Badlands

by Peter Bowen

  The woman backed away, leaving her children crying, sitting on the ground.

  Du Pré took out his 9mm. He raised his hand.

  The man on the motorcycle stopped.

  Du Pré turned to look at the woman.

  She was still backing away.

  She lifted her right hand.

  She had a small pistol in it.

  She put it to her temple and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 19

  “I WAS HER PHYSICIAN,” said the man on the television, “and I was held at bay by an FBI agent! She was a deeply disturbed woman, and we wished only to keep her from inadvertently harming her children! The government seems to have lost its mind.”

  “Doctor Vorbeck,” said the pretty face, “it must have been terrible for you.”

  Harvey Wallace flicked off the sound.

  “Way to go, team,” he said. “Every paranoid asswipe in the country will be sleeping with their Kalashnikov tonight.”

  “It’s a fucking crock, Harvey,” said Ripper, “though I will have to admit it does look a bit unfavorable for us. Not the sort of thing I would choose to have on the airwaves.”

  “The director,” said Harvey, “wants to set up an office in Antarctica. You will head it.”

  “That idiot?” said Ripper. “What’s he got to do with this? I shook hands with the man once. Hardly a cause for misapprobation.”

  “His testicles,” said Harvey, “are being deep-fat-fried by those morons who tried to impeach Clinton. His nuts hurt. He is somewhat obsessed with small matters, like the forty-’leven departmental regulations you pissed on. Like how bad it looks for the good old FBI to be engaged in kidnapping and waving guns at helpful citizens just trying to stop a crazy woman from doing herself and her children in. Like—”

  “Want me to resign?” said Ripper.

  “Noooooo,” said Harvey, “matter of no interest to me whatever. The director’s nuts are all hot and blistered. He could fire me, but then I’d sue his racist ass. You’re another matter. You’re one of them.”

  “He wouldn’t—” said Ripper.

  “He’s gonna try to hang all this on you at the hearing,” said Harvey.

  “Well,” said Ripper, “since I am clearly guilty of all the morons who tried to impeach Clinton accuse me of, I guess I can see his point.”

  “Smart boy,” said Harvey. “Raised him from a pup.”

  “I will tell the naked and unappetizing truth,” said Ripper.

  “A good idea you’re under oath,” said Harvey.

  “You two,” said Madelaine, “quit makin’ me laugh. I dropped a bead.”

  “It isn’t funny,” said Harvey.

  “Fuck it isn’t funny,” said Madelaine. “You like it good enough.”

  “She sees through me,” said Harvey. “The director and I cordially detest each other. Ask me, it’s because we’re so much alike.”

  Du Pré nodded. He sipped his whiskey.

  “Could have been worse,” he said.

  Harvey looked at him.

  “Could have shot the kids, too.”

  Tate’s face was on the television. He was the father of the children, the husband of the woman who had shot herself. The woman who had told Du Pré she had been given a shot that paralyzed her tongue.

  The autopsy had revealed traces of novocaine in her system. A Host of Yahweh dentist had sworn he had done some work on her that very morning.

  “Yeah,” said Harvey, “he could have. Ripper, you disappoint me.”

  “Sorry, Harvey,” said Ripper.

  “I believed in you,” said Harvey. “Good old Ripper, I said to myself, he’s treacherous, insubordinate, unscrupulous, clever, unprincipled, and reckless, but he’s a genius, and he’ll get me what I need.”

  “Think of the director’s frying nuts, Harvey,” said Ripper.

  Harvey thought about it.

  “Good boy,” he said, “nice fella. Get you a milkbone. Now, what have you in mind to do, about these pukes here?”

  “I’m thinking,” said Ripper.

  “I tell you you don’t shut up I eighty-six you,” said Madelaine.

  Harvey looked at his ginger ale. Ripper looked abashed.

  “Wanna dance, pretty lady?” said Harvey.

  Madelaine nodded.

  Du Pré laughed.

  Madelaine stuck her needle in the purse she was beading and she came out from behind the bar and went to the jukebox, put in some quarters and punched some buttons.

  Duke Ellington’s orchestra made the music.

  Harvey Weasel Fat and Madelaine Placquemines danced, elegantly.

  “You don’t dance?” said Ripper to Du Pré.

  “I am always playing,” said Du Pré. “I don’t know how.”

  “Oh,” said Ripper.

  Harvey and Madelaine danced for twenty minutes, and then Harvey bowed at the end of a song and Madelaine curtsied and Du Pré and Ripper applauded.

  The pretty face on the television was saying something to a panel of gasbags who were to comment on the terrible events in Montana.

  Madelaine switched the channel.

  There were two teams playing baseball someplace.

  She switched the channel again.

  Professional wrestling.

  One of the wrestlers broke a chair over the head of another. Then he grabbed another chair and flattened the referee. The crowd went wild.

  “Ripper, Ripper,” said Harvey, “whatcha gonna do? Save your old pal Harvey from early retirement. Pull the fat out of the fire. Now, Ripper, it would be a good idea you did something brilliant. Otherwise, I will make your life a misery. Your troubles will be my joys. I will bust your chops, you little shit!”

  “Harvey,” said Madelaine, “shut up. I am beading.”

  She looked at Ripper.

  “You shut up, too,” she said.

  She looked at Du Pré.

  “You can talk,” she said.

  Du Pré shrugged.

  The door opened suddenly and a big man came in. He took off his dark glasses and waited a moment for his eyes to narrow in the dim light. It was a bright day.

  Du Pré looked at him. He thought he knew him.

  McPhie. The big highway patrolman from a couple hundred miles south of Toussaint. He wasn’t in uniform.

  McPhie came to the bar and nodded at Madelaine.

  “Draft,” said McPhie.

  He looked at Du Pré.

  “Gabriel,” said McPhie, “how are ya keepin?”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Now,” said McPhie, picking up his schooner, “could you tell me where I might find the head FBI prick?”

  Du Pré looked at McPhie.

  “That would be me,” said Harvey.

  “Good,” said McPhie. “Now, a few days back Officer Parker stopped Du Pré there, and she was all concerned because Du Pré was actually not even over the speed limit, which is some forty miles per hour less’n he likes to drive at. It worried her, so she pulled out and went to see what might be wrong.”

  McPhie sucked down about half of his draft.

  “When she approached the car,” said McPhie, “she saw a subject in the back seat. She wasn’t sure what the hell was going down. Then she saw the butt of an automatic, and so she pulled her weapon and ordered everyone to freeze.”

  McPhie sucked down the rest of his beer.

  “Officers have to make split-second decisions,” said McPhie, “and she did. It was to prove that the woman in the back seat was one Pidgeon, FBI agent.”

  Harvey’s face was blank.

  “Now,” said McPhie, “one could look at this several ways, I suppose, but there isn’t any evidence of intention on Parker’s part to do wrong. Nevertheless, she has been suspended on a complaint from Agent Pidgeon, and she may well lose her job.”

  Harvey said nothing.

  “Which is bullshit,” said McPhie. “She’s a good cop.”

  McPhie pushed his glass over the bar. He shook his head when Made
laine raised her eyebrows.

  “I take it,” said Harvey, “that you came to see the complaint withdrawn.”

  “Yes, indeedy,” said McPhie.

  Harvey nodded.

  He stood up.

  “Agent Pidgeon,” said Harvey, “filed the complaint because she felt Parker’s judgment was poor. I trust Pidgeon’s judgment.”

  McPhie nodded.

  “You want help,” he said, “you help.”

  CHAPTER 20

  DU PRÉ PARKED HIS cruiser in the tall grass behind Benetsee’s cabin. The rains had been good and the winter had lasted two weeks longer this year and the grama and bluebunch wheatgrass had shot up green and thick.

  Du Pré looked at the big patch of sweetgrass near the sweat lodge. It was healthy and thick, too.

  People plant the sweetgrass here, long time gone, Du Pré thought. Long time. They bring it from Asia.

  Jesuits, they bring it from Europe. Peach cuttings, dandelions for the spring tonic, holy grass for the churches, scatter it on the floors.

  Pelon was up on the roof fixing the leaks. He had on a red headband and old overalls. He stuck a broad scraper into thick black patching cement and daubed it places that let in water when it rained.

  Du Pré rolled a smoke and walked up to the old cabin. The roof came down low and there was a skirting so wood could be stacked out of the snow. Three panes of new glass sparked in the old window frames.

  Benetsee maybe will be here now a while, Du Pré thought.

  “I will be here,” said Pelon. “Benetsee said he had to go to Canada.”

  “Why?” said Du Pré.

  “Ceremonies,” said Pelon, “or maybe he needed to get laid. Hell, I don’t know. Somebody brought a bunch of stuff to fix the cabin with. He told me, Pelon, you are a good boy. I tell you a great secret, so you don’t smash your thumb with the hammer. Hold the hammer, both hands, get Du Pré, hold the nail. Then he is gone. He goes down to the creek and into the willows and that is that.”

  Du Pré nodded. The old man came and went.

  Go to Canada, turn into a bird and fly.

  Du Pré laughed.

  “Him, he run us pret’ good,” he said.

  “No shit,” said Pelon. “He said he is getting very tired and we have to do more work.”

  Their eyes met.

  “Worries me,” said Pelon. “He means he will die sometime.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Old bastard,” said Du Pré, “him, I got these questions for.”

  Pelon slapped a big gob of black cement on the roof.

  “Him,” said Pelon, “tell me you are too fat to think. Need to go and fast. Fat in your ears, fat in your nose, fat in your eyes. Things slip away from you.”

  Du Pré looked up at the butte where he had been several times, to fast and dream. The column of stone was high but not very wide. The dead heart of a long-vanished volcano, it was black basalt that broke into columns and fell in long pieces. The rubbled base looked like a huge stone woodpile.

  “Him say anything else?” said Du Pré.

  Pelon slapped on another gob of cement. He pushed it around with the scraper.

  “Him say you need strong dreams,” said Pelon. “He left something for you, the table next to the stove.”

  Du Pré nodded and he went into the cabin.

  The blue feathers of a jay had been laid out in a circle on the table. The quills pointed to an old plastic pill bottle, white, the sort aspirin came in. Du Pré flipped up the top. There was a thick brown fluid in it, which smelled of bitter herbs.

  Du Pré snorted. He put the lid back on the bottle.

  “Think of the jay,” said Pelon. He was hanging upside down from the roof and speaking through one of the new panes of glass.

  “When he say I do this?” said Du Pré.

  “Dark of the moon,” said Pelon. “Tomorrow night maybe.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “I be here,” he said. He put the little bottle in his pocket.

  Pelon’s head disappeared.

  Du Pré walked outside.

  “Him also said they don’t find no gold but they are there,” said Pelon. “That’s all he say, I don’t know what the hell he meant.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Me, I don’t know, either,” said Du Pré.

  “We find out,” said Pelon, “and then he will show up. We maybe don’t kill him by then.”

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “Oh, yes,” he said.

  “We are ver’ lucky,” said Pelon.

  Du Pré walked back to his cruiser, shaking his head.

  He sat for a moment, having some whiskey and smoking. He stubbed the butt out on the side of his door and started the cruiser. When he glanced in the rearview mirror he could see Pelon glopping black patching cement on the roof.

  Blue jay is a thief. Steals things, shiny things, steals from other birds, steals their eggs, steals the twigs they build their nests with.

  Blue jay don’t care, he just go skraaak!

  Little crow.

  Hop and look, cock his head.

  Bright blue feathers.

  Du Pré felt for the plastic bottle in his shirt pocket. It was there, and some of the tail feathers.

  I don’t put the tail feathers, my pocket.

  Maybe I do.

  Du Pré turned east and drove along the bench road clear to the east end of the Wolf Mountains, and then he picked up the road he and Ripper had come down the day they had tried to help the woman who ran from the Host of Yahweh compound.

  He got to the gate at the Hulme ranch and turned in. There were two pickups and a dusty open jeep parked next to the house. Du Pré looked at his watch. Noon. The Hulmes would be eating.

  Du Pré drove in and parked and got out. Mrs. Hulme came out the door.

  “Du Pré!” she said, “can you eat? Carter and the boys are here now.”

  Carter and Marge Hulme, Du Pré thought. I am getting old I could not remember their names. Don’t remember the kids’.

  Du Pré followed her into the house and sat at the big kitchen table with Carter Hulme and his sons, both grown now, men in their early twenties.

  “Lee and Billy,” said Carter Hulme. Du Pré shook hands.

  Marge Hulme put a beef sandwich in front of Du Pré and a tall glass of iced tea.

  “Hell of a business t’other day,” said Carter. “’Bout all we need is a goddamned cult here, too.”

  The boys nodded.

  “Fenced off the trail I use to move my cattle to summer pasture,” said Hulme. “Been here all my life, next to the Eides, and now this. Takes me another five miles to get to my permits.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Bud, Millie Eide are members,” said Du Pré.

  The table went dead silent.

  “Goddamn,” said Carter.

  “Makes a few things make sense that don’t,” said Lee Hulme.

  Marge sat down with her sandwich.

  “Californians,” she said.

  Everyone nodded.

  “They’ll try to buy our place,” said Billy quietly.

  “Try,” said Carter.

  Du Pré laughed.

  “I’d sell this place to the Devil and buy hell with the money,” said Carter. “But not them. Never them.”

  Du Pré ate his sandwich. Good beef and mustard.

  “Who knows them badlands good,” said Du Pré.

  “Billy,” said Carter. “Ever since he was a shaver, he’s been goin’ out there.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “He spent three weeks out there once,” said Marge. “Left the day before school started. We thought he was dead.”

  “I was fine, Ma,” said Billy. “I just hated school.”

  “I am looking for something,” said Du Pré.

  Billy looked at him.

  “Spanish mine,” said Du Pré.

  Billy shook his head, but he hesitated before he did.

  CHAPTER 21

&nb
sp; “I SEE,” SAID FOOTE.”Very interesting.”

  “They got satellites, take photographs,” said Du Pré.

  “Arrastras,” said Foote.

  “Like big stone wheels,” said Du Pré, “maybe they don’t use them, but maybe they do. If there were some, there would be circles in the earth, maybe twenty feet across. Mule, horse, they pull the shaft the wheel crushes the ore.”

  “What are the coordinates again?” said Foote.

  Du Pré read him the numbers from the topographical maps. The maps weren’t very accurate.

  “I’ll see what I can find,” said Foote. “And may I speak to Bart for a moment?”

  Du Pré handed the cell phone to Bart. He walked away from the conversation.

  They were standing outside the Toussaint Saloon. There were dark lines on the western horizon.

  I got to go the butte tonight and it will rain on me.

  Thank you, Benetsee.

  I put ipecac, your wine, next time.

  Bart finished and he shut up the cell phone and put it in his shirt pocket.

  “I be gone maybe two three days,” said Du Pré. “He said he would see, call back.”

  Bart nodded.

  “Hard news about the Eides,” said Bart. “Things get tough, people go crazy. I did.” He laughed.

  Du Pré grinned.

  “Well,” said Bart, “I am off to tear a new irrigation ditch for the Martins. Morgan Martin is diversifying. She’s gonna have a huge patch of mint.”

  Lots of ranchers did that, the oil was valuable, used in some odd industrial processes. The mint had to be cropped and processed almost continually, so an acre was a lot.

  Du Pré looked at Bart.

  “Hundred and ten acres,” said Bart. “Wear out a lot of blades mowin’ it, she will.” He laughed and went off to his eighteen-wheeler, which had twenty-six, because Popsicle, his lime-green dragline, weighed nearly fifty tons.

  Du Pré went into the saloon. Madelaine was beading.

  “Get your own drink, Du Pré,” she said, staring at the little purse. “Get a big one, you don’t have any next two, three days.”

  Du Pré went behind the bar and he made a tall stiff ditch. He went back round and sat across from Madelaine. She pulled the thread tight and she set down the purse.

  “Benetsee is good for you,” she said. “It take maybe five years for you, figure that out, but he is good for you.”