The Spirit Woman (29 page)

She struggled out of his arms, but he grabbed her again, holding her tightly now. “Stop, stop,” he said close to her ear, his voice quiet. Gradually he felt her body give in to a kind of sustained shuddering.

“What have I done, John?” She was crying. “Oh, my God, what have I done?”

“You saved my life,” he said. “You saved all of our lives. He would've killed us.”

“But I've killed
him
!” She pulled back and threw her face up into the moonlight. Tears streaked her cheeks. He brushed his hand lightly over one side of her face, then the other.

From the distance, far beyond the trees, came the faintest sound of sirens as he put his arm around her again and led her to the fallen log where they'd sat many times, discussed many things in the past. For the first time he was aware of the cold biting at his skin. His jaw throbbed. He lowered her onto the log and sat down beside her. “Look,” he said, “I'm as much to blame as you are. If I'd gotten to Alva's gun, I might have been the one—” He felt as if his heart could no longer beat.

She shook her head. “I saw you going to the residence. I saw that Crow Wolf had a gun on you, so I went back into your office. I found the gun in the desk drawer. I heard the shouting and banging as I ran to the residence. Walks-On was going crazy, racing around, barking. I was afraid Crow Wolf had already killed you. I went inside. All I could see was Crow Wolf crouching, pointing the gun at you.” She grabbed his shirt and held on, as if she were holding herself upright.

“I could feel the blows.” She was sobbing. “I could taste the blood in my mouth. And there was a loud noise, and I jerked backward. And I knew I'd killed him.” She sank her face into both hands, still sobbing, the sounds coming from some deep reservoir of grief.

“Vicky, Vicky.” He pulled her to him again, saying her name over and over. Finally he said, “Try not to judge yourself. God is our judge, and He is merciful.”

The sirens were louder, a well of noise and red-and-blue lights flickering through the trees. “Come on,” he said, pulling her up beside him. “We have to go back now.”

 

“Okay, let's have the whole story.” Art Banner sat back against a kitchen chair and took a long sip from a mug of the coffee that Father John had brewed thirty minutes earlier. Two other BIA police officers leaned against the counter, drinking from their own mugs. Father Kevin shifted in the chair next to the chief. A large white bandage applied by the ambulance attendants spread across one cheek and into his hairline. There was a hush of voices in the study where the other officers were examining the crime scene, then a sharp bang, as if the police photographer had knocked the package of tapes off the desk.

Father John glanced sideways at Vicky sitting beside him across from the two men. Her face was blanched and constricted, her eyes vacant. She was still in shock; he knew the signs: the fixed stare, the short, quick gasps. Her hand was like ice under his. The mug in front of her sat untouched. He took a gulp of his own coffee, wanting it to be whiskey. He badly needed a shot. God, one shot, that was all. “Can't we go over things tomorrow, Banner?” he said. “We've been through enough tonight.”

Suddenly Kevin jerked upright, as if he'd just sprung awake. He started fumbling inside the pocket of the leather jacket hanging from the back of his chair. “Maybe we don't have to go over anything,” he said, bringing out the small, shiny tape recorder and laying it on the table. “It might all be here,” he said.

The kitchen went quiet a moment, as if time had stopped. Banner flexed his fingers and picked up the recorder. “Well, well,” he said. “What do we have here?”

The priest's bruised face broke into a slow, painful smile. “If I got lucky tonight, I may have an interview with a murderer who confessed to two homicides and was about to shoot John and me.”

Father John stared at the other priest. “How did you manage that?”

Kevin shrugged, then winced as if the effort had reminded him of the boot kick he'd taken. “Crow Wolf walked into the office just as I was about to leave and introduced himself. I was glad to meet a Shoshone historian. Naturally I invited him to take a seat. I was even thinking about putting on a pot of coffee, expecting to have a good talk about the early days on the res.”

He said “res,” Father John thought, as if he'd been around for a long time.

“Next thing I know, he's holding a gun. I swear I don't even know which pocket he pulled it from. He demanded I take him to the library and give him some journal. I didn't know what he was talking about.” He drew in a long breath. “That's when you called, John. I tried to signal you that things weren't right here.”

“I missed it,” Father John said. Somehow he'd missed all the signals tonight. Surely there was a moment—when was it?—when he might have taken the Indian's gun.

“I said to Crow Wolf,” Father Kevin went on, “ ‘It's cold out there, man. I need my jacket.' So I took my jacket from the back of the chair and put it on. I expected him to check the pockets, but he didn't say a word.”

“Must've figured a priest wasn't carrying a gun,” the chief said.

“Yeah, well, he didn't figure on a tape recorder.” Kevin gave a snort of laughter. “I managed to flip on the switch while we were walking across the grounds. Somewhere in front of the church, I believe. From there on”—he nodded at the chief—“we could have the entire conversation. It's a marvelous piece of equipment, very sensitive.”

The chief was turning the small block of metal over in his hand. “The fed's gonna love this,” he said. Then he looked up at Vicky. “Since when are you in the habit of carrying a revolver?”

Father John felt the little shiver in Vicky's hand. “It's not mine,” she said, her voice so quiet that the kitchen stayed silent a moment after she'd spoken.

“She found it in my desk drawer.” Father John locked eyes with the chief. “It belongs to Alva Running Bull. I was keeping it for her.”

“So she wouldn't kill Lester.” One of the officers at the counter spoke up. “The bastard deserves it.”

Banner threw a cautionary glance at his men, then turned his gaze back to Vicky. “Okay, so you took the gun . . .”

“I saw that Crow Wolf had a gun on John and Kevin,” Vicky said, her voice still quiet. “I went into the office and found the gun.”

“Why didn't you call us right then?”

“There was no time, Banner.” Vehemence seeped into her voice. “He'd killed two women. He killed my friend for the journal he thought was here. All I could think of was that the minute he found out John didn't have the journal, he was going to kill him. I had to stop him.” Suddenly she dipped her face into her hands. Tears wound through her fingers. After a moment she looked up. “I thought I could make him drop his gun. I didn't mean to kill him.”

“We tried to get the gun,” Kevin said. “For a couple of Irish lads, we're lousy street fighters.”

Banner laughed. “You're just out of practice.”

“It's all on the tape.” Father John locked eyes with the chief. “Why don't you and Gianelli listen to it and ask the rest of your questions tomorrow.”

Banner nodded slowly as he pushed himself out of the chair. “The agent's gonna want to see everybody soon's he gets back.” Turning to Vicky, he said, “You probably shouldn't be driving. How about we give you a ride home?”

“I'll see that she gets home,” Father John said.

 

Father John drove the Bronco west on Seventeen Mile Road, glancing every minute or so at Vicky huddled in the passenger seat, the way she'd huddled on the living-room sofa for the last two hours until the fleet of state crime lab and BIA officials had finally ferried out a stretcher with Crow Wolf's corpse zipped in a gray bag. He'd divided his time between sitting with her, trying to get her to drink some water, answering questions in the study, and refilling his own mug in the kitchen. His thirst was boundless, unquenchable. He'd brewed a second pot and gulped it down.

As he came around a jog the Toyota's headlights behind them flashed in the rearview mirror, blinding him for a half second. Kevin was behind them. He adjusted the mirror and glanced over at Vicky again. In the glimmer of the dashboard lights, her eyes looked bruised and puffy from crying, but, oddly, her expression seemed more peaceful. She seemed to have gone off somewhere far away. “Are you asleep?” His voice was soft.

“No.” Vicky shifted in the seat and laid her head back. A moment passed before she said, “Ironic, isn't it? I always feared that one day I'd shoot Ben. So I left him, before it could happen. Now I've shot someone else.”

“He was a killer.”

“And I'm a lawyer. I believe in due process and all that, not in summary execution.”

“That's not the way it was,” he told her. “Try to think about what actually happened. Don't make it into something else.”

She seemed to shrink inside the black coat, going off again into that place within herself. A good mile of highway unfolded ahead before she said, “We've been through a hell of a lot together, John O'Malley. But neither of us ever killed anybody before.”

He reached over and took her hand again. It felt warmer, but the Bronco was warm, heat pouring from the vents. “In time—”

“Don't tell me how time heals everything. It's not true, and you know it.”

“Well,” he began, another tack. “Perhaps, in time, we'll learn to live with it.”

She turned his hand over, gripping it so hard he could feel the tiny pinch of her nails against his palm. “I don't want to be alone tonight, John.”

He let his hand remain in hers. He didn't say anything for a long time, guiding the Bronco with his other hand into the fastness of the plains. The mountains rose ahead, massive black shadows. They might have been the only people in the world, he thought, except for the headlights dancing intermittently in the rearview mirror. Several minutes passed. “I'm going to take you to Aunt Rose's,” he said.

“T
hat's some bruise you got there, Father John.” Alva Running Bull leaned forward and reached out a hand, tracing in the air the eggplant-colored tender spot below his lip. Lester rearranged his weight on the chair beside her, embarrassment and concern mingling in the man's face. “Bet that hurts.” Alva again.

It hurts, he thought. He said, “Looks like I'll survive.”

“Oh, yeah, mostly we survive.” The woman laced her fingers over the floppy bag in her lap.

“I don't hit you anymore, Alva.” Lester was staring at the floor, hands folded between his knees. “You don't have to be afraid anymore.”

“I know,” the woman said.

“You didn't have to go get a gun.”

“I was worried there for a while last week, when you started acting weird. I could tell; I can always tell.”

“What's bothering you, Lester?” Father John tried to bring the counseling session back to the source of the rage that exploded into fists pounding on flesh.

Lester exhaled a long sigh and drew himself upright. “The job, you know. Looks like the boss might lay some people off. First ones to go are Indians.”

“How are you dealing with that?” Father John prodded, hoping the man would realize that he had managed to deal with the rage.

“Went back to the anger therapy, talked about what was going on.”

“Did it help?”

“Yeah,” Alva said. “It helped a lot. Lester got calmer.” She turned to her husband. “I wasn't gonna shoot you. I just wanted to make you stop if, you know, if . . .” She hesitated, then looked back at Father John. “Anyway, good thing that gun was here.”

That was true. He and Kevin and Vicky were alive, but Vicky—he hadn't been able to reach her all week. She was nowhere. Not at Aunt Rose's, at the office, at home. And she hadn't returned his calls. He didn't blame her. He could not be the man she needed. The realization came over him at the oddest times—during Mass, meetings, counseling sessions. Each time it seemed brand-new.

“Thank you, Father.” Alva was gathering her floppy rug bag and levering herself to her feet. Her husband was standing beside her, one hand on her elbow, steadying her rise. Another crisis averted, Father John thought. Another stressful period navigated successfully. But the next one was always ahead. What might it bring? He could feel his jaw throbbing again. The woman was still tiptoeing through a minefield.

Father John followed the couple into the corridor and held the front door as they filed through. Suddenly Alva stopped and looked back. “See you next week, then, Father?”

“Yes,” he said. The assurance seemed to give her a renewed sense of confidence. She crooked one hand into her husband's arm and allowed him to lead her down the steps toward a brown pickup.

Father John stepped out on the stoop and drew in the pristine air, filling his lungs. A cold breeze plucked at his shirtsleeves. He felt invigorated by the cold, the blue sky, and the bright sun flooding the plains and melting the snow. Or was it still the effects of the call from the provincial the previous Tuesday, scarcely an hour before Kevin was set to take him to the airport—the other priest most likely at the wheel of the Toyota. He'd finished packing his belongings—books, tapes, and papers in boxes stacked and ready to be picked up by UPS. Everything in his room—a few changes of clothes, his clericals and shaving kit, some more books—in the duffel bag that he would carry.

“Well, you won this round, John,” the provincial had said. “The conference—”