The Dream Stalker (33 page)

T
he midmorning sun slanted across the papers and folders on Father John’s desk. He thumbed through the summer schedules for the adult literacy classes, the religious education programs. Most of the volunteers who had taught spring semester had agreed to stay on, but he still needed a few teachers. He’d have to make some phone calls, pay a few visits. Setting the schedules aside, he got to his feet and walked over to the window. Walks-on was rolling in a clump of grass across Circle Drive. The sky was an endless expanse of blue. It had suddenly started to feel like summer.

He’d been missing Boston lately, the long ripening of spring, and he was looking forward to going back. He would make his retreat there, take the time to step away and think, to pray over the direction of his life. The Provincial had agreed with his decision, and, to his surprise, had even offered to pay the expenses.

Father John had wanted to leave immediately, but he’d delayed his departure a week. It had been a week of funerals. The services for Lionel Redbull and Lily Legeau had been small and private. A few family members, some friends, all in shock and grief. Matthew Bosse’s services had taken three days, and featured all the rituals and ceremonies for the funeral of a good man. A good man, Father John thought, who had tried to do what he thought was best. Almost everyone on the
reservation had attended the services, even Vicky, although she’d stayed at the edge of the crowd, and he hadn’t had the chance to talk to her.

He’d thought about calling her. He wanted to thank her for crashing through the door the way she did, when she should have turned and run out of the old school to save her own life. Instead, she’d saved his. But he hadn’t called. He knew Paul Bryant would be there. And at some point her Bronco had disappeared from in front of the guest house, and he had understood that Bryant had probably brought her to the mission to retrieve it.

He’d tried to put it out of his mind. There was so much to think about. All week he had watched for the mail, hoping for a response from some of the benefactors he’d written to. Hoping for a miracle. And yesterday the mail had brought in enough donations to pay Ralph for repairing the church roof and to catch up on some old bills. Enough to keep Father Geoff’s plans at bay—the thought made him smile. His own brand of financial planning wasn’t so bad after all.

Even the collection on Sunday had been larger than usual. The elders had taken him aside and told him the extra money should go to plaster over the bullet hole in the classroom before the evil intention of Lily Legeau invaded the whole mission. Such symbols of evil could not be ignored. He had to repair the wall immediately.

The reverence the Arapahos had for the old buildings, for St. Francis Mission, filled him with a kind of awe. He reminded himself he was just the caretaker here, one in a long line of caretakers, and whatever his own feelings might be, he had a job to do. He also reminded himself that he was fortunate. It was a job he loved.

Outside, the golden retriever pushed to his feet—a momentary struggle—and bounded across the grass, as if he expected a red Frisbee to come sailing overhead at any moment and was determined to be ready to pluck it
out of the air. Elena would take care of his dog while he was gone, even if Father Geoff buried himself in his numbers and forgot. At least his assistant had agreed to take over for the Eagles. The kids were in for precision and drill while he was gone, which might not be much fun, but they’d get the details down.

While he was gone. The thought brought a sharp stab of pain. He knew he would miss this place more than he could say. He hadn’t even left yet, and he was already beginning to miss it.

A black truck turned into Circle Drive and caught his attention. He watched it pull up in front of the administration building. Paul Bryant leapt out, giving the door a hard slam. Another slam of the front door sent a shiver through the old building, and then Bryant was standing in the doorway to the office, dressed in tan slacks and blue sport coat, looking as relaxed and confident as usual. “Ah, Father O’Malley. I’m glad I caught you.”

“What can I do for you?” Father John had to make an effort to keep his tone civil, to mask his dislike for this man who had appeared out of nowhere and had changed the direction of his own life. He wasn’t sure how his life might have gone, but a part of him resented the fact that this stranger seemed to have had a say in the matter.

Bryant strode across the room and stopped in front of the desk. “I’m sure you know the joint council has canceled the vote on the nuclear waste facility.”

Father John didn’t respond. They both knew the canceled vote didn’t mean that a nuclear waste facility might not be proposed for some other site on the reservation.

“Regardless of what you may think, Father O’Malley, I was as appalled as you must have been at what happened here. My company lost a great deal of time as well as money in the effort to prove out the Legeau
ranch. Our efforts would have been better spent elsewhere. Time is of the essence. We have to build an interim facility soon.”

“On the reservation?” Father John asked. He didn’t doubt the other man’s capacity for pursuing his plans.

Bryant shook his head and smiled. “It doesn’t belong here. I understand that now. It wouldn’t fit with the culture of the people. But Wyoming is a large and empty place.” He threw out both hands. “Somewhere in this state, I’m confident, we can construct a storage facility that will be as safe as science can make it.”

The man cleared his throat as he slipped one hand inside his sport coat and removed a white envelope. “We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot for some reason, Father. I had stopped by the residence the other evening hoping we might have a quiet talk. I also intended to give you this.” He held out the envelope.

Reluctantly Father John took it and opened the flap. The check inside was written for the largest amount St. Francis had ever received at one time, large enough to run the mission for six months.

Bryant said, “Since I arrived here, I’ve heard nothing but good about St. Francis Mission. And during the time I’ve spent with Vicky this week, she’s talked almost nonstop about you and your work here. Helping people to help themselves is the kind of charity my company likes to support. I want you to know you can expect checks such as this from time to time.”

Father John handed the envelope back to the other man. “I don’t want your money,” he said.

Surprise flickered in Bryant’s eyes before giving way to a glint of understanding. He was quiet a moment, as if he were rehearsing in his mind the exact words. Finally he said, “I’m aware of the fact that we both find Vicky Holden a rare and beautiful woman, Father O’Malley. You, however, are in no position to do anything about it. I am not in any such position, and I want
very much to get to know her better. I hope to convince her to move to Chicago. She can take a job in our legal department—one I’ll create, of course. For the moment, she says she prefers to stay here, but I hope that in time she’ll come to see I’m not such a bad fellow.” He shrugged, then continued. “I expect to spend a good deal of time in Wyoming while we pursue other sites. I can assure you I have no intention of allowing someone so rare and beautiful to slip away.”

Bryant tossed the envelope onto the desk, turned quickly, and walked to the door. He stopped and looked back. “Keep the check, Father O’Malley. I expect you’ll discover that you need it.”

Father John stepped to the window and watched the pickup as it began its slow glide around Circle Drive. In a moment it was lost in the shadows of the cottonwoods. It was as it should be, he thought. Bryant had fallen in love with her—a man with something to offer her—and she had every right to love such a man, to carve out a space of happiness for herself.

His own life would continue in the direction it was meant to go. He was scheduled to fly out of Riverton tomorrow morning after the early Mass. He would spend the next two weeks on retreat—he was looking forward to the quiet time of prayer and reflection.

When he came back, there would be so much to do at St. Francis. New classes and programs he’d been thinking about starting for a long time. A class on centering prayer. Perhaps another class on Christian spirituality. Maybe a day care program, or even senior care. And new activities for the kids. The girls needed a softball team to play on, and he wanted to start a social club for the teenagers. There would be a thousand things to do. A thousand things to fill up his mind and heart.

When he came back, he thought. When he came back.

Prologue

P
rofessor Mary Ellen Pearson adhered to a carefully constructed routine every Monday evening. This evening was no different. At ten minutes before nine o’clock, she checked her briefcase to make certain all of her papers were in place. Discreetly, of course. It would never do for one of the students in her Culture of the Plains Indians seminar to suspect she was eager for the class to end. At the first pealing of the bells from St. Elizabeth’s across the campus, she hoisted the briefcase, bid her students good night, and departed the classroom.

She hurried down the wide corridor paved with caramel-colored tiles, in and out of shafts of light streaming from the fluorescent bulbs overhead, and swung through a doorway into a small office much like her own. She froze in disbelief. The office was empty. Mavis Stanley had left without her. How could Mavis have done so? They always left together on Monday evenings, two female professors at the edge of retirement, hurrying along the shadowy campus paths, a formidable phalanx to deter waiting muggers.

Not that the University of Colorado campus in Denver was unsafe, as their male colleagues often reminded them. Nevertheless it was an urban campus sprawled against the southern curve of downtown Denver, and
the leafy trees and grassy knolls could not conceal the noise and energy of the city lurking beyond. One could not be too careful.

With clenched jaw, Professor Pearson retraced her steps along the corridor. The overhead lights seemed dimmer; the building silent as a vault. Her footsteps clacked into the emptiness. Other classes had let out; students had already fled. She was alone.

Avoiding the elevator, which was often unpredictable, she made her way down two flights of stairs, skimming past the shadows on the landings, and exited the building through the glass-paned door on the west. The Rocky Mountains rose in the distance, a jagged darkness against the last milky band of light in the sky. Skyscrapers looming on the north, windows ablaze, cast eerie patterns of light and shadow across the dark campus.

Professor Pearson gripped her briefcase under one arm as she plunged down the walkway to the parking lot on the other side of Speer Boulevard. Several students—even one of her own colleagues—hurried by. How silly, her fearfulness, she told herself. Other people were still about. She was perfectly safe. She was becoming an addled old woman.

She crossed Speer Boulevard on the green light, passing through the yellow columns of headlights from waiting vehicles, and started up the gentle rise of earth that surrounded the parking lot. Traffic belched into the darkness behind her, but ahead the parking lot sat in a well of light shining down from the metal poles around the periphery.

A few cars were scattered around the lot; she could see her Impala at the far end. Relaxed now, she started down the rise, her feet groping for solid underpinnings
in the soft dirt, when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a figure darting along the rise across the lot.

She stopped, eyes glued to the figure—it looked like a man—lurching in and out of the shadows, hesitating, watching. Suddenly he was running down the little slope and across the asphalt. Running toward her! She stumbled backward, pivoting, trying to get a purchase on the uphill slope. The squeal of tires, the screech of brakes burst through the night as she caught herself against the hard coldness of a metal light pole. Sheltering behind it, she stared down at the white 4×4 rocking to a stop.