Eye of the Wolf, page 15
“I’ll be back,” Rizzo was shouting. Then he was darting around a
brown pickup parked at the curb, lowering himself behind the steering
wheel. He turned his head and glared through the passenger window as
the pickup shot forward, laying down a trail of black exhaust that
floated toward the door.
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Q U I E T H A D S E T T L E D over the office, except for the sound of warm air
escaping from the vents and the dim hum of the fluorescent lights over-
head. Traces of moisture clung to the window in the conference room.
Vicky read through the last page of the Endangered Species Act, then set
the page onto one of the stacks that she’d arranged in rows along the
polished table. She had the office to herself. No clacking keyboard, no
telephone ringing. Adam had left for lunch fifteen minutes ago, and a
few minutes later, Annie had poked her head through the door and said
she was going to lunch. And—just to let her know—Adam would be
back later than usual.
Vicky pulled over a copy of the Wyoming Wolf Management Plan
and thumbed through the pages. Then she fanned out the pages in one
of the stacks. The sections matched. Ah, but here was the problem. In
the first plan the state had submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-
vice, wolves would be trophy animals in the northwestern part of the
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state. Everywhere else, wolves would be predators. They could be shot
on sight. And what kind of place would it be? she thought. Everything
tamed and controlled, and no more wildness? No more wolves? The
plan had been rejected.
She set the copy of the state plan to one side and picked up the folder
marked “Proposed Wind River Wolf Management Plan.” Leaning back
in the rounded leather chair, she opened the folder against the edge of
the table and skimmed the first page. They were walking a fine line, she
was thinking. The tribal plan had to agree with federal regulations as
well as with whatever new plan the state was drafting. Adam was right.
They would have to go to Cheyenne and meet with both the federal and
state wildlife people.
There was the smallest change in the atmosphere, an almost imper-
ceptible stream of air rippling over the pages spread in front of her.
Vicky sat very still. Nothing but the background noises of the office, the
muffled noise of traffic on Main Street. Surely Annie had locked the
front door when she’d left.
And yet . . . someone was here. Vicky could feel another presence.
She got up from the table, opened the conference room door, and
walked down the hall that emptied into the front office. No one was
there. The upholstered chairs, the small oak tables in the corners, An-
nie’s desk facing the door, file folders stacked next to the computer, the
oak chair pushed into the well—all normal. Yet there was something un-
familiar about the room. She had the sense that she was seeing it for the
first time through the eyes of a stranger.
She was about to turn back into the hall when she heard the muffled
scuff of footsteps on carpet. Across the office, next to one of the uphol-
stered chairs, the door to her private office was closed. But Adam’s door
a few feet farther along the wall—Adam’s door was ajar.
Vicky walked past the secretary’s desk. “Adam?” she called, pushing
the door open. The tentativeness in her voice hung in the air.
“Oh, hello.” The woman across the room turned away from the
window that framed a view of the redbrick building across the street,
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the gutters tipping forward under a ridge of snow. “I’m waiting for
Adam. He must’ve stepped out for a moment.” She paused and gestured
with her head toward the front office. She could be an actress, Vicky
thought. Tall and gorgeous and young—How old could she be? Mid-
twenties? Light brown hair sharply cut in slices dipped to the shoulders
of her dark leather jacket, and black boots wrapped around her legs all
the way to the hem of her tweed skirt. “I’ve been dying to see Adam’s
office. You must be Vicky.”
She was advancing across the carpet, past the desk, the side chair,
blue eyes lit with enthusiasm, a slim hand extended. “I’m Samantha
Lowe,” she said.
She’d known who the woman was even before she’d heard the name.
“Adam’s at lunch,” Vicky heard herself saying. She took the out-
stretched hand, aware of the tiniest whiff of perfume.
“He’s left already?” The light in Samantha Lowe’s blue eyes dimmed
with disappointment. “Oh, I was hoping to give him a ride to the restau-
rant. She wrapped both hands around a green bag and began kneading
the leather. “He’s probably already there, wondering where I am.”
“You’re meeting Adam for lunch?” Vicky heard the note of surprise
in her voice.
“Oh, I can’t tell you how helpful Adam’s been,” the woman bubbled
on with all the lightness and enthusiasm of a teenager. “I guess I was
pretty naïve thinking I could just move to town, hang out my shingle,
and clients would beat a path to my door. Lander seemed like a great
town to live in. All those historic buildings restored on Main Street, and
flower planters and old-fashioned streetlights. I loved it, but I really
didn’t know anything about the business side of setting up a practice.
Thank goodness for Adam. He’s taken me under his wing and kept me
from making a lot of costly mistakes.”
She paused and drew in a long breath. “Well, I guess I don’t have to
tell you,” she said, waving the slim white hand toward the front office.
“I’m sure he’s done the same here. You and Adam must be very busy.” A
confidential tone now, as if they were two girlfriends discussing their
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latest dates. “It must be wonderful to be in a firm with a lawyer who has
so much experience. Adam says you’ve agreed to send clients my way.
I’m very grateful.” She stepped forward.
Vicky moved to the side of the door. “I’m sure Adam’s waiting,” she
said, weak with the sadness and disappointment washing over her.
The young woman slipped past. She was as slim as a shadow, Vicky
thought, except for the high, rounded breasts that filled out the front of
her leather jacket, the shapely hips, and the curve of her calf muscles be-
neath the leather boots. She opened the outer door and turned back. “We
know,” she said, as if she wanted to underline the unspoken comment
hanging between them, “that Adam Lone Eagle isn’t the type of man
who likes to be kept waiting.”
Then Samantha Lowe was gone, the blond hair and dark leather
jacket moving past the rectangle of glass next to the door, starting down
the stairs, as graceful as a ballerina.
Vicky walked across the outer office and threw the lock on the door.
Then she went into her private office, took her coat off the hanger be-
hind the door, and pulled it on. Leaning over the desk, she scribbled a
note for Annie: “I’m working at home this afternoon.” She lifted her
briefcase and leather bag out of the desk drawer and went back to the
conference room where she stuffed the management plans inside the
briefcase before walking back through the quiet of the office and letting
herself out, making sure the lock was set before she closed the door.
Fool. Fool. Fool. What was she thinking? She headed around the cor-
ner of the building and down the narrow walkway that divided the brick
walls from the parking lot, lifting her face into the chilly, moist air, the
briefcase rigid at her side, one hand gripping the handle of the bag slung
over her shoulder. From behind her came the slushy noise of traffic and
the faint smell of exhaust. Why had she thought that a man like Adam
Lone Eagle—who stopped women in their tracks when he walked by—
could ever be faithful? He was like the chiefs in the Old Time. It was
their duty—responsibility—to take many wives. But that was the Old
Time, when a woman needed a man to hunt and bring her food to eat
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and skins that she could make into clothing and tipis. So she looked the
other way when he took other wives. But this was now.
Vicky stabbed her key into the lock of the Jeep until, finally, the
lock button jumped up. She didn’t need Adam Lone Eagle. She yanked
open the door, threw her briefcase and bag across the front seat, and
got in behind the steering wheel, shutting the door so hard that the ve-
hicle seemed to rock. It was ironic, when you thought about it. After
ten years with Ben Holden—ten years of lies—she’d sworn that she
would never be so trusting again. So naïve, as naïve as Samantha Lowe
peering out at the world through blue eyes that cast a lovely hue on
everything.
She had to jiggle the key in the ignition before the engine sparked
into life. She’d have to break things off. That was as clear as the red
sedan parked ahead. There could be nothing more between them. No
more late dinners and long nights where he made her feel warm and
comforted and not alone. Where he made her forget all that had been
with Ben and all that would never be with John O’Malley—all the mem-
ories and yearnings—as she and Adam had floated together in what was
present and possible.
There would be nothing personal between them. Nothing but the
law firm. Vicky shifted into reverse and shot backward into the lot. A
horn blared. She hit the brake and glanced over her left shoulder at the
orange sedan stopped behind her. Then she pulled back in and waited
for the sedan to drive past, her thoughts on the law firm. Who was she
kidding? Adam was not the kind of man to walk into the office every
day, nod a pleasant good morning, sit down on the other side of the con-
ference table, and hammer out some legal document, as if they’d never
been lovers. There was a good chance he would want to dissolve the
firm. He could open another office in Lander, go his own way. And take
the tribal business with him.
God, the horn was still blaring, like a cow bleating into the cold.
“I’m waiting for you to go,” she said out loud. Then she dipped her head
against the rim of the steering wheel. Adam would go, she thought.
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Well, she had options. She lifted her head and straightened her shoul-
ders. Now that was funny. She had to laugh at the options, and the
choked sound of her own laughter caught her by surprise. She swal-
lowed back the impulse to go on laughing, afraid that she might burst
into tears. She could continue to be one of Adam’s women, walking
around with blinders on, like a mare at the edge of a cliff, or she could
return to her one-woman law practice and spend her days working on
DUIs, divorces, adoptions, and parking tickets, and forget about prac-
ticing Indian law.
She stared at the red sedan ahead, aware now of the silence that
floated around her. The orange car must have driven past, and she’d
been too preoccupied to notice. She’d started backing out again when a
blurred figure appeared silently outside her window. A gloved hand
tapped on the glass. Vicky stepped on the brake and looked into the
brown eyes of Lucille Montana, head bent toward the window, breath
making little gray clouds on the glass.
“I’ve got to talk to you.” The woman looked as if she were mouthing
the words, but the muffled sound of her voice cracked through the glass
and metal.
Vicky pressed the window button. A shaft of cold air peppered with
moisture drifted over the lowering glass. Lucille stuck her face into the
opening. Her eyes were red rimmed, her cheeks flushed with cold and
worry. If she invited the woman into her office, Vicky was thinking,
Adam could return before they finished talking.
She said, “I’m on my way home. We can talk at my place.”
“Can’t we go to the office?” Lucille clasped her gloved hands to-
gether like a microphone in front of her mouth, which made her voice
tremble, laced with hopelessness.
Vicky had to look away to keep from jamming down on the door
handle and getting out. It was just as she’d expected. A sheriff ’s investi-
gator was probably taking a hard look at Frankie Montana for the
Shoshone murders. But she did not want to return to the office. She did
not want to face Adam yet. She needed some time.
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“I’m working at home this afternoon,” she began, averting her eyes
from the woman still pressing her face a few inches from her own. “We
can talk there.”
There was a moment before Lucille Montana began to drift back
along the Jeep. Another moment before the orange sedan lurched across
the parking lot and turned onto Main, bouncing in the rearview mirror,
the woman’s dark head bobbing over the steering wheel.
“FRANKIE DIDN’T KILL anybody.” Lucille gripped her gloves in one
hand and slapped them against her thigh. She was sunk into the mid-
dle of the sofa, the cushions angled upward on either side. “I don’t
care what the detective says. He wants to arrest some Arapaho for
killing Shoshones, so he can make himself look like a big man. He
don’t care what Arapaho he arrests.”
“Better tell me what happened.” Vicky lifted a yellow notepad out of
her briefcase and located the pen tucked in the side pocket. She sat down
in the upholstered chair across from the other woman.
Lucille squared her shoulders, tilted her head back, and studied the
ceiling a moment, as if the images were moving across the white plaster.
“First thing this morning, he’s knocking on the door.”
“Who?”
“Detective Burton. Knocking on the door, and soon’s I opened it, he
says to me, ‘Go get Frankie,’ and I say, ‘Frankie’s still sleeping, so come
back later.’ He says, ‘Go get him now,’ and give me that look like he’s
gonna haul me off to jail if I don’t do what he says.”
Vicky held the pen close to the notepad balanced on her lap and
waited.
After a moment, Lucille went on, “I told Frankie to get up ’cause
Burton was there and wasn’t gonna leave. Then I went back out to the
door, and I said, ‘Guess you better come in, so I can close the door and
keep the cold outside.’ The house was already getting cold from him
standing there. Pretty soon Frankie comes down the hall. He’s got his
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blue jeans on and the dirty tee shirt he was sleeping in. He’s still half
asleep, and he says, ‘What’re you doin’ here?’ and Burton says he has a
few questions he’d like Frankie to answer.”
“I warned Frankie.” Vicky could hear the exasperation leaking into
her voice. “He didn’t have to talk to him.”
“I told him. I said, ‘Frankie, shut up. You don’t have to answer ques-
tions,’ but Frankie turns on me like I’m the one wanting to lock him up
in prison for the rest of his life for killing people he never killed, and he
says, ‘I don’t have nothing to hide.’
“He should have told Burton to call his lawyer.”
The other woman threw one hand into the air. “Well, that’s just the
problem, Vicky. He doesn’t have a lawyer. He thought you were his
lawyer, but you told him to call somebody else.”
Samantha Lowe, Vicky thought. She tried to swallow back the bitter
taste in her mouth. A lawyer out of law school for how long—two, three
years? That was the lawyer she’d recommended to a man who could be
looking at three charges for first-degree murder.
“Start at the beginning,” Vicky said. “Tell me everything that Frankie
said.”
“You gonna help him?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Well, this was perfect, she was thinking. A fit-
ting way to sever all relationships with Adam Lone Eagle. She would have
a client for her one-woman law firm, a troublemaker she could count on
