Eye of the Wolf (13 page)

“I told him. I said, ‘Frankie, shut up. You don't have to answer questions,' but Frankie turns on me like I'm the one wanting to lock him up in prison for the rest of his life for killing people he never killed, and he says, ‘I don't have nothing to hide.'

“He should have told Burton to call his lawyer.”

The other woman threw one hand into the air. “Well, that's just the problem, Vicky. He doesn't have a lawyer. He thought you were his lawyer, but you told him to call somebody else.”

Samantha Lowe, Vicky thought. She tried to swallow back the bitter taste in her mouth. A lawyer out of law school for how long—two, three years? That was the lawyer she'd recommended to a man who could be looking at three charges for first-degree murder.

“Start at the beginning,” Vicky said. “Tell me everything that Frankie said.”

“You gonna help him?”

“I'll see what I can do.” Well, this was perfect, she was thinking. A fitting way to sever all relationships with Adam Lone Eagle. She would have a client for her one-woman law firm, a troublemaker she could count on for a steady flow of business, which Lucille Montana would pay for out of tips from twelve-hour shifts over at a cafeteria in Riverton, while Adam Lone Eagle rewrote the Wind River Wolf Management Plan and went on to handle cases on the tribe's water, oil and gas, timber, and a lot of other important issues.

Vicky scribbled the date at the top of the notepad and tried to focus on what Lucille was saying. Something about Burton saying somebody killed the Shoshones with a rifle, and how Frankie had himself a deer rifle and how he had a grudge against the Shoshones, and Frankie saying,
sure, he might've had a grudge on account of they'd told the police he assaulted them, when they were the ones that took after him. Who wouldn't hold a grudge?

Perfect. Frankie ignored her advice and dug himself deeper into a hole that she would have to wave a lot of magic legal wands to try to pull him out of. The man was a hothead. She could imagine Frankie Montana getting drunk and yanking his rifle off the rack in his pickup and shooting somebody. But getting three men out into the country—
planning
to murder them? That she could not imagine. Besides, she had believed him when he said that someone had stolen his rifle in the parking lot next to the bar in Riverton—in full view of the traffic on Federal. It was so preposterous she'd decided it must be true.

Vicky realized that Lucille had stopped talking. She was staring across the living room, as if she were trying to bring something else into focus. “Anything else?” Vicky asked.

The other woman closed her eyes a moment. “It's got me real worried,” she said. “Burton kept asking Frankie where he was on Saturday, and Frankie kept saying he was home all day. The detective says, ‘What about the afternoon?' and I'm thinking, that must've been when those Shoshones got shot. Frankie tells him that he was home all morning and afternoon and night. He says that he came home Friday after the Shoshones beat him up and went to bed. Next thing he knows, it's Sunday night and the cops are hauling him off to jail. Frankie tells Burton that he can ask me if he wants, 'cause I know he was home.”

Vicky leaned back in the chair. “So Frankie has an alibi,” she said, almost to herself. In the silence that pulled around them, Vicky knew that it wasn't true.

When the other woman started to say something, Vicky put up her hand. “What did you tell Burton?”

Lucille was quiet a moment. Finally, she said, “I gave Frankie his alibi, Vicky. He's my son. I can't let him go to prison for something he didn't do.”

“Where is he now?” Vicky said. This was worse that she'd realized. Frankie expected his mother to lie for him, even perjure herself on the witness stand, if it came to that.

“Probably over at the house with the guys he's been hanging out with. It's that white shack on Trosper Road. They go there and get drunk.” The woman's eyes were big with moisture. “Tell you the truth, I'm worried sick. I did all I could for that boy. I tried to raise him up to follow the Arapaho Way. I don't know what's gonna become of him.”

Vicky slid forward and, reaching across the space between them, patted the other woman's hand. “I know, Lucille,” she said. She was thinking that she had to find Frankie before he did himself any more damage.

FATHER JOHN SPOTTED
the house from the top of the rise. Low and flat, hugging the earth, splotches of snow on the brown roof, like the mixture of snow and dirt on the prairie that stretched into the horizon. There were two or three other houses along the road, but
that
was the home of Trent Hunter. A house of mourning, with pickups and cars parked haphazardly in the front yard, as if the friends and relatives had stopped in the nearest empty space.

He slowed the pickup on the downhill.
Di quella pira
filled up the cab, blotting out the whir of the vents that emitted occasional gusts of warm air. This was Shoshone territory, the little settlements that crawled west and north out of Fort Washakie. He came here from time to time, usually when there was a death and someone had asked for him. He'd never been to the Hunters'. The familiar feeling of dread that had set in somewhere on Seventeen-Mile Road pressed down like a
heavy weight. It was the hardest part of being a priest—searching for words to comfort the parents of a dead child.

The pickup had nearly crawled to a stop when he turned right and bumped across the logs laid over the borrow ditch. He parked between two sedans, turned off the tape player, and headed across the yard, zigzagging around the other vehicles. The front door swung open when he was ten feet away. Hanson Tindall, one of the Shoshone elders, stood in the opening, wrinkled and bent, leaning against the door frame. “Come in, Father,” he called. His other hand flapped over the wooden stoop. “We knew you'd come.”

“Good to see you, grandfather,” Father John said. There had been several occasions when Hanson had met with Arapaho elders at St. Francis about the problems both tribes faced: alcoholism that ran through families, the need for more jobs, the importance of keeping the kids in school and teaching them their Indian heritage.

“Come with me.” The elder made a stiff turn into the living room. The knobs of his shoulders poked through his white shirt. Father John followed the old man past small groups of people standing around, gripping Styrofoam cups with the dark stains of coffee running down the sides. The smell of coffee drifted toward him, and the hum of conversation ran like an electric current through the room. He removed his cowboy hat and nodded toward the elders and grandmothers seated on the sofa and chairs.

“This here is Trent's folks,” Hanson said, nodding to the middle-aged couple with slumped shoulders and black hair streaked with gray, seated on straight-backed, wood chairs along the side wall.

The man jumped to his feet. “Tomas Hunter,” he said, stretching out his hand. His palm felt wet, as if he'd been mopping moisture from his eyes. “This is my wife, Marie.” A nod toward the woman. She looked exhausted, Father John thought, drawn and tight, an old woman still inhabiting a younger body, as if her spirit had grown old first and prematurely sapped her life.

“Here's Lou Crispin.” The elder nodded to the stocky man with a
black ponytail seated a few feet away, and Father John stepped over and shook the man's hand.

“Pull up a chair for yourself.” Crispin tugged at his shirt pocket until he'd retrieved a full pack of cigarettes, then concentrated on unwrapping the cellophane. He tapped the pack on the edge of his hand until the tip of a cigarette sprang out. “Want one?” he said.

“No, thanks.” Father John held a chair for Hanson, then sat down on a folding chair that someone had pushed toward him. The room had gone quiet, except for the hushed sounds of people shuffling about, assembling into new groups. “I'm very sorry about your sons,” he said, his eyes taking in the Hunters and Lou Crispin.

Tomas nodded. “Detective says you went out to Bates.” He stared at the Band-Aid Father John had smoothed on his cheek this morning, then took his chair and reached for his wife's hand. The woman kept her eyes on her lap. “How'd you happen to do that?”

“I told you this priest knows what them Arapahos are up to.” This was from a young man slumped against the wall. He started pulling himself away, a slow unfolding of his slim, muscular frame. He was probably in his twenties, face hard set in anger and black hair sleeked back into a braid that hung down the back of his yellow shirt.

“Best for you to be quiet, Eric,” Tomas said.

“I got a phone call,” Father John began. Then he explained about the message and how he'd gone to the Arapaho elders.

Another snicker from Eric, louder this time, and Father John studied the man for a moment. He was more than six feet tall, close to his own height, with muscular shoulders and arms bulging through his shirt and big hands dangling from thick forearms. But he was going soft, with the flushed cheeks and the big-belly look of a boozer.

“You ask me, the priest knew what he was gonna find at Bates,” he said.

Tomas turned in his chair and glared at Eric. “Nobody asked you.”

“The priest got word of what went down,” Eric went on, gesturing with one hand to the men who had begun crowding around him, as if
he were the spokesman. “So he went out there to make sure that Frankie Montana didn't do anything stupid, like leave his rifle behind.” He swung around toward Father John. “You pick up the rifle for him? What'd you do, toss it in a hole where it ain't never gonna see the sunshine?”

Tomas was on his feet. “You're my sister's son, Eric, but I'm not gonna stand for disrespect in my home. You know that Father John got shot out there, could've been killed. You and your friends better be on your way.”

“I'm telling it like it is, Uncle,” Eric said, a pleading tone now. “Maybe he just wants folks to think he got shot, maybe he's protecting Montana 'cause he's Arapaho. Don't matter that Montana's out to kill Shoshones. How many other Shoshones is that bastard gonna kill while this priest is protecting him?”

Father John stood up and faced the Shoshone. “Hold on, Eric,” he said, aware of the crowd pressing closer, the quiet in and out of their breathing. “You've got it all wrong. I want to see the killer brought to justice as much as you do.”

“Is that a fact! Well, I got a news flash for you,” Eric said, his eyes narrowed into slits. “Montana wants war, and that's what he's gonna get.”

“Enough.” Tomas threw a hand in front of his nephew. “We don't need any talk of war around here. You better go someplace and cool off.”

Eric stood motionless, shadows of disbelief and anger moving across his face. Finally he motioned to two other young men. Heads thrust forward, they started plowing through the crowd of relatives and friends, who peeled back as they filed past. The
whack
of the front door shattered the quiet. Then, as if the slammed door had jarred something loose, everyone started talking at once, voices hushed and insistent.

“We got ourselves one helluva tragedy,” Crispin said. His voice was low, suffused with grief. “Only thing I'm grateful for is Rex and Joe's mother didn't live to see 'em dead.” The man took another draw of his cigarette. “Now the young bucks are all stirred up.”

Father John waited until Tomas had reclaimed his seat before he sat
back down and took a sip of the coffee that someone else had thrust into his hand. It was strong and bitter, but oddly enough, he thought, the warmth of it seemed to calm something inside him.

“It's like the Old Time,” Hanson Tindall said. “There was enough of Indians killing one another, and where'd all that killing get us? The white invaders just kept coming, and we was as busy fighting each other as we was fighting off the invaders. Lost our lands and buffalo. The brave warriors, they was lost. We don't need no more of that. We gotta pull together. Now we got three murdered boys, good boys, all dead.” He nodded at the Hunters, then at the Shoshone drawing on the cigarette until there was a steady red glow at the end. “Eric and the others are chomping at the bit for revenge. Maybe we got ourselves a new kind of invader.” Hansen went on. “Somebody wants to cause trouble and get up a new war.”

Father John held the elder's gaze. It was a thought that he didn't want. He'd tried to push it away, but it hovered at the edge of his mind like a black shadow.

The room had gone quiet again. They might have been onstage, Father John thought, all eyes of the audience glued to them, waiting for the next line, the next aria that would express the fear pulsating through the theater. He took another sip of coffee. He could see that Tomas was considering the idea. Trent's mother looked up, as if she, too, were contemplating the possibility that whoever had taken her son's life wanted more killing. The killer had gone to a lot of trouble to link the murders to a battle that ran like a fault line through the reservation. Whoever it was, the killer was waiting for the plates to shift. Waiting for the earthquake to erupt that would destroy a century of carefully built peace.

Tomas looked over at the elder. “Don't worry about Eric, grandfather. He's hurting real bad right now, so he's talking crazy. He looked up to Trent, you know. Trent was his idol. Used to go into Riverton to see how Trent was doing. I think Trent was talking to him about going back to school. Eric would've done it, too, with Trent keeping at him.
Now . . .” He let the thought drift off and shook his head, a heavy weight rolling back and forth.

“Everybody looked up to Trent.” Marie was staring at her lap again, threading and unthreading her fingers. “Working, taking care of himself, and going to college. Learning about the Old Time. You remember, grandfather?” she asked, lifting her eyes to the old man seated across from her. “Trent and Rex and Joe, they all loved stories about the Old Time.”

Lou Crispin was shaking his head. “Rex told me some big shot from a college back East was gonna teach about the Indian wars at the college. The boys couldn't wait to sign up. Platte River campaign, Powder River campaign, Sand Creek, Washita, the Custer battle.” The man worked at the cigarette a moment, the hint of a smile playing in his eyes. “They loved that class. That's how come they wanted to go to Bates. I never took Rex and Joe out there when they was kids. Bates was over and done, that was my feeling. No use bringing back hard feelings between Shoshones and Arapahos. Let the dead bury the dead, is what I tol' my boys. But they said, ‘We gotta know the Shoshone side, 'cause Shoshones always get the blame, with people calling it a massacre.' ”

He paused. Leaning over the armrest, he stubbed the cigarette into a glass dish. Then he pulled himself back into place. “Rex called last Friday. Said Joe and him was going to visit Bates Saturday and see what happened. Where the Arapahos was, where Shoshones rode in, where the troops went. My boys said they was gonna meet somebody out there. Trent was gonna go, too. I'm thinking that whoever else went was also in that class. I said to that detective, look at them other students.”

The room was quiet again, and Father John realized that everyone seemed to be watching Hanson, waiting for the elder to speak. It was a moment before the old man said, “I used to tell the boys, it's good to hold onto the stories, but we gotta let go of the old grudges and the hate. They don't do nothing but keep us down.” He shifted toward the couple sitting next to him. “Been awhile since Trent come around asking his questions about the Old Time.”

“Since he got mixed up with that white girl,” Tomas said, a hardness
in his tone. “We tried to tell him,” he paused, his gaze lingering for a moment on his wife, “that she wasn't any good for him. No reins on that girl, nothing to keep her going straight. We told him she was gonna pull him off track, but it was like he was drunk on her. Didn't want to give her up. We told him, don't bring her around the family. We was waiting for him to wake up and see she wasn't any good.”

“I've met her,” Father John said. “I think she really loved Trent.”

Tomas shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment at this. “Girl like that don't love anybody but herself.”

“Maybe nobody ever loved her,” Marie said.

The man slid his gaze sideways toward his wife. “She was hanging around with them crazy white supremacists that want to kill off all the brown-skin people. That the kind of girl you wanted our boy getting mixed up with?”

“She took Trent's death pretty hard,” Father John said. “She's at Riverton Memorial.”

Tomas didn't say anything. He leaned forward and stared out across the room, as if he'd like to join one of the other conversations erupting now and then.

“What happened to her?” Hanson asked.

“She was pretty upset over Trent's death,” Father John began, guessing now, struggling for some logical explanation. “I think she wanted to bring the pain into focus. She cut her arms.”

Marie lifted one hand to her mouth. “She gonna be okay?”

“She'll recover, but she's hurting a lot.”

“Ain't it enough our son's been killed?” Tomas said. “We don't need that girl's troubles. Why doesn't she go back to wherever she came from?”

“She doesn't have any family.”

“Well, that figures.” Tomas was shaking his head, as if he could shake away the topic.

“There's something you should know,” Father John went on. “Edie is carrying Trent's child.”

“Oh, my God.” Marie dropped her face into her hands. A moment passed before she took her hands away. A sheen of moisture crept over her cheeks. “The baby?”