The Thunder Keeper(9)

He said, “I’d like to talk to you.”

Ben gave a noncommittal shrug and veered along a diagonal path to a shack. “In here,” he called, throwing his voice over one shoulder and opening the door.

Father John followed him into the small room jammed with a table and two chairs. Stacks of paper covered the tabletop and crept onto the chairs and then onto the floor. A potbelly stove hissed in the corner. The air felt warm and close.

Ben pushed a chair back with a muddy boot, lifted some papers onto the table, and sat down. He unsnapped his slicker but made no effort to remove it, a sign that the conversation would be short.

“This about Vicky?” he said, a hard edge in his tone.

Father John cleared a stack from the other chair, swung it around, and straddled it, facing the Indian. “No,” he said.

A mixture of barely concealed relief and curiosity came into the man’s dark eyes. His whole frame seemed to relax against the rungs of his chair. “I get it,” he said. “You’re here about Duncan Grover.”

“I understand you knew him.”

Ben shifted sideways, stretched out his legs, and crossed one muddy boot over the other. “Duncan’s dad and I were stationed in Germany together. The only Indians in the whole country”—he stared across the room at the memory—“couple Arapahos. Grover was from Oklahoma. His kid showed up at the res last month and looked me up. Said he’d been working in Denver and had enough of white people.” Ben gave a snort of laughter.

“Did he say where he’d been working?” Father John asked.

“Construction jobs. Looked like he was used to hard work, mostly outdoors.” He paused. The fire hissed into the quiet. “Nervous kid, looking over his shoulder all the time, like he expected an evil spirit to jump out at him. I figured he was on the run. Took a bad road in the city, came to the res to hide out and start over. I’ve started over a few times myself.” He glanced away again. “Anyway, the kid needed a job. I told him to come back in a couple weeks when we started moving the herd to the upper pastures, and I’d take him on.”

Father John didn’t say anything for a moment. “What was he running from?”

“I didn’t push him. He was serious about starting over, that’s all I cared about. Told him to go see Gus Iron Bear so he could get back on the Arapaho road. He took instructions from the old man, then went up to Bear Lake for his vision quest. When he didn’t come back, Gus asked me to take some of the skins and go looking for him.”

Ben pulled in his long legs and leaned over the table. “Detective Slinger and the coroner say Grover killed himself. What a load of bullshit. The kid was in a sacred place. The spirit was looking down on him. No way did he kill himself.”

“What else, Ben?” Father John said. “Give me something else that’ll make them change their minds.”

“What’s this to you?” Mistrust leaked into the Indian’s voice.

Father John shook his head. “I don’t like to see a man’s death labeled suicide if it isn’t true.”

“I see.” Ben leaned back against his chair, never taking his eyes away. “You’re a real white do-gooder, aren’t you, Father O’Malley? You’re like the cavalry riding out against injustice wherever it raises its ugly head.”

Father John swallowed back the phlegm of anger that rose in his throat. “Give me something to take to the white detective, Holden,” he said. His voice was tight.

The Indian looked away a moment, considering. “I’ve been thinking,” he said finally, a conciliatory tone now. “I think Duncan got himself into some serious trouble, and somebody followed him here from Denver. Waited until he went out to Bear Lake and killed him.”

“You tell that to Detective Slinger?”

“Why don’t you tell him? Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

Father John got to his feet, pulled open the door, and went outside. It was raining harder now, and he tipped his cowboy hat low over his forehead and started walking down the driveway. He didn’t have much, but he had something: a guy who was looking for a job and planning to start work. Hardly somebody who was thinking about suicide. And there was more. Someone had followed Grover from Denver. It made sense. “The boss killed him,” the man in the confessional had said.

He could imagine the conversation with Detective Slinger: Who, Father O’Malley? Who followed Grover? And he wouldn’t be able to say . . .

Unless Grover had mentioned a name to Gus Iron Bear while he was taking instructions.

Father John decided to drive out to the medicine man’s place before he went to see Slinger.