Notches

by Peter Bowen

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette.

  Damn Benetsee.

  I go to talk to Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name.

  Dream what it is that you hunt.

  Du Pré lit his cigarette.

  “I have one of those?” said Rolly.

  Du Pré nodded.

  CHAPTER 30

  DU PRÉ WOKE IN the night. Madelaine was sleeping hard, her breath soft and steady. She had an arm flung out, hanging off the bed. She often slept like that.

  Du Pré slipped out of bed and he wrapped a robe around his body and he padded out to the back porch. The air was thick and smelled of lightning. Then there was a great flash above and the rain lashed down. Huge drops thick together. Lightning flashed. Du Pré saw a cat dash across the grass and dive under the garden shed.

  He was half-asleep. The images burned in his brain from the faded flashes and he thought he saw Benetsee faint, white-haired, in the misty shadows among the elms and willows by the little creek.

  Du Pré went out the back door and he squelched across the grass in his bare feet. He was soaked halfway there. He stepped into the line of trees and stopped on the bank of the little spring creek.

  The lightning flashed so close overhead he crouched.

  He was chilled. He went back to the house and he took the sopping robe off and he hung it on the back porch and he walked softly naked to the bathroom and he toweled himself off and he went to the kitchen and he rolled a cigarette and he sat there smoking. He was wide-awake after his cold shower.

  He sighed. He poured some whiskey in a tumbler and ran tap water in the whiskey until it was very pale and then he drank the ditch down all at once. It bloomed in his stomach, hot.

  Good that they got all the wheat in tonight, Du Pré thought. Now the crews will go a little east, some maybe north to Alberta.

  The weather had been fine.

  It was four in the morning. The crews would have closed the bar in Toussaint.

  The tracking beeper Harvey had brought him from Washington lay on the kitchen table. Du Pré dressed, pocketed the beeper, and he went out and walked down toward the bar. He stumbled once in a pothole. His cowboy boots were slick on the gumbo. He came through the trees in the little park across from the bar. The motor homes were all dark, compressors whirring.

  Simpson’s van was parked in the light from the spot on the front of the bar. Du Pré made his way round. He listened for dogs, but didn’t hear any.

  When he got to the van he peeled the sheet of plastic from the beeper, exposing the sticky base. It was modeled to look like a gob of mud. Du Pré reached high inside a back wheelwell and stuck the little electronic device to the clean metal.

  Damn Simpson, he probably scrub this by hand with his bifocals on, Du Pré thought. Maybe not.

  He backed away and went back to Madelaine’s and he undressed and got into bed. He dozed for an hour and then he got up and made himself some breakfast and he ate and then he went out and got in his old cruiser. He switched on the tracking unit and a small green light came on. It showed Simpson’s van within six hundred yards of Madelaine’s, directly to the east. Du Pré nodded. The sun was rising that way.

  OK.

  Du Pré drove downtown and he parked beside the bar and he put the tracking unit on the transmission case and he lay down and he dozed.

  The people in the motor homes came to life. Doors opened and shut. Engines caught. A couple of the motor homes lumbered out of the parking lot and went to the main street and then turned and headed out to the highway.

  Simpson’s van was still there in the campground across from the bar.

  Du Pré waited.

  For an hour.

  Simpson finally came out of the motor home he shared with two other men. One of the men joked with him through the door. Simpson was carrying a cup of coffee, a road cup, one with a narrow top and a wide base.

  He got in his van and he carefully warmed it up. He checked the windshield wipers. He leaned out and fiddled with the rearview mirror.

  Then he drove briskly out and turned toward the highway.

  Du Pré waited for a few minutes. Then he followed. If Simpson went west, he was headed north. If east, east. South, south, but Du Pré didn’t think he would head that way.

  Du Pré followed down to the intersection where Simpson would go either north or east. He went east.

  There was no place to turn off that made any sense for the next hundred miles. Du Pré stayed twenty miles back. The green light was east of him. Simpson traveled at sixty-five miles an hour, exactly.

  The liquid crystal display barely altered at all. Nothing out here. Once Simpson slowed down to thirty-five.

  He find one cow on that road, thought Du Pré. About twenty miles he is either going to Miles City, or Plentywood.

  Simpson took the road to Miles City. Du Pré followed five or six miles back. Simpson kept on at sixty-five.

  Longest damn time I ever take, get to Miles City, Du Pré thought. Course I am not carrying a dead body I don’t want found, so I am careless with the law.

  Simpson stopped at the north edge of Miles. City and he got gas. Du Pré waited by the road until Simpson moved again and then he drove on into town. Simpson was maybe a mile away, stopped. Du Pré got a tankful and he checked the oil and the belts on the engine and he shook his head when he spotted the hose that Simpson had stuck in his engine a few days before.

  Me, I wonder he got an expensive set of black steel sockets, Du Pré thought.

  Got maybe a folding rubber sheet in the back. Thick one. Blood-proof.

  Got a box of small knives with leaf blades sunk in black plastic handles. Made in Taiwan.

  Maybe got a box of earrings, rings, bracelets.

  Crucifixes.

  Maybe a map, got marks on it.

  Take it out to jerk off to, those lonely nights.

  I hope that I am right, Du Pré thought.

  I don’t like them Christer sons of bitches anyway, they spend their time howling about love and meaning death.

  Du Pré pissed and he went back out to his cruiser and he drove on into Miles City and he had a good lunch at a saloon, a prime rib sandwich and some beer, a good salad he made up himself from the offerings on a big steel cart.

  He rolled a smoke and had it and then another. Had another beer.

  He paid and left and he drove toward the place that the green light said Simpson’s van was parked at. It was in front of a church, a low cinder-block building. There was a big banner hanging from a side-wall which said “REVIVAL MEETING TONIGHT.”

  Du Pré drove out to the airport and he found a rental-car place had two little old sedans in the lot. There was no one in the office. A sign on the counter said, “If you want a car, call 788-9081.”A telephone sat next to the sign.

  A woman answered Du Pré’s call.

  “I need to rent a car,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said. “I’ll be right on down soon’s as I get the kids out the door to school. Lunch. About half hour.”

  “OK,” said Du Pré.

  “If you want a beer there’s some in a little icebox under the counter,” she said. “Just lift up the passage gate and go on round.”

  “Thanks,” said Du Pré.

  He found the beer and he sat and waited outside in the shade, smoking and sipping beer. The woman came and she rented him a little brown Colt for twenty-five dollars.

  “Just gas it up before you bring it back, please,” she said, “or leave a few bucks if you don’t have time. Leave the keys on the counter.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  He went on into town in the little car. He stopped at a discount store and he bought a white straw hat and some big sunglasses and a loud silly shirt, one with huge tropical flowers on it in horrible colors.

  I don’t look like no Métis, Du Pré thought, driving back by the church. I am not buying those sandals. Maybe I go, though, to this revival meeting.

  He went back to the discount store and he bought some ch
eap baggy cotton pants in a pale tan and some dirty-looking running shoes.

  Full service, Du Pré thought, they get your shoes dirty, too.

  He bought some tailor-made cigarettes. A butane lighter. His shepherd’s lighter was unusual, length of rope and a striker.

  I am some deep undercover, Du Pré thought. Feel like an asshole.

  Bitch bitch bitch.

  There was a big tent at the back of the church. Du Pré parked a ways away and he went to the tent and looked in.

  Simpson and three other men were sawing boards and nailing together a stage. They worked quickly and competently.

  Du Pré nodded.

  He went to a motel and he rented a room and he slept for five hours.

  The green light on the tracking unit hadn’t moved.

  He went to the revival meeting at seven.

  There were a hundred people there.

  Simpson sat in the front row of folding chairs. He was well dressed, in a dark suit and shoes, a white shirt and a dark tie. His hair was pomaded.

  The congregation sang loud hymns.

  There was a choir. One of the singers was a pretty blond girl, blooming with what beauty she would have before going to fat and bad makeup in five years time.

  Du Pré looked at Simpson.

  Simpson stared at the girl.

  He was wearing tinted glasses.

  But his head never moved.

  CHAPTER 31

  DU PRÉ SAT IN the sweat lodge. It was pitch-dark. The steam was so hot and close his lungs cleared of the tobacco he smoked. He coughed once. He inhaled deeply. The paint on his face clogged his pores. Sweat ran from his skin in streams.

  He was alone. He dipped a little water from the bowl with a piece of curved birch bark and he sprinkled it on the red-hot stones. They glowed very dimly, and gave no light. They floated in his eyes. He could not really say where up and down were. He was sitting, but he felt so light he could have been sitting on the tight canvas of the ceiling.

  Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name sat outside. He was drumming. The strokes and rhythms multiplied.

  No one man could do all that, Du Pré thought, I am a musician. He is drumming in straight time, nine-five time, thirteen-five time, backbeats. I have listened to drumming my whole life, I never heard this.

  Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name began to sing. The wailing ululations, prayers and offerings.

  Du Pré’s blood sang.

  He bowed his head and he wept. His tears fell with his sweat.

  I ask for many things. I ask for strength and cunning. I ask for courage. I ask for a warrior’s heart. The heart of a warrior is his humility, the strength of the tribe is the warrior’s humility. We are very small on this earth but we have our place.

  Du Pré breathed.

  He cleared his mind and he let the drumming and singing flow into his breath and blood.

  He dreamed.

  He woke slowly. His back was cold. He was lying on his back. He could feel the rough stems of grass against his skin. He looked up. The stars were out, a fingernail moon.

  “Uh, Du Pré,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré’s eyes shot wide-open.

  “You don’t move or I don’t talk to you,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré froze.

  That old shit, he thought, here he is. Play his damn games with me.

  Fucker.

  “You doin’ ver’ good,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré waited.

  “You keep doin’ that.”

  A wind came up. The willows sighed.

  Du Pré waited.

  He heard an owl call softly.

  Felt wings brush his face.

  Hush Wings. Owl’s a good hunter. At night. Blind in the sun, the sport of starlings, then.

  Du Pré heard the coyotes start to howl, the hunting chorus. The yips died away.

  He sat up and he looked around.

  Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name was sitting with his legs tucked under him, head bowed. He held a bundle wrapped in marten skins.

  Du Pré stood up. He went to the plank table he had piled his domes on before he went into the sweat lodge. He toweled off and he dressed. His socks were damp and his boots were hard to get on. He rolled a smoke and he lit it and he looked up at the stars.

  Far away, he thought, they don’t need to bother with us. We can find our way around the world with them, though.

  Du Pré glanced at Benetsee’s praying apprentice.

  Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name hadn’t moved.

  Du Pré walked round the cabin to his cruiser and he reached in and got his whiskey and he had a little. He went back.

  The young man was sitting on the table. He was smiling.

  “OK,” said Du Pré. “Where is that Benetsee?”

  “I am in Canada, you fool,” said the young man.

  But it was Benetsee’s old cracked voice.

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “Shit,” he said.

  He went to his car and got in and he drove. He didn’t care where to. He drove west, out on dirt roads that wound through the rolling giant High Plains. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care.

  He came to a side road that cut across a hayfield set beneath a sheer scarp. Old pishkun. Buffalo Jump.

  Du Pré took the road right up to the place where the boulders that had been spilled off the front lip were piled.

  He got out and looked up at the rim.

  There was just enough starlight to see faint dapples of lighter color. The grass that tongued up the watercourses.

  Water and rock, water always wins in the end.

  Du Pré stared hard.

  He saw shadows, giant ones, tumbling through the air. The ghosts of buffalo bellowing as they fell. The hunters danced in triumph on the lip. The shaman lay broken on the rocks below. This was done once a generation, one time, use the pishkun. Plenty of meat. The shaman led them over the edge. He was singing.

  The women butchered and dried meat and they danced.

  The ground was black with blood.

  The wolves and bears smelled the meat and they came.

  Ravens, magpies, badgers, skunks, the vultures and the insects.

  The eagles.

  Up top there were some pits where eagle-catchers had lain hidden, a prairie chicken tethered close against the crisscrossed sticks above them. The eagle swooped and grasped the grouse in its talons and the eagle-catcher reached up and grabbed the eagle’s legs and pulled down so that the eagle couldn’t reach the hands with its beak.

  It did not work that well, I bet, thought Du Pré.

  Them shamans they are missing some fingers them eagles cut right off.

  Shaman’s bones right here, down in the rocks, under the grass.

  Du Pré had hundreds of arrowheads and spearpoints and scrapers. He had been finding them since he was a child.

  Gopher mounds were good places, new cuts where a stream was changing course, any place where a bulldozer churned the earth.

  Du Pré sat and he smoked and he looked up at the scarp.

  That is that kind of hunting. Me, I cannot stampede them Christers over a cliff. They do that for themselves.

  What am I hunting?

  A bad man.

  What does he hunt.

  Stupid young women.

  Where does he go to feed.

  To church.

  Where does he go to drink?

  No bars, they are sinful.

  Where does he sleep?

  Du Pré blew up. He got out of his car and he yelled and his voice boomed against the cliffs and rang back. Birds chirred, wakened. He kicked the door of his cruiser and he dented it. He grabbed his 9mm and he fired a whole clip at a boulder and the last round whanged off in a banshee scream, flattened to a disc of lead and copper.

  “I find you bastards and I cut your fucking hearts out and I eat them. I eat them! You can wander in the damn dark with no hearts.”

  He sat on the hood of his cruiser.

  He rolle
d a smoke and lit it and inhaled and he coughed and coughed.

  My throat is raw from that yelling, Du Pré thought. I have some whiskey. I am drinking too much. Too much is when you like it too much. Better not do it so much, it don’t damp no fires. Make them hotter.

  Madelaine is half-crazy with fear, her babies get killed, this man.

  Du Pré had some whiskey.

  He looked up at the rim three hundred feet above.

  He dropped the bottle on the ground.

  He got a canteen from the trunk and he put it on, the strap over his shoulder, diagonal to his body.

  He began to walk up the trail he could see, a white snake moving among the sagebrush.

  He scrambled and cursed up the steep places. Put his hands where he shouldn’t, rattlesnakes might lie up there on the warm rocks.

  Fucking snake bite me I am so mad it die.

  Hunt these guys.

  Can’t kill them, that Harvey is not kidding.

  Neither am I.

  Du Pré tore his hand open on a sharp rock. He sucked blood from the deep gash. He looked down. Obsidian spearpoint sticking out of the yellow earth, thin and settled between two rocks. Du Pré tugged at it. It would not come. He pulled his folding tool from his belt and got the screwdriver blade out and he dug away.

  Stuck through a bone. Clear through it.

  Buffalo rib bone. Bull die all the way up here.

  Why they bother to kill it?

  Du Pré looked up at the rim. He was centered under it.

  Shaman was under it, that’s why.

  Du Pré got hold of the rib bone and he heaved. It came free. The rib suddenly split open and the spearpoint fell. Du Pré caught it in the air.

  Du Pré held the black volcanic glass up to his eyes.

  The stars glittered in the conchoidal fractures.

  Knapper, he move around the edge with an elk tine.

  Du Pré sat a moment.

  He looked down at his cruiser. A coyote was walking past the front of it, and the coyote stopped and pissed.

  “Yes, my friend,” laughed Du Pré.

  Benetsee.

  CHAPTER 32

  DU PRÉ WAS EATING breakfast with his left hand. His right palm had thirty stitches in it and it hurt like hell. He mashed a piece of ham apart with his fork and he put it in his mouth.