Night of the White Buffalo: A Wind River Mystery (9 page)

ARNIE WALKSFAST SLUMPED
at the end of a long metal table in the recreation room. Eyes straight ahead as Vicky walked over. The clack of her heels on the vinyl floor reverberated around the blue walls painted with figures of cartoon characters dancing about. Arnie had a defeated look about him, sunken into himself, clasping and unclasping his hands on the table. Vicky slid onto the chair at an angle from him.

“We need to talk.”

Slowly, as if it required great effort, Arnie turned his head. His eyes looked glazed, unfocused. Vicky wondered how clearly he saw her. “How you feeling, Arnie?” she said.

“How's rehab?” His voice was a high falsetto, then he switched back. “Nothing matters except what you want. Get this whole thing over, put old Arnie into rehab. Well, what about me? Puking out my insides all night. Can't even keep water down. Can't sleep. So they shot me with junk. Drugs to get me off drugs.” Switching again into the falsetto, he said, “This'll help your nausea. Be a good boy. Take your medicine.” He gave a shrug that was like a tremor running across his shoulders. “My head's big as a boulder, might even drop off. Blood pressure shoots up and down, all over the place. I got the shakes. I wish I was dead.”

“I'm sorry, Arnie.” Vicky laid out a yellow legal pad and a ballpoint.

“That's supposed to make it easier?”

“You've been through rehab before. You know it will get easier.” She had never been through rehab, she was thinking. What did she know? Only what she had heard from other clients across the same table in this recreation room, toys and tricycles stacked in the far corner next to a couple of kid-size tables and chairs with yellow daisies painted on the blue surfaces. She had seen enough alcoholism; Ben Holden had drunk enough for both of them. She had never wanted the seesaw life: binges, rehab, binges, rehab. The life that Arnie Walksfast had chosen—or maybe, stumbled into.

Vicky forced herself not to look away from the man. The crooked nose broken too many times, the deep, black caverns under his eyes, the leathery, smoke-hardened face. “Your girlfriend came to see me. She's worried about you.”

“Lucy should mind her own business.”

“You didn't level with me, Arnie. You forgot to mention the brawl was over Lucy. She had been Rick's girlfriend, until she dumped him and took up with you. You said Rick threw the first punch. Your buddies backed you up, but it was your word against Rick's and all of his cowboy buddies. Lucy could have helped you.”

“What difference does it make?”

“What difference? Rick Tomlin had motive to attack you. You were defending yourself and your girlfriend. He threw the first punch, but when the fight moved outside, he ended up unconscious. How was I supposed to defend you, if you didn't bother to tell me the whole story? What else haven't you told me?”

“What do you mean?”

“The rest of it, Arnie. What happened to Rick Tomlin?”

“He took off.”

“Convenient for you. If Rick wasn't around, he couldn't testify against you. You were looking at a felony conviction and time in prison. Seems like a powerful motive to make sure the main witness doesn't testify. Did you have anything to do with his disappearance?”

Arnie planted himself against the back of the chair, lifted his chin, and looked at her down his long, crooked nose.

“What are you, the prosecutor? You're supposed to be my lawyer.”

“I need the truth.”

“Rick Tomlin is a no-good sonofabitch, beat up Lucy, acted like he owned her.”

Vicky shifted forward to the edge of the chair. She was gripping the ballpoint so hard, white knuckles popped on her fist. “What did you do?”

“How do I know what happened to him? The bastard left, that's all I know. Maybe he got fed up with the Broken Buffalo Ranch. Don't hire Raps or Shoshones, did you know that?” He shrugged. “Just as well. No Indian's gonna take what they hand out.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Work the hands like dogs. Sunup to sundown. Bunk in a drafty old shack with a couple of thin blankets. Lucky to get a few squares. Aren't there laws against keeping slaves?”

“Nobody has to work for the ranch. Maybe they pay well.”

“When they pay. All I know is what I hear them white cowboys complaining about in the bar. Soon's they knock off for the day, they head into town. Can't blame them. Nobody at that ranch gets back pay 'til the owners take some of the bulls and calves to market. Keeps the cowboys hanging on, waiting. They get paid, they take off.”

“Lucy said Rick wouldn't have left before the trial. He wanted to see you in prison. The prosecutor could take another look at Rick Tomlin's disappearance and decide that you had something to do with it.”

“Bull.”

“If you did, I need to know.”

“So you can get me more time in rehab? Sent off to Rawlins for ten years? The way I see it, what you don't know won't hurt me.”

Vicky didn't take her eyes away. Arnie Walksfast was lying. She had seen enough clients stammer and blink, run tongues over lips, avert their eyes, clasp and unclasp their hands, lie around the truth. She could feel the hard knot of tension in her stomach. “What did you do?”

Arnie shrugged and went back to staring at some point across the room.

Vicky gave him a few minutes, then picked up the legal pad and slipped it into her briefcase. She dropped the ballpoint next to the pad and got to her feet. “You should find another lawyer. I'll notify the court I no longer represent you. I'm sorry.”

He looked up at her. “You're sorry?”

“For your mother. It will be hard on her if you end up in prison.” Vicky swung about and started for the door.

“Hold on.” A note of panic flitted through the man's voice. Behind her came the scrape of a chair.

Vicky turned back. Arnie was leaning across the table, fists clenched, tendons popping in his neck, like a rodeo rider about to drop onto a bucking bronco in the chute. “Okay. Okay.” He lifted one fist, as if he were giving the signal for the gate to open. “Let's do this.”

Vicky took her time walking back over. Waiting until Arnie Walksfast had sat down, feeling slightly light-headed with the surge of adrenaline. The slightest movement on his part and she would flee the room. She had seen the clenched fists; the black, brooding eyes; the anger flooding the features of Ben Holden. She had learned to escape. She had made a permanent escape.

She took her chair, repositioned the legal pad, and gripped the ballpoint. “What happened?”

“Nothing actually happened. I mean, we didn't beat him up or anything like that.”

“We?”

“Some buddies. They don't like white cowboys coming here and taking our jobs.”

“You said the Broken Buffalo doesn't hire Indians.”

“Yeah. If the white cowboys weren't around, they'd have to, wouldn't they? Lots of Indians don't like those dudes. So we put a little pressure on Rick Tomlin.”

“What kind of pressure?”

“He came into Riverton, we told him he wasn't welcome. Guys waited in the parking lot for his old truck to drive up. Told him to turn around and drive outta there if he knew what was good for him. Some guys got into it. Tried to run Tomlin off the road one night. Another time . . .”

“Keep going.”

“Maybe somebody took a couple shots at his truck.”

“You did that?” My God, was she was looking at the shooter who had been terrorizing the rez?

“I don't know who did it. I don't mind telling you I thought it was a good idea. Get off a few shots to make those white cowboys think twice about staying around. Took some random shots at other pickups so the cops wouldn't put it together that Raps were trying to run off the white cowboys at the Broken Buffalo.”

“I have to know if you were part of this.”

“I'm telling you, I don't know who did the shooting. Nobody got hurt, but I figure Rick Tomlin got the message that he was—how do you say?—persona non grata. I figure he collected his pay and got outta here, like we wanted.”

“What was your role, Arnie?” When he didn't say anything, she said, “I don't want to hear it from the prosecutor.”

“How's he gonna know anything?”

“The first one of your so-called buddies that gets arrested for jaywalking or throwing a punch is going to make a deal and serve you up. What was your role?”

“Maybe I told my buddies that Rick Tomlin was a no-good sonofabitch, taking jobs, stirring up trouble. Maybe I said we should drive the guy off the rez.”

“So you instigated a terror campaign against the witness in your criminal case.”

“He took off, didn't he? There's no more felony charges. I took the plea bargain, and here I am in lousy rehab.”

Vicky waited a moment, trying to marshal her thoughts. The case was like a bucking bronco running wild. “If the prosecutor gets wind of your part in the shootings, you will be charged with a serious offense of intimidating a witness. You'll be looking at a long time in prison.”

“Well, you're not going to let that happen. You're my lawyer. You're here to see I got my rights.”

“Was Lucy involved?” The girl might decide to tell the police what she knew to save herself.

“She was with me once when I was following Rick real close. Gave his bumper a nudge, thinking he'd go off the road.”

Vicky had to look away. No wonder Lucy Murphy thinks Arnie had something to do with Rick's disappearance. She thinks the worst, expects the worst, and she is frightened—not only of Rick. Vicky could feel the weight of the silence that engulfed the room. Muffled voices from the hallway filtered through the closed door. “Is that all of it?” she said finally. “You swear you did not harm Rick Tomlin?”

“He got the message, like I said. He took off on his own.”

Vicky slipped the legal pad and pen back into her briefcase. The pad was blank. She hadn't written down anything. Everything Arnie Walksfast had said was imprinted in her mind. She stood up. “Stay with the rehab program. Keep your nose clean. Stay out of trouble. I'll report to probation that you've begun treatment.”

She walked back across the room and let herself into the corridor. Past the closed doors, the sound of a ringing telephone, the staccato notes of voices, and through the reception area and the glass doors that opened automatically into the bright outdoors. The thought drumming in her mind: Arnie Walksfast was lying.

Inside the Ford, the hot breeze blowing across the open windows, the engine humming, Vicky checked her messages. One from Adam; one from Annie. She clicked on Annie's. “Sheila Carey called. Husband's burial today, four p.m. Hope you can make it.” Then she clicked on the message from Adam: “Cancel dinner plans. Something's come up. Flew to Denver this morning for meeting. Talk later.”

Vicky slid the phone into her bag, backed into the parking lot, and drove into the traffic crawling down North Federal, aware of a feeling of lightness enveloping her, as if she were floating through Riverton.

TROUT CREEK ROAD
was a meandering two-lane strip of asphalt that split the north part of the reservation from the south. There was more traffic than usual this afternoon. A thin line of cars and pickups and SUVs snaked ahead; other vehicles passed in the opposite direction. Vicky flipped the visor against the sun firing the western sky and followed the SUV ahead onto a dirt road. Rolling clouds of dust peppered her windshield. The air tasted hot and gritty.

She was aware of the tension in her back muscles. So many rumors on the moccasin telegraph. Annie had passed along at least a dozen:
A white buffalo calf born on the reservation. Probably on the Broken Buffalo. People coming to see for themselves. Indians from Montana. Pueblo Indians and Navajos, Hopis, Zunis from New Mexico.
The idea of a white buffalo calf being
here
sent chills running through her like electrical shocks.

Vicky could still see Sheila Carey huddled on the sofa, a skin of bravery painted over her features. In shock over her husband's murder. And now strangers would descend on her ranch—they were arriving already—demanding to see the sacred calf that may or may not be there. There hadn't been any official confirmation, but the moccasin telegraph had an uncanny, otherworldly way of being right.

The vehicles ahead had filtered into a rutted two-track. She could see the beds of the pickups bouncing and swaying. Then she was bouncing, gripping the steering wheel hard to keep the tires in the narrow dirt ruts. The traffic slowed, and she had to step on the brake to keep from rear-ending the SUV. A couple of pickups swerved across the borrow ditch and drove over the scraggly pasture grass that bordered the two-track. She stayed with the SUV until she was forced to stop at a gate dropped over the road. A small group of people were milling about, looking off toward the log house and the ranch buildings beyond the gate.

“Get out of here.” A cowboy in a black hat stationed like a guard in front of the gate shouted at a lanky, frozen-faced cowboy with a tan, wide-brimmed hat pushed back on his head.

The cowboy stood his ground. “I'm not leaving 'til I see the boss.”

The man in the black hat threw a fist toward the dozen or so pickups parked on the sagebrush prairie next to the two-track. “Get your truck and get out of here.”

Somewhere out of the dust and the stalled pickups and SUVs, another cowboy materialized and started directing traffic onto the prairie. Vicky followed the SUV through the clumps of sagebrush and mounds of brown earth, past a van with Channel 13 emblazoned in gold paint on the sides. The SUV pulled in on the far side of a silver truck, and she parked on the other side and got out. The cowboy's voice reverberated in the dusty air: “Head on down the road, you know what's good for you.”

The lanky cowboy came toward her, tight-lipped, walking fast, propelled by anger, dust climbing the legs of his blue jeans. He yanked open the driver's door on the silver truck. Vicky saw a man and woman get out of the SUV and hurry past him toward the small crowd waiting by the gate.

The cowboy rounded on her. “You know the owners here?”

Vicky glanced about. Nothing in this makeshift parking lot but a row of parked vehicles and a few people on the far side of the pickups waiting to turn in. She was alone with an angry, fist-clenched man. “I've met them,” she said. She had met Sheila Carey and a dead man, she was thinking. “I'm here for the funeral.”

“Funeral?” The cowboy pushed his cowboy hat forward and regarded her out of pencil-slim eyes.

“Dennis Carey, one of the owners.”

“So that's what brought all the people here? A funeral?” The cowboy seemed to relax a little, and Vicky wondered if she should tell him the rest of it—the rumor that a white buffalo calf had been born. She decided against it.

“Reg Hartly.” The cowboy extended a calloused hand. A brown car pulled in beside them. Two Indians got out and headed toward the gate. “Just drove up from Colorado. You from around these parts?”

“Vicky Holden.” She shook the man's hand, feeling her own tension begin to dissolve. “Attorney in Lander. Are you looking for a ranch job?”

This seemed to stop him a moment. “I'm looking for a buddy.” The narrowed eyes fastened on the brown car, as if the buddy might jump out of the backseat. “You ever heard of Josh Barker? Cowboy from the Western Slope? Came up here to work with buffalo and disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Rick Tomlin, another cowboy, had disappeared.

“Folks haven't heard from him in a couple months. Mom's real sick. She's dying, but she's trying to hold on until she sees Josh again.”

“Did your buddy work here?” Vicky nodded toward the cowboys at the gate, another pickup turning into the sagebrush lot.

“Not according to them jackasses.” He twisted his head in the direction of the cowboys. “Never heard of him. Nobody by that name on the Broken Buffalo. They're lying. Josh sent postcards saying he'd hired on here. Josh was no liar.”

“I think those cowboys are new hires.” What was it Sheila Carey had said? With her husband dead, it would just be her and Carlos and another hand. If the white buffalo calf was here, she needed more help. “When did your friend work here?”

“Hired on in the spring. Last postcard came around July Fourth. Like I say, his mom wants to die in peace. She wants Josh beside her, and I know my buddy. That's where he'd want to be, if he knew.”

“I suggest you come back tomorrow, after the funeral, and speak to the owner, Sheila Carey.” Vicky wondered how many vehicles would crowd the road and the parking lot tomorrow if the news was on TV this evening.

“The goons won't let me in.”

“I can let her know you're coming.”

“You'd do that?” A look of astonishment crossed the man's face. Obviously he hadn't met a friendly welcome in these parts. “You know a campground close by? I brought my gear.” He thumped the bed of the silver truck.

“Try Sinks Canyon. And good luck.” Vicky started walking toward the gate, stepping out of the way of another car pulling into the lot. Then she turned back. The cowboy was about to lower himself into the truck, one boot on the dirt, the other inside the cab. “There's a bar in Riverton where cowboys hang out,” she called. “Somebody there might know about your friend. The O.K. Bar.”

“Thanks again.” The cowboy saluted off the brim of his hat.

Vicky reached the gate and told the man in the black hat she had been invited to the funeral. “You're going to have to walk up to the house,” he said. “Mrs. Carey gave orders no more cars up there.” He lifted the gate high enough that, by bending forward, she was able to get to the other side. She picked her way along the edge of the two-track, where the ground was almost level. The front porch was empty; there was an empty feeling about the whole house. She recognized the old Toyota pickup parked near the porch. She started up the steps, then decided to walk around to the back. The burial would be somewhere on the ranch.

As she walked next to the house, she spotted the small crowd gathered in a grassy space fringed with cottonwoods out by the barn. Around the barn were several ranch buildings, paint-peeled and dilapidated looking, and an assortment of ranch vehicles: trucks, flatbed, tractor, forklift. A barbed-wire fence ran along the open expanse of pasture. In the far distance, she could make out the swaying brown humps of the buffalo herd.

Sheila Carey broke from the crowd and started toward her. “Glad you could make it. Where's your friend?”

“I'm afraid Adam was called out of town.”

“Too bad. It's a small group.” A flash of what might have been physical pain crossed the woman's face. Vicky looked over and counted seven people: Chief Banner and another officer in crisp uniforms, standing ramrod straight with caps laid against their waists; two cowboys and two women she didn't know; and the cowboy who called himself Carlos, stationed between a narrow hole dug into the earth and a small mound of dirt. Walking over from a pathway that paralleled the barbed-wire fence was John O'Malley and, beside him, the elder Clifford Many Horses. She knew in an instant what they had seen in the pasture, and the chill that ran through her was so strong, it stopped her in her footsteps. It was true. The white calf was here, just as all the people at the gate believed. She caught John O'Malley's eye and smiled.

“Now that we're all here,” Sheila said, “we can get started.” She ushered John O'Malley and the elder to the far side of the gravesite next to Carlos, who was holding a small wooden box. Then she fit herself into the space on the other side of the cowboy and looked out across the distance. The whoosh of the breeze filled the quiet. Clumps of grass in the pasture lay sideways, swept over the earth.

Finally, Sheila looked up. “Dennis would be honored that an Arapaho elder agreed to bless his grave and send his spirit to the ancestors. It's also an honor to have the Catholic priest from the mission, even though Dennis was never—what you would say?—religious. Leave all that stuff for later, he used to say.” She gave a little laugh. “Well, later is here. Used to be Catholic, though. Baptized, confirmed. Like he said, awful-tasting medicine that didn't work on him, even though his ma dragged him to church every Sunday until he got so big she couldn't drag him anymore. Anyway, it seemed proper to send him off the way he started. Carlos . . .” She glanced sideways at the black-haired cowboy.

It was all that was necessary. Carlos cradled the box a moment, then, dropping onto one knee, set the box into the small grave. He stood up, hands clasped in a kind of prayer.

Clifford Many Horses took a moment, his eyes on the open grave, before he began fumbling with the ties on the leather satchel. Vicky closed her eyes and waited. So many funerals, so many blessings for the dead she had watched the elders bestow, so many soft Arapaho prayers she had listened to. The breeze seemed to lie down, and quiet settled over the little crowd. She opened her eyes just as the elder held a lighted match to a small bunch of sage tied with a leather thong. He waved the sage back and forth, fanning the smoke into the grave and out toward the little group.
Jevaneatha nethaunainau, Jevaneatha Dawatha henechauchauane nanadehe vedaw nau ichjeva.
Vicky felt the words washing over her. A prayer meant to give courage and hope to those left behind: God is with us. God's spirit fills everywhere on earth and above us.

Hethete hevedathuwin nehathe Ichjevaneatha haeain ichjeva.
The good soul will go to God to our home on high.

The sage-filled smoke drifted past, and she took in a deep breath: The sacred smoke, a sign that even death cannot break the bonds of loved ones. She could feel the sense of peace that always came over her at a burial when the elders prayed for the dead and the living.

The elder waved the smoking sage again, then placed it inside a small tobacco can and closed the lid. For a moment smoke escaped about the edges, then disappeared. Bowing his head, he stepped back.

John O'Malley waited several minutes—respectful of the Arapaho Way, she thought—before he moved to the edge of the grave. “Dear Lord Jesus . . .” His voice was low and comforting. She smiled at the thought of all the times she had been comforted by his voice. “Bless the soul of your servant Dennis Carey. Look not on his sins, but accept him into your peace and love. Remember his wife, Sheila, whom he loved and has now left behind, and help her to find comfort in your presence with us. Amen.”

“Amen.” Vicky heard her own voice, mingled with the voices around her. For a long moment, the word seemed to float above the opened grave. She kept her eyes on John O'Malley, half-expecting him to look over, acknowledge her, but his thoughts were elsewhere, she realized, in the prayers he had just offered, in the concern for Sheila Carey, a widow. He was a priest.

Sheila Carey removed something from the pocket of her blue jeans—a limp purple flower—and dropped it into the grave. She motioned with her eyes to Carlos, who went over to the side of the barn and returned with a shovel. He began shoveling the small mound of dirt on top of the box. When the gravesite was full, he tamped the dirt into a bare, smooth rectangle, then scooped up dried sage and pebbles and scattered them over the grave until it was lost with the earth. Vicky wondered how Sheila Carey would ever find her husband's grave.

The woman was looking out into space. “Let us all pray that my husband's killer will be brought to justice and will go to his own grave.” She exhaled a long breath, a kind of acceptance that justice might never be served, then stepped back, as if her thoughts had shifted away from the narrow grave. “You have all heard, I am sure, that our ranch has been uniquely blessed, or so I have been told. We have a very special calf. A few days before Dennis was shot to death, we were out feeding the herd. I was driving the tractor, and Dennis was on the flatbed throwing out bales of hay. He saw her first and shouted at me. ‘Look over there.' I stopped the tractor so fast, I nearly threw Dennis to the ground. The calf couldn't have been more than a few hours old, and white as snow. The mother was cleaning her up and, to tell you the truth, even she seemed a bit surprised at the look of her calf. This is not an ordinary calf. White with black eyes and black nose, so we know she's not an albino. Folks from the National Bison Association are sending people to take blood from the dam and the bull to make sure the calf is one hundred percent buffalo and not descended from a rogue Charolais. We only have one bull, so there's no doubt the calf is a genuine genetic mutation, or whatever the scientists call it. We call her Spirit.”

She turned halfway around and stared out at the pasture where the buffalo lumbered and swayed through the cottonwoods. There was no sign of the white calf. A few people trailed along the barbed-wire fence after the cowboy in the black hat, looking out into the pasture as they walked.