Badlands (4 page)

A kingfisher shot past,
skraaaking
loudly. The bird flew down the creek and then it turned and flew back and dived and landed on a branch. The iridescent blue of its back and head flashed in the sun.

Then a cloud blocked the light and the earth went gray. Mosquitoes held in the shade by the sunlight rose up from their hiding places. They would be pretty bad this spring, and it wouldn’t get better till the soil dried out.

Du Pré set the wine and the food down on a stump and he sat on a polished cottonwood log. He rolled a smoke and lit it and he had a drink of whiskey from his flask.

The kingfisher flew past again and went out of sight down the stream.

Du Pré sighed.

“Old man, I got, talk you,” he shouted.

Something rustled in the bushes and Du Pré saw the yellow-gray fur of a coyote flash past.

Then silence.

Du Pré put his head in his hands. It had ached all morning.

Something hit him in the back, like a June beetle.

Du Pré smelled woodsmoke. He started. He turned around.

Nothing.

The kingfisher flew past again,
skraaack skraaack.

Du Pré got another smell of woodsmoke.

He sighed and stood up. He went to the firepit and found that the fire and the stones were already laid up. He flicked his lighter at the paper in the bottom of the little trench and the fire caught quickly and it soon was roaring, the pitchy knots in the split wood popping loudly.

The rick collapsed and the stones sat down on red-hot coals. Du Pré watched them until they had a faint white patina, and then he got the shovel and he carried them to the sweat lodge and set them in the pit. He went to the creek and filled the little bucket with water and he put that inside the sweat lodge and then he stripped and got in and he pulled the flap down and the stones glowed faint red in the dark.

Du Pré sloshed water on them and steam exploded and the air in the lodge was thick and heavy and hot and pitch-black.

Du Pré sang, old songs, some of the songs he knew but not what the words meant. Benetsee had never told him.

The steam faded and Du Pré put on more water and another burst of wet and hot filled his lungs and touched his skin.

“Old bastard,” sang Du Pré. “You old goat, you tell me, yes, what do I do now. Tell me about the horses. Tell me about the Host of Yah-Hoo or whoever the hell they are.”

The heat was heavy and Du Pré began to choke. He threw open the flap and crawled out of the lodge and he ran to the creek and the big pool and he jumped in. The shock of the cold water felt very good.

Then the cold went from his hot skin to his bones and Du Pré made the bank and he slipped out and stood shivering a moment. The wind dried him rapidly.

He turned to walk back to his clothes.

A woman in a long gray dress was standing by Benetsee’s cabin, and a man in the odd full shirt of the Host of Yahweh was walking down the little incline toward Du Pré.

Du Pré pulled on his clothes and sat on the stump to pull on his boots.

The man stopped a few feet away.

Du Pré looked at him.

“We came to see the medicine man,” said the man.

“Not here,” said Du Pré. “And you go now and you don’t never come back here.”

Du Pré stood up.

Then the woman screamed and Du Pré and the man looked back up the little hillock, to see her pushing frantically at something on her leg.

Black and white.

The skunk.

The woman screamed again and the skunk let go of her and it waddled under Benetsee’s house.

Du Pré smiled.

The couple left. Du Pré heard an engine start and then a truck back and fill and go down the rutted drive.

Son of a bitch. That skunk act OK but maybe it is rabid.

Du Pré felt something hit him in the back again. He turned and he looked down.

A fir cone, from the one tree that grew behind Benetsee’s cabin. A giant from a forest long gone, the Douglas fir was more than a hundred feet high and that after lightning had cropped the top.

Du Pré looked up.

Benetsee was sitting on a limb fifty feet up, grinning.

Old son of a bitch!” said Du Pré. “I am here, I bring you wine and good food, I am lucky you don’t shit on me I guess.”

“You don’t get under the tree right,” said Benetsee.

“I thought you maybe were the skunk,” said Du Pré.

Benetsee laughed and he shook his head.

“Just a skunk,” he said. “Lives around here. Got a family, a home, pret’ good fellow that skunk.”

Du Pré laughed.

“You maybe break your damn neck getting down, there,” he said. He looked away at the creek. The kingfisher flew past again.

Du Pré sat down on the stump again and he rolled two smokes and lit one. He had another mouthful of whiskey from his flask.

He raised his head slowly and looked at the branch, which was now unoccupied.

“You piss me off one time, old man,” said Du Pré, “I maybe just shoot you. I say, the judge, you see I had to do that, shoot him.”

Benetsee farted loudly, behind Du Pré.

“Where is that Pelon?” said Du Pré.

“Home,” said Benetsee. “He got a family, wife, like that skunk.”

“Why that skunk bite that woman?”

Du Pré looked at Benetsee, who grinned.

“Ask that skunk, him,” said Benetsee.

Du Pré snorted and looked down.

The skunk was sitting between his feet, looking up at him.

“God damn you,” said Du Pré.

The skunk cocked its head and Du Pré watched its beady little eyes.

“Ask,” said Benetsee.

“Why you bite that woman,” said Du Pré to the skunk.

The skunk shrugged and turned and walked off toward the creek.

Du Pré watched the trouble end of the skunk go.

“Ver’ funny,” said Du Pré.

“Him nice skunk,” said Benetsee. “Just don’t like strangers. You maybe buy him a drink, you can bitch each other.”

Du Pré sighed.

“Susan Klein like that,” said Du Pré.

Benetsee pulled a little saucer out of the pocket of his dirty pants and he put it on the ground by Du Pré.

He took the top off the wine and poured the saucer full.

“Crazy,” said Du Pré.

The skunk came out from behind the stump and it licked happily at the fizzy pink wine.

“Christ,” said Du Pré, “he get drunk maybe he wants, fight.”

“Skunks don’t fight,” said Benetsee. “Don’t have to.”

Du Pré nodded.

“The horses,” said Du Pré, “them Host of Yahweh people, they will kill the horses, run the badlands now.”

“We sweat,” said Benetsee.

Du Pré went to the stump that had the axe buried in it. He began to split wood for a new stone rick.

“S
KUNK TAKE A CHUNK OUT
of her,” said Madelaine. “It was not rabid, Du Pré.”

“No,” said Du Pré, “crazy. That old man he is talking, the skunk. Drive the skunk crazy. Drive me crazy, too. He is like that, you know.”

“You bitch ’bout Benetsee all the time,” said Madelaine. “It is good for you. Keep the fat out of your blood.”

“Any of them come in today?” said Du Pré.

“No,” said Madelaine. “Quit talking, me.” She stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth. Her eyes were nearly squinted shut.

“Maybe you get glasses,” said Du Pré.

“Read a poem once,” said Madelaine, “said girls, glasses, they don’t get fucked much.”

“I fuck you you get glasses,” said Du Pré.

“Nice of you,” said Madelaine. “I want some, got them wings on them, all covered, rhinestones.”

Du Pré snorted.

“Don’t like them rhinestones?” said Madelaine. “I think maybe they classy, you know.”

Du Pré fished his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and handed them to Madelaine.

“What is this shit,” she said, “no rhinestones, no wings.” She put them on and she looked at the needle and the beads.

She looked at Du Pré.

“Gabriel!” she said, “I have not seen you for years! Miracle! I call Father Van Den Heuvel, tell him, maybe this saloon it is a shrine. Make big money off the pilgrims.”

Du Pré snorted.

“Burn all the crutches, the woodstove, the winter,” said Madelaine. “You don’t got, cut so much wood.”

“They got reading glasses, the store in Cooper,” said Du Pré. “Got all kinds you know. They are some stronger than others.”

Madelaine looked over the tops of the frames at Du Pré.

“These are fine,” she said. “They are the right ones.”

Du Pré gestured and she handed them to him. He squinted and he tried to see the little magnification number on the earpiece.

“Son of a bitch,” said Du Pré. “I cannot see that damn number. I need the glasses. Can’t see it if they are on my head.”

“Take ’em with you,” said Madelaine. “You can get another pair look at this one.”

“I am going, glasses now?” said Du Pré.

Madelaine stuck her finger with the needle and she ripped off a long string of curses, in ladylike tones.

“’Less you want I bleed to fucking death,” she said. She sucked her finger.

“Give me that needle,” said Du Pré. “You hurt yourself.”

“Go get glasses,” said Madelaine. “I wait till you get back. I got all little holes in my finger.” She held out her left forefinger. It was swollen and abused.

Du Pré finished his drink and he got off the stool and went out, rolling a smoke as he walked. He got in the old cruiser and started it and he turned around and headed off the thirty miles to Cooper, the county seat.

It was a beautiful day now, with only a few white puff’s high up and some cirrus to the west.

Du Pré turned on the blacktop and gunned the engine and he was soon going a hundred over the rolling prairie. He slowed to fifty at the tops of hills, in case there was one of the huge tractors lumbering down the highway.

The grass was greening up. Snipe flew up from the little wetlands and the meadowlarks trilled from fence posts. The air had a taste of snow yet. There was a fresh white blanket on the peaks of the Wolf Mountains.

Roaring downhill on a long stretch Du Pré pulled out and passed two of the big vans that the Host of Yahweh owned. Both had California plates, and dark-tinted windows. Du Pré couldn’t see a thing in the vans at all.

He slowed at the top of the hill until he could see it was clear and then he gunned the engine and shot down a long stretch. The road wound up the rolling prairie on the far side, a snaky and treacherous highway. The hill was higher than it looked.

Du Pré threaded his way through the turns and when he got to the top he could see Cooper five miles away, the metal roofs of the houses shining silver in the sun.

Du Pré slowed when he came near the school at the west end of the town. He went by at twenty miles an hour. Little blisters were at recess, screaming and yelling and beating the crap out of each other.

That Bodine kid used to pound me up pret’ good, thought Du Pré, he was bigger. One day Catfoot he is walking by, sees it, takes me outside that evening, says, you box like
this.
We practice. I bust the Bodine kid’s nose and he leave me alone after that.

Kids.

Du Pré turned into the muddy lot by the general store and he got out and picked his way past the worst of the puddles. There was a boot scraper by the door and he knocked off most of the mud on that, then shuffled on the scrub mat a while. Then he went in. There was no one in the place but the woman at the checkout counter. She was putting packs of cigarettes in the rack.

“Hi, Du Pré,” she said. “Madelaine called, said to tell you get some with rhinestones.”

Du Pré fished his reading glasses out of his pocket.

“You maybe see what the number is on this?” he said. The woman nodded and she took them.

“One-seventy-five,” she said. “I dunno how many of them we got with rhinestones. Prolly have to go to the Wal-Mart in Billings.”

Du Pré went back to the rack of reading glasses that stood in the aisle with the barrels of horseshoes and the overalls and the Carhartt work clothing.

He looked through the glasses. None of them had wings on them, let alone rhinestones. He took three pairs of one-seventy-fives and he went to the little section of shelf that had hobby stuffs on it. He got a tube of superglue and a small bag of blue rhinestone beads. He got a thin whippy plastic ruler from the school supplies.

He set his purchases down on the counter.

“Madelaine said if there weren’t ones with rhinestones on them not to be an asshole,” said the cashier.

“I cannot help it, me,” said Du Pré.

“Well,” said the woman, “I told ya. Ya gotta give me that.” She rang up the purchases, which came to twenty-four dollars and ninety-three cents.

“You want a bag?” said the woman.

Du Pré went out to his cruiser and got in and fished a pair of scissors out of the glove box. He cut out two wings and stuck the blue rhinestone beads on them with the superglue. Then he stuck the wings on a pair of glasses. They were uneven and they went a good four inches out from the sides.

The two vans he had passed turned in to the parking lot. They stopped and the front doors opened and two men and two women got out, the men in the odd shirts, the women in the long gray dresses and high boots.

One of the men was the blond man Du Pré had spoken with the night the Eide place burned.

The four went in to the front door of the general store.

Du Pré rolled a smoke and lit it. He got out and tried one of the doors on the van nearest to him, but it was locked. He got back in his cruiser and he turned out on to the street and went slowly past the school.

The children were back inside, suffering from education.

Du Pré gunned the engine and shot down the highway, slowing at the hilltops and making up time on the downslopes. He fished his big flask out from under the seat and had a snort.

In the sweat lodge I dream, horses, thought Du Pré, wild horses and the buffalo, on the hills. The horses are all grullas. The buffalo all have blue hides. There are no people.

When the buffalo and the horses run into the badlands they go to ghosts. You can see through them.

Benetsee singing in words I do not know.