by Peter Bowen
Good people. Du Pré had loved them both. Killed while Du Pré was in basic training, Fort Ord. Du Pré, eighteen, only child. His mother always shamed she couldn’t have more babies, like a good Métis woman.
“You know,” said Benetsee, “most times there is a killing, there is a pretty woman in it somewhere, you know?”
Du Pré thought. His mama? Jesus, no, the two of them loved each other, make a pass at either, whoever, they wouldn’t even notice.
“What the hell you mean?” said Du Pré.
But the old man had picked up the pipestone again.
Scritch scritch.
CHAPTER 22
“I TELL YOU, MADELAINE, I like to strangle that old bastard,” said Du Pré. Diddle me out of that wine, leave me more confused than a newspaper.
“Well,” said Madelaine, “you men get crazy, kill each other over us, you know. But you right, I don’t see where he’s pointing.”
Early morning, her kids were stirring, time to get ready for school.
Du Pré rolled on his side, held her sweet warmth close.
“Got to cook them breakfast, see about their clothes,” said Madelaine. “Old Benetsee, he talk to me, maybe?”
“Don’t know.”
Madelaine nuzzled his neck.
“Long time ago,” said Madelaine. “Who around then? That old priest, Father Leblanc?”
Du Pré remembered. Father Leblanc had retired long ago, moved back up north to Canada, the fathers had a rest home there.
Red River.
Madelaine got up, Du Pré slept till the door banged to for the last time. He heard the grind of the school bus going off. Madelaine had four kids, they left Du Pré alone, he left them alone. But the oldest boy was needing a man to learn from.
I don’t know what to do for my daughters, thought I at least would not have to not understand a son, too. Jesus, she got three more of them. Life, it get you every time.
Du Pré dressed, walked to the kitchen, carrying his boots. Madelaine dished him up some scrambled eggs, salsa, a couple slices of her good bread with chokecherry jam.
Du Pré ate.
“I got some fence to fix,” he said, “check my place out.” My few cows, horses, brushed-up little creek. I fix it up, work hard, lose more money.
He drove home. Maria was gone, off to school, bad-ass girl on the Honor Roll. People she hung around with probably couldn’t read well enough to see her name, she’s safe.
What about all this.
Du Pré filled a pocket of his down vest with fencing staples, took a fencing tool, a shovel, a topper’s ax.
When he heaved against the rusty barbwire gate the top strand broke, so he had to go back and pull a coil of wire off the spool. He fixed the gate, shut it, began to slowly walk the fence. Do a mile or so today, then more sometime. If his cattle got out they would be hazed back by the neighbors. No bitching, no cattleman needs the brand inspector pissed off at him.
Du Pré topped a little rise, looked down, saw four of his neighbor’s steers at rest in his pasture. They got up when they saw him, trotted back home. Du Pré followed them to the downed fence. A post had rotted off, a cow had leaned against it until it snapped and the fence went down. Lots of tracks both ways.
I’d better fix this fence, here. Not too good a neighbor, me.
Du Pré cut a new post from a dead juniper, dug out a shallow hole, set and tamped the post. He stapled the wires back on.
The four steers looked glumly at him from the neighbor’s pasture.
Spoilsport.
Du Pré saw his horses, one was limping. He hadn’t worked his stock, they looked at him and trotted off, all but the one who was hurt in the foot.
“Tch tch,” Du Pré clucked, coming up to the gelding. The oldest one, twenty years, gentle old fellow.
Du Pré patted the horse’s neck. He lifted the left front hoof, saw the bad split.
Du Pré slipped his belt off, put it round the horse’s neck, led him back to the little tumbledown barn. Got to fix these hinges, too, whole place is slumped and tired.
Us Du Pré, we been here a while.
Du Pré found the old inner tube, the rope, the Epsom salts. He went to the house, made up a batch of warm water, poured in the salts. He carried the kettle back out to the barn and slipped the inner tube over the horse’s leg; tied it up, rope over the horse’s withers. Poured in the warm drawing water, the horse danced a little at the strange feeling.
“Hohoho,” said Du Pré. The horse stood, liking the warmth on his sore hoof and leg.
Du Pré left him there, went to the house for lunch. He found a can of sardines, can of tomatoes. What the West was built on, cowboys ate and drank these. Piles of rusty cans at every good place to stop and have lunch. Ghost meals.
Du Pré went to the living room, cluttered with the magazines Maria brought home, but clean. He looked at the pictures on the mantel. Catfoot and Maman. Maria. Jacqueline, big smile, first baby, boy of course, Gabriel, of course.
Du Pré at a fiddlers’ contest, first place, Du Pré half-drunk in the picture, little cheap trophy in his hand.
Picture of his father’s sister, Aunt Pauline, with one of her husbands.
Aunty Pauline, blond, brown-eyed, good-looking woman. Trouble woman, she’d had three husbands.
Aunty Pauline, used to ride trick horses in the rodeo.
She’d be maybe sixty now? Du Pré hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years.
Aunty Pauline.
Who Mama wouldn’t speak of after that one time.
Du Pré didn’t know what had happened. Long time ago.
Where was Aunty Pauline now?
Red River.
CHAPTER 23
DU PRÉ WAS FLICKING his eyes over the brands, the cattle bawled in the chute. Funny job he had, no one needed him, then they opened the newspaper, saw prices up, or the banker didn’t want to extend the note and they all wanted him right now. He’d be working till midnight tonight, for sure.
Pretty dull, too. While I’m here, somebody within twenty miles is losing cattle. The thieves pay attention to the market price, too.
“Du Pré! DU PRÉ!” the rancher yelling, right in Du Pré’s ear.
Du Pré didn’t take his eyes off the stock.
“All hell broke loose up to that rich folks’ place,” said the rancher, “the Sheriff’s been shot dead.”
“What?” Du Pré took his eyes off the stock.
“I got a scanner,” said the rancher. “Deputies screaming, say the Sheriff’s dead on the lawn and people are shooting from the house.”
Du Pré looked back at the stock, found his place. Brands all OK. So what’s this? Shit.
“Don’t you need to get over there?”
“No,” said Du Pré. “I need to see this stock loaded, then I got to go over to Koch’s to see about theirs. There’s nothing I can do about … all that crap at Fascellis’.” Dumb bastard, that Sheriff.
So they loaded the cattle, Du Pré signed off, got in his car, cursed a while, turned on the radio.
“DUPREE DUPREE DUPREE GOD DAMN IT COME IN DUPREE DUPREE!” said the dispatcher, sounding hoarse.
“Yes,” said Du Pré, very quietly.
“DUPREE!”
“Yes,” said Du Pré, “it’s me. And the answer is no.”
“Get over to the Fascellis right away, the guy shooting says he will come out but he wants you there, wants to walk out with you. Won’t have anybody else. MOVE IT.”
Shit. SHIT.
“No,” said Du Pré. “I don’t do that, no.”
The dispatcher started screaming, so Du Pré switched off his radio. Rolled a cigarette. Smoked it. Spat out the window.
He switched the radio back on.
“What about the Sheriff, now?”
“DU PREE, he’s dead on the damn lawn. Look, I am sorry I yelled at you. Please go over there before somebody else gets killed. Please.”
“OK.” SHIT SHIT SHIT.
Du Pré thought
maybe he’d drive over to Benetsee’s hideout, stay drunk for a week. What’s this all about, now? Huh?
He drove toward Fascelli’s, the Crossed Eyes Ranch. I look at cow asses, I don’t have to do this I don’t have to do this.
But I do.
Shit. SHIT.
He could see the house, spotlighted. A helicopter circled over it.
The Sheriff was on his back on the lawn, his head all bloody. He was wearing a bulletproof vest.
Seven deputies were crouched around, some Highway Patrolmen, lots of assault rifles and shotguns.
“Now, what?” said Du Pré. He had decided to address this to a silver-haired Highway Patrolman who looked so disgusted he likely had a fair idea of what was really going on. Du Pré guessed.
“You Du Pré,” said the HP. He had Scott Parsons on a nameplate above his left shirt pocket.
“Yes,” said Du Pré.
“Well,” said Parsons, “this guy keeps screaming that he won’t come out unless you go in, he didn’t shoot the Sheriff, and he also feels that we are a bunch of fucking assholes.”
“No shit,” said Du Pré.
“He’s probably right on all counts,” said Parsons.
“How many other people in there?”
“I don’t know,” said Parsons. “When I got here things were about like they are.”
“OK,” said Du Pré, “I go talk to him.” He walked out across the lawn, hollering “BART BART! It’s DU PRÉ.” He walked out into the lights, holding his hands away from his sides.
“That is you, Du Pré,” said Fascelli.
“I don’t got a gun,” said Du Pré. “Where’s your sister, the maids and all?”
“In the swimming pool,” said Bart. “It’s empty. When these idiot assholes started shooting I had them get in there. I got in there, too. Where do they find these people, anyway?”
Du Pré looked down at the Sheriff. His face was gone. So he’d been shot in the back of the head.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “I am coming up to the front door and I am arresting you and I am taking you to the jail. We do it fast, OK?”
“Sure,” said Fascelli.
Du Pré went to the big ornate carved front door, it opened, Bart stepped out. Du Pré took his arm.
“I don’t got no handcuffs,” said Du Pré, “but we play I do.”
“Hi, Mom,” said Fascelli, smiling out at the floodlights. He clasped his hands behind his back while Du Pré pretended to clap cuffs on his wrists.
Du Pré and his prisoner walked out to the silver-haired Highway Patrolman.
“I arrest him,” said Du Pré, “you drive us to the jail, huh?”
“You read him his rights?” said Parsons.
“Oh, yes, officer,” said Fascelli.
Du Pré and Fascelli got in the back of the car. Du Pré left the door open.
“You got some handcuffs I can borrow,” said Du Pré. “He ought to be wearing them we get to the jail.”
Parsons unsnapped the case on his belt, unlocked the cuffs, and handed them to Du Pré.
“You don’t have to do that,” said Fascelli. “I won’t give you any trouble.”
“Look,” said Du Pré, “you better be wearing these when we get there, these fools think you half-escaped or something.” He looked at the shot-up house, the milling deputies, all armed, all looking very lost.
He snapped the cuffs on Bart’s wrists.
Parsons drove fast all the way to Cooper.
The last sight Du Pré had of the scene of the siege was of four people standing around the body of the Sheriff. But that Sheriff, he wasn’t ever going to get up.
CHAPTER 24
“DU PRÉ.” SAID MADELAINE, “you been having a rough time lately. Maybe you better go see Father Van Den Heuvel.”
“I need to build up my sins,” said Du Pré. “Big stack of them so that God handles this personally.”
Madelaine threw up her hands. All this means, Du Pré, he has to blaspheme.
“So what did Foosli tell you?”
“He said he’s inside the house, having drinks with his sister, the Sheriff is suddenly on the lawn with a bullhorn yelling for Bart to come out with his hands up. So he goes to the window, wondering who is playing this joke on him, and there is this shot, hits the Sheriff right in the back of the head, comes from behind the fence and the hedge. The other deputies go crazy, they shoot for a while or scream into the radio for a while, and Bart tells everybody in the house, get into the swimming pool—they got one there, middle of the house, cause they won’t get shot there. They get in it.”
Madelaine poured some more coffee for Du Pré.
“So then Bart say he shoot a few times over their heads, say he won’t surrender to no one but me. ‘They are stupid and crazy,’ said Bart to me, ‘so I know you at least.’ He trusts me. I don’t blame him, not wanting come out in front of them deputies.”
“But who shoot the Sheriff?” said Madelaine.
Du Pré thought that he knew but he also thought he didn’t give a rusty shit at this point. Also he wasn’t going to tell anyone he damn well knew old Booger Tom had done it, see if he could get the cops so riled they kill everyone in the house.
“Whew,” said Madelaine, “What the Sheriff going to arrest him for, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré.
“This very mysterious.”
“This very stupid, what this is, I think. You seen Maria?”
“At the grocery store.”
Du Pré nodded. “I better go out to the house, see if she is there, tell her I love her, case she’s forgot.”
“Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “why don’t you tell me you love me, case I forgot.”
They held each other.
Du Pré went out, started up his old car, shifted into reverse.
Madelaine came after him.
“Du Pré,” she said, “you got a dirty temper, you keep it close for me and Maria and Jacqueline and all. You don’t got a mean bone in your body but you sure got lots of mad ones. Mad bones break pretty easy. All them cops, they are upset. One of them get shot dead, the others go crazy.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Give my love to Maria,” said Madelaine.
They all really take care of me, Du Pré thought. Now what I do for them? Really?
Maria was in the kitchen, cooking a goose. She’d washed the colored crap out of her hair and didn’t have any makeup on. She had enormous black eyes, like her mama. She moved like her mama. Du Pré suddenly went very sad.
“Lots of calls on the phone, I told everybody you went to the dog races, Spokane,” said Maria. She grinned.
Du Pré smiled. Maybe he would go to Spokane, hide out.
“Some lawyer for Fascelli called, wants you to call him. He’s staying in Cooper, the little motel.”
Du Pré grunted. Fascelli, he wasn’t guilty of anything but a busted life, got to be cold as the moon. Back of the head, the slug that got the Sheriff. Booger Tom? Could the old fart still see that well? Or did one of the deputies get the twitch, all the wide world to hit and the bullet gets the Sheriff?
“I’m the head of the Honor Roll again,” said Maria. “So I thought today, this morning, I’d wash my face and be a good little Catholic girl again.”
Du Pré nodded. He’d never been fooled, but he had held his breath a few times.
“Also I don’t think you need to talk to Bucky Dassault again. You got plenty on your plate, Papa. I won’t let you down.”
“You never have let me down, Maria,” said Du Pré. “Maybe I let you down sometimes. I don’t know what to do, you know.”
“No, you love me good. You proud of me, proud of Jacqueline.”
“Yes.”
“Can I help you,” Maria said, “I would, too.”
Du Pré hugged her. Maria gave him a sunny wide smile.
Du Pré drove off to Cooper, see this attorney. Probably some expensive attorney from New York or something. Lizard briefcase. Manic
ure.
Platform shoes.
CHAPTER 25
“THIS FARCE,” SAID THE attorney, “confirms what I always believed to be the case of Montana.”
Young guy, lots of money, three-piece suit fit him so well he seemed to flow one place to another, like water. Long thin dark face. Deep, precise voice.
Probably never been on a dirt road before in his life.
“They don’t do things like this, Dee-troyt?” said Du Pré. He sipped his coffee.
The lawyer regarded his with loathing, like it had dripped out of a sick bull.
“Did you know,” said the attorney, “that Mr. Fascelli was holding the squadrons of the law at bay with a starter pistol? That there wasn’t a live round of ammunition in the house, for obvious reasons. Barbara Fascelli is at the Betty Ford Center for the nth time. Bart will be out on bond this very day, and I will take him to a quiet place in Michigan. The maids left in a body, the masseur left with the hairdresser, the refrigerator is full of rotting caviar, and there is no case whatever. Thank you, by the way, for saving the life of my client. Each time one or another Fascelli dies there is a protracted struggle over the remaining millions. The money is excellent, but the work squalid.”
Du Pré had never met a creature like this attorney, Foote. He thought about it. Probably didn’t matter who got elected president, this was one of them as ran the country. Quietly.
“What do you think of all this?” said Foote, leaning forward. He seemed genuinely interested in Du Pré’s thoughts.
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré. “I kind of like Bart. But he got not one chance in life he don’t run away, take nothing of that damn money, spend his days washing dishes or something. He’s not a bad guy, but he is in a very bad place.”
“No,” said Foote, “he is not a bad guy, and that is that.”
“But who shot the Sheriff?” said Du Pré.
“One of the deputies, probably,” said Foote. “I have yet to see the autopsy and ballistics report, but I would expect one or another of his faithful sidekicks misfired while loading one or another of the assault rifles.”
Booger Tom probably can’t see that well anyway, thought Du Pré, and I don’t care.