“WHAT HAVE YOU found?” Father John asked, nodding toward the brown envelope in Vicky’s hand.
She pulled out a thin stack of papers and arranged them in some kind of order. “Take a look,” she said, laying one sheet on the desk in front of him.
Father John took in the words at the top of the page: Allotment of Bashful Woman.
“Read the legal description,” Vicky said with so much urgency in her voice that he lifted his eyes and looked at her a moment before he skimmed through the lines of black text.
“Here’s a legal description of the adjacent forty acres that Sharp Nose left to his daughter. He left more land to his daughter than to his sons because, he said, a woman would need it more.” Vicky set another sheet on top of the first. “I got the first description from the agency. And I got the legal description of the Evans Ranch from the county clerk’s office. The descriptions are identical.”
Father John was still reading through the text, comparing one to the other. A perfect match. After a moment, he glanced up. “You think Evans was responsible for his wife’s death?”
“I think that two hundred acres of the best ranchland in the area is a very big motive.”
“He was already running a successful ranch on her land, Vicky. Why would he want her dead?”
“He married a white woman after Bashful’s death, didn’t he? He went on to establish a prominent Wyoming family—a white family. His grandson is a United States senator who intends to become the next president. Do you think Carston Evans could have made that possible with an Indian wife? She would have held him back at every step. What doors do you think would have opened to half-breed children?”
Vicky had crossed her arms and was hugging herself. He could see that beneath her tan jacket, she was trembling. “Carston Evans saw his chance, John. Curtis was on the reservation, taking photographs, trying to capture the old ways, such as enemy warriors attacking an Arapaho village. The only problem was, there weren’t any more enemy warriors. And there weren’t any more villages. Curtis created the warriors, the village, and the attack. The perfect opportunity for Bashful to die, except that he knew there wasn’t enough money to pay an Arapaho to kill a chief’s daughter. Evans had to do it himself, then he testified against Thunder and the others.” Vicky threw her head back and appealed to the ceiling. “The word of a white man against the word of three Indians? Who do you think the magistrate believed?”
She walked over to the window and back, then retraced her steps. He followed her with his eyes. Outside, the cottonwoods, lined in frost, were dancing in the breeze.
“He probably killed their child,” Vicky said, facing him again. “What did the newspapers say about the child?”
Father John shook his head.
“A half-breed child.” Vicky traced the circle again. “Anything might have happened to the child on the ranch, and no one would have known. Carston Evans committed murder and got away with it.” She shook her head in wonder. “He’s still getting away with it.”
Father John walked around the desk and perched on the edge. “Maybe not,” he said, trying to fit the jumble of disconnected pieces into a coherent, logical sequence.
“What are you saying?”
It was clear now, the images chasing through his mind. “The three warriors rode toward the village, and Curtis snapped a picture. The warriors swooped down into the village, and Curtis took another picture, then another as fast as he could insert new plates. He had an assistant, which means he probably worked pretty fast. He could have taken several pictures in a few seconds. But the only photo that survived is ‘Before the Attack.’ What happened to the others?”
Vicky was staring at him, her lips parted as if she’d exhaled her last breath and couldn’t take another.
“Curtis left after the attack,” Father John hurried on. “Suppose he only took the first plates he’d exposed and left the others behind as evidence of what had really happened. Suppose the Sharp Nose family found the other plates.”
Vicky shook her head. “If that were true, they would have taken them to the magistrate. The warriors wouldn’t have been hanged.”
She had a point. Father John kneaded his fingers into his forehead. “Okay,” he said. “What if the family didn’t find the negatives in time to save the warriors?”
“They would have killed Evans themselves,” Vicky said. “They would have avenged Bashful’s death.”
“Maybe they chose not to seek revenge, Vicky. Maybe there was some reason they chose to let the man get away with murder.”
Father John waited a moment, giving her time to absorb this new idea before he said, “Christine could have found a glass plate with the image of Carston Evans shooting his wife.”
“What difference would it make?” Vicky asked, not taking her eyes from his. “The past is dead, John. It’s forgotten.”
“Look,” he began, and he told her what he’d learned from the Curtis expert at the West Wind Gallery. “Any Curtis glass plate negative might be valuable,” he said, “but a Curtis negative that captured the image of a senator’s grandfather shooting his Arapaho wife would be very valuable. Christine would know the value. So would Eric Loftus.” He paused, another image forming in his mind. “Loftus might have found his wife here and seen her with T.J. He might have figured out that she’d located vintage photos. Maybe he even talked to Denise or T.J. and found out about the negatives.”
“You’re saying that the man might have killed his own wife? Just like Evans?” Vicky gave a little laugh, edged with bitterness. “Wife has something that husband wants. Wife has to die.”
“No,” Father John heard himself say. That wasn’t it. “I think Christine is still running.” He could still see the hunter’s gleam in Loftus’s eyes. “Loftus is looking for her,” he said.
Vicky swung around and started pacing again. “It makes sense that the glass plates were passed down to Denise,” she said. Pacing, glancing back at him over one shoulder. “Denise loved history. The shed in back of the house was crammed with old things. The glass plates could have been in the shed. T.J. said he knew who had killed his wife. He said they had killed her. It all makes sense, except . . .”
“Except?”
Vicky was looking beyond him, as if she were trying to pluck something out of her memory. “He said he didn’t have the evidence. That means the plates were no longer in the shed. Loftus and whatever goon he had brought with him must have taken them when they killed Denise.”
Father John got to his feet and came around the desk. He punched one fist into the palm of his other hand. “No,” he said. “If Loftus had the plates, he wouldn’t have gone to Christine’s place and torn everything apart. No,” he said again, willing the pieces to fit into a coherent image in his head. “He could’ve gone to T.J.’s intending to find the plates, but instead he found Denise at home, and Denise would have done anything to protect the images of the ancestors.”
“She would have died . . .” Vicky said, her voice low, trailing off into a whisper.
“Somehow she must have managed to convince Loftus that T.J. had put the plates in a safe place. Maybe she even showed him the vacant spot in the shed where the plates had been stored. Whatever happened, he believed her. He could have forced her into the bedroom and shot her, making it look like suicide. Then he would have gone to Christine’s, figuring that T.J. had given the plates to the curator.”
Vicky had stopped pacing. She was staring at him again. “My God, John. Suppose you’re right. Suppose T.J. did give the plates to Christine, but she didn’t keep them at the house. She kept them with her.”
Other images now: Christine picking up the briefcase at the mission, holding it close, as if whatever it contained was precious. And Loftus, determined to find his wife, willing to do anything, even torture and kill a man, to find her.
“If Christine has the plates,” he said, “she’s in serious danger. Loftus won’t stop until he finds her.”
Vicky began gathering up the sheets of paper and stuffing them back into the envelope. “I have to take this to Gianelli,” she said.
“Call me after you talk to him,” Father John said, but she was already across the office and through the door, her footsteps receding in the corridor.