by Peter Bowen
Du Pré and Bassman and Père Godin waited until the crowd thinned, and then they went to the end of the bar. Madelaine bustled down with three ditchwater highballs and she set them down and she went back to work.
The three musicians drank.
By the time they had drained their glasses Madelaine was back with three more. She set them down and was gone again.
Carol came out of the kitchen, looking sweaty and exhausted. She drank three tall glasses of water very quickly and she went back to the kitchen.
The bar crowd had thinned out and Madelaine waved at Du Pré and she went back to the kitchen, too.
Rob finished the last pulls and he looked up and down the bar and then he came down to Du Pré and Bassman and Père Godin.
“Great music,” he said, “wonderful. Madelaine is even more wonderful. God, we’d have sunk without her.” He looked at the crowd in the room.
Du Pré laughed.
“More people than we thought would come,” said Rob.
“They like you,” said Du Pré.
A couple of young hands went out the side door. Friends followed them prepared to slap the victor on his back and carry the vanquished to his truck until he woke up.
Families with young children began to leave, hugging parents and kin, and several tables opened up. No one went to them right away, so the rush was over at last.
Madelaine came back out of the kitchen.
“They are down to the last half of one prime ribs,” she said. “It was a pret’ good guess.”
Du Pré nodded. Nice crowd, nice place. Wonder how long them picture windows will last.
The side door opened and a sound of cheering came in.
“Punchin’ the spots off each other,” said an old rancher bellied up to the bar. “Them youngsters been at it a while now. Must be about evenly matched.”
Père Godin wandered off to charm a woman someplace.
Old bastard, him got what, sixty kids I hear? Half of Manitoba is Père Godin’s.
“I work real hard,” said Bassman, “I maybe fuck one woman for his ten.”
Du Pré laughed. Madelaine had said once Père Godin loved women and they could tell.
Old goat.
Highly successful old goat.
Père Godin was sitting with a pretty lady at a small table off in a corner. He said something and she laughed.
“Sixty-four,” said Madelaine, glancing at him.
“Ah?” said Du Pré.
“Him got sixty-three kids,” said Madelaine, “and believe me, that is one done deal over there, the table.”
Bassman and Du Pré laughed.
They wandered back up to the stage and Du Pré tuned his fiddle and he started Baptiste’s Lament.
Black water, black forest, big canoes full of bales of pelts.
Long time gone.
Père Godin played some Cajun accordion. He had children down in Louisiana, too. His accordion and charm carried him far.
The woman he had been talking to was looking at Père Godin with adoring eyes. He looked at her while his accordion played a song of love.
Du Pré stepped in before the woman fell off her chair.
He played a very old reel, one that Du Pré’s father, Catfoot, had said went all the way back to Brittany.
Them people, Catfoot had said, they dance this there, they dance this on the decks, their little fishing boats, they dance this on the shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, dance it on buffalo hide pegged to the ground, here. Long time gone.
The tune was so old and rare that people stopped talking so they could listen closely. It spoke to the blood.
Du Pré ended the reel with the long, lonely, wavering high F.
The crowd clapped and clapped and cheered and whistled. A man began to pass his hat around and people dropped money in it.
Bassman began to play a melody on his bass, his moment at the front of the stage. He stood lazily, loosely, while he coaxed notes from his fretless electric bass. His strong fingers pressed and pulled the strings.
There was humor and self-mockery in the music, and people grinned.
Du Pré looked at his sideman, nodding at tempo.
Du Pré was looking at Bassman when he saw Bassman’s eyes widen, and Du Pré turned and he looked at the woman stalking toward the stage.
Must be that Kim, and she had a little chrome-plated gun in her hand.
Bassman backed away.
Kim kept coming.
She fired the pistol and Bassman’s bass took a hit.
Bassman shrugged out of the strap and he dropped the bass and he made time for the side door and he dove through it just as some poor person was coming in. Bassman went right over the top of him.
Kim raced after him, her tight pants and high heels slowing her some.
When she got to the door, she fired again.
Then she went through.
It had happened fast, and people weren’t really sure that they had seen what they had seen.
Bassman’s wounded bass buzzed on the floor.
Du Pré went to the amplifier and he turned the knob. He pulled the cord that led to the bass out of its socket.
Another couple of pops outside.
Rob came running up.
“Jesus!” he said, “are you OK?”
Du Pré looked past him. Madelaine was wrestling, sort of, with Carol.
Du Pré and Rob ran back to the bar.
“Call 911!” Carol shrieked.
“Non!” said Madelaine.
They each had hold of the telephone.
“She tried to kill him!” Carol howled.
“Non!” said Madelaine, “leave it be. That little damn gun can’t kill no more than a gopher, can’t hit anything with it anyway.”
Carol stopped struggling.
“You’re sure,” she said.
Madelaine nodded.
“Was that his girlfriend?” said Carol.
Madelaine shrugged.
“One of them maybe,” she said.
“She was shooting at him!” said Carol.
“She hit the damn bass,” said Du Pré. “Wound it good, too.”
“You don’t think this is something I should call the sheriff about?” said Carol.
Madelaine grinned.
“True love,” she said, “sometimes it is a hard thing.”
Another couple of pops sounded outside.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2003 by Peter Bowen
cover design by Mimi Bark
978-1-4532-4683-2
This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media
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New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
THE GABRIEL DU PRÉ
MONTANA MYSTERIES
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