The Dream Stalker (15 page)

She placed her other hand over his and began examining
the palm, the long fingers. She could feel the slight pulsing of blood beneath the skin. You could tell so much about a man by his hands. It was not the hand of a man who mended fences or tended to horses and cattle or baled hay, like the other men she had known. Yet there was a roughness in the creases, a man’s roughness. She expected him to take his hand away, but he let it stay.

His other hand moved to the side of her face and touched it tenderly. She felt the nerves in her body quickening as he placed his arms around her—to comfort her, she thought, to calm her. She wanted to allow herself to melt into him, to give way to the emotions flooding through her, but she couldn’t shake the awareness that they were crossing a line neither had wanted to cross. Once crossed, there would be no place for them—on this reservation, in this life.

She laid her hands on his chest and gently pushed him away. “You had better go,” she said, her eyes locked on his, pleading for understanding.

Vicky stood near the sofa, forcing herself to stop trembling, forcing herself to breathe normally as she watched him pull on his jacket, set his cowboy hat on his head. He opened the door and was about to step outside when he turned back, one hand gripping the knob. “Vicky . . .” He hesitated. His eyes held hers a long moment. Finally he said, “You know I’ll be there if you need me. Just call. . . .”

She closed the door after him and absentmindedly threw the lock and inserted the chain into the narrow brass ridge. Then she leaned her forehead into the hard wood, awash in feelings of sadness and anger and loss. Of course she needed him. He was the only man she had cared about in so long—so long, the feelings seemed strange and unbidden. She had never intended to love him. How had this happened? Why had such a
man come into her life when there could be no life for them?

It seemed a long while before she heard the whine of the Toyota’s engine, the slow, muffled thrum of the tires on the asphalt as he drove away.

15

F
ather John drove north through Lander, rain glistening in the headlights, the shadows of houses, evergreens, and box elders passing outside the windows. He hardly knew where he was until he was speeding down Highway 789, the Toyota swaying on its axles. At Hudson he turned left onto Rendezvous Road, the diagonal cut across the reservation.

On he plunged toward the darkness beyond the headlights, the music of
Don Giovanni
blaring through the cab. He could almost taste the whiskey in his mouth, the craving was so strong. This woman—he had lived a lifetime without even knowing she existed, and now she filled his thoughts. His body ached with the smells of her hair and skin, the memory of the softness of her body. She had been the one strong enough to fight the temptation, to pull away from his arms when he had wanted only to hold her.

He was disgusted by his weakness. It was so unfair to her. He wanted only for her to be happy, to be safe. Which was why he had waited outside Blue Sky Hall tonight—to make sure she got into the Bronco and arrived home safely. He had been worried about her. He had felt the tension building during the hearing, the kind of tension that could erupt into violence, and Vicky was the object of so much anger. She refused to take her own danger seriously. She was so damned stubborn.
He had thought his own people were stubborn—they could take lessons from her.

That was what had drawn him to her, he realized, her determination and dauntlessness, the way she gave herself to what she believed in. Woman Alone,
Hi sei ci nihi,
the grandmothers called her. So small and fragile, she seemed to him, yet willing to wade into a den of bears if she thought it necessary. It had transfixed him—her passion for life, the force of her feelings. So unlike his own feelings, marshaled into place and guarded, surrounded by the rules of order and logical thinking, and, most of the time, controlled by sheer willpower.

At Seventeen-Mile Road, he wheeled right. His whole being was dry with thirst. There was a time, he knew, when he would have gone immediately to a bottle stashed in the back of a closet, in a drawer among the clean shirts. When he’d believed no one knew. Not his students at the Jesuit prep school in Boston who had sat ramrod straight, foreheads creased in the effort to understand what in heaven’s name he was talking about. Not his fellow Jesuits who’d gone wide-eyed and slack-jawed and begun excusing themselves from the dining table as he’d hammered home point after point, until he was the only one left.

Dear God,
he thought. What a mess he’d made of his life. How he’d let down his students and superiors and everyone who had believed in him. But he’d been given the gift of another chance at St. Francis. Let there be no more broken vows, he prayed. Let there be no more pain to anyone who trusted him, to anyone he loved.

The Toyota squealed through the turn into the mission. He slammed on the brakes in front of the priests’ residence, and the pickup skidded onto the wet grass. It was time for him to go away for a while, he thought. He would make a retreat somewhere else, sort out his
thoughts and feelings, pray for the direction his life should take.

But he couldn’t leave yet. Not until he’d seen that the cowboy had a decent funeral. And he wouldn’t be gone a week before his new assistant would begin preaching the value of tithing and calling bingo games in Eagle Hall. He had to get the mission’s finances in better condition before he left. He decided he would write to some of the former benefactors, throw St. Francis on their generosity.

As he started up the sidewalk, he realized that either he or Vicky would have to leave. Was that the reason he’d tried to talk her into going to Denver? Was he concerned only about her safety? Or was he also worried about his own temptations? On the other hand, he’d also suggested she come to the guest house. What had he meant? These were the kinds of questions he might explore with someone he was counseling, not the kind he wanted to ask himself. He wasn’t sure of the answers. But one thing was certain: Avoiding her these last months had made it harder to see her again.

The moment he walked up to the front stoop, before he’d touched the doorknob, he could sense the alcohol, as if it were reaching through the door for him. He let himself inside, a feeling of dread mixing with the other emotions of the night. A shaft of light floated down the hallway from the kitchen. His assistant was still awake. Awake and drinking.

Father John took his time hanging up his jacket on the coat tree, setting his cowboy hat on top. He was trying to settle himself, gain control over the anger pulsing inside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other priest swaying at the end of the hall, backlit by the kitchen light. “So you’ve returned.” The words were slurred, belligerent.

The muscles in Father John’s chest tightened. What the assistants at St. Francis did, how they conducted
their personal lives—it was their business. He demanded one thing: no alcohol at the mission. He started down the hallway. The sweet, acrid, familiar smell of Scotch washed over him, lodged in his nose and mouth, in his pores.

“I know, I know,” Geoff said, his eyes narrowing behind the bone-framed glasses, as if he were trying to bring the room into focus. He stumbled backward as Father John brushed past him into the kitchen. “The no-alcohol rule. Well, I broke it tonight, but don’t worry. I’m not offering you any.”

The man looked as if he’d been drinking all day: When did he start? Father John wondered. This morning after their quarrel in the office? Was this the first time? He decided it must be. Elena would’ve said something otherwise. Nothing got by the old woman.

“Sometimes, sometimes . . .” Father Geoff began, the words drawn out, as if he were having trouble fitting his tongue into the right places. He dropped down on the edge of a chair, groped for the glass on the table, and took a quick drink of the pale yellow liquid. Father John felt as if the fireball had slid down his own throat. And then it was gone, a memory. His eyes fell on the half-empty bottle on the floor next to the table leg. He forced back the longing.

“It gets so damn lonely,” the other priest said.

Father John held up one hand. He was in no mood to deal with the maunderings of a drunk. “If you’ve got something to say to me, say it. I don’t want to hear about how lonely it gets.”

“You don’t want to admit it.” The other priest lifted the glasses off the bridge of his nose and ran one hand under his eyes. “All that collegiality and brotherhood we’re supposed to have. What a bunch of crap. You know what? We’re in god-awful places like this, alone.”

“I’m going to bed,” Father John said, starting for the door.

“Wait. I’m trying to tell you for your own good.”

Father John stopped, looked back. “What are you talking about?”

His assistant lifted the glass, took another drink. “I’m talking about women. We’re out here on our own, by ourselves, and women know that.” He jabbed the glass into the air. “It’s been true for four hundred years.”

“What’s been true?”

“Women have been after us.”

“For four hundred years? We must be very fast runners.”

The other priest grabbed the edge of the table and propelled himself to his feet. “Joke. Joke!” he shouted. “You’re good at that. Make a joke, then you don’t have to face the truth.”

In an instant Father John understood. Someone had called the mission, perhaps one of the men around Vicky’s Bronco. Maybe he’d guessed Father John would follow her home. You know where Father O’Malley is? He went home with a woman. And his assistant, who was probably already in his cups when the call came through, had decided to confront him with the truth about himself, and he had made a joke. . . .

“Just say it.”

Father Geoff shrugged. “I know, John. I know what it’s like. You’re lonely, and a woman makes herself available. I saw your face out there this afternoon.” He swung the half-empty glass of Scotch in the direction of the administration building. “The minute Chief Banner said someone had tried to run down that woman, your face turned as red as the lights on the police car. This Vicky Holden, whoever she is, isn’t just another parishioner. I got a call about you taking her home tonight. You’ve been with her since the hearing ended.”

“I wanted to make sure she got home safely.”

The other priest leaned down and grabbed the neck
of the bottle. He tipped it into the glass. Father John watched the yellow liquid accumulate, rise toward the rim. He forced himself to breathe through his mouth to avoid the smell as his assistant set the bottle on the table and lifted the glass in a toast, a grand gesture. “Have it your way.”

Father John said nothing. Is this what people thought? Is this the gossip on the moccasin telegraph—the gossip that never reached the mission? The mission priest and the Arapaho woman who went away and became a white woman?

“We are not lovers,” he said. The statement sounded hollow, half true.

Confusion crossed the other priest’s face, as if he were trying to decide if he was wrong or if Father John was lying. “We’re not lovers,” he mimicked. “What does that mean? That you haven’t taken her to bed yet?” His assistant leaned against the edge of the table, and Father John recognized the other man’s effort to appear steady.

“The physical is only one level. What about the emotional and psychological? Can you say you’re not lovers on those levels?”

Father John started down the hallway. “I’m not going to discuss this,” he said over his shoulder.

“I know what I’m talking about. You’re not the first priest . . .”

Father John turned and walked back into the kitchen. He’d been wrong. The other priest wasn’t talking about him. The Scotch, the self-pity—why hadn’t he seen it immediately?

Father Geoff stood at the table, balancing against the edge. “I met a woman,” he said, a sobbing note in his voice.

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I want to, damn it. Don’t you understand? I need somebody to talk to.”

Father John leaned against the kitchen counter and waited.

“Myra.” The name burst into the air, as if it had made its way from some hidden place. “She was the mother of one of my students. She was divorced. Her kid was having trouble, and she needed somebody to talk to. A priest is better than a psychologist, you know. There’s the confession aspect, especially when people are feeling guilty. They get a sense of forgiveness. But then . . .” The man stretched out both hands, a pleading gesture.