Bitter Creek (8 page)

Chapter 15

DU PRÉ DROVE THE LEAD
SUV over the road, barely visible in the grass. A washout appeared and he carefully edged around it, getting out to check and see that no transmission-eating rocks were hidden in the vegetation.

The square butte was due north of them, perhaps ten miles away.

The road had not had any vehicle over it in many years. In places where it crossed shallow marshes thick with sedges, it was invisible; just the tracks coming up out of the dark green told Du Pré where it went.

They drove back and forth down a steep hill, the top-heavy SUVs leaning uncomfortably close to the angle of repose. They got down to the bottom of the hill.

The road went on across a sage flat, and there was a fence beyond.

A ghost creek ran out of the saddle between the square butte and another some miles to the east.

Du Pré saw some movement in the landscape.

A white pickup truck was bouncing down the saddle, and coming on pretty fast.

By the time that Du Pré got up to the place where the fence crossed the watercourse, the white pickup had pulled up.

A tall gray-haired man in a battered Stetson stood by the truck, smoking a cigarette.

Du Pré pulled over and he got out. The other SUV came up behind and stopped, and Chappie and Patchen emerged and began to walk to Du Pré.

“Good mornin',” said the rancher. “And how may I help you?”

“We are looking for an historical site,” said Patchen. “It might be a bit farther up toward the butte there.”

The rancher nodded.

“Going to have to ask you to stay off the property,” he said. “I have noticed that when a feller like me wakes up one mornin' and finds he's got a historical site or some critter like the black-assholed prairie rat on his land, he shortly don't have his land no more. I think I shot the last of them pesky black-assholed prairie rats this very morning.”

“Sorry you feel that way,” said Patchen.

“I am sorry I got to,” said the rancher. “Times is like that.”

“It is like that, yes,” said Du Pré. “I see this is BLM land on the map.”

“Bureau of Land Manglement,” said the rancher. “Me and mine been leasin' this since the Taylor Grazin' Act went through in '33.”

“Would you consider a payment for the privilege of looking?” said Patchen.

“Well, no,” said the rancher. “You see, it still leaves me with a problem. It ain't that I mind you lookin' for this here site, just if you actually found it, I would be up to my pecker in college professors and government historians. And I just don't like either one of them. …”

Patchen nodded.

“And that is final and I got work to do,” said the rancher. “I am sorry to have to be like this. Had a neighbor found this stone bone on his property and it was off some critter been dead about a billion years and stood about twelve stories tall and now he ain't there no more. Last thing he said to me as he headed out for good was ‘I shoulda left the danged stone bone in the ground but I got curious and wanted to know what it was off of. …'”

“I see,” said Patchen.

“So,” said the rancher, “I wish you well and the road is back that way. I fly over this often enough, saw ya headin' up and so I done drove over here to let you know how things is. I am as interested in history as the next fellow, but not if I got to lose my ranch over it. I ain't bright enough do anything else. …”

He touched his hat and got in his truck and he drove back up the long grade to the saddle between the buttes. Amalie was sitting in the first SUV. Her beads were running through her fingers. Du Pré got in.

“That rock over there,” she said, pointing to a reddish chimney sticking up only fifty feet or so from the prairie. Du Pré looked at her.

“Past that rock there is willows, down behind that hill,” she said. “I am so sorry; this is the place, I have been wrong.” Du Pré nodded.

“We can't go on his property,” said Du Pré, “until we can get some permission.”

Amalie threw up her hands. “I wish I could remember better,” she said.

Du Pré looked at the map. There was a depression past the rock, a large one that ran east and west. But it was well out of sight.

The sun had passed its zenith. It would take the rest of the daylight to get out of the land and back to Toussaint—and daylight went until ten p.m.

Amalie suddenly threw her car door open. She slipped to the ground and started walking toward the fence. Du Pré ran after her.

“It is there,” she wailed, pointing to the red rock. “My papa went up on that to look before we went around it. …”

“We have to do some things before we can go there,” said Du Pré. He led her back to the big SUV and helped her in.

When they got to the county road three hours later, Du Pré stopped because the SUV behind flashed its lights.

“There's a shortcut here,” said Patchen, pointing to the map. “Save forty, fifty miles. …” And he pointed to a gravel road clearly marked on his map. “And a roadhouse, post office,” he said, “called Pardoe.”

“OK,” said Du Pré. “Maybe they have food, we eat there.” Patchen pulled round Du Pré and drove off and Du Pré followed. They went west for a couple of miles and then the road turned north, running along an old river channel, a giant river from the age of ice, that now carried only the wind.

The road was well maintained and they made good time. The butte that might be the one in Amalie's memory passed by on the right, a huge thing, the north end of which tapered abruptly down to a jumble of massive rocks spalled off the cliff by ice and cold and time.

They came to a crossroads and Patchen stopped for a moment and then he turned right and speeded up. The road followed the contours of the land, heading east and north. At one point it became a narrow track between two jutting chimneys of rock, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other.

Beyond, they could see a broad flat basin, one that had some water, for there was a big grove of cottonwoods by the road ahead.

When they got to the cottonwoods, they found a roadhouse, a white frame building set back in the trees. The paint was new and white, and the shutters and window frames were forest green.

They got out of the SUVs and Du Pré helped little Amalie down and they went in.

It was not a large place, and just beyond the main room there was a window in the wall that had no glass in it and beyond that, rows of boxes for mail.

A young woman came out of the kitchen.

“Afternoon,” she said. “Evening, I guess, days are pretty long now.” She had black hair and very dark blue eyes and pale white skin. “I'm Lily and I own the place, for my sins. …” And she laughed.

“Are you serving food?” said Patchen.

“Yup,” said Lily. “Meeting here of the Stockman's Club, so I'm roasting some beef. Should be plenty, but not for half an hour or so. Prime rib and fixings for fifteen bucks. …”

They gave Lily drink orders and she filled them. As she left the bar headed for the kitchen she stopped. “We have a little museum past the post office there,” she said. “Just open the door on the left. It ain't big but we like it.” And she was gone. They heard her whistling in the kitchen.

Amalie walked to the little hallway that led to the restrooms, and she was gone for five or so minutes and then she came back.

“I am a little stiff,” she said. “Think I will go in the museum.” Du Pré got up with his drink and he followed her. He opened the heavy wooden door.

The room beyond was larger than the one that held the bar. There were some old guns on pegs, and some saddles on stands, and a buffalo head that had seen better days. Sunlight streamed in windows on three sides of the room. The fourth was the wall that separated the bar from the museum and the post office.

That wall was full of photographs above the wainscoting. Amalie looked at the saddles a moment, and she turned then and walked toward the wall of portraits.

Off to the left there was a round-framed portrait of a young blond woman in a high-necked lace blouse and an embroidered jacket. She looked at the camera coolly, as if she knew she was a lovely woman and that was the way things should be.

Amalie approached the portrait slowly.

She stopped four feet from it and she stared.

She moved closer.

“Du Pré. Du Pré,” she said.

Du Pré came over.

“It is her,” said Amalie. “It is the lady who bathed me, held me, the warm house after the cold. …”

Du Pré nodded. “You are sure?” he said.

“The brooch,” said Amalie. “She gave it to me but I would not take it. …”

An intaglio brooch, white on a dark background, was pinned above the woman's left breast.

“Her name was Elizabeth,” said Amalie.

“Elizabeth Pardoe,” said Lily, behind them, “and the gentleman there is Ellis Pardoe, her husband, and that one with the old gun is my great-grandfather, Hoeft—he hated Pardoe and Pardoe hated him, about like usual in those days, when two men wanted to own everything about them. …”

Long time gone, thought Du Pré, but not very …

Chapter 16

AMALIE WEPT.
Du Pré held her as she sobbed silently, her face buried in his shirt.
She collected herself in time, took a hanky from her pocket, blew her nose.

“I am all right, “she said. “I am sorry.”

They looked round at the photographs. Amalie pointed to one of a man of perhaps thirty, dressed in a suit with a vest and a derby hat. He had a cane with a big gold head.

“That is one of the men,” said Amalie. “I remember he put me in front of him on his horse when they took me over the Medicine Line to Canada, to some Métis, the Gardipees, them.”

Du Pré nodded.

“He smelled like lilacs,” she said. “I remember that.”

“If you want to eat,” said the young woman, “come on and do it. We may have more appetites than we got chairs and tables, and they usually get here a little before six. …”

Du Pré followed Amalie back out to the dining room. Chappie and Patchen were at a large table set for four. Du Pré pulled out Amalie's chair. She was so tiny she could barely see the tabletop. Du Pré found a child's seat at the side of the bar, one meant to be set on a chair. He brought it back and helped Amalie up on it.

“I am never very big,” she said, “but smaller now. …”

The young woman brought platters with slabs of prime rib on them, a bowl of mashed potatoes, butter and rolls, four salads, and a carafe of water. She set down another bowl of horseradish.

“Spuds are full of sour cream,” she said. “We like good clogged arteries hereabouts.” She bustled back to the kitchen.

Someone else was back there now, as well. There was talk and then laughter.

The four ate rapidly. The beef was excellent and so was the rest of the food.

Du Pré got up, took the check, went to the bar. Another woman came out of the kitchen, and Du Pré started.

She looked so like the woman in the photograph that Du Pré blinked. He gathered himself and handed the woman the check and a hundred-dollar bill. “It is all right, the change is about right for a tip,” said Du Pré. “But could you tell me who the woman in the photograph is who looks just like you?”

The blond woman smiled at him.

“Elizabeth Rhodes,” said the woman. “She came here to teach and she married Ellis Pardoe and we are still here. I am a Pardoe, or was till I married old Macatee.” She laughed, rich and pure.

“Thank you,” said Du Pré. “I maybe come back here, it is a nice museum. …”

Then the ranchers and their wives and children began to come in the roadhouse, and there were shouts and shufflings, kids squirmed and got loose and ran outside to play.

The gray-haired man Du Pré had talked to earlier across the fence came in, looked levelly at Du Pré.

“Hello again,” he said. “Mister Du Pré, we need to talk, outside and in back if you don't mind.”

Du Pré nodded. He followed the rancher out. The man walked to a shed and around behind it.

“For good reason,” he said, “I am going to sound discouraging for a while, not long. People here won't want this raked up, but it should be. One of them is a man named Bonner Macatee, who my daughter is divorcing. His family was part of this, as was that of the woman who owns the bar, the dark-haired one, Lily Hoeft Sandberg. Small place like this everybody is related to everybody else. But you keep going, you do that … and I should go. …” And he walked quickly away. He left a faint scent of rotten garlic, his eyes were red.

He is poisoned, Du Pré thought. What is this?

Chappie and Patchen and Amalie had already gone outside.

Du Pré joined them. They got in the SUVs. They were ready to head north toward the Hi-Line.

“That other woman look just like my Elizabeth,” said Amalie to Du Pré. “It cannot be her, for that woman is young. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“Maybe she knows something,” said Amalie.

Du Pré nodded. He sighed, then got out of the SUV. He waved to Chappie and Patchen.

“You take Amalie home,” he said. “I am staying, I think I had better.”

Chappie and Patchen nodded. “OK,” said Patchen. “What should I tell Madelaine?”

“Be back tomorrow,” said Du Pré. “I have a sleeping bag. …”

He helped Amalie from his SUV to theirs.

“It is her, I know it is her, him smell, lilacs,” said Amalie. She yawned. The food and the long day had exhausted her. They drove off.

Du Pré went back to his SUV and he fished some of his CDs out of his battered leather musette bag. He put them in the pocket of his shirt. He rolled a cigarette and smoked it, looking out across the little basin. It was good cattle country.

He went back into the roadhouse and he sat on one of the six stools at the tiny bar. The two women were very busy, and it was twenty minutes before the blond woman came over to him.

“A ditch,” said Du Pré, “double maybe.” She poured it and he put a five-dollar bill down. “I look in your museum more,” he added.

“Open till we close,” she said and went back into the kitchen.

The people in the roadhouse were happy; they joshed and they ate; they drank some but not very much. And then one by one or family by family they went back out. Du Pré stayed in the little museum for an hour, carefully looking at everything.

He went back out to get another drink, and there were only six or so people left in the big room. One of them was the gray-haired rancher.

He ignored Du Pré.

The young dark-haired bartender got caught up enough to draw herself a draft beer. Du Pré put one of his CDs on the bar.

“I would like to come here, play,” he said.

She picked it up.

“Oh, I've heard of you,” she said. “But we can't pay you much of anything. …”

Du Pré shrugged.

“We have open date two weeks Friday,” said Du Pré.

“Sure,” said the young woman. “We don't have much live music. We have a few people play bad rock music but they can't find the time to rehearse. …”

Du Pré laughed.

“See you then,” he said.

He went out. It was getting on to dusk, the light failing. The door opened and shut behind him.

“Why do I have the feeling,” said the gray-haired man, “that you ain't gonna go away till you find a black-assholed prairie rat?” He rocked a little, side to side; his balance was poor.

Du Pré turned. The rancher was smiling with his mouth but not with his eyes.

“You know why,” said Du Pré.

“No, sir, I do not,” said the gray-haired man.

Du Pré opened the door of the SUV. He found a box of wooden matches in the transom cabinet. He nodded to the gray-haired man. The man came close.

Du Pré set the box on the hood of the SUV, after sliding the cover off. He took out a match and he broke it and he put it down. Another. Another. Another.

Sixteen in all. He lifted them carefully one by one and and he put them in a row, six groups of five and two alone.

“Broken matches,” said the gray-haired man.

“I am going to go from here soon,” said Du Pré, “and then I will be back. I am Métis. I bring my band, I bring reporters, I bring the old woman. She was a little girl, her father throw her into the willows, she get away, the only one. …”

The gray-haired man looked at Du Pré and then away. “It was a long time ago and they are all dead,” he said. “The people who did that awful thing are all dead.”

“The blond woman, Mrs. Macatee,” said Du Pré, “she is your daughter.”

The gray-haired man nodded. “There are plenty of folks here would like to see … those matches … stay hid,” he said.

“They will not,” said Du Pré.

“I'm Jackson Pardoe,” the rancher said, “and you are that fiddler, Gabriel Du Pré.”

Du Pré nodded.

“So that was the little girl my great-grandfather and Elizabeth's brother saved,” said Pardoe.

Du Pré nodded.

“There were others, two Pardoes, who were there …” said Pardoe.

“Who helped with the massacre,” said Du Pré.

“It's been mostly forgotten,” said Pardoe. “Was till you showed up.”

“It is not forgotten,” said Du Pré.

“Some blamed the soldiers, black troopers,” said Pardoe. “But that never made any sense to me. …”

“No,” said Du Pré. “Lieutenant Albert … ?”

Pardoe nodded.

“In 1931 he came back here,” said Pardoe.

Du Pré rolled himself a smoke and he lit it.

“He shot himself down by the creek,” said Pardoe, “and I heard some of the others who were there met bad ends. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“I should have done something long ago,” said Pardoe. “I can't say knowing what I know helped me sleep.”

“We do something now,” said Du Pré.

Pardoe nodded, and he went back into the roadhouse.