Bitter Creek (4 page)

Chapter 7

DU PRÉ AND SUZETTE STOOD
outside the front door of the old folks' home. Du Pré rolled a smoke, glanced at Suzette, who was looking at it hungrily. He lit it and gave it to her, made another for himself. “Good tobacco,” said Suzette. “How is that old bastard Godin?”

“Old bastard,” said Du Pré. “Plays pret' good squeezebox though.”

“Him, do lot damage,” said Suzette. “I meet couple other women, they say they got a kid of his, he has over a hundred. …”

“Two,” said Du Pré. “Over two hundred.”

“Over two hundred?” said Suzette. “I don' feel so bad then. He is like the weather or rivers, just is, no stopping. …”

… old bastard got something … Du Pré thought … how old is this Amalie, born 1903, must be hundred two, older even …

“You are her granddaughter?” said Du Pré.

“Yes,” said Suzette, “Amalie have my mother she is fifty almost, my mother is some surprise you bet. …”

“She ever talk, you, about Bitter Creek?” said Du Pré.

“Not much,” said Suzette. “She hear a fiddle sometime, she look away, eyes wet. Her papa plays the fiddle. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“She was ver' young,” said Suzette. “Us Métis, got a lot of stories like that you know. …”

Du Pré nodded. “I find those people, bring them home.”

“Tell Amalie that,” said Suzette. “She is old, might die. …”

Du Pré nodded. “I go talk to her more.”

“Give me another smoke maybe,” said Suzette. “I let you alone a time.” Du Pré rolled two for her, handed them over, fished a book of matches out of his jacket. It was a cold day, clouds in the west, heavy and black with rain.

Du Pré walked back down the hallway, through the door of Amalie's room. The old woman was awake, looking out the window and very far away. Du Pré sat down. “Wheelchair in that closet there,” said Amalie. “I want to go outside.”

Du Pré went to the closet, found the folding wheelchair, a sturdy one, steel and nylon. Amalie fished around in the drawer in the little table by the window, and she took out a small purse and a rosary. “Shawl on the hanger,” she said.

Du Pré found the shawl. The old woman had very few clothes. Amalie looked round the room, her face set. Du Pré unfolded the wheelchair.

The old woman stood up, turned, sat down. She put her feet on the little platforms. She nodded to Du Pré. He bent over, his ear next to her lips. “I go with you, show you where,” she said. “I am here long enough. I dream, my brother, he is coughing in the dark, I go and find him, give him rest you see. …”

Du Pré drew in his breath.

“What we do, you are taking me, a ride, you drop Suzette off. She talks too much. Give her a little money, she will go and play cards. …” Du Pré laughed. Métis gamble, all of them.

“I tell these people I be back day after tomorrow, Suzette don't got to know I said that. Little case in the bathroom, you get that.” Du Pré found it. It had medicines and a comb and brush. “I go back to acting little tired, simple now,” said Amalie. “That Suzette, talk too much. …”

Du Pré wheeled Amalie down the hall to the front desk. “Amalie!” said the woman. “You are leaving us?”

“
Non
,” said the old woman, “I go for today, tomorrow, be back day after. …”

“Where will you be?” said the woman, tapping on her computer.

“Suzette's, she is my granddaughter,” said Amalie.

“Just saw her … so … OK,” said the woman. “We have all the information. Do you have your medications?”

Du Pré put the little case on the desk. The woman looked at them and the computer screen. “Have a good time!” she said.

Du Pré wheeled Amalie out the door. Suzette gave a start. “This nice man take us for a ride,” said Amalie.

“OK,” said Suzette, looking worried.

“You don't have to go,” said Amalie. “I give you this twenty dollars you go and play some, your friends. …”

Suzette's face changed. It merely looked greedy. Amalie handed her a neatly folded bill and Suzette put it in her pocket.

Du Pré put Amalie in the front seat and the wheelchair in the trunk of the car. Suzette got in the backseat.

“Tell you what,” said Amalie. “We drop you off, you want to go where?”

Suzette directed Du Pré to a café in the center of town. She got out in a hurry.

“Him take me back,” said Amalie. “You not worry.”

Suzette kissed her grandmother on her cheek.

Then she almost ran into the café.

“Stupid woman,” said Amalie. “OK, Du Pré.”

Du Pré laughed silently.

“Me, I will have trouble getting us over the border,” he said.

“Métis having trouble getting over the border,” said Amalie. “You are some sorry Métis you want me, believe that.”

“It is different now,” said Du Pré. “They want, passports.”

“I want, smoke,” said Amalie.

“Christ,” said Du Pré.

An hour later he stopped at a self-serve station that was very large, and he parked out as far away from the cashier as he could.

Amalie kept down.

Du Pré got food from a fish and chips place a hundred miles farther on.

When they were halfway across Saskatchewan, Du Pré pulled over and he got out some whiskey he had bought the day before from a Canadian government outlet.

“You want, some of this?” he said.

“Sip,” said Amalie.

Du Pré found her a paper cup. She put her nose in the cup and she drew a deep breath.

“1920s, we smuggle this over the border, my husband, he take horses, each horse carry eight cases booze,” said Amalie.

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

Du Pré came to the crossroads he had been looking for and turned south. Fifty miles on he turned west again on a two-lane blacktop, so narrow it had no place to pull off if you had a flat.

Du Pré crept across the border with the lights off, moving through a town that had only one light on and no police or border patrol cars waiting.

“Same way you come into Canada?” said Amalie.

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

He waited until he was a hundred yards past the clutch of buildings before turning on his lights and speeding up.

They got to Toussaint at eight in the morning, and Du Pré pulled up to Madelaine's house.

He went round to the passenger door and opened it for Amalie. She stood up straight. She walked easily.

“You don't want the wheelchair?” said Du Pré.

“Sell it,” said Amalie. “Ver' expensive them.”

Madelaine was in the backyard digging in her flower beds. “Du Pré,” she said, looking up. She had a smear of earth on one cheek.

“I have brought her,” said Du Pré.

Madelaine got up swiftly. “Amalie?” she said.

Du Pré nodded.

Madelaine almost ran to the back steps; she brushed past Du Pré. Du Pré laughed, stepped down, went to the picnic table, had a smoke. He rubbed the back of his neck.

… not much sleep, two days …

He could hear the rapid rattle of Coyote French in the kitchen. “You are back,” said Chappie, who had come on the path that went through the pasture and across the little creek.

“Yes,” said Du Pré.

“You find the old woman?” said Chappie.

Du Pré nodded.

“Me, I would have liked to see her, hear her,” said Chappie. Du Pré pointed to the back door of Madelaine's house.

“Jesus,” said Chappie, “you bring her here?”

“Yes,” said Du Pré.

Chappie sat down on the bench beside Du Pré. “She is … all right?” said Chappie.

“She is ver' fine,” said Du Pré.

“My God,” said Chappie.

A kingfisher flew down the creek.
Skraaaaak!
it said.

Chapter 8

DU PRÉ SHUT THE DOOR
of the old cruiser and he went round to the driver's side and he got in.

Amalie sat in the passenger seat; she could barely see over the dashboard.

“We go, your daughter's?” she said.

“Him got two,” said Madelaine from the rear seat. “Jacqueline has twelve kids, Maria don't got none yet, she is teaching in England.”

“Twelve kids,” said Amalie. “I have five, none of them worth much, I don't pick ver' good men. …”

She looked at Du Pré.

“Not my idea,” said Madelaine.

The two women laughed.

“Ver' funny,” said Du Pré.

He drove out to the house he had been born in that now held Raymond and Jacqueline and their children, all but Pallas, who was in school in the East.

Du Pré parked near the front door. The house was set back from the road, a simple frame house painted white with blue shutters and a long addition in the back for the children's rooms.

Du Pré opened both doors for the women, helped Amalie out. She was still spry, and she went up the steps to Jacqueline who held out both of her hands.

Eleven of her kids were standing in the living room, hands clasped.

Jacqueline escorted Amalie to the dining room and sat her on a tall chair so she could eat easily from the table. The children filed in and sat.

“Raymond is working in Wyoming,” she said. “Building towers for radios. …”

Amalie nodded.

“You want some wine, Granmaman?” said Jacqueline.

Amalie nodded.

She looked at the children.

“Ver' frightening,” said Du Pré. “I will run now.”

Everyone laughed.

“How old are you?” said Hervé, who was eight.

“Hundred and two,” said Amalie, “and mean.”

Madelaine and Jacqueline and Lourdes and Du Pré started carrying roasts of beef and elk, mounds of new potatoes, vegetables, pitchers of water and tea from the kitchen.

Jaqueline poured wine for Amalie and Madelaine.

“Don't worry,” said Hervé when his mother shook her head at him, “we are making our own. …”

“Good stuff on the Internet,” said Lourdes, “make wine out of just about anything.”

“Dandelions,” said Amalie, “make good wine from white grapes and dandelions, pineapple juice and dandelions work good too. …”

They talked and they ate, and then the children took the dirty dishes off and began to wash them.

Hervé came back with a bottle of pale pink liquid. He opened the screwtop of the spring water bottle, and he gravely poured Amalie four fingers in her glass. She sipped it. Hervé waited.

“You make this yourself?” she said.

Hervé nodded.

“Ver' good,” said Amalie.

“Where you are doing this?” said Jacqueline, tapping her fingernails on the table.

“Snitches die horrible deaths,” said a loud voice from the kitchen. “They are cut up and fed to dogs and skunks,” said another.

“I cannot say,” said Hervé. “You understand, Mama?”

“Uh-huh,” said Jacqueline. Hervé scampered off with his jug of homemade wine. Amalie looked at Jacqueline. She passed her the glass. Jacqueline sipped it. “Wild plums,” she said. “It is good.”

“You will stay with us,” said Lourdes. “We have your room ready.”

“Ver' nice,” said Amalie, “but I don't want, bother you.”

Lourdes drew up a chair. She pulled close to Amalie. “We cry you don't stay,” she said. “You come and see your room now. We work hard for you.”

“They did,” said Jacqueline. “They never know their grandmamas, were dead before they are born. …”

“I don' know,” said Amalie. “There are so many of you, I never learn all your names.”

“It is all right,” said Lourdes. “Him, Du Pré, Grandpapa, he don't know all of them either. Had plenty of time, practice, too.” They all laughed. “Come, we show you,” said Lourdes. She led Amalie away.

“This is part,” said Du Pré, “where I run, you know.” He got up.

“You are going Benetsee?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré nodded. He went out to his cruiser and he got Amalie's little case and her shawl and he brought them back. Jacqueline took them. “We got plenty clothes,” she said. “Anyway, we go and buy her whatever she needs. …”

Du Pré nodded.

He drove back to Toussaint and he went into the saloon. Susan Klein was there and her husband, Benny, the sheriff.

“Doo Pray,” said Benny, “you are a wanted man.”

Du Pré looked at him.

Benny pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Some old woman named Amalie Montagne, last seen in your company,” said Benny.

“Shit,” said Du Pré.

“Some dinky town in Manitoba. I think what happened is somebody lied, you know, sayin' you kidnapped her. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“So I was wonderin' just what to do about it,” said Benny.

Du Pré thought a moment. “Say you arrested me, beat me, rubber hoses, no sign of Amalie Montagne …” said Du Pré.

“It's true I ain't seen no sign of Amalie Montagne,” said Benny. “Who is she?”

Du Pré slid up on a stool. Susan made him a ditch. “Old woman,” he said. “In 1910 she is with her people, they are running to Canada, time Pershing round up the Métis who are poor, ship them boxcars to North Dakota, January, everybody but her is killed. …”

Benny looked sick. “Who done that?” he said.

“Don't know yet,” said Du Pré.

“Where?” said Benny.

“Don't know yet,” said Du Pré.

“Why were they killed?” said Benny.

Du Pré sighed. “Don't know. Old woman says she ate beef, they were hungry, killed couple cows. …” he said.

“Mother of God,” said Benny. “In 1910?”

Du Pré nodded.

“How many?” said Benny.

“Thirty, few more,” said Du Pré.

Susan Klein looked at Du Pré and at her husband.

“Where is she?” said Susan.

“Jacqueline's,” said Du Pré. “Kids want her, for granmaman.”

“OK,” said Benny, “I'll tell them folks there ain't no sign of her and far as I know you ain't been in Canada. …”

“But you were,” said Susan, “they have records at the border crossings. They will have taken down your license plate.”

“Not there,” said Du Pré.

“Good,” said Benny. “Then how'd they know it? They got it on this here fax dingus.”

“Her granddaughter, maybe the old folks' home …” said Du Pré.

“But you didn't cross where they seen you?” said Benny.

Du Pré shook his head.

“Homeland Security,” said Benny.

“Not so good, them,” said Du Pré.

“What happens when they find out she's here?” said Benny.

Du Pré shrugged.

“Hasn't happened yet, Benny,” said Susan Klein.

“You gonna find out who murdered those people?” said Benny.

Du Pré nodded.

“Amalie ain't here then till we got to admit it,” said Benny.

Du Pré nodded.

“Those murderers are all dead,” said Benny. “Got to be.”

Du Pré finished his ditchwater highball.

“She is not,” he said.

“We oughta take that car of yours back over the border and torch the sucker, tell them it was stolen,” said Benny.

Du Pré looked at him. Benny looked at Susan Klein.

“Benny,” said Susan, “I married you because you are so smart. …”

“Oh, Christ,” said Benny, “fuck me runnin'. …”

“After you get back,” said Susan. “And that's a promise. …”