by Peter Bowen
They got to Toussaint in two hours. It was a bright and sunny day and the Wolf Mountains to the north gleamed with fresh snow up high.
“You want some pink wine?” said Du Pré.
“No,” said Madelaine. “I need to go home. I am a little worried about Lourdes.”
Lourdes was Madelaine’s eldest daughter. A good student, quiet and shy, when she grew up she would be a stately woman. She had her father’s big bones and blade nose.
Du Pré nodded. Lourdes had just turned fifteen and she was the most rebellious of Madelaine’s children, in a quiet, firm way. No scenes. No calls from the police. If she drank or smoked dope she did so very quietly. Du Pré didn’t think that she did.
Lourdes liked to control everything around her.
Lourdes was a frightened, intelligent girl.
Du Pré drove up to Madelaine s house. The front door was open. The radio was turned up very loud. Bad rock and roll music.
It was all pretty bad, Du Pré thought.
Du Pré parked and he got out and opened the trunk and he got their nylon suitcases. He took one in each hand and he walked up toward the house.
“Du Pré!” Madelaine yelled. Her voice was a little hysterical.
Du Pré came in. He set the bags down.
Madelaine was standing by the telephone, which sat on a little Parsons table Du Pré had made for her, out of some walnut he had found in an abandoned bar.
Madelaine was holding a piece of ruled notebook paper. The sort that is bound with wire. One margin was all tiny holes, now ripped out when the page had been taken from the book.
“Lourdes, she run away.”
Du Pré nodded. Neither of his two girls had ever run away, but, then, neither of his two girls got any crap from Du Pré, who knew better. My Jacqueline and my Maria, they know who they are. Father Pussycat, they call me. I give up early on.
“She say where she run away to?” said Du Pré.
“It is not running away you let your poor mother know where you are visiting,” said Madelaine. “That’s just visiting.”
“She got a boyfriend?” said Du Pré.
“Yeah,” said Madelaine. “She is hanging out with that poor Dassault boy, Sean. That asshole old man of his, name him that.”
Bucky Dassault was one of Du Pré’s pet hates. The man was wholly dishonest. He’d come out of Deer Lodge Prison on parole from a statutory rape conviction. While he was in there, he had taken extension courses and qualified as an alcohol and drug counselor. That didn’t work out well, so he became Benjamin Medicine Eagle, New Age Shaman, and he took out ads in New Age magazines and he made a lot of money. His wife had the good sense to divorce him after only three kids. Sean was around, but the other boy and the girl were in juvenile custodial programs.
“So we ask Sean, where is Lourdes?” said Du Pré.
“No shit,” said Madelaine.
“OK,” said Du Pré. “I go and find the little prick and talk with him, you maybe make some phone calls.”
“You don’t hurt him,” said Madelaine. “He’s a pretty good kid, don’t have much at home, you know. You can scare him some, but you don’t hurt him, Du Pré.”
Du Pré nodded. He wasn’t going to hurt poor Sean in the first place, but then Madelaine mothered even people she hated.
Du Pré went out and he got in the car and he drove down to the bar and he got out and he went in.
Susan Klein was standing behind the bar. Her husband Benny was out in front.
Sean Dassault was sitting on a barstool, cringing.
“She mad about something,” he whined. He turned and looked and saw Du Pré and he jumped off the stool and tried to run.
Benny Klein held his arm.
“You want to kill him or can I?” said Benny.
“OOhhhhh,” wailed Sean.
“Sean,” said Du Pré, “you quit bawling, some stuck pig, there. We are worried about Lourdes.”
Sean looked at Du Pré warily.
“She pregnant?” said Du Pré.
Sean turned red and shook his head.
Bingo, thought Du Pré. Little bastards act just like we did. Now we know better, spoil their fun.
“You know where she go?”
“She was going to Seattle,” said Sean.
“How is she getting, this Seattle, Sean?” said Du Pré.
“She going to hitchhike,” said Sean.
“Where from?” said Du Pré.
“Going up to the Hi-Line,” said Sean.
“Who give her a ride there?” said Du Pré. “Or … wait a minute, she was running, the track meet in Cut Bank?”
“She don’t go, she tell them she is sick, first thing on Saturday morning.”
Me and Madelaine, we are at the powwow. Smart kid.
“Who give her the ride there?” said Du Pré.
“I did,” Sean sniffled.
Oh, good, thought Du Pré, Lourdes has the balls to hitchhike a thousand miles, and you, you little pile of shit, won’t go along to protect her. Not that you could so much, but the thought is nice. “Why don’t you go?” said Du Pré.
“I am eighteen,” said Sean miserably.
Right, thought Du Pré, that is statutory rape, even if you don’t touch them, here. OK, this kid is at least not wanting to see Deer Lodge first minute he is eligible, go there.
“You try to talk her out of it?”
“Hah,” said Sean. “She don’t never do what I say.”
“You take her yesterday morning?” said Du Pré.
Sean nodded.
“Drop her off. Raster Creek, first place got a little rest stop?”
Sean nodded.
“You wait to see, she gets a ride?”
Sean shook his head.
“Why not?” said Du Pré.
“She don’t want me to,” Sean said.
“We got girls dead in the sagebrush,” said Du Pré, “and you, you little fucker, you don’t at least wait, see who picks her up?”
Sean shook his head miserably.
“You pussy-whipped little bastard,” said Du Pré. “Good thing I don’t not promise my Madelaine that I won’t hurt you.”
“She tell me, go away,” said Sean.
“Madelaine, she skin you out, whole hide,” said Du Pré. “She wipe her ass with your brain. You want good advice, grow a foot, turn blond, move away. Jesus.”
Sean snuffled.
“Sean,” said Susan Klein, “you fucked up big time.”
“Well,” said Du Pré, “since you are gonna die so soon, you maybe better go find Father Van Den Heuvel.”
“Oh,” said Sean.
“It is important,” said Du Pré.
“Oh,” said Sean.
“Madelaine, she will not kill you while there is a priest looking,” said Du Pré. “He quit looking at you, you dead.”
Sean looked at Du Pré, and Susan, and Benny. He snuffled and wiped his nose on a bar napkin.
He went out the side door and headed for the little Catholic Church.
Du Pré rolled a smoke.
“Poor little fucker,” he said.
CHAPTER 8
“GOD DAMN YOU HARVEY Weasel Fat, I thought me and you were friends!” Madelaine said not very sweetly into the telephone. Du Pré couldn’t hear Harvey defend himself. “You talkin’ like a man got a velvet mouth,” said Madelaine. “Why you don’t help me?”
Harvey, he is not doing so good, thought Du Pré.
“I got a daughter out there bein’ fucked by truck drivers if she isn’t dead,” said Madelaine. “You goddamn right I am upset. You bastards so busy burning down churches full of dumb people you got no time for a poor woman who’s worried?”
She really is mad, thought Du Pré. Mothers, they go nuts, their kids give them mental illness.
“What you care some pussy white man give you a bunch of dumb rules?” said Madelaine. “You Indian or what?”
Poor Harvey, thought Du Pré, he forget it is the women in the tribe do all t
he torturing. Nothing they like better, saw off nuts with a dull rock.
“Well, I thank you,” said Madelaine, “you skinny Blackfeet prick.”
Madelaine slammed the phone down.
“Asshole,” she said.
Du Pré went to her and he took her in his arms and she began to cry softly. She buried her head in his chest. She put her hands to her face and she rocked a little, keening.
“What I do wrong?” said Madelaine. “I love that Lourdes, I know she is not having such a good time, you know? What I do wrong?”
Du Pré had an attack of smarts and he didn’t say one damn thing.
“Damn,” said Madelaine. She sniffled. She pulled away and went to the roll of paper towels in the kitchen and she ripped one off and blew her nose and wiped her eyes. She went off to the bathroom. Du Pré heard the water running in the sink.
She will be better now, Du Pré thought, not OK but better.
That damn little bitch Lourdes. She got to know how worried this will make her mother.
Not to mention me. That guy, he is out there, eating runaways.
Dumping their poor bodies in the sagebrush.
That guy, he had a mother, too. We all get one.
Where is he?
Madelaine came out of the bathroom. Her eyes were swollen but a little clearer. Her black eyebrows were knotted and her hands were clenched tight.
“You call them Missoula police?” she said.
“Yes,” said Du Pré. Also Kalispell, Spokane, Seattle.
This would be plenty bad enough without what else we got, Du Pré thought. She ought to be crazy.
There was a knock at the door. Du Pré went to it.
Father Van Den Heuvel and Bart.
Du Pré motioned them in.
“You want some coffee,” said Madelaine, looking up at them. “I get you some. You sit.”
They sat.
Madelaine put water on the stove and they heard the coffee grinder, a heavy cast-iron one maybe a hundred years old, crank.
“I have a plane here,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded. Sometimes it was good to have a rich friend.
“Not much to do but wait and pray,” said Father Van Den Heuvel.
No shit, thought Du Pré.
The three men sat and waited, motionless and silent. Madelaine brought coffee for everybody and they drank it.
“How is that Sean?” said Madelaine suddenly.
She looked at Father Van Den Heuvel.
“Upset,” said the big priest. “He doesn’t feel he did the right thing.”
“Where he is?” said Madelaine.
“Uh,” said the priest. “He’s …”
“He’s hidin’ out at your place,” said Madelaine. “I better go and see him. Poor little guy. My Lourdes wrap him around his own dick just like that. Him, he is not match for her, for sure. It is not his fault. I better go tell him that.”
Du Pré looked away and smiled.
“I’ll go and get him,” said Bart.
“I will go with you,” said Madelaine. “I … you two stay here, you answer the phone.”
Du Pré and Father Van Den Heuvel nodded.
Madelaine grabbed her purse and she and Bart went out.
“It’s terrible,” said the priest. “Poor Madelaine. Poor Lourdes.”
“She is a good girl,” said Du Pré. “Just strong-willed like her mother. She be all right.”
They sat.
Du Pré heard the grind of a big truck moving from a stop up to a slow speed.
It was coming around the corner of the main street and heading up toward Madelaine’s.
“That Lourdes, I think that she is here,” said Du Pré. He got up and he went outside.
A big black eighteen-wheeler, bright with chrome, flames painted on the hood, tinted windows. It ground slowly up the dirt street and it came up to Du Pré and stopped.
The passenger door opened and Lourdes stepped down on the fender and then to the running board. She pulled a duffel bag after her. She dropped the duffel bag on the ground and then she jumped down.
Lourdes looked at Du Pré.
“Momma here, yes?” she said, warily.
“Bart take her to talk to that dumb boyfriend of yours,” said Du Pré. “Me, I don’t like to be Sean this moment.”
“He is a dumb shit,” said Lourdes.
“Yeah, well,” said Du Pré. “He is not a very happy dumb shit this time, you bet.”
Lourdes shrugged.
A young man dressed all in black, cowboy hat, boots, belt with a big turquoise-and-silver buckle, rings, watch, bracelet, came round from the far side of the big truck. He was blond and moustached and bearded. He stood by the front of his truck, loose and relaxed.
“This your friend, here?” said Du Pré.
“She don’t like me so good,” said the trucker. “I give her a choice, she could either tell me how to get where she lived, or I could hand her off to the juvie cops. She bitched about it some, but here we are.”
Du Pré looked at the guy. The man was smiling a little and his bright blue eyes were twinkling.
All right, thought Du Pré, we got very lucky this time.
He walked over to the trucker and he stuck out his hand. The trucker shook it.
“Du Pré.”
“Challis.”
“Found her at a truck stop in Spokane,” said Challis. “I was … well, I just thought I’d bring her here. Didn’t know if I bought her a bus ticket she’d use it. And them juvie cops can be kinda nasty.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You headed, Chicago?” said Du Pré.
Challis shook his head.
“Seattle,” he said.
Well, thought Du Pré, here is some gent, he turn around and drive seven, eight hundred miles take a dumb kid home. Turn around, drive back.
Du Pré glanced over. Lourdes and the priest had gone into the house.
“I thank you,” said Du Pré.
“Happy to,” said Challis. He pulled a pack of smokes from his shirt pocket and he lit one.
“Uh,” said Du Pré. “You spend a lot, diesel, can I give you some money?”
“Nope,” said Challis. “All taken care of.”
“Her mother will want to thank you,” said Du Pré. “She be back in a minute.”
“Well,” said Challis. “Her mother comes back she’ll be takin’ a chunk outta the kid’s ass, don’t need me. I’ll be on my way presently.”
The man’s soft drawl was Montana’s own.
“Coffee?” said Du Pré.
“Nope,” said Challis. “I just stretch a little here. Got to highball make the freight run there pretty close to time. I called, told ‘em I had a little trouble, I’d be along presently. The thing ain’t full of hearts ready to transplant, so I suppose folks will get on a couple days later.”
They smoked.
“Pret’ good of you,” said Du Pré.
“Oh,” said Challis. “Not really. I had a kid sister, she took off a few years ago. Shelly. That was her name.”
Du Pré waited, knowing.
“Finally found her last year. What was left of her, anyway. She was a nice kid. Little wild. Loved children. Would’ve made a good mother.”
Du Pré nodded.
“We got this bastard now,” Challis went on. “I wonder maybe he was the one killed Shelly.”
Du Pré nodded.
“You’re Gabriel Du Pré,” said Challis. “I hear you maybe are looking for the same man I’d like to meet.”
Du Pré looked at Challis. The blue eyes were gray now and cold as the moon.
“Here’s my card,” said Challis, handing one to Du Pré. “Number on it’s the cellular phone. Got a tape machine, everything. You just call me any old time. I run the Hi-Line pretty much. Sometimes Chicago to Seattle on the interstate. Haulin’ goods. Lookin’ for something.”
Du Pré nodded.
Challis dropped his cigarette in the dirt. He ground it out with hi
s boot and he got up in his cab and the big diesel thrummbbbed and the huge truck moved away.
You damn bet I call you, Du Pré thought.
Bart’s Rover was coming up the street.
CHAPTER 9
THAT’S VERY GOOD NEWS,” said Harvey Wallace. “I didn’t care to have any more phone time with your Madelaine. Lovely woman. I don’t like having her mad at me.”
“Yeah,” said Du Pré. “It is always better, life, when Madelaine is not mad at you.”
Du Pré was sitting out on the porch of Bart s house using a portable telephone. He didn’t know how it worked. He didn’t want to.
“Reason I called, though, is Agent Pidgeon is going to be out your way, her with the gorgeous knockers, asking questions about this swell guy you have dropping the bodies in the sagebrush. Agent Pidgeon is personally very pissed off at that guy. She tells me no man can quite understand how pissed off she is on account of we are not the prey of these predators. She has a point.”
Du Pré rolled a smoke with his left hand. He licked the paper.
“So I told her to call you after she calls Benny,” said Harvey.
“OK,” said Du Pré. “I don’t got much to tell her, though.”
“Benetsee ever show up?” said Harvey.
“No,” said Du Pré. “I thought I saw him, at a powwow, over by some trees, but when I get there he is gone.”
“They are like that,” said Harvey. He meant medicine people.
“Yeah,” said Du Pré. “Me, I give a lot to talk to Benetsee about his dreams about now.”
“Well …” said Harvey.
“One more thing,” said Du Pré. “I just think of it. This trucker, he is a nice guy, bring Lourdes back OK. I like him. He say that he had a little sister, they found her dead after she had been missing a long time. He tell me, call him, I need anything. He drives the Hi-Line and some Chicago, Seattle stuff.”
“Oh, great,” said Harvey. “We got an avenging angel in a big rig.”
“He tell me his name, Challis.”
“What does he look like?” said Harvey, sharply.
“Blond, six feet, blue eyes, middle thirties maybe,” said Du Pré. “Got tattoos on his hands and forearms, I don’t remember what they were.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Harvey. “I know Rolly Challis.”
“Shelly and Rolly?” said Du Pré.
