Wolf, No Wolf

by Peter Bowen

  They watched the apprentice for a while. Finally Benetsee stood up. The young Indian slumped wearily and the bull-roarer flapped to silence.

  “Go out to this man’s car,” said Benetsee. “There is some wine in it. Some tobacco. Food.”

  “Just wine,” said Du Pré.

  The young man stretched for a moment and then he walked away.

  “Pret’ bad things,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré nodded.

  “They get a lot worse,” said Du Pré.

  “Maybe not,” said Benetsee. “Maybe I go and talk with them.”

  “Huh?” said Du Pré. “You remember last time? They come here, I have to jam my gun, a neck, before they remember their fucking manners. Why you think they got better, last week?”

  The apprentice came back with the wine and a big canning jar. He poured Benetsee a staggering draft and set the jug down and went off out of sight behind the trees over the little creek.

  “You got a very bad temper, my son,” said Benetsee.

  Never call me that before, Du Pré thought. I be getting some good advice now, you bet. Probably better than I want to hear.

  Pretty crazy, all around here now. Watch the earth go mad, maybe. I could use a big earthquake.

  “Well,” said Benetsee, “maybe we go on down to Susan’s, get me a cheeseburger. You know, I have two young men show up this morning, long hair, expensive clothes, they want to go on vision quest.”

  Du Pré waited.

  “I send them, Benjamin Medicine Eagle, he does that sort of thing.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  “What they say?”

  “Nothing,” said Benetsee. “I tell them, me, I do only circumcisions. Benjamin Medicine Eagle, he is their man.”

  Du Pré howled. He roared.

  “We go now,” said Benetsee. He stood up, scratched the back of his neck.

  Benetsee went into his shack and he came out with the red nylon envelope that held the eagle’s wing he had taken from the fools in winter. He swung the flat red package by a loop at one end, idly.

  “Ah, good,” he said. “We smoke now.”

  Du Pré rolled and lit two cigarettes and then he drove off toward Toussaint.

  There were four government car-pool cars parked out in front of the bar, and eight men standing by the front door. Susan Klein was standing in the doorway, shaking her head.

  Du Pré pinned the badge on his leather jacket. He and Benetsee got put. The FBI agents turned and looked curiously. One of them came round the hood of the far right car, walking easily, a tall, very dark man.

  Lot of Indian blood, him, thought Du Pré. The man glanced off to his right.

  Long earlobes. Lot of Indian blood.

  “Special Agent in Charge Harvey Wallace,” said the agent, extending a hand to Benetsee. “How are you, Uncle?” He looked down at the ground politely, waiting.

  Couple minutes now, Du Pré thought, then Benetsee speak. This FBI is Indian some. Knows to respect the old, they know things.

  “You long way from your people,” said Benetsee. “You go back there often.”

  The agent nodded.

  “I’m Wallace in white world,” he said, dropping into Blackfeet. “I am Weasel Fat in Indian.”

  “Ah,” said Benetsee. “We maybe go talk to Susan, there, she is some upset, I know, maybe smooth things down. Less noisy.”

  “Good,” said Harvey Wallace.

  The two men walked over to Susan Klein, still blocking her front door. Du Pré followed. The other agents looked at him, looked away after they spotted his Sheriff’s badge.

  “Afternoon, ma’am,” said Harvey Wallace to Susan. He turned and passed Du Pré and began to speak very quietly to the men. They got in the cars and went off in opposite directions, two cars each one.

  Harvey Wallace, Du Pré thought. This is one tough son of a bitch.

  Du Pré was still standing outside. Harvey Wallace walked up to him, rubbing a long finger on the side of his nose, looking at the ground.

  He looked up suddenly. Very black eyes, very sad ones.

  “Gabriel Du Pré,” he said, “Corey Banning thought a lot of you. She respected the spot you were in, too. This is a very bad business. And I need your help.”

  Du Pré waited.

  “We must uphold the law,” said Harvey Wallace, “and I am charged with doing that and I will. And it must be done in such a way that we don’t start a war.”

  Du Pré let out his breath.

  “Do us all a favor,” said Wallace, “and don’t kill anybody else. Poor Packy might have led us to the killers. Might not. I know he was shooting at you, but in future, please just run. I need suspected killers and their accomplices alive. Dead, they merely pose more questions.”

  Du Pré nodded. Well, me, I don’t back away, a fight, so good.

  “Let me buy you lunch,” said Harvey Wallace.

  Chapter 30

  “MAYBE THEY’VE CHANGED,” SAID Bart.

  Du Pré shrugged.

  “All it take, one of them fuck up it all goes,” said Du Pré. “They got at least an idea now, maybe they don’t be such assholes, but even then some of these ranchers, pretty brushy, they don’t like anybody mess with them.”

  “I like Agent Wallace,” said Bart.

  “Him pretty good,” said Du Pré, “but that’s just him. They got ten others east, twenty more north, and twenty here. All it takes, one of them piss off somebody. Our people, here, they are mighty hard to piss off. Oh, yes. Most of them, you know, you send them half a wrong look, you are very dead now.”

  “Foote calls this the hot rug treatment. You roll the rug out over everything and then wait, and see what scurries out the sides.”

  “They don’t scurry, I think,” said Du Pré. “I think maybe they dig them foxhole.”

  “Christ, I am tired,” said Bart.

  “October, it seems a long time ago,” said Du Pré.

  “It was a long time ago,” said Bart. “We weren’t old men last October. You know I have not thought one thing about anything but death. Sixteen of them, and then the two in the car accident. Nice, normal deaths, those were. Pleasant ones, you know. Just two drunk kids missed a turn.”

  “Who lives, both worlds?” said Du Pré.

  “Eh?”

  “That Corey Banning,” said Du Pré, “she said that, we were talking, I wondered, you know, these people were shot cutting the fences that night, but Stemples, they come to me before and tell me about shot cattle, cut fence. And the St. Francis brothers. Then they are gone the night the two are killed, then the car is dumped, them in it, probably lowered down, the canner truck.”

  “If,” said Bart.

  “I never look at that ME’s report on them two,” said Du Pré.

  “Neither did I,” said Bart.

  “What?”

  “I don’t remember that we ever got it,” said Bart, “or if we did I never saw it. Things were a bit hectic.”

  Bart went to the telephone. Du Pré went outside to smoke and look at the spring.

  Pretty time, this is. But I can’t see it.

  Bart slammed out of the Sheriff’s building, cursing.

  “He sent it to Corey,” said Bart, “and she promised to give us a copy right away, save the ME time and postage. She didn’t, of course.”

  “Ah,” said Du Pré. Corey, Corey, you weren’t dead I’d yell at you.

  “Anyway,” said Bart, “they both died of gunshot wounds. But he could not fix a time of death, at all, because their bodies were refrigerated. Not frozen, just chilled, he thought. If they were kept at just above freezing, he couldn’t give us any time, and so he didn’t.”

  “Now them Stemple got no alibi,” said Du Pré.

  “They don’t need one, at the moment,” said Bart, “and Corey interviewed them over and over.”

  “Ah,” said Du Pré. “Well, maybe this Harvey guy give us that file.”

  “I’ll see,” said Bart. “No, we’ll both see. The ME wa
s faxing us his report. Should be here. I’ll be right out.”

  “Well,” said Du Pré, “I bet you the woman was messed with and I bet you it was those fucking St. Francis brothers. And I bet you Corey was after poor Packy ’cause she knew he knew more’n he’d tell.”

  Bart went in and came right back out, holding papers.

  “You care to drive, Mon Sewer?”

  “OK.”

  “Well,” said Bart, “I’m right. Now if Cousin Weasel Fat will share like a bighearted guy, which I am sure he is, we can maybe do something right for once. I haven’t had so much experience of that in life, I am hungry for it.”

  Wallace was standing in the parking lot in front of the FBI trailers. He waved as they pulled in. Du Pré slowed to a crawl so he didn’t splash mud on Wallace’s suit.

  “Good to see you,” said Wallace. “And you won’t believe it, but I was going to call this afternoon and apologize and explain that my predecessor failed to take you into her confidence. I really don’t know why. We are a kinder, gender FBI these days, to our brother officers. And if you believe that horseshit you deserve what you get.”

  “I goddamn know it is those St. Francis brothers,” said Du Pré. “They kill those fool kids, stick them in the meat cooler they got, hide their car, dump it after they know about the others.”

  “No,” said Bart, “the time doesn’t work.”

  “It does if they are in jail and poor Packy is stuck with it,” said Du Pré. “It work just fine. He brings the damn dog back, too.”

  Only person I am liking in all of this is the dog, thought Du Pré. Me included.

  “She had that,” said Wallace, “but she needed something more, and she was after it when Packy cracked and killed her. What, I don’t know. But the St. Francis brothers are slobs and fools and we will be dropping in on them at about four this morning waving warrants. They’re fuckups. I like fuckups. I can’t catch the good ones, they make lists and like that. Dos and don’ts. First thing, you murder someone, don’t overcomplicate it. Kill ’em, get rid of the weapon, answer all questions sort of, and you’re ally ally oxen free.”

  “OK,” said Bart. “Now, I don’t give a rat’s ass about us getting glorious arrests. I won’t run for reelection. I don’t care about even a bit of the credit. But I would sure like this not to turn into a war, you know, and peace I will have, whatever it takes.”

  Harvey Wallace looked at Bart for a long moment.

  He grinned.

  He stuck out his hand.

  “How nice,” he said, “that you’d like to avoid mass slaughter. Now, would you care to speculate as to just how many wholly illegal automatic weapons right on up to cannon there are out there? There’s one P-thirty-eight, four fifty-caliber Brownings and a twenty-millimeter cannon, and two Mustangs. The late models, also with cannon. Where, I do not know. There’s all sorts of soldiers, and this state produced an uncommon lot of Lurps and SEALS and demolitions champions. They don’t like governments, cops, daytime TV, fluoride in their water, Democrats, big words, and especially they don’t like arrogant pricks from Washington, D.C.”

  Bart laughed.

  “But I will have these murderers. Because if we can’t find them this is going to be a sport out here, like clubbing jackrabbits and shooting gophers of an idle Sunday. We can’t have that, you will admit.”

  Bart and Du Pré nodded.

  “Nobody around here’s dumb enough to do anything with the St. Francis brothers. We bust them, dead end, right? My esteemed colleagues to the east and north will perhaps find out something about the vagaries of Montana, but not much else. The Martins need not talk. The folk to the north present a united front of silence.”

  “It’s wrong,” said Bart.

  “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” said Wallace. “Point is, no one did it for revenge or gain, it just sort of happened, other’n the St. Francis brothers, and so no one will speak. And there’s nothing in it for them, anyway. You hate someone these days, give ’em a cow. Nobody wants the neighbor’s ranch. Can’t even hope for anyone to covet enough to drop a damn dime. Nope.”

  “I got a thought,” said Du Pré. “Them two killed on the first night? We were wondering, maybe there is a Martin kid, some kid spying on these people, tipped the Martins off, said, well, these fools all plan to cut fences, this night.”

  “Good,” said Wallace.

  “Kid is maybe an environmentalist member, you know, even helps plan it.”

  “Excellent,” said Wallace.

  “You think of it?” said Du Pré.

  “We did, and the little bitch is Angela Green, one Harold Green having married a Martin sister. Big wheeze in environmental lunacies. She calls home regularly, nothing much there.”

  “Young kid?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “You talk to her?”

  “Oh, we talked to her a lot. See, she gives passionate speeches about running cattle off the public lands, bringing back the buffalo, and what pigs ranchers are. Good speaker, too. I’ve heard her a bunch of times.”

  “Her parents are not mad at her?”

  “Parents love their kids, even unto Murder One and such,” said Harvey. “Interesting, though, how she howls and yells about destroying them but she comes here in the summer to help out. The old homestead.”

  “What’d she say?” said Bart.

  “Oh,” said Wallace, “she said her business was hers and her parents’ business was theirs and now please fuck off and get out of my face.”

  “Uh,” said Du Pré. “She sounds a real Montana girl, her.”

  “Right down to her custom boots,” said Wallace. “And we even got to the idiots who planned this spree of cattle shooting and fence cutting that got sixteen people killed. If you count the mourners the avalanche got and the bear ate.”

  Bart and Du Pré waited.

  “She rigorously opposed that course of action and so they went off to plan their suicides in more sympathetic surroundings.”

  “How would she know the date?” said Bart.

  “She’s a spectacularly beautiful woman,” said Wallace.

  “I see,” said Bart.

  Chapter 31

  “I AM SICK WORRIED, you,” said Madelaine. “All this time you are getting thin, you don’t smile, you smoke too much, there, you drink that whiskey, and you don’t drink it for fun.”

  “I am sorry,” said Du Pré. “This whole business, you know, the place I live blowing all apart, nothing will ever be the same now, you know. I don’t see you, I don’t see my daughter, grandchildren, all, I don’t play the damn fiddle, I am not Du Pré anymore, you are right.”

  “Well,” said Madelaine, “us Métis we are here, Montana, sure by 1700. That Lewis and Clark Expedition it come, we are here, we draw them map and give it to Blackfeet to give to them because we are Métis and if we give it then we are betrayers. So there has been lot of blood, you know. My great-great-great-grandfather was that Mitch Bouyer, he send the other Métis scouts away and he go down the hill, die with Custer. So it is not the first time and you are not God and you can’t stop everything. I tell you you going to play that damn fiddle Susan’s this afternoon for sure. Or I cry and cry and cry till you so miserable you cry, too. I do that, Du Pré. You are dying right in front of me, I will not let you.”

  “I feel pretty good,” said Du Pré.

  “Shit you feel pretty good. Your friends, enemies, neighbors, they are some of them murderers. You damn near die, avalanche, you know you toss in the night and sweat some. You lie there, I get towels, mop you off.”

  “Oh,” said Du Pré.

  “I already know you are a hero,” said Madelaine. “I don’t need to hear it more.”

  “OK,” said Du Pré.

  “I got your fiddle. I buy new strings for it. I put them on as good as I can. Now you tune it, you take your Madelaine, the bar, we have some drinks, I listen to you play, I even make you a nice red shirt, send away, one of them paisley scarves.
You wear them, please. We go, have some good time, come back here, fuck, and you sleep.”

  Du Pré took a hot shower and he put on clean jeans and his new shirt and knotted his scarf and they drove down to the Toussaint Bar. He grabbed his old rawhide fiddle case with the porcupine-quill stars on it all worn away and he carried it in. There weren’t any other cars there, odd for a Sunday afternoon.

  Du Pré held the door open for Madelaine. He stepped inside. Fifty friends sat there silently. There was a big table all covered with food, a whole pig on a huge wooden platter, one his father Catfoot had carved from a big piece of basswood he had sent off for.

  Cousin LeBlanc from Canada was there with his accordion.

  Cousin Beauharne from North Dakota with his guitar and harmonica and his dancing shoes. He did the old Métis dances, old as the Romans.

  Bunch of people, good people.

  “You get that big drink, Du Pré,” said Cousin LeBlanc, “then we play that good music.”

  Du Pré looked round, somewhat shocked. The Stemples were there and the Moores and many other couples, some of them Du Pré thought might have had something to do with the murders. But they were here and they seemed happy.

  If old Benetsee was here, I would like that, Du Pré thought, I need him very much now. What is in this that I cannot see, or don’t want to? Who am I to decide this? What do I do, I don’t know.

  Play some music, my friends. Drink some whiskey and love my woman. Forget death for some time now and let some good things be remembered.

  Du Pré felt a tug on his right sleeve. He looked over and there stood Benetsee, grinning, holding out a huge glass of whiskey and ice.

  “You play them song, the voyageur,” said Benetsee. “They go through that dark forest, they die in the black water, but they sing and fiddle there, Du Pré, you give me tobacco and you drink and fiddle.”

  Du Pré rolled them each a cigarette and lit them and he had a pull of whiskey and he put his arm on Benetsee’s shoulders.

  “Old man,” he said, “I… we got to stop this now, you know, the women will have many tears and the children misfortunes. What do we do?”

  “Good,” said Benetsee.