Coyote Wind (7 page)

“You really say that to the man?” said Madelaine. She was trying to look shocked.

“I really say that to the man.”

“What he say?”

“Nothing. I holler back that I tell my papa he ask me such a filthy question my papa probably blow his shit brains out.”

“Where this guy come from, anyway?” said Du Pré, steaming good.

“It’s Bucky Dassault.”

“Bucky Dassault! Jesus, that drunk? He maybe get arrested, drunk driving a hundred times, rape his sister once.”

“I know,” said Maria. “He go off to Galen, get a certificate, now he wants to help. Everything he done the bad alcohol and drugs make him do. Now he’s sober, he says, wants to help.”

“Well, you tell him,” said Madelaine. She drank her pink wine.

“I tell him. Damn, he’s a piece of shit drunk or sober, now he got a counselor’s job. He’s a professional … ”

Du Pré sat back down. He wanted to start strangling people right away, begin with Bucky Dassault, end with the governor, not miss anyone in between.

“Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “calm down, she already tear his balls off.”

“So what I do with that bullshit, heh?” said Maria.

“What bullshit?” said Du Pré.

“Judge say I got to go talk to Bucky Dassault, go to AA for a while. Otherwise he send me to some place the state run to help me.”

“How come this is the first I hear of it?” said Du Pré.

“Because I tell these assholes they talk like that to me in front of my daddy he probably kill them, scalp them, piss on what’s left.”

“I take care of it,” said Du Pré.

“I don’t want you to take care of it, Du Pré,” said Madelaine. “I don’t want to have come see you in Deer Lodge.”

“Well, I go see that damn judge for sure,” said Du Pré. He knew the guy, used to be a lousy prosecutor, always getting things wrong. Now he’s a JP, way things going he be moving up to the Supreme Court next week. The one in DC.

My daughter’s a fine young woman, kids with beer, like kids ever and for always, now it’s a big fucking deal. These people can’t lie on the ground without a law says they have to.

Guy tries to kill me, I shoot up his arm, he gets a suspended sentence on account of his shot-up arm. My daughter gets busted with some beer, she gets gang-banged by a bunch of assholes ought to be hung ’cause they dumb and ugly. Shit.

Du Pré drove Madelaine home, took Maria out to the house. He thought he’d sleep there tonight, take her with him in the morning, straighten this thing out.

“Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “you watch your temper, hear? When Albert run off, I had to get food stamps for a while, you wouldn’t believe the shit I had to go through to get them. Them social worker people are crazy and worthless and they know it, know you know it.”

“What is all this?” said Du Pré, pounding his hands on the steering wheel.

“We women, we’re used to eating shit,” said Madelaine. “You go careful tomorrow, that dumb judge throw you in jail for thinking he’s dumb.”

At home, Du Pré sat out on the porch in the cold. He was very hot and when he was mad he burned.

“Papa,” said Maria from the doorway, “I know you can’t sleep. Here you drink this, please, for me.”

She handed him a tall glass, hot water, whiskey, a little lemon.

“I’m going to bed now,” said Maria. “I think I won’t go with you tomorrow.”

“Why the hell not?” said Du Pré.

“Well,” said Maria, “if I am right there and they get snotty, you get really mad. You don’t have me there to protect, maybe you don’t get so mad.”

Du Pré nodded.

My child, she take good care of me.

B
UCKY
D
ASSAULT WORE THE
smarmy look of the saved. Once he was blind, and now he had an office and a diploma and a steady supply of people to mess with and fuck up, and he was a very happy asshole with a lot of undeserved clout. A Pro-Fess-ional, like Maria said.

Why the fuck don’t we take fucking Charley Manson, Du Pré seethed, make him director of social services. He had a lousy childhood, you see. This would make him extra helpful to troubled folks.

Du Pré was very calm. Bucky was not fooled.

“It’s the law,” said Bucky.

Du Pré looked at him, didn’t say anything.

“Du Pré, the State of Montana takes alcohol and drug abuse very seriously.”

“Then why they hire you,” said Du Pré, “they take it seriously?”

“Du Pré … ”

“You were a piece of shit born and I don’t think much changed,” said Du Pré. “Leave my daughter alone. I don’t tell you that again.”

Du Pré left. He thought about getting drunk before going to see this jerk judge, judge throw him in jail for contempt, sentence him to go talk to Bucky … Deer Lodge Prison, sure.

The food there was very lousy, no pussy, Du Pré would hate it.

Government, they can’t do anything right.

Any self-respecting kid sneaks off, do some beer, smoke some dope. Now it’s a big damn deal, got professionals for it. Like goddamned Bucky Dassault. I kick his ass I get thrown in jail, which make me so mad I will kill him.

My daughter’s raising herself just fine, spite of my best effort and that is all a kid ought to have to put up with.

Du Pré ran into the Sheriff at the courthouse in Cooper. The big loud cop was there to testify in a drunk driving case.

“Guy hit a car,” said the Sheriff. “Bounced up on my sidewalk, through my hedge, stopped with the hood all folded around a tree in my yard, fer Chrissakes. Three o’clock in the morning.”

The Sheriff had made his own arrest. Call “60 Minutes.”

“What are you here for?” he said, looking at Du Pré.

“My daughter was partying with some kids, had some beer, got caught, now they want to make her go listen to Bucky Dassault. Attend AA. She already goes to Mass. I am damn mad.”

“The Judge is a pussy,” said the Sheriff. “Don’t scare him.”

So Du Pré kept his mouth shut. Good thing, too. The Pussy Judge did all his talking for him anyway.

“Ssssince you are in … Lawn Forcement … waive … to your custody … don’t want to see her here again … serious matter,” said the Pussy Judge.

This so fucking serious, why that damn Bucky Dassault, thought Du Pré, while he looked respectful.

Du Pré said he took the whole matter very seriously.

The Pussy Judge went on to other matters, just before Du Pré would have lost his temper he had to stand and listen to any more of this bullshit. Which would have been tragic for everybody.

Du Pré asked God Who the Fuck was Minding the Store outside on the sidewalk. What the hell ever happened to kids will be kids, and kids do this sort of thing, practicing to be screwed-up adults like everybody else? Huh?

Du Pré drove back to Toussaint, sat in the bar which was empty except for the lady with the beehive hairdo who was washing everything. Du Pré drank whiskey, wished someone would come in he could kill—a Texan would be nice, can’t get convicted of killing a Texan in Montana. Maybe I go find a dog with a calloused butt and kick him.

The telephone rang, the lady at the bar looked at Du Pré. She pointed at the pay phone on the wall by the front door. Du Pré walked over to it, picked it up.

“Papa,” said Maria, “are you all right?”

“I just pissed off,” said Du Pré. “All these people butting in business isn’t any of theirs. Anyway, you don’t have to go and talk to that damn Bucky Dassault or any of the rest of that crap. But you not to get caught again, you hear? I don’t think it a bad thing that kids drink beer, long as they don’t drive around. But now you got a bunch of bad people paid by the government to mess with you, call it help, and that is a lot of trouble.”

“I know,” said Maria. “I get caught with beer again my papa gets sent to prison.” She laughed. So did Du Pré.

“I love you, Papa,” she said.

“Love you too,” said Du Pré. “Hey, I come and get you, we get Madelaine, we eat dinner here maybe.”

“I pick up Madelaine,” said Maria. Du Pré considered the fact that his daughter now had a car and a driver’s license, or anyway a car. Du Pré, shut up, he told himself.

“OK,” said Du Pré.

I know I don’t do this father job so good, so I wish you luck, Maria.

“When you get this car?” said Du Pré.

“I love you, Papa,” said Maria, hanging up.

Maria came to the bar alone. Madelaine was feeding her kids, she would come when they were cared for.

“Where’d you get the car?” said Du Pré, trying.

“Let’s dance,” said Maria. She put money in the jukebox.

“I
T HAS TO BE THE
Headless Man,” said the Sheriff, “the report says the teeth have fillings in them and appear weathered.”

“Very interesting,” said Du Pré. “I got back to inspecting cattle right now. I got five shipments here, four there, I am a very busy brand inspector.” All yours, Jack.

“Where’d they bury the Headless Man, anyway?” asked the Sheriff.

“I don’t know,” said Du Pré. “Potter’s field, maybe.”

“Never heard of it,” said the Sheriff.

“It’s back of the old Mission church in Toussaint,” said Du Pré. “Where all the drunks freeze to death their families too poor to bury buried.”

“Why there?”

“What?”

“Why behind the Catholic church?”

“The poor people around here are mostly Catholic,” said Du Pré.

“Are you Metisse?”

Du Pré nodded.

“Well, what are they? Indians?”

This son of a bitch here since ’75 and he don’t know what Métis are, Du Pré thought. “Red River breeds, they come down here after the Rebellion in 1886, some come before, this was the old buffalo hunting grounds. Come down in their Red River carts, get winter meat. The Métis were Cree and French, little English maybe. You know all them stories about the voyageurs? Métis.”

“What rebellion?” said the Sheriff. “I thought the Red River was in Texas or something. John Wayne did a movie, yeah.”

Du Pré had seen it, pretty good movie.

“Red River of the North,” said Du Pré, “flows to Hudson Bay. See, I think the Missouri only flow like it does now since the last glaciers, ten thousand years or so. It used to flow into the Red River of the North.”

“Red River Rebellion?”

So Du Pré told him about poor crazy Louis Riel, the saint, who led the rebellion and the English hung him. About little Gabriel Dumont, Riel’s general, who would have destroyed the British troops but Jesus told Riel not to let Gabriel do it. The priests betrayed Riel to the English, Dumont tried to rescue Riel, bring him down to Montana. So for all his days thereafter Gabriel Dumont never once again spoke to priests.

 So the Métis come here. Big families, couple horses, little blankets, a kettle, a wooden plow, a hoe, an ax.

“We still here,” said Du Pré. “Still poor, still Catholic.”

He left the Sheriff, drove off to his first inspection, small one, but he wanted to take his time. He didn’t exactly think that the rancher was a thief, but he didn’t exactly think that he wasn’t, either.

He found them ready, a couple of stock haulers waiting. They ran the cattle by him, the brands looked OK, except for two might have been worked over a little.

“My youngest sort of screwed them up,” said the rancher. “Had to touch up these two later … ”

The story sounded OK, didn’t sound OK, maybe, maybe not, was it worth skinning the steers, seeing what the original brand was. Du Pré subtracted the added scars, couldn’t come up with a brand he knew.

Du Pré nodded. Not enough right now, but if someone came up missing a few head he’d be on this guy. He was half on him now. But you can’t say “Judge, I have this feeling … ”

“OK,” said Du Pré, “everything’s in order.”

Or maybe the kid did screw them up, I’m just out of order.

The rancher tucked a chew in his lip.

“Du Pré,” said the rancher, “seen in the Tribune about you finding that plane wreck and the rest of the Headless Man. Said you thought that the killer would be found pretty soon.”

Du Pré nodded. That asshole reporter, don’t get the quotes right that he likes, he makes them up.

“How’s the investigation going? Any suspects?”

Television. What did those new shows call bad guys? Perps?

Jesus.

“I didn’t say that,” said Du Pré. “I don’t know what the Sheriff is doing.” Neither does the Sheriff.

“Oh.”

“I look at cow asses,” said Du Pré. “They just didn’t have anybody to send so I went. I don’t know much.”

“Oh.”

“Well,” said Du Pré, “I got to go.”

“Want some coffee?”

“No, I got another shipment, I got to run.”

Du Pré drove away.

Perps.

Shit.

The next three shipments were all out of the same corrals, small lots of fifty or a hundred head. And a banker waiting to take the checks from the cattle buyer. Guy in lizardskin boots. Some banker.

The ranchers were going under, for sure, all working as long-haul truckers, just raising a few cows because that’s what they’d always done. The brands were all good, Du Pré had known these people all his life.

He drove off to the last loading, some ten miles away. One of the bigger outfits, out-of-state money, probably a tax dodge.

Du Pré nodded at the foreman. He’d busted the man once. Before the man lost the ranch he tried one year to slip forty head of someone else’s cattle past Du Pré. Well, it is pretty easy to spot bright new scar tissue, hardly had the scabs off, hard to sketch in a forged brand with a running iron and get the size right.

The man did a little time without complaint, and was always courteous to Du Pré.

Du Pré hadn’t liked busting the guy. Now some assholes the government paid to lose money on cattle had the man’s place. Including the little graveyard where his folks were buried.

The foreman lost the place, lost his money, worked for someone else on his family’s land. Made that one try, he’d have done better to rob a bank, maybe.

The cattle marched past. Du Pré had to look hard at only one brand, had a bad tear across it, probably the animal fell onto a sharp rock or something. Just a rip across the brand, I know that’s OK.

“Thanks, Du Pré,” said the foreman, when Du Pré signed off.