The Thunder Keeper(5)

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“I don’t know everything that’s going on around here.”

He doubted that was true. Elena seemed to have a direct connection to the moccasin telegraph. She always had the news hours, sometimes days, before he heard it. Strange that something about the murdered Indian hadn’t flashed over the telegraph.

“Soon’s I hear anything, I’ll let you know.” Elena gave him a wave and turned down the hallway. In a moment the front door opened and shut, sending a wave of moist air floating into the kitchen.

Father John washed out his bowl, set it on the drain, and walked back to his study. His desk was piled with matters awaiting his attention. Letters to answer. Phone calls to return. He sank down into the old leather chair, pushed the papers aside, and wished—the trace of a wish that came on him when he least expected it—that he had a sip of whiskey. A sip or two would clear his mind.

He forced his mind back to the murdered Indian. Maybe somebody had only reported him missing this afternoon and the news hadn’t gotten to the moccasin telegraph yet. The police could have already found the body. And if that was the case, a murder investigation would be under way. The authorities would warn anybody else who might be in danger and . . . He drew in a long breath. He could sleep peacefully tonight.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Wind River police. Within a couple of minutes, he was patched through to the home of Chief Art Banner, and the man was crackling over the line about how he was off duty and how this had better be an emergency.

“Look, Banner,” Father John began, “I’m wondering if anybody was reported missing today.”

“Missing?” A long whistle sounded at the other end. “You trying to ruin the first peaceful Saturday night I’ve had in months, O’Malley? What’re you talking about?”

“Somebody who might have disappeared . . .” He selected his words carefully.

“What d’ya know that I oughta know?”

“Look, Banner, I’m just asking if anyone filed a missing person’s report.”

“You heard some rumors, that it?”

Father John didn’t say anything.

“There’s always rumors floating around the res, John, but nobody’s come in to make a report in the last month. That satisfy you? I got Sherlock Holmes on TV.”

Father John told the chief to go back to his mystery, then he set the receiver in the cradle. There were people walking around this evening, settling down to a pizza maybe, watching TV, who were about to be killed. A man had already been killed. An Indian. Sooner or later somebody on the res was bound to start asking questions.

He planned to visit the arts-and-crafts fair tomorrow anyway. Now he thought the fair would be a good opportunity to catch up with the latest news on the moccasin telegraph.





3


Great Plains Hall rose out of the prairie ahead. Father John had heard the drums as soon as he’d come around the bend on Seventeen Mile Road. The rhythmic thuds reverberated through the sounds of “Quando me’n vo” coming from the tape player wedged in the front seat of the Toyota pickup. The thuds grew stronger. He reached down and pressed the off button, allowing the beat of the drums to fill up the cab.

On the horizon, the Wind River mountains, azure blue and green with the recent rains, poked into the clouds, but patches of sunshine lay over the flat, open plains that ran into the distances on either side of the road. The air was cool, tinged with both the coming warmth of summer and the promise of more rain.

Father John made a right turn onto the dirt road that ran past the senior citizens’ center to Great Plains Hall. The field in front was filled with vehicles parked at odd angles. Old trucks and pickups next to shiny SUVs and sedans. The Arapaho arts-and-crafts fair always drew a mixture of Indians from the res and white people from the adjacent towns of Riverton and Lander.

He parked next to a brown pickup as rusted and dented as the Toyota and made his way around the vehicles toward the hall, his boots sinking into the soggy ground. The faintest roll of thunder in the distance mingled with the sound of the drums.

The hall was packed, and a crowd of brown and white faces moved along the tables that had been arranged against the side walls. He could see the jewelry on the table just inside the door—beaded necklaces, bracelets, earrings: a white woman holding up a hand mirror and staring at the beaded earrings that dangled from her ears, nodding to the grandmother behind the table, handing the old woman a few bills.

Across the hall, the drummers and singers sat huddled around a large drum. The steady thuds bounced off the cement walls, punctuating the hum of voices. A group of kids dressed in dance regalia was lining up alongside the musicians, their shiny shirts and dresses, feathered headdresses, and bustles flashing through the crowd.