The Man Who Fell from the Sky by Margaret Coel Read Free Book Online Page B

skin with another cup of coffee. Someone had handed her coffee while she visited with Grandmother Nitti and the other grandmothers. Polite pleasantries, the weather, the dancers twirling about, the regalia flashing in the sun. When the polite pleasantries had worn themselves out, there had been nothing to discuss. Vicky had seen the questions in Grandmother Nitti’s eyes. Where had Vicky Holden gone? Who was this lawyer from the white town? They had sat in silence a long moment and watched the dancers. Emmy Many Horses from Wind River High School had placed third in the jingle dance, a purse of about one hundred dollars. Could be a fortune to the girl.
    Vicky had clasped the old woman’s hand in an effort to reconnect, she supposed, and smiled at the other grandmothers before taking her leave. She walked among the grandfathers, paying her respect, and moved through the crowd, searching for familiar faces. Smiling, nodding. Making small talk against the thumping drums, the swish of moccasins on the hard-packed dirt. She was walking back through the parking lot when she heard the footsteps behind her. She slid into the Ford as Cutter took hold of the door and leaned toward her. “Leaving so soon?” He was grinning, eyes shining. “I was hoping we could talk. Catch up.”
    â€œMaybe some other time.” She tried to pull the door shut.
    â€œHow about dinner?”
    â€œI’m pretty busy.”
    â€œI hear the Lakota that’s been hanging around took off.”
    â€œYou can’t always believe the moccasin telegraph.”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œThe moccasin telegraph?”
    He tossed his head and gave out a bark of laughter. “Dinner.”
    Vicky hesitated. Something about Cutter drew her in: Trying toreconnect, trying to find himself in his people. Struggling with the kind of emptiness that she recognized in herself.
    â€œI’ll be in touch,” he said, pushing the door shut. She caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror, staring after her, as she drove away.
    Now Ruth poured a cup of coffee and sat down at the table. “Cutter called this morning.” She motioned Vicky into the chair across from her. “He offered to come over, but I told him, ‘Go to the powwow. Enjoy yourself. We don’t all have to be dead.’”
    â€œAny word from the fed?”
    â€œIt was an accidental death by drowning, but he won’t say so.” Ruth tilted her chin and stared at the ceiling. “They’re still waiting on autopsy results. Maybe they think Robert got drunk and fell into the lake.”
    â€œDid the fed say that?”
    â€œHe didn’t have to.” She slurped the coffee. “Wanted to know if Robert had been camping. Did he have a tent? ‘Tent?’ I said. ‘Are you kidding?’ He always took a cooler with sandwiches and a thermos. But he slept in the bed of the pickup under the stars. He would never wrap himself inside a tent. It would be like crawling inside a coffin.” She shrugged and set the mug down hard on the table. “At least the fed’s no longer hammering about suicide. I been thinking I need to go to the lake, see where Robert died.”
    â€œWe can do that.”
    *   *   *
    THE ROAD CLIMBED into the mountains. Every time the Ford took another turn, Vicky had a sense of the earth dropping away. The reservation shimmered in the far distances below, and vehicles crawled along Highway 26, sunlight flashing off chrome. The Ford punched deeper into the sky. Ruth was saying something abouthow Robert loved going to the mountains. An Arapaho of the plains, where the sky dropped all around, in love with the mountains! “We are blue-sky people,” she said. “We came from the blue sky, the way I heard the story. You ask me, it wasn’t the mountains Robert loved. It was the hunt for treasure.”
    Vicky gripped the wheel tighter as they started down into