Coyote Wind (11 page)

A red velvet sash with black beads.

Moccasins with turquoise and yellow and red and black beadwork. Nez Percé that.

A little round Red River hat, soft black felt, with a beaded band and a hard narrow brim.

A bright turquoise silk scarf.

“My my,” said Du Pré. “This is too fine stuff for me.”

“We made the stuff from what we could see in that old picture of your great-grandfather,” said Jacqueline. “Maria found them dyes, in a book, no one living we know knows them.”

“So, you happy?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré’s throat choked up. Such good people, his women. All this must have taken many hours.

He lifted the vest, looked at the tiny careful stitchings.

“My, my,” he said, slipping it on, fit perfectly over his old stained blue work shirt.

“Papa,” said Maria, “you put it all on, not one thing at a time.”

Du Pré dressed in the bedroom, all the finery. He looked at himself in the big mirror, the dark skin, straight black Indian hair, black mustache. A Métis man, got a fiddle and a pipe.

“We take this fine-looking man to the fiddling contest,” said Madelaine. She beamed at Du Pré.

I got me some beautiful women, I’m very lucky.

They all piled into Du Pré’s old cruiser, went off to the old Toussaint Bar. It had another name many years ago but someone didn’t like it and blew the sign off with a shotgun one very-drunk-out Saturday night. So it was the Toussaint Bar, no sign.

Du Pré was embarrassed when he walked through the door, he hoped he wouldn’t have to shove anybody’s teeth down his throat for insulting the beautiful handiwork of his women.

People whistled. A couple old grandmothers came to him and one got right down on the floor to look at the fine beaded moccasins. The other fingered the sash.

They rattled at Madelaine in Coyote French, waved their hands and beamed, their store-bought teeth too blue-white.

The fiddle contest began, and Du Pré blew everybody’s hats in the creek. He pinned the blue ribbon to his Red River hat. He looked down at his moccasins, up at his women. He beamed.

He played a tune about the sounds the axles of the carts made when the people came down here to hunt the buffalo, make winter meat, do the hard dirty bloody work, sing while they did it. Get everybody set for that long cold Northern winter. Black ravens on white earth. Wolves howling in the river bottoms. The men wandering far on their long woodland snowshoes, Cree snowshoes, get those furs, buy calico and guns, kettles and rum, beads and medicine, brass tacks for the rifle stocks, salt and tea, dried fruit, maybe coffee.

“Good, Du Pré” cried the grandmothers, swaying. Red River.

T
HANKSGIVING.
D
U
P
RÉ AND
the priest went to fetch Benetsee. Back at Du Pré’s house, three women, one kitchen. Jesus.

Du Pré parked out on the road by Benetsee’s shack, saw the dirty white plume of the smoke from his fire, felt the acid bite of it in his nostrils, on his tongue.

Du Pré and the priest trudged to Benetsee’s door, Du Pré tapped twice, turned the latch, let go when the old man swung the door open. A warm fetor poured out, stale food, stale wine, old man, tobacco, wet dogs. The two old dogs, heelers, left over from Benetsee’s days in a sheep wagon, tending the woollies. They were nearly blind and so stiff they rocked from side to side when they walked. Wheezy woofs. Honor satisfied, they staggered back to bed beside the stove.

“Good day,” said Benetsee. The old man was sober, clear-eyed, had combed his shock of white hair, black eyes glittered in his brown face. He’d dressed up, old necktie even, gravy stains and greasy spots. Mostly clean shirt. He shrugged into an old army greatcoat, picked up a bundle of brain-tanned deerhide.

“Good you come for me,” he said, “long walk.”

 Du Pré looked out into the yard, two old trucks up on blocks, under the snow.

They walked to the car, the clumsy priest nearly fell.

Way things going, thought Du Pré, everybody have to stay at my house. I got plenty of blankets, lots of floors.

Nice soft floors, though.

“How have you been, Benetsee,” said the priest. “I think of you often.”

Benetsee thought for a moment. “Old,” he said, “I been old.”

They all laughed, got in Du Pré’s car.

Sush sush sush
went the tires in the deep snow. County plows wouldn’t be out for a while, maybe not till tomorrow. Du Pré remembered riding in them with Catfoot, his father cursing and shifting gears. The trucks were old, Catfoot slammed them into drifted snow so hard sometimes the trucks slowed and stopped, went sideways.

Then the wind would put the snow back.

Catfoot got called out on bad nights, he had a couple old trucks and plows, not too much good, but anything helped when the blizzards came. Catfoot, the little rancher, brand inspector, roadman for the county, combiner of grain, good hand at poker. Did everything. Had to.

Du Pré shifted in his seat. His ass itched.

“Your women very kind,” said Benetsee. “I don’t hear from my sons and daughters any more.”

Too much trouble to them, thought Du Pré, that’s very sad. He thought more. Too much trouble to me, thinking about the deer hanging in Benetsee’s meathouse with Du Pré’s tag on its leg.

Old fart. Good old man, knows things.

Du Pré turned into the drive to his house. The snow and wind had erased his tracks. Raymond’s pickup was there now, he’d been out fixing someone’s plumbing. Hardworking man.

They struggled through the snow to the house. Du Pré walked behind, ready to grab the clumsy priest or the old man, but they made it to the door all right. The priest sort of fell into the house.

The house was hot and steamy from all the people sweating, the cooking, the old Peerless woodstove hot and covered in dishes.

Much laughter, whiskey and lemon and cinnamon. Father Van Den Heuvel and Benetsee had large glasses.

“Du Pré, said Benetsee, “you play fiddle, huh?”

“We got a half hour till we need you to carve,” said Madelaine, “so you play the fiddle, I quiet these savages down.” She looked at all the small children running, squirming, squealing.

Du Pré got his fiddle, tightened up the bow, tuned. He began to play, nothing in particular, make his fingers fly, they were a little cold. Du Pré played “Baptiste’s Lament.”

Benetsee pulled a willow flute from his coat, stuck it in the corner of his mouth, Métis way, so your pipe fit in the other.

The fiddle and the willow.

River bottoms, the wagons full of meat, new babies in the bellies of the women. The wind was from the north and smelled of snow. White owls scudded through storms. Coyotes sang, hunted rabbits in teams, the rabbits ran in circles. One lap, fresh coyote.

The old chansons.

Du Pré felt for a moment that he was floating through the roof and looking down. An orange county road truck bashed through the snow, little Gabriel laughing in excitement while Catfoot shifted the gears and cursed in Coyote French, some bad English.

 Catfoot, he did everything, like a good Métis man.

He even mined for gold, had an ancient little dragline, pull up thirty feet of the old gravels, from the bed of the old Missouri, when it had flowed north to Hudson Bay. The gold was heavy, it sank to bedrock, right there on the bones of the earth, the gold was. Where the river couldn’t dig any deeper.

Tens of thousands of years ago, maybe millions, when the Missouri flowed north and east, till the high white glaciers crept down and bulldozed berms to send it to the Gulf of Mexico.

But before that the strong brown waters roiled north. Red River.

D
U
P
RÉ CAME BACK
late, from having taken Madelaine and her kids home. The house was still hot and steaming. The women and Father Van Den Heuvel had washed every dish, wiped every surface. The house still throbbed from all the people.

Maria was running the vacuum over the worn old Sears, Roebuck carpet. She had a kerchief around her head, to soak up the sweat. Du Pré threw open the front and back doors. He turned the thermostat down. The windows had been sealed off for the winter, translucent plastic stapled to the frames.

Maria mopped at her throat with a paper towel. She went to the back door and stood in the cold, hands on her hips and her head back.

“Some fine Thanksgiving,” she said, head turned to Du Pré. “Some fine fiddle, some fine Papa.”

“Some fine daughter.”

They held each other.

“I’m going to be a doctor,” said Maria. Du Pré nodded. Last week she was going to business school, start her own company, make something, she hadn’t said what.

Du Pré hugged her.

“Benetsee was very sweet,” said Maria, “and the Father say a nice grace, remember all the people who are gone, couldn’t be here.”

Du Pré nodded. He had taken a heaping plate outside, left it on a fencepost for hungry ghosts, any passing by.

The clean cold air felt good. Du Pré looked up, the air from the house was rising out the doors, turning to frosty fog.

“Would it be all right with you I don’t have any kids?” said Maria. “I don’t think I’ll have time, myself.”

“You do what you want,” said Du Pré. “Jacqueline tell me she just have litters every other year from now on, we’re covered.”

“Papa!” Laughter.

The house was getting cold. Du Pré shut the doors, turned the furnace back on.

“That old picture album,” said Du Pré, “one got Grandpapa’s picture in it, you know where it is?”

Maria nodded.

Du Pré had put it away when Catfoot and Maman had been killed. Hurt too much to look at it, Catfoot in his soldier’s uniform, Maman in her wedding dress.

Aunty Pauline in her fringed leather dress, standing on a horse that was running very fast. The leather dress was very short. Aunty Pauline had long slender legs, long slender fingers, blond hair, big dark brown eyes, big tits.

 Maria shuffled around in the closet a little and brought the book of photographs out. Red leather, black smudges on it, the leather had dried out and cracked a little.

Du Pré opened it. His father’s soldier medals were pinned inside the front cover. Nothing big time, Good Conduct Medal, the African Campaign Medal, Italian Campaign Medal. Expert Rifleman’s badge. Honorable discharge paper folded and stapled to the cover.

Catfoot’s high school graduation picture, breed face, white teeth, on the lawn in his silly gown with his beaming Papa and Mama. Catfoot as soldier boy, hat looked too big on him, he barely made the height for the army.

Catfoot and his bride, Heloise, big smiles, fun night ahead. Catfoot and his bride and the priest, Father Leblanc.

Little Gabriel Du Pré, maybe two, fat little knees in short pants. Aunty Pauline behind, big smile, lots of dark lipstick, good-looking woman, holding little Gabriel, squirming.

She used to take me up on her horse, I’d sit between her and the saddlehorn while she made that damn horse fly. Hold on to the horn so hard I don’t doubt there are little fingernail marks in the leather. Still got the saddle, maybe I should check.

Aunty Pauline in a white dress, so short it could have been a bathing suit, hair flying, hat on a string dancing behind her, a lariat looping above her, held in one hand, fringed glove on it.

Some fine-looking woman.

Aunty Pauline trick roping. Aunty Pauline in a line of pretty girls, Calgary Stampede, some of those girls no better than they should be, like Aunty Pauline.

Like my mother say that, go
tch tch tch
.

Aunty Pauline, three husbands, probably a few more by now.

“What you lookin’ for there, Papa?” asked Maria. “I think I know something I don’t want to,” said Du Pré. Maria shook her head, went off. Du Pré whistled, few bars from a portage song. Carry them big heavy packs of pelts, maybe carry two. Soon, he would have to follow his blood north. Red River.

B
ART
F
ASCELLI CAME BACK
, and he called. Please come. Du Pré drove out to the ranch. There was a big new double-wide trailer next to the well house. A new four-wheel-drive pickup, lot of lights on top of the cab. Dude wagon.

Bart Fascelli had aged ten years, and he trembled sometimes.

“First couple weeks I had bugs crawling underneath my skin,” he said. He broke into a cold, greasy sweat, shivered.

“You all right to be out here alone,” asked Du Pré. This man was sick, maybe have convulsions or something.

But Bart’s eyes were clear and hard, whatever it was he wasn’t afraid of it, death, too.

“Hospitals are very boring,” said Bart. “I have been a piece of shit all my life. The dogfucker doctors told me I might die, but I don’t care. I’m going to work hard, eat good. I can’t sleep at night at all. Can’t sleep period. I had a favor to ask of you, maybe you pass it around. Please don’t come by if you have any booze on you or in you. Thing I want to do most in all the world is get drunk and sleep. I feel like hell. If I drank I’d feel a lot better. I could eat, I could sleep, I could be right back where I was, go through this shit again. I don’t want to. I don’t know if I can do this. But I’ll try.”

Du Pré nodded. “What about Booger Tom?” he said. “Old Booger Tom, he drinks some.”

“I told him just please stay in his cabin if he’s drinking. I am afraid right now to even smell the stuff.”

Du Pré sipped his coffee. Bart Fascelli was drinking bottled mineral water. A lot of it. He seemed to be thirsty down to his soul.

Du Pré looked at the corner of the little living room. A prie-dieu, nice one, old, walnut, with a Bible open on it, couple votive candles. Good. Bart, here, calling on all his friends, help me.

Du Pré had seen a couple people the of the booze, livers gone, lot of pain at the end, painkillers didn’t work, the liver couldn’t send them into the bloodstream or something. Cirrhosis.

Bugs crawling under his skin. Jesus. Du Pré had had the roots of his hair hurt plenty times, sure enough, but nothing close to that.

“You know Father Van Den Heuvel?” said Du Pré.