Badlands

by Peter Bowen

  “Them,” said Du Pré, pointing.

  The wild horses were running flat out, about twenty of them, with the stallion at the rear and the lead mare out in front guiding the bunch.

  “I see ’em,” said the pilot. “You want me to go closer.”

  “Not too close,” said Bart.

  “Right,” said the pilot.

  Du Pré waited while the plane banked and then it turned and he could see the horses again. Six of them were grullas, backbred to gray with faint stripes like zebras on their withers. Gray on gray, not black on white.

  “What are those?” said Bart, pointing.

  “Spanish horses,” said Du Pré. “Grullas they are called. They are close to wild horses.”

  “Are there any wild horses left?” said Bart.

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “One,” said Du Pré. It has a strange name, Przewalski’s horse. Or something like that. In middle Asia.

  “The Eides never bothered to fence much near the badlands,” said Bart.

  “No water, no grass,” said Du Pré, “no reason a cow go there.”

  “Some cows would go there,” said Bart.

  “Want me to fly the badlands?” said the pilot.

  Bart looked at Du Pré.

  Du Pré nodded.

  The pilot dived down a couple of thousand feet and he leveled the plane. Du Pré could see the horses running flat out, and they dashed into the badlands and down a trail that wound through the small strange buttes and odd formations. The horses never slowed.

  “Over there,” said Bart.

  Du Pré looked out Bart’s window when the pilot banked the plane.

  Four all-terrain vehicles were shooting down the tracks of the horses. The men on them had rifles slung across their backs.

  “Those bastards,” said Bart. “Look at that.”

  The horses were safe and long out of range.

  The pilot circled.

  Two of the all-terrain vehicles were close together and they slowed and stopped. The men on them got out to talk. Then one drove off. The other got back on his four-wheeler and he drove up toward a butte that commanded a view of the trail the wild horses had taken.

  The man took a sleeping bag and a sack from the four-wheeler. He carried them up a trail that wound to the top of the butte.

  “Let’s go back,” said Bart.

  The pilot nodded and banked the plane.

  Du Pré had one last look at the man on the butte, who was looking up at the plane.

  “Those sons of bitches,” said Bart. “There have been wild horses out there since the days of the buffalo. They don’t bother anything that much.”

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “What?” said Bart.

  “They fence that off,” said Du Pré, “them horses have to go somewhere.”

  “Why shoot them?” said Bart.

  “Maybe they want to,” said Du Pré.

  Buffalo. There were buffalo here once, and buffalo wolves, and big white grizzlies along the river bottoms.

  That William Clark, he say he rather fight two Indians than fight one grizzly.

  But they are all gone now.

  Benetsee, he will know how long they been there.

  Long time gone.

  Wonder if them Red Ochre People, them boat people, they were here.

  Not in the badlands.

  Badlands, they don’t even got lizards. Too cold, too dry.

  Got horses though.

  Grullas. Tough little bastards.

  The plane dipped sharply as the pilot approached the dirt strip behind the Toussaint Saloon. He made one low pass. The sheep grazing on the runway fled to a corner of the fenced field.

  The pilot made one more turn and then set the plane down, very smoothly, and he cut the props and braked. Du Pré was pushed against his shoulder straps.

  The pilot turned the plane around and Bart and Du Pré clambered out. The pilot gunned the engines and was airborne again in thirty seconds.

  “There has to be something I can do,” said Bart. He slammed his fist into his palm repeatedly.

  Du Pré rolled a smoke and lit it and he sucked in a thick stream.

  He blew it out.

  “Maybe not,” said Du Pré. “I don’t think them horses, protected.”

  “I don’t like this,” said Bart

  “Nobody like it,” said Du Pré. “So far they done nothing.”

  Bart screwed up his big red face.

  “They will,” he said.

  Du Pré nodded.

  He began to walk toward the saloon and Bart fell in behind.

  Madelaine was behind the bar, stringing beads on her threaded needle. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth.

  Du Pré slid up on a barstool.

  “Don’t do this you are older’n Saint Jean’s shit,” said Madelaine. She half-closed one eye.

  “They are going, shoot the wild horses,” said Du Pré.

  Madelaine got the bead on the needle and she put it on to the little purse she was making beautiful.

  She put down the purse and she got a drink for Du Pré.

  “Go, see Benetsee,” she said.

  CHAPTER 6

  DU PRÉ DROVE THE old cruiser up the rutted track that led to Benetsee’s cabin. The house stood dark and empty, dead. The old man’s old dogs had died years before.

  Du Pré parked the cruiser and he opened the trunk and took out a jug of screwtop wine and a sack of food, cooked meat and potatoes and bread and jars of preserves, that Madelaine had sent along.

  Du Pré walked back past the cabin and down the little dip that led to the meadow where Benetsee’s sweat lodge stood. The flap was up and the sweat lodge empty.

  Du Pré saw a movement at the corner of his eye. A skunk, bold black and white, secure in its stinks. The little animal wandered past the sweat lodge, nose to the ground. It flipped up a cowpie and snapped at something, and then it went on toward the creek and was lost in the willows. The faint smell of its perfume wafted to Du Pré.

  A kingfisher shot past, skraaaking loudly. The bird flew down the creek and then it turned and flew back and dived and landed on a branch. The iridescent blue of its back and head flashed in the sun.

  Then a cloud blocked the light and the earth went gray. Mosquitoes held in the shade by the sunlight rose up from their hiding places. They would be pretty bad this spring, and it wouldn’t get better till the soil dried out.

  Du Pré set the wine and the food down on a stump and he sat on a polished cottonwood log. He rolled a smoke and lit it and he had a drink of whiskey from his flask.

  The kingfisher flew past again and went out of sight down the stream.

  Du Pré sighed.

  “Old man, I got, talk you,” he shouted.

  Something rustled in the bushes and Du Pré saw the yellow-gray fur of a coyote flash past.

  Then silence.

  Du Pré put his head in his hands. It had ached all morning.

  Something hit him in the back, like a June beetle.

  Du Pré smelled woodsmoke. He started. He turned around.

  Nothing.

  The kingfisher flew past again, skraaack skraaack.

  Du Pré got another smell of woodsmoke.

  He sighed and stood up. He went to the firepit and found that the fire and the stones were already laid up. He flicked his lighter at the paper in the bottom of the little trench and the fire caught quickly and it soon was roaring, the pitchy knots in the split wood popping loudly.

  The rick collapsed and the stones sat down on red-hot coals. Du Pré watched them until they had a faint white patina, and then he got the shovel and he carried them to the sweat lodge and set them in the pit. He went to the creek and filled the little bucket with water and he put that inside the sweat lodge and then he stripped and got in and he pulled the flap down and the stones glowed faint red in the dark.

  Du Pré sloshed water on them and steam exploded and the air in the lodge was thick and
heavy and hot and pitch-black.

  Du Pré sang, old songs, some of the songs he knew but not what the words meant. Benetsee had never told him.

  The steam faded and Du Pré put on more water and another burst of wet and hot filled his lungs and touched his skin.

  “Old bastard,” sang Du Pré. “You old goat, you tell me, yes, what do I do now. Tell me about the horses. Tell me about the Host of Yah-Hoo or whoever the hell they are.”

  The heat was heavy and Du Pré began to choke. He threw open the flap and crawled out of the lodge and he ran to the creek and the big pool and he jumped in. The shock of the cold water felt very good.

  Then the cold went from his hot skin to his bones and Du Pré made the bank and he slipped out and stood shivering a moment. The wind dried him rapidly.

  He turned to walk back to his clothes.

  A woman in a long gray dress was standing by Benetsee’s cabin, and a man in the odd full shirt of the Host of Yahweh was walking down the little incline toward Du Pré.

  Du Pré pulled on his clothes and sat on the stump to pull on his boots.

  The man stopped a few feet away.

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “We came to see the medicine man,” said the man.

  “Not here,” said Du Pré. “And you go now and you don’t never come back here.”

  Du Pré stood up.

  Then the woman screamed and Du Pré and the man looked back up the little hillock, to see her pushing frantically at something on her leg.

  Black and white.

  The skunk.

  The woman screamed again and the skunk let go of her and it waddled under Benetsee’s house.

  Du Pré smiled.

  The couple left. Du Pré heard an engine start and then a truck back and fill and go down the rutted drive.

  Son of a bitch. That skunk act OK but maybe it is rabid.

  Du Pré felt something hit him in the back again. He turned and he looked down.

  A fir cone, from the one tree that grew behind Benetsee’s cabin. A giant from a forest long gone, the Douglas fir was more than a hundred feet high and that after lightning had cropped the top.

  Du Pré looked up.

  Benetsee was sitting on a limb fifty feet up, grinning.

  Old son of a bitch!” said Du Pré. “I am here, I bring you wine and good food, I am lucky you don’t shit on me I guess.”

  “You don’t get under the tree right,” said Benetsee.

  “I thought you maybe were the skunk,” said Du Pré.

  Benetsee laughed and he shook his head.

  “Just a skunk,” he said. “Lives around here. Got a family, a home, pret’ good fellow that skunk.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “You maybe break your damn neck getting down, there,” he said. He looked away at the creek. The kingfisher flew past again.

  Du Pré sat down on the stump again and he rolled two smokes and lit one. He had another mouthful of whiskey from his flask.

  He raised his head slowly and looked at the branch, which was now unoccupied.

  “You piss me off one time, old man,” said Du Pré, “I maybe just shoot you. I say, the judge, you see I had to do that, shoot him.”

  Benetsee farted loudly, behind Du Pré.

  “Where is that Pelon?” said Du Pré.

  “Home,” said Benetsee. “He got a family, wife, like that skunk.”

  “Why that skunk bite that woman?”

  Du Pré looked at Benetsee, who grinned.

  “Ask that skunk, him,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré snorted and looked down.

  The skunk was sitting between his feet, looking up at him.

  “God damn you,” said Du Pré.

  The skunk cocked its head and Du Pré watched its beady little eyes.

  “Ask,” said Benetsee.

  “Why you bite that woman,” said Du Pré to the skunk.

  The skunk shrugged and turned and walked off toward the creek.

  Du Pré watched the trouble end of the skunk go.

  “Ver’ funny,” said Du Pré.

  “Him nice skunk,” said Benetsee. “Just don’t like strangers. You maybe buy him a drink, you can bitch each other.”

  Du Pré sighed.

  “Susan Klein like that,” said Du Pré.

  Benetsee pulled a little saucer out of the pocket of his dirty pants and he put it on the ground by Du Pré.

  He took the top off the wine and poured the saucer full.

  “Crazy,” said Du Pré.

  The skunk came out from behind the stump and it licked happily at the fizzy pink wine.

  “Christ,” said Du Pré, “he get drunk maybe he wants, fight.”

  “Skunks don’t fight,” said Benetsee. “Don’t have to.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “The horses,” said Du Pré, “them Host of Yahweh people, they will kill the horses, run the badlands now.”

  “We sweat,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré went to the stump that had the axe buried in it. He began to split wood for a new stone rick.

  CHAPTER 7

  “SKUNK TAKE A CHUNK OUT of her,” said Madelaine. “It was not rabid, Du Pré.”

  “No,” said Du Pré, “crazy. That old man he is talking, the skunk. Drive the skunk crazy. Drive me crazy, too. He is like that, you know.”

  “You bitch ’bout Benetsee all the time,” said Madelaine. “It is good for you. Keep the fat out of your blood.”

  “Any of them come in today?” said Du Pré.

  “No,” said Madelaine. “Quit talking, me.” She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were nearly squinted shut.

  “Maybe you get glasses,” said Du Pré.

  “Read a poem once,” said Madelaine, “said girls, glasses, they don’t get fucked much.”

  “I fuck you you get glasses,” said Du Pré.

  “Nice of you,” said Madelaine. “I want some, got them wings on them, all covered, rhinestones.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  “Don’t like them rhinestones?” said Madelaine. “I think maybe they classy, you know.”

  Du Pré fished his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and handed them to Madelaine.

  “What is this shit,” she said, “no rhinestones, no wings.” She put them on and she looked at the needle and the beads.

  She looked at Du Pré.

  “Gabriel!” she said, “I have not seen you for years! Miracle! I call Father Van Den Heuvel, tell him, maybe this saloon it is a shrine. Make big money off the pilgrims.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  “Burn all the crutches, the woodstove, the winter,” said Madelaine. “You don’t got, cut so much wood.”

  “They got reading glasses, the store in Cooper,” said Du Pré. “Got all kinds you know. They are some stronger than others.”

  Madelaine looked over the tops of the frames at Du Pré.

  “These are fine,” she said. “They are the right ones.”

  Du Pré gestured and she handed them to him. He squinted and he tried to see the little magnification number on the earpiece.

  “Son of a bitch,” said Du Pré. “I cannot see that damn number. I need the glasses. Can’t see it if they are on my head.”

  “Take ’em with you,” said Madelaine. “You can get another pair look at this one.”

  “I am going, glasses now?” said Du Pré.

  Madelaine stuck her finger with the needle and she ripped off a long string of curses, in ladylike tones.

  “’Less you want I bleed to fucking death,” she said. She sucked her finger.

  “Give me that needle,” said Du Pré. “You hurt yourself.”

  “Go get glasses,” said Madelaine. “I wait till you get back. I got all little holes in my finger.” She held out her left forefinger. It was swollen and abused.

  Du Pré finished his drink and he got off the stool and went out, rolling a smoke as he walked. He got in the old cruiser and started it and he turned
around and headed off the thirty miles to Cooper, the county seat.

  It was a beautiful day now, with only a few white puff’s high up and some cirrus to the west.

  Du Pré turned on the blacktop and gunned the engine and he was soon going a hundred over the rolling prairie. He slowed to fifty at the tops of hills, in case there was one of the huge tractors lumbering down the highway.

  The grass was greening up. Snipe flew up from the little wetlands and the meadowlarks trilled from fence posts. The air had a taste of snow yet. There was a fresh white blanket on the peaks of the Wolf Mountains.

  Roaring downhill on a long stretch Du Pré pulled out and passed two of the big vans that the Host of Yahweh owned. Both had California plates, and dark-tinted windows. Du Pré couldn’t see a thing in the vans at all.

  He slowed at the top of the hill until he could see it was clear and then he gunned the engine and shot down a long stretch. The road wound up the rolling prairie on the far side, a snaky and treacherous highway. The hill was higher than it looked.

  Du Pré threaded his way through the turns and when he got to the top he could see Cooper five miles away, the metal roofs of the houses shining silver in the sun.

  Du Pré slowed when he came near the school at the west end of the town. He went by at twenty miles an hour. Little blisters were at recess, screaming and yelling and beating the crap out of each other.

  That Bodine kid used to pound me up pret’ good, thought Du Pré, he was bigger. One day Catfoot he is walking by, sees it, takes me outside that evening, says, you box like this. We practice. I bust the Bodine kid’s nose and he leave me alone after that.

  Kids.

  Du Pré turned into the muddy lot by the general store and he got out and picked his way past the worst of the puddles. There was a boot scraper by the door and he knocked off most of the mud on that, then shuffled on the scrub mat a while. Then he went in. There was no one in the place but the woman at the checkout counter. She was putting packs of cigarettes in the rack.

  “Hi, Du Pré,” she said. “Madelaine called, said to tell you get some with rhinestones.”

  Du Pré fished his reading glasses out of his pocket.

  “You maybe see what the number is on this?” he said. The woman nodded and she took them.