Wife of Moon (23 page)

Looming behind the medic was Eric Loftus, smoke pouring from his nostrils and a cigarette glowing in his fingers. “I'll take custody of my wife now,” he said. “I know what's best for her when she hits bottom.”

Gianelli stepped forward, and as he did so, the medic dodged to the side. “I can arrest your wife,” he said, moving in until he was in Loftus's face. “I can arrest her on charges of double homicide and take her into the custody of the federal government.”

“She's guilty of nothing other than protecting her own life.” Loftus gestured with his head toward Father John. “Here's your witness.”

Gianelli didn't move. “Your choice, man.”

Loftus didn't say anything. The ambulance doors snapped shut. The engine kicked over and the vehicle began inching forward, then made a tight turn through the scrub brush and trees and headed toward the two-track.

“I intend to interview your wife as soon as she's able,” Gianelli said.

“Not without my lawyer, Howie Forman. Heard of him? He'll be in touch.” Loftus took another drag of his cigarette, then turned around and started toward the pickup wedged between two police cars.

Gianelli kept his gaze on the man lumbering through the shadows. “So he's going to lawyer-up with Howie Forman,” he said, under his
breath. “Celebrity gun-for-hire. Specializes in keeping the rich and famous out of prison.”

Vicky glanced away. When she was in law school, she'd gone to the courthouse to watch Forman at work. Short and bald with the round face and tortoiseshell glasses of a professor and a pleasant, unassuming demeanor. But in the courtroom he turned into something else—a rattlesnake, she remembered thinking at the time, with a pink tongue darting at the opponents, inflicting its fatal poison. He was good. God, he was a good lawyer.

“No telling what big guns the senator's going to bring in now that his campaign people have been killed,” Gianelli was saying. He shifted toward Father John. “Christine Loftus tell you about the Curtis photos and plates?”

“She doesn't have them.”

“Ah, that's what the wife of Eric Loftus told you, is it? Photographs and glass plates that might bring her a million dollars, if she plays her cards right and avoids whatever mistakes she and T.J. made on the first attempt at extortion. Maybe she hid them. Biding her time until the senator might be more receptive, perhaps after he gets the party's nomination. When Russell fired at the door, she let them have it, rather than take a chance on their finding her hiding place.”

“I don't think so,” Father John said.

“No? Well, indulge me, John. We're going to tear up every floorboard in that old cabin. We're going to look in all the nooks and crannies and check the ground for any signs of disturbance, in case she decided to bury them. Christine Loftus came this far, and for the moment, I'm going to assume that she might be willing to go a lot further.” He stared after the ambulance threading its way through the trees, headlights jumping ahead. “Tomorrow morning, my office, John. I'm going to need all the details. Go home now, both of you,” he said, shifting his glance between Father John and Vicky. “There's nothing you can do here.”

“Come on,” Father John said, and Vicky felt the weight of his arm around her shoulders. “I'll walk you to the Jeep.”

They'd cut through a clump of trees and emerged in the clearing where the vehicles were parked when she glanced up at him. “Evans will claim total ignorance of everything that happened, you know,” she said. “He'll say that Quinn and Russell feared for his safety on the rez after T.J. denounced the senator's drilling plans.”

Father John didn't say anything, and she pushed on, reeling out the story: “He'll say they must have gone to T.J.'s house to discuss their concerns over the senator's safety. He'll say they were worried—and rightly so—that T.J. blamed the senator for Denise's death. After all, T.J.'s people wouldn't have turned against him if it hadn't been for the senator's determination to open the rez to the drilling. He'll say that an argument must have broken at with T.J. and somehow—oh, Evans will regret it very much—his campaign advisers lost their heads and committed a heinous crime. He'll be shocked by the brutality. He won't have any idea of why Quinn and Russell had later gone to the cabin unless, again, it was out of concern for the senator's safety. After all, Christine Loftus was T.J.'s mistress and might have been in on any plans to harm the senator.”

“They came to the cabin with a gun, Vicky,” Father John said. His hand tightened on her shoulder.

“They were overzealous, loyal to a fault. The senator will very much regret the unnecessary deaths, but he won't be able to duck the fact that he'd hired psychopaths to manage his campaign. There'll probably be a Senate investigation that will embarrass Evans. It will probably stop his bid for the presidency, but he'll come back to his ranch and live like the local baron. He'll go on, John, just like Carston Evans went on.”

When they reached the Jeep, Father John opened the door and she slid behind the wheel. “The plates and photos could still be found,” he said. “And if they are, Bashful's murder will be brought to light.”

Vicky jabbed the key into the ignition and listened to the motor whir for a moment. “You're wrong, John,” she said. “They'll sink back into the reservation until somebody else in the Sharp Nose clan decides he can force the Evans family to repay a small part of what they stole. He'll approach the senator, and another body will turn up on the riverbank with a gunshot to the head.”

Vicky started to close the door, but it remained rigid. She looked up at John O'Malley. He was staring out across the top of the Jeep into the moonlight and the darkness beyond. “You know where they are, don't you?”

“I have an idea,” he said.

JESSE GALLOPED DOWN
the dirt road, his eyes on the cluster of squat buildings that interrupted the horizon ahead. The pony's hooves kicked up clouds of dust that rose around him and pricked his hands and clung to the sweat on his face. His mouth was gritty with dust. He turned the pony into the dirt yard and rode past the big house, past the cabin where Bashful had lived with Auntie Sara, past the storage shed. He reined in at the barn, jumped down, and unbuckled the saddle bag.

Stands-Alone appeared in the doorway, a pitchfork in one hand. He wore a brown shirt that hung over denim trousers. His hair was caught in braids wrapped with red ribbon and tiny feathers. He had on tiny, wireless spectacles that, on his broad face, looked like glass coins set over his eyes.

“Why do you ride in here like the whirlwind?” he asked.

“I got the proof of Bashful's murder.” Jesse held up the saddlebag like an offering.

“What are you talking about.”

Jesse lifted the leather flap, yanked out the sheets with the blue images, and thrust them at Stands-Alone. “I made the cyanotypes first,” he said.

Inside the barn, Jesse saw a shadow move. Then Thomas stepped into the light. Almost as large as his father, but with a narrower face and a receding jaw that made him look weak and untrustworthy despite his broad shoulders and thick hands. “What is this?” He nodded at the cyanotypes.

Stands-Alone gripped the sheets in both hands, his gaze frozen on the top image. “It is as we suspected,” he said. “The white man killed Bashful.” He slipped the top sheet behind the stack and stared at the next, then the next.

“These are blue images.” Thomas bent his head around his father's shoulder. “They are not clear.”

“These are clear.” Jesse took three white sheets of paper from the saddlebag. “The agent will not trust the blue pictures, but he will have to trust these images.” He handed Stands-Alone the three black-and-white photographs that he had made after he'd realized what was in the cyanotypes. In the first image, the white man held his rifle close to Bashful. The next image showed Bashful falling backward. In the last image, Bashful lay in a heap on the ground, Carston Evans looming over her.

“The photographer captured the moment Bashful died,” Jesse said, freeing the plates from the saddlebag. “The moment is here . . .” He held up the plates, struck by the sorrow moving through Stands-Alone's eyes. The sorrow would be there forever, he knew, like the images on the plates.

“Where did you find these things?” Stands-Alone dropped his eyes back to the photographs and cyanotypes in his hands.

“The photographer left the glass plates in the cabin with some of
his chemicals and papers. I figured he left them for her people. He meant for me to find them and make the pictures, so we'd know the truth. I made the cyanotypes yesterday. This morning I printed the photographs to show the agent.” He drew in a stream of air. “We must gather the men. There must be many of us to take this proof to the agent. Otherwise he will say that he does not believe the truth that his own eyes can see. We must ride to Fort Washakie with our weapons and demand that the agent allow Thunder and the others to return to their families.”

Thomas let out a loud guffaw. “You come too late.”

Jesse felt the moment freeze, as if the sun had stopped in the sky and the air had turned into a solid mass that he could not breathe in. “What do you say?” he managed.

Stands-Alone lifted his eyes blurred with grief. “Last night the train brought the executioner. Thunder, Pretty Lodge, and Franklin—they were all hanged this morning.”

“No!” Jesse shouted. “The hanging is tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow.”

“I tell you,” Stands-Alone said, “the moment of the execution has come and gone. It is no more.”

Thomas moved forward. “What makes you think the agent would've believed these pictures? Against the word of a white man?” He let out a loud guffaw. “The agent would've sicced the soldiers on us if we rode into Fort Washakie with these pictures.”

Jesse swung around, walked back to the pony, and leaned his head into the warmth of the animal's neck. What Thomas said was true. The photographs and the images on the glass plates—what were they? Nothing next to the word of the white man.

He turned back to the men in the doorway, the shadows dropping over their faces. “I must kill the white man,” he said.

“So you can also hang at Fort Washakie?” It took Jesse by surprise—the calmness in Stands-Alone's voice. It pulled the air out of him.

“She was your sister,” he said. “You should come with me to revenge her.”

“I will come,” Thomas said. “The white man has taken Bashful's land. We will take it back.”

“There will be many hangings.” Stands-Alone faced his son. “You are hotheaded, and you have much to learn. Let the white man keep the land.” He waved the photographs in Thomas's face, then turned to Jesse. “She is dead, Jesse. Killing the white man will not bring her back to us, but part of Bashful lives. We will use this evidence to make an agreement with the white man. We will take what is important.”

 

FROM THE GATE
at the road to the ranch house, Jesse could see Carston Evans on the porch of the two-story house, rifle raised, head bent alongside the stock. Jesse spurred the pony forward, his eye on the rifle barrel. It held steady in the white man's hands. Stands-Alone rode to the right, and out of the corner of his eye Jesse could see the head of Thomas's horse coming up on the far side of his father.

As they neared the house, Stands-Alone began to rein in, stopping in front of the white man. “We come in peace,” he shouted.

“Turn around and ride out of here.” Now the rifle was waving back and forth, moving from Stands-Alone to Thomas to Jesse. The white man was smaller than he remembered, Jesse thought, not much larger than a branch that he could snap in two. Jesse swallowed hard at the rage welling inside him. He could kill the white man with his hands.

“We came to talk,” Stands-Alone said.

“Nothing to talk about. The woman's dead, and her killers gone with her. There's no more business between us.”

“Put down your rifle. We bring you images of Bashful.”

“Images?” The white man looked up. “You talking about photographs?”

Stands-Alone sat like a statute and waited. A moment passed before the white man stepped back and set the rifle against the log wall of the house.

“Let me have them,” Evans said.

Jesse felt hot inside, the rage burning through him. He made himself look away from the white man. He was a warrior, and Stands-Alone was the leading man. He would do as Stands-Alone said. The signal came in the almost imperceptible nod—the nod of a chief to the men who rode with him.

Jesse slid from the pony and pried the cyanotypes from his saddlebag. He walked past Stands-Alone's pony and handed the blue-and-white images to the white man.

It was a moment before the white man let his eyes fasten on them. His face was unreadable, like a sheet of blank paper, as he studied the images. “This ain't nothing,” he said. “Nobody's gonna believe ghost images.”

“Everyone will believe these.” Jesse pulled out the black-and-white photos and handed them to Evans.

The man looked at them for a long moment, then he raised his head and threw a glance back at the rifle. “What would stop me from shooting you and taking these photographs?”

Jesse could hear his heart thumping in his ears. They should have brought their own weapons, but Stands-Alone had said that they would go unarmed. They had the weapons they needed, he'd said.

“You could shoot us,” Stands-Alone's voice again, calm and confident, “but it is not necessary. We bring you the photographs as a gift.”

“What about the glass plates.”

“They are also yours.”

The white man tilted his head and stared at Stands-Alone out of the corners of his eyes, as if he might get a clearer, better image. Finally he said, “I never knew any Indians to come bearing gifts for nothing. You want the land back, ain't that so? Well, you ain't getting
my land. It's my land, the way it oughtta be. Bashful never worked this land. She was nothing but a woman, and what's a woman gonna do with land like this? I'm the one who fixed up this house with my own hands. I got the herd together. Got the best bull in the county. Got the ranch up and going, and all the time I was nothing but a hired hand. It was Bashful who owned the place, and when she told me she didn't want me for her husband no more, that she wanted to go back to her people, oh, I knew the truth. She was still pining over Jesse here. Would've gone running to him, taking her land to him. And where was that gonna leave me? All my work, and for what?” He gathered up a wad of phlegm and spit it onto the ground. “For nothing, that's what.”

He stepped back and, still watching Stands-Alone, reached for the rifle.

“You can keep the land,” Stands-Alone said.

“Don't think I don't know what you're up to.” The white man lifted the rifle, crumpled the cyanotypes and photos in the fist of his other hand and stuffed them into his trouser pocket. “You come here to kill me. You're gonna take your Indian revenge. Well, I got myself the perfect excuse for shooting first.”

“I tell you, you can keep the land,” Stands-Alone said. “You will have the plates. All of the proof of your shame is yours. We have come for Bashful's child. Where is she?”

The white man blinked up at Stands-Alone, who sat tall and dignified on his mount. A long moment passed before the white man set the rifle back against the wall. “You gotta be crazy,” he said. Then he pushed the door open and yelled inside the house. “Pauline, get out here. Bring the girl.”

A gust of wind blew across the porch and caught at the white man's hat so that he had to grab the brim and pull it down. From inside came the soft scrape of moccasins on wood, and then an Arapaho girl no more than ten years old appeared in the doorway. The daughter of Shavehead, Jesse thought, one of the Arapahos who worked on
the ranch. The girl must work in the house. She pulled a small child forward, then stooped over and lifted the child onto one hip, swaying with the weight.

The little girl blinked into the light before looking from the white man to Stands-Alone. She had the shiny black hair and oval face that made Jesse close his own eyes a moment. She was an image of Bashful. Except that she had light eyes, the color of finely tanned leather. The eyes of the white man. There was a mixture of confusion and fear in the child's eyes now, a glimmer of recognition and something else—longing?—as she stared at her uncle.

“You want her, do you?” Evans seemed to find the situation amusing. “A half-breed girl. What good's she gonna be to you?”

Stands-Alone leaned forward over the horse. “What good is she to you, white man? Will another wife—a white wife—want a half-breed daughter? You can have your own white children. Bashful's child belongs with her people.”

Evans turned his head and gazed out into the distance, as if he were considering the images in his mind. White wife. White children.

He looked back. “I want everything. All the photographs and glass plates and anything else that you got. There will be no more about this matter, you hear me?”

Jesse waited again for Stands-Alone's nod before he walked back to the saddlebag. He began withdrawing the glass plates.

“Leave them,” Evans barked. “I'll take the whole bag.”

Jesse unbuckled the bag and clasped it against his chest a moment. The plates were all they had. They were the truth. They were everything.

He watched Stands-Alone slip off his pony and walk across the porch past the white man. He put out his arms and the child lunged into them. She wrapped small brown arms around the man's neck and nestled against his chest.

“The saddlebag.” The white man stepped forward holding out his own arms.

Jesse held out the bag, the edge of the glass plates inside the leather hard against his palms. He waited until Stands-Alone had settled the child in the front of the saddle and swung up behind her before he let the white man take the bag. Starting to turn the pony now, Thomas turning his pony behind, shielding his father and the child. The ponies breaking into a gallop.

The white man had already turned back to the porch when Jesse brought his fist crashing against the man's head. He stumbled forward, and Jesse reached around and yanked the saddlebag free of the man's grasp.

He threw himself onto the pony and started galloping after the others, the images blurred in the whirlwinds of dust. From behind came the shrill shouts, like a wail of grief, followed by the thud of a rifle shot. Another shot and another, the bullets spitting into the ground around him.

He leaned down along the pony's head and grasped the saddle bag to his chest. He rode on.

They didn't stop until they reached Stands-Alone's place. Jesse dismounted, still clutching the saddle bag as Stands-Alone carried the child to the house and handed her to the woman standing on the porch. Several other children clustered about, wide-eyed, giggling, small brown hands reaching for the new child.