The Ghost Walker (7 page)

A couple of men Father John had never seen before rose from the Naugahyde side chairs across the office. One was Father John’s height, close to six feet four inches, with thick, neatly trimmed gray hair. Little blue lines crisscrossed his nose and cheeks, which had the telltale flush of too much alcohol in his past. Father John recognized the signs. The man’s eyes narrowed, as if he had only a nanosecond to size up the pastor of St. Francis Mission, and he meant to get an accurate measurement.

The other visitor stood almost a head shorter, with a narrow face and gray hair that receded from his forehead. Both men wore the same uniform—dark tailored suits, shiny white shirts, dark ties embellished with miniature figures. The short man came forward, extending a thin, sculptured hand. “Clifford Keating. With the bishop’s office in Cheyenne.”

Father John had expected a phone call, but here was the bishop’s representative in person to deliver whatever message he had delivered at last night’s meeting.

“Nick Sheldon,” the taller man said, extending his hand. “Sheldon, Jones and Johnson. Attorneys-at-law. We’ve been waiting over an hour.”

Father John was taken aback. “Did we have an appointment?”

“Yes. Last evening in Lander.”

“So we did.” He motioned the men to resume their seats. He took his time depositing his parka and hat on the rack behind the open door, where two dark topcoats already hung. As he took his own chair behind the desk, Father Peter shot him a look that said, “Beware of vultures.”

“Since you missed the meeting . . .” Clifford Keating began in a conciliatory tone.

“My pickup broke down,” Father John said. Last night’s meeting had slipped into the background, eclipsed by a missing corpse and by his worry over a young Arapaho who also seemed to be missing.

“Father Peter has explained,” said the bishop’s representative, shooting his suit sleeves over white cuffs. “We want to bring you up to date. The bishop called the meeting of pastors in Riverton and Lander. Naturally he wishes to satisfy himself that the spiritual needs of Catholics in the area will continue to be cared for. I’m happy to say we have that assurance.”

“Continue?” Father John picked up a pencil and began tapping a pile of paper on his desk. He’d missed something here.

“Of course. With one less parish, it is a concern.”

The picture began to take shape. The bishop intended to close one of the local parishes, probably for financial reasons, and Clifford Keating had been dispatched to make certain the other parishes could handle the overflow.
The only thing still unclear was the role Nick Sheldon played.

“We’ll welcome anyone who wants to come to St. Francis,” Father John said. There would be few whites who would come. St. Francis was the Arapaho church.

A thick silence settled over the office, and Father John realized he hadn’t gotten the entire picture. Nick Sheldon crossed one leg over the other. “It seems you haven’t been informed, Father O’Malley. It’s St. Francis Mission that will be closed.”

Father John dropped the pencil. He remained absolutely still, aware of the sound of his own breathing. St. Francis closed? How could that be? Shock began to give way to anger, which welled inside him the way water pools in the middle of a river.

“You must be misinformed,” Father Peter blurted out. “St. Francis Mission has served the Arapaho people for more than a hundred years. It will continue to do so.”

“I’m afraid not, Father,” Keating replied. “Mission work has changed, outlived its purpose. When you Jebbies first came here, there were pagan Indians to convert and educate. Well,”—he threw out both hands—“mission accomplished.”

Sheldon added, “The Arapahos are already Catholic. Your high school closed ten years ago for lack of money. The BIA runs the mission’s elementary school. And—am I not correct—your financial situation is in desperate straits. There is no justifiable reason to continue this mission.”

It was all Father John could do to keep from jumping up and ordering both men out. Obviously the Jesuit Provincial, from his office in St. Louis, had decided to close St. Francis. He had informed the bishop who had
sent these two saps to smooth over the details. No one had informed him. All of this going on. . . . He was so far out of the loop, he hadn’t even known there was a loop.

Sheldon continued, “This decision is in the best interests of the Arapahos. My client plans to build a multimillion-dollar family recreation center on the mission site. Movie theaters, bowling alley, gymnasium, restaurants, the works. Small towns can’t support such centers, which is why we prefer to build in the vicinity of several towns. That way, all the towns benefit.”

“How, exactly, will the Arapahos benefit?” Father John managed, struggling to keep his anger under control. He could feel the heat in his face.

“Jobs. The center will employ Indians.”

“St. Francis employs people from the reservation.”

The lawyer smiled. “A caretaker, two part-time secretaries, a housekeeper, religious education teachers. A total of ten. Sometimes twelve, when you can afford it. My client will employ at least a hundred.”

“Who is your client, Mr. Sheldon?” Father John was stalling now, trying to get his mind around the news. St. Francis Mission closed? Even in the worst-case scenarios, when he’d lain awake nights worrying about cutting back on staff or not making the payroll, it had never occurred to him the Society of Jesus might sell the mission.

“The Z Group. A private partnership based in California,” the lawyer said.

Father John got to his feet and leaned across the desk, his hands gripping the hard wood edge. “The Arapahos will never agree to this. St. Francis belongs to them. This is where the drums beat at Sunday Mass. Where they can sign the Our Father in the Indian sign language.
Where the Christian message can take root in their own culture.”

The two ambassadors appeared to ignore him as they stood up and began fumbling with their topcoats. Then the lawyer met Father John’s eyes. “I’m afraid you’ve missed the point,” he said. “The Arapahos themselves have requested that we build the center on the site of St. Francis Mission. The business council will approve the plans at next week’s meeting.”

*    *    *

After they left, Father John stood at the window and watched the cherry-red taillights flickering in the darkness, aware of the sound of the old priest’s breathing next to him. Softly Father Peter said, “‘My mind is troubled, like a fountain stirr’d; And I myself see not the bottom of it.’”

This was not a quote Father John recognized, but he didn’t want a lecture on Shakespeare right now. He walked back to his desk and sank into the chair, trying to make some sense of this. “I suppose, sooner or later, the Provincial would have informed us,” he said. “In the meantime, the bishop decided to inform the other pastors, which forced Keating and Sheldon to tell us. Otherwise, we might not have heard until next week, after the business council had approved the deal.”

Father Peter shuffled across the office, folded up the metal chair, and stashed it behind the door. “Not a peep on the moccasin telegraph,” he said, shaking his head. “‘’Twas strange, ’twas passing strange.’”

“Not if somebody wanted the mission sold before the people found out about it,” Father John said.

“The question then appears to be what do you intend to do about it, my boy?” The old man eyed him from
the center of the office, a teacher expecting the right answer.

Father John was turning over the options in his mind. After a moment he said, “I intend to make the acquaintance of Eden Lightfoot, the new economic development officer on the reservation. Obviously he supports this, or the Arapaho business council wouldn’t consider it. I’ll have to try to change his mind.”

But first he intended to talk to Vicky Holden. If anyone had heard about St. Francis Mission being sold, it would be the Arapaho attorney. She had the pulse of the reservation. He pulled the phone toward him and punched in her number. He knew it by heart.

7

V
icky Holden aimed the Bronco through the silent streets of the Lander neighborhood she had called home the past three years. The headlights picked out the cars and pickups parked at the curbs and turned the snow-packed streets the pale yellow color of butter.

She turned into the driveway of the brick bungalow she rented, her mind on the divorce agreement she’d hammered out this afternoon with the attorney representing her client’s husband. She hadn’t gotten everything Mary Featherly wanted or deserved, but sometimes the best possible agreement had to be good enough. She intended to look it over again tonight. And there were three or four phone calls she still had to return.

One from John O’Malley. Probably about this morning’s article in the
Gazette.
She exhaled slowly into the quiet. The only time the pastor at St. Francis Mission called was when there was some kind of trouble. She would call him first, she decided, then scramble some eggs for dinner before getting to the rest of the work in her briefcase.

Darkness settled over the Bronco the instant she flipped off the headlights. She grabbed the briefcase and floppy black leather bag off the seat and stepped outside. Rather than walking up the sidewalk, which she
had shoveled early this morning, she crossed the yard, watching the clouds of snow rise and scatter in her footsteps. Walking through snow always took her back to the times she and her brothers and sisters—cousins in the white world—had romped in the snow until they turned numb with cold and then had jostled one another around the stove in Grandmother’s kitchen, giggling and laughing themselves warm. Snow made the earth fresh and new.

Just as she stepped onto the wooden porch, she heard the footsteps. She whirled about. A large shadowy figure came up the sidewalk. She was fully aware of her surroundings as if everything had been caught in a freeze frame: light filtering through the darkness from the houses across the street; shadows of cars and trucks at the curb; the porch light on next door; the muffled sounds of a TV. Would the neighbors hear if she screamed?

“Who are you?”

The man in a cowboy hat and sheepskin coat stopped at the edge of the porch. “Ben.”

She leaned back, aware of the doorjamb against her spine, her heart catapulting in her chest. Her ex-husband, dropped from the sky, out of nowhere, out of the past. “You scared me,” she said.

“I’m sorry.” Ben placed one boot on the porch, but made no move to come up.

“Why are you here?”

“We’ve got to talk.” He still didn’t move. “I could use a cup of coffee. I’ve been waiting in the truck two hours.” He nodded toward the street, and she felt a wave of anger at herself as her eyes followed. She had driven by the truck, but she’d been so preoccupied with her own thoughts she hadn’t noticed anyone in it. She’d
lived in the white world for almost eleven years, yet she still didn’t have the hang of it—watch your back, stay alert.

“Just say what you have to say.” Vicky felt the old wariness gathering inside her. She didn’t want to be alone with him.

“It’s about Susan.”

She stared at her former husband. He always knew how to get what he wanted. He only had to mention one of their children, Susan or Lucas. She turned around and, after fumbling to insert the key in the keyhole, pushed the door open. She flipped the wall switch inside, and the lamp on the table sprang into life, illuminating the gray carpet, the blue-flowered sofa, the coffee table with its neat stack of magazines and her favorite pottery bowl, the dining table and chairs in the alcove beyond the living room.

“Nice place,” Ben said, closing the door behind them.

Vicky dropped her bag and briefcase on the sofa, then slipped off her coat and hung it inside the small closet next to the door before facing him. He had already tossed his hat and gloves next to her things, and was pulling himself free from the sheepskin coat. She felt a kind of shock at how much he was like that sense of him she carried inside her. Just over six feet, straight as a lodgepole pine, with powerful shoulders and chest and long, slender fingers. His hair was still black, but flecked with gray now, and combed straight back until it ran along the collar of his tan chamois shirt.