The Thunder Keeper(50)

He found them in front of the storage shed behind Eagle Hall, one boy jiggling the padlock. The door swung open, and he helped them load the bags inside. He told them they were going to have to cancel practice for a while.

“Aw, Father,” they said in unison.

Just for a while, he explained. They’d be back in a day or two. Everything was fine. He didn’t want them to worry. They were looking good this season.

They had already started down the alley, sneakers scratching the gravel, disappointment outlined in the slopes of their shoulders, when he turned back and snapped the padlock. It was then he saw the glint of a bumper nudged into the small space between the administration building and Eagle Hall. He moved around the shed to get a better view of the brown pickup almost completely invisible in the brush. Eddie was here.

The blood pounded in his ears as he ran back down the alley to Circle Drive. Three kids left: Josh and Enos Russet and Eldon’s son, swinging on the metal handrail on the church steps, Eldon standing guard a foot away, arms folded over his chest.

“Where’s your ride?” he said to the brothers.

“Dad’s comin’ after work.” They stopped swinging and looked at him, as if to ask permission. Cowls of black hair stood up on their heads like feathered headdresses.

“Come on, boys,” Eldon said. “Joseph and I are taking you home.” He started toward the truck on the other side of Circle Drive, then glanced back. “You gonna be okay, Father?”

“Just get the kids out of here,” he said.

“I mean, anything comes up, you call me. I can get a bunch of warriors over here real fast.”

He thanked the Indian and waited until the truck had lurched through a U-turn and headed onto the straightaway out to Seventeen Mile Road, three dark heads bobbing in the rear window. Then he started toward the administration building. Eddie would be there—the most logical place.

The corridor was quiet, a mosaic of shadows and light. There was no one around.

He walked into his office on the right and hit the wall switch. Light burst over the small space. Everything the same, just as he’d left it two hours ago: the desk stacked high with papers and messages, the outlines of his own body pressed into the surface of the old leather chair, the two visitor chairs sitting at right angles to the desk.

He turned back to the corridor. “Come out,” he called. “I know you’re here.”





23


Father John could hear the sound of his own breathing over the drip-drip of a leaky faucet in the bathroom down the hall that bisected the corridor. He stood motionless, watching the shadows that clung to the walls. Finally: the almost imperceptible creak of a floorboard and a slight figure stepping out of a doorway. Shuffling down the corridor, hugging the shadows.

“I know who you are, Eddie,” Father John said.

The man stopped. He was only a few feet away, and Father John could see him clearly—dark, flat face and broad nostrils of a Pueblo Indian; black hair slicked back behind ears that stood away from his head; pinched, worried expression. He was about five-feet-eight with narrow shoulders and thin arms that dangled at his side. The collar of his jeans jacket stood out from his scrawny neck.

“I gotta talk to you, Father.” His voice was high-pitched, strained and unfamiliar. Not the voice in the confessional.

Father John motioned the Indian into his office. He moved slowly through the door, lifting and placing each foot as if he were testing the solidity of the floor beneath him. Then he stopped, looking around at the desk and chairs, the crowded bookshelves. His black ponytail hung down the back of his jeans jacket like a lone feather in a headpiece.

“Have a seat, Eddie,” Father John said, knowing that the Indian would not sit down until he’d been invited.

“How d’ya know my name?” The Indian sank onto one of the chairs, a kind of gratitude in the droop of his narrow shoulders.

Father John walked over and sat down at the desk. “I heard about the fight at the Denver Indian Center.”

“Them sources of yours.” For the first time the mask on the brown face seemed to slip, giving way to a look of terror.

“What’s your last name?”

“Ortiz.”

“You’re from a Pueblo?”

“Yeah. Born in Santa Clara longer ago than I can remember.”

Sad, Father John thought, if it was true, and it was probably true. The man hadn’t seen forty yet.

“They’re gonna kill me, Father.” The Indian shifted forward, fingers wrapping around the armrests. “I gotta get back to Santa Clara.”

“Hold on.” Father John held up one hand. “Who’s going to kill you?”