Ghost Dance (9 page)

‘Nonsense. You’ll have some pie. And some Earl Grey tea.’

With that the old woman bustled out of the living room toward the kitchen. Nightingale got up and followed her, frowning. Olga was getting worse with every visit, more forgetful, more unsure of herself. Even the oft-told stories of her childhood with Nightingale’s mother were beginning to come out twisted. The speech pathologist whom Nightingale took Olga to see once a week said the strokes had caused a mild form of dementia. Nightingale took a chair at the kitchen table and watched the old woman for other signs of deterioration.

Olga deftly cut a slice of apple pie and put it on a plate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She placed the plate and a cup of steaming tea in front of Nightingale. After loading another log in the woodstove, she crossed to the kitchen window and peered out past the oak toward the old dairy barn. Daffodil shoots peeked through the sprouting grass along a path that led through towering lavender bushes just showing buds.

‘Craziest spring I ever saw, and I’ve seen a lot of Vermont springs,’ Olga said. ‘Do you think the bears have left their dens?’

‘Probably a month or more now,’ Nightingale replied. She was not surprised by the question. The old woman had always been keenly interested in bears.

Olga touched her chin. A simple enough act, but the old woman made it a gesture of confusion. ‘Indians thought bears were sacred animals,’ she said. ‘Did you know that?’

‘I think I read that somewhere,’ Nightingale replied, paying only half attention. She focused on the taste of the pie, puzzled. The crust was vintage Olga, but the old woman had neglected to add nutmeg, cinnamon or sugar.

‘Olga, I’m going to arrange for you to see the speech therapist tomorrow morning.’

Olga turned and brought her head close to a calendar hanging above the sink. ‘But my appointment’s not till Thursday.’

‘I know. Still I’d like her to talk to you … about the forgetfulness.’

Olga nodded glumly. ‘If you say so, dear.’

Nightingale managed to force down the last of the pie by smothering it in the ice cream, then announced, ‘I’ve got to go now. You’ll be all right?’

‘It will take more than a cold snap to do this old bird in!’ Olga responded brightly. But in the next instant her expression fell. She wrung her hands while Nightingale donned a down vest and a green rain jacket and reached for her pocketbook. Olga rushed over and grabbed both her wrists with unexpected vigor. The tic in the old woman’s cheek bulged and relaxed nonstop. Her hands were surprisingly strong.

‘Secrets are hard things to keep,’ Olga said haltingly and with great effort. She paused as if trying to decide where that thought had come from, then added, ‘Sometimes keeping secrets is the bravest thing we can do.’

Olga’s focus became unscrewed. ‘I think bears would keep their secrets in caves, don’t you?’

The light through the kitchen window cast shadows across the old woman’s face.

‘You’re right,’ Nightingale said. ‘A cave is where bears would hide secrets. But right now, dear, I’ve got to go back to work.’

Olga’s grip grew tighter. ‘I wanted … I wanted to tell you something, but I can’t … remember …’

‘It’s going to have to wait until tomorrow.’ Nightingale gently pried herself free of Olga’s grip. ‘I’ll be here at eleven to take you to therapy.’

The old woman looked as if she might begin crying again, but kept control. ‘Come early,’ she pleaded. ‘That bear’s been around the house again and I know I have something to tell you, something to give you. I’ll … I’ll remember by then.’

‘I know you will,’ Nightingale soothed. ‘I’ll call the speech pathologist to reschedule as soon as I get to the office. No smoking in bed, you hear?’

Olga’s confused expression turned to a lucid smile.

‘No, dear, only in my rocker with my ashtray on my lap.’

Nightingale pecked her on the cheek and went out the door. The engine to her pickup whined long and hard. The truck had more than one hundred and fifty thousand miles on it. Her mechanic had warned her the starting motor was going, but she hadn’t had time to have it fixed. Finally the engine caught and she shifted the vehicle into reverse. As Nightingale passed the door to the kitchen, she slowed and waved at the old woman, who was waving back as if she were a little girl waving to the bears in a circus parade.

T
HE TOMBSTONE WAS A
rose marble oblong set flush with the surface of a grass knoll in the far northeast corner of the walled garden behind St Edward’s rectory.

FATHER VICTOR D’ANGELO, MARCH
18, 1859—
NOVEMBER
30, 1918
MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON YOUR SERVANT’S IMMORTAL SOUL

Gallagher broke a sweat just standing there looking at the grave and tried to diffuse his anxiety by making a snide comment: ‘Not much confidence in sainthood there.’

‘It’s a fairly typical epigraph for the time,’ Monsignor McColl retorted. ‘Certainly not something that Rome would take into consideration.’

The priest shivered, then zipped his windbreaker up around his bull neck. They walked back toward the rectory down a red clay path bordered by six-foot brick walls and mature spruces.

‘What will they take into consideration?’ Gallagher asked. ‘What I need right how are the high points of Father D’Angelo’s story. We can get the details later on camera.’

Monsignor McColl stopped in front of a tulip tree, legs spread, hands behind his back as a drill sergeant might stand addressing a recruit. The buds on the tulip tree had been ready to flower before the cold, rainy snap. The lips of the brown cones were split at the tips, showing hangnails of red, suspended between winter and spring.

‘Father D’Angelo was born in Calabria, Italy, in 1859, the second son of a master stonecutter and devout Catholic, who immigrated to the United States when Victor was five,’ Monsignor McColl began. ‘His father worked in the marble quarries over in Proctor, Vermont. And we know from the little writings left from that period that he urged the boy to pursue a life of God. Victor entered the seminary at age seventeen and was ordained at twenty-four.

‘He served parishes in Bellows Falls and Arlington before moving north to Lawton in 1891,’ the priest went on. ‘According to letters he sent his parents, the town and the parish suited him. He remained here until his death in 1918. He saw the good and the dark times here.’

‘Dark times?’

‘Lawton was a thriving community when Father D’Angelo arrived,’ Monsignor McColl replied, moving one shoulder in the direction of town. ‘There were textile mills along the river. A railroad spur helped the factories move their goods south. There was a thriving farming community outside town, too. But shortly after the turn of the century, Lawton’s economy collapsed. The mills shut. The railroad decided the spur wasn’t worth the upkeep. It was a pretty squalid place when I grew up here. Of course, that’s all changed with the revival Mayor Powell has so masterfully led.

‘Anyway, despite the financial setbacks, Father D’Angelo made St Edward’s a vibrant parish,’ the priest continued in his booming taskmaster’s voice. ‘He organized charities for the poor, built the Catholic school in 1897 and the church itself in 1906. All admirable efforts in and of themselves …’

‘But not exactly the stuff of saints.’

‘No,’ Monsignor McColl agreed. He turned and began to walk down the path toward the rectory again. ‘But that all changed in 1909. The record shows he became increasingly charismatic in the Christian sense. He spoke in tongues. Which, in all honesty, raised quite a few eyebrows in the bishop’s office in Burlington. But he survived two inquiries.’

‘Inquiries into what?’ Gallagher stopped within a few feet of the birdbath, studying the little carved horses.

‘Inquiries into his laying on of hands,’ the priest said. His paw closed around Gallagher’s elbow and guided him away, toward the rectory. ‘Some people thought he was insane. But throughout time, man has not understood that the mystical experience and the crack-up are very close experiences. The man who cracks up is drowning in the water in which the mystic swims.’

‘He was a faith healer? A Catholic faith healer?’ Gallagher asked.

Monsignor McColl nodded. ‘There are unsubstantiated stories, going back as far as 1908, of Father D’Angelo praying over the dying in silent invocation and having them revive. But it wasn’t until the Spanish influenza epidemic of 1917 and 1918 that we find actual witnesses to the miracles. By my reckoning, he saved fourteen.’

‘You’ve got eyewitnesses to miracles?’ Gallagher said incredulously.

‘Seven,’ the priest said ‘One of them was my own father. He saw his sister, Anna, saved.’

His face seemed a sunrise at the memory. ‘Saving my aunt Anna was Father D’Angelo’s last act on this earth. He died in my father’s arms. That story made me want to be a priest like Father D’Angelo. Indeed, the more I learn about him, and I’ve learned quite a lot in the last year or so, the more I become convinced that Father D’Angelo was a conduit of God’s supernatural gifts.’

‘Is that the definition of a saint, that they exhibit supernatural powers?’

‘Miracles are evidence of it,’ Monsignor McColl said. He was looking back in the direction of D’Angelo’s gravestone now with a rapturous expression.

‘How does one become a saint?’ Gallagher asked, already knowing the answer from the information Jerry had dug up, but wanting to hear the priest’s explanation.

The priest sketched, in broad strokes, the steps D’Angelo’s cause would take. First Monsignor McColl would have to finish preparing the case file and then forward the materials to the local bishop for approval. After a cursory review in the bishop’s office, the case file would be sent to the Vatican, where it would receive meticulous scrutiny from the office of the Devil’s Advocate and the Congregation of Saints. Once Rome accepted and approved the documents, D’Angelo would be considered ‘venerable.’

‘Beatification follows veneration,’ Monsignor McColl went on. ‘To be deemed among the ‘blessed,’ the Congregation more intensely examines the life, virtues, reputation for holiness, ministry and writings of the person. Proof of a single miracle is required for beatification, usually a physical healing that is scientifically inexplicable, indicating that natural laws have been lifted through the intercession of the person considered for sainthood. To advance the person’s cause beyond the blessed to sainthood, a second miracle is usually required, but not necessary.

‘The entire process can take a hundred years or more,’ he concluded.

‘And what exactly does sainthood mean to the church?’ Gallagher asked, scribbling as much of this down as he could in a reporter’s notebook.

‘Upon canonization, the Pope declares, among other things, that the person is in heaven with Jesus. That means the saint can be prayed to and his relics honored.’

‘Relics?’ Gallagher said, scratching at his brow with the butt of the pen. ‘You mean like bones?’

‘Yes, like bones,’ Monsignor McColl said. There was a vague strain now in his voice. The relics are usually moved to a place of distinction below an altar at a church bearing the saint’s name. It is my fervent wish that someday his relics would be moved to a new church named after Saint D’Angelo of Lawton.’

The church bell bonged the half hour. The priest said brusquely, ‘I’ll have to go now. I have midday mass to say.’

‘No problem,’ Gallagher replied. ‘How can I get in touch with the witnesses to the miracles?’

The priest’s face clouded. ‘You can’t,’ he said ‘My father was the last. He died two years ago.’

‘But you must have written accounts of what they saw and pictures of them I might be able to use.’

Monsignor McColl’s expression hardened further. ‘I have notes, but I have not yet composed the narratives. Those won’t be ready for a year at least. I told you, sainthood is a long, long process.’

‘Can I look at your notes and the interview transcripts?’

‘No!’ he fumed. ‘Absolutely not, not without the permission of the bishop.’

‘I thought we had a deal you’d help me as long as I was assisting the cause.’

‘I didn’t realize what you were interested in looking at,’ the priest replied icily. ‘I’m still gathering the preliminary materials that have to be sent to Rome. What I have is unorganized. You going through the documents … would be premature.’

‘But I could ask the bishop for his permission?’

Monsignor McColl seemed to fight for control of his voice. ‘You could, but I’ll recommend he not grant it. My opinion on the subject carries a lot of weight.’

‘I’ll ask anyway, then get back to you,’ Gallagher said blithely before reaching out to shake the priest’s hand. A moment of unmasked anger flashed through McColl. He turned and stomped away through the garden.

T
HE AFTERNOON AND EVENING
after Gallagher’s strange interview with Monsignor McColl passed uneventfully. The bishop’s office had said they would side with the Lawton priest about access to the files on Father D’Angelo.

Frustrated, Gallagher fished the evening rise downstream of the cabin because he could not imagine again entering the pool where he’d pulled Hank Potter to the surface. The cold air hanging over the central Green Mountains was preventing the insects from hatching and he had to be content to use nymph patterns rather than dry fly.

After dark Gallagher had stumbled to bed without dinner and dreamed of Emily Beckworth.

They became lovers on the fourteenth day of their journey through the jungles of India. They had traveled by boat, bus and train far into the interior and were heading north of Dinajpur, looking for an ancient Hindu Tantric temple ruin Emily had heard rumors of but had not been able to find while researching her book.

There were eight in the film crew, including Emily and Gallagher. And after six days of fruitless searching they were ready to give up and head back toward the Ganges. Jerry had already left to search for new locations. The remaining crew slept in thatched-roofed huts at the edge of the jungle. One hot, muggy night Gallagher suffered insomnia and rose an hour before dawn to walk toward the forest. There was a small stream exiting the jungle and he had sat on its banks listening to monkeys bark in the distance.