Badlands

by Peter Bowen

  “One,” said Pallas, “is that I am marrying Ripper in six years. He’s a guy, so, well … I can’t blame him, I guess, but …”

  “You think Ripper and I have a thing going?” said Pidgeon.

  “Could,” said Pallas.

  “I don’t want to belittle your taste in men,” said Pidgeon, “but Ripper there, well, he doesn’t exactly light my fire.”

  “You think he’s ugly?” said Pallas.

  “Nope,” said Pidgeon.

  “Stupid?” said Pallas.

  “Nope,” said Pidgeon.

  “What’s wrong with him?” said Pallas.

  “Tell you what,” said Pidgeon. “Marry his sorry ass and find out.”

  “Well-mannered people,” said Ripper, “do not discuss others who are in the same room.”

  Pidgeon and Pallas looked at Ripper.

  Ripper threw up his hands and went out the front door.

  “Smart man,” said Susan Klein. She made herself a drink and came down to Pidgeon and Pallas.

  Pidgeon bent over close to Pallas.

  “Actually,” she whispered, “he’s a great guy. Rare guy. We just have this way of working together.”

  “Why don’t you like him?” said Pallas.

  “I love this other guy,” said Pidgeon, “but he doesn’t even notice me.”

  “Doesn’t notice you?” said Pallas. “He is dead, maybe?”

  Pidgeon sighed.

  “What can I tell ya?” she said.

  “Who?” said Pallas.

  Pidgeon squirmed.

  “Um, I’d rather not,” she said.

  “OK,” said Pallas, “I figure it out, though. I am good at figuring stuff out.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” said Pidgeon.

  “You aren’t very happy,” said Pallas.

  Pidgeon sighed.

  “Pallas,” she said, “you’re picking on me.”

  “Yeah,” said Pallas, “I am. I … maybe I am jealous. You are older. You are very beautiful. If I was you I could marry Ripper right now.”

  “Give it time,” said Pidgeon.

  “Easy for you to say,” said Pallas.

  Pidgeon sighed again.

  “How ’bout a pop?” said Susan Klein.

  Pallas nodded.

  “OK,” she said. “I am sorry. I got to pick on my brothers, sisters, all the time. Stay alive, you know.”

  Pidgeon nodded.

  Madelaine came in the front door.

  “Ripper is on his knees in the parking lot,” said Madelaine. “He is calling on God for deliverance.”

  “Ripper is fond of cheap dramatics,” said Pidgeon.

  “What you doin’ in here?” said Madelaine, looking hard at Pallas.

  “I had talk to her ’bout Ripper,” said Pallas.

  “Uh-huh,” said Madelaine. “You threaten, kill her?”

  “No,” said Pallas, “I was just explaining.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Madelaine. She came up and got on the stool beside Pidgeon.

  Pallas tried to be very small so that Madelaine would forget she was in the saloon where she wasn’t supposed to be.

  “Pallas goin’ to marry Ripper,” said Madelaine.

  Pidgeon nodded.

  “I expect she will,” she said.

  “Ripper, him, he think it is a joke,” said Madelaine.

  “Ripper is so smart about some things and so damn dumb about others,” said Pidgeon. “Typical guy.”

  “Got two heads, think with the little one,” said Pallas.

  “That is enough,” snapped Madelaine.

  “Wherever did you hear that?” said Pidgeon.

  “From me,” said Madelaine. “She is not, say them things, company.”

  Pidgeon snorted.

  “She is sad,” said Pallas. “She is in love, this guy, he don’t know she is alive.”

  Madelaine looked at Pidgeon.

  “You like it he don’t know?” she said.

  Pidgeon nodded vigorously.

  “See?” said Madelaine, looking at Pallas. “It is not so simple.”

  “It is not so complicated, either,” said Pallas. “Get your head out of your ass it isn’t anyway.”

  Madelaine sighed. Susan Klein brought her a glass of pink fizzy wine.

  “We try,” she said, “raise her right and all. She is born, this. First thing she say, the doctor picks her up she comes out. ‘Who the fuck are you?’”

  Pidgeon laughed.

  “Well,” said Pallas, “maybe I better go and see how Ripper is doing.”

  “Sight of you,” said Madelaine, “calm him right down. Yep. Good of you, very Christian, go to help make poor Ripper feel better.”

  “Silly fucker,” said Pallas. “He oughta go fishing or something.” She finished her pop and she ran out.

  Phrases of Ripper’s address to the Lord God on High wafted in and were cut off when the door closed.

  “Quite a kid,” said Pidgeon.

  “That one is never a kid,” said Madelaine. “I think, maybe she is older than I am. Maybe who she marry oughta be Benetsee.”

  Susan Klein roared with laughter.

  So did Pidgeon.

  The door opened again and a woman came in, wearing the long gray dress of the Host of Yahweh. She had a rolled sheet of paper in her hand. She walked up to the bar.

  “Could I possibly put this up?” she said. “We are having a barbecue Sunday afternoon, and wish to invite anyone who would like to come. There will be barbecued buffalo and trimmings, pop, beer, and we hoped we might hire Mr. Du Pré and his band to play.”

  “Him can’t,” said Madelaine, “other musicians are at Turtle Mountain, they be here, maybe two weeks.”

  “Too bad,” said the woman. “But we have some pretty good musicians, too. You are all invited, of course. So may I put this up?”

  “Sure,” said Susan Klein. She pointed to the big corkboard by the door where messages and advertisements were posted.

  The woman put up the poster, an expensive four-color print.

  Madelaine went over to look at it.

  “They have that printed just for this,” she said. “Cost some money, that.”

  “We have been racking our brains trying to find an excuse to get in there,” said Pidgeon. “And look at this.”

  “Won’t do you much good,” said Susan Klein.

  Pidgeon shrugged.

  Du Pré came in. He left the door open for a moment.

  “Ripper he is praying for lightning,” said Du Pré, “strike Pallas.”

  “What is Pallas doing?” said Madelaine.

  “Laughing at Ripper,” said Du Pré, “the dumb shit.”

  “What you doing, Du Pré?” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré shrugged and he let the door close.

  “I am being thirsty,” he said.

  Susan Klein got a tall glass and she made a ditch for Du Pré.

  “You see the woman who was just in here?” said Madelaine.

  “Yah,” said Du Pré, “invite everybody, a barbecue, the Eide place.”

  “She want you to play there,” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “They ask you again,” said Madelaine.

  “They ask a lot I still shake my head,” said Du Pré.

  “So the White Priest is here,” said Pidgeon, “and the carnival begins.”

  She walked over to the poster and looked at it carefully.

  “Anybody can come in a costume,” said Pidgeon. “A hundred dollar prize for the best one.”

  “Ripper win that,” said Du Pré.

  Dress up, the Mad Hatter, when we raid that dope operation. Jesus.

  Pidgeon came back to her stool. Susan Klein patted her hand.

  “Room all right, dear?” she said. There were two trailers out back of the saloon that each had three rooms.

  “Jes’ a little hole,” said Pidgeon. “Jes’ a little hole and it all pours through …” She stood up and went out the
back door.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” said Susan Klein.

  “Seven murder cases and her love life,” said Madelaine.

  CHAPTER 13

  “THEY WERE DESPERATE,” SAID Bart’s lawyer Foote, “and there was a mailing which came, offering a low rate on a large loan. It seemed to be a legitimate offer, so the Eides applied and the loan was granted. Then the cattle business sank, hard, and there they were. The loan was cheap, all right, but the gamble was that beef would rise a little. It couldn’t be rescheduled. So the Host of Yahweh foreclosed on it and that was that.”

  “They send this one thing just to the Eides?” said Du Pré.

  “So far,” said Foote. “I would expect that they did offer cheap money to a few other places.”

  “Bastards,” said Du Pré.

  “They were too proud to approach Bart,” said Foote.

  Du Pré sighed.

  To some, Bart was just another rich newcomer, though the Fascellis had owned their ranch now for over forty years.

  “It’s very hard to get information,” said Foote. “The members won’t talk. There are very few apostates, and after the massacre no one in their right mind would say anything.”

  “Who is this White Priest?” said Du Pré.

  “Seems to be your garden-run sociopath and manic-depressive,” said Foote. “Very smart. Something is going on with the Host, but nobody can figure out what. They have a lot of legitimate businesses, a hell of a lot of money, and they haven’t been stupid enough to try and buy automatic weapons from an FBI agent, at least not yet. They probably will. The White Priest declares that there will be spaceships coming to carry the faithful away, just before the world ends in fire and war. Think that, you need a few machine guns.”

  “Flying saucers?” said Du Pré.

  “Last I read,” said Foote, “over three million Americans recall having been abducted by aliens. Makes you believe in democracy, yes?”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “Why buffalo?” said Du Pré.

  “Buffalo are well thought of,” said Foote, “like wolves and harp seals. We live in a time of sentiment, unfortunately much like that of Germany circa 1936.”

  “Nazis?” said Du Pré.

  “Hitler was a fascist,” said Foote, “and fascists don’t like dirt, sloppiness, tardiness, loud noises, smells, and other evidences of wrong thinking. If some good soul had shot Adolf in 1936, he would be Saint Adolf of the Ecology today. Loved wildlife, Hitler did. His SS had great reverence for all life, save inconvenient humans.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  “We’ll talk again. Be careful. Unlike most of these cults, there are some competent people in the Host.”

  Foote said goodbye and he was gone. Du Pré folded up the cell phone and he handed it back to Bart.

  “I half expected a call from the cult,” said Bart, “but it seems they have their own excavators. They are utterly self-contained. Easier now with the Internet. They ship in their foodstuffs, clothing, necessaries. Other than deliveries of fuel and power they don’t spend a nickel locally. They don’t hire local craftsmen. They barely leave the ranch. And they offer a free barbecue to the neighbors. That should be interesting.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  Pidgeon came in the back door of the saloon. It was a warm day and she had on shorts and a halter. Two cowboys at a table in the corner stared at her, mouths open.

  “I have some stuff,” said Pidgeon. She went back out.

  The cowboys looked at each other and they shook their heads.

  Du Pré slid off the stool and he went out the back door to the double room Pidgeon had in the larger of the two trailers. She had set up an office. There was a fair-sized telephone bank and some other electronic equipment Du Pré did not recognize and didn’t care to know about, either.

  There were seven color photographs printed on 8½ × 11 sheets of paper tacked to a corkboard. The photographs were grainy, blowups of those taken for driver’s licenses.

  All men, all in their mid-thirties, all with neat haircuts and open, level gazes, and all dead at the same instant though they were hundreds of miles apart.

  “My clients there,” said Pidgeon, “pretty ordinary joes, every one. None of them were in the military. They went to middling schools and got degrees in ordinary disciplines. All having to do with the computer. Computer science, advertising, marketing, and information retrieval. That’s what librarians are today. Information retrieval specialists.”

  Du Pré looked at the faces. They were meaningless.

  “Other’n they all got killed the same moment,” said Pidgeon, “neither I nor my alchemies can spot any pattern. Four were married and divorced before they joined the Host, three divorced after they joined the Host, not a one of them ever got busted for anything ’cept overtime parking. Dull, honest citizens, other’n believing spaceships were coming and what-all else the Host thinks, they were all duller than network TV. Why somebody thought they all had to be killed is mysterious. These guys would be invisible in a gray room.”

  Du Pré stared at the photographs.

  “Maybe I have copies of these?” he said.

  Pidgeon looked at him.

  “Sure,” she said. “Take about five minutes.” She did something on a keyboard and noises began. A printer pushed out a sheet of paper.

  “I was going to take these to Benetsee,” said Pidgeon. “We need a little magic.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  Pidgeon waited while the photographs came out of the slot. She put them in a manila envelope and handed it to Du Pré.

  “Where is that Ripper?” said Du Pré.

  “In a phone company truck,” said Pidgeon, “hanging off a pole out at the Host Ranch. Looking around. Won’t amount to shit, but at least I don’t have to listen to his godawful jokes.”

  “They are pretty bad,” said Du Pré.

  Ripper loved puns, the more wretched the better.

  “Couple agents from out Butte office are coming to talk to the White Priest,” said Pidgeon, “ask questions about the late lamented. This is the first and only spot of trouble the Host of Yahweh has ever had. It is odd as hell. Other’n the spaceships and the White Priest, there isn’t anything even especially weird about them.”

  “Give Harvey my best,” said Du Pré.

  “I’d like to give Harvey a whack over the head with a chair,” said Pidgeon. “I coulda done this at home, damn it.” She punched savagely at her keyboard.

  Du Pré took the envelope and went out.

  The day was bright and there were only a few puffy clouds high up. The sun was very warm on his back. He wore an old shirt with the sleeves ripped off at the shoulder seams. The air felt good.

  Du Pré yawned.

  Funny dreams last night, but they are not funny. Make no sense. Only times my dreams make sense I go to Benetsee’s, but those are not dreams.

  Du Pré shrugged and went in the back door of the Toussaint Bar. The cowboys were still at the table in the corner, still looking poleaxed. Madelaine was behind the bar. She was still wearing the ridiculous rhinestone glasses.

  She was staring at her beadwork.

  Du Pré leaned over the bar. He snatched the godawful glasses and threw them on the floor and stomped on them. Blue rhinestone beads crunched and plastic shattered. He twisted his bootheel.

  Du Pré went and got the broom and dustpan and swept up the pieces and took them to the cold woodstove and threw them in. He put the broom and dustpan back.

  He sat back down on the barstool.

  Madelaine had on another pair of glasses, the spare set of plain fake tortoiseshell Du Pré had bought in Cooper.

  “I win five dollars,” said Madelaine. “I know you do that, I say today. That Susan, she say, no, tomorrow. So we bet.”

  “You know me pret’ good,” said Du Pré.

  Madelaine looked up and she smiled.

  “You know me pret’ good, too,” she said. She put down her beadwork and
glasses. She came round the bar and put her arms around Du Pré and kissed him.

  The cowboys at the table cheered.

  Madelaine turned and bowed.

  Du Pré laughed.

  Madelaine went back to her stool behind the bar.

  Du Pré looked at the floor. He saw a piece of blue bead he had missed.

  But when he bent over to pick it up, he couldn’t see it.

  CHAPTER 14

  DU PRÉ DROVE HIS old cruiser through the front gate of the Host ranch, and down the recently graded road to the main compound. There were perhaps forty vehicles parked on a lot marked out with lines of white powder. Some were Host of Yahweh vans and some were pickups and cars owned by local people.

  One of the huge metal buildings had its front doors slid open, and lights shone inside.

  “Wonder what they got?” said Madelaine.

  They got out. Ripper and Pidgeon had been sitting in the backseat, silently. They got out, too.

  “Jacqueline and Raymond and the kids be along,” said Madelaine.

  The four of them walked toward the big metal building. There were rain clouds off to the west. A huge area down in a meadow had been made over into a softball field and a soccer field and there was an elaborate playground, with slides and jungle gyms and swings and sandboxes.

  Inside the barn, tables had been set up and hundreds of folding chairs. There was a bandstand and many booths with carnival games. Tossing rings, shooting air guns at spinning targets, throwing balls at stacks of fake bottles. There were shelves of prizes, mostly stuffed animals. Some of the booths sold preserves and baked goods and clothing.

  The members of the Host of Yahweh were bustling around, hanging the last of the bunting and arranging the last few things, forgotten till that moment.

  “Don’t look too dangerous,” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré nodded.

  The rear door of the metal barn was open, too, and scents of cooking meat and barbecue sauce blew through the barn.

  There was a cotton candy machine in one corner, and some kids in line waiting to get really sticky.

  Ripper and Pidgeon split up and they sauntered around the booths.

  Madelaine stopped at one of the shooting galleries. She began to dig in her purse for some money.

  “It’s free,” said the young man in the old-blood-colored shirt.