Eye of the Wolf by Margaret Coel Page A

morning. People wanting to know about the bodies you found at someplace called Bates.” The man shrugged and cracked a thin smile. “Priest stumbles onto dead bodies in the middle of nowhere? I must have missed something in the job description. That the usual routine around here?”
    Father John shook his head and looked away a moment. God, he hoped not. The images of the bodies were still there, floating in front of his eyes.
    â€œSo, how’d you get that?” Ian jabbed a finger toward the Band Aid on his face.
    Father John lifted his hand and pressed at the edges of the small wound. A burning sensation ran through his cheek, which surprised him. Sometime during the night, the pain had receded into a dull throb, and this morning, the throb had dissolved into numbness. He locked eyes with the other priest and told him about the telephone message and the fact that he’d guessed the bodies might be at the siteof an old massacre, all of which Ian seemed to take in with mute acceptance, as if figuring out the clue in obscure phone messages were just another part of the job that he would become accustomed to. He didn’t want to talk about dead men. He didn’t want to relive the horror. Father John asked how the meeting had gone.
    â€œAh, the meeting.” Father Ian gripped the armrests, pushed himself to his feet, and walked over to the window. “I don’t know how you’ve done it, John,” he said.
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œRun this mission on hope and prayer and convinced the parish council that hope and prayer are legitimate business tactics. The council is in complete agreement with you that there’s no need to cut back on anything. What are we going to pay the religious education teachers with? Prayers?”
    Father John drummed his fingers on the top of the chair, listening to the click click click noise that punctuated his thoughts. This was his fault. He’d never wanted to dive into the abysmal swamp of the mission’s finances, never wanted to admit that St. Francis couldn’t afford the programs it offered, never wanted to cut back. Just the opposite. He’d added programs every year, and he had convinced the parish council that the little miracles would arrive in the mail, unsolicited and unexpected—checks falling out of envelopes with return addresses in towns he’d never heard of and scribbled notes that read, “Use this to help the Indians.” The funny thing was, the little miracles had occurred, and the mission had gone along, lurching from one potential financial disaster to the next, always bailed out at the last minute.
    He got to his feet and, leaning over, gripped the top of the chair. Donations were always smaller as summer approached, but this year, they had been almost nonexistent. He should have been the one to break the bad news to the council that the miracles hadn’t arrived. Ian was right. They would have to cut back.
    He said, “We’ll schedule another meeting.”
    â€œAlready done.” Father Ian jammed his hands into the pockets of hiskhakis. “I suggested that we revisit the situation next Wednesday evening. That work for you?”
    Father John nodded. He waited a couple of beats before he said, “How are things with you?”
    The other priest took a step backward, tilted his head, and stared up at the ceiling, as if the answer might fall out of the cracked plaster. “You mean,” he locked eyes again with Father John, “am I avoiding the temptation of demon rum, whiskey, vodka and staying off the bottle?”
    â€œThis can be a lonely place.”
    â€œLoneliness.” The other priest drew in his lower lip, considering. “Was that your excuse?”
    Father John didn’t take his eyes away. The man not only had a finely tuned way of avoiding uncomfortable subjects, he was also good at turning things around, so that, all of a sudden, the