the interior of a tipi on the plains. Thick buffalo robes and Indian blankets were draped over the low couches that surrounded a faded Indian rug. On a small table near the door—a place of honor—was a buffalo skull, painted sky blue and decorated in red and yellow lines and circles, Arapaho symbols for life and the people. Everything in the room was old and worn. Nothing hinted of the present.

“We got company,” Regina Old Bear called down a hallway on the other side of the table. Then she dropped onto a couch and waved them to another: “Make yourselves comfortable,” she said.

Vicky sat down on a cushion covered with a scratchy wool blanket. Father John perched next to her. “How have you been, Grandmother,” he said, using the term of respect for the old woman.

“Real worried about Gloria. She's been in a state.” Regina Old Bear shook her head. “Terrible thing, James getting murdered. It's good Gloria's learning the stories. They're gonna make her strong. You know”—she nodded toward Vicky—“stories about the girl who became a bear, and the man who sharpened his foot, and the woman who climbed to the sky.”

Vicky felt as if Regina Old Bear had hurled a stone and hit her in the chest. She gasped for breath. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Father John shift forward, his posture suddenly rigid with understanding.

“And married Moon,” she managed.

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed shut. There was the shush of footsteps coming down the hall, then Gloria standing in the doorway. Still in her twenties, Vicky guessed, a trim figure in tight blue jeans and a short, white tee shirt that exposed her navel. There was a mixture of hardness and vulnerability in the finely sculptured features, the black hair parted in the middle and draping over her shoulders, the narrow eyes as dark as river stones.

“What are you doing here?” she said.

“We want to talk to you about Phillip.” Father John got to his feet. “He's charged with a murder he didn't commit.”

“If that's what he told you, he's lying,” Gloria said.

“Grandmother says you've been learning the stories,” Vicky began, selecting the words. “She says you know ‘The Woman Who Climbed to the Sky.'”

Did she imagine it? The almost imperceptible flinch in the young woman's cheeks?