The Lost Bird Read Online Free PDF

team. But he was a priest, a fact she respected and never forgot. She’d tried to hide her feelings and ignore the growing sense he was doing the same. They had arrived at a mutual, unstated resolve: they never called each other, they never met, unless there was a legitimate reason—someone who needed their help. Months had passed when they hadn’t seen each other.
    Months, she thought now, sobbing silently. Precious lost time they might have been together. She should have told him how she felt, that he was the man who filled her thoughts. But she had never told him. And now . . . now he was dead. She dug through the black bag on the seat beside her until her fingers closed over a wad of tissues, which she dabbed at her eyes. The blur beyond the windshield gave way to the shapes of passing cars and trucks, the dim glow of headlights. Pulling on the wheel, she made a sharp U-turn and slid back into the traffic heading north, her reflexes on automatic.
    She caught Highway 789 and drove on, slowing through Hudson, speeding up as the restaurants and small houses dropped behind. Automatic. Automatic. Soon she was plunging through the graying dusk. Headlights swept over the asphalt ahead and, all around, the sky dipped into the earth, like an inverted bowl of blue-black glass. On she drove, ignoring the passing trucks and cars, the pickup that swung around her, tires squealing, her entire being collapsed into a pinprick of necessity. She had to go to him.
    She took a left at Arapaho Crossing, accelerating in front of an oncoming semi, its horn bellowing like the cry of a mad bull. On Seventeen-Mile Road, shepassed the mission cemetery sprawled on top of a dark bluff and began sobbing again, wiping at her eyes with one hand, steering the Bronco down the narrow road with the other. A line of pickups and cars were stopped ahead, waiting to turn in to the mission, and Vicky slowed behind them. With a fist at her mouth to quiet the sobs, she followed the red taillights onto the narrow, straight road lined with cottonwoods. Branches arched across the asphalt, forming a tunnel of darkening gold.
    In the headlights Vicky could make out the forms of cars and pickups parked around the mission grounds, the groups of people hovering in front of the church and walking toward the residence. She parked in front, next to a brown pickup, and hurried up the sidewalk, passing several grandmothers—a parade of mourners—carrying casserole dishes and platters of cakes. Lying next to the sidewalk was Walks-On, the golden retriever Father John had found in a ditch and rushed to the vet. The dog had lost a hind leg, but he could run and fetch and snatch a disk from the air. Now the red disk lay beside him.
    The front door stood open as she came up the cement steps. People drifted past the shadows of the entry, moving through a hushed murmur of grief. As Vicky stepped inside, she saw Elena talking to a group of elders in the living room that opened on the right. Catching her eye, the housekeeper came toward her. In the dim light, the woman looked older than her seventy years, her face creased in shock and confusion. Strands of gray hair sprang from a series of bobby pins, as if she’d forgotten to smooth them into place.
    The irony swept over Vicky like a cold wind. Elena never forgot anything that had to do with taking careof the priests at St. Francis Mission, which she had done for more years than anyone could remember. So many priests through the years to cook and clean for, look after, mother. They had come and gone, but she had remained, taking in the next priest the Provincial sent, training him in the routine: breakfast at eight, lunch at noon, dinner at six. There was a day for everything—laundry on Mondays, cleaning on Tuesdays. Everyone on the reservation knew that Elena expected the priests to stay in step and that John O’Malley was almost never in step.
    She put her arms around the housekeeper, trying to comfort herself by holding