The Eagle Catcher (27 page)

“Never mind,” he said, picking up the receiver and pushing in Banner's numbers. “Be there,” he said under his breath. Then Art Banner's familiar voice came on the line. “Get some cars out to the Cooley ranch right away. BIA, sheriff's deputies—don't tell me about jurisdiction.”

“Wait a minute,” the chief yelled. “I can't ask the sheriff for cars at the Cooley ranch without a damn good reason. Ned Cooley'll have the sheriff's ass in a sling and mine, too. What the hell's this all about?”

“About stopping a murderer,” Father John shouted as he slammed down the receiver.

F
ATHER JOHN CLAMPED the gas pedal to the floor and willed the Toyota faster down Highway 287. The file box with its precious records lay on the seat beside him. A clap of thunder drew an instant flash of lightning. White sheets of rain washed over the windshield and hood and spread into miniature lakes on the asphalt ahead. He had to hunch over the steering wheel to keep the center line in view between swipes of the windshield wipers. He swore out loud, a string of words he'd forgotten he knew. What was she thinking of? People could be so damn impetuous. She was impetuous. Going by herself to see Ernest Oldman, a crazy drunk who tried to shoot up an oil pump. Coming out here alone to confront Ned Cooley. What would that get her? Dead?

The Toyota skidded on the rain-soaked pavement as he wheeled onto Rendezvous Road. Another sharp turn and he was heading down the long driveway to the Cooley ranch, its front lawn gray with rain. Vicky's Bronco was parked at the end of the driveway where the food tables had been set up last Saturday night. There was no sign of Banner or the sheriff or anybody else, for that matter.

Father John left the engine running and, nearly doubled over, dashed across the soggy lawn. Rain pelted the back of his shirt and spilled off his hat. He mounted the stairs to the porch two at a time and slammed his left fist into the door before turning the knob. The door swung open.

“Vicky!” he shouted. The sounds of the rain diminished as he stepped inside and closed the door. He felt as if he'd stepped into the eternal quiet of a museum. The hallway stretched toward the carved wooden banister on the stairway ahead. Starting toward it, he shouted again. “Vicky! Ned! Anybody here?”

Rooms filled with Arapaho belongings opened off either side of the hall, and, as he glanced through the doorway on the left, his eyes fell on Chief Black Night's warbonnet. He stepped into the room, drawn to the warbonnet draped against the wall, eagle feathers graceful and elegant behind Plexiglas. The warbonnet of a great man. How much food, how many blankets and bolts of cloth had it purchased for Chief Black Night's people?

And Ned Cooley had worn it the night he murdered Harvey. Father John could feel the truth of it, as if he had seen with his own eyes the white man darting past the tipis, in and out of the shadows of flickering campfires, dressed in buckskin shirt, beaded apron, angora leggings, moccasins, warbonnet with eagle feathers trailing down his back. Ned Cooley had his choice of regalia, all authentic. He was one of the powwow dancers walking through camp. No one would have noticed him. And then, as he did his terrible deed, one of the eagle feathers had fallen from the warbonnet. It lay on the dirt floor of the tipi, a fact Ned Cooley hadn't realized until he got home and draped the warbonnet back on its stand in the center of the room. The empty woven shaft that had held the feather was obvious. He had arranged the warbonnet behind Plexiglas so no one would notice.

“Help you, Father O'Malley?” Father John swung around and faced one of the ranch hands in the doorway.

“Where's Ned?”

“Gone fishin' up at Washakie reservoir. Says nothin' like rain to get those trout bitin'.”

“Where's Vicky Holden?”

“That Indian lawyer lady?” The ranch hand shrugged. “So that's the lady he had in the pickup with him. You ask me, she's a darn fool just like Mr. Cooley if she likes fishin' in this weather.”

“He took her up to the reservoir?” As Father John gasped the words, he realized Ned intended to kill her. Not on the ranch. In the steep, rock-studded canyon of the Washakie. Jesus, she would never be found.

“Listen to me,” he said. “The police are on their way here. Send them up to the Washakie fast. Do you understand?”

The ranch hand looked startled, perplexed.

“Do you understand?” Father John shouted.

“Yeah. Yeah,” the ranch hand said as Father John yanked open the front door and dodged into the rain.

 

Washakie reservoir washed over its banks in places, spilling across the road, and Father John had to fight with all the strength in his one good arm to keep the Toyota on track. He hit a dip, and, suddenly, he was hydroplaning out of control. He took his foot off the gas, but as soon as the wheels touched the ground, he jammed down the pedal again. Thunder rolled above the canyon and lightning danced through the rain-filled air. Just as he came out of a long curve, he spotted the blue pickup nudged into the scrub brush along the side of the road, across from where he and Anthony had been fishing last evening. The Toyota slid in the wet dirt, and, pumping the brakes, Father John pulled in behind the pickup. Then he saw them.

In the stand of aspens about fifty feet up the mountain, Ned Cooley was gripping Vicky's arm, and the force of his grip propelled her uphill. In the man's other hand was a rifle. Father John laid on the horn with all the strength in his left arm. Ned turned, swinging Vicky around with him as if they were doing the do-si-do in a western bar. After a moment, they started down. Father John had to twist around in the seat to grab the file box before he got out of the cab. The rain crushed his shirt against his back and shoulders and beat on the sling that held his arm to his chest.

Slowly Father John made his way alongside the bed of the pickup. Ned and Vicky were still about fifteen feet up the slope. Vicky's hair was matted against her head, and water streamed down her face. Her T-shirt looked as if it had dissolved into her skin. Ned had on a hooded, full-length brown slicker, the rain pinging against it like pebbles on a lake. Still gripping Vicky's arm, he pointed the rifle at Father John.

“You got the records?” Ned hollered.

“Here,” Father John shouted, lifting the box into the rain.

Pushing Vicky ahead, Ned came toward him. “I figured you'd find them. All I had to do was wait. Then I'd get 'em from you. Of course, you'd have to have yourself a tragic accident afterwards. I wasn't countin' on this lawyer lady showing up waving copies of county records at me. That was perfect. I knew you'd come after her and bring the mission records right to me.”

“You didn't have to kill Harvey,” Father John said. “The Arapahos would've worked out a fair price for all the years your family's taken care of the ranch. Harvey was a fair man. He would've seen to it. Isn't that the deal he offered you? Why didn't you take it? Was it the five million dollars? Is that what you wanted?”

The rancher's head was shaking inside the hood of the slicker. “Ned Cooley's gonna be the next governor of this state, and nobody's gonna say the governor's family cheated a bunch of damn Indians out of anything.”

“So you killed Harvey to protect your reputation?”
Keep him talking,
Father John thought. Stall until Banner and the sheriff get here.

“The Cooley name, you fool. We been here more than a hundred years. We built this place. We are Wind River Reservation.”

Lightning struck the boulders up above and sent a charge of electricity through the air. Rain fell in waves between Father John and the man and woman, who, like Siamese twins, were still inching downslope toward him. He could see the defiance on Vicky's face, her lips drawn into a tight line.

“Nobody would've been the wiser if you hadn't come pokin' around here.” Ned waved the rifle, and Father John felt the muscles tighten in his chest. “Fremont County records show who's got title to the Cooley ranch. There are sworn statements from a lot of Indians that my great-granddaddy bought the land fair and square. Without those old mission records, nobody's ever gonna know any different.”

“How many years were you and your father county commissioner? Fifty? Did you change the records so they showed exactly what you wanted?”
Keep him talking,
Father John was thinking.

“They outdid themselves,” Vicky shouted.

Ned jerked her arm, nearly lifting her off her feet as lightning danced through the canyon, bouncing off the ground. It had moved in close, striking all around them.

“There are sworn statements in the records that Mathias Cooley bought a lot of ranches on the reservation,” Vicky shouted into the storm. “My great-grandfather's. Ernest's. Harvey's. A lot of others.” She snapped sideways, momentarily breaking the rancher's grip, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

Father John held his breath. Stay calm. Stay calm. He tried to send her a silent message. This was a waiting game.

“Forgeries,” Vicky yelled, her voice still defiant. “So many forgeries it's a joke. Mathias Cooley was planning to take over the whole reservation.” She faced her captor again. “What happened? Didn't your great-granddaddy live long enough to see his plans through? Why leave those forgeries in the county files? Did you really think someday the Cooleys could claim all that land?”

The rancher flinched, jerking the nose of the rifle upward. Water ran like black oil along the metal barrel. “This is our place,” he shouted. “Indians don't belong here.”

Father John took another step along the pickup. Thunder cracked overhead, and another flash of lightning lit up the grove of aspens upslope. Rain splashed against the file box, rolled over it. It felt heavy in his hand. “I'm going to set the records on the seat,” he shouted as he reached through the opened window. “Let her go and I'll drop the box. The records are yours.”

Ned flung Vicky out to one side, and Father John lowered the box onto the seat. Then he heard the snap of the bolt, muffled in the rain. He looked up into the barrel of the rifle. Just then Vicky whirled around and flung herself against the rancher. The rifle flew out of his hands as he stumbled sideways, slipping in the mud, fighting for balance before pitching forward.

“Run,” Father John shouted. Vicky started up the mountain and into the clump of aspen trees. Father John was close behind as thunder shook the ground, muffling the crack of the rifle.

They sprinted sideways, left, then right, up the slope in the rain, slipping backwards in patches of mud, pushing through mushy mounds of wet twigs and pine needles. Thunder shattered the air again, and he didn't hear the shot that whizzed past his ear. “Stay low, stay low,” he shouted, digging his boots into the mud that oozed over the packed earth. God, they were going to be struck by lightning, if they didn't get shot first.

Another shot, and Vicky went down. “No!” Father John shouted. He threw himself on top of her, pain ripping through him as his shoulder snapped out of its joint.

“I'm okay, I'm okay!” she yelled, scrambling uphill, pulling on shrubbery for support. She got to her feet and started running again, but he had to wait. He couldn't catch his breath—his shoulder was on fire. He forced himself to his feet. Cooley would be close. He could be in the rifle sights. Taking off his cowboy hat, he aimed it sideways at a clearing between the trees and tossed it with all the strength he could muster. The gunshot erupted. Staying low, he zigzagged uphill after Vicky. He could see the soles of her sneakers kicking back little clumps of mud.

Vicky reached the ridge and started up the stand of boulders where he and Anthony had climbed last night. “Wait!” he hollered, stooping between two boulders. It was here somewhere, hidden behind the bushes, but he couldn't spot it. He couldn't get his bearings in the rain. “I see you!” Ned shouted from below. He couldn't see them, Father John knew, or he would shoot them.

Vicky inched her way back down to him just as lightning lit up the ridge where she had been standing. “Oh, God,” she said. “We're going to die.” Rain was running down her face and arms in little rivers, and she was shaking. Her T-shirt and jeans were covered in mud.

Father John pulled her down. “Stay low,” he ordered. Where was the boulder Anthony had climbed last night to survey his world? If he could spot it, he could find the bushes below it.

“He's coming,” Vicky shouted just as Father John saw what he was looking for.

“This way,” he said.

“No. He'll see us.” Vicky crouched closer to the ground.

He gripped her arm hard and pulled her sideways a few feet up the mountain. The rifle exploded behind them, and the bullets slammed into a nearby boulder, blasting off one corner. Fragments of granite bit his face and neck, and Vicky screamed into the rain.

He had to let go of her arm to push the shrubbery to one side. As soon as she saw the narrow space between the boulders, Vicky slipped inside and he followed, allowing the branches to fall slowly back into place. There was the sound of boots squishing in mud and scratching against rocks. He held his breath and closed his eyes in the darkness. It was dry in the tunnel, and quiet, as if the storm had disappeared. He leaned against the rough, cold granite, afloat in pain. His arm hung loose in its sling, like a raft floundering on a river.

After a few moments he began inching his way along the tunnel, so narrow in one place he had to turn sideways. Then he saw the faint light ahead. Vicky was already in the little room, just big enough for a boy to sleep in, to live in, while he waited for the eagle. Boulders arched overhead forming a solid roof, except for one spot the size of a saddle that was covered with brush. Gray daylight filtered through, and water ran along the branches and dripped onto the dirt floor.