The Eagle Catcher Read Online Free PDF Page A

music of La Traviata or La Bohème or Don Giovanni, crisscrossing the reservation, fifty miles here, thirty miles there, twenty-five over there. Arapahos lived on ranches miles from their nearest neighbors.
    So different from Boston where he’d grown up. People lived on top of one another there, encased in brick and asphalt, with no space around them. He and his brother had slept on the foldaway in the front room of a third-floor walkup that jutted over the traffic on Commonwealth Avenue. Only on the sandlots had he felt the earth stretching into the vastness, felt himself part of the sky and the infinite space. By the time he was twelve, he could throw a fastball that curved around home plate. He could still throw a decent fastball and trot around the bases at a pretty good run. Baseball had been his ticket to Boston College, and after graduation he had gone into the Jesuit seminary.
    He hadn’t intended to stay at St. Francis Mission long. The assignment had come while he was still in treatment at Grace House. He had figured he’d be here long enough to take his lumps, to be duly humbled, as only the Jesuits could humble one of their own. Then it would be back to teaching American history—with some fresh insight into the American Indian—at one of the Jesuit prep schools before moving on to a university, perhaps Fordham or Georgetown. He had actually said as much to old Father Peter, as if St. Francis Mission were the Siberia of the Jesuit order. Dear God, what an arrogant SOB he’d been.
    But the months had gone by, then one year, then another. And Father Peter had had his heart attack and gone to the Jesuit retirement house in St. Louis, and he had taken Father Peter’s place as superior. He’d been here almost six years now, three years as superior. And he’d had numerous young Jesuit assistants. One had stayed most of a year, but the others had hardly unpacked their bags before leaving. He wondered how long Father Brad would stay around. Life on an Indian reservation—the emptiness, the tonetiness—well, it wasn’t for everybody.
    The Toyota started up a rise so gentle he was hardly aware of the pull until the pickup began slowing. He jammed down the gas pedal feeling the bed fishtail on the asphalt. Suddenly Harvey’s white frame ranch house hove into view. Behind it a field of hay moved in the wind like the surface of a green sea, while a line of gray-green cottonwood trees marked the banks of the Little Wind River in the distance. Easing on the brakes. Father John wheeled in behind the pickups at the side of the road.
    Arapaho families were milling about in the driveway, and a group of men had congregated at the gate. Overhead, an arch of black iron floated against the blue sky forming the words “White Eagle Ranch.” Father John knew that White Eagle, Harvey’s great-grandfather, had ridden with Chief Black Night in the Old Time.
    Charlie Taylor stepped back from the group and came toward the road, just as Father John slammed the door of the Toyota. “How’re you doing?” he called to the Indian, remembering how Charlie had run away from Harvey’s tipi, as if he couldn’t stand what he had seen.
    â€œHell, I’m okay.” A brown Stetson shaded the councilman’s eyes which were busy searching the road. Father John realized Charlie hadn’t walked out to greet him—he was leaving and he was in a hurry.
    â€œWe don’t scare easy,” Charlie added as he reached Father John. The silver bolo tie hanging down the front of his crisp white shirt glinted in the sun. His pace barely slowed.
    â€œAny reason to be scared?” The hit-man theory still crouched in Father John’s mind, like an animal waiting to spring out of a cage.
    â€œNo. He]], no,” Charlie said over his shoulder, hurrying past. “I gotta get goin’. There’s gonna be lots of work on the business council with Harvey gone,