Bitter Creek (18 page)

Chapter 35

“YOU ARE SURE YOU CAN
drive all that way?” said Du Pré.

He and La Salle were standing by the SUV, which was running. It had turned cold and the SUV's heater was roaring.

“Yes sir,” said Chappie.

Eleanor sat in the passenger seat.

“Thank you,” she said.

Du Pré nodded.

“You'll be safe there,” said La Salle.

“What about you two?” said Eleanor.

La Salle looked at Du Pré.

“There are some people,” said La Salle, “who live through just about anything. Du Pré and me, well. …”

Du Pré rapped on the door, and Chappie nodded and pulled away.

There were no lights from cars, nothing.

“We stay at the camp?” said La Salle.

Du Pré shook his head.

“We follow them,” he said. “The camp has no one in it. …”

They got in the other SUV. Du Pré reached into his bag, pulled out one of the two Sig Sauer combat pistols he carried in it, and two extra magazines.

“Mine's in my bag,” said La Salle.

Du Pré started the SUV. They caught up to Chappie's in a few minutes. Du Pré hung back a half mile.

“Not that many ways to get to Toussaint,” said Du Pré.

“We could fly,” said La Salle. “Of course, it is hard to do much in my little kite. …”

They laughed.

“So,” said La Salle, “I lost track of you after your tour was up. I know I gave you the standard pitch about the army as a good way of life. …”

“Food was terrible,” said Du Pré.

“Hours, too,” said La Salle.

“I come back, go home, get married, wife, she die when the girls are ver' young …” said Du Pré.

“I'm sorry,” said La Salle.

“I wanted to smash God's face in,” said Du Pré, “but I had my little girls. Then I meet Madelaine, we have been together many years. …”

He rolled a cigarette. La Salle took out a small cigar. They put the windows down.

It was cold and smelled of rain.

“Both of my sons are in Iraq,” said La Salle, “and so far, so good. I retired after telling the congressional committee that it would take a million men and twenty years to refashion Iraq—if it could be done, and it could not. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“That didn't help my sons' careers,” said La Salle, “and both are going to resign their commissions as soon as they are rotated home. Won't leave their men. This bunch of morons is destroying the entire military structure. …”

“They are that bad?” said Du Pré.

“That bad,” said La Salle.

They crested a hill and saw Chappie's taillights. He tapped the brakes and the lights flashed a little. “Spotted us,” said La Salle. “Good man.”

They rode in silence the rest of the way to Toussaint. La Salle slept a little.

Du Pré drove out to Bart's ranch and he took La Salle to the guest cabin next to Booger Tom's.

Eustace the water buffalo was lying in the flower bed out in front of Booger Tom's cabin. He was chewing his cud.

La Salle nodded, yawned.

“I am about your size,” said Du Pré. “I will get clean clothes for you, put them in the door here. …”

He went to the cabin he used when he was at the ranch, got the clothing, took it back to La Salle. Who was already snoring.

Du Pré showered and fell into bed.

Du Pré woke to the sound of Booger Tom cussing.

“My goddamned
posies
, you cud-chewin' bastard!” the old cowboy yelled. “Git yer fat ass up and out of there. …”

Du Pré made coffee, listened to Booger Tom and Eustace.

By the time he took a cup outside, they were gone. Booger Tom was on a horse, Eustace trotting along behind. They were headed toward a big pasture full of the other water buffalo.

La Salle came out of the other cabin. Du Pré fetched him a cup of coffee. Pidgeon came out of the main house.

“Breakfast!” she said. Du Pré waved.

“My God,” said La Salle, “that is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. …”

“Yes,” said Du Pré. “She is married to Bart, owns this ranch, no one knows why, and we all hate him.”

“I understand,” said La Salle.

“We get Bart, his heavy equipment,” said Du Pré, “maybe Father Van Den Heuvel. He is a priest but also geologist. …”

“Sounds good,” said La Salle. They carried their coffee to the main house. Du Pré opened the door and they went in. Pidgeon was setting plates on the table.

“This is General La Salle,” said Du Pré.

“Jack La Salle,” said La Salle, “no longer a general. Thank God.”

Pidgeon smiled.

Bart came in, a little shaving foam stuck to his neck; Pidgeon reached out and wiped it away, turned to the sink, the water ran.

“La Salle,” said La Salle, holding out his hand. Bart shook it.

Pidgeon dished up eggs and ham and home fries. They ate, talked of nothing much.

Afterward, La Salle and Bart went outside and Du Pré helped clean up.

“General Jack La Salle?” said Pidgeon. “Guy's got more medals than a good pawnshop and he earned every one of them. How you know him?”

“This Bitter Creek,” said Du Pré, “reaches many places. …”

Pidgeon nodded. “So what's next?” she said.

“The bones are in an old mine, I think,” said Du Pré. “Been blasted so we need heavy equipment, move the rock. …”

Pidgeon nodded.

“Good,” she said. “Bart needs something to do. I have to go east and he can't come this time. …”

“OK,” said Du Pré, “you say hello, that Harvey. …”

“Will do,” said Pidgeon. “Thing about having a profession in law enforcement is all the fun. …”

She wiped her hands and went off, whistling. Du Pré went outside.

La Salle and Bart had a pair of binoculars. La Salle had them to his eyes.

“He hazes him to the gate and then the bastard dodges him,” said La Salle.

Bart looked at Du Pré. “Booger Tom's half-ton house pet,” said Bart. “Old fart's gonna die of a stroke. …”

La Salle offered the binoculars to Du Pré. Du Pré put them to his eyes, found Booger Tom.

The old cowboy was riding his horse back and forth, trying to haze Eustace in with the other water buffalo. Eustace would dance this way and that, dodge back out at the last minute. The other water buffalo had come to watch and were enjoying all this very much.

“We need your heavy equipment,” said Du Pré to Bart, handing the binoculars back to La Salle.

“Bitter Creek?” said Bart.

“Yah,” said Du Pré. “I'll call Coff and have him come,” said Bart. “We need Little Bill, too?”

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

“He got away,” said La Salle. “Now that water buffalo is headed this way and all the others have broken out.”

Booger Tom was standing up in the stirrups, waving his hat and yelling, but too far away to hear, not that they needed to.

“All the years that old bastard tormented me,” said Bart, “and now I get mine. … So we gonna stay in the camp?”

Du Pré nodded. “Set it up by the mine,” he said.

Bart went off, punching numbers into his cell phone.

Chapter 36

RUDABAUGH PULLED OFF
the county road at a wire gate. He lifted the loop off the post and set the gate off to the side, and then he drove on.

Bart turned off the road with the heavy tractor hauling his giant backhoe and he eased it through the opening, then drove on after Rudabaugh's SUV.

The rest followed: a huge bulldozer, the tractor-trailer with the dragline, and five other vehicles.

Du Pré and La Salle were last.

La Salle jumped out and he put the gate back up.

They drove on.

The road was fair and snaked through the low hills, coming up to the old mine from the southwest.

Rudabaugh stopped in a huge flat, a playa lake now dry and grassy.

… find old campfires where the shore was …, Du Pré thought, old bones and tools, stone points, bones cracked open for the marrow fat …

They set up camp, putting up the wall tents and the solar showers and the long trestle tables that were light enough for a man to lift with one hand, and strong enough for him to stand on.

Rudabaugh and La Salle and Du Pré and Bart walked on to the old mine, now hidden behind the mass of huge rocks.

Bart looked at the rubble. “Ugly,” he said.

“Whole danged business is ugly,” said Rudabaugh.

“Who owned that land we drove over?” said La Salle.

“Seattle land company,” said Rudabaugh, “but I just got a search warrant. Judge owes me more'n one favor.”

“What grounds?” said La Salle.

“Well,” said Rudabaugh, “I tol' him I had it on good authority Jimmy Hoffa was buried in that there mine. He told me go screw myself. I told him there could be evidence pertainin' to Lily Hoeft's case and he scribbled on the dotted line. …”

La Salle nodded.

“Be nice get this all settled,” said Rudabaugh. “Then folks here kin go back to shootin' each other while drunk, fightin' in the bars, and actin' like regular folks. Adultery, drunk drivin', you know …”

The men driving the huge tractor-trailer rigs backed and filled them into the end of the flat where they would be out of the way and easy to unload.

Rudabaugh looked round the land.

“Lotta blood here over time,” he said. “Makes me want to go fishin'. No hook on the line, just set there and watch the water flow. … Well, you seem set. Phone up you need anything, and I sincerely hope that you don't.”

He drove off, soon was just a plume of dust on the western horizon.

Chappie and Eleanor were setting up a big camp kitchen.

Du Pré and La Salle looked at each other, smiled, nodded, went on to Bart, who was watching Little Bill back the big backhoe off the trailer.

The huge machine lurched to the ground.

Bart heaved heavy chains into the bucket.

Little Bill waved and he drove off toward the old mine.

Bart followed with the bulldozer.

“So, Du Pré,” said La Salle, “you think that the bones of the Métis will be in that mine?”

Du Pré shrugged.

“Maybe,” he said. “No other place seems likely. I saw something when we were over there, the mine, come on. …”

They walked back.

Du Pré poked around in the sagebrush for a bit and then he bent and he picked up a hooked brown stick. He handed it to La Salle.

“Hayhook,” said Du Pré. “There were others at Bitter Creek. It is winter, I think they use those, hook a body, drag it. Easier than grabbing something, and no one likes touching dead people. …”

La Salle nodded.

“So we should soon know,” he said.

Du Pré spread his hands. “Don't know the mine,” he said. “It has a vertical shaft, we will have to pump it out. …”

“You really want this,” said La Salle.

“People die, I want to know why,” said Du Pré. “The Métis, Pardoe, Patchen …”

“The dead hand of history,” said La Salle, “can be a lethal thing. So we just wait. …”

Du Pré nodded.

He walked over to a watercourse, a deep cut worn by water thousands of years ago. He looked down.

The bank was caved in along the near side, had happened a long time ago.

Du Pré motioned to La Salle.

“What?” he said.

“This bank,” said Du Pré, “it is funny, all slumped in like this. All happen at once it looks like, but it is pret' long time. …”

The deepest part of the cut was below them, filled with fine sand and gravel. A couple of hundred feet farther on, the bank was sheer and the stones on the bottom large and visible.

They heard a car horn honking, turned.

Father Van Den Heuvel's decrepit sedan flew over the rocky flat. A tire blew. The car lurched and came on, slowed, but not in time.

The front wheels dropped over the edge of the bank.

Du Pré ran to it. The car was still trying to move but was high centered.

Father Van Den Heuvel was slumped over the wheel.

“Good God,” said La Salle.

Du Pré reached in and he turned off the ignition.

The priest moaned.

“He cannot be killed,” said Du Pré, “knocked unconscious, but he cannot be killed.”

They pulled the big man out of the car. He had a cut on his forehead that bled a lot.

Du Pré looked in the car, found some paper towels.

Father Van Den Heuvel sat up, holding the paper towel to his head.

“I hit the accelerator instead of the brake,” he said.

“Yes,” said Du Pré. He helped him to his feet.

“The sign, the radioactive warning, was real,” said Father Van Den Heuvel. “It took a lot of trouble to find that out. It wasn't classified, just lost. …”

“So,” said Du Pré.

Father Van Den Heuvel went to his car and he fished out his briefcase. He took out a handful of papers and he put them on the roof of the car. He unfolded them.

“This was a mine dug for copper,” he said, “but the ore was not there. At first there was a little. They went in about two hundred feet farther and then it got absolutely sterile, no copper at all. But it was a good solid shaft in good stone without a lot of drainage. So in 1947, the army put a whole lot of very nasty isotopes in there, but they had a short half-life, months or even weeks, and the place was abandoned, unguarded, in 1959. The stuff is still in there but mostly converted …”

“No vertical shaft,” said Du Pré.

“No,” said Father Van Den Heuvel.

“And they found no bodies in there?” said La Salle.

“No,” said the big priest. “This is the report that was made initially, and it says the place was clean. No rubble, nothing. The miners had even taken out the little rails they ran the ore carts on. …”

La Salle nodded.

“I feel dizzy,” said Father Van Den Heuvel.

Du Pré sat him down on the trunk lid of the car.

“Put your head down,” he said.

Father Van Den Heuvel did so.

He sat up straight again.

“But,” he said, “the contractor who prepared the site had a bad time keeping his workers here. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“They heard things,” said the big priest.

“And they would walk near the camp on hot days and it is cold,” said Du Pré.

“Yes,” said Father Van Den Heuvel.

“The guards didn't like it either,” said the priest. “Finally they had to put army soldiers here. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“And a lot of them went AWOL,” said the big priest.

He shook his head, rubbed his eyes. “So the bodies aren't here,” he said.

“Yes, they are,” said Du Pré.

Father Van Den Heuvel looked at him.

“They are under your car, there,” said Du Pré, pointing down.