“You’ve had visions before?” Cork asked.
The old man looked peeved. “I’m a spirit walker.”
“I had a vision, too,” Stephen said.
The old man’s eyebrows lifted. “That so?”
“I saw my mother disappear behind a door in a wall, grandfather.”
“You sound like a nahita but you speak with respect.”
“Nahita?”
“A white,” Rude said.
“I’m white and I’m Anishinaabe, grandfather.”
“Anishinaabe?”
“Ojibwe, grandfather.”
“Mixed blood.” The old man shrugged as if it wasn’t important. He finished his beer and reached for a second. “Ojibwe. That what the whites call you?”
“Or Chippewa,” Stephen said.
“They call us Arapaho. Hell, that’s the name the Crow give us. We are Inunaina. Means ‘Our People.’ ”
“Inunaina.” Stephen tried the word.
“That’s good, boy. What did you say your name was?”
“Stephen O’Connor.”
“O’Connor. My great-grandfather was Cracks the Sky. The first agent this reservation had couldn’t pronounce our Arapaho names so he give us names he could. Changed my grandfather’s name to Pope. Not like the one in Italy. Some damned poet. Some folks got luckier. Ellyn Grant’s people got named after a president.”
“Would you tell us your vision, grandfather?” Cork said.
The old man took a long draw on his beer. “I seen an eagle come out of a cloud. Not like any eagle I ever seen before. Wings spread, all stiff, like it was frozen. It circled and glided into something looked like a bed only with sides to it.”
“Like a cradle?” Rude said.
“Don’t put words in my mouth, boy.”
“I’m sorry, Will,” Rude said.
“Go on, grandfather,” Cork said.
“It landed and a white blanket floated down and covered it. That’s pretty much it. Except that as it faded away, I heard a scream.”
“From the eagle?” Stephen asked.
“No.” He turned his face in the direction from which Stephen’s voice had come. “Truth is, Stephen, it sounded to me like a woman.”
“Grandfather,” Stephen said cautiously, “do you have a feeling about my mother?”
The old man looked toward him with those eyes that no longer saw the light. He was quiet a long time. “Some people think of death like a hungry wolf, Stephen, and they’re afraid of it. Me, I think death is just walkin’ through a door and we go on livin’ on the other side, livin’ better, livin’ in the true way, just waitin’ for those we love to join us there. I got no feelin’ about your mother, but I think you shouldn’t be afraid. We all walk through that door someday. You understand what I’m sayin’?”
Stephen looked disappointed, but he said, “Yes.”
The old man drank his beer and stared ahead at nothing.
“Anything else?” Rude said to Cork.
“No. That does it, I think. Thank you for your time, grandfather. Migwech. ”
“Migwech?”
“In the language of the Anishinaabe people, it means ‘thank you.’ ”
The old man held up his beer. “ Hohou. Same thing in Arapaho.”
THIRTEEN
Day Five, Missing 103 Hours
Outside Will Pope’s trailer, Cork paused and looked around. There was no sign of life in Red Hawk. He could hear a distant motor that might have been a generator of some kind, but the streets were deserted. Late Sunday afternoon. Maybe everyone was watching the Broncos beat the crap out of Oakland.
“I’m not sure what that accomplished,” he said.
“He’s not like Henry Meloux,” Stephen said, “but I like him.”
Rude pulled his gloves on. “He was sober. That’s real unusual for Will. Folks here on the rez treat him with respect because he’s an elder, but most don’t give any weight to his visions. I thought maybe if you saw him in his usual state you might understand why Dewey Quinn is skeptical.”
“I still want to fly over Baby’s Cradle,” Stephen said.
Rude shrugged. “Okay by me. Cork?”
“Why not?”
“All right then. I’ll get it cleared with Dewey for tomorrow.” A tan Blazer passed the church, turned onto St. Alban Lane, and came toward them. There were emergency lights across the top, and the lettering on the door indicated that it belonged to the Bureau of Indian Affairs police. The Blazer parked in front of Pope’s place, and an officer got out. He wore a leather jacket over his blue uniform. He was a stocky man with a broad face, dark eyes, close-cropped black hair, and teeth white as baking soda. He squinted in the sunlight, eyeing Rude, then Cork, then Stephen.
“Jon,” he said, “you haven’t been bothering my uncle, have you?”
“We just wanted to talk to him about that vision of his, Andy.”
“Too many people been bothering him about that vision. Wearin’ him out.” He leveled his dark-eyed gaze on Cork. “Your name O’Connor?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Andrew No Voice, chief of the Owl Creek Reservation police. I’ve been asked to escort you to the tribal offices.”
“Who asked?”
“Ellyn Grant. You driving ’em, Jon?”
“Yep.”
“Then come along.”
No Voice returned to his vehicle and waited while Cork and the others got into Rude’s pickup. As soon as Rude kicked the engine over, No Voice headed off and Rude followed.
“Ellyn Grant,” Rude said. “Her eyes and ears are everywhere on the rez.”
“She’s got clout?”
“Big mojo. Smart woman, ambitious, educated, probably knows more about the Northern Arapaho and their history than anybody alive. Went to Stanford on a full scholarship, graduated magna cum laude. Any idea what an achievement that is for an Arapaho? Hell, she could’ve done just about anything she wanted, gone anywhere. What did she do? Returned home, married Edgar Little Bear, and launched herself on a one-woman crusade to get this reservation into the twenty-first century.”
Cork eyed the sad-looking town around him. “Slow going,” he noted.
“Things haven’t gone as well for the Blue Sky Casino as everyone hoped. Hot Springs is too far off the beaten path. Still, the rez has a new business center. That road we came in on is slated to be completely redone this spring. Every enrolled member of the Owl Creek Arapaho gets a regular allotment check from the casino profits. It’s not much at this point, but it’s something. And, believe me, everybody here can always use a little something.”
“And the Blue Sky Casino was Ellyn Grant’s doing?” Cork asked.
Rude nodded. “Her idea beginning to end.”
They parked in the lot of the Reservation Business Center, next to No Voice’s Blazer, and followed him inside. Artwork filled the center’s lobby: oils and watercolors, wood carvings, moccasins and purses and bags with
