THE FRAME HOUSE sheltered under a lone cottonwood, branches swaying against the sky. White cottonwood fluff blew through the air. There was no other traffic on the narrow strip of asphalt that cut across the prairie. Pagliacci filled the cab. Father John pressed on the brake, turned right, and bounced across the borrow ditch into the bare-dirt yard. A blue sedan stood in the shade between the house and the cottonwood. Parked close to the sedan was a black truck.
He pulled up near the front stoop and turned off the engine. It wasn’t polite to stomp up to the house and bang on the front door. If Ruth was up to having a visitor, she would open the door and wave. She would have heard the Toyota pickup coming down the road, rattling across the yard. The engine cutting off. He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel in rhythm to “Un tal gioco,” giving her time to decide. The CD player on the seat beside him had a tinny sound, and for a moment he let himself imagine attending an opera again, the orchestra and the voices swelling around him, the sweep of the costumes and settings, the drama and heartbreak, the elegant opera house in Central City, a survivor of the past. The tickets were on his desk. He had looked at them this morning, then laid them back down.
The front door remained closed, the window shades pulled down halfway. A sense of abandonment lay about the place. And yet, Ruth’s car was here. A truck was here. He wondered if the sheriff had released Robert’s truck. A sense of alarm surged through him. You never knew what someone might do in the midst of grief. He got out and slammed the door hard so that, if by chance Ruth hadn’t heard him drive up, she would know a visitor had arrived. He was on the stoop, rapping at the door, when a man emerged around the corner of the house. Slightly stooped into medium height, slim, a warrior look about him in cowboy hat, yellow Western shirt, blue jeans, and the kind of boots with toes turned up that had been worn a long time.
“Is Ruth here?” Father John stepped off the stoop. Arapaho, high cheekbones and hooked nose, dark eyes that took him in. A pockmarked face. He had been here the day Robert’s body had been found. One of the relatives bringing casseroles, cakes and lemonade, and hope. The man had led them to the backyard and set up the lawn chairs.
“Dallas Spotted Deer.” The man lunged forward and extended his hand. A single shake, that was the Arapaho Way. “Hou!” he said.
Father John had seen the man at get-togethers and powwows. Never at the mission, but some of the Walking Bears were traditionals, he knew. They worshipped at the Native American church. A few of his parishioners also worshipped there, he knew. Prayer was good, wherever you prayed.
“I been waiting for Ruth out back,” Dallas said. “Figured she and Vicky . . .”
“Vicky?” Of course Vicky would be here to make sure Ruth was okay.
“Saw them out on the road in Vicky’s car. Figured they were going to stop at the convenience store in Ethete. I been here most of an hour, and no sign of them.”
Father John knew instantly where they had gone, as if Vicky and Ruth had left a note tacked on the door. Gone to the lake. Gone to see the place where Robert died.
“I guess she’s all right, if she’s with Vicky.”
“She’s all right.”
“All the same, I worry. Robert was one of the relatives, you know, so I got an obligation to see that his wife is okay.”
“It’s good of you.”
Dallas said something about Robert being the son of his stepfather’s cousin, and Father John realized he was explaining the relationship. “Not what you’d call close in the white world, but in the Arapaho . . .” He paused and looked away a moment. “Relatives matter.” He looked back. “I hope they didn’t go to the lake. She wanted to go, and I said, no way would that be good for her. She’d have the place burned into her mind the rest of her life. You think Vicky . . . ?” He left the question hanging.
“It’s possible.”
“I’m hanging around, in case Ruth needs to talk. You know what the head doctors say, process what she seen.” He took another moment, jaw muscles flinching, words working on his tongue. “I just wish I’d gone with Robert. He had a crazy idea he was going to find Butch Cassidy’s loot. I went a couple times with him and Cutter, but it was too weird for me. Robert had a copy of this old map he said he got from our grandfather. Passed down by Butch himself. You ask me, he bought it in one of them tourist shops in Lander. Everybody’s trying to make a few bucks off the past.” He was shaking his head. “I got me a good job at the BIA and I can’t take off for a whole day. So Robert went up there alone.”
“How could you have prevented what happened?”
“Ruth says it was an accident. Couldn’t’ve been anything else, despite the fed going around and asking questions.” He shook his head as if the investigation were an annoying inconvenience. “I can’t get it out of my mind . . .”
“You mustn’t blame yourself.” Dallas Spotted Deer, Father John was thinking, would wait here until Ruth returned. They both needed to process what had happened.
“If I can ever be of help . . .”
“Yeah. Yeah.” The man waved away the offer.
“Tell Ruth I’ll stop by later.”
“You do that, Father. Do her good.”
* * *
HE DROVE FROM Arapahoe to Ethete, a few other vehicles coming at him out of the dust. Past little houses with white propane tanks and two-seat pickups and a smattering of plastic toys in the yards, laundry flapping on the lines. He turned up the volume on the CD player, and the music rose over the sound of the wind that rushed past the open windows. He tried not to think of Vicky. Still she lingered at the edges of his mind. Months would pass when he didn’t see her. No one who needed their help—the lawyer, the priest—and he could almost forget about her. And then Robert Walking Bear died, and there she was in Ruth’s living room. Old friends of hers, Ruth and Robert, from their days at St. Francis Mission School, ties that bind, the past that never lets go.
The hood was up on a tan pickup as Father John pulled into the yard in front of Eldon Lone Bear’s place. Lawrence, the old man’s grandson, lifted himself out from under the hood and squinted into the sun a moment before he came around the pickup, rubbing a black-splashed rag between his hands. A smile as wide as the outdoors creased his face. “Grandfather’s been hoping you’d drop by ever since Elsa said she talked to you this morning.”
“How is he?” One of his grandkids was always with the old man, he knew. Arapahos never abandoned the elders. Carried them on their backs in the Old Time, running from the soldiers and the guns that shot fire.
“For eighty-five years old, I’d say Grandfather is doing good. Complains about that ghost leg, but other than that . . .” He was still smiling. “Come on in. You like coffee? Sandwich? I think Elsa made a cake.”
“Coffee sounds good.” Father John followed the man up the steps and into the small living room. They always wanted to feed you, the Arapahos. It had taken some getting used to. He sometimes thought he would drown in all the coffee they poured for him. No one left an Arapaho village hungry in the Old Time. Visitors were sent off onto the plains with full bellies, because no one knew when they might eat again.
Eldon Lone Bear sat in a wheelchair in front of a small TV that stood on a chest against the far wall. Father John recognized Bette Davis and Glenn Ford. He wondered if Eldon’s grandkids had heard of either actor.
“Hey, Father.” The old man wheeled himself around in a couple of smooth strokes and tossed a glance over his shoulder at the TV. “I like the oldies,” he said. “This is called A Stolen Life. Sit down. Take a load off.”
“How are you, Grandfather?” He grasped Eldon’s hand. The palm was weathered and roughened, like the old man’s face, the residue of years in the outdoors, working horses, herding cattle, fixing fences. Then he pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat down. The sound of Bette Davis’s voice purred between them.
Lawrence came back into the living room with two mugs of coffee, which he sat on a side table close to Eldon. He picked up a remote and turned off the TV. The sound of Bette Davis’s voice faded like a wind blowing through. “Poured in a little milk like you like,” he said. More than ten years on the rez now, Father John was thinking. People knew his habits. Peculiarities. Like family.
Then came five, ten minutes of pleasantries. The weather. Powwow season. Rodeos. Tourists on the rez, taking pictures, as if they had found themselves in a foreign country. Finally, a gradual move into more serious matters: The ghost leg giving him fits. Hurting all the time, and not even there anymore. From the past. He’d like to shoot it. Then he said, “Elsa tells me there was trouble at the mission over that Butch Cassidy film. Red Bull!” He made a hrrumph sound. “Hot head. From a long line of hot heads. I heard stories all my life of how the chiefs had to keep an eye on the Red Bulls or they would ride off, kill a rancher, steal the cattle, fire on troops, and lead them to the village. Get everybody killed.”
“He believes the film will bring people here looking for Butch Cassidy’s buried loot.”
“Nobody’s gonna find it.” Eldon smiled and shook his head. “Folks have been digging holes in the mountains for a hundred years, and nobody’s found it yet. My own relatives take it into their heads to go on treasure hunts every once in a while. We got a whole slew of maps. Maybe one of ’em came from my grandfather, Lone Bear, but Grandfather never said anything to me about a map.” He gave a slow, thoughtful shrug. “Lone Bear and George was good friends. Went by the name of George Cassidy then, so he wouldn’t bring shame to his family in Utah. Good Mormon people, last name Parker. His real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. I heard stories of how his mother grieved herself to death over her son taking to the outlaw trail. Always talked about going straight, my grandfather said. George took a stab at ranching for a couple of years, got to know everybody in these parts. Folks needed help building a barn, rounding up cattle, George would show up. Real neighborly like. White ranchers and Arapahos, didn’t matter none to George. All people, trying to get on, he told Lone Bear. Later, after his partner framed him for stealing a horse and he served time down in Laramie, George hit the outlaw trail again. Robbed banks. Took to robbing trains. Now that took a lot of guts.”
Eldon was nodding, an expectant look on his face. Father John agreed. A lot of guts.
“Always got away. They never caught Cassidy. You know why? Story I heard, he was a planner. The gang would switch to the fresh horses, grab fresh supplies, and keep riding, and the posses had to give up. Cassidy had friends on the rez, so he’d ride here. Nobody called the sheriff or the tribal cops. The people protected him, because he was a local. Gave folks money to keep the banks off their land. I think he had a fine old time giving folks bank money to pay off the banks. He showed up at Lone Bear’s camp on the Wind River after a couple jobs. Spent a week or so helping with the horses and cattle. Made himself useful, like he was ranching again, going straight. Sometimes brought along one or two gang members. Suspicious characters, always watching the prairie. Never far from their guns. George told them to relax. Nobody was coming to an Indian camp on the rez looking for white men. Pretty soon the day came when they packed their saddlebags and rode off.”
“What about leaving behind buried treasure?”
Eldon leaned forward, rubbing at the air above his missing leg, as if he could rub away the pain. “Robbing trains is where they made the big hauls. If he left behind any treasure, it was after robbing a train.”
Father John took a moment before he said, “Robert Walking Bear was hunting for treasure when he died. Ruth says he had a map he’d gotten from his grandfather.”
“Luther Walking Bear.”
“Is it possible Cassidy hid out with one of his ancestors and left behind a map?”
Eldon gave a shout of laughter. “Walking Bears never owned any land, never wanted a place of their own. Liked roaming around, working on different ranches. Always wanted to be free to come and go, like in the Old Time.” He paused, his gaze on some faraway point. “I heard George hid out one time at Jesse Lyons’s place after robbing a train. I figure he was checking on Mary Boyd, Jesse’s wife. Half-breed from the rez, a real beauty and lots of gumption, and George was sweet on her. Courted her when he was ranching up around Dubois. After he went to prison, she married Jesse. Settled down on a piece of land south of Lander.”
“Did they have children?”
The old man shook his head. “Before she married Jesse, Mary had a daughter. Gave the girl to Gray Hair to bring up on the rez like an Arapaho. I hear descendants live around here somewhere.” He went quiet for a moment. One hand moved over the empty space below his right knee. “There’s stories about how the baby was George’s, but Mary kept it secret. Didn’t even tell him when he came back thirty years later.”
“I’ve heard that he came back, but it’s possible that he and the Sundance Kid were killed in Bolivia by the militia.”
Eldon laughed. “Can’t believe everything you read in history books. He came back, all right. Several times in the ’20s and ’30s. About 1934, he was here visiting old friends. Went on a camping trip looking for the loot he’d buried in the mountains. Looked up Mary and she went along. Oh, he never forgot her.” He took a long moment, staring into the center of the living room, rearranging memories, Father John thought. “You know,” he said finally, “there’s a hundred maps on the rez. Everybody says his ancestor got a map from Butch Cassidy himself, when what they do is go buy a map in town. You ask me, if Butch gave a map to anybody, it would’ve been Mary. So she’d have something if she needed it.”
The old man looked tired, his eyelids at half-mast. Father John got to his feet, thanked him, and said he’d be back soon. He started for the door, aware of footsteps behind him. On the stoop, he turned to Lawrence. “I forgot to ask if he’d be willing to talk to the film director about Cassidy visiting Lone Bear’s camp.”
“I’ll ask him after his nap,” Lawrence said. “I’ll get back to you.”