by Peter Bowen
“The gold and silver is in that reef,” said Du Pré, “comes up in the badlands, almost comes up on the Eide ranch. Them Spanish, they are pret’ good miners, find that out on the prairie.”
“Didn’t do them a lot of good,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded. No way of knowing which Indians had been here then, in the early 1600s, late 1500s, but they had killed the Spanish miners. The Spanish had good armor but not good enough.
“Amazing that they made it this far north,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded.
They walk a long way for that gold. There is much more gold over in Alder Gulch but they never find that.
“I couldn’t see anything,” said Bart.
Du Pré rolled a smoke.
“It is there,” he said. “You see that reef, a line in the grass, the land a little higher there?”
Bart looked at Du Pré.
“I’d go with you,” he said.
Du Pré shook his head.
“I go alone,” said Du Pré. “I got to be quiet.”
Bart nodded.
“If you change your mind,” he said.
Du Pré nodded. He smoked. He looked away.
Bart went off to his truck, whistling.
Du Pré laughed.
Bart was very brave, but very noisy. Once he had gone hunting with Du Pré, and he made so much noise all the game left for the other side of the Wolf Mountains.
Bart, him don’t like to hunt. Good thing, too.
Harvey Wallace sauntered around the corner of the saloon, his big hands thrust deep in his pockets. He was shaking his head very slowly, thinking careful thoughts.
When he got close to Du Pré, he looked up and he nodded.
“Afternoon,” he said. He looked off toward the Wolf Mountains.
“What?” said Du Pré.
Harvey looked at him.
“I talked to several of the Eides,” said Harvey. “Seems that when beef fell and the weather got good and dry, which it does in Montana more often than not, Bud and Millie got very religious. They went to that Bible Fellowship church over in Cooper. Watched Christian television. Then a couple of years ago they went for a short vacation, drove off and were gone about three weeks. When they came back, they didn’t go to the Bible Fellowship any more. They clammed up. Went about their business like before, but they’d changed.”
Du Pré rolled a smoke.
“From time to time visitors would show up. They wouldn’t stay long, and other’n being polite, they didn’t have much to say.”
Du Pré lit his cigarette.
“Last summer,” said Harvey, “they had a sort of conference here, and everybody camped out in the back forty there on the ranch. Lots of traffic in and out. But again, the people who showed up were polite and opaque.”
Du Pré nodded.
“All seven of the victims were here,” said Harvey.
Du Pré looked at him.
“Something happen then,” said Du Pré.
Harvey nodded.
“Thought you should know,” he said.
Harvey sauntered on, still staring at the ground.
He turned.
“Every time,” he said, “you’re gonna do something, you talk Indian more.”
Du Pré laughed.
Harvey grinned.
“The Host was most helpful to the agents from the Butte office,” said Harvey, “who of course found nothing whatever. But I wonder just what it was that seven men saw out there that changed their minds and made them leave.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Well,” said Harvey, “back to my computers. Wonderful things, computers. Tell me things I never wanted to know at all.”
Du Pré finished his cigarette and stomped it out and went into the saloon.
Madelaine was reading a magazine.
She looked up at Du Pré.
“You watch out,” she said.
Du Pré sat on a stool.
“I got to,” he said, “I am around you, my grandkids.”
“Non,” said Madelaine, “that Harvey, that Ripper. They are pissed off, can’t do nothing. So they think, well, Du Pré, he will do it for us, we sit back, watch. So, me, I do not know what you are thinking of, but you are not doing it.”
“I go on the ranch,” said Du Pré. “I look and see about that mine maybe.”
Madelaine looked at him, eyes flashing.
“Non,” she said, “they will be waiting for you. That goddamned Harvey, the son of a bitch he will have to think, something else.”
“You want me, sit on my ass?” said Du Pré.
“How ’bout I knock you on it then?” said Madelaine.
Du Pré sighed. He rolled a smoke and lit it and Madelaine took it for her one long drag.
“You never tell me like this before,” said Du Pré.
“I don’t feel like this before,” said Madelaine.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “so you tell me some better.”
“They got something there, that ranch,” said Madelaine. “FBI, cops, they can’t go there, they don’t know what. They are stuck. You go there it is illegal, you pull some bullshit, blow everything up, it is fine for them. But them Host, they are not fools, Du Pré, they will be waiting you, somebody.”
Du Pré nodded.
“I don’t get these feelings so much,” said Madelaine. “I do, you pay some attention.”
Du Pré looked down at his hands.
A year after they had started loving each other, Madelaine and Du Pré had gone up to Canada, on a long driving trip to see relatives. One distant cousin of Du Pré’s had built an airplane from a kit, and he had flown it for several hundred hours. He offered to take Du Pré up in it and Du Pré agreed.
Madelaine wouldn’t let Du Pré go, and she told the pilot the next time he flew it he would die.
Du Pré’s distant cousin laughed at her, called her a foolish woman, and he got in his plane right then and he took off. He was a hundred feet up in the air when the fuel tank exploded.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “maybe I go later.”
Madelaine nodded.
The door opened and a middle-aged couple came in, pale and shaking, and the man seated his wife and then he came to the bar.
“Two brandies,” he said, “if we might”
Madelaine found a couple of snifters and she put shots of brandy in them and the man paid and then he took the big glasses to the table where his wife was sitting.
She was staring off in the distance, and she did not seem to notice when the man set the glass in front of her. He touched her shoulder very gently.
She burst into tears, and she crumpled.
“Why?” she said. “They wouldn’t even let us see them.”
“Them,” said Madelaine, “they are the parents, that woman kill herself, came to see the grandkids.”
Du Pré nodded.
“They stop here this morning?” said Du Pré.
Madelaine shook her head.
CHAPTER 27
“HE IS SOME GOOD,” said Bassman. He lightly tapped the young man on the shoulder with his fist. The young man blushed and looked down at the floor.
It was Friday night. Bassman had driven down from Turtle Mountain with the young accordion player. If you mixed up Bassman and a burlap blonde you might come up with the fella.
“Good,” said Du Pré.
The young man held his accordion tightly.
“He is my son,” said Bassman.
The boy blushed again.
“I am sitting, my house,” said Bassman, “knock at my door. I think what is this, the police again. I open the door. Young Jean-Baptiste, he is standing there. He look at me. He say, ‘My mama tell me, you gonna play that damn music all the time, you go find that worthless bastard of a father of yours. Here is the money, get a bus ticket.’ So I say, ‘Play something.’ So he play and it is very good mostly. So I say, ‘Which one is your mama?’ He say, ‘Marcie.’ I say that is nice, which one of them, th
ere were two.”
Du Pré roared.
“Him say, ‘Non, Papa, there were three. I am the one from the one had that big turquoise Cadillac.’ So I say, ‘Oh, her it is, yes, and I pray she is doing very well a long way, Turtle Mountain.’ He say, ‘She say, “Tell that fat prick, hope his dick has rotted off.”’ I say, ‘Yah, her I remember real good, she stab me once.’ He say, ‘Look, maybe we play some good music, not talk of your women problems which are not mine.’ So I say, ‘You come on in, have a joint, we see about things.’”
Du Pré and the young man were laughing so hard that people turned to look at them.
“Good you are here,” said Du Pré. “You maybe keep Bassman out of some trouble.”
Jean-Baptiste shook his head.
“Me,” he said, “I just want, play that good music, get in trouble like my papa.”
“That is my boy,” said Bassman, beaming.
Bassman grinned and went out the back door to find a quiet place to smoke his weed.
“My mama,” said Jean-Baptiste, “she say I am a pret’ good musician and she feel sorry for all the girls, but she still love Bassman. First time I see him is two days ago, I show up at his house. He tell me he is a real good bass player but not a good father. I tell him we see about that. He is a great guy.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Funny,” said Jean-Baptiste, “it is like he expects me, be mad at him and I am not.”
Du Pré nodded and he rolled a smoke.
“Bassman got a big heart,” said Du Pré, “and he play music that is him. He knows you are his son don’t want to fuck up.”
“He does not,” said Jean-Baptiste. “Fuck up would be say, me, I do not know what you are talking about, slam the door in my face.”
“He would not do that, you,” said Du Pré. “He is nervous, he will get over it.”
“Me, too,” said Jean-Baptiste. “I gotta play with you here tonight. Gabriel Du Pré, I got all your tapes, listen to them, listen to my father on them. I don’t know I am good enough.”
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré, “we are good enough. Tapes are perfect but we are not. Bassman, me, we play so long we know what the other is thinking. You get lost, stop, you find the music, start. There is all that we do.”
Jean-Baptiste nodded.
“I go and find my papa,” he said. He went out the back door.
The Toussaint Saloon was packed with people and Madelaine and Susan Klein were shoving beers and drinks over the bartop. They worked like demons on Fridays when there was music, serving prime rib, fish, and steaks from five until eight and then clearing the dinner things away so the music could start at nine-thirty.
Du Pré went to the end of the bar where his glass was and reached over and got the bourbon and poured a dram in his glass. He put the bottle back in the rack, dipped up some ice with his hand, and put it in the glass, and then he walked out the back door. It was light yet and only Venus shone in the sky.
Bassman and his son were standing off near some Siberian elms, passing a joint the size of a panetela back and forth.
Du Pré rubbed his hands. They hurt.
The arthritis just like Catfoot had, he is my age now, Du Pré thought, getting old.
Du Pré rolled a smoke and then he lit it and yawned.
He looked over at Bassman and his son.
Jean-Baptiste was pointing to the south.
Du Pré looked up.
Venus was moving and now it had some red in the lights, too.
Du Pré turned to look straight at it.
It moved fast, but not as fast as an airplane.
The lights got closer and Du Pré could hear jet engines.
“Du Pré,” shouted Harvey. “Come on! Come on!” He waved as he ran.
Du Pré drained his drink and set the glass on the front boardwalk of the saloon as he passed.
Harvey and Ripper were across the road moving out to the little airstrip. There was some breeze and the windsock flapped.
Du Pré caught up to them.
They were both wearing flak jackets and carrying machine pistols.
“Got my extras,” said Ripper. “Ten.”
“Check,” said Harvey.
The lights were fairly close now.
It was a helicopter with jet engines on it.
The pilot slowed and stopped and then he came straight down and doors opened in the side. Du Pré and Harvey and Ripper ran for them and they got in and pulled the doors to and the helicopter rose and turned and the jet engines screamed and they headed south and west.
“You got a gun?” said Harvey.
Du Pré shook his head.
“Good,” said Harvey. “I’d a had to take it away from you. Throw it out.”
“What is this?” said Du Pré.
“An hour ago,” said Harvey, “McPhie, that big Highway Patrolman, was sitting on the side of the road. Two vehicles passed him, one of ’em had a taillight out.
“Ordinarily he would have let it go, but it was a slow night, and he thought he’d give ’em a warning ticket. So off he goes, gumball machine flashing. The van and the truck pull over, which makes McPhie a little nervous, because he’s only after the truck. He is about to get out and do the long walk up there when some little voice says, this is no good. So he flicks on his loudspeaker and he orders everyone out of the vehicles.”
Harvey adjusted a strap on his flak jacket.
“McPhie did three tours in Nam and he has real sensitive antennae. Nobody moves up there. He hadn’t switched his engine off. He puts the car in reverse and punches it and shoots back. Good thing, too, because right then the rear door of the truck flies up and a whole lotta lead is coming his way. He hunkers down and keeps backing up at seventy, right over the hill. He stops and hollers into the radio. There’s a bunch of rocks near the road so he grabs all the guns he’s got and he makes a dash and gets there just as the van comes over the hill, guns outta every window.”
Du Pré nodded. “They shoot the shit outta his cruiser and then they get out. McPhie was a grunt and he knows cover. He’s got his portable radio. He describes the shooters. He tells the dispatcher where he is exactly. He has time for a couple of crossword puzzles before the people shooting go to the car, which is pretty holed up. They’re all women. They aren’t soldiers or they would have rushed it right off. Now they know he’s got away, so he stands up for a moment and sends off some buckshot and then he ducks down.”
“It is them?” said Du Pré.
Harvey looked at him.
“Has to be,” he said. “Pidgeon always said the shooters who killed the seven guys were women. Who the hell else could it be?”
Du Pré nodded.
“We’re there,” said a voice on the intercom.
The helicopter descended rapidly and then it jerked and roared and rose again.
“Shit,” said the pilot, “we got hit.”
They waited.
“Just some dents,” said the pilot. “Everything’s fine. But I think I will set you fellers down a little farther away from the festivities.”
“Har de har har,” said Ripper.
CHAPTER 28
DU PRÉ AND HARVEY hunkered down behind a county sheriff’s cruiser, and they stared at the two vehicles in the barrow pit. The truck and the van were pulled together, front ends on the rise beyond the deepest portion of the drainage ditch.
There were forty men ringing the two vehicles, all pointing rifles and all with their eyes clapped to telescopic sights. Half of them were sheriff’s deputies and half were local people.
“Nothing for a half-hour,” said the deputy behind the next car over. “They shot and we shot back. Quite a little firefight. Then it died away and I ain’t seen nobody move in there.”
“Anybody get a count?” said Harvey.
“Yeah,” said the deputy. “McPhie said there was eleven of ’em. Said that was what he saw, hell, there could be more in that truck.”
The high rectangular box o
f the truck was spackled with bullet holes.
“We need an armored car,” said Harvey.
“Wal,” said the deputy, “few minutes of Bender’ll be here with his Cat. It’s a D-9. We figure we can hide behind the blade and get good and close.”
Du Pré laughed.
“Hilarity,” said Harvey. “How nice.”
“They are all dead,” said Du Pré. “You come on now.”
He stood and walked up to the macadam and strode down toward the vehicles.
Ripper fell in behind him and then trotted to catch up.
Harvey stood.
Du Pré got close to the truck and went down into the barrow pit.
There were four bodies there, all women, all shot in the head. Du Pré opened the cab of the truck.
Two more.
Ripper danced up to the van and looked down and then he got down on his knees and hands.
He slid open the van’s side door.
A woman’s body fell halfway out.
She had been blond, and perhaps pretty, but the top of her head was gone and blood and brains dripped from her hollowed skull.
Men came.
“My God,” said one. “This is hell.”
Harvey was up in the truck box.
He looked around, pointing a flashlight.
“Get an ambulance,” he screamed. “Hurry the fuck up.”
“Nothin’ to do but wait for the coroner,” said a deputy.
“Where is Larry anyway?”
Ripper leaped into the back of the truck to help Harvey.
Du Pré moved away from the back of the truck. There were a lot of people coming, curious.
An ambulance came up, fast.
The two attendants jumped out, dressed in jeans and boots and the bright shirts of cowboys. They got a wheeled stretcher from the back of their van and brought it to the truck.
The two ambulance attendants got in, both with medical kits.
“’Bout everybody in the county over fifteen’s an EMT,” said a deputy. “No way we can afford a hospital.”
Harvey leaped from the back of the truck and ran down the road to the helicopter. He stuck his head in the door and then pulled away. The helicopter engines wound up and the jet turbines whined and the helicopter moved slowly up the blacktop and stopped fifty feet from the truck.
