Ghost Dance (17 page)

Barrett looked up. ‘Does she mention any relatives?’

Andie said, ‘A mother. Painted Horses.’

Barrett thought, shrugged, sniffed and typed the name. The computer came back ‘No matches found.’

‘She mentioned a man named Ten Trees,’ Gallagher said.

The professor’s mouth curled up in a sly grin. ‘I know Ten Trees.’ He tapped out the name on the computer, hit Enter, and immediately a file filled the screen. The brief biography identified Ten Trees as a prominent Sioux shaman who fought alongside Crazy Horse during the War for the Black Hills. After Crazy Horse’s death, Ten Trees joined Sitting Bull in exile in Canada, only to the of pneumonia. No mention was made of Many Horses, but at the end of the article there was a cross-referencing code of letters and numbers separated by semicolons.

‘Photo ten three six oh four,’ Gallagher read out loud. ‘You have pictures of Ten Trees?’

Barrett got an odd look on his face. ‘I’ve never seen one, but that’s what it means,’ he said. He highlighted the code and hit Enter.

There was a beep and then there flashed on the computer a sepia-toned photograph of a powerfully built man, a woman and a young child in front of a tepee. The man stared into the camera with defiant, almond-shaped eyes. He had a broad, flaring nose and his hair was long and loose, except for a plait gathered in rawhide and decorated with a single feather that hung at the breast of a collarless, flowing denim shirt.

The woman was hauntingly beautiful, almost as tall as the man, with her hair in two dark braids and her neck surrounded by a high choker crafted of quills. A plaid shawl around her shoulders matched the skirt she wore. But it was the girl at the woman’s side who almost caused Gallagher’s knees to buckle.

No more than five, she had her mother’s soft, round cheeks and her father’s deeply set, almost Asian eyes, which looked shyly up at the camera and out through more than a hundred years in a way that made his head spin.

‘Where did that picture come from?’ Gallagher demanded shakily.

Barrett scrolled down to the bottom of the picture. Ten Trees and family; Mary Parker family genealogy and photographic collection, Rapid City Historical Society, Rapid City, South Dakota.’

‘She said Mary Parker was her teacher at the mission school at Standing Rock!’ Andie crowed. ‘That girl has to be Many Horses!’

Gallagher’s head spun faster and he thought he might faint. It was impossible but true: the little girl had the young face of the woman in his dream.

‘Are you all right, Pat?’ Andie asked.

‘I’m feeling faint,’ he said. ‘My legs.’

They got Gallagher to a chair where he sat in numb shock Barrett did several more searches, all of which confirmed that Mary Parker had been a Catholic missionary teacher on the reservation for ten years, beginning in 1880. Then he downloaded the photograph and printed it out. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help,’ he said, handing Andie the picture.

‘You’ve been of more help than you know,’ she replied. ‘Pat, I think I know how we can track down the rest of Many Horses’ journal!’

‘W
HY THE CHURCH?’ GALLAGHER
asked, hobbling out of the truck two hours later. They were parked in the lot across the street from St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Lawton. Pigeons flushed from the belfry on a chill, damp wind that blew hard out of the northeast. A ragged vent of powder-blue sky opened, then shut in the storm canopy.

‘The crucifixes,’ Andie said. ‘If the bundles all contained a crucifix, men I’ve got to believe that the people who hold them are like my mother and Olga, descended from Catholics who lived here in Lawton at the turn of the century. If Professor Barrett can find Miss Mary Parker in old documents, maybe we can find the other holders in the church records.’

Gallagher nodded. But his mind was lurching about, which it had done repeatedly since they left Barrett’s office. How was it possible that the girl in the photo archive matched the one in his dream? Gallagher’s skin itched as if he had been invaded somehow.

Lost in these troubling thoughts, Gallagher crutched his way out into the street. A cherry-red, jacked-up Ford F-350 with mud tires and a rack of overhead spotlights sped toward him. Andie jerked Gallagher back. The truck fender brushed the crease in his pants. Gallagher caught a glimpse of the driver. Bernie Chittenden, the dour owner of Lawton’s general store, threw him a hatchet stare as he passed. He speeded up, then squealed tires around the corner and was gone.

‘Hey!’ Andie cried.

Almost immediately, a blue Chevy Suburban turned onto Whelton Lane. Chief Mike Kerris slowed to a stop and rolled down his window. He was alone. There were two bait-casting rods in the back seat. He popped a grape lollipop from his mouth and flashed a shark’s grin.

‘Your cousin just tried to run us over!’ Andie shouted.

‘Which cousin?’ Kerris replied laconically. ‘I got a lot of them.’

‘Bernie Chittenden.’

‘Bernie?’ Kerris laughed and pushed back the baseball cap on his head. ‘No way. Bernie’s weird, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Christ, he doesn’t even hunt.’

‘I’m telling you, he almost hit Pat.’

‘Pat?’ Kerris smirked knowingly. ‘Did Bernie hit you, Pat?’

‘Just missed.’

‘Well, then,’ Kerris said dismissively. ‘But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll go have a talk with the Bemster. By the way, how goes the mental-health vacation, Andie?’

Andie’s body went rigid. Her fingernails dug into her palms. ‘Keeping busy.’

The chief’s grin disappeared. ‘Not in my town, I hope. Not while you’re on leave.’

‘I’m a citizen, too, Mike,’ she said evenly. ‘By law I should be able to walk the streets without fear of someone running me over. By law I should be able to talk to whomever I want to.’

Kerris’ eyes went half lidded. A candied, purple tongue flickered at his lips. ‘You go sticking your, nose into official business when you’ve got no official business and I’ll arrest you, Andie, obstruction of justice.’

‘Justice!’ Andie scoffed. ‘You don’t even understand the concept.’

The chief stared at her with a sudden hatred that surprised Gallagher in its depth. ‘I spent seven years paying. What more do you want, Andie? My skin?’

‘Isn’t that what I lost?’ she seethed.

Kerris threw the Suburban in gear, but held his foot on the brake pedal. ‘That is over, Andie,’ he said. ‘Forgotten around here by everyone but you!’

With that he released the pedal and burned rubber speeding away.

Gallagher shook his head, bewildered. ‘You want to tell me what that was all about?’

‘No,’ Andie said icily.

She marched across the street and up the stairs to the rectory. By the time Gallagher got up on the porch, the door was opening and Libby Curtin had poked her head out. Her wooden cross dangled over a simple white fleece pullover. Libby saw Gallagher first. Her granny glasses slipped off her nose and she caught them. ‘Mr Gallagher, the monsignor said to say if you came again that we can’t help you.’

‘It’s not about Father D’Angelo,’ Andie said. ‘We’d like to review some parish records from the 1890s.’

Curtin’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Eighteen-nineties?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh, Lord,’ she said.

With that the parish secretary scurried down the hallway, her cork-bed sandals scuffing on the blue Oriental rug. Andie and Gallagher followed her straight into McColl’s office, where the giant priest was already rising behind his desk

‘Andie Nightingale!’ he boomed. ‘Haven’t seen you on Sundays in quite a while.’

Andie shifted awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry, Monsignor, I’ve been busy.’

He rubbed his massive hands together. Then he saw Gallagher and his exuberance cooled. ‘The bishop already gave you his response. You don’t think bringing the police in on your side’s going to change things, do you?’

Gallagher repositioned the crutches under his arms. ‘No, Monsignor. I get the feeling you’re not easily swayed by secular authorities of any kind.’

McColl’s jaw set hard at that crack but he gestured to them to sit, asking, ‘Is your request to see the records from the 1890s official or unofficial, Andie? And what might your role be in this, Mr Gallagher?’

‘Something wrong, Monsignor?’ Andie replied.

‘Answer my question, I’ll answer yours.’

‘Right now it’s unofficial,’ Andie said. ‘Pat has taken an interest in my project. We’re sort of working together.’

‘On?’

‘I’d rather not say. Why the concern?’

The priest drummed his fingers on the desktop. ‘Because many of the original records from that decade, and indeed from the forty years prior, were stolen.’

A few minutes later a very worried Libby Curtin played with the wooden crucifix around her neck and in a stammering cadence said that back in mid-March she’d received a phone call from a man who told her he was doing genealogical research. He thought his maternal great-great-grandmother was from out Lawton way and he wanted to know about the condition of the parish’s baptismal and death records for the years 1865 to 1895.

Libby said the records were in excellent condition and offered to look through them herself, but the man said he liked examining the documents firsthand and would be out sometime soon to have a look. In the meantime, Libby went on her honeymoon.

At that point, McColl chimed in to say that during her absence he had traveled to a conference in Boston. When he returned, someone had jimmied the lock to the back porch and taken five hundred dollars, a silver Eucharist plate and the records.

‘And damaged the painting of Father D’Angelo?’ Gallagher asked.

‘Yes, that too,’ Monsignor McColl replied. His face flushed. He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped at his sweating brow. Then he reached for a bottle of antacid pills and swallowed two. ‘I’m sorry. This stomach thing won’t quit. And I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.’

In the outer office, a phone rang. Libby Curtin quietly opened the door and slipped out.

‘Monsignor,’ Andie said, ‘in your research into Father D’Angelo, did you ever come across mention of an Indian woman, a Sioux?’

‘No,’ he said immediately. His face flushed again, redder this time.

‘Her name, we believe, was Sarah,’ Gallagher said, watching McColl closely. ‘Sarah Many Horses.’

‘No, no,’ the priest said, shaking his head vigorously. He made as if to get up and then thought better of it. ‘I would remember that name. A Sioux, you say? How in God’s name did a Sioux get to Vermont?’

‘That’s what we’re trying to figure out,’ Andie said.

The monsignor hesitated. ‘So that’s why you wanted to review the baptismal certificates?’

‘Yes.’

The priest forced a chuckle. ‘Well, I can tell you there are no Sioux in our records here.’

‘We weren’t expecting to find her in the records,’ Andie replied. ‘Just people who might have known her.’

He crossed his beefy arms. ‘What’s this all about?’

‘Let’s say I suspect this Sarah, the Sioux woman, was murdered in Lawton a hundred years ago.’

‘A hundred years ago?!’ Monsignor McColl cried ‘No offense, Andie, but is this the best spending of the taxpayers’ money?’

‘It is if it’s connected to the two murders here, as I believe it is.’

‘The two murders?’

‘Hank Potter,’ Gallagher said. ‘And Olga Dawson.’

‘Olga Dawson?’ he repeated slowly, rolling the words meekly in his mouth. He was staring out at the birdbath in the garden. ‘No one told me she’d been murdered. I’m to say her memorial service tomorrow.’

‘Maybe you can help us,’ Andie said.

He patted his forehead with the handkerchief again and turned away from the window. ‘Yes, yes, of course, anything, Andie.’

Libby Curtin quietly reentered the room and shut the door behind her.

Gallagher said, ‘We want to put together a list of parishioners who would have been active at St Edward’s in 1894.’

The priest sat silent for a moment, his jaw moving as if he were chewing or talking to himself. Then he leaned back in his chair. ‘I’m afraid those certificates were your best bet.’

‘Dead end?’ Andie asked.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Monsignor?’ the secretary said.

‘Yes, yes, what is it, Libby?’

‘I’m sorry, Monsignor, but if it’s old lists of parishioners they’re after, I know where to find them.’

A
FINE MIST FELL
when Gallagher and Andie drove past the village of Cartersburg in south-central Vermont three days later.

‘McColl’s hiding something,’ Gallagher said.

‘That’s at least the twenty-fifth time you’ve said that since we left his office,’ Andie replied sourly. ‘I say he looked like a man who can’t kick a stomach flu.’

‘I’m just telling you what I saw.’

‘I heard you the first time. We decided to focus on finding the journal holders, remember?’

There had been a significant cooling between them in the past few days. After leaving the rectory, Gallagher had made the mistake of bringing up Chief Kerris again. Ever since then, their interaction had been strained. A voice inside Gallagher told him to withdraw his help and focus on Father D’Angelo. But then the memory of his dream of Many Horses would reappear, and instantly the thought of quitting would be discarded.

‘That must be Nyren’s driveway up there on the right,’ Gallagher said, looking at the manila folder and the map on his lap.

According to the records the driveway belonged to David Nyren, the head librarian in Cartersburg. Nyren was the sole living descendant of Martha and Paul Nyren, who in turn were descended by matrilineal lines from Arthur Webb, a St. Edward’s parishioner and former first constable of the town of Lawton in the 1890s.

Libby Curtin had described a file at the Lawton Historical Society that included rosters of the Knights of Columbus and the St. Edward’s parish going back one hundred and twenty-five years. Those lists yielded thirty-two names. It had taken them two days to track forward eighteen of the thirty-two, using state and local birth and death records as well as the Internet and CD-ROM telephone directories to identify a possible hundred and seventy-six descendants, sixty-seven of whom were living in Vermont. Before spending another two days tracking forward the remaining fourteen names, Andie and Gallagher had decided to take a look at as many of the known descendants as possible.