The Thunder Keeper (15 page)

“T
hey're ready for you, Father O'Malley.” The middle-aged secretary with the pinched, pale face and cropped blond hair hung up the phone that had rung a moment earlier. “Please come with me.” She rose from behind a massive desk and walked over to the door across the reception area at Blackford and Lord.

Father John tossed aside a magazine, picked up his cowboy hat, and followed her down a wide corridor. She moved with authority, shoulders squared, as if she were leading a parade.

She stopped, rapped on a door, then pushed it open and motioned him into a rectangular room with an oak conference table running almost the full length. Three men sat at the far end. Arranged on the table were stacks of folders and yellow legal pads.

All three rose to their feet. “Nice to see you again, Father O'Malley.” The man in the blue sport coat reached across the table and shook his hand. “Ian Blackford,” he said. Father John had met him once or twice—he couldn't think where. The lawyer in a plaid shirt extended his hand and said he was Mike Lord.

“Meet Perry Hamilton from Chicago.” He turned toward the man at the end. “We're providing support from
the local angle, but Perry's calling the shots on the defense.”

Hamilton had a grip like a steel vise, and Father John wondered what he'd be like in a courtroom, this lawyer the Society of Jesus had hired to represent Father Don Ryan.

He took the chair Mike Lord had indicated and laid his hat on the table. The lawyers sat down in unison, like a precision drill team.

“Well, Father O'Malley.” Perry Hamilton laced his fingers together over the yellow legal pad. “Let me begin by allaying any worries you may have. You can be assured that the Society intends to mount a vigorous defense on behalf of Father Ryan.”

“What about a fair settlement?” Father John said.

“Excuse me?” Hamilton's features rearranged themselves into a look of mock astonishment. “Do you have any idea, Father, how many lawsuits are filed against clergy?”

“I read the newspapers.” Father John could feel the other lawyers' eyes on him. “Some suits are valid.”

Perry Hamilton arched one eyebrow and shook his head. “Shall we proceed?” he said.

For the next hour—Father John checked his watch a couple of times—he fielded the lawyers' questions. What kind of priest was Don Ryan? Hardworking. That was the truth. How many times had Father John seen Mary Ann Williams at the mission? Once. To his knowledge, was there anything inappropriate in Father Ryan's relationship with Mary Ann Williams?

To his knowledge. Father John glanced away. In his mind was the image of Don Ryan in his study—the dropped head, the hands squeezed together between his knees.
I had an affair with her.

“Ask Don Ryan,” he said.

“We're asking you, Father.” There was a sharp edge to Hamilton's voice.

“What I know was told to me in confidence, as a priest,” he said. Then he held up his hand. “Why not settle, put this behind us?”

Hamilton pushed back against his chair. “Have you thought about the consequences to the mission? Try to picture your donors learning that their contributions aren't helping the Indians at all. They're paying off the priest's mistress.”

Father John locked eyes with the man. “You just admitted she was Don's mistress.”

A look that bordered on appreciation came into the man's face. “The burden of proof will be on her,” he said. “We intend to ask a judge to hear the case. Judges are logical; they follow the law.”

And you'll destroy her in court, Father John thought. You and the implacable logic of the law. He pushed his chair back, picked up his cowboy hat, and got to his feet. “I take it we're finished here,” he said, starting for the door.

 

F
ather John drove through the wide streets of Riverton, a sense of futility pressing down on him like an invisible weight. Hamilton would probably win the case, and the mission wouldn't have to sell the land. Wasn't that what he wanted?

The realization left him feeling empty and dissatisfied, as if he'd conjured up a vision of what should be, only to find that it was incomplete, untrue. He'd have another talk with the Provincial. Ask him again to agree to a settlement.

He made a right onto Federal and turned onto the cement apron of a gas station. At the inside phone, he dialed the mission and tapped into his messages. Three from parishioners checking about upcoming meetings. None from Eddie or Vicky.

He pushed more quarters into the slot and dialed Vicky's law office. After two rings, Laola's voice: “Sorry, Father. Vicky's in Laramie. I knew she wouldn't be able to stay away from Wyoming.” A laugh floated down the line, then: “We're still waiting to hear from the secretary of state's office on the mining companies. Vicky'll get back to you soon as she knows anything.”

He thanked her and hung up, conscious of a vague disappointment that Vicky wasn't in. And something more: he had no part in her life now.

He slid back into the Toyota and melded into the light stream of traffic—a couple of pickups, a sedan—and headed north to the Riverton Library.

The redbrick building squatted in the middle of a parklike lawn that had turned emerald green in the rains. Inside was the familiar hush that reminded Father John of the neighborhood library in Boston when he was a kid, and all the libraries he'd ever done research in. Even the sense of anticipation was familiar: this was where the secrets would unfold.

He walked past the stacks set at various angles on the green carpet, past the reading tables where two elderly men curled over opened newspapers. Seated at an L-shaped desk was an attractive woman who might have been forty, with shoulder-length auburn hair framing a triangular face. She raised her eyebrows as he approached. “Haven't seen you for a while, Father.”

“I believe I owe you a fine,” he said, remembering the
Plains Indians
on his desk. He pulled the twenty-dollar-bill out of his pocket and laid it down.

The librarian tapped at the computer keyboard, then pushed the bill toward him. “Keep your money for the Indian kids,” she said, a mischievous light in her blue eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you aren't here to pay fines?”

“What do you have on diamonds in Wyoming?” he said.

“A new interest of yours, Father? Diamonds?”

“You might say so.”

She tapped the keyboard again. “Somehow I expected you to request another history book or something on theology or spirituality. But diamonds?”

“Maybe they're related,” he said. Bear Lake was a sacred, spiritual place.

“Diamonds and spirituality.” She gave him a sideways look, still tapping. “How right you are. I never felt more spiritual than when I got this.” She lifted her left hand and waved it in the air a moment, allowing the diamond ring on her third finger to catch the light.

“Ah, here we go.” Leaning toward the computer screen now, where columns of black type scrolled downward. The scrolling stopped. She jotted three titles on a notepad, tore off the page, and handed it to him.

“You can find these in the natural history section”—a nod toward the bookshelves—“while I get you a monograph.”

In a couple of minutes he'd found three books that looked promising and settled at one of the nearby tables. He opened the book titled
Wyoming Minerals,
written twenty years ago by a man with numerous letters after his name. He located “diamonds” in the index and turned to a page with a full-color map of Wyoming. Clusters of tiny
white arrows pointed to the locations of diamond mines. None in central Wyoming.

He opened the next book and read a brief chapter on diamonds found in Wyoming. Superior crystals, including a faceted fifteen-point-six-carat gemstone cut from a twenty-nine-carat rough stone, the largest diamond mined in North America. More than one hundred and thirty thousand other diamonds produced. Deposits found in kimberlite pipes—columns of igneous rock injected into the earth's crust four hundred million years ago, bringing up diamonds from depths of one hundred and fifty to two hundred kilometers. Other minerals could also be found in the pipes—pyrope almondine garnet, olivine, sapphire, chromium diopside, picroilmenite, chromite. Hundreds of acres in Wyoming contained kimberlite pipes, most running along the southern border. Only a few pipes in the west and north. Whole mountain ranges ran between the nearest known pipes and central Wyoming.

In the last book, Father John scanned through the chapter titled “The Great Diamond Hoax.” Diamonds discovered in southwestern Wyoming in 1872. Eastern financiers enticed to invest in America's largest diamond mine. Couple of prospectors salt the area with valuable gemstones—the only gemstone-quality crystals in the deposit. Financiers too embarrassed to press charges. One of the swindlers was from Kentucky where he became a folk hero for “out—Yankeeing the Yankees.”

He closed the book, aware that the librarian had set a plastic-covered manuscript on the table and moved away as quietly as she'd approached. The plastic felt cool and brittle in his hands. He read the title page.
A History of Diamonds in Wyoming,
by Charles Ferguson, who had even more letters after his name. Slowly he turned the pages, scanning the sections with titles like “Mantle
Source Rocks in the Wyoming Craton” and “Ultramafic Complexes.” The information was the same. No recorded diamond deposits in central Wyoming.

He set the manuscript on top of the books. It didn't make sense. Why had Wentworth and Delaney come here? For revenge on two small-time criminals? It seemed unlikely. And Vicky was certain Baider Industries had located diamonds on the reservation. Still, the experts were in agreement.

He got up and walked to the desk, where the librarian was bent over the open pages of what looked like a reference book.

“Have you lived in the area long?” he asked.

She brought her eyes to his. A mild look of surprise played at the corners of her mouth. “Born on the family ranch on Arrow Mountain fifty miles north. My grandfather homesteaded the place.”

Father John hooked the top of a nearby chair and dragged it over. He straddled the seat and wrapped his arms around the back. “Ever hear of diamonds around here?”

“Diamonds,” she said, holding on to the word, as if she were tasting the brilliance. “Sure would've made life easier if Dad could've raised diamonds instead of cattle.”

“Does that mean the answer is no?”

She tilted her head back and stared at him. “We happen to be about two hundred miles from the nearest diamond mine.”

He thanked her and was about to stand up when she said, “People do like to get their hopes up, though.”

He wrapped his arms around the chair again. “What do you mean?”

“I was just thinking . . .” She paused, her gaze on some point across the library. “A ranch hand who worked for
Dad when I was a kid used to take off for days at a time to go prospecting, he said, but Dad always suspected he was on a drunk. One day he showed up and claimed he'd struck it rich. Said he'd found a diamond lying on the ground up in the Shoshone forest. We never saw the diamond, of course, but it was the last we saw of him. Took off right in the middle of calving season.”

Father John didn't say anything. The Shoshone National Forest was west of Bear Lake. “When was this?”

“Thirty years ago.” She shrugged and pulled her mouth into a thin line, as if she regretted having told him. “There was nothing to it. He probably found a sparkling crystal or got drunk and started seeing visions. If he'd found a real diamond, there would have been people crawling all over the forest looking for more.” She leaned over the desk. “What's all this sudden interest in diamonds?”

He stood up and pushed the chair back in place. The last thing he wanted was to start a diamond rumor. “I'm thinking about doing some prospecting,” he said. “The mission could use a diamond mine.”

He thumped a knuckle on the edge of the desk, winked at her, and started for the door, almost regretting the remark. Now, instead of a diamond rumor, there'd probably be a rumor that the pastor at St. Francis had a wild imagination, maybe he'd even started drinking again.

He drove back through town, past the bungalows and ranch houses with trees budding in the yards, past the strip malls and corner gas stations, and out onto the highway, moisture flecking the windshield like tiny diamonds. The librarian's story contradicted the experts. A ranch hand had found a diamond.

A ranch hand who was a drunk. That was a problem. Drunks could see visions. He'd seen snakes once, and flashes of light. Never diamonds. But if the ranch hand
had
found a diamond in the Shoshone forest, it was possible diamonds could be found at Bear Lake.

By the time he drove into the mission, raindrops the size of quarters were plopping on the windshield. He parked close to the administration building and ran up the steps. The minute he stepped inside, the clouds opened, and a hard rain crashed against the windows. The thunder was directly overhead, like cannons firing on the roof. He hung his jacket and cowboy hat on the coattree and checked the answering machine. No new messages.

In the directory, he found a listing for the Thunderbird Motel and dialed the number. The thunder seemed farther away, like a battalion moving out onto the plains. On the third ring, a man answered, and Father John asked to speak to Eddie Ortiz.

A buzzing noise sounded, followed by the man's voice again: “He answer?”

“No,” Father John said, irritated. The man must know there was no answer.

“Guess he's out.”

“Is his truck gone?”

“Jesus.” It sounded like a gasp. “Hold on.”

Another minute passed, then: “I see that wreck still in the parking lot. Son of a bitch is probably sleeping.”

“Thanks.” Father John hung up. The truck was there; Eddie could be too scared to answer the phone and possibly tip off Wentworth and Delaney that he was in the room.