Epilogue

Valerie Boren-Odell, 1990

The CHAIRMAN."What do you know, personally, about the reputation of the people who signed this report?"

Mr. Howard of Oklahoma."She is a research agent of the Federation of Women's Clubs of America, which is an organization in practically every little town."

Mr. Hastings."It has been given to the press everywhere, and it not only complains about the irregularities in the probate court of Oklahoma, but it criticizes Congress very severely."

Mr. Roach."To whom do they make the report?"

Mr. Carter."To the newspapers."

Mr. Sproul."Now, we are asking for $10,000 here to…go out and make an investigation upon a report of some women folks. Well, now, that is not sufficient, in my judgment. If they know of wholesale mistreatment of the Indians or misappropriation of their money…they can tell us of it, and then we can take an intelligent action."

Mr. Carter."The country is already stirred up about it. The charges have been made. They have been carried in almost every paper of consequence in the country, and therefore Congress can no longer ignore the matter."

—Summary from US Congress, House Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs, with Hearings, 1924.

A ticker-tape parade of autumn leaves clatters along the Muskogee Federal Building steps as we exit into a bright November afternoon, leaving behind the cloistered scents of oiled wood and aging paper, polished stone and human struggle. Outside, the sun has long since chased away morning's chill, painting the Muskogee streets in a golden hue that belies the imperfect search for justice housed behind the weighty stone facade. We don't always get what we seek in places like this. I've been involved in enough court cases to know that justice is not the idealized woman on the statues, blindfolded and draped in flowing robes. She's battered and chipped, and she has picked herself up from a million hard falls, dusted off her scales, and gone back to work.

But she's a tough old girl, and on this bright fall day, I'm heady with the notion that we did right by her. After months of investigation, witness testimony, and evidence presentation, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Oklahoma has obtained a grand jury indictment. The federal case against Alton Parker and his co-conspirators was significant enough to warrant a press conference following the arrests.

The details were like a racketeering checklist—theft, wire fraud, money laundering, illegal kickbacks, conspiracy, aggravated kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice, with a heavy dose of false imprisonment, felony elder abuse, depredation of government property involving the stolen timber and blown-up hiking trail, and violation of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, involving the removal of Choctaw funerary items from the burial site in the cave. Parker had wanted the place wiped clean to avoid having park personnel, archaeologists, the Bureau of Land Management, the Choctaw Nation, and possibly the press in his operational area. For the same reason, he had my unfortunate John Doe, who is now Jack Sieg, blow a hiking trail off the side of a mountain. Sieg was a convicted felon fresh out of prison. This time his foray into explosives landed him in a flooded waterway and cost him his life.

Thirteen of Parker's minions and associates are also named in the indictment. Their crimes will lead to prison sentences or the kind of financial pain capable of bankrupting most people in this part of the world. A handful of others flipped and agreed to testify for the prosecution. The slippery thing about Parker is, he did business not by dealing in overt orders, but by offering suggestions like, Well, I guess we'll just have to hope the side of that mountain falls off and buries that hiking trail, won't we?I'd give a thousand dollars to see that.

Sieg thought he'd earn himself an easy grand. He'd learned a bit about explosives working for a demolition business.

The beauty of the racketeering charge is that it allows federal prosecutors to go after Parker and his cohorts for the crimes committed by others on their behalf. Parker's victims will also be able to use the outcome of the federal trial to sue for civil damages. Those three girls from the attic may yet receive a round of financial justice for the destruction of their timberland.

"I hope the RICO charge sticks. You know Parker's got good lawyers," Roy says as we stop at the bottom of the steps, watching Budgie, Nessa, and Hazel make their way slowly up the wheelchair ramp from the lower level. Budgie leans heavily on the handles of Hazel's chair, and Nessa follows behind, a brightly colored shawl over her shoulders. Edwin trails farther back, moving with a slight limp, his wife at his side. He has a metal plate in his head and a leg full of pins at this point, but he's healing.

"The RICO charge is as solid as they come," I assure Roy, and look around for Curtis in case he managed to slip in at the last minute. The rest of us barely had enough time to get here when the press conference was announced, but Curtis was on shift at work. He may have been tied up with something or too far afield.

"I hope so." Roy stares down at his feet, shakes his head. He looks like a college boy in his T-shirt and jeans. "Man, Alton Parker used to bring us candy bars at the football game. Whole packs of candy bars. The big ones, not the little Halloween kind. And he'd buy stuff from all the team fundraisers and donate things to our church youth group. We all thought he was so nice to do that. Now I wonder where the money came from, you know?"

"Hard to say." The striking thing about Parker's crimes is how well he adopted the techniques of the old-time grafters from the statehood era. He had ears on the ground in three counties, trolling for news of old folks moving off their land and into nursing homes, families caught up in divorces, substance abuse issues, drug prosecutions, medical problems, financial struggles. When he found opportunities, he bought or leased timberland for pennies on the dollar, then pillaged it. When he couldn't obtain title or permission, he just moved in and stole the trees outright.

"I picked up a forest conservation class this semester." Roy gauges my reaction. "Like, how do you fix the land after it's been clear-cut, and all the slash piles left everywhere, and the watersheds are mud…that kind of thing. I think I might do forestry, not law enforcement."

"Seems like a good idea." I have a hard time picturing this kid, with his big heart and soft-spoken demeanor, going into law enforcement. "Somebody has to plant the trees."

"Somebody's gotta keep jerks from plowing them under, too." He lifts a hand for a high five, and I oblige.

"Team," I say. "See you next summer."

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?" Sydney's voice echoes into the street like a train whistle. She bounds down the sidewalk and gives Roy a playful shove.

"Aren't you?" he retorts.

The girl's hands go right to her hips, all attitude. "Grandma Budgie said I could come hear the press conference."

"Some of that isn't appropriate for children." Roy shrugs toward the courthouse.

"Whatever." Sydney turns her attention to me. "Where's Charlie? You make him stay at school instead of coming here?"

"What Roy said." Part of me would've loved to let my junior ranger see that sometimes the good guys do win, even if it's hard work to get there. But Charlie lives in the world of a brand-new eight-year-old, and Parker's sleazy deeds don't belong there.

"Geez," Sydney huffs. "That's lame."

"Matter of opinion," I say, then remind myself that Sydney is sadly accustomed to dealing with things far beyond her years. Her grandmother is in fragile health and her mother is now a fugitive from justice. Jade and her boyfriend have disappeared off the map, possibly into Mexico.

"You sound like Braden and Rachel. They wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom by myself in there. They said creepy people hang around courthouses, and…" Noting that the three old women have worked their way within earshot, she snaps her lips closed. Sydney may be loaded with bluster, but she has respect for her Grandma Budgie. And love. It's evident as she jogs over to help the ladies make their way up the sidewalk.

"Fifty-seven-count indictment," I say when we are finally all in one place. "Parker and his cohorts will have good lawyers, but those charges are going to be hard to beat."

"We have the National Park Service." Budgie clasps my hand in both of hers and leans on me rather than on Hazel's wheelchair. "And we have you. I'm brimming with confidence." Looking into her dark, age-clouded eyes, I see a skilled politician who hasn't lost the ability to shake hands and win hearts.

I also see who she was long before she earned the nickname Budgie. She was Ollie, the commissioner of names in Shelterwood, a campaigner even then, a little girl determined to make her own world, and she did. I learned a few things about her while helping Charlie do his first project of the new school year, which involved writing a ten-page construction-paper book about a famous Oklahoman. Ollie spent a college semester in Washington, DC, under the wing of one of the first women elected to the US House of Representatives. By thirty, Ollie won a seat in the Oklahoma State Legislature. She was revered for being skilled in the art of persuasion and unafraid to speak her mind. She became known as Budgie because she hung on mercilessly once she sank her teeth into something…or somebody.

Parker thought he'd found an easy mark, but he should have done a little more research. That handle, Budgie? It was short for Bulldoggie.

"You'll get 'em." She offers me a wink and a sly smile. "I'd do it myself, but I'm old, you know."

"It doesn't show."

"I hide it well," she teases. "But it's for you young gals to fight the battle now. Be smart and tough, like this one." She smiles at Sydney, then moves to put an arm around the girl's shoulders. When Budgie's hand pulls away from mine, I notice that she's left me with a folded piece of paper. She winks slyly, and I close my fist as she hugs Sydney close. "We'll take care of each other when our Braden goes off to fly those military planes, won't we?"

"Yes'm." Sydney's head rests on Budgie's stooped-over shoulder. The light between them outshines the November day. My heartstrings tug, and I want to call my mother and my grandmother, the women who built me—who implanted the idea that whatever path I chose for myself, I could conquer it.

What a gift that was. What a gift that still is.

"You'll come visit us in Antlers, though, right?" Sydney's query parts my thoughts. "And I still want to see all those new trails in the park and stuff, and you could take me on a ride along…and Bonnie, too." Curtis's stray mama dog has found the perfect home, complete with acres of ranchland and a girl child to look after. Curtis is finally out of the puppy business.

"Sure thing. I'll let you know next time Charlie and I plan a hike. He'll be glad to see Bonnie again."

"I'll bet, since he doesn't got a dog of his own." A reproachful frown punctuates the comment.

"I might just join you on that hike," Nessa interjects. "If the trail is not too demanding. Hazel and I have decided to stay for a time. At least until all the legal proceedings are completed…and until Budgie is fully back on her feet."

"I'm glad." In truth, Budgie needs the help, and so does Sydney. "It's a perfect season to be in the mountains." The trees have donned their fall colors and the Winding Stair is just plain showing off.

We chat a bit more before Braden and Rachel bring the ranch vehicle around. Budgie lingers beside me as the others make their way to the SUV. They're so preoccupied with how to load everybody they don't notice that they're missing someone.

Budgie taps a finger to my closed hand.

"Those little ones who were laid to rest in the cave? My father put them there, I think," she says quietly. "Keyes Radley was not a bad man, but on behalf of bad men, he did wrong things in the days when Choctaw people with land rights were apt to die of sudden illnesses or meet with accidents. I don't mean to say that he had any hand in the killings. A man who'd place the bodies so carefully, gather the proper grave goods for little children before laying them to rest, couldn't possibly have been so wicked. I'll always believe that Keyes Radley brought Hazel and Nessa up the mountain to save them from a far worse fate, to keep them safe with my mother and me. I think he dreamed of beginning a new life, and in that place under the spreading oak, he thought he could leave behind the evil he'd seen, the things he'd done for money."

She fixes a steely gaze on me, as if challenging me to contradict her. "In the record book in his rucksack, he'd kept a list—names and how the poor souls perished. I've never shown it to anyone, not even my sisters. Perhaps he meant to use the list as leverage against powerful men. Perhaps he meant to go to the government with it. I'll never know, but there is only one notation of three girls: Ara, Alma, and Addie Crooms. He wrote beside their names, Killed in a wagon accident, with a question mark. Their burial was the last time he did such terrible work. Perhaps he couldn't stomach it after that. I think he would want to see their names returned to them." With a squeeze of my hand, she steps away.

The group at the SUV is growing restless now. Braden jangles the keys as he holds the back door open. "Everybody's in, Grandma Budgie."

"Coming!" she calls, then turns to me again. "If you have some space on one of those…those signs in the park where tourists stop to see maps and gather brochures and such…"

"The notice boards?"

"Yes, notice boards. Perhaps you could tell the visitors about Shelterwood—that once a community of children lived in these woods, and they fished and gathered wild foods and played and learned. And this is why they did it: Because they had no one to save them, and so they had to save themselves. People called them elves, as if they were spirits or myths, but they were just children. They found an advocate in one tiny woman only five feet tall, Miss Kate Barnard of Oklahoma. Had the oilmen not caused her office to be defunded and her name ruined, the plundering and the killing might have been stopped years before Gertrude Bonnin and the clubwomen finally took it to the newspapers with their report. People should know what happened here and who fought against it."

"Yes, they should." Having that story placed in the park is not in my purview, but I'll find a way to put it out there.

"Being that I was Shelterwood's commissioner of names, I commission you to do it. And you might want these." She slips a yellowed envelope from her pocketbook and leaves it in my hands before turning to Braden, who has come to fetch her. Taking his arm, the woman who once was Ollie winks at me and then departs, leaving me to open the envelope and unfold the musty newspaper clippings inside. When I do, I take in a photograph of a woman in a high-button blouse and black skirt, standing amid buntings and banners on a hay wagon, speaking before a massive crowd. Miss Kate Barnard in Talihina, the caption reads.

The second clipping is a pen-and-ink drawing that looks like something from a Dickens novel, gaunt children with sunken cheeks and bowed backs, seated around a campfire. The mean estate of our elf children, the commentary beneath offers. Who will help them?

Staring at the sketch, I imagine the children as more than lines on paper. The grand jury indictment feels like some measure of justice for them, too. A modern-day grafter will face his day in court. But amid the thrill of victory, a hollow spot remains. Curtis isn't here. The celebration won't be complete until we share it, which means my next move will be to track him down. The idea teases a smile as I tuck away the clippings and start down the block toward my car.

When I turn the corner, his vehicle is pulling in next to mine.

"I was wondering about you," I call across the space between us as he steps out the driver's side door. "You're late by an hour, Officer Enhoe." I try for scorn, but the comment comes out sounding giddy.

Grinning, he takes me in. "Looks like the news was good. That's a cat-ate-the-mouse smile if I ever saw one."

"This time I think the mouse ate the fat cat," I say as I close the distance between us. "Fifty-seven-count indictment."

"Fill me in?" Leaning against the car, he crosses his arms over his chest. His sunglasses reflect the downtown Muskogee street as he waits for me to join him. "Hated to miss it. Couldn't be helped, though."

"Bad shift?" We settle in side by side, crimson and amber leaves tumbling past our feet.

"Yeah." He rubs a hand through his hair. Every strand settles right back into place. I smile to myself because I knew it would.

"Anything big?"

"Gave the game warden an assist over by Clayton Lake. Took some bad actors into custody. Three."

"Three? That's a load." I understand that when duty calls, it just does. But I wish today of all days it hadn't.

"They were cute, though."

My brain does a noisy skid, then a quick 180. "Cute? What? The bad actors?"

The smallest dimple forms in his cheek. "Blonds…well, one's sort of blond-and-white-spotted-ish."

I don't know whether to laugh, talk some sense into him, or hug him for being the man he is. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Leaving them running around in the middle of nowhere wasn't an option. And they're golden retrievers…I mean mostly…I'd say."

"You're back in the puppy business?" Slapping both hands over my face, I shake my head. "Curtis Enhoe!"

"Curly little blonds. Just the right kind for a towheaded boy about…yay high."

"Not a chance."

"Perfect time for it. I heard somebody's finally about to settle into permanent housing."

"Where did you hear that?"

"I have my sources." A grin widens beneath the glasses and the scrub brush hair. "And the bad actors told me to tell you that a home's not a home without a dog."

Home.It warms me to the core. I want that for Charlie…and for myself. Joel would have wanted this for us—to make a home, a life. A good life.

"We could talk about it over that fish dinner you owe me." Curtis harkens back to the wager we made when everything was falling apart.

"I think we ended up on the same side of the bet." That day feels like years ago. We've come so far. I've come so far. I hardly recognize the woman who drove into Talihina with a car and a life full of baggage she was afraid to unpack.

"We might have, after all." Shifting to his feet, he winks at me and adds, "But this one's on me, Ranger Boren-Odell. If you're up for a little walk, I've got a cousin who runs a place right around the corner."

"Of course you do." Laughing, I push off the car, and together we pass from the shadows into the light.