Badlands (2 page)

Depended.

They dropped down onto a flat and slowed some more. Mule deer were bounding across the road. Benny Klein slowed to a crawl. He’d had a deer come through the windshield of his truck some time ago, and he did not want another deer to do that.

The Eide place was in clear view now. The buildings were red with fire. A roof collapsed and a gout of sparks shot skyward. There were several trucks and cars parked well away from the flames.

Du Pré pulled up beside Benny’s cruiser and he stopped and they got out.

Benny looked at the burning buildings.

“Shit,” he said, “’bout all we can do is piss on the ashes.”

Du Pré nodded. Everything was gone. Even the metal equipment shed was blackened, the siding buckled by the heat.

A burst of yellow and red and black flame shot out of the metal building. A fuel tank had blown. Benny and Du Pré and Madelaine walked to the knot of people looking on at the blaze.

“Won’t go anywhere,” said one of them. “Good thing it’s wet for the one night a year that it is.”

Laughter.

“Just as well,” somebody said. “Probably been bought by some damn
Californian.”

More laughter.

“I be back, a moment,” said Du Pré.

He walked over toward the main house, now a place of glowing walls and crackling heat. Old logs, cut over a century ago and dragged here with draft horses, laid up, chinked with moss and mud at first and later wire and concrete. Take a long time to burn.

Du Pré walked over toward the barn.

No smell of burning flesh. The Eides had left all their stock on the winter range but sold most of the farming equipment at auction. Odd, because the ranch was good only for raising cattle, and without equipment very little could be done.

They either were bringing other machinery, or they had no intention of running cattle on the land.

Du Pré walked between the burning barn and some smaller outbuildings that were also blazing, but now mostly consumed. Not one building had escaped. Only the junkyard, where old trucks and cars and equipment sat, awaiting cannibalizing, was not on fire.

Du Pré looked at the ground for tracks.

He found one. The track of a fuse, laid into the last long low shed. A faint black smear on the yellow-gray earth.

He followed the smear. It led to the junkyard.

Du Pré walked past a rusted old combine, broken teeth in its rakes and the glass knocked out of the cab windows.

He saw a glow.

The red end of a cigarette.

Du Pré dropped down, thinking of his 9mm. It was safely in the glove box of his cruiser.

Du Pré heard soft laughter. He saw a movement. Someone had been sitting in the comfort of an old truck cab, watching the fires and the people who had come too late.

“Peace to you,” said a soft voice.

The man stepped out of the shadows then. He was dressed in a dark shirt, oddly cut, with very baggy sleeves and long collar points, high soft Apache moccasins, and dark pants.

Du Pré looked at his face, shaped in the firelight.

“You got some questions to answer,” said Du Pré.

“Easily done,” said the man. He was young, in his twenties, blond and fair.

“You set these fires?” said Du Pré.

“Yes,” said the man, “on the orders of the owner. Now I would suggest you return to your mob there and tell them they must leave. This is a private property. The fires were set safely, and no one is wanted here.”

“You do it,” said Du Pré, turning away and walking back toward Benny and Madelaine and the others.

Benny was saying something to Madelaine when Du Pré approached. They both laughed.

“Guy back there said the fires were set,” said Du Pré, “and we are trespassing.”

“Who the hell … ?” said Benny.

Du Pré shrugged. He turned and looked back toward the junkyard.

“He was in there,” said Du Pré.

“Just watching us?” said Benny.

Du Pré nodded.

“There he is now,” said Madelaine. She pointed.

Du Pré looked. It was another man, a dark one, dressed in the same odd clothing. He began to trot toward the people.

The man did not look up until he was ten feet away, and then he slowed and locked eyes with Benny Klein.

“We have no need of your services,” said the man. He was a little older than the blond one Du Pré had seen in the junkyard.

“Why the hell set this fire?” said Benny. “These are good buildings.”

“We will build anew,” said the man. “Who the hell are you?” said Benny.

“You’re trespassing,” said the man, “and that’s against the law. I guess I need to call the Sheriff.”

“N
O, IT’S NOT GOOD
news,” said Bart. He looked grim. His face was very red.

The Host of Yahweh had bought the Eide ranch, Foote had said. A cult from California.

“The which of who?” said Susan Klein.

“The Host of Yahweh,” said Bart. “I should have more information by tomorrow. They’re one of those Californian millennial sects. If this ain’t enough to piss off the Pope …”

“Like that bunch of loonies in Oregon?” said Susan.”Had the guru. Ended up in the can for tax fraud and attempted murder, I recall.”

“Something,” said Bart.

“What the hell do they want with a ranch in the ass end of no place at all?” said Susan Klein. “I mean, there isn’t a lot to
do
out there. It’s about good for cows and a dozen people, tops. That’s some tough country. Hell, there’s hardly any water.”

“They want it because it is out of the way,” said Bart.

“I liked it better around here when it was like it was around here,” said Susan. “We got enough homegrown idiots.”

Du Pré nodded.

“Hell,” said Susan. “You know, that bunch out in Oregon, they swept up homeless folks and brought them to Antelope, I think it was, and had them all register to vote. We haven’t got that many people here in Cooper County, damn it, we don’t need this.”

Du Pré rolled a smoke.

“God damn those Eides,” said Susan, savagely polishing the bartop. “Selling to a bunch of weirdos.”

“I’m trying to find out how that happened, too,” said Bart. “Perhaps there is something to be done.”

“It’s sold, isn’t it?” said Susan.

Bart nodded.

“Shit,” said Susan.

Booger Tom came in, limping a little. He’d been kicked working some fresh horses a few days before.

“You hear the news?” said the old man. “All four thousand head of the Eides’, well, they’s for sale, cheap. Bid and truck ’em yourself.”

“Where’d you hear that?” said Susan.

“I got it offen that Internet,” said Booger Tom.

“You wrangling computers now?” said Susan.

“Enough to keep track of stock prices,” said Booger Tom, “since this fat wop pays me, run his ranch.”

“I ain’t fat,” said Bart.

“You ain’t ’zactly
emaciated,
there,” said Booger Tom. “Which I hear is all the fashion amongst rich folks.”

“I ain’t rich either,” said Bart. “I just have too much money.”

“So give me a raise,” said Booger Tom.

“You ain’t worth it,” said Bart, “but talk to Foote if you like.”

Booger Tom snorted.

“Them as favors them Beefmasters will sure be here tomorrow,” said the old man. “I guess they’s all rounded up.”

“How did they do that?” said Bart. “So quick.”

“Easier’n you’d think,” said Booger Tom. “Went flying over it this morning. Them Eides lucked out way their land lays, and so you haze them cows and put up a couple of gates and each time it gets easier. They was still some hay and cake out for ’em, and so they’d hardly begun to leave for the summer pastures. I think they was all still in the lower two anyhow. Two people on them four-wheelers could prolly do it. They was when we done flew over anyway.”

An eighteen-wheeler geared down and pulled off into the parking lot.

In a moment the driver came in, a brown muscular man in his forties.

“You-all tell me how to get to the Eddy place?” he said. “I got some fellers behind me, they won’t have to stop. Boss said we’d best be here to truck in the morning.”

Susan Klein scratched a few lines on a sheet of paper and she came round the bar and stood with the man.

“Turn there about fifteen miles,” she said. “Can’t miss it. Just don’t miss that fork there or you’ll wind up on the McQuarrie place. They aren’t selling any cattle now.”

The trucker nodded, and stared at the map. He went out the front door.

“That will be too much, Raymond,” said Madelaine.

Raymond, Du Pré’s son-in-law, had taken over the brand inspections in Cooper County.

“He should call me,” said Du Pré. Raymond hadn’t.

“You both be busy you are signing off, four thousand head,” said Madelaine.

Du Pré nodded.

“That’s t’other thing,” said Booger Tom. “They’s gonna be seven more inspectors here in the mornin’, too.”

“Get that off the Internet?” said Susan.

“Matter of fact, I did,” said Booger Tom. “Got your psychiatric records, too. They make some interestin’ readin’.”

Susan snorted and made the old bastard a whiskey ditch.

Another eighteen-wheeler roared past, and another and another.

Du Pré walked outside. He looked off toward the highway. A solid line of stock haulers was coming on. At forty head each, it would take a hundred to haul away the Eide herd. There would be more than a hundred, probably, depending on the splits.

Du Pré waved back to a hauler, a man in a black cowboy hat. He had a double trailer. The empty rig bounced and whipped.

“But we don’t hear nothing here,” said Madelaine. She had come up beside him in her moccasins. Silent as Du Pré’s father Catfoot, who barely ruffled the dust when he walked.

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

“Auction take a long time,” said Madelaine.

“No,” said Du Pré. “It is done already.”

Madelaine looked at him.

“License plates,” said Du Pré. “All from Oregon, a few from Idaho. Those cows they are sold already.”

“This is strange,” said Madelaine. “Couple guys come, burn the place down, then all these trucks. Who are these people?”

“We find out,” said Du Pré.

“You be careful, Du Pré,” said Madelaine. “You be damn careful.”

Du Pré nodded.

Madelaine dug him hard in the ribs.

“I mean careful,” she said. “Maybe you don’t get angry, Du Pré, you watch out.”

Du Pré laughed.

“We go, Canada,” he said.

“We live here,” said Madelaine. “Our people buried here. We been here a long time gone, Du Pré. These fools, they come, they will not stay. You will see.”

Du Pré grunted.

The cattle haulers ground past, each one following the other by radio. They all had big auxiliary diesel tanks welded on the tractors.

Like them Eide never there, this time tomorrow, Du Pré thought. I went there once, they bury old man Eide, down in the grove. Nothing left of them but a graveyard.

Another clot of trucks ground past.

Du Pré sighed and he rolled a smoke and lit it and gave it to Madelaine. She had the one deep drag she liked and then she gave it back to him.

“Come on in, sailor, I buy you a drink maybe,” said Madelaine.

Du Pré laughed.

“I am a soldier, in Germany,” he said. “Me, out there, looking at them Russians, ready to fight you bet.”

“Yah,” said Madelaine.

“I get seasick bad,” said Du Pré.

“You got them voyageurs in you,” said Madelaine. “You don’t get seasick. They don’t go on the sea.”

They went back in the bar Bart was slumped on a stool, staring into his club soda.

Madelaine went to him and put her arm around his broad shoulders.

“You,” she said, “this is not your fault.”

“If I had only known,” said Bart.

“Some reason they don’t tell you,” said Madelaine.

“We were always civil,” said Bart, “I just don’t understand why they would sell to that damn cult and not a word to anyone.”

“Maybe there is something else,” said Madelaine.

Bart sighed and he patted her hand.

“OK,” he said, “I know what you are saying.”

Madelaine hugged him. “It work out OK,” she said. Bart snorted.

“It is not country, them,” said Madelaine. “I just wish I had known,” said Bart.

“Ah,” said Booger Tom, “gives us all somethin’ to worry about.”

I
T TOOK ALL OF
the light of the day to load the cattle into the haulers. There were nine inspectors, one from four hundred miles away, and Du Pré and Raymond were exhausted and covered with dust by the time the last huge aluminum trailer had been filled, the last inspection form signed.

The two men Du Pré had seen the night the Eide place burned stood silently, arms crossed, in their odd clothing.

The ranch was ashes and tracks. There were three missing head, a tiny loss out of four thousand one hundred and twenty-six beeves.

Du Pré and Raymond stood talking with the other inspectors for a few minutes, and then they left, for they had long drives ahead and a long day behind.

“Damndest business,” said one, a weathered white-haired man from Madison country. “At a three hundred dollar loss a head, somebody’s out over a million bucks. Wish they’d a give it to me.”

Du Pré and Raymond went to Du Pré’s old cruiser. They got in.

“Look at those bastards,” said Raymond. “They might maybe have dropped from the moon.”

The two men in the odd dried-blood-colored shirts had barely moved all day. They weren’t moving now.

Du Pré shrugged and started the cruiser’s engine and they drove away.

Three miles down the county road they had to pull off. There was a line of haulers pulling halves of prefabricated houses toward the ranch. Eighteen of them, nine houses worth. All identical, white with blue trim.

“Son of a bitch!” said Raymond. “It is an invasion!”

“They got no foundations for them,” said Du Pré. “Got to pour concrete before they can set those up.”

Then they passed six long vans with dark windows and two heavy trucks piled with construction equipment. Generators, air compressors, gang boxes of hand tools. The haulers and the vans all had California plates on them, but the houses had been prefabbed in Billings.