Wolf, No Wolf

by Peter Bowen

  “Thanks, man!” said the longhair.

  He drove off and Du Pré watched the VW turn and go up the Forest Service road. He went to his Rover and got his binoculars and he watched the longhair take off all his clothes and then put on his shoes and walk up the trail toward the little butte stuck in the throat of the canyon.

  Good place, that top of that butte. Thunderstorm hit, it is always hit by lightning, it is scorched and burnt up there, the rock.

  The clouds were bunching black and rising above the Wolfs. They flashed inside, dark purple in the black.

  Oh, I am a prick, Du Pré thought, but I was drove to it.

  Du Pré had another draw on the bottle of whiskey.

  I am never see my Madelaine, I don’t see my daughter, I have not talked to my other daughter in weeks, I am losing all my life I care for.

  What do I do?

  Bart, me, we can’t quit. We are not going to find out nothing we can use and that Harvey Weasel Fat, he can piss up a rope, stand under it while it dries, you know.

  A whistle.

  Falcon whistle. Prairie falcon, hunting, hunting.

  Poor Corey Banning, she dive so fast she hit the rock.

  What?

  I need this old man now, tell me what to do. If he know. Not always he does know, maybe just them riddles.

  Old Black Claws, he gone north.

  Shit.

  Du Pré heard some thunder, distant, deep. He walked to where he could see the whole of the Wolfs stretched out east to west, rising from the red and yellow plains. Island in the sky, there.

  The clouds sent a lash of black rain down; lightning stitched the canyons, struck along the ridges.

  Been up on them a couple times, that hit, the rocks blow up like grenades. Five-hundred-pound grenades.

  Some movement up that little canyon.

  Du Pré put the binoculars to his eyes.

  The naked longhair was running flat-out down the trail toward his VW. A young grizzly was chasing him, maybe two hundred yards behind, so the bear was just having a little run.

  I call you Young Black Claws, thought Du Pré, this is very good, I am feeling some better now.

  A grip on his elbow.

  “Eh?” said Benetsee. “You got nothing better to do, tease some poor white fool like that? He wants to be Indian. I don’t know why anybody wants be something else. What’s the use? You got me wine?”

  Du Pré nodded. He handed the old man his tobacco pouch and he went to the Rover and fished out a gallon jug of horrible cheap fizzy wine and he brought it back and picked up a jar out of the grass and shook out the beetles in it and he filled it and gave it to Benetsee.

  The old man drained it.

  He put his cigarette in his mouth and waited for Du Pré to light it.

  The VW screamed past.

  “Funny times,” said Benetsee.

  “No shit,” said Du Pré. “Me, I am not laughing so much.”

  “This land, pretty quiet for a long time. It be quiet again,” said Benetsee. “Don’t do it by your time, though. You wait.”

  “OK,” said Du Pré. “But I can’t see myself no more, you know.”

  “OK,” said Benetsee. “I wonder when you ask. You got questions.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Go sleep, your grandfathers.”

  “They are in the little cemetery, Toussaint,” said Du Pré.

  “They got their holes,” said Benetsee. “You go, take your blanket, you know. Give some tobacco, little sweet grass, say a prayer with that Father Van Den Heuvel, he is good man.”

  “OK,” said Du Pré.

  “OK?” said Benetsee.

  Chapter 34

  “AH,” SAID MADELAINE, “WELL, I am maybe having some hope of seeing my Du Pré maybe. I have not, nearly a year now, you know. I see…well, I go pray. You see your grandfathers, you say hello, your Madelaine maybe not let you back in the house some soon day.”

  Du Pré nodded. The jukebox was blaring and a couple of people were playing pool at Susan’s. Not much else. It was an early June night warm with crickets and the scent of the tangled little roses that grew in the little draws near the water.

  That Custer, his men, that is the smell they die in, that and dust, the Little Bighorn, Du Pré thought. What a dumb man, him. That Mitch Bouyer, he die with Custer. Us Métis, we die a lot, white-man quarrels, die a lot, Indian quarrels, weren’t for all them sonsofbitches we live a long goddamn time, you bet.

  The door opened and Harvey Wallace padded in. He wore running shoes and old clothes and a windbreaker to hide his gun.

  Of Harvey Weasel Fat, I am think he could paint his face I’d feel better, thought Du Pré, them Blackfeet chase you clear home. Then they wait. Chew on a little jerky. Lie in the river, breathe through a reed. Lie by the horses, covered in grass, you walk over them up them come, stab you, left thigh inside high, slash the artery, you whirl, right wrist, then your throat.

  Who told me all this? I don’t know.

  Harvey sat down with them, a soda in his hand.

  “Madelaine,” he said, “how are you this fine evening? You want to dance maybe?” He spoke good Coyote French, too.

  Madelaine smiled and she got up and they danced by the jukebox.

  Du Pré watched, sipped his drink.

  Good woman. I am such a pain in the ass, big one, lately, maybe she take up with Harvey Weasel Fat. No, she like me OK. She is just worried some.

  Du Pré went to the bar, got another drink, another pink wine for Madelaine.

  Harvey and Madelaine came back to the table. She sat down and had a drink of her pink wine. Harvey stood and drained his soda.

  “I been a cop worse places,” said Harvey.

  “There are lots of them,” said Du Pré. “You know, Harvey, I don’t think some that we ever find out sometimes. That Bart, he is a madman, do his job good, all of it. We ask and ask but no one here say anything. Nobody is bragging. Nobody.”

  “Yeah,” said Harvey, “well, I like to fish. Sometimes I won’t even bait the hook, you know, I like to fish so much, not be disturbed.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “That evening rise is starting,” said Harvey, “and I am going to fish on the bottom. You know, I talked to poor Packy’s wife and I don’t think now Packy had anything to do with anything. Just a short fuse and poor Corey lit it. Ya never know. Guy just snapped.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  Yah, well, Packy he do whatever his sweet government tell him, he get scared, he stop it some for just a little while. Too bad, he was pretty good guy and he got kids, wife, all left and no money. I got to talk to Bart about that.

  Susan and Benny came out of the back with plates. They sat at the table next to Du Pré and Madelaine, to eat dinner early before the rush started, if it ever did. When the nights were so short and the days long and the light hung in the west until nearly eleven at night the bar did a slender business.

  “‘Lo, Harvey,” said Susan. “You want something?”

  “No, no,” said Harvey, “you eat. If someone comes in I’ll get them whatever.”

  Susan nodded. She had a forkful of meatloaf, the night’s special.

  “Harvey,” said Benny, “you don’t hit seventeen, you play the dealer.”

  Harvey nodded.

  Du Pré sipped his drink, rolled a smoke. He lit it, lit Madelaine’s filter tip. They smoked and held hands.

  “That a message?” said Harvey.

  “Line from a song I like,” said Benny. “I just hope things go better now. This is awful.”

  “What song?” said Harvey.

  “I dunno what the title is,” said Benny, “but the song is about how fast them summer wages go, you know.”

  “Ah,” said Harvey, “yeah, now I remember. I like that song, too.”

  “You get your fiddle, Du Pré,” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré went out and got it and he came back and he played it very softly while the cigarette smoke rose to the ceiling. No one ca
me into the bar.

  He played the old laments, the songs of tiredness and loneliness in the black-green forests the voyageurs paddled through, far to the north where their canoes crossed the footprints of glaciers and the rising land. Four feet a century, in a flat place the rivers ran one way for a while and then another.

  The Red River of the North was mostly lakes.

  Harvey left. Benny and Susan held hands, Madelaine rubbed Du Pré’s knee.

  They all left the bar at two in the morning. Susan never closed it early, saying that a reliable place to get a drink was a must in a small town.

  Du Pré dropped Madelaine off and he drove the little ways to the Catholic cemetery out behind the little church, in its groves of Russian olives. The place was well kept, plastic flowers on some of the graves and the weeds pulled and piled in one spot for burning in the fall.

  An owl hooted softly.

  Great horned he is hunting. The Hush Wing. Maybe another Hush Wing, they don’t care, they just eat.

  Du Pré pulled his bedroll out of the truck and he carried it and his whiskey and he walked into the cemetery and he went to the place where his grandparents and parents were buried, his wife near them, too. He unrolled the blankets pinned in their canvas cover and he sat cross-legged and he looked up at the Dipper, rolling around the polestar.

  The sky was clear and the stars burned fiercely, hanging low.

  Light my cigarette, one of them.

  He drank.

  A bullbat shot past overhead. He heard them call, and then gone.

  Sweet sound, them goatsuckers.

  Du Pré thought of Black Claws, under the snow.

  Almost get me to eat. Well, I been killed almost, bunch of times.

  Pretty stars.

  A coyote howled, the choirmaster.

  The chorus joined him.

  God’s dogs, they must know everything that is important. Very smart, them coyote, too smart, they get into trouble being so smart. Good way to trap them set two traps, one where they look at it, the other where they go to think about it, a little rise nearby.

  The coyotes stopped. Then a yipping.

  Got a rabbit, they run that rabbit in shifts till it is worn out. Poor old jackrabbit, he don’t got a thing but speed.

  But they don’t run, can the coyote find them?

  I do all the thinking good as I can and I don’t got dick. All I got is Madelaine pissed off and my friend Bart a badge he don’t really want and the same shit start again soon, the summer is here.

  So where am I.

  Sleeping with my grandfathers in the cemetery, my father he is there, my mother, my wife. Lot of my aunts, great-aunts, friends, old people I knew as a kid, I wish that they were here, I was not old or smart enough to ask them the right questions and they knew many things, old people always do. I thought that I would when I got older but it does not seem so.

  Du Pré drank.

  He looked up. The Dipper had moved round another hour. Good clock, it was.

  No coyotes. They are eating rabbit.

  Owl eating owl.

  Me, I am drinking whiskey and smoking that Bull Durham.

  Wondering what the fuck I am thinking of, doing what I am doing.

  Nobody else dumb enough to.

  Angela Green. I talk to her.

  We don’t know nothing.

  That Taylor Martin, he spit in our faces.

  Du Pré fell back on his bedroll. The night was cold and the dew forming.

  He crawled into his bedroll and smoked one last cigarette.

  He stubbed it out, put his face in the soogans, and slept.

  He woke up just before dawn when the birds began to chirp and sing, the night hunters passed, and the day hunters passed by, in the air or on the ground.

  The wind brought a scent of fox piss.

  Du Pré sat up. He rolled a smoke. He looked up at the Wolf Mountains.

  “OK,” he said.

  “Thank you, grandfathers.”

  Chapter 35

  “WELL,” SAID BENNY KLEIN, “I guess that they thought if they held this hearing near us they’d never make it out alive.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  The Fish and Wildlife people were dropping another batch of wolves into the Wolf Mountains, but they didn’t want to announce that anywhere near the Wolf Mountains.

  “Yeah,” said Du Pré, “well, maybe they pitch these wolves out of an airplane, parachutes on them.”

  The hearing was being held on the campus of Northern Montana College in a room in the library. Most of the ranchers who had come were wearing cowshit-covered boots and occupying themselves with grinding it into the rug.

  “Will they ever learn?” said Benny.

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “I know people like this, the army,” said Du Pré. “Someone tell them that Chinese women are built sideways, they believe it, rest of their life. It is not much good, this talk.”

  Du Pré looked round the room. He saw the young woman who had been so angry with him at the last hearing. Seemed like ten years ago.

  She saw Du Pré and glared at him. She nudged another young woman near her and pointed.

  The two looked hard at Du Pré.

  “I don’t know who that one on the right is,” said Du Pré, “but the one on the left is that Angela Green. You look at her good, Benny, she is the only way we find anything out, you bet.”

  Angela was tall, dark-haired, and pale-eyed. She bent to whisper in her companion’s ear and then they both sat down.

  One of the Fish and Wildlife reps called the meeting to order, said it was open to public commentary, looked at the list in her hand, called a name, and sat down looking bored.

  The decision had been made long ago. The hearing was a sop.

  A rancher rose and walked to the witness stand, while most of the wolf crowd tittered.

  The man spoke haltingly, shyly. He said that he saw no reason to return wolves, that they would kill stock, and that he was opposed to it. Montana was not a park.

  He left the stand, walking slowly, dragging his left leg; it was an artificial one.

  Which war you lose that in? Du Pré thought. Korea, that is it, I know that guy, he has the place just over the line. Bill Gustaffson, he is the brand inspector there.

  Du Pré went out to smoke. There were a couple ranchers outside, too, having cigarettes. They nodded at Du Pré.

  “This year the wolf bullshit,” said one. “Then next year they’ll raise the grazing fees and we’ll be out of business.”

  “Aw, Wally,” said the other, “we can open a tofu stand for the little bastards. We’ll love it.”

  Wally shrugged.

  Du Pré finished his cigarette and went back in.

  Another rancher got off the stand.

  Angela Green rose and she made her way gracefully up to the stand, and she began to speak in a low voice, pleading for the return of the predator to the ecosystem. It was meant to be. So much damage had been done, by her family, for one, and this was some way to put it right. The wolf was the symbol of wilderness. Why, in Minnesota wolves killed hardly any cattle at all. The objections of the ranchers were foolish.

  She went on until the F and W rep stopped her for speaking longer than the allowed minutes.

  She walked past Du Pré on her way outside, a leather cigarette case in her hand, the kind that has a lighter in it.

  Du Pré followed.

  They smoked on opposite sides of the walkway, each leaning up against a railing.

  Du Pré looked at her. The new Levi’s—old faded ones were for dudes. The custom boots, scuffed and resoled and heeled. The turquoise and silver buckle, an old one, sand-cast and soldered.

  Her hands they are the hands of a horsewoman, Du Pré thought, they are big, they grew big because she worked with them when she was a girl. She is very hard.

  She leaned up against the railing in a way people do when they’ve leaned against a lot of fences.

  She locked eyes with
Du Pré.

  “Long ways from the county,” she said pleasantly.

  “Uh,” said Du Pré, “well, this is what start it all last time, you know, I am looking for things.”

  “I’m sure you are,” she said.

  “You like them wolf,” said Du Pré.

  “Magnificent animals,” she said. “Think of this beautiful country. The buffalo, the Plains Indians, the elk on the river hills, the Eden that it was.”

  Yeah, Du Pré thought, well, this West not a very wild place till the white man come with guns, but look at the world now. Everybody got guns they try to kill each other, you bet.

  “How long your people been here?” said Du Pré.

  “One and one-quarter centuries,” said Angela Green. “Busy raping the land.” She walked over to Du Pré. She dropped her cigarette on the sidewalk and she ground it out with her boot.

  “Taylor Martin was much man and my favorite uncle,” she said.

  Du Pré nodded. He drew on his smoke.

  “I suppose we’ll see each other often,” said Angela, “and if you will excuse me now, I must go fight the good fight.”

  She kissed Du Pré on the cheek and she walked back through the door.

  OK, Du Pré thought, I am seeing now. Not too much to do now. Oh, no, that Harvey Weasel Fat, he will like this, though. Plenty Indian enough, he always like a good joke.

  Even if it is killing you, if it is doing it in a funny way, you got to laugh, this earth is that sort of place.

  That Angela, she wouldn’t crack, not ever.

  But this can’t happen again.

  Benny wandered out.

  “Buncha assholes singing three-part harmony in there,” he said. “Are we here for a reason? I mean, I ain’t even a deputy. Not anymore.”

  “Just spend some time,” said Du Pré. “But there is no reason, not anymore, no.”

  They got into Du Pré’s Rover and turned around and drove off. Du Pré stopped at a package store and got a fifth of whiskey and some sodas and some cheese and lunch meat.

  Pack of Pall Malls. They were weak, but the best next to his hand-rolled ones.

  He and Benny drove and drank and drove and drank.

  “Am I still a sworn officer of the law?” said Benny.