by Peter Bowen
He pulled up to Benetsee’s shack several hours later. He fished out a jug of bad wine from the back of the Rover and went up to the shack and banged on the door. Benetsee’s old dogs woofed.
“Hey, old fart!” yelled Du Pré. “I got to talk to you!”
Du Pré waited.
Someone grabbed his shoulder. Du Pré whirled round.
“Hah!” said Benetsee. “You bring me some good wine there? Some tobacco? We drink, have a smoke, you come on in.” He opened the door. A stench of old dogs and old man and dirty clothes and woodsmoke and stale wine hit Du Pré in the face. He rolled a cigarette and lit it and another for Benetsee. The old man poured himself some wine in a big dirty jar and he drank it in one long swallow.
“Pret’ good wine,” said Benetsee.
“You know all this bad news,” said Du Pré.
“People got to be knowing how to fight, they make war,” said Benetsee. “Pretty sad, kids, you know, they are dead now and lot of sadness. Parents lose kids, you know, they never get over it.”
Du Pré nodded. “You got anything to tell me?” he said.
Benetsee drank a long drink. He puffed on his cigarette.
“These dead people, they played,” he said. “All that they do, you know.”
Du Pré nodded.
“They think, bring back the buffalo, forget the people. Bring back wolf, eat the buffalo, forget the people. Make it a place fools can play. Wear feathers. Maybe try to dance. Rub them crystals.”
Du Pré had a slug of whiskey.
“Long time, you know,” said Benetsee, “people been here. Before the whites, we hunt meat peoples, to honor them. We kill fur peoples to honor them, keep us warm. All the peoples make themselves for us, you know, and so we all live. Between the earth and sky. Keep each other strong.”
Du Pré nodded.
“These new people they just play,” said Benetsee.
“Yes,” said Du Pré.
“So the earth hate them,” said Benetsee. “I have never felt that. Earth hating anything.”
Du Pré nodded.
“I got to go sleep,” he said.
He went out and drove to Madelaine’s.
Chapter 5
“DU PRÉ,” SAID MADELAINE, “I am worried now about you, do this, do that.”
“Ah,” said Du Pré.
“You got a real bad temper, these people they piss you off plenty. You don’t kill none of them, eh?”
“OK.”
Madelaine rested her head on the pillow again. They were lying in bed. Wind and sleet beat on the windows. The glass was steamed from their breath.
“You come on to Mass with me, yes?”
“No,” said Du Pré. “I got to go see this FBI, Hansen, he want to talk to me about something. I tell him I be there at ten.”
“I pray for your soul,” said Madelaine. “I pray for this Hansen’s ass.”
Du Pré laughed.
“Pray, yours,” he said, kissing her.
After, they sat in the kitchen. The television racketed mindlessly in the living room. Her teenage children watched it out of habit.
“You drop me church, pick me up?” said Madelaine.
“You be there pretty early,” said Du Pré.
“Confession,” said Madelaine.
All she got to confess she sin with me, these six years, the church don’t like it. Oh well, that Father Van Den Heuvel, he give her a few prayers for the pretty words.
Du Pré dropped her off at the little cedar-sided church. He went on down the street and turned around and drove to the trailer park where the FBI had set up shop. They had to there because no one would rent to them, Bart wouldn’t allow them in his building, and the owner of the trailer park was Susan Klein, who gave them a lot far away from anyone else and refused to rent it to them for more than one day at a time. She came for the rent every morning and always smiled and said how quickly they would be gone if they pissed her off.
The FBI had to truck a double-wide all the way from Miles City to work in. It was covered with satellite dishes and antennas.
Du Pré parked and he sauntered up to the trailer and went in.
Hansen looked up from his desk, slightly larger than those of his minions, scowling.
“You’re late,” he said.
“Kiss my ass,” said Du Pré pleasantly. “Now what you want?”
Hansen glared at him.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “you got fifteen seconds, say good morning, so I know I am not talking to an asshole. Then maybe I stay, we talk, you know.”
“Good morning,” gritted Hansen. “Have a chair. I’ll get coffee.”
“Not for me,” said Du Pré. “I don’t drink, place like this.” He rolled a cigarette and dug a lighter out of his jeans.
“No smoking,” said Hansen.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “I go now.”
“Shit,” said Hansen. “Go ahead and smoke.”
Du Pré nodded and lit up. Three other agents stopped what they were doing and came over, dragging chairs. They arranged themselves in front of Du Pré. Du Pré looked at them and he smiled sunnily.
“Who’s doing this?” said Hansen. “Who killed those two people?”
“Ah,” said Du Pré, “well, I don’t know, I am sure that I know them, I know everybody, you know, but I do not know who.”
“This is a small place,” said Hansen. “You must have heard something.”
“Dumb questions,” said Du Pré. “This all that you got?”
Hansen snapped the pencil he was scribbling with.
“I go now,” said Du Pré, getting up. He walked to the door and out and got in his Rover and backed up and turned round and went out to the street and off toward the Toussaint Bar.
Susan Klein was scrubbing the bar top with cleanser. The bleach smell cut through the old tobacco stink a little. She looked up when Du Pré walked in and she nodded.
“Stinking weather,” she said.
Du Pré dug a beer out of the cooler and he put a dollar on the bar top. He popped the can open and he drank.
“Went to talk to them FBIs,” he said. “Pretty dumb, them.”
“They live in a different world, Du Pré,” she said. “This one is real. Earth. Sky. People who know where they are. And it’s part of them. They have a lot of fancy toys. Nobody will even speak to them. You know what will happen. We’ll settle this ourselves.”
Du Pré nodded. “A bad one, this,” he said.
The TV crews had come, asked questions, got no answers, and left. Agent Hansen didn’t have any, and Bart just said he’d talk with them when he had something to say. When they learned that Bart was Bart Fascelli, a multimillionaire, working as a Sheriff in deepest Montana, they came pounding up his driveway, only to pound right back down it when Booger Tom shot a few times in the ground at their feet and then said that the next slugs would hit the TV cameras.
“I wouldn’t waste a bullet on you,” he said.
Tens of millions had watched him say that on international television.
There were newspaper reporters coming and going, and getting nothing. One of the victims was the daughter of a Congressman.
“That Bart he burn them back pretty good,” said Du Pré, “like they are weeds, you know.”
“Good,” said Susan Klein. “God, did we need him. Poor Benny would have gone crazy.”
Lawyer Foote had arrived. Bart had promptly deputized him and put him to work as spokesman. Newspeople working on him had the feeling that they were trying to crack a walnut with a banana.
The Governor had sent several state agents, who stayed about four hours. Bart called the Governor and they left.
Du Pré sipped his beer and watched the TV. News show.
No new leads on the Montana Murders, the news anchor said. She went on to other things.
“Maybe they figure we just shoot outsiders, they’ll stay away,” said Susan Klein.
Du Pré shrugged. That would be just fine.
&n
bsp; Bart and Deputy Lawyer Foote came in, brushing snow and water from their uniform jackets. Foote’s uniform fitted loosely; he had borrowed one from Benny Klein.
They came to Du Pré and Susan. She looked up.
“Coffee,” said Bart.
“Brandy,” said Foote.
“Drinking on the job,” said Bart. “I reprimand you.”
“Do that,” said Foote.
Foote swirled the brandy in his snifter and smelled. He nodded. It was the only bottle of that brandy in Toussaint and the only snifter, for that matter.
“Them FBIs they haul me in there, ask a couple dumb questions,” said Du Pré. “They ask me who is doing this. I tell them I am sure I know them but I do not know who.”
“Wasn’t the Stemples and it wasn’t the Rosses,” said Bart. “They were in Miles City when they were killed. Hell, it was two days later they found their cattle and the fences.”
“They find anything in that car?” said Du Pré.
“No,” said Bart. “Maybe the feds will find something, all the toys they got. But nothing I know of. Both of them shot in the head, a high-powered rifle, went right through. So no slugs, since they weren’t killed there. No holes in the Land Rover.”
“Where’s the dog?” said Du Pré. “They had this springer spaniel?”
“Yes,” said Bart, “I thought of that. But there’s a lot of springer spaniels here, they live here, and more brought in.”
“There was maybe a rabies tag in that Land Rover?” said Du Pré.
Bart shook his head.
“The vets?” said Du Pré. The two veterinarians in the county largely tended big animals.
“Neither one has seen the dog,” said Bart.
“Well,” said Du Pré, “that dog probably dead, too. Or maybe he run off and someone find him, cold and scared and hungry, and take him home. Dogs like that, expensive.”
Bart nodded. He sipped coffee. They stared at the mirror a moment.
“If we can find the dog,” said Bart, “what would it tell us?”
“Dogs,” said Lawyer Foote, “do not usually talk.”
“All we got right now,” said Bart, “unless someone walks right in and says I did it, I’ll tell you how, let me sign the confession.”
“Someone probably will,” said Lawyer Foote, “if not several. This is a pretty spectacular case. Attracts the unhinged, like politics.”
“That uniform, it is not like you,” said Du Pré to Lawyer Foote.
“No shit. I ordered some.”
“Fancy tailor, Chicago?”
“Fancy tailor, London,” said Lawyer Foote. “Got their start making uniforms for the likes of Lord Nelson.”
Du Pré shrugged.
“I got to go,” he said, “Just out to my car, a minute.”
Get away a minute, Du Pré thought, think about that dog.
Du Pré stepped out into the storm. He heard children laughing and then three ran past. They had a dog with them, happily jumping up on them, splashing them with mud and water.
A springer spaniel.
Packy Jones’s kids. The farrier.
Du Pré got into his car and started it. Jones’s house was only a hundred yards away, but the weather was nasty. He drove slowly toward it.
Chapter 6
“SHE WAS JUST RUNNING along the road out west, there,” said Packy. “Muddy and cold. I stop and open the door and she jumped in like I was her owner.”
“Where you find her?” said Du Pré.
“Way the hell up on that back road cuts off to the Forest Service land,” said Packy, “behind Tor Oleson’s.”
Thirty miles away.
Coyotes could chase her that far, a few hours. Didn’t kill her, she must be coming into heat.
Those Oleson brothers didn’t shoot them, they can’t see that well. And they would not have heard anything. Du Pré had heard them try to play that fiddle. Hardänger stuff. Awful.
“She didn’t have no collar on,” said Packy, “and I thought some out-of-state hunter lost her. If anybody’d set up a howl for the dog I’d have give her back, but nobody did.”
The kids came in with the wet, happy dog.
The spaniel came to Du Pré, shy and suspicious. She sniffed Du Pré’s pant legs. He reached down and patted her head. She rolled on her back.
She had a tattoo on her belly, clear blue on the pink skin. A phone number. Du Pré scribbled it down.
Packy’s TV blared in the corner. The murdered woman was to be buried this Sunday afternoon.
“The Montana Murders,” the anchor droned. “Police suspect a serial killer.”
For two people, same car, some serial killer. Huh? Du Pré thought. Catch these people, kill them, ditch them. Them FBIs don’t got shit. Serial killer, hah.
“OK,” said Du Pré, “Packy, you keep that dog, I don’t tell anyone, them FBIs try to give a lie detector test to her, I think. Make her nervous, she would not pass. Lock the poor dog in a room, beat her with hoses or something. Yah, you keep her here. Don’t tell nobody.”
“I already told Susan Klein and Bart,” said Packy, “in case someone was looking for the dog. I’ve had two run over, you know, it’s like losing a child.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré. Why they not tell me about the goddamn dog?
Play a joke on Du Pré.
“Thanks,” said Du Pré. “I see you. Nice dog.”
Du Pré drove back to the bar. Bart was there, just sitting.
“Nice dog Packy’s got there,” said Bart, grinning. “And yes, it’s the dog. The phone number is a tracing service. Tattoo your dog, someone finds it, they call this number. Belonged to the girl’s boyfriend. I was afraid you’d tell the FBI about the dog,” he went on. “Packy’s kids love the dog and vice versa and the dog’s happy and the dog can’t read mug shots. So. They had anything, they wouldn’t tell us. Screw ’em.”
“You ready to play this afternoon?” said Susan.
Du Pré had forgotten. Another community supper and music.
My music. I have fun today, go chase down my neighbors later.
“I got to go and get Madelaine,” said Du Pré. “We come back, she is making that lamb, rice, bay leaves.”
“I love that woman,” said Bart.
Du Pré picked up Madelaine at church and he dropped her at home and he drove off toward the benchlands. He saw the leaning trees around Benetsee’s shack and a whiff of smoke coming up from the chimney. He drove up the rutted driveway and parked.
He knocked on Benetsee’s door. The old dogs woofed, but the old man didn’t come. He went around back to see if the old man was in his sweat lodge.
The fire pit was still glowing hot and the door flap was down in front of the sweat lodge.
Du Pré could hear the old man singing. He waited. The snow and rain were falling off. Some sunlight was punching down to the ground from the west.
Du Pré heard another car out front.
He walked round the house. One of the FBI cars.
Du Pré slipped back behind the sweat lodge. He squatted down behind a bush and waited.
“Some witch doctor,” said Hansen, laughing loudly. He pounded on the front door.
“FBI!” he yelled. The old dogs woofed.
Du Pré whistled.
“There’s someone around back,” said one of the agents.
The three men came around the side of the shack. They looked at the sweat lodge. Not at the ground. Du Pré was fifteen feet away and his tracks led clearly to his hiding place.
The sweat lodge door flaps opened and Benetsee slid out. He stood up and looked at the three men in their city suits and city coats.
“I don’t talk, Mormons,” he said. “Go away.”
“FBI,” said Hansen. “You can either talk to us or we’ll arrest you and take you in.”
“Arrest?” said Benetsee. “For taking a sweat? Funny law, that.”
“All right, you old asshole.” One of the other agents lunged for the old man. His slick leath
er shoe soles wouldn’t grip. He had to stop and get his balance back.
Benetsee grinned.
“You never find out,” he said. “You can’t see. Go home.”
“That does it,” said Hansen. “You know something. We’re taking you in.”
But he couldn’t walk well.
Benetsee shrugged and he walked away a few steps.
An agent started to unbutton his coat.
Du Pré leaped for Hansen. He jammed his nine-millimeter in the agent’s neck.
“You motherfucker,” said Du Pré, “you got no right, do this to this old man. You bastards. You get your gun out slow, the others also. You drop them down. You got five seconds. Funny move, your brains are in Idaho.”
“Do it,” said Hansen to the other agents.
Plop. Plop. Plop.
“You get out of here now,” said Du Pré. “I bring you your damn guns. You are so stupid. You do this, people, they will kill you here. Why you do this to an old man?”
Du Pré let go of Hansen.
“You bastards,” he said. “You ever bother this old man you be very sorry.”
“You will regret this, Du Pré,” said Hansen.
“What you do?” said Du Pré. “You frame me, like you do? You guys, dumb and mean.”
Du Pré walked them to their car. They got in and drove off. The FBI car’s rear end swayed round; the driver didn’t know how to drive in ice and snow.
There will be trouble, this, thought Du Pré. I do what? Let them shove old Benetsee around? He done nothing.
Du Pré reached in his Rover and turned on his radio.
“This is Du Pré,” he said. “I need to speak to that Bart.”
“You mean the Sheriff?” said the dispatcher.
God, I hate this woman, Du Pré thought.
“Yah,” said Du Pré.
She patched him through.
“Three them FBIs they were here at Benetsee’s,” said Du Pré. “They push him around some, say they arrest him.”
“Bastards,” said Bart.
“So I shove a gun in that Hansen’s ear,” said Du Pré, “and I run them off.”
“Gabriel,” said Bart, “please don’t do that sort of thing. Please. ”
“Fuck them,” said Du Pré. “That Benetsee, he don’t do nothing.”