The Thunder Keeper(4)

“Your supper’s waiting,” she announced, bending her head sideways and wiping both hands on the white apron tied around her waist. The light glinted through her tightly curled gray hair.

“I’m coming,” he said.

“Yeah? Well, so’s Christmas.”

He had to laugh. He could almost hear his mother’s voice.

She said, “The chili’s gonna be cold before you get yourself to the kitchen.”

He tossed aside the last newspaper—nothing about a murdered man—and followed her down the hallway to the kitchen. She walked with shoulders squared, elbows at her sides pumping back and forth, propelling the short, stout body forward.

“Sit down,” she ordered, and he took his usual chair at the round oak table. Walks-On was snoring on his blanket in the corner. The smell of chili made Father John realize how hungry he was. Elena ladled the thick soup into a bowl and set it in front of him. He took a spoonful, savoring the spicy warmth that settled in his stomach, his thoughts still on what he’d heard in the confessional.

“I said it’s a shame.” Elena set a plate of bread and a mug of coffee next to his bowl, and he realized her voice had been droning in the background and he had no idea what she’d been telling him.

“You eatin’ supper all alone again,” she said. “Nobody here but the dog.”

He made an effort to give her his attention. “Why don’t you join me?”

“I was just sayin’ how it’s Saturday night, and my granddaughter Elsie is bringing the babies, Nathan and Jordan, over for a visit. And besides, I gotta finish some beading for the arts-and-crafts fair tomorrow, so I gotta get home.” She turned back to the stove and began pouring the chili into a refrigerator bowl. “Enough chili here to feed a horse,” she went on, making a clucking noise, “and Father Don out to dinner.”

“You’re saying the man eats like a horse?” Father John took another spoonful.

“Out last night and the night before. Going here, going there. Visiting folks all over the res. The man doesn’t have the sense to stay home.”

“He’s a popular fellow,” Father John said absentmindedly. He was thinking that the Indian’s body hadn’t been found yet. It was somewhere on a mountainside. It could be weeks or months before some hiker spotted it. Precious time in which others could die.

“You ask me, he’s gonna be gone permanently.”

“What?” Father John tried to catch up.

Elena leaned toward him, both hands flattened on the table. “Father Don. You mark my words. He’ll be leaving here soon.”

She had his full attention now. What she said surprised him. Father Don seemed to have taken to the job here. Chatting with Elena in the kitchen over mugs of coffee, trailing Leonard, the caretaker, over the grounds, asking questions about trimming trees and touching up the paint and probably a lot of other things that, Father John suspected, he didn’t really care about. He’d taken over the education committee, the liturgy committee. He was handling the mission finances. A mathematician. The man actually liked handling the finances.

He said, “What makes you think Father Don’s going anywhere?”

“He’s got that look in his eye.” Elena whirled around and began running a dishcloth over the edge of the sink. “You know what I mean.” She draped the cloth on the faucet, untied the white apron, and folded it on the counter. “When he don’t know you’re watching, he stares out at the plains. He sees someplace far away. That’s where he’s gonna go.” She spread her hands wide, as if there was no help for it, and started down the hallway.

Father John scooped the last of the chili from the bowl and took a bite of bread. Less than an hour before, Father Don had been in the study, listening intently. Then he’d seemed to shift gears, his attention on the evening ahead, the dinner he was off to. Elena could be right. Father John hated to admit it. The prospect of pleading with the Provincial again for a new assistant filled him with dread.

“There’s fried chicken in the fridge for your supper tomorrow.” The housekeeper was back in the doorway, her dark raincoat buttoned tight across her chest, fingers tying a plastic hood over her gray hair. She always prepared chicken for Sunday dinner. A habit he’d gotten so used to, he figured that for the rest of his life he’d expect to eat cold fried chicken on Sundays.

“Before you go, Elena,” he said, getting to his feet, “have you heard of anybody on the res who might be missing?”

She stared up at him, eyes widening with understanding. “So that’s what’s on your mind. Somebody’s gone missing. Who is it?”