The Dream Stalker (14 page)

Only darkness lay behind her now, and she could feel her breathing begin to slow, the naked panic subside. She drove back across 287 and headed north through the side streets. She was almost home when it hit her that the black truck could be waiting there. Whoever was following her would find John O’Malley. He’d said he would follow her home, and she knew he would do whatever he said.

She drove faster, her heart beginning its familiar race. At the intersection close to her house, she slowed the Bronco and scanned the vehicles parked along the street. The usual neighborhood cars stood at the curbs and in the driveways, except for one—the truck in the shadows of the trees in front of her house.

14

F
or a moment Vicky’s breath stopped in her throat, a hard lump she couldn’t expel. Then she realized the truck was smaller, lighter colored. It was the Toyota. She turned down the street and pulled into her driveway. John O’Malley was beside her door as she stepped out. “I’ve been worried about you,” he said.

She pulled the briefcase, purse, and slicker out of the Bronco, jamming them into the crook of one arm, and shut the door with her body. Then she kicked off the remaining shoe, reached down, and picked it up before hurrying across the yard, her stockinged feet squishing the wet grass, the rain cool on her face. In a moment she had the front door unlocked and they were inside. She flipped on the wall switch. The lamp on the table across the room sent a flood of soft light over the gray carpet, the flowered sofa, the worn cushions of the easy chair, the books on the shelves against the far wall, the desk beneath the shelves.

She leaned against the door a moment, grasping her pile of things, her eyes on the man in front of her. She felt overwhelmed with gratitude to
Nih’a ca,
who holds all creatures in his hand, who makes all things possible. Gratitude that she had made it home safely, that John O’Malley was with her.

“What happened to you?”

“Someone followed me. A black truck.” She saw the
little nerve pulsing at the side of his temple, the color rising in his cheeks.

“Damn,” he said, slamming one fist into the other. “I got caught behind the police cars. It was a couple of minutes before I could get out of the lot.” He drew in a long breath, then said, “The same truck that tried to run you down?”

Vicky nodded. She wasn’t surprised he knew. The moccasin telegraph was efficient. He’d probably heard about the threatening notes, too.

“You’d better call the police,” Father John said, but she’d already dropped her things onto the sofa and crossed to the desk. She lifted the receiver and tapped 911. While she explained to the operator what had happened, she watched the tall, redheaded white man shrug out of his jacket, lay it across the back of the sofa, and set his cowboy hat on top, as if he were at home. She set the receiver back in its cradle. “They’ll notify the patrol cars to stop any black trucks. And Detective Eberhart left orders for the patrol to swing by here every twenty minutes or so.”

Father John’s eyes held hers. After a moment he said, “Perhaps you ought to go away for a while, Vicky. Go to Denver and stay with friends until things calm down around here.”

“You think so? Would an Irishman walk away from a fight?”

He exhaled a long breath. “Not likely.”

“Not likely for an Arapaho either.” Vicky strode into the dining alcove. Threads of rain ran down the sliding glass doors that gave out onto the little brick patio. A counter with a wooden stool on either side divided the alcove from the kitchen. She stepped past the counter and flipped the wall switch. Light burst over the wood cabinets, the white countertop, the gleaming steel sink, the window gaping black behind the yellow curtains tied at the sides.

She extracted a can of coffee and a white filter from one of the cabinets while Father John perched on a stool. She placed the filter into the Mr. Coffee, measured out the grounds, and poured in the water before taking the stool across from him.

“I’m not the only one who’s been threatened.” She saw by the expression on his face this was something new. “The others are too scared to go to the police.”

Father John was quiet. She could sense him marshaling his arguments into the most logical order. From the counter behind them came the rhythmic
drip, drip, drip
of liquid into the glass pot. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee.

“Look, Vicky,” he said after a moment, “somebody’s trying to kill you. You’ve got to leave for a while. The reservation’s torn apart. There’s already been one murder.”

“Some poor Indian alone in a deserted cabin. What does that have to do with the nuclear waste facility?” Vicky stood up and pulled two mugs from a cabinet and filled them with the fresh coffee. Little curls of steam rose toward her smelling of wild berries. She placed the mugs on the counter and sat back down.

Father John took a short draw from his mug. He kept his eyes focused somewhere beyond her shoulder, and Vicky regretted the sharpness in her tone, the precipitance. It couldn’t have been easy to find the body.

“Was he a friend?” she asked, a consoling tone. There was so much she didn’t know about this man—a whole lifetime of people he’d befriended, places he’d been.

Father John shook his head and brought his eyes back to hers. “He was just a cowboy. A drifter, I guess. He called the mission and said he wanted to talk to a priest. His name was Gabriel Many Horses.”

It had a familiar ring; all Arapaho names had a familiar ring, but Vicky had never known anyone by that
name on the reservation. “Oklahoma Indians,” she said. “Why was he at the Hooshie cabin? It’s been abandoned for years.”

Father John gave a quick shrug to his shoulders, but Vicky could sense the bond he’d formed with the murdered man. This priest wouldn’t rest until he had the answers. Until he knew why Gabriel Many Horses had called him. She said, “I went to St. Francis with a girl named Hooshie. Tina Hooshie. I heard she married a Lakota and lives in Casper now. Maybe she would know why the murdered man had gone to the cabin. I can try to locate her. . . .”

He gave her a lingering smile, as if he understood that she understood. Then he said, “It can wait, Vicky. You need to worry about yourself now.”

“I’m not leaving here, John.” She exhaled a slow breath. This was a stubborn man sitting across from her.

“For God’s sake, Vicky. If you won’t go to Denver, think about coming to the mission. You can stay in the guest house. No one will know you’re there. Whoever is trying to kill you won’t give up. You’re fighting a facility that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. People have been killed for a lot less.”

“It’s not about money, John,” she said. “It’s about power. If the facility is built, Redbull will be the director. He’ll decide who gets the jobs. And Matthew Bosse will have a big say in who gets the houses and where the schools and roads and clinics will be built. He and Redbull will be like the chiefs in the Old Time, distributing the goods. They will be the most powerful men on the reservation.”

Vicky took another sip of coffee, then continued. “As for Legeau, he’ll be heaped with honors at every powwow and celebration for having sacrificed the ranch he loved for the facility. It’s the most any man could hope for—to be thought of as good man. Don’t
you see, John? Power and prestige and dignity. Very important to Arapaho warriors.”

Vicky saw by the way he smiled over the rim of his mug that he understood: The days of the warrior had ended—they belonged to the Old Time—but the warrior spirit lived on. Abruptly his smile disappeared. “Important enough to take your life?”

She set her mug down, spilling a black dribble of coffee onto the white counter. “If one of them is crazy enough . . .”

“All of them.”

“What?”

“All of them, Vicky. Redbull, Bosse, Legeau. Even the president of the United Power Company, Paul Bryant. He and Redbull came to see me this morning. Bryant admitted he’s been investigating you.”

Vicky’s hand tightened around her mug. Tonight, on the way out of Blue Sky Hall, Bryant had asked her to have dinner with him. And someone had followed her to Lander.

“I tried to tell you about Bryant.”

Vicky nodded. “I got the message you’d called, but the afternoon was jammed with appointments. I didn’t get the chance. . . .”

Father John stretched one hand toward her: It didn’t matter. “They all have a lot at stake. They’ve been working for months to get the facility approved by the joint council. Maybe they want to make sure nobody gets in the way. You’re only one woman, Vicky. You can’t fight a conspiracy. My father used to say only a fool gets into a fight she can’t win.”

“Your father said that?”

His face broke into a smile. “A certain variation thereof.”

Vicky took another sip of coffee, savoring the warmth that seeped inside her. “You’re wrong about Bosse.”

“I don’t think so. It was Bosse’s idea to build a nuclear waste facility on the rez in the first place. He convinced the other councilmen to hire Lionel Redbull. The two of them went after a grant from the United Power Company to hire the experts who conducted the environmental studies. Looks to me as if Bosse has been the prime mover.”

“But something has changed.” Vicky got to her feet, picked up the glass coffeepot and refilled both mugs. Settling back onto the stool, she said, “Oh, Bosse has backed the facility as if it were some kind of gift from the gods. But tonight . . .” She stopped, drew in a breath. “Tonight he kept saying ‘maybe.’ It puzzled me. He could be having second thoughts. Maybe he’s starting to realize that nuclear waste is not our problem.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that, John. It’s not our problem. There aren’t any nuclear power reactors within a thousand miles of the reservation. Most of the nuclear reactors are back East. The people who use the power should store the waste. It’s their problem.”

“We all use the electricity.” His tone surprised her, almost a reprimand. “We’re using it right now.” She followed his glance toward the glass globe on the ceiling. “Electricity is shifted in grids throughout the day from one part of the country to another,” he explained, his tone patient now. “It doesn’t matter where it’s generated. Everybody in the country shares it.”

“Then let everybody in the country share the dangers.” Vicky could feel the anger rising inside her. “Or should the radioactive waste just be sent to Indian country, where nobody important lives? Isn’t that how your people look at it?”

“Vicky,” he began. She saw that he was struggling to maintain the patient, rational tone. “I’ve read the environmental reports. The scientists say . . .”

“Don’t tell me what your scientists say.” Vicky jumped off the stool and crossed the kitchen to the far counter, then whirled around, facing him. “Your scientists once said the world was flat. My people always knew that every sacred space is round.”

She pushed herself off the counter and began pacing the small tiled floor, feeling as if an electrical charge had coursed through her, as if she’d been shot with one of the “ghost bullets.” “Your scientists say the radioactive material can’t leak out of the casks, but the casks may only last a hundred years. Then what? They say not to worry. The facility will only be on the rez for thirty or forty years. But where are the plans for a permanent facility? And why should one ever be built, once the nuclear waste is stored here?”

Vicky stopped pacing and gripped the edge of the counter in an effort to still her trembling as she leaned toward him. “How could I have been so wrong about you, John O’Malley? I always thought you were on the side of the People. On my side.”

Father John got to his feet. “I am on your side, Vicky. But the potential benefits from this thing are so enormous. . . .”

She threw out both hands to stop him. “Nothing is worth the risk of destroying a sacred place.”

He stared at her a long moment, and she thought she saw something change in his eyes. “No. Of course not,” he said, suddenly reaching out and taking her hand. He pulled her along the counter to him.

She was so close. So close she could make out the lights in his blue eyes, the reds and oranges and golds in his hair—she had been twelve years old before she’d seen anyone with eyes and hair like that—so close she could breathe in the faint odors of wool and after-shave and sense the warmth of his body. She felt a change in herself, a sense of having come home, of belonging.