Bitter Creek (11 page)

Chapter 21

DU PRÉ AND THE REST
of the party were standing by the SUVs having some snacks and drinks when two tan government pickup trucks came over the hill and down the track toward them. “Ah, shit,” said Du Pré.

The lead truck stopped and a woman got out of the passenger side, young, dressed in a tan-and-brown uniform. She had a pistol on her hip and a badge.

“Gotta stop what you're doin',” she said, “right now, and turn over anything you may have found. …”

“It's private land,” said Patchen, “and we have permission.”

“It is leased by Mister Pardoe,” said the woman, “but owned by the people of the United States. It seems you are conducting an archaeological dig without the proper permits. …”

Three other people got out of the pickups, but only the woman was armed.

“You leave now,” she said, “after handing in whatever you might have taken, I'll let it go. Don't leave, you are in violation of the law and there will be consequences.”

“This is bullshit,” yelled Alcide. “Our people, they were murdered here and we will find them. …”

The young woman flinched. “It's the law,” she said. “There are many interested parties wanting to dig on public lands. Indian tribes, the EPA, private organizations …”

Alcide stalked off to where he had been digging and he began to stab at the earth with his screwdriver. Du Pré went after him.

“
Non
,” he said. “We got to go. We come back, but we got to go now.”

Alcide looked up. He was crying.

The few .30-40 shells they had found had been put in a small soft cooler. Du Pré took it to the young woman. She looked in. “This is it?” she said. Du Pré nodded.

“You do not have to leave,” she said. “You have every right to be here. You simply cannot dig for artifacts here. Understood?”

She got back in the pickup and both the trucks left, with the shells. The soft cooler had been set on the ground.

Jackson Pardoe's white pickup truck wound slowly down the track and stopped. Pardoe got out, shaking his head.

“Somebody must have called them,” he said. “It wasn't me. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“We go now,” he said. “But there is a ver' important story here. Some people will not want it told.”

“I wish I had never heard of it,” said Pardoe.

He got in his truck and he drove back up the track.

Everyone else got in the SUVs and followed.

“I did not give them everything,” said Alcide, holding two cartridges out for Du Pré. He was in the backseat with Madelaine and little Gabriel.

Du Pré laughed.

“It is not a gun I know,” said Alcide, “U.S. .30-40.”

“Thirty-forty Krag,” said Du Pré. “It is a lever action gun like the little thirty-thirty you used for the deer last fall.”

“Soldiers carried those?” said Alcide. “Don't shoot very straight, lever action.”

Du Pré laughed.

He came up over the hill and down the winding road cut deep in the hillside, got to a more level place and went on. The stones jutted up, sometimes a foot. The going was very slow.

At the top of the next rise, they could see the green gate that opened onto the county road. Pardoe's white pickup was there and another, a newer one with double rear tires, steel gray.

When Du Pré got to the gate, Pardoe swung it open. The gray truck was gone. Du Pré pulled over and he stopped and got out. The other SUVs came out and turned east. Du Pré waved them on.

“Macatee was the one who called the Bureau of Land Management,” said Pardoe. “He was bragging on it to me. Said he was gonna tangle this up in a whole lot of knots. Called somebody named, so help me, Medicine Eagle. …”

“Bucky Medicine Eagle?” said Du Pré. “That asshole? Last I know he is selling vision quests, guaranteed, fifteen hundred bucks. …”

Pardoe nodded. “Sounds about right,” he said. “Used to be you leased land from the BLM they didn't give a shit what you did to it; now they come round, check the grass, see if there's a mine there shouldn't be, count the black-assholed prairie rats. Indians are fed up with having their people dug up and carted away as specimens, and I can't blame 'em. I made a big mistake, Du Pré, I got m'self born a hundred years too late.”

Pardoe took a small cigar from his breast pocket, bit the end off, lit it. “You may never get to find what you are lookin' for,” he said. “There are lots of people here don't want it found. My son-in-law for one. He's got a lawyer on it. Government's in on it.”

“These things,” said Du Pré, “they are in the way, but not for very long. …”

“I have a couple things you might be interested in,” said Pardoe. “Other people will be pretty soon, too, and it might be better you just took 'em now.” He walked to his pickup truck and he looked carefully round at the land.

He took a worn brown leather case from the footwell on the passenger side. It was about the size of a pastry box. He handed it to Du Pré. “This would need to go someplace safe after you look at it,” he said, “and that ain't here. I didn't give it to you. …”

“I see to it,” said Du Pré.

Pardoe turned, and he looked levelly at Du Pré. “Good luck,” he said. He walked to his truck and got in.

Du Pré held the case against his body, walked to the SUV, got in. He handed the case to Madelaine. She looked at it.

“Him,” she said, “he maybe is killed over this.”

Du Pré looked at her.

“I don't know why I said that,” said Madelaine. “Others went to the roadhouse. We get something to eat, go on home. Bart is calling that lawyer, that Foote. …”

Du Pré laughed.

… this will not take long, Bart will own it …

They drove along in silence for a long time. Then they crested the hill and saw the roadhouse, white in the green of the cottonwood trees.

The other SUVs were parked in front, and a few pickups. Du Pré pulled in and parked and they got out and went in. The kids and Bart and Pidgeon were at two big tables pulled together, covered in plates pretty well picked clean.

“I never see you drive that slow, Du Pré,” said Madelaine.

Bart got up and he paid the bill. The kids went outside.

Pidgeon was looking furious.

Bart came back to the table and she got up. As they passed Du Pré, he looked at her, raising an eyebrow.

“You'll see,” she said. “We're going.”

Du Pré and Madelaine and Alcide and little Gabriel sat down at a table.

There were menus in a holder next to the salt and pepper.

The dark-haired woman, Lily, Du Pré had spoken to about playing at the roadhouse came out of the kitchen, pulling an order pad from her apron.

“Lots of business,” she said, smiling and looking sad at the same time.

Du Pré looked at a table off in a corner where it was fairly dark. The man who had hit him was there. He would not look in Du Pré's direction.

They ordered their food. Lily looked at Du Pré, smiled sadly. “We decided to not have live music here,” she said. “Too rowdy for us. I'm sure you understand.”

Du Pré nodded.

“I'll get your CD for you,” she said. She headed back toward the kitchen.

Du Pré went to the bar.

The blond woman came out of the back, smiling.

She was wearing dark glasses.

“Drink?” she said.

“Ditch, a glass of red wine,” said Du Pré.

When she bent to fill the tall glass with ice Du Pré could see the bruise around her left eye.

… that son of a bitch …

Du Pré took the drinks back to the table. Lily brought sodas for Alcide and Gabriel. And she brought the burgers and fries.

They ate and Du Pré paid. Lily handed him the CD he had left.

“I'm sorry,” she said, smiling.

Madelaine and the kids had gone outside.

Du Pré walked to the man who had hit him in Toussaint. “We will be back,” he said. “Soon.”

The man gripped the table so hard his knuckles showed white.

“Do not hit your wife again,” said Du Pré, and he walked out. He got through the front door, and perhaps ten feet on, when he heard Macatee crash through.

And then Jackson Pardoe was there, with a gun.

“You cowardly son of a bitch,” said Pardoe, pointing the pistol at Macatee's head.

Macatee went white.

Du Pré moved up to them quickly.

“Pardoe,” he said, “
non
. You would not like Deer Lodge Prison. …” And he reached for the gun and pulled it slowly from Pardoe's hand.

“Not like this,” said Du Pré. He whirled, his right foot shot out and Macatee yelped, his left knee dead, and he began to fall. Du Pré punched him in the throat, and the big man folded up choking for breath.

“Like that,” said Du Pré. “Now take this and go home.” He handed Pardoe his gun.

Pardoe nodded and walked toward his truck.

Chapter 22

THE HEARING WAS TO BEGIN
in ten minutes. Du Pré and Bart were outside the Federal Building in Helena, and Du Pré was smoking a last cigarette.

A Cadillac stopped down at the no-parking strip at the bottom of the steps.

A man wearing fringed and beaded clothes and moccasins got out. He took an eagle-feather headdress from the backseat. He put it on. The Cadillac pulled away.

The man in the costume came up the steps, slowly, the moccasins sliding on the dust.

He was very intent on his footwork, and he got quite close to Bart and Du Pré.

“Bucky!” said Du Pré. “How is that child molesting that you do?”

The man moved away, headed for the doors.

“I take it,” said Bart, “that is Mister Medicine Eagle.”

“Him,” said Du Pré.

“We better go on in,” said Bart, looking at his watch. Du Pré tossed his butt down on the steps. A tendril of blue smoke curled up from it. He followed Bart into the building.

The hearing room was on the second floor, and it had about forty people in it.

Du Pré looked round.

Macatee was there.

A few white people stood around Bucky, mostly young and looking very lost.

Three rumpled fellows in tweed and beards. Experts brought in for testimony.

“They are pretty good about these things,” said Bart, “being on time I mean. …”

The time passed, and another five minutes. The tweedbags looked at one another and their watches.

“It worked,” said Bart. “If the usual folks had filed out of that door, I would be worried. …”

Du Pré nodded.

The young lawyer who had come to run him away from Bitter Creek came out of the door. She was wearing a suit and heels. She put a folder down on the podium and she opened it and she cleared her throat.

“The Bureau of Land Management has concluded,” she said, peering very intently at the podium's stand, “that it has no jurisdiction in this matter and that the area in dispute is privately owned. …” She shut the folder and she almost ran for the door. She went through it and it had closed before any murmuring began.

“Jesus Christ!” yelled Bonner Macatee. “This is …” And he stopped and he looked round.

Du Pré nodded and smiled.

Bonner Macatee got very red.

Bucky and his disciples looked stunned. All dressed for a protest and nothing to be ill-mannered about.

Du Pré laughed.

“Poor Bucky,” said Du Pré, “gonna protest moving sacred bones without paying him to burn sweetgrass and chant. …”

“OK,” said Bart, “that is that. We have more pressing problems. But I did arrange for a security team to go in the moment this was done. …”

“It is nice, being rich,” said Du Pré.

“Not always,” said Bart.

They went out a side entrance to a parking garage and found Du Pré's old cruiser.

They got in and Du Pré backed out and went down the ramps. He paid at the gate, an old man taking his money and giving him a receipt.

Du Pré found the expressway north. He sped up to the limit and kept it there. He passed four highway patrol cars in the next forty miles. They were on the on-ramps, just waiting.

The cell phone in Bart's briefcase trilled and he fished it out and opened it.

“Oh, fine,” he said, “thank you.”

He listened a moment.

“That will be fine,” he said, “though you could have gone ahead without checking with me. …”

He listened some more and then he laughed.

“He's right here,” said Bart. “Just a moment. …”

He handed Du Pré the phone. Du Pré put it to his ear. “I take it things went satisfactorily,” said Charles Foote, Bart's utterly ferocious lawyer.

“Yah,” said Du Pré, “I don't suppose you tell me how you did that.”

“In negotiations,” said Foote, “one may offer something the other party wants a great deal, or …”

“Something they don't want,” said Du Pré.

“Uh, yes,” said Foote.

“Which was … ?” said Du Pré.

“Well,” said Foote, “it would be a violation of the agreements reached for me to be specific, but let me merely say that there was once an administration that managed to obtain office by illegal means, and that there was a reason the voters did not want them in the first place. We have had, of course, criminals in every administration, and people who were not very bright. What was perfectly astounding about these people is that they were
all
stupid and they uniformly thought nothing of breaking the law. Perhaps they were too limited to grasp the laws. One must be kind. In any case, it is currently felt there are a few things that would best be left unsaid. Permanently. And to that end …” Foote became silent.

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

“Not that government lawyers are in any way trustworthy,” said Foote, “so you may expect difficulties. I don't know what they will do, but they do tend to do things so imbecilic no one with any brains could possibly expect it.”

“OK,” said Du Pré. “You coming out to hunt?”

“Birds,” said Foote. “I have not forgotten the business with the deer. If there are a few birds to shoot, I will come in the fall. …”

“OK,” said Du Pré.

“Do call if you need me,” said Foote. “I expect that you will.”

“Here is Bart,” said Du Pré. He could see red lights flashing up the road. It took three or four minutes to come to the big eighteen-wheeler overturned in the center barrow pit.

The cab of the tractor was crushed and medics were holding something up.

A bag of fluid.

Bart mumbled something and he shut the phone back up.

“I don't even want to know,” he said. He glanced over at the wreckage. “Poor bastard.”

Du Pré passed the cop waving the flashlight and then he speeded up.

“I suppose,” said Bart, “we can just go to the site. …”

“Yah,” said Du Pré.

“We can have the security people there as long as you want them,” said Bart.

“Jacqueline will not let her kids go back there,” said Du Pré. “She is worried, too dangerous. …”

“She might be right,” said Bart.

“People are very angry,” said Du Pré.

“That they are,” said Bart. “I'm angry. I am angry that over thirty people guilty of being poor were murdered in my country in 1910 and no one did anything about it. …”

“Yah,” said Du Pré. They rode on in silence.

The sun slanted down toward the western horizon; it was nearing the solstice, and there were hours of light left.

Du Pré turned east on a two-lane road and he speeded up, back in his element.

They passed a cattle hauler, but that was the only traffic on the road.

Bart began to snore, slumped against the door.

… Elizabeth Pardoe, schoolteacher, husband, help little Amalie, get her to Canada … two men come looking for the child, men who were the killers of her people, they don't want a witness … couple years later, Pardoes they go to where the Métis were killed … cannot find the graves … the bodies have been moved someplace …

… she teaches school … he runs the ranch …

… no one says anything, no one ever says anything … Elizabeth Pardoe paints, watercolors, paints the country … paints one place over and over … little canyon, little creek, small cabin …

Du Pré rolled a smoke and he lit it. When the blue fog wafted to Bart's nostrils, he sneezed and he sat up straight.

“Whew,” he said, “I really zonked out. …”

Du Pré drove on.

“Well,” said Bart, “at least we can start digging in earnest. I got some help from a private firm. They did work in Yugoslavia, gathering evidence for war crimes trials. …”

“Send them home,” said Du Pré. Bart looked at him. “The bones will not be there,” said Du Pré.