Notches

by Peter Bowen

  “Now on, you don’t got time, fuck more than me,” said Madelaine.

  “Love is holy,” said Father Van Den Heuvel. “And never more so than when the two of you discuss it.”

  The three of them were sitting at Madelaine’s kitchen table having lunch. Elk and vegetable soup and Madelaine’s good bread and home-canned corn and peppers.

  The big, clumsy Belgian Jesuit had splotches of elk soup and kernels of corn down his cassock.

  Been a while since he knock himself out shutting his head in his car door, Du Pré thought, he should maybe do that pretty soon again.

  Three times the good priest had been found lying by his car, out cold. He was the clumsiest human being Du Pré had ever known. He was not allowed to split wood anymore. He had split his own foot so badly he was two years on crutches.

  It was maybe the only congregation in the world which laid bets on whether or not the priest would drop the Host during Communion.

  There was half a foot of snow outside on the ground. Even though it was the first week of June, it was Montana, and it seemed to snow at least every other year in early June. Late June.

  “It ever snow here in July?” said Father Van Den Heuvel. “I think it has snowed every other month.”

  “Yah,” said Du Pré. “We got two feet once, Fourth of July.”

  “Ah,” said Father Van Den Heuvel, “God’s love is wonderful.”

  “It is sad, them girls, no one know who they are,” said Madelaine.

  Only one of the three bodies could be identified. Father Van Den Heuvel had buried the unknown two this morning. The county had paid for the coffins.

  “Poor children,” said the big priest. “I wonder where their families are.”

  “Lots of runaway kids,” said Madelaine.

  The pathologists had said that the two bodies that Du Pré had found were approximately sixteen. Dental work had been of minimal quality. One of the girls had a tattoo, the kind made in jails with pen inks and dull needles. A skull with a cross sticking out of it.

  On the web of skin between thumb and forefinger of her left hand. The girl may have done it herself.

  “How come they bury them so quick?” said Madelaine.

  “They get their samples and that is that,” said Du Pré.

  Modern times.

  Don’t want to pay the cold storage on them, Du Pré thought. These are not kids from nice homes. People who have some power, money. These kids, they will be forgotten. They always were forgotten. Their parents never even knew that they were there, I bet.

  Only Du Pré and Madelaine and Benny had come to the interment.

  Benny left immediately.

  Father Van Den Heuvel had said his few words and then he and Du Pré and Benny had let the coffins down. They were very light.

  “Du Pré!” Madelaine said. “I want you to promise these two little girls that you will find who did this to them. They got no one else to speak for them, you know.”

  “Yah,” said Du Pré.

  “You promise them.”

  “They don’t got names,” said Du Pré, “so I say, OK, you are my people, I find this bastard.”

  Madelaine reached up and touched Du Pré on his cheek.

  “Everybody is our people,” said Madelaine. “We are Métis.”

  Du Pré nodded. That was true. The Mixed Bloods. That is pretty much everybody.

  Long time ago, my people who were in France come to the New World and they marry my people who were already here. Then we really catch hell. Whites call us Indian, Indians call us whites. English, they hang us, steal our land. Send us all across Canada, move them furs for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The Here Before Christ. Most places they were, too.

  Long time ago.

  They come down here after them English crush the Red River Rebellion, got nothing, bunches of children.

  Had each other, my people did.

  These poor girls, they have no one at all.

  They got my Madelaine, who would feed all the world. Wipe all the tears.

  They got me, too, I guess.

  I find this bastard.

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette while he waited for Father Van Den Heuvel to come back from taking a leak. The old police cruiser, light bar and sirens taken off, decals off the doors, still runs good. Runs fast.

  There were a lot of cigarette burns on the backseat, where smokes Du Pré had flicked out the window flew back in.

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette and he offered it to Father Van Den Heuvel. The big priest nodded and he took it. He had never tried to roll his own smoke. He couldn’t do it.

  “I must go,” said the big priest. “I have to drive to Miles City and see Mrs. LeBlanc. She is dying.”

  “I send her something?” said Madelaine.

  “She can’t eat,” said Father Van Den Heuvel.

  Madelaine dug around and she found a St. Christopher medal.

  Father Van Den Heuvel put it in his pocket.

  Madelaine walked him out to his car. Du Pré had some more coffee.

  Tomorrow, I got to go sign off, some cattle. His son-in-law, Raymond, did most of the brand inspections now, but Du Pré did what Raymond could not do. Cattle business was not too good. Hate someone, give them a cow. Cattle business was mostly not too good.

  Du Pré heard the priest’s car drive off. Madelaine came back.

  “You sure like, devil that poor priest,” said Du Pré.

  “Poo,” said Madelaine. “Him like it. He is a nice man.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “Devil me, too,” he said.

  Madelaine stood in front of him, hand on her hip.

  “Fourteen, huh?” she said. “You come on now, I show you some damn fourteen.”

  After, Du Pré sat on the edge of the bed, smoking. Madelaine was in the shower. Du Pré could smell the potpourri soap she made, the smell of the steam from the hot water. The door to the bathroom was open and he could see her shape through the glass door of the shower.

  Fourteen, huh? Du Pré thought, I got as much trouble I need, just this Madelaine. She fuck good. I am a lucky man.

  Where is old Benetsee? My old coyote friend. Him, he got things to tell me that I need to hear.

  Who is, this man does these things. What does he hide behind? Where is he going? I want to kill him, where do I wait.

  Thing about good hunters, they wait well. Don’t bother them, they dream, don’t move.

  When Madelaine came out of the bathroom in her robe, toweling her thick long dark hair, Du Pré went in and he showered quickly. He dried himself and he got dressed and he went out to the kitchen.

  “I am going to Benetsee’s,” he said.

  Madelaine nodded. “Him not back.”

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “Leave him a note,” said Madelaine.

  “Don’t know, him read,” said Du Pré.

  “Then you leave him note he don’t have to read,” said Madelaine. “You leave him a loaf of my good bread.”

  She went to the kitchen and she wrapped up a loaf of bread in foil and she put it in a plastic bag.

  “His dogs all dead?” she said.

  Du Pré nodded. Dogs got old, they died.

  “We get him another dog,” said Madelaine.

  “OK,” said Du Pré. He did not ever argue with Madelaine. She had taught him not to do that.

  “Old man,” said Madelaine. “I pray for him.”

  “You pray for everybody,” said Du Pré.

  “Don’t pray for your fourteen other women,” said Madelaine.

  “Them don’t need it,” said Du Pré.

  “I find you, another woman, you need it,” said Madelaine.

  “OK,” said Du Pré.

  “You find that man,” said Madelaine.

  CHAPTER 6

  DU PRÉ AND MADELAINE watched the fancydancers circling on the floor of the high-school gymnasium. Men with huge feather bustles and fans and headdresses and legpieces and all of them as proud as fighting cock
s. Fancydancers. Roosters.

  Wolf Point, Montana. It felt cold here even if it was hot.

  “Let’s go, look at the things the traders have,” said Madelaine. There were tables and booths all up and down the halls of the schools, jewelry, clothing, crafts, one man even had some buffalo robes.

  They walked down the steps of the bleachers and out into the lobby. Madelaine looked around at the displays of junk jewelry, most of it bad turquoise and cheap silverplate, made in Southeast Asia.

  She spotted an old man in a ribbon shirt who didn’t have very much. Just a black cloth, worn velvet, sprawled on a card table and a few pieces set on it. The old man stood with his arms folded. He had big rings on each finger and thumb and bracelets and a necklace of silver rattlesnakes with turquoise eyes.

  Madelaine stopped in front of the table.

  “How far are you from your people?” she said.

  “Long ways,” said the man. He smiled. He had no front teeth.

  Madelaine bent over to look. She picked up a bracelet which had a huge cabochon of black-spotted turquoise set in a mass of silver. She turned the bracelet around. She squinted at the back of the setting.

  “I like this,” she said. “Will you sell it?”

  “Thousand dollars,” said the old man.

  Madelaine nodded.

  “He say a thousand dollars.”

  “He does, eh?” said Du Pré, who hated shopping.

  Madelaine smiled at him.

  “You trade this for a good fiddle?” she said.

  “Mebbe,” said the old man. “If I can play it as well as your man the first time I pick it up.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  “Five hundred.” said Madelaine.

  “OK,” said the old man, smiling. “I give this to you, five hundred and half his fiddle. I got a saw in my truck.”

  Du Pré nodded. He wondered if he had seven hundred dollars on him, since that was where Madelaine and this toothless old man were headed, after they had got through threatening to saw Du Pré s fiddle in half. He probably did.

  They stood there for a moment. A band of teenage Indian kids ran past laughing. They all had on black satin jackets with red feather fans on the backs. They were headed outside to smoke.

  Inside the drummers and singers were making music. The sound was very old and eerie. It had been going on here in America for thousands of years. Du Pré looked through the open doors and he saw the fancydancers speeding up, through the crowd of people drifting past. Sometimes the fancydancers danced for hours. Some dropped dead of heart attacks. It was an exhausting dance.

  “Seven hundred dollars,” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré dug out his wallet. He looked in one of the side pockets where he kept his hundred-dollar bills. There were two wads in it. He usually only carried one. He fished out the wad, quartered, that didn’t look familiar. There were seven hundred-dollar bills in it. He handed them to Madelaine.

  The old man was fitting the bracelet to Madelaine’s wrist, squeezing the soft silver with his strong old hands.

  Du Pré handed him the money. The old man didn’t count it, he just tucked it in his shirt pocket.

  Du Pré looked back at the fancydancers. They were rocking back and form as they circled, dipping forward and arching their backs.

  Du Pré ached looking at them.

  The drums went faster, the singers ululated.

  “Thanks, Du Pré,” said Madelaine.

  “Uh,” said Du Pré. “There is this seven hundred dollars there I don’t know I got.”

  “Oh, how is that?” said Madelaine. “One of your women you fucking tip you, you were so good one night?”

  “No,” said Du Pré. “One I am fucking put it in my wallet, though.”

  “Well,” said Madelaine. “Maybe, who knows.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  There was food being served in the cafeteria. They went in. There were pots of buffalo stew and fry bread and chokecherry syrup. Cost two dollars. They took their food to a table and Du Pré went to buy some soft drinks.

  “They don’t got pink wine,” said Du Pré, setting down the paper cups.

  “No shit they don’t,” said Madelaine. “They don’t allow no alcohol at all here. Too much trouble.”

  “I got whiskey in my truck,” said Du Pré.

  “They find it they beat the shit out of you,” said Madelaine.

  Some of the young men, who were the security people, came in, and they looked pretty tough.

  “Probably,” said Du Pré.

  “Well,” said Madelaine. “There are some of your Turtle Mountain people.”

  Du Pré glanced over. He waved at the Turtle Mountain people, in their bright red shirts and cowboy hats and boots.

  “We play some tonight,” said Du Pré.

  It started to rain outside, sudden slashing rain with a lot of wind. The sheet of glass in the windows flexed and shimmered.

  The buffalo stew didn’t have enough salt in it. Du Pré got up and he went to get some.

  He found some little packets of salt. He took ten.

  He went back. Madelaine was looking at her new bracelet.

  “It is very pretty,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Madelaine. “Me, I like this.”

  They ate their food. Pretty bland. Du Pré wished he had some pepper sauce.

  “You want to smoke,” said Madelaine, “you will have to go outside. Me, I will go and look around, these other traders.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “You want money?” he said.

  Madelaine shook her head. “I got my nice thing,” she said. “You go and smoke.”

  Du Pré carried the used bowls and plates and plastic forks to a trash can and he dumped them in. Madelaine grinned at him and she went off down a side hall rowed both sides with tables.

  Du Pré made his way out front. The sidewalk was thick with cigarette butts.

  The rain had stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The sun was shining down in golden shafts through the black clouds. The air was fresh and smelled of lightning.

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette and he lit it and he drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He blew out a long blue-gray stream. He sighed. It tasted good.

  Knots of people stood around, smoking and chatting. Little kids shrieked and ran and jumped. Their parents were inside, shrieking and running and jumping, some of them anyway.

  Young bloods in ribbon shirts with fancy hairdos announced their tribe by their clothes and paints and bad attitudes of young warriors.

  Du Pré snorted. Backbone of the tribe is the women, they give life, strength of the tribe is the warriors, their humility.

  These boys, they got some to go, Du Pré thought. Spend a little less time, front of the mirror, little more time helping the old people.

  Du Pré glanced off at a little copse of blue spruce in the middle of the lawn. There was a sculpture made of stainless steel to one side.

  An old man dressed in ragged clothes was leaning against the sculpture.

  It was Benetsee.

  “Damn,” said Du Pré. He threw his cigarette on the ground and he began to walk toward the old man.

  “Hey!” Du Pré yelled.

  Benetsee moved. He was shuffling, fast enough, toward the little stand of spruces.

  Du Pré got to the lawn and he started to run.

  Benetsee went behind the trees.

  Du Pré cursed.

  He ran flat out, his cowboy boots slipping at each stride with a jerk, leather soles on wet grass.

  Du Pré tried to turn and his feet shot out from under him and he fell full-length.

  He slid a good fifteen feet. He was all wet on his right side. He could smell the crushed grass. His jeans would be stained. The elbow of his shirt.

  Du Pré got up and he walked on, his side stitched a little, he had pulled some muscles in his chest.

  Du Pré went around behind the spruces.

  No one there. Of course.

  Du Pré
heard feet running toward him.

  A couple of the young security men came around the spruces, one on each side.

  “Hey, man,” said one. “Everything all right? We saw you running.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Du Pré. “It is all right.”

  The three of them looked at each other for a moment.

  Du Pré shrugged and he walked back toward the gym.

  CHAPTER 7

  “THEM POWWOWS ALL THE same,” said Madelaine. “Same people doin’ same things. I go to ’em, but I don’t miss leavin’ them.” Madelaine grinned at Du Pré. She had her left hand on the dashboard of the car. The turquoise bracelet burned sea blue in the sunlight.

  Du Pré glanced over at the fence line crossing a little feeder seep. A prairie falcon gripped a post, wings half-extended.

  They were doing about eighty on a narrow two-lane blacktop road. Every once in a while, they passed a little white cross mounted on a steel fencepost. The crosses marked spots where people had died in car wrecks. On Memorial Day, family would often put plastic flowers on the crosses.

  “I had some good times with them Turtle Mountain people,” said Du Pré. “Them good people.”

  “That guitar player, him Daby, is a dirty old man,” said Madelaine. “He grab my ass”, you know.”

  “Um,” said Du Pré. Well, he thought, you can eat old Daby for your lunch, the old bastard won’t try that again, I am sure. Maybe he drive, Turtle Mountain, ice bag in his lap, keep the hurt from his nuts getting ripped off down a little.

  “He play pretty good guitar, though,” Madelaine said.

  She don’t rip his nuts off. She tell him, you play pretty good, I don’t rip your plums off this one time, you know. Second time, I take ‘em, fry them, eat them. Turtle Mountain oysters.

  “I tell him, mind your manners, I fry up some Turtle Mountain oysters.” said Madelaine. “Him don’t like that.”

  They crested a long sloping hill and looked down suddenly into a swaled bottom, thick with cattails and loud with Canada geese. The car windows were shut but the geese honked loudly enough so they could be heard easily. Du Pré glanced over and saw young geese, in their yellow down, following their parents.

  The car bottomed out as it crossed a little bridge and men shot up the rising road. A pheasant flew suddenly.

  Above the water’s reach to the roots hanging down into the earth, the sagebrush reappeared.