“The Silent Spirit,” by popular Colorado author Margaret Coel, takes a little-known episode from the past of the Arapaho and Shoshone tribes and expands it into an entertaining and educational read.
This 14th Wind River mystery explores the world of filmmaking in the early 1920s, the era of Hollywood’s silent movies. It was a time when Western-themed movies captured the imagination of audiences.
Coel bases her story on a very real movie, “The Covered Wagon,” released by Paramount in 1923. This historic movie was the first to use real Indians in the action, and 750 Shoshone and Arapaho were cast as extras.
Coel uses the real cast and production crew and her obvious impeccable research in this intricate and compelling novel to great effect.
Returning character Father John O’Malley, a Jesuit priest, has just come back from six months in Rome. Although his posting to St. Francis Mission on the Wind River Reservation is “temporary,” he is very happy to be back among the people whom he has grown to consider as family. One Arapaho he is especially glad to see again is attorney Vicki Holden. In the past, the two have teamed together as a rather unique detecting duo.
It is a snowy winter day when Father John gives Kiki Wallowingbull a lift into town soon after Kiki’s release from prison for dealing drugs. In an attempt to atone for his past misdeeds, Kiki wants to find the truth about his great-grandfather’s disappearance. Charlie Wallowingbull never returned from a trip to Hollywood to help promote the opening of “The Covered Wagon.”
Kiki’s family believes that only death would have kept Charlie from coming back to his pregnant wife, but through the years the family has endured the shame of an apparent abandonment. After all this time, Kiki wants justice for Charlie, and he is willing to go to Hollywood to find the truth, even if it violates his parole.
Throughout the story Coel takes the reader back in time to 1923 and the events surrounding the making of the movie. She deftly creates engaging characters, settings and events in both eras. Of special note is the difference of attitudes toward American Indians.
It is easy to forget how blatant and prominent prejudice was in earlier years and how minorities were forced to behave in order to survive. As shown in the novel, not all prejudices have died out.
Father John is soon drawn further into the almost century-old mystery when Kiki’s grandfather, an elder in the tribe, starts to worry when the young man also doesn’t return, an eerie parallel to Charlie’s disappearance.
Meanwhile, Vicky has taken on a client who claims to have killed someone in self-defense. At first the man will talk only on the phone, not revealing his identity or whom he has killed. As Vicky finally gets her client to talk and Father John gets closer to the truth about Kiki’s whereabouts, their two investigations overlap.
Vicky and Father John’s paths take them back to investigate a decades-old mystery and to Hollywood to solve at least two deadly crimes.
Complicating the duo’s inquiries are very personal issues. Vicky is still in a professional and personal partnership with Adam Lone Eagle. Adam, a Lakota, is focused on tribal business pursuits, while Vicky has a hard time refusing individual pro bono cases such as her current situation.
It is this uneasy mix of relationships among Father John, his church, Adam and Vicky, that provide the series with the tension of a taboo as strong as the attraction between Vicky and Father John.
Coel does not stint other characters in her series. Her returning and supporting characters continue contributing to the grounded atmosphere of the Wind River Reservation series.
This time, Elena, the mission’s housekeeper, adds information that helps Father John solve one of the mysteries.
Leslie Doran is a freelance writer in Durango.
NONFICTION
The Silent Spirit
by Margaret Coel
$24.95
