The Eagle Catcher Read Online Free PDF Page B

chairs along the far wall. Six tribal elders sat on straight-backed kitchen chairs against the half wall that divided the stairwell from the living room. Maria was in a rocker in a far comer, near a window that framed the snow-tipped peaks of the Wind River Mountains. An Arapaho couple and two teenagers hovered over the old woman, paying respects.
    Father John made his way down the line of elders, saying a few inane words about being terribly sorry, shaking their hands. Their grasp was stronger and firmer than their wiry, frail-looking bodies would suggest. He stepped across the room and greeted the grandmothers. Next to the sofa stood a table covered with wood-framed photos of Anthony. Anthony racing down court, sighting the basket, going for a layup, stopped by the camera in midair.
    Father John still felt a twinge of regret that the most talented player he’d ever coached, definitely the MVP of the mid-Wyoming baseball circuit, had defected to basketball. Anthony had hit so many home runs the summer he’d played for the St. Francis Eagles that the other coaches had sent Father John a three-page letter, the gist of it being that the Castle boy demoralized their pitchers. The next summer, when Anthony decided not to come out for the Eagles, the other coaches had probably had a party.
    Anthony had turned into the best center the Indian High School basketball team had ever seen. The Indian kids brought home the state championship two years in a row, and the University of Wyoming coach had come to the reservation to recruit him. Father John shrugged off the memory. It had all turned out for the best, anyway. Basketball meant that Anthony was able to go on to school, and Father John was glad of that.
    He was amazed at how much of Anthony the stop-action shots had caught. Quickness, skill, determination, hotheadedness, it was all there. Shoot from the outside, fake out the defense, love the risks. Anthony was like the young warriors in the Old Time who had no patience with the talking ways of the chiefs. Action was what they had demanded, even if it brought soldiers to the villages. Father John wondered what Anthony and Harvey had quarreled about. Something Harvey had wanted to turn over and look at from all sides, thoughtfully, considering all the consequences, while Anthony had wanted action?
    Father John felt a tug at his shirtsleeve. One of the grandmothers was motioning him toward Maria who was now alone, her black oxfords pushing against the carpet. The squeak of the wooden rocker cut through the buzz of voices that filled the room.
    Her grandmothers had howled with grief at the deaths of their children. They had taken knives and gashed their arms and legs and cut off their hair. Somehow that seemed appropriate, Father John thought now. More equal to the terrible fact of a child’s death than Maria’s quiet containment of grief.
    Someone opened a folding chair, and he sat down next to the old woman. Will Standing Bear scooted his chair over from the other elders, then settled back, knobby hands clasped in his lap. Father John took Maria’s hand. It was as small as a child’s and as smooth and cool as a rose petal. A red, sweater was draped over her shoulders, even though the house was hot and stuffy. She seemed sunk into herself, already in the half-life-half with her dead son, half with the living.
    â€œHana je nahadina, the old woman said, her words almost lost among the murmuring voices.
    Will leaned forward. “She says the commandment. ‘Thou shalt do no murder.’ She don’t know why the commandment was broke.”
    Father John was quiet a moment. “I don’t know either,” he said finally. “Harvey was a good man.” He saw by the flash of light in the old woman’s eyes that she understood he meant good in the Arapaho Way. A good man was generous and kind, thoughtful of others. Only a few could be called good.
    â€œWe must bury my grandson on the third