Coyote Wind

by Peter Bowen

  Du Pré nodded. He wasn’t going to tell anyone anything until he had dug up the rest. Not Madelaine, not Maria, not Bart, and for sure not this old fart.

  “That Red River country pretty good, huh?”

  Du Pré nodded.

  More flute. Was there a point to all this?

  The old man stopped again. He got up, shuffled over to a shelf, took down his bundle of deerskin, brought it to the table. He undid the thongs, unrolled it.

  Pipe bowls. Just some hunks of rock, some the rude shape hacked out, others smoothed down perfectly, ready for a willow stem. The red stone glowed, seemed to have some light within.

  Benetsee poked around in the pipe bowls, picked up one, set it back down, picked up another.

  “This one,” he said. He belched, held out his glass. Du Pré unscrewed the cap of the jug, poured him more wine.

  “This stuff kill you, you know,” said Du Pré.

  “I just die sometime,” said Benetsee. “Nothing kill me. I just die when I want to.”

  OK. OK.

  Benetsee reached down by the table, brought up a quiver, one full of willow pipe stems. He selected one, white as paper, pared the butt with his pocketknife, twisted and jammed it into the smokehole. Dug a little pipestone mouthpiece out of the rubble in the bundle. Carefully pulled off some strands of sinew from a smelly little bunch on the table. He lashed the sinew three places on the pipestem. Took a little leather pouch from his stained old coat, fished out a wad of feathers.

  Red-shafted flicker. Bright crimson quills, soft black and gray barbules. He fixed the feathers to the sinew lashings, two, three, two.

  “Here,” said Benetsee, offering the pipe to Du Pré.

  Du Pré took it, looked at it close, held it away from his eyes. Carving of a bobcat, back arched, paws on a grouse, grouse with feathered leggings, so it was winter. Not a bobcat, tufts on the ears, so it was a lynx.

  “Pretty soon you smoke that,” said Benetsee. “You know when and where and for which man. Smoke it, watch the smoke rise, go to his tired soul on the Star Trail.”

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette, handed it to Benetsee, made himself another.

  They smoked. The old man had pinched a little tobacco from the end of his cigarette, rubbed it in his fingers, dribbled the tiny flakes on the pipe bowls in the deerskin bundle.

  Du Pré left, he drove away from the old man’s with the pipe beside him on the seat.

  Bart’s truck was parked by his trailer, the curtains on the window were open. When Du Pré knocked he saw Bart through the window in the door. Bart struggled up from the couch and stumped on over.

  He looked out at Du Pré and smiled.

  Du Pré looked down. I got news, can’t tell you yet, one last thing here before I do. So fire me.

  “Du Pré!” said Bart. Each time Du Pré saw Bart’s face he looked older but better, his face was running hard to catch up to time, even over sharp rocks.

  Du Pré looked down at the walking cast, up to the knee, a rubber heelpiece.

  “Booger Tom said I was only thirty breaks away from being some kind of horseman,” said Bart, real proud, beaming. I got hurt and I didn’t get drunk, I am winning big.

  Du Pré came in. Bart hobbled to the little kitchen, made tea.

  They sipped the tea, didn’t speak for a while.

  “Well?” said Bart finally.

  “I got most of it,” said Du Pré. “Just one or two more things, I think, then I will have the whole story.” I got the whole damn story, I just need … the things that aren’t just words.

  “OK,” said Bart.

  “But I’m going to wait to tell you until I have those last one, two pieces, you don’t mind.” Even if you do mind.

  Bart shook his head, smiled. Fine. You do what you have to.

  “Here,” said Du Pré, “is the rest of your money. It didn’t cost that much.” He pulled out a stained envelope, dropped it on the coffee table.

  “Keep it,” said Bart. “Give it to Van Den Heuvel if you don’t want it. No, you keep it, you should be paid for your time. I insist.”

  Du Pré nodded. He took the money back. For the oatmeal for my grandchildren, soon we buy it by truckload.

  “You want to help me find these last one, two pieces, eh?” said Du Pré.

  “Of course,” said Bart. “Is a pig’s prick pork?”

  Du Pré snorted. “We got to wait until there is some warm weather, spring most likely, then we will need a big diesel shovel.”

  Bart nodded.

  “Just the two of us,” said Du Pré. “We look for these things.”

  “I can order up any piece of equipment we need any time,” said Bart.

  Du Pré looked down at Fascelli’s cast.

  “That hurt a lot?”

  “Some,” said Bart, “but not too bad. I try to ignore it. Booger Tom would have ignored the broken leg altogether.”

  “Well,” said Du Pré, “what I will need is a guy who knows how to run one of those big diesel shovels, see, we got to move a lot of gravel, thousands of tons, move it real carefully. So I need a real good guy, stir his coffee with the bucket on that shovel.”

  “I’ll hire the best,” said Bart.

  “No,” said Du Pré. “Just you and me, huh?”

  “Oh,” said Bart, “I become that real good guy with that shovel, stirring his coffee with the bucket?”

  Du Pré nodded. I’ll be down by that damn bucket, he thought, you better be good.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Bart.

  Du Pré nodded.

  “My own self,” said Bart,

  Du Pré nodded.

  CHAPTER 40

  BITTER COLD DAY, WIND so cold that it burned. Du Pré stood by the chute, looking hard through his frosted lashes at the steers’ hides, the brands, some of them messed over with frozen shit. Messed over too damn artfully.

  Days like this, I should have been a brain surgeon, thought Du Pré, indoor work anyway.

  He reached out, rubbed hard on the green smears on a steer’s rump. That one, that one is worked over, god damnit. This guy, I have been thinking of him like that for some time now.

  Du Pré stepped down from the chute, his boots sliding on the welded pipe the thing was built of.

  The rancher was huddled down against the cold.

  “Mr. Higgins,” said Du Pré, hard against the wind, “those brands are reworked. No way I sign off on this one. Your cattle here are impounded till we know who they belong to.”

  The man straightened right up.

  “Bullshit,” he screamed. He had two sons with him, they heard the noise, didn’t know what it meant yet, but they started to walk over to Du Pré and their father.

  Du Pré ran to his car, got in, started the engine, flicked on the radio. “Du Pré here,” he said quickly. “Say, I got a bunch of bad brands, the Higgins place, you get someone out here, do it now.”

  “Got it,” said the dispatcher.

  Higgins smashed Du Pré’s window with a crowbar. His sons were behind him. Everyone yelling but Du Pré.

  Du Pré scrabbled in the glove box for his gun. Higgins had bashed the glass mostly in. Du Pré grabbed his .38, opened the far door, slid out and stood.

  Higgins came at him around the car, screaming, crowbar in his hand.

  Du Pré aimed low and shot him in the leg, aiming for the kneecap.

  The man folded up. The sons were unbuttoning their coats.

  “Shit shit shit shit,” said Du Pré to himself, running toward the stock tank, good heavy-gauge metal, I hope.

  He glanced back. Both sons were down on the ground with their father, one had a gun in his hand.

  “You drop that!” Du Pré yelled. The son looked up, started to lift the pistol. Du Pré fired. The son slammed into the side of Du Pré’s old cruiser.

  Shit shit shit shit.

  The second son looked over at Du Pré, terrified. Sirens down the road, coming on quick.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”<
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  He raised his hands. Higgins was on the ground, writhing, his leg clamped in his hands. The other son was against Du Pré’s tire, and looking too damn still.

  Sirens. Come on come ON.

  The Sheriff’s car was just a quarter-mile away and closing real fast. Du Pré thought the dispatcher might have heard the glass break when Higgins started in with the crowbar. Whatever.

  Wonder if that guy knew what he was doing, when he lifted up that gun. I don’t know. What else could I do but shoot? Not shoot. Shit.

  Du Pré wished that he hadn’t fired, probably would wish that for the rest of his life. Nothing clean about this at all.

  The Sheriff’s car came into the turnaround and slid sideways on the frozen mud. Deputy came out of the car with a pump shotgun in his hands, pointing it at Du Pré.

  “No!” Du Pré screamed, standing up and dropping his gun. “Them! God damn it! Them!” He pointed over at the three by his car.

  Higgins was flat on his back now, his forearms pointing straight up. The son that Du Pré had shot looked very dead. Bundle of dirty clothes. The other boy was on his knees, hands raised very high, screaming don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t shoot.

  Oh, God, thought Du Pré, how does all this happen over a little bad money? Things gone to hell, just like that.

  The deputy was too lightly dressed for the wind. He walked forward, waving the shotgun. The son on his knees went flat on his face. The deputy went to him, handcuffed his wrists behind his back.

  Higgins had passed out from the pain.

  Du Pré knelt by the man that he had shot. He reached out his hand, pressed a thumb against the man’s throat. Nothing.

  Some fine day this. Du Pré’s groin burned with cold. Pissed his pants.

  “Du Pré,” said the deputy, “you’re bleeding, man.”

  Du Pré looked at his belly. Little blood running down his left pant leg. Big black scorch mark on his coat.

  “God damn!” said Du Pré. “I am one fine law enforcement officer! I shot myself, I think!” I get a combat brand inspector’s badge, sure enough. Ain’t this some shit.

  He looked up. It was quiet. High above, an eagle soared.

  CHAPTER 41

  DU PRÉ SAT ON the examining table, looking incuriously at the furrow he had plowed in his belly, calculating an inch that way, two inches that way, hoo boy.

  The doctor bent over, scrubbed at the wound. Du Pré winced, but didn’t feel anything except the scrubbing noise through his flesh. Scritch scritch scritch.

  “You’re lucky,” said the doctor. “Just a superficial skin tear. All stippled with powder, though, some of it will fester. The scar will look like some kid was stabbing you with a pencil.”

  Higgins had been flown out to Miles City, his knee was shattered. The son Du Pré had shot was dead, shot right through the heart.

  “’Scuse me,” said Du Pré. He lurched over to the waste-basket and threw up. The doctor waited.

  When Du Pré quit heaving he went back and sat on the table again.

  The doctor finished sewing him up, put a bandage on the wound gave him a shot.

  “Just lie down for a while,” said the doctor, going out the door.

  The acting Sheriff Benny Klein came in.

  “How you feel?” he said.

  “Shit how I feel. I just kill somebody, shoot myself over some damn hamburger meat. I feel like shit, that’s what.”

  Benny had a clipboard, a little tape recorder.

  “Guy bashed in the window, I am scrambling out the other side, must have shot myself then, I run to the stock tank, shoot back … no, I shot Higgins in the leg, then I run to the stock tank, shoot back, guy falls over, other one sticks up his hands … ”

  How long all this death and pain take, ten seconds? Fifteen?

  Du Pré did not mention how the deputy pointed the gun at him first. All in all, it was not a day to remember well.

  “Yeah,” said Benny, “things are always confused. Only time I was ever shot at was up at Fascellis, we all panicked and fired everything every which way like we was at Dien Bien Phu or something. And no one even fired at my ass, except the Sheriff was dead on his back on the lawn. You know how many times the four of us fired? Eighty-one. I never heard a one of them.”

  Du Pré felt weak and sick.

  “OK,” said the Sheriff, “I got to suspend you pending the investigation. Got to have you turn in your gun.”

  Du Pré didn’t off hand know where his gun was. Pocket of my coat, maybe. And it is hanging right over there. Du Pré got up, went to it, fished around, brought out the old pistol. Cocked. Safety off, live rounds in it. Oh, god damnit all to three kinds of hell.

  Du Pré let the hammer down, spun the cylinder, two rounds gone, three left.

  “See,” said Du Pré pointing, “here, this first one is where I shot myself because I was behaving in a threatening manner, the second is where I killed Higgins’s kid because he was behaving in a threatening manner.”

  “Hey, calm down,” said Benny. “You seem to be in shock or something. We can do this later, you know, but I have to take the gun.” He tugged the gun out of Du Pré’s hand and dropped it into an evidence bag.

  “You rest up, you hear?” said Benny.

  “I’m sorry,” said Du Pré.

  There was someone screaming down the hall, probably Higgins’s wife.

  “Get drunk,” said Benny. “Get drunk, rest up, back on the horse.”

  Us cowboys, thought Du Pré, we sure keep it simple, yes. He nodded, began pulling on his clothes.

  A nurse stuck her head in the door. “We’d like you to stay tonight,” she said. “You might be in shock.”

  “I just killed a man,” said Du Pré, “and I am in shock, yes, but I will not stay here tonight.”

  “So,” she said. “Well, you take care and we’re here if you need us.”

  “Du Pré,” said Madelaine from the doorway. Maria was looking in over her shoulder.

  They had both been crying.

  “Tell you two what,” said Du Pré. “You are lookin’ for a hero, I am not him. Me, I want to go home, start on the south end of a half-gallon of whiskey, go all the way to the North Pole.”

  Madelaine and Maria looked at him. They grinned. “Sure,” they chorused. “Maybe we go along with you,” said Maria.

  Du Pré signed himself out of the hospital, against medical advice. Goddamned right. Lots of people, they die around these quacks. Happens all the time.

  That other time, that guy was just reaching for a rifle, I shot him but he lived. Got a suspended sentence. This Higgins boy, he is dead. That old man Higgins, I hope that he gets gangrene in that knee, goes all the way up to his scalp. After it gets his balls.

  Du Pré sat in Maria’s car, between her and Madelaine.

  “How come you got this car, you aren’t old enough to get a driver’s license yet without I sign for it, and I ain’t signed for nothing,” said Du Pré. “You just lucky I am one suspended law enforcement officer.”

  “Shut up, Papa,” said Maria. She drove off. When she came to the stop sign at the parking lot entry to the street she put out an arm to keep Du Pré from slamming into the dash at half a mile an hour.

  “OK,” said Du Pré, “I let you take care of me, don’t talk back.”

  “What you want to eat?” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré said he didn’t want to eat for a while, maybe a couple of years.

  They dropped Madelaine at her house, her kids would be wondering where she was.

  “I see you in a little while,” she said, kissing Du Pré.

  “Go to the bar,” said Du Pré to Maria. “I get some whiskey.”

  He bought three bottles, opened one of them on the drive to his house, drank a big slug and felt very dizzy.

  Du Pré barely made it into the house. He staggered to the bed and fell on it and slept.

  CHAPTER 42

  “WE SOME FINE PAIR, eh?” said Du Pré, looking at Bart’s cast. Du
Pré was walking comma-shaped, so as not to stretch his stitched stomach.

  Bart had stuck his hand in something mean. It was bandaged, and he moved it very, very gingerly.

  The chinook wind had come, warm from the north and west, most of the snow had melted off, there were pools of water on the frozen ground. Du Pré’s soaked cows were pulling hay out of the feedrack, grimly chewing. No place to lie down, chew their cud. Soon it would get very cold again, and the world would be glazed hard and very difficult to stand on.

  “Where do we need this big shovel, anyway,” said Bart.

  Du Pré rolled a cigarette. He lit it.

  “Oh,” he said, “ ’bout ten or twelve miles from here, old mining claim of my father’s.”

  “Your father had a mine?” said Bart. That, too.

  “Gold claim,” said Du Pré. Probably an emerald necklace down there, few other things, like an old car. Under the gravels, in the old riverbed. The Red River.

  Go all the way down to bedrock, men there is no more story. Just the old earth, keeping the rest of its secrets.

  “You go to big diesel shovel school?” said Du Pré. He looked at Bart’s cast hand.

  “Correspondence course,” said Bart. “Lotsa pictures.”

  Mail-order course. Shit shit shit.

  “Yeah,” said Bart, “I was reading this stupid magazine, found an ad, said make big money, learn to operate heavy equipment. So I sent off for the stuff.”

  “Oh,” said Du Pré, looking at his cigarette.

  “When I was a kid, I had a couple toys, one of them was a big diesel shovel. I loved it the most. I have a deep and heartfelt, spiritual understanding of big diesel shovels. Trust me.”

  “OK,” said Du Pré. He started to laugh. Bart, here, he is learning a lot from old Booger Tom. Laugh at snakebite, broken bones and let’s do something even if it’s wrong. Horse throw you, get back on till one of you is dead or you are moving down the trail.

  Du Pré hobbled over to the stove, poured more tea for the two of them. Set the cups back down on the table.

  Bart also had a bandage over his eye. He’s learning; he is learning…

  “Tell you a secret?” said Bart, raising a conspiratorial eyebrow.