Free Winter's Child by Margaret Coel Page A

cross-country on horseback. He built a shack. Of course, Indians weren’t supposed to go anywhere without the agent’s permission. Darn near needed permission to go to the outhouse. But Brokenhorn swore he would do whatever was necessary to protect Lizzie. Sure enough, the agent started snooping around, asking questions, so Brokenhorn took his family to the mountains. Grandfather kept denying Brokenhorn had gone anywhere. Just off helping neighbors round up cattle. After a while, the agent stopped coming around, and grandfather went up in the mountains and told Brokenhorn it was all clear. Before winter set in, Brokenhorn, Lizzie, and the five kids came back. Grandmother said she was sure glad to see Lizzie again. The house next door had seemed lonely without them.”
    Elena got to her feet and began clearing the table, and Father John understood this was the end of her story. He stood up and took his dishes over to the sink. “Thank you, Elena.” He waved a hand to indicate both the lunch and the story, everything that had taken place in the kitchen.
    â€œYes. Thank you very much.” Shannon cleared her dishes and went back for the bishop’s.
    â€œA very delicious lunch.” The old man lumbered to his feet. The white apron still hung from his neck and was looped about his waist. “A most interesting story and, I must say, a most enlightening cooking lesson. At what time shall we start preparing dinner?”
    Elena threw a glance over her shoulder at Father John. There were layers of meaning in her glance. He could write a whole sermon on how we are made holy by the way we claim our place in the world and do our work the best we can. Another glance from Elena, and he decided he would have a talk with the bishop.
    He motioned Shannon ahead and followed her down the hall, Walks-On between them. The dog had an uncanny sense for adventure, and he didn’t want to miss out. Most days he climbed into the pickup and accompanied Father John on rounds of visits to the elders and the sick and those needing someone to stop by for a chat and a cup of coffee.
    But not this afternoon. Father John didn’t know if Wilbur Horn would welcome a visit from a dog. He helped Shannon with her jacket and pulled on his own jacket before he leaned down and patted the dog’s head. “You have to take care of Elena and the bishop today,” he said. Then he opened the door for Shannon, followed her out into the bright, cold air, and set his cowboy hat on his head.
    Shannon hurried ahead down the snowy path. “I have to get my laptop,” she called over her shoulder
    â€œYou won’t need it.”
    â€œTo make notes during the interview.” She stopped in the middle of Circle Drive, shadows of impatience on her face. Did she have to explain the obvious?
    He placed an arm around her shoulders and steered her along the drive to the passenger side of the old pickup. “You can make notes when you get back.”
    He closed the door behind her and gave her a smile through the windshield as he walked around to the driver’s side. “So that was the look you were shooting at me over the table,” she said as he jiggled the key in the ignition and tried to coax the engine into life. “I recognized the O’Malley look. Dad used it on us kids when we asked too many questions. It was his way of saying, ‘Stop talking and you might learn something.’”
    Father John laughed. The pickup jumped ahead as if it knew the way through the tunnel of cottonwoods, out to Seventeen-Mile Road. In his mind was a flash of memory: his own father shooting the O’Malley look across the table to him and Mike.
    â€œI get the way it works around here,” Shannon said. “Ask no questions and pray for answers. Write it down later.”
    A cottonwood branch scratched at the top of the pickup, and a pile of snow slid down the windshield. He flipped on the wipers and tried to