The Spider's Web (21 page)

The noise came again, unmistakable this time. A deliberate pressure of human weight on the wooden steps that led to the back porch and the outside door to the kitchen. There was a rhythm in the way the sound came and went as the intruder climbed a step, stopped, then climbed another. Then the rhythm mixed itself up like a jazz riff, point and counter point. There were two intruders.

He realized that the door was unlocked—the little lever turned vertical instead of horizontal. He lunged for the door just as it burst open and two men—Arapahos, black-haired and dark-eyed, the rancid smells of whiskey and vomit pouring off them—threw themselves into the kitchen. He managed to back against the hard edge of the counter as Walks-On jumped on one of the men and sank his teeth in the fleshy, flailing arm.

“CALL HIM OFF! Call him off!” The big man with a black ponytail flailed at the dog with his free arm and jumped about as if he were on hot coals.

Walks-On backed off and, gathering rage-infused momentum, lunged again at the man’s arm as a small, black pistol with a muzzle that seemed as big as a cannon rose in the other man’s hand.

“Don’t shoot!” Father John grabbed the dog’s collar and jerked him backward. It took almost all of his strength; the dog was like a mountain lion, throwing himself at the intruder. The gun waved about. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted again. He pulled Walks-On in close and moved between him and the gun.

“Jesus! I’m bleeding!” The big man sounded like he might burst into tears, and Father John reached around, grabbed a dish towel off the counter and tossed it to him. He caught it in mid-air and jammed it against his arm. A thin strand of blood trickled toward his elbow. “Kill that mangy beast,” he said.

“There’s not going to be any killing here,” Father John said, willing his voice to be calm and authoritative. A bit of legerdemain, he thought, as if he were the one in control. Walks-On jumped against his leg. “What do you want,” he said.

“You gonna shoot that dog or what?” the big man said, pressing the towel to his arm.

“Shut up, Lionel,” the other man said. He kept the gun thrust into the empty space between him and Father John, but he no longer waved it about. Knuckles popped like miniature snow peaks in his brown hand.

“Dwayne Hawk and Lionel Lookingglass,” Father John said. He had known who they were the instant they came through the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Where you keeping her?” Dwayne said. He was thin and wiry, a good half foot shorter than his partner, but he looked more menacing, gripping the gun and fixing Father John with narrow, black eyes under the cliff of his forehead. His black hair was cut short, and part of his left ear was missing.

“Who are you talking about?” Keep him talking, Father John was thinking. Find a place to engage him. The first rule of counseling.

“The bitch that fingered us for Ned’s murder.”

“Jesus, my arm’s hurting like hell,” Lionel said. “I need a doctor. That dog got rabies?”

Walks-On growled and snapped, and Father John tightened his grip on his collar. “Take it easy,” he said, not sure whether it was meant for the dog or the two men. “He’s had his shots. You’re not going to get rabies.”

“You don’t shoot him now, I’m gonna do it, I swear. I’ll come back here with a shotgun and blow his brains out.”

“I told you, shut up,” Dwayne said. He moved forward and pointed the gun at Father John’s chest, eyes squeezed into angry slits. Dots of perspiration blossomed on his forehead. “The white girl. Where’d you put her?”

Father John could feel his heart catapult against his ribs. “The fed has her in a safe place,” he said.

The Indian was quiet a moment, the slit-eyes looking Father John up and down. “Funny, we heard she’s right here at the mission. You been keeping her safe so she can tell her lies and get us locked up for killing Ned. Only we didn’t do it, see? It don’t matter what she says, we didn’t know he was dead ’til we went to pick him up. Figured he’d been stuck with that white girl long enough, needed to get back to his own kind.”

“Tell your story to the fed.” Father John tried not to look at the gun. “You have a witness.”

“Yeah.” Dwayne gave a snort. “Roseanne, the snitch. Talking to the fed, connecting us up with Ned. She needs to keep her mouth shut, she knows what’s good for her.” He shifted his gaze sideways toward Lionel, flopped down on a kitchen chair, clasping the towel against his arm. Beneath his fingers, the towel was turning red.

Father John followed his gaze. “You need ice,” he said. Still holding on to the dog’s collar, he started for the refrigerator.

“Don’t move!” The gun jutted into the center of the kitchen, like a cannon moved into firing position.

“I need to go to the hospital.” Lionel was moaning and fidgeting.

“Take it easy.” Father John pulled Walks-On closer. “I’m just getting him some ice.”

“You wanna die?” The voice was hard-edged, as sharp as steel. The gun was gripped in both of Dwayne’s hands, and he had contracted into a shooting position, as if he were on a firing range.

Father John stayed where he was and looked at the man no more than four feet away, and yet a chasm of linoleum and empty fluorescent-lit space opened between them. A thousand half-formed thoughts tumbled through his head. What had happened to Dwayne Hawk? Where had he come from and what had he endured? What was he on? What kind of drug could stifle any sense of empathy or common humanity that might keep him from pulling the trigger. He said, “I’m not moving. You can put the gun down.”

“Where is she?” Dwayne hissed the question. Little specks of saliva appeared at the corners of his mouth.

“I told you, the fed . . .”

“Save it,” Dwayne said. “Where you keeping her?”

“What are you going to do?” Father John kept his eyes locked on the Indian’s and tried to ignore the gun waving between them. “Intimidate her into changing her story? What if she did? The fed will still want to talk to you, get your version. He won’t give up until he finds you. You and Lionel can’t hide forever.”

“Jeez, Dwayne,” Lionel said, pushing himself to his feet. “We gotta get outta here. I need help.”

The other man shrugged off his partner without glancing at him. He opened his mouth as if he were waiting for the words forming in his throat to push their way out. Before he could say anything, Father John said, “If you didn’t kill Ned, who did?”

“What?” Dwayne flinched and blinked a couple of times.

“Why do I get the sense that you know the truth?” Father John said.

“You’re smoking, man.”

“You and Lionel could take the fall unless you tell Gianelli what you know.”

“You think we’re stupid?” Dwayne said. Lionel was weaving on his feet behind him, still clasping the towel that had started to turn into quivering red jelly. The towel had started to slip so that blood ran out of the wound. “You think we want to end up like Ned? No way we’re going in and snitching.”

The kitchen went quiet, except for the sound of Walks-On’s nails scraping the floor and Dwayne’s quick gulps of air. Father John could hear the sound of a truck on Seventeen-Mile Road. The noise seemed to come from a great distance. He had guessed right, he was thinking. Someone else was in the burglary ring. The general who mapped out the plan of attack. Selected the houses, most likely, checked on security, determined when the owners would be away, then called in the troops—Ned and the two Indians in his kitchen. Whoever it was, this general, the two men were afraid of him. And yet they would be charged with Ned’s murder, unless they could get Marcy Morrison to change her story. So they had come out of hiding to find the girl. They had gone after Roseanne, too, wanting to intimidate her, keep her from linking them to the burglary ring and Ned. The minute the link was made, Gianelli would assume that Ned had been holding out. Or maybe Dwayne and Lionel had wanted to keep him from snitching about the burglary ring, after he had decided to turn his life around. Either way, it would look as if they had reason to kill.

But they wouldn’t snitch on the general. They didn’t want to end up like Ned.

Ned had also been frightened of the general, Father John realized. It explained why he had agreed to rob houses again in Jackson Hole, after moving there to make a new start. It explained why he came back and why he went to Donald Little Robe, searching for the courage to remain firm in his resolve, hoping to find it in the Sun Dance.

“That’s it!” Dwayne rammed a fist into the cabinet door. His other hand lowered the gun. “Enough! Where is she? I want the answer now! You got one second, and that stupid dog is dead.”

“Shoot him now!” Lionel shouted. “Sonafabitch bit me hard. Jeez, I’m gonna need stitches.”

“First the dog,” Dwayne said. “Then you, Father. Start with your knees. How’d you like that? Take out one elbow, then the other. Fix you up pretty good, huh? Or you want to start with the elbow first? Where is she?” He grasped the gun with both hands.

“Drop your weapon!” Bishop Harry stood in the doorway, both hands gripping the long-nosed silver Flintlock pistol. Pink, hairy legs—bird legs—hung below the red plaid robe cinched at his waist. The blue collar of his pajamas sprang around his neck. His gray hair was mussed, standing out in thin strands, as if he had stepped on an electric wire.

Dwayne turned his head toward the old man, a startled, bemused look on his face, as if an apparition had materialized out of nowhere. The gun started to move in the old man’s direction. “You couldn’t shoot a barn with that thing.”

“I am aiming at your heart,” the bishop said. His voice was like the thud of a bass drum. “Would you like to gamble with your life?”

“The old goat’s gonna kill us.” Lionel sounded as if he were about to start weeping.

Dwayne’s arm started downward in slow motion, reluctant and hesitant, the gun steady in his hand.

“All the way. That’s it,” the bishop said as Dwayne’s hand slid alongside his thigh. “Now let your gun fall to the floor, nice-and-easy-like. There you go.” The gun clunked onto the floor. “I suggest you turn around and find your way out of here. The same way you came in, I would suppose.”

“Let’s go,” Lionel said. He had already kicked the door back, and he threw himself out into the little porch off the kitchen. Dwayne was behind him, tossing nervous glances over his shoulder. The bishop stood like a statue, pointing the pistol at the man’s back. Dwayne yanked open the outer door, and both men ducked out, knocking against each other in the doorway, then disappearing into the darkness. Boots drummed on the wooden steps. In a minute, an engine fired. There was the noise of gravel scattering beneath tires. A tremor ran along the floor as the vehicle passed by the side of the house, thumped across the field and out onto Circle Drive. Another moment, and the noise was absorbed in the mission quiet.

“I figured the best thing was to get them out of here,” the bishop said. “I’ve encountered men like that. They are frightened and desperate. You never know what they might try.”

“You were right,” Father John said, still holding Walks-On’s collar as he crossed the kitchen and slammed the door, not wanting the dog to bolt after them. He could feel the tension begin to drain out of the dog’s muscles, and he let him go. Walks-On jumped up and placed his paws on Father John’s chest, doing a little dance on his rear leg. “Good boy,” Father John said, patting his head. “You did good.”

“I’m going to check on the girl.” He took hold of the dog’s collar again and guided him downward. Bishop Harry was already in the hall, tapping on the phone, the Flintlock on the table. Father John hurried past, yanked open the door, and headed down the steps. Then he started running. Across Circle Drive and through the field, across the drive again and down the alley between the church and the administration building, dodging in and out of the dim lights flaring from the streetlamps. The thudding sound of his boots filled his ears. The guesthouse was dark. There was no sign of life. He walked past the house, checking for the red pickup. It was gone.

He double-backed to the front and knocked on the door. “Marcy,” he shouted, his own voice reverberating out of the vacuum that he knew was inside. He knocked harder, then tried the knob. The door swung into darkness. He reached around and flipped on the switch. The little table lamp next to the sofa cast a faint shield of light across the linoleum floor. “Marcy!” he called again, but she was gone. He crossed the small living room, flipped on the switch in the bedroom that was little more than a back porch and stared at the narrow, empty bed. The tangle of sheets and blankets, the empty whiskey bottle and pop cans on the floor, the only signs the girl had ever been there.

He let himself out and retraced his steps down the shadows in the alley. From somewhere in the distance, beyond the darkness and the black sky ribboned with stars, came the wailing noise of sirens.

“YOU’RE CERTAIN ABOUT the intruders.” Ted Gianelli planted himself in a triangle formed by his white SUV and two BIA police cars. The light bars flashed red and blue stripes over his face. Tubes of yellow headlights shot across Circle Drive into the field of wild grasses.

“Dwayne Hawk and Lionel Lookingglass,” Father John said. Walks-On leaned against his leg.

“Let’s go over it again. They burst through the kitchen door. The dog attacked Lionel, and Dwayne pulled a gun and threatened to shoot both you and your dog until Bishop Harry brought out his howitzer. If they show up at the ER, we’ll arrest them. They can’t be too far away. Every cop in the area is looking for them. What did they want?”

Father John told him they were looking for Marcy Morrison. The front door to the residence stood open, and light spilled out onto the sidewalk. He could see the bishop and the officers in the kitchen, the bishop gesturing and the officers stepping around carefully, as if they were stepping over the traces of Lionel’s blood.