The Eagle Catcher (6 page)

He began explaining how the police had to question everybody and wanted Anthony to come to Lander, when suddenly Banner sprinted across the lawn, radio in hand, antenna pulled out. Father John felt as if he'd been bit by lightning. Jesus, why hadn't he seen it coming? He swung himself over the metal railing and dropped about five feet onto the ground, sending shock waves reverberating up his spine. Then he started running after the chief.

Rounding the comer of the house, Father John saw Anthony zig-zagging through the hay field out back with Miller right behind. The agent was losing ground, his legs pedaling furiously through the stalks of hay. He would never catch Anthony. All of a sudden the Indian stumbled and pitched forward, as if one foot had caught the edge of a prairie dog hole. He was scrambling to right himself when the agent tackled him, and they both went down. Banner caught up and threw himself onto the pile. A cloud of dust rose over the three figures in the flattened hay.

Just as Father John reached them, his heart pounding against the walls of his chest, they struggled to their feet, the older men pulling Anthony up. Anthony's face had turned the dark red of dead leaves about to drop off an aspen tree. Both Banner and Miller were huffing. A couple of buttons on Banner's shirt had popped off. His shirtails hung loose over his uniform slacks, and little beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Miller's navy blazer, smeared with gray-green dust, was bunched under his armpits. His red tie looped over one shoulder.

“I'm arresting you,” Miller said, gulping air between his words, “on suspicion of murder.”

Banner pulled a set of handcuffs out of his pocket and snapped them around one of Anthony's wrists. It took both Banner and Miller to pull Anthony's other arm around in back and close the handcuffs on that wrist.

“What's going on?” Father John tried to keep his voice calm, but he knew he was shouting. “He's got rights here.”

“Yeah, he's got rights,” Miller said, planting himself directly in front of Anthony. Then he began rattling off rights with about as much involvement as a printer zapping inked words onto a sheet of paper.

Rita pushed past the small crowd of Arapahos gathering around. “Don't take him away,” she screamed, locking one hand on Banner's arm.

“Don't make this any harder than it is, Rita,” the police chief said under his breath. He shook off the woman's hand as he and Miller propelled Anthony around the house and toward the driveway.

“Figured he'd make a break out back,” Miller said to the small crowd circling them. He seemed well satisfied with himself. Father John pushed his way past the others and strode alongside the fed, looking beyond him to the young Arapaho, as if the white man weren't there. “You don't have to say anything,” he said to Anthony. “Not without a lawyer.”

Suddenly Anthony jerked away from his captors, squared his shoulders, and threw his head back. Father John half expected him to bolt down the driveway. He felt his own muscles tense before he realized that wasn't Anthony's intention. He was merely claiming, if not his liberty, his freedom. “Call Vicky, will you?” Anthony asked.

“You got it,” Father John said, hoping the Arapaho lawyer was around this weekend. It wasn't like her to miss a celebration like the powwow.

Nobody spoke as the group continued past the small, silent knots of Arapahos in the driveway, stunned looks on their faces. Banner steered Anthony into the back seat of the patrol car, then slammed the door. Before he could get in behind the steering wheel, Rita burst past the others. “You can't take him,” she screamed.

The chief stopped, one foot still on the driveway, the other in the car, and leaned over the top. ‘Take it easy, will ya, Rita? We're gonna get this cleared up fast as we can.”

Exchanging a quick glance with Father John, Banner slid into the driver's seat. The FBI agent hurried to his jeep a few feet behind. Several women gathered around Rita as the vehicles backed out of the driveway, spitting gravel from under the rear tires.

Maria and Will stood on the concrete stoop gripping the railing like a rope between their hands. “Where they takin' my grandson?” the old woman asked as Father John mounted the stairs.

“Lander.” He didn't want to say “jail.”

“He'll be with white people,” Maria said. Father John understood her fear. Anthony was about to be swallowed into an alien, official white world. Suddenly the old woman straightened herself upright and took a long breath as she reached for Father John's arm. “You gotta help him.”

“I'll do everything I can,” Father John said, hoping the old people wouldn't sense how scared he felt right now. It occurred to him that the fed had intended to arrest Anthony all along. Taking him to Lander for questioning—that was just a ploy. Miller would have arrested him as soon as they got there. But Anthony had forced his hand by running out the back door. God, what if Miller had gone for his gun? Anthony could've been killed.

“We've got to get a lawyer,” Father John said. “Anthony asked me to call Vicky Holden.”

Maria dropped her hand from Father John's arm. Both she and Will were quiet a moment. Finally the elder spoke, measuring out his words. “Yes. Hisei ci nihi is the grand-daughter two generations away of Chief Black Night. You call her, Teenenoo
Hiiinooni'it.
Tell her that Our People need her now.”

V
ICKY HOLDEN HEARD the muffled, distant sound of the phone ringing as she lifted her suitcase through the tailgate of the Bronco. She hurried up the sidewalk, pulling the suitcase on its little metal wheels while, at the same time, fitting the strap of a leather bag into the crook of her shoulder. The ringing stopped just as she reached the porch that fronted the small brick bungalow she'd called home the last couple of years. To hell with it, she thought. Whoever it was could call again. She wasn't ready to talk to clients yet. Four days in downtown Denver at a trial lawyers' meeting hadn't exactly been a snooze on the beach.

She dropped the suitcase on the wooden floor of the porch and riffled through her purse for the house key. The ringing started again. “Hold on,” she said under her breath, jamming the key into the lock. It crossed her mind it could be Larry, even though she'd let him off at his law office ten minutes ago. It would be like him to want to know if she'd made up her mind yet. Was she coming to L.A. with him? What was it to be? He'd pushed for an answer the entire time they'd been in Denver. Not the makings of a relaxing trip. Not when she didn't know the answers, did not have a clue as to what she wanted to do. They'd taken the flight back to Riverton this afternoon in almost total silence.

Leaving the suitcase on the porch, she hurried across the gray carpet in the small living room. Another long ring. The phone looked as if it might jump off the table next to the blue, flower-printed sofa. Tossing her bag onto one of the cushions, she sat down and picked up the receiver.

“Hello? I'm here.” There was no longer any attempt to conceal the irritation she'd bottled up the last few days. She kicked off her sandals and scrunched her toes into the carpet, steeling herself against another plea for an answer, against an earnest apology for how things had gone down in Denver.

“Vicky? I've been trying to reach you.”

The voice at the other end caught her by surprise. She recognized it immediately. Father John O'Malley was the only man in these parts with that way of drawing out the first syllables of his words, as if he had a wad of cotton in his mouth. Straight out of Boston, she knew, although she had never been to Boston and had no intention of going. Denver was big enough, thank you, too big. And L.A. God, the thought made her stomach churn.

This was her place, the Wind River Reservation where she'd been born almost forty-two years ago. The biggest concession she'd made to city life had been to rent this brick bungalow at the edge of Lander, halfway between the open spaces of the reservation and her law office on Main Street.

“You okay?” There was no mistaking the anxiety in Father John's voice.

“What's going on?” Vicky had worked with the superior at St. Francis Mission on a number of cases ever since she'd returned to the reservation two years ago: bailing some Arapaho teenager out of jail, getting some Arapaho alcoholic into rehab, arranging for some grandparents or aunts and uncles to adopt some abandoned Arapaho kid. He was a good man, for a white man. He seemed to care about the people here. And he was intelligent, very intelligent. But he was a priest, and she suspected that everything he knew he had learned out of books. She was aware of an uneasiness crawling over her skin. John O'Malley didn't call her on Saturday afternoon with good news.

“You heard what happened?” he asked.

The uneasy feeling settled like chunks of granite in the pit of her stomach. “Tell me.”

She could hear Father John draw in a deep breath on the other end of the line before he said, “Harvey Castle was murdered last night, Vicky. Someone stabbed him while he was sleeping in his tipi out at the powwow grounds.”

Vicky sat bolt upright on the sofa. The gray carpet was dappled with yellow sunlight from the sliding doors that opened onto the patio out back. The whole living room seemed surreal, as if she had stumbled into a dream. The tribal chairman murdered!

“Who?” she managed. Questions jangled against one another in her mind. Who would do such a thing? Why? For what possible reason?

“Anthony's been arrested. The FBI agent, Jeff Miller, picked him up a little while ago. He and Banner took him to Lander.”

“To the county jail!” Of course. That's where they took anybody arrested for murder. Vicky was on her feet now, carving out half circles in front of the sofa, moving in and out of the splotches of sunlight as far as the telephone cord would stretch. She felt slightly sick. Anthony was one of the most talented young people on the reservation. He was filled with possibilities, not just for himself but for Our People. Why was it that the most talented—the best and the brightest of the
Hinono eino
—self-destructed? Wrapped a pickup around the only tree in fifty miles. Drowned themselves in whiskey. Dropped out of school. Got mixed up in murder.

This couldn't be happening to Anthony, she thought. She had known him all his life, since the day he was born. He was almost the same age as her son, Lucas. But Anthony had a chance to make something of his life, and she knew how hard that was, how hard to catch and hold on to the slim, gossamer line that sometimes was tossed to you.

“Anthony didn't do it, I'm sure of it,” Father John said. There was impatience in his voice, as if he were implying that somebody—Miller and Banner—had blundered onto the wrong track and were too pig-headed to do anything but continue down it. “Unfortunately Anthony and Harvey got into an argument last evening out at the powwow grounds.”

Hearing Father John suck in another deep breath, Vicky sensed his reluctance to tell her more. She waited until he finally said, “They found what looks like the murder weapon, a hunting knife. Could be Anthony's.”

So that was it. The murder weapon. A hunting knife that could be Anthony's. God, Anthony could be in deep shit. She felt as if a pit had opened and Anthony was falling into it. Trying to collect her thoughts, she was quiet a moment. He was no murderer, Father John was right about that. It was out of the question. He might fly off the handle, but he wasn't violent. She'd never known him to be violent. Harvey and Anthony ... Harvey was like a father to Anthony.

There was little she wouldn't give for a cigarette right now, she thought, making another half circle in front of the sofa; but there wasn't one in her bag. Not one in the entire house, and there hadn't been for over a year. She glanced at the silver watch on her wrist—a gift from Larry. It was a few minutes before three. “I'll get over to the jail right away.”

“I'll meet you there,” Father John said.

Vicky set the receiver down firmly. She was standing in the dappled sunlight, but she felt cold.

She dropped down onto the sofa, trying to wrap her mind around the fact of the knife. The knife was a serious piece of evidence, like a wall of granite looming ahead. How could Anthony ever get around it?

V
ICKY WHEELED THE Bronco into the parking lot that butted up against the two-story, red-brick Fremont County jail and stopped in front of the doubleglass doors. She stepped out into waves of heat shooting up from the pavement like flames from a campfire. Sun gives himself for light and warmth, grandfather had told her when she was growing up. Well, sun was very generous today. But it always felt hotter in town than on the reservation. The asphalt and concrete and bricks captured the heat and stopped up the breeze.

The air conditioning in the waiting room sent a cold splash of air across her face and arms, causing her to shiver involuntarily. She had made a quick change out of the jeans and T-shirt she'd worn on the plane this afternoon into a dark skirt and pale silk blouse, complete with nylons and black pumps—an attorney uniform. She'd clipped her hair back with a barrette her grandmother had beaded for her years ago, and she wondered if she had remembered to touch up her lipstick. She was of the opinion she looked half dead without it.

The waiting room had all the personality of a meat locker, with its floor swathed in white tile and walls washed in institutional green. There were two rows of molded blue plastic chairs backed against one another and bolted to the floor. At the ends of both rows, round platelike tables floated on narrow chrome tubes. Little puffs of smoke twirled out of an ashtray on one of the tables. She pursed her lips, trying not to breathe in the smoke, wanting to do just that.