The Lost Bird by Margaret Coel Read Free Book Online

Father John had the sense that something was changing between them, that she would not return to the mission, that he might never see her again.
    “I don’t want to see you dead,” she said, in the same hushed voice. Abruptly she turned and walked across the study. Pausing at the door, she glanced back. “Somebody on the res knows what happened this afternoon and why. I’m going to get the answers.”
    Before he could say anything, the door opened. The buzz of voices in the entry slipped through the opening, and she was gone, closing the door behind her. The study seemed empty, the trace of sage lingering in the air.
    He drew in a long breath, trying to contain the anger and worry rising inside him. He was thirsty, and his tongue felt as dry as a piece of cracked leather in his mouth. He wanted a shot of whiskey. One shot, and he could walk into the living room whole andconfident, visit with the mourners, bluff his way past the guilt that pressed down on him like hundred-pound weights.
    An innocent man had died in his place. He owed the man something. He had to find out why somebody had wanted to kill him and had shot Joseph instead. Before another innocent person died.

5
    T he living room was filled with people: grandmothers on the sofa, gray heads bobbing in the circle of light cast by the table lamp; elders on straight-back chairs somebody had brought from the kitchen and lined up in front of the television across the room; groups of young men standing around, black braids dangling beneath baseball caps; and two women in upholstered chairs, jostling babies on their laps. A microcosm of the reservation, Father John thought as he came through the archway. Here to mourn the death of a priest.
    Several people held paper plates covered with half-eaten sandwiches, potato chips. Stacks of empty plates lay scattered over the coffee table among the books and magazines. Almost everyone had a foam cup in hand; the aroma of coffee filled the room.
    One of the young men broke from the others and stepped toward him, hand outstretched. His grip was firm. “Sorry to hear about Father Joseph,” he said, disbelief in his voice. The others joined in. “Sorry. Sure too bad. Real good heart, Father Joseph.” A litany of condolences.
    Father John made his way around the room, greetingthe elders and grandmothers, shaking hands, thanking people for coming, the words like dry leaves in his mouth, his own burden of guilt heavy inside him.
    One of the grandmothers, Esther Tallman, inched forward on the sofa, balancing a foam cup and a plate with remnants of crusts and chips. “I won’t ever forget Father Joseph,” she said, moisture pooling in her eyes.
    Father John nodded.
    “’Cause he never forgot about me and Thomas. Sure, he might’ve gone away, but that don’t mean he forgot us. Soon’s he got back, he drove over to see how me and the kids was doin’ now Thomas is gone. I was glad to tell him everybody’s doin’ okay.” The woman let her eyes roam the room, remembering. “Father Joseph was real young when he first come here. Wouldn’t’ve thought he’d spent enough time on earth to have any sense. But he helped us through hard times. So Thomas give him an Arapaho name.
Ni’ho: no’oyeihi.
Means Red Hawk. He was a good man.”
    Father John gave the woman a nod of understanding. Few men could be considered good in the Arapaho Way. Those who were humble and generous, who placed others before themselves.
    The woman talked on. Father John hardly listened. He was thinking that for two weeks he’d lived under the same roof with a man he didn’t know at all. There had been so many assistants—a parade of priests marking time, passing through on the way to more interesting and prestigious assignments. The faces blurred in his memory.
    Another man passing through
, Father John remembered thinking as he’d helped Joseph Keenan unload two suitcases and a couple of cardboard boxes fromthe Escort—the total of the man’s