Eye of the Wolf (33 page)

Adam didn't move, still relaxed, sitting back, comfortable. “So do you,” he said.

It was the truth, Vicky thought. She snapped her head back to the window. She wanted to lash out, tell him he was wrong, but it was the truth. He knew her. She wanted to be involved in the important cases that affected her people's future—cases that involved the land and the natural resources. She wanted the cases that dealt with civil rights and tribal sovereignty. She wanted to advise the business council on issues such as wolf management. She wanted all of that.

She said, “I can't turn my back on the Frankie Montanas. They still have rights.”

“I understand that.” Adam's voice drifted behind her. “You were right about Montana. He's not a murderer, but he probably would have been convicted.”

“Even if he were guilty . . .”

“He would still deserve all the protection of the law. I know that, Vicky.” She felt the slight change in the air. Adam got to his feet, and walked over. His arm slipped around her waist. “I want you to stay in the firm, Vicky. We'll find a way to take both kinds of cases. We might have to hire another lawyer . . .”

“Not Samantha,” she cut in.

His laughter was low, a slight brush of air against her ear. “We can find someone else. This thing about the wolves is heating up. A rancher shot a wolf a couple of days ago out in the bluffs on the eastern edge of the rez. You know what that means. Wolves are here. I need you to stay with this, Vicky. The tribes need you to stay with this.”

She turned inside the circle of his arm and, at the same time, pulled away, the edge of the windowsill creasing her back. “The moving truck is coming tomorrow.”

“Cancel it.”

“I have to think about it, Adam.”

“Cancel the truck and think about it, and while you're thinking about it, we have a meeting in two days with the fish and game people from Cheyenne.”

“Adam . . .” She started to protest, but she could hear the crack of indecision in her voice. “I'll stay on the wolf issue until it's settled,” she said.

“What about us, Vicky?” Adam said. “I want to be part of your life; I want you to be part of mine.” There was such intensity in his eyes that it took all of her strength not to look away. “I want to be the one you turn to when something comes up. I want to be the first one you think of.”

Vicky looked back at the window and the white world spreading below. She felt the cold air coming off the glass pane and wondered how it could be possible that the first man she thought to turn to was not John O'Malley but Adam Lone Eagle. It seemed as impossible as putting the snow back into the sky. And yet Adam kept his hand on her waist, his fingers pressing into her skin. He was here, and John O'Malley was at St. Francis Mission. Where they wanted to be, both of them.

Now moving around again within his arm, tilting her face up to his, laying her hands on his chest, the soft fabric of his shirt, waiting. “We can try, Adam,” she said. “We can try.”

THE SOUND OF
drums and singing swelled through the canyon, bouncing off the slopes as if there were other drums, other singers among the boulders. Traces of snow lingered here and there, like the memory of winter, but the sun was warm in a sky scrubbed of clouds and as still and blue as a mountain lake. Father John led Edie Bradbury over to the crowd bunched together at the mouth of the canyon. The smell of burning sage drifted through the air. Father Nathan Owens, wearing a black raincoat, an umbrella poking out of the side pocket, as if the man couldn't believe that warm weather had finally set in, stood a few feet away. The moment that Father John ushered the girl into a vacant spot, the Episcopalian priest stepped over.

“Can't tell you how happy I am to see you alive and well.” He clasped Father John's shoulder and reached for his hand. Then he gestured toward the front of the crowd, past the group of Arapaho and Shoshone elders around the small campfire, his gaze focusing on the
canyon beyond. “A terrible tragedy,” he said. “I've lain awake nights worrying that I had sent you in harm's way and praying for your safety.”

Father John thanked the man. He needed all the prayers he could get, he was thinking. You can't pray too much, an elder had once told him.

People began shuffling about, pulling to the sides, and Father John saw Ethan Red Bull coming down an aisle of marshy grasses and sagebrush. The elder stopped in front of him. “Join us at the campfire, Father,” he said.

Father John motioned for Edie to follow him, but the girl shook her head and pulled back, shrinking into herself. He gave her a smile of encouragement, took her hand, and led her through the crowd to the front. The family of Trent Hunter and Eric Surrell stood together on one side, the relatives of the Crispin brothers on the other.

It was where the girl belonged, he was thinking. The mother of Trent's unborn child, one of the family, and she was grieving, her face blanched and tight, eyes lowered, studying her hands clasped over her belly. She'd ridden out to the battlefield with him this morning, although at first she'd said that she couldn't bear to see the place where Trent had died. Then, just as he was about to drive off, she'd flung open the passenger door and climbed into the cab.

The music stopped, the faint sounds of the drums and the voices lingering for an instant before receding into the stillness of the crowd. From far away came the noise of an engine throttling down.

The elders turned toward the crowd, and Ethan Red Bull lifted his hands toward the sky. “We ask the Creator to bless this place where the blood of our ancestors and the blood of the young Shoshones mixes with the earth,” he said, his voice strong and firm, the voice of a chief in the Old Time, Father John thought. “We ask the Creator to take the evil from this place so that there may be peace between our peoples and that we may go into the future as friends. We ask
Hixce'e' be niho'3o'o,
the white man above, our Lord Jesus, to bless this place.
Ani'qa he'tabi'nuhu'nina, Hatana' wunani'na na hesuna'nin.
”

Father John closed his eyes a moment, the old man's voice rolling over him, a comforting sound. He recognized some of the words: “Our Father, we are poor. Our Father, take pity on us.”

The voice drifted into the sound of the wind sighing through the canyon. Then the only sound was that of the wind. Ethan stepped back, and now it was the Shoshone elder, Hanson Tindall, moving forward, lifting his hands. “God is with us,” he said. “
Dam Apua dame mash.
God's spirit fills everywhere on earth and above us.
Dam Apua Swap bash meripegan oiont dam sogovant des damevant.
” He went on for another few moments, asking the Creator for forgiveness and peace, and when his voice had faded into the quiet of the wind, the music started again, the drumming and the singing somehow louder and freer than before.

The two elders were stooping over the fire. Finally they stood upright, each holding out a large pan, smoke pouring over the rims. Inside the pans, Father John knew—there had been so many ceremonies—sage burned in the hot coals of cottonwood chips. They held up the pans so that the smoke floated toward the sky and the Creator before it began drifting into the crowd. Then the elders turned and held the pans toward the canyon, moving toward the right, and then the left, until the cleansing smoke seemed to be everywhere, reclaiming the canyon floor and slopes above. Facing the crowd again, the elders kept the pans aloft, letting the smoke bind all of the people together.

The blessing ceremony was over now. Knots of people began drifting back toward the vehicles parked outside the canyon. The noise of engines bursting into life erupted over the scuff of boots in the grass and brush and the subdued buzz of voices. Father John made his way among the small groups hanging back, reluctance in the slope of their shoulders, as if in leaving the place where the young men had died, they would sever contact with them. He told the families again how sorry he was, grasping hands, patting shoulders. He lingered with Trent's parents for a few moments, and when other people who had come up to pay their condolences had finally peeled away, he said, “Trent's girlfriend is here.”

“Figured that's the white girl you brought along.” Trent's father said, and his tone had a forced note in it, punctuating the point that the information had nothing to do with the family.

“She's staying at the mission awhile,” Father John pushed on.

Trent's mother looked up from the ground that she'd been studying, eyes lit with interest, as if a new thought had started growing. “Where is she?” the woman said.

Father John scanned the groups of people still picking their way out of the canyon. He saw her then, the blond head weaving through a cluster of black heads. “She's going to the pickup,” he said, aware that the woman's gaze was following his own. Then he told the woman about Edie. A job as a receptionist in Riverton. Plans to return to school in the fall. Plans for the future.

The man looked away and launched into a commentary on the ceremony and how the evil spirits would no longer dwell at Bates, how the spirits of his son and the other dead men could now rest in peace.

Father John said he hoped that was the case. He searched the man's eyes, looking for the faintest shadow of interest in Edie Bradbury. There was none. Finally, he shook the Shoshone's hand, patted the woman's arm, and fell in with the other relatives who had started toward the vehicles. Walking alongside them, step by step. Thinking this was right, the Indian priest at this time and in this place, the brown faces turning to him filled with the expectation of comfort and understanding and he trying to summon the words.

He spotted Edie Bradbury's blond head again, bobbing among the black heads clustered around her. And he realized that Trent's mother and father had moved ahead somehow and were talking to the girl. And they were smiling. My God, they were smiling and nodding, and Trent's mother was patting the girl's belly. Father John watched them for several moments. A lightness had settled over the battlefield, it seemed, as if the last of the darkness had been banished. It was
right.

He found himself looking around.

Vicky would be here. Surely, she was here. It wasn't until he glanced
back at the canyon that he spotted her, standing alone near the spot where he had found Trent Hunter's body, the spot where the Lamberts had died. He broke away from the others and retraced his steps, past the place where he'd stood, past the place where the elders had made the circle and blessed the battlefield.

“How are you?” he said when he came up to her.

“I'll be fine.” Not looking up, her gaze trained along the canyon, and he had the sense that she'd been waiting for him. “I'm giving Lone Eagle and Holden another chance,” she said, turning to him, an almost imperceptible flash of hope in her eyes.

“I'm very glad, Vicky,” he heard himself saying, and he meant it. Yes, he meant it, he told himself. It was right that she and Adam should build a life together. Partners in a law firm, partners in life. It was right that it should work out.

Footsteps were coming up on them. Those would be Adam's footsteps, he knew, even before the man stepped next to Vicky. Then Father John heard his own voice again, the stream of platitudes: congratulations, good luck, wish you both well. Grasping their hands for a moment, his and hers, he backed away. Finally, he turned and headed toward the groups of people converging on the few pickups that were still left. He did wish them well, God knew that was the truth. He wished Vicky a happy and fulfilling life. He wished her—everything good.

He hurried to catch up with his people.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com