Winter's Child (9 page)

The falling snow
diminished the buildings that crouched against the darkness on Main Street. The sidewalks were empty, snow piled everywhere. An eerie orange glow hovered over the streetlamps. Vicky gripped the steering wheel hard as she drove along the stretch where Clint Hopkins had been struck, forcing herself to focus straight ahead, avoiding the place where she had left Clint and turned back to Rick. The dark figure was still there, looming before her.

She drove onto the next block and parked in front of the restaurant. The dining room on the other side of the foggy plate glass windows was nearly empty, a few customers scattered at the tables, a waitress moving listlessly about. A sheen of ice shimmered on the sidewalk. Warm air wrapped around her like a blanket the instant she stepped inside. A man in a white shirt hurried over. “One?” he said, examining a seating chart on top of the podium.

Vicky started to say she was meeting someone when Rick Masterson materialized out of the dining room. “She's with me,” he said.

“Oh yes.” The man started to pick up a menu, but Rick waved it away. He helped her out of her coat and hung it on the rack. His hand was firm and confident against her back as he guided her through the dining area to a table next to the window.

“I'm glad you called,” he said when they had sat down. “I've been wondering how you're doing. Last night was pretty tough.”

Vicky spread a red napkin on her lap and studied the menu. How should she be doing? Was there a protocol, a way of behaving, after witnessing a death?

She glanced up at the man on the other side of the table. “I went to see Clint's wife and daughter this morning.” She hesitated. “It made the whole thing real. Until then it was like a nightmare. I'm not sure which is worse. Reality or nightmare.”

“Do you care for a drink?”

“No thanks.” Is this what alcoholics like Vince were in search of? A place between nightmare and reality?

A waitress had appeared: black hair pulled into a ponytail, orange-red lips, blue-black eyebrows, and a notepad in one palm. They ordered ravioli, lasagna, garden salads. One glass of red house wine.

“How about you?” Vicky asked when the waitress had walked away.

“Trying to stay busy to keep the images out of my mind.”

“Clint starting across the street in the snow.” Vicky left the rest of it unspoken: headlights and the truck out of nowhere. The words would only bring the image into clearer focus.

Rick was nodding. His eyes were gray, almost silver, and they caught the light the way a piece of metal catches light. He had a broad forehead and a prominent chin with laugh lines carved into the sides of his mouth. Flecks of gray shone in his sandy hair. It struck her that he was handsome.

He started to say something, then sat back and waited while the waitress delivered the plates of food, all of it crowding the tabletop. She added two waters, the glass of red wine. When she left, Rick lifted the wine and said, “To happier times.”

He took a sip, set the glass down, and leaned forward. “It's been a hard day. Everywhere I went, people wanted to talk about Clint. It was like a shockwave had hit town, and people were reeling, trying to make sense of it.”

Vicky took a bite of the ravioli. Hot and spicy, and she realized how hungry she was. She hadn't stopped to eat all day. She took another bite and thought about how different her day had been. Except for Clint's wife and secretary and the Little Shields, nobody else had mentioned the man's death. Not Vince White Hawk. Not his mother. As if it had happened in another time zone, somewhere far away and unimportant.

“There are a lot of theories about Clint,” Rick said. He worked at the lasagna a moment before he sat back again and gazed at her. “He was a damned good lawyer. Every other lawyer I talked to today mentioned how good he was, especially at adoption cases. Nobody wanted to be on the opposing side of Clint Hopkins. He was dogged and thorough. Kept all the details in his head, but no one could cross him up. Interesting way to practice law. Almost as if he feared someone looking over his shoulder.”

Vicky nodded. She pushed the plate of ravioli away and started on the salad. “I know he had a good reputation.”

“Not in everything.”

She looked up. “What are you saying?”

“You know how it is. Someone dies a sudden death, and people start to remember things they had forgotten, or chosen not to remember. A couple of lawyers brought up Clint's secretary, Evie Moran.
Evidently she's a big part of his success. Started working for him when she was still in high school and never left.”

The words fell like stones between them. Vicky stared at the man for a couple of seconds. “What are you implying?”

Rick spread both hands on the table. “I'm not implying anything. No one made any outright accusations . . .”

“That there was something more between them than a professional relationship.”

Rick shook his head. “I gathered he meant the world to her. He was her life. And he depended on her.”

Vicky sat back. She reached for her water and took a couple sips, trying to organize the thoughts tumbling through her mind. “Someone could have had a motive to arrange for Clint's death.”

Rick blinked at her, as if she had pulled a rabbit out of a hat and were holding it up for display. “It was an accident. The driver didn't see him in the snow. Clint was like a shadow.”

“Why didn't the driver stop?” Vicky felt a surge of annoyance. It was no accident. It was as obvious as the white tablecloth, the half-eaten ravioli and lasagna, the traces of wine in the glass. “If Clint was having personal problems . . .”

“I didn't say that.”

“An inappropriate relationship with his secretary that he refused to give up. Maybe his wife found out. Either woman might have been desperate, not thinking straight.”

“Listen to me, Vicky. You are not thinking straight. We don't know anything inappropriate was going on. Do you really believe either his wife or his secretary could have . . .” He paused and searched the ceiling for the exact words. “Arranged for his death?”

“It happens.” Vicky rolled her napkin and tossed it onto the table.

“The driver didn't see him. It was an accident. A terrible accident. The driver was frightened, so he drove away. He might not have realized he'd hit someone. He could come forward as soon as he gets the nerve, and we'll know the truth.”

“You were there, Rick. Walking beside me. We saw the same thing.” God, it was so obvious. “The truck waited down the street until Clint came out of the restaurant, carrying a stupid briefcase. Who carries a briefcase to a dinner meeting? The driver spotted him, cranked up the engine, and pulled out into the street. Going for him, the dark, shadowy figure in the snow.”

“Don't make it something that it wasn't, Vicky. It's terrible enough.”

Vicky got to her feet, barely aware of Rick standing up beside her, the soothing tone of his voice—“Wait. Hold on.”
—
as if he were trying to reason with a balky child. “Don't run off.”

She found some bills in her bag and tossed them on the table. “I know what I saw.” It was still in front of her, and Rick Masterson wanted her to believe she had seen something else. That she was delusional, imagining things, coming up with plausible explanations, not thinking straight.

“Don't tell me I didn't see what I saw.” She threw the comment over her shoulder as she started for the door.

Ten thirty, and
still no sign of Shannon and James. Father John felt like a parent, pacing the floor, listening for an engine on Circle Drive. The mission grounds were shrouded in falling snow, the streetlights shimmering gold against the black sky.

He forced himself back into his chair and stared at his laptop screen. James Two Horses had shown up just before six o'clock, a loud roar that swung into the curb in front of the residence and cut off. Then he was at the front door, knocking softly, as if he could conceal his excitement and determination. Shannon had walked over from the guesthouse and was standing in the entry. She hadn't even removed her coat and scarf. She opened the door and James had burst in.

“Hope I'm on time.”

Well, yes, he was. From the kitchen came sounds of dishes and pots and pans clanking together and the noise of running water.
Father John was about to suggest that Shannon and James have dinner here. Elena always made plenty of food, in case someone dropped by. It was the Arapaho Way.

“A good hamburger place has opened up in town,” James said, all of his attention focused on Shannon. “Are you up for hamburgers?”

Shannon assured him that she was and began snapping together the fronts of her coat, which she had just unsnapped. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. He had seen the look that passed between them earlier outside his office. They had gone off, a young woman with things still unsettled with her boyfriend back home and a young man who might have a vocation to the priesthood. One never knew, could never predict. Human beings, always full of contradictions and surprises.

Was that how he had be been almost thirty years ago? Picking up Eileen at her apartment for a bite to eat at the local hamburger joint, or was it that mom-and-pop Italian place they'd liked, where no one spoke English and they had to guess about the menu, which made it fun, exciting. All the time, the voice playing like a melody in the back of his head:
Whom Shall I Send?

Now he tried to concentrate on the list of Web sites he had pulled up. He had started with Elizabeth Fletcher, which produced an overview of the surprise Indian attack on Jasper Fletcher's wagons on a sunny, blue-sky day in Wyoming. Jasper had come from England, where he and his brothers owned coal mines, which put him in a higher social status, he believed, than the other men on their way to the California gold fields who had nothing except dreams and scrawny women and children. They built fires out of timber scavenged on the plains, roasted hanks of deer, if they were lucky, or rabbit. Content to stay alive.

It was better to pull ahead, distance themselves from the rabble. Until the Indians had ridden out of the sagebrush and the hot dust. When it was over, Jasper lay wounded, his wife dead. Their young sons had made a run for it, and the Indians had let them go, too busy tearing into the wagons for food and clothing and pots and utensils. When they rode off, they took the girls, Amanda Mary and Elizabeth.

Father John skimmed the rest of the site: how Amanda Mary was rescued seven months later, how Elizabeth grew up, became an Arapaho, married John Brokenhorn, and lived on the Wind River Reservation.

Nothing that Shannon called “outside of history,” such as how Lizzie had felt about her life. He had closed the site, typed in Lizzie Brokenhorn, and another list materialized. The noise of an engine gearing down came from outside. His senses went on alert, a thousand tiny antennae sprouting on his skin. The noise faded into the distance. A truck out on Seventeen-Mile Road.

Past eleven o'clock now. How long did it take to eat a hamburger? Stop it, he told himself. He trusted James Two Horses. Trusted the man with his niece.

He scanned the Web sites, looking for something different, personal. Halfway down the page he read: Lizzie Brokenhorn on the reservation. He clicked on the link and waited for the text to sort itself onto the page. It was a short newspaper article, a feature story on how a white woman had lived as an Arapaho for almost fifty years. How she had had five children who'd grown to adulthood.

He moved to the second page. Here was something: The photo of a crumbling shack on the plains, the panorama of the foothills in the background and splotches of sunshine on the barren ground. He enlarged the photo and read the caption: “The cabin built by John Brokenhorn for his wife and family.”

He sat back, taking it in. He had passed the shack a thousand times, out on Blue Sky Highway, falling down and forgotten, a barbed wire fence running next to the road. So this was where Lizzie and John Brokenhorn had lived. He'd had no idea of the history attached to a shack that resembled nothing more than a pile of logs. But why wouldn't the shack have a story? There were stories all over the reservation; the past was everywhere.

This time the noise of an engine was coming closer, growing louder through the tunnel of cottonwoods. He got up and peered out the window, wondering what Shannon would make of his attempt to stand in for her father, waiting for her to come home. He laughed out loud. She was twenty-four years old, an adult, hardly in need of her father—or, for that matter, her uncle—telling her what to do. He watched the thin stream of headlights bounce through the snow and turn onto Circle Drive.

He went back to the computer, relief washing over him, and pressed the print button. The old printer on the bookshelf whirred into life. He grabbed the photo of the old cabin as soon as the printer spit it out, then checked the window again, expecting to see James's pickup turning into the alley between the church and the administration building.

A sedan, light colored and splotched with snow, was wobbling and slipping around the drive, heading toward the residence. He felt as if an icy hand had clutched his heart. What was this? What bad news at this time of night? What had happened to Shannon?

He watched a woman—slight looking, bundled in an outsized jacket, scarf looped around her neck, a dark hat pulled low over her forehead, head bent against the snow—start up the sidewalk.

Father John opened the door as Betty White Hawk was about to knock, a fist lifted like that of a boxer. Gratitude and something
else—worry, despair—crossed her face. “Oh, thank God, you're still up. I didn't know where else to go.”

“Come in.” He pulled the door back. She lunged inside, bringing with her the frosty cold and pellets of snow that flew around her. He helped her with the jacket, draped it over the hook above the bench, and motioned her into the study.

“What's going on?”

“It's Vince.”

He could have guessed as much. A talented athlete, Vince had played shortstop for the St. Francis Eagles. Smart kid, doing well in school, looking at a promising future. Then alcohol and most likely drugs, and a tough crowd, had taken over. He had dropped out of school, out of his life. This wasn't the first time Betty had come to the mission gripped in desperation.

“Can I get you something? Coffee?” He pulled an armchair closer to his desk.

Betty White Hawk sank down and shook her head, the frivolity of sipping coffee absurd, out of the question. He walked around the desk and sat down. “Talk to me,” he said.

“He's in trouble, and I don't know where to find him.”

“You mean for attempted robbery?” Last week the
Gazette
had reported that Vince White Hawk was wanted for trying to rob a woman at an ATM machine in Riverton. The article said the police were looking for him.

Betty nodded. The despair sat on her thin shoulders like a heavy cape. She was still fairly young, early forties, he guessed. Raising her son on her own, sitting in the bleachers and cheering him on, bringing cupcakes for the team. She had once been pretty. She looked faded and worn now, as if a gauzy veil had fallen over her face.

“Vicky made a deal with the prosecuting attorney,” she said.
“She was supposed to bring in Vince today and the charges would have been lowered to a misdemeanor. He was supposed to plead guilty and get sent to rehab. God, he needs to go into rehab. He agreed to everything yesterday.”

“What happened?”

“What you expect.” She shrugged and drew in a long, noisy breath that she held on to as if it were her last. “He went drinking last night. I guess I can't blame him. The thirst overpowers him; he can't help it. One last drink, that's all he wanted.”

Father John was quiet. There was more; he could almost see the words bunching in her throat. He had learned from years of counseling and listening to confessions to wait and allow the words to find their own way.

It took a moment before Betty said, “He got some money, so he thinks he can do what he wants. Nobody telling him what to do. No court sending him into rehab. No white people controlling his life. He took off.”

“Where did he get the money?” Another robbery attempt, Father John was thinking, one that was successful. He was aware of the cold draft creeping through the windows.

Betty blinked hard and shook her head. “He went out last night and never came home. I called some of his friends and found out he'd gone to an old girlfriend's place in Riverton, so I called Vicky. She went and found him. She told me he had a wad of money on him. Instead of going to the prosecutor's office with her, he took off. I don't know what he's been up to. I don't know who he's been hanging out with. He could have some new friends I don't know about. All I know is, the cops are coming for him and . . .” She closed her eyes against whatever images had materialized. “Somebody's going to die. I'm afraid Vince is going to die.”

There was an ominous tone in the woman's voice, as if she had seen the future. “What else haven't you told me?” he said.

“He's carrying a gun. I knew he got an old revolver in a trade last year. Said it was for target practice. Far as I knew, he kept it in a box in his closet. I checked the box. It was empty. Vicky says he had the gun on him. That's how I know he's made up his mind nobody's going to arrest him. He's making a plan. He's going to leave here and go somewhere else. Denver or Los Angeles. Somewhere nobody knows about an arrest warrant for attempted robbery.” She drew in another long breath. “I've been calling everybody I can think of. Nobody's seen him. I'm at my wits' end. I don't know what do.”

“Is there anything he might have said about his new friends? Anything that might suggest who they are?”

“No. No. No.” Betty curled her hands into fists and rubbed at her eyes, then dropped both fists into her lap and stared at him. “I figure he got the money from them. God knows what they've been up to.”

“Where could he have met them?”

She gave a shout of laughter that resembled a sob. “Anywhere. Everywhere. No shortage of lowlifes around, especially when you're hooked on alcohol or drugs.”

“At a bar? Did Vince go to bars?”

Her head snapped backward. “A bar, yes. That's where he met them. One of the guys I talked to this morning said the last time he'd seen Vince was a couple weeks ago at a bar. What did he say? The Buffalo something . . .”

“Bar and Lounge.”

“Yeah.” She reached out with both hands, as if she could grab a lifeline. “Vince never said anything about going to a bar, but . . .”
She dropped her hands, fists curled, back into her lap. “He never told me what he was up to. I didn't ask. I didn't want to know.”

She jumped to her feet as if a bolt of electricity had hit her. “Somebody at the bar might know where Vince is.”

Father John got to his feet and stole a glance at his watch. Eleven fifteen. The bar would probably be open. “I'll go with you,” he said.

*   *   *

He drove the
old Toyota, bumping and slipping over the snow, Betty in the passenger seat, her breath a small cloud on the side window. Something different about her now, some twinge of hope running through her. She had pulled on gloves and she clapped her hands, making a soft, swishy noise. The pickup plunged into the tunnel of cottonwoods, the branches sagging under the new snow.

Yellow headlights turned off Seventeen-Mile Road and came toward them. Father John slowed and moved to the edge of the road to make room for the pickup: James giving a little salute in the driver's seat, Shannon beside him, waving.

Father John felt his muscles relax. Of course she was safe.