Bitter Creek (7 page)

Chapter 13

“BENNY SAID THEY WERE
definitely looking for you,” said Susan Klein. “Amalie's granddaughter had one of your CDs with your handsome face right on it. ‘That's him,' she said.”

Du Pré nodded, and he drank the last of his ditchwater highball. Susan made him another.

“So,” she said, “what they're mad about is this: a hundred-and-two-year-old woman made it across our well-protected border. The Canadians, though not pleased, are delighted that Homeland Security of the good old U S of A looks like the jackasses they are. They're making noises about the awful abduction of one of their citizens, an ancient woman at that, but one doubts their hearts are in it.”

Du Pré nodded.

“So what're you gonna do?” said Susan.

Du Pré shrugged.

“I've known you a long time,” said Susan, “and you've got a bad temper, Du Pré, so as a friend, I ask you don't kill no more of them than you absolutely have to. …”

“
Any
more of them,” said Du Pré. “You used, teach school, you know.”

“I'm trying to forget,” said Susan.

“Amalie Montagne, she is here because she wants, be here,” said Du Pré. “Long time gone, many Métis were killed, she was there, she wants justice, she wants them to sleep. …”

Susan looked at him.

“1910,” said Du Pré. “Somewhere out there, thirty-two people are buried.”

“Madelaine told me,” said Susan, “and I know the old lady wants to do right. Thing is, these bozos who are looking for you now, they work for our government, which, since that Patriot Act was passed, throws people in jail and forgets about them. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“Which I would hate to see happen to you,” said Susan.

Du Pré shrugged.

“I don't think so,” he said.

The television screen above the bar showed burning vehicles and shouting people, bodies covered in sheets, a man weeping as he stood near one of them.

“It's a good thing that bat-eared nitwit wasn't president when Pearl Harbor happened,” said Susan. “He'd have invaded
China
.
…”

The door opened and little Colette came in, the youngest of Raymond and Jaqueline's brood.

She smiled as she walked across the floor. She climbed up on a stool. “I am here, protect you, Granpère,” she said.

“Good,” said Du Pré, “I won't worry then. …”

“Us kids love Amalie,” said Colette, “these people, want, take her away. …”

“Yes,” said Du Pré.

“But they will not,” said Colette.

Susan Klein put a glass of pop in front of Colette. The little girl sipped some, and she ate a couple of peanuts.

The door opened and four beefy men came in, all in slacks and open-necked shirts and blue windbreakers, government issue. One of them looked at a CD in his hand, nodded, and nodded to his companions.

“Gabriel Du Pré,” he said, “we have some questions for you. …” They moved in a pack, the sort of men who have to do that.

“We have information …” the oldest of them said, “And. …”

The front door banged open so loudly everyone flinched.

FBI Special Agent Samantha Pidgeon walked in, wearing a dark blue suit, sensible shoes, white blouse, ID on a chain around her neck, and her business Glock 9 mm.

“Well,” she said, smiling, “what have we here? Nice jackets. Got some fucking ID?”

The men looked baffled.

“ID,” said Pidgeon. “It's usually plastic cards got your picture on 'em and other information.”

The men drew out wallets, opened them.

Pidgeon looked at them all. “Don't suppose,” she said, “you have a good excuse for being here at all. What's the deal, fellas? Du Pré is a poor half-breed so you can dispense with the rest?”

The oldest of the Homeland Security men was trying to say something, but his mouth would not work.

“See this?” said Susan Klein, pointing to a sign on the counter:

we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone we don't like much.

“You have now been asked to leave,” said Pidgeon. “Absent a signed warrant, that means you leave. …”

The Homeland Security men looked at each other.

“Get out of my bar, assholes,” said Susan Klein, schoolteacher, retired.

“You smell that?” said little Colette. “Something is burning.” Something was burning.

There was a sharp stink of burning rubber and plastic.

“Out,” said Pidgeon.

The men began to edge toward the door. One of them peered through the window.

“Jesus,” he said, “the car's on fire!” They ran out.

Two tan SUVs with the Homeland Security logo on the doors were parked across the street. The one on the left was burning. The one on the right, which was pulled up close, was not.

A man pulled keys from his pocket and he pressed the control for the automatic locks. He jumped into the driver's seat. He shoved the key into the ignition.

He looked at it, puzzled.

He tried again.

The burning SUV was burning harder.

“Get out of there, Sid,” one of the men yelled. “Gas tank may go on the other one. …”

The man leaped out, leaving the door open.

The first SUV was flaming, fabric and foam, weather stripping, burnable materials in the engine compartment smoking and stinking. Flashing lights came down the street.

The volunteer fire department's one truck, a large one, whined up and men in rubber coats and steel hats jumped off and pulled out hoses. They stood, one lifted a hand to the driver, and water pumped into the flat canvas tubes. Hard streams shot out of the nozzles. Billows of stinking steam rose off the burning SUV. The fire was out in a very short time.

“You know,” said Pidgeon, “I was you, I'd leave while I still had something to drive. …”

The Homeland Security men edged to the SUV. The man who had tried to start it peered at the ignition. He pulled something out of it. He put in the key, turned it, and the engine caught immediately. Du Pré glanced over at the empty lot next to the saloon.

Eight kids stood there, all Jacqueline's.

All eight had red kerchiefs wrapped round their heads. All eight had guns.

Colette had a shotgun somewhat taller than she was.

“Christ,” said Du Pré.

Pidgeon looked over at the local militia. She began to laugh.

Du Pré strode across the packed gravel. “You!” he said. “You put those guns down.” The kids looked at him.

Du Pré looked at the Homeland Security forces, who were backing away from the burning steaming SUV.

“It is bullshit, Granpère,” said Alcide. “You know, Gabriel Dumont, he has the English where he wants them, kill them all, Louis Riel him say no. So the English get away and they hang Louis Riel.”

“I'll hang you all if you don't put those damned guns down,” said Du Pré.

“He is mad,” said Armand. “Talking white, he is mad.”

“They are getting away,” said Nepthele.

“I shoot maybe a tire?” said Hervé. “Give them fighting chance?”

The Homeland Security SUV roared past, the men staring at the Toussaint militia.

Most of the children gave them the finger.

“Shit,” said Alcide, “they are cowards, will not fight.”

Du Pré looked at the brood of his grandchildren.

“You little shits,” he said, “you get, my car. Keys are in. You put those guns, the trunk. …”

“Some granpère,” said little Gabriel. “We ready to die, save you, all you do is bitch. …”

“Saving me, not starting a war,” said Du Pré.

“They come back, there will be more of them,” said Hervé. “More targets.”

“Your mother skin you all,” said Du Pré.

At the mention of Jacqueline's name, the troops be­came subdued.

Jaqueline's big van roared up.

She opened the door, and she glared at the Toussaint militia.

“What is this crap?” she said.

“Granpère,” said Hervé. “Maybe they come take him, Amalie away.”

“Into the van, now,” said Jacqueline.

The troops laid down their arms after unloading them. No loaded guns in houses or cars.

The children sat in the van, very quietly.

Jacqueline turned to Du Pré.

“I start to laugh I am lost,” she said. She was biting her lower lip.

Bart came out from behind the propane tank that sat next to the saloon.

He had a big video camera in his hand.

“You get it, honey?” said Pidgeon.

Bart nodded.

“That's a good thing,” said Pidgeon.

“Who set the car on fire?” said Du Pré.

“It was already burning when I started filming,” said Bart.

Du Pré nodded.

Alcide gave him the victory sign as the van pulled away.

Chapter 14

THE HELICOPTER DROPPED DOWN
to two hundred feet above the land and well below the tops of the buttes to the north.

The pilot went lower, and he followed the bed of a creek that wound across the dry wind-cut land. There were some willows bunched here and there, but the creek did not run all year, so they grew where water gathered beneath the earth.

Amalie was in the front seat, staring intently at the square butte to the north.

She had her rosary in her hand, and she was moving her lips.

The pilot hovered above a dished meadow sunk down below the surrounding flat. Thick willows nearly hid the streambed.

Amalie looked at the butte again.

Du Pré pointed east by north and the pilot nodded and he moved slowly along the course of the ghost river. The deep cut it had made in the land went on toward Canada in that direction.

It was midmorning and there had been clouds to the east, but the sun now rose above them and the square butte almost glowed as the light hit the bands of color, buff and gray, pale red and pale green. Amalie sat forward in her seat. She pointed at the butte.

Du Pré tapped the pilot on the shoulder and he stuck his thumb up. The pilot nodded and the helicopter began to rise and then it turned and headed west.

A few minutes later, the helicopter began to descend toward two big green SUVs.

Bart and Madelaine were standing by them. Pidgeon was up near the big circular field where the helicopter would land.

The pilot cut the engines entirely as soon as he had set down and they waited until the blades slowed and stopped. Then Du Pré got out and he waited while the pilot unlocked the passenger door and he opened that and helped little Amalie down.

“That is the place I am sure,” she said. “I prayed and I am sure.”

Chappie and Patchen got out of one of the SUVs, Patchen with a rolled map in his hand.

“How did you figure this was the place?” he said, looking at Du Pré.

“It is the only trail they would have taken,” said Du Pré. “They would not want to cross the mountains to the south. From Moccasin Flat, Helena, it goes north and then east of the Bear Paw Mountains, then on to Canada. All the old trails are buffalo trails. …”

“Amalie,” said Madelaine, “if you are tired, we can fly back to Toussaint, it would be ver' easy.”

“I wait, long time for this,” said Amalie. “I am not tired.”

Du Pré waved his arms over his head. The pilot nodded and he started the engine and the rotors began to spin and soon he lifted up.

“It's BLM land,” said Patchen. “Could be leased, but the way the beef industry has been doing, I doubt it. That is pretty desolate country.”

Du Pré nodded.

They got in the SUVs and began driving east on the rutted track that went up and over a huge hill before dropping down to the ghost creek. It rose in the badlands and it sank out of sight in them, too.

“That is the butte,” said Amalie. “I am not sure until the sun is on it and then I am sure.”

Her voice was strong.

The going was very slow, and it took more than three hours to wind and bump and lurch up and over the last rise before the odd pocket meadow hidden in the earth.

They drove for a time up the watercourse, where a flash flood once or twice in a century might run. A huge boulder finally blocked the channel and the sides of the creek bed were too high for the SUVs to climb.

Everybody got out but Amalie.

She was weeping.

Chappie and Patchen got metal detectors out of the back of their SUV. They climbed around the boulder and up a game trail that led to the meadow and the thick stand of willows rooted in an underground pond.

Rocks stuck up between bunches of grass.

Chappie and Patchen put on the earphones that were wired to the sensors in the metal detectors.

They started to walk a grid. Du Pré rolled a smoke.

He lit it and he looked at the butte.

He looked at the ground.

He walked past Chappie and he went to the end of the willows and he looked back, waved, and walked on.

The creek bed narrowed and cut deeper. Du Pré looked for tracks, old tracks.

He walked up a short rise. There was a wind-carved set of pale rocks; the creek had sunk beneath the land.

… they have carts they don't come through here for sure …

Du Pré knelt and he looked at the tracks of deer and a bobcat. Mice.

Du Pré walked toward the huge butte. He climbed up a couple hundred feet and he looked out at the land to the east.

He shook his head and climbed down. He walked back to the place where Chappie and Patchen had been using the metal detectors. They weren't there. He went on and found them standing by the two SUVs.

Du Pré went up to Chappie and Patchen. “It was not through here, they come,” he said.

“How can you be sure?” said Patchen.

“Bad land,” said Du Pré. “You are using horses, ride, pull carts, they have to have grass. Métis would have gone a trail had grass. …”

“She was so sure,” said Patchen.

“Not a diddle on these,” said Chappie, nodding at the metal detectors.

“Last time I had one of these on,” said Patchen, “I was learning how to find land mines.”

Du Pré looked at the sun. “Maybe other side, the butte,” he said.

Patchen unrolled the geodetic survey map. “No way to get there,” he said, “unless we go all the way back to the road. There's a ranch marked on this. She was sure it was to the north of where they were?”

“Long time gone,” said Du Pré. “She remembers things, maybe not quite right. …”

“We have to keep trying,” said Chappie.

“I talk her,” said Du Pré. He went to the SUV that Amalie sat in. He opened the door and bent his head close.

“Amalie,” he said, “there are many buttes, Montana, I don't think this, the one. You remember, horses graze while you are traveling?”

Amalie nodded. “Men cut grass for them, cut those big bunches with long knives,” she said. “I remember that.”

Du Pré nodded. “We have done enough, today,” he said. “We go on back now. Get some rest, try someplace else tomorrow”

Amalie began to cry.

“Do not cry,” said Du Pré. “It is long time gone. We find the place; it is just not easy.”

“I remember the butte,” she said. “It looks like that.”

“We find other buttes,” said Du Pré. “We keep looking.”

“I am sorry,” she said.

“
Non
,” he said. “It was … ninety-five years ago … you are young, we just look more.”

“Worthless old woman,” she said.

“Stop,” he said.

“I am sorry,” she said.

“Montana is a big place,” said Du Pré.

He shut the door.

Patchen and Chappie were stowing their gear.

They all gathered in between the two SUVs.

“It is not here,” said Du Pré. “This is a bad piece, land, there was no trail here.”

“Could there have been back then?” said Pidgeon.

Du Pré shook his head. “Might be other side, the butte,” he said.

“Time we get back to Toussaint it will be well past supper,” said Bart. “I should have had the helicopter wait. Awful hard on Amalie.”

“Well,” said Pidgeon, “'nother day, 'nother try.”

They all got in the SUVs and they traveled back to the road and drove north for an hour on a two-lane blacktop to the Hi-Line, and then they headed east.

When they got back to Toussaint, Amalie was sound asleep. Du Pré carried her into Jacqueline's.

The old woman did not wake.

He went out and got in the big green SUV and drove back to the saloon.

The rest of the search party was there, waiting for him.

“We'll find it,” said Bart, holding up a glass of club soda.

They drank, and Susan Klein began to bring out food.

“I made you cheeseburgers, fries,” said Madelaine, coming out with an impossibly large load of platters balanced on her arms.

“It was not going to be easy,” said Patchen. “It would have been very strange if the first place we went was the right one. …”

It was dark when Du Pré and Madelaine got to her house. The coyotes began to sing the hunting song. The music went on for five or so minutes and then ended.

There had been a death in the land when the song stopped.