The Lost Bird by Margaret Coel

caught his eye:
Mary James called. Wants you to call back. Important.
Below the message was a number. He tossed the paper aside. He did not know anyone named Mary James. It would have to wait.
    There was the sound of footsteps in the hall followed by a rap on the door. Elena peered around theedge. “Leonard and me are gonna be leavin’ now,” she said.
    He thanked her for everything she’d done.
    “Your dinner’s in the fridge.”
    Another thank you.
    “You sure you gonna be all right?”
    “I’ll be fine.”
    “See you first thing tomorrow,” she said, backing into the hall, pulling the door toward her. The hinges squealed like a small, frightened animal.
    “Elena . . .”
    The slammed door sent a little ripple through the floor. He heard the receding footsteps, the thud of the front door, and he knew that it didn’t matter if a crazed gunman was on the loose. Elena would come to the mission anyway. She would block the door herself if she thought someone meant to harm him. Tomorrow Leonard would also be here, and the volunteers who worked at the museum in the old school. He could order them to stay away, and still they would come. He felt humbled by the loyalty and love he had found here.
    As for Vicky—he exhaled a long breath. She would ask questions around the reservation, and somewhere there was a killer who would learn of her interest. With a sickening clarity he understood there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t protect her. He couldn’t protect the people at the mission.
    A tinny melody, irritating in its familiarity, burst over the line. It struck him he had spent his entire life among stubborn people who dug their heels into the ground and held on to their position, no matter how foolish it might be. Who better than his own people, the Irish? He was a bit like that himself, he knew.Contrary, his father had called him when he’d announced he was going into the priesthood. “Why be so contrary, Johnnie? You got a great future ahead of you. A couple years in the minors, you’ll be pitchin’ at Fenway Park, and that will be grand. The whole family’ll be there to cheer you on. Eileen, too. The girl loves you to distraction.”
    “I want to be a priest, Dad.”
    “And would you tell me something, boy? How you gonna pitch fastballs from a pulpit? The Lord give you this talent. He’ll be wantin’ you to use it. And what about Eileen? You wanna break the girl’s heart?”
    “A priest, Dad.”
    “God almighty, the Lord put breath into a contrary lad.”
    Father John closed his eyes against the bittersweet memory, the irritating melody jangling in his ear. He had loved Eileen, and he’d been good at baseball. He might have made a different life, but something had intervened. A vocation, the Church termed it. A calling. It had come in the spring of his senior year at Boston College, with the scouts taking him to dinner and visiting his family. It was as if he had been struck to the ground by the force of it, like St. Paul struck down on the road to Damascus. He had understood he was to be a priest, a Jesuit. He would teach history at Georgetown or Fordham or Marquette. His would be a quiet, scholarly life, writing papers and books, influencing students.
    That wasn’t how it had gone, not how it had gone at all. He’d spent most of a year in Grace House trying to parse out what had happened, how he had become an alcoholic priest who had let down his family, his superiors, and everyone who had believed in him.When he came to St. Francis, he had welcomed the emptiness of the reservation, as if the great open spaces could cover his shame. Gradually he’d been drawn in by the people until, instead of losing himself, he felt he had begun to know himself. Now this: someone here wanted him dead.
    “Wisconsin Province.” The man’s voice startled him out of his thoughts.
    “This is Father O’Malley.” He gripped the receiver tightly against his ear and added: “At St. Francis Mission.”
    He