Badlands

by Peter Bowen

  Du Pré thought that he had heard drumming, but then it could have been the tires on the road.

  They sat in the car and Benetsee sang.

  The old man stopped and raised his head and grinned. He held up his hand. There was a deep gash across the back of it, and Du Pré could see tendons white against the dark red wound.

  “I take you to the doctor,” said Du Pré. He reached for the key in the ignition.

  Benetsee laughed.

  “Needs new flesh,” he said. “Me, I will take care of it.”

  Benetsee opened the door and got out, yawned and shook himself. He went to the cabin door.

  Pelon opened it. The cabin had been dark.

  Du Pré got out. He reached under the seat for his plastic flask of whiskey. He had some and rolled a smoke and another for the old man. He lit both of them and walked to the cabin and up the two steps to the sagging porch. Pelon opened the door again. The night was cold, but inside the cabin it was warm. A fire raged in the old woodstove, the flames danced behind the isinglass windows in the door.

  Benetsee sat at the little table. He had a basin of water and a rag and he bathed his wound and he sang.

  He put his fingers into a steer’s horn bottle and got a gob of dark jam. He smeared this on the wound and he sang.

  Pelon lit a small twist of sweetgrass and the smoke curled up, pungent and holy.

  “One of them big Band-Aids,” said Benetsee. Pelon got a huge one from a first aid kit under a badger’s skin. He peeled away the paper wrapping and took the plastic covers from the stickum and put the big patch over Benetsee’s hand.

  “Whiteman’s Band-Aids, duct tape,” said Benetsee, “they don’t do much right, but them I like.”

  Du Pré laughed. He went to the table and picked up the steer’s horn bottle. He smelled the paste.

  Balsam of Peru.

  He looked at the horn. It was old and badly cracked. There was a metal band around it, with a ring on one side. The stopper was new, carved of dry cottonwood. Du Pré put the stopper in and set the horn back on the table.

  Benetsee smiled. Then he put his head down on the table.

  He snored.

  Du Pré and Pelon went outside. They looked off toward the east. Helicopters were circling something, their red and green running lights winking many miles away.

  “Strobes,” said Pelon. “Got some candlepower.”

  Du Pré rolled two smokes and gave one to Pelon.

  “We go, that ranch,” said Du Pré. “Me, I do not know how.”

  Pelon laughed.

  “Yah,” he said, “I watch you. You dance pret’ good. Dance like the blue jay.”

  Du Pré looked at him. Pelon grinned.

  “I was sweating for you, singing,” he said.

  Du Pré nodded.

  A car was coming up the county road, fast. The sound of the engine carried far in the empty night.

  Pelon looked at Du Pré.

  “We sweat, sing tonight,” he said.

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Sweat a long time.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Them Host of Yahweh,” said Pelon, “they are in some big trouble now. Got no place to run to, them. Big fight. You don’t get killed maybe.”

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “Come,” said Pelon, “we put the old man to bed. They will be here in a minute. Him, he need sleep.”

  They went inside and picked up Benetsee and they carried him out of the door and down past the sweat lodge. There was a bedroll hidden in the willows and alders by the creek. They put Benetsee in it. The old man smelled of woodsmoke, wine, tobacco, and balsam of Peru.

  “Him maybe don’t want to talk, them,” said Pelon. “He want to change and hide, him can.”

  Pelon’s Coyote French was getting much better, Du Pré thought.

  He looked older, too. All of the city fat was gone.

  “What he do now?” said Du Pré.

  Pelon laughed.

  “Nothing we think of,” he said. “Him, he will make his joke. Always does. Us, we get to be punch lines.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Benetsee is not there,” said Du Pré, “so how is he hurt?”

  Pelon laughed.

  “Slapping something away,” said Pelon, “you maybe itch someplace?”

  Du Pré looked at him. He did itch, just to the right of the bottom of his left shoulder blade.

  Just above my heart.

  “Jesus,” said Du Pré.

  “He is old,” said Pelon. “Makes him tired, that.”

  Du Pré blew out smoke.

  The car was getting near. A cruiser. The light bar was flashing. No siren.

  “We sweat,” said Pelon.

  Du Pré nodded.

  The lights flashed and blinked and the car turned in to the track that led up to the cabin. Benny Klein’s cruiser. The car came to a stop and both doors opened. Benny stood up slowly. Ripper shot out and began to run to Du Pré and Pelon.

  Ripper stopped. He danced a little on his feet.

  “Where the hell you been? As if I didn’t know,” he said.

  “Long sweat here,” said Du Pré. “We just stop, hour ago maybe.”

  Ripper looked at him.

  He walked over to Du Pré’s cruiser and put his hand on the hood.

  “Cold, Benny,” said Ripper. “Hasn’t been run for six hours at least.”

  “That’s good,” said Benny.

  “Knew you’d like it,” said Ripper. “Now, somebody blew up a cache on the Host of Yahweh ranch. Blew it up good. Killed two people, we can tell ya, and scattered parts of ordnance for quite a ways. Heard the racket in town, we did, and so out we went. Know what happened? We were told we couldn’t come in, take a look.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “So,” said Ripper, “I said we goddamn well would as large explosions were de facto evidence of large explosives which are illegal to possess.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Standoff for a while,” said Ripper.

  Benny was chewing some snoose. He spat.

  “Now,” said Ripper, “the guards at the gate were flunks, and they had their orders, and then something extraordinary happened.”

  Du Pré waited.

  He looked over at Benny’s cruiser. There was a long crease in the hood, showing black against the white paint.

  “They shot at us,” said Ripper, “can you imagine? Now, give ’em credit, they weren’t really trying to hit us, I don’t think, and so we left.”

  “Where is Harvey?” said Du Pré.

  “He was in Billings,” said Ripper, “but he came right back.”

  Du Pré rolled a smoke.

  “So,” said Ripper, “Harvey says to me, Ripper, I smell something here. Maybe you would go and ask Du Pré what that smell is.”

  Du Pré waited.

  “And here I am,” said Ripper.

  Du Pré spread out his hands palm up.

  “Right,” said Ripper. “Well, Pidgeon is on her way, and I know you would like to stare at her ass.”

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “The troops are arriving by the platoon,” said Ripper.

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “Officer Parker is in there,” said Ripper, “and that’s a story all by itself.”

  CHAPTER 32

  THE HOST OF YAHWEH compound was brightly lit. Every mercury lamp blazed.

  No one moved in it.

  Harvey Wallace looked grimly at the metal buildings and the partly completed mansion.

  “We could,” he said, “be here for quite a long time.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  For a long time. After Waco, they don’t charge in anymore. That is good.

  “Waco,” said Harvey. “Monumental stupidity. Sheriff over in western Montana, had one of his deputies killed by some nutbar, guy lived in a fort in the woods, so you know what that sheriff did?”

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “Waited, what he did,” said Ha
rvey. “Told the state police and us ever-helpful feds to please fuck off. Waited the guy out. Waited a year and a half, he did. Finally the bastard got careless, figured his murdering the deputy had been forgotten or something, drove out of his fort to take a little fresh air, and wham, that sheriff got him. No gunfire. No tanks. Nobody killed. Guy, we could use a director. You know him?”

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “So we may be here a long time,” said Harvey. He looked bleakly at the brightly lit compound. “Here in the fucking cactus.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “Ripper tells me,” said Harvey, “that you were peacefully worshipping in the sweat lodge, there at Benetsee’s. Engine’s cold, so it could not possibly have been you touched off the bang there.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “I believe everything Ripper tells me,” said Harvey. “Thanks anyway. That we got covered. They had enough weapons and explosives in there to kill a whole lot of people.”

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “ATF’s all over it,” said Harvey. “Got here in a hurry they did. So the arsenal there is blown. Now what, I wonder, have they got in there?”

  “Whatever they got,” said Ripper, “they got less of it now.”

  “A good thing,” said Harvey, “but I still worry.”

  “Pidgeon will be here shortly,” said Ripper.

  “Driving?” said Harvey. Pidgeon drove flat out and so far had fried three government cars Du Pré knew of.

  “Flying,” said Ripper.

  “Well,” said Harvey, “it’s slower for her, but probably safer.”

  “Harvey,” said Ripper, “you want to move at horseback speed, you got to ride a horse.”

  “I got a job for you,” said Harvey.

  “Harvey,” said Ripper, “fuck off.”

  “See?” said Harvey, looking at Du Pré, “this is what happens when you let up. Time was, he prefaced everything with sir.”

  Suddenly all of the lights in the compound went off.

  “They here yet?” said Harvey.

  “Nope,” said Ripper, “be another couple hours. You know how it is. National Guard, they have to find their searchlights, then find the batteries, takes time.”

  “So we didn’t do that?” said Harvey.

  “Nope,” said Ripper.

  Du Pré looked to the west. A helicopter was headed right for them. Its light stabbed down.

  Harvey looked at it.

  “That’s Pidgeon,” said Harvey, “no doubt. You need to click a light at her or something?”

  “Nope,” said Ripper, “she’s on the phone. You wanna talk with her?”

  He handed his cell phone to Harvey.

  “Hi, gorgeous,” Harvey said breathily.

  Pidgeon said something and Harvey laughed. He handed the phone back to Ripper.

  The helicopter descended on a flat open meadow a hundred yards back from the front gate of the Host of Yahweh ranch.

  Pidgeon ducked out of the door and ran crouched over till she was well past the rotors. Two men carrying aluminum cases followed.

  Harvey took another look at the dark compound.

  Nothing moved.

  Du Pré squinted and he looked to the south. There was another helicopter circling far away.

  Two dark figures burst out of the shadows near one of the metal Host of Yahweh buildings and they ran to shadows by another and disappeared.

  Pidgeon walked up to Harvey, puffing a little.

  “Whadda we do now?” said Harvey. “Call in an airstrike?”

  Pidgeon ignored him. The men came up behind her.

  “You got a commvan for me?” she said.

  Harvey nodded and Ripper spoke into his cell phone. An engine started and a dark van with a satellite dish on it came slowly up. It had been parked back with the cop cars.

  “Where are the TV folks?” said Pidgeon.

  “Roads are blocked,” said Harvey.

  “Harvey,” said Pidgeon, “I keep tellin’ you not to work so hard at pissin’ them off.”

  “For all I know,” said Harvey, “the Host may come out shooting. No TV, no reporters, no nothin’ till we know a bit more.”

  Pidgeon nodded.

  “Hi, Du Pré,” she said. “Long time no see.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “I’m here, too,” said Ripper.

  “So you are,” said Pidgeon. “Nothing’s perfect.”

  “Pidgeon!” said one of the men in the van. “We got something!”

  Pidgeon turned and ran to the van. She got in and slid the door shut.

  “Wonders of modern communications,” said Harvey.

  “Parker, she is in there?” said Du Pré.

  Harvey nodded.

  “She gets in trouble,” said Harvey, “we go in shootin’.”

  Du Pré sighed.

  “Pidgeon’s talking with her probably,” said Harvey.

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “Parker got in, hell, we didn’t even know it. That woman at the massacre, one was still alive, she still is, but she isn’t talking much. How Parker got back here so quick from California we don’t know, but she did.”

  Du Pré sighed.

  “Those women shot themselves and each other,” said Harvey. “They were the assassins. Had a few trophies, show the White Priest, I suppose, I dunno how that bastard gets people to do this shit, but he does.”

  “So,” said Du Pré. “You wait, why?”

  “Waco,” said Harvey, “is why. There’ll be three hundred agents here by daylight. Searchlights. We were gonna shut the power off then. Then we wait ’em out.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “This worries me,” said Harvey. “Those fools at Waco weren’t all that smart. It was one of those things, happens. These people are a good deal more competent. Very little false front.”

  “Them women,” said Du Pré, “you are sure?”

  Harvey nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it was real clear. We don’t know much, but it just looks like when the guys wanted to leave, the White Priest said OK, fine, go, no hard feelings. Then he sends the girls, kill ’em all at the same time.”

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “Yeah,” said Harvey, “things folks will do when they really believe.”

  Pidgeon opened the van door and she motioned for Harvey to come. He walked over. Pidgeon and Harvey stood together, heads down, listening. Harvey waved to Du Pré.

  Du Pré walked to the van.

  The technician fiddled with something.

  A voice, weird and distorted.

  “Electronic voice cover,” said Pidgeon.

  “It is not the Last Days,” said the voice.

  A chorus of Praise Yahwehs.

  “Here we must stand,” said the voice.

  Praise Yahweh.

  “The Legions of Arcturus and Betelgeuse are flaming through the stars and they shall succor us.”

  Praise Yahweh.

  “The Assyrians draw nigh our gates.”

  Praise Yahweh.

  “They shall not enter to destroy our Temple.”

  Praise Yahweh.

  “I will go now,” said Du Pré.

  He walked toward his cruiser.

  CHAPTER 33

  DU PRÉ SAT AT Madelaine’s kitchen table. They had just eaten venison saddle with plum sauce and wild rice with little strong onions Madelaine raised in the garden boxes Du Pré had built for her. She had more than seventy herbs and spices in the boxes. One, fifteen feet long, was all chives.

  They finished and Du Pré washed the dishes. He dried the silver and put it away in the velvet-lined box.

  Catfoot had found the silver, in its chest, in an abandoned wagon he stumbled across in the Wolf Mountains. The wagon had furniture and cast-iron cookware in it, too. There was no sign of who had left it, decades before.

  The silverware was heavy and had a crest on it and the initials GP in raised scrolled script.

  “Du Pré,” Ma
delaine had said when she had first looked at it, “it is a sign from God. You change your name, Placquemines, it is yours.”

  “Too many letters,” Du Pré had said.

  Madelaine made coffee and they took it out back and sat near the double-bloom Persian lilacs. There was a faint scent yet, though the blossoms had long fallen.

  “So,” said Madelaine, “what is Du Pré going to do?”

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “Me,” he said, “I think I play my fiddle, let them fix that one.”

  A TV news helicopter whacked over, and it set down in the meadow across from the Toussaint Saloon, a third of a mile away.

  “Those children in there,” said Madelaine, “they better be thinkin’ of them, all the time. Poor kids.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  There was a good three hours of light left.

  Horse hooves. A little horse.

  Pallas came round the house on her little blue roan. She stepped down and dropped the reins. The horse stood.

  “Hi,” said Pallas. “I got to talk, you.”

  Du Pré narrowed his eyes.

  This Pallas, he thought, thinks so fast, me I get whiplash tryin’ to keep up.

  “’Bout me marryin’ Ripper,” said Pallas. “It’s a while you know.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “It’s OK he marries somebody else long as he divorces her then,” said Pallas.

  “You tell him this?” said Madelaine.

  Pallas shook her head.

  “I thought Grandpère could,” she said.

  “Me,” said Madelaine, “I need more coffee, be right back.”

  “Ver’ generous of you,” said Du Pré.

  “Don’t want Ripper to think I am mean,” said Pallas. “Sides, he is prolly pret’ horny.”

  “What happens,” said Du Pré, “Ripper don’t want to get married, you or anybody?”

  “I take care of that,” said Pallas.

  Madelaine stayed in the house. Du Pré saw her once, looking quickly out the kitchen window and laughing like hell.

  “OK,” said Du Pré, “I tell him.”

  “Thanks, Grandpère,” said Pallas. She got back on her little blue roan and she turned him and they went.

  Madelaine came back out.

  “That kid,” said Du Pré, “she is scaring me some.”

  “Good,” said Madelaine, “she about scare anybody. Poor Ripper, he think he got a life, he don’t, he don’t do what she say.”