Bitter Creek (9 page)

Chapter 17

DU PRÉ PULLED UP
to the Toussaint Saloon a little after eleven. He went in and found the place packed with people, most of them related to him. All Jacqueline and Raymond's children were there, looking lost, and Madelaine and Chappie and Patchen and Booger Tom and Bart and Pidgeon.

… she die, Du Pré thought. The old woman die …

He saw the big clumsy priest, Father Van Den Heuvel, sitting alone at a table near the wall. He had some papers in front of him. “She die?” Du Pré said to Madelaine. Madelaine nodded.

“We are driving back,” said Chappie, “she is tired, we put her on the backseat, blanket and pillow, and she is quiet. We don't even know when. She is alive when we leave the roadhouse and she is not when we get here. …”

“So she is at Cooper?” said Du Pré.

“No,” said Father Van Den Heuvel, “the coroner came here. He signed off. There was no reason for an autopsy, she was very old and she died of that. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“So,” said Booger Tom, “we was waitin' for you to wander back so we could get the coffin made.”

Du Pré leaned over and he kissed Madelaine on the cheek. “I be up, most of the night,” he said. “See you in the morning, or when I get done.”

Everyone got up.

Bart and Pidgeon and Du Pré and Booger Tom went out, and Du Pré and Booger Tom got in one big green SUV and Bart and Pidgeon in the other.

“Quite a gal,” said Booger Tom. “Guess she did what she had to stay alive to do. …”

Du Pré nodded.

He drove out to Bart's where he had his wood shop set up in a big metal building behind the machine shed.

Booger Tom yawned and headed for his cabin; Du Pré went to the wood shop, opened the door, turned on the lights.

He breathed deeply. There was a scent of wood, new lumber, which had been trees not long ago, a smell of oil and solvents. It was chilly in the building.

Du Pré started a fire in the big double-drum stove he had welded out of scraps and two oil barrels. The big steel assembly began to throw out heat at once. He went to a clipboard and he got a pencil and he drew some lines on the dusty paper, nodding as he made some notations to the side. The door opened and Du Pré turned.

Bart came in, carrying two big mugs that steamed. “Coffee?” he said.

“Thanks,” said Du Pré.

“And may I help?” said Bart.

“Sure,” said Du Pré. He went to the wood rack that held the pine boards and he began to pull them out and look at them, inspecting both sides, and then down the edges to see how straight they were. “I need ten of these at thirty inches and ten at thirty-six,” said Du Pré. “You cut them on the chopsaw maybe. …”

Bart lifted the stack of boards easily and he carried them over to a workbench that had a miter saw on it. He found a steel tape, made a mark on the platform that the saw set in, and began to cut.

Du Pré pulled out a sheet of plywood. He took a steel ruler and began to make marks and pencil lines on the wood. Then he took a circular saw and cut out the top and bottom, set them together, and planed and sanded the rough spots.

Bart brought the cut boards.

Du Pré went to a rack and he pulled out some bracings cut and beveled for a set joint. He took a gauge and set it to that and then he handed it to Bart.

“Give me those,” he said, pointing to the shorter boards. Bart handed them to him. Du Pré marked the ends for the bevel cuts. He did the same with the longer boards. Bart carried the boards back to the miter saw and he began cutting the ends so they would fit properly.

Du Pré took a nail gun out of its case, filled it with ringshanks, put the hose and gun and air compressor together, and he turned the power on. The compressor blatted for a few minutes and then shut off. He found glue and a staple gun and he filled that with staples.

Bart brought the boards back and he held pieces while Du Pré slathered glue on the joints and then nailed them off. The coffin went together piece by piece; sometimes they had to stop and shave and fit the wood.

Du Pré put the bracings at the joints, and he stapled them off. They now had a top and a bottom to the coffin. They set them together. They fit with a few places in need of sanding.

“You must make a lot of these,” said Bart.

Du Pré nodded. “Catfoot make them, he show me,” said Du Pré. “Amalie is ver' small, this is not much bigger than a coffin for a kid. …”

Bart nodded. He kept sanding, squinted at the place. Du Pré found some strips of wood, thin ones, and he stapled and glued them around the joint. He took a drill and a countersink set and he drilled holes for the screws that would hold the coffin lid and base together. He went to the miter saw and he trimmed the strips and he brought them back and stapled them on. Then he screwed on six brass handles, simple ones, plated steel.

Bart looked at his watch. “We have been at this for five hours,” he said. “How can that be?”

Du Pré laughed. “Woodworking, goes slow. Now you know why houses are expensive,” he said.

It was light outside. They carried sawhorses out and then the two parts of the coffin; Du Pré painted the raw wood with oil. It smelled of lemons.

Then they walked up to the main house. Bart dug round in the fridge and he began to make breakfast. Du Pré made some coffee and he took his outside and sat on the steps and smoked and watched the light come up on the land below.

“Got her planter ready?” said Booger Tom. “You shoulda seen them two. They get back to the saloon, figure they'll buy Amalie a glass of wine and when they try to wake her up she won't. …” Du Pré nodded. “And them kids of Jacqueline's, they all was cryin',” said Booger Tom. “She sure got to a lot of people here. …”

“Yah,” said Du Pré, “you, too. …”

“Yes,” said Booger Tom, “me, too. … We're gonna find that place now for sure, yes?”

“If it is there,” said Du Pré. “Long time gone, she pick other places, think it is there but it was not.”

“And this one is on some feller's ranch,” said Booger Tom.

“Jackson Pardoe,” said Du Pré.

“I know him,” said Booger Tom. “Has a good rep, fellers workin' for him said he was OK.”

Du Pré nodded.

“Pidgeon printed up what seems to be knowed about all this,” said Booger Tom. “I can't figger out how it got kept quiet all these years. It was 1910 fer Chrissakes. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“People will about disgust you,” said Booger Tom.

The door opened.

“Chow,” said Bart. “I'll even feed that old fart, just this once.”

“What is we havin'?” said Booger Tom. “Guinea hash?”

“Eggs carbonara,” said Bart.

“Guinea hash,” said Booger Tom.

“You can go eat with the coyotes, you miserable old goat,” said Bart.

“I
like
guinea hash,” said Booger Tom.

They went in.

Pidgeon was up and there were four places set at the big round table by the bay window. Bart filled plates and brought them. They ate in silence.

“Wonderful, honey,” said Pidgeon.

“Thank you,” said Bart.

“It was only mildly toxic,” said Booger Tom.

Pidgeon looked at the old cowboy.

“I found you in here,” she said, “ripping off some prosciutto the other day. If memory serves, you whined at me until I gave you the recipe.”

“Never trust no woman,” said Booger Tom.

Pidgeon got up and she began to clear plates and put them in the dishwasher.

“Well,” said Du Pré, “I go and get Amalie, take her to the church, I guess.”

“I'll help with the coffin,” said Bart.

They went out and put the backseat down in the SUV, and they picked up the coffin together and slid it in.

“We have to find her people,” said Bart. “Amalie came home and we have to bring them home too. … Good that Suzette made no trouble. …”

Du Pré nodded and he got in the big SUV.

Chapter 18

FATHER VAN DEN HEUVEL BLESSED
the little gathering, and as his hand moved, the coffin was lowered down into the grave. There were lilacs yet and many were tossed into the grave.

A hundred people attended, almost all of them from nearby.

Du Pré looked at the crowd, the chief mourners, Jacqueline's children, who had known Amalie so briefly, their window to the past now closed.

A man stood at the back of the crowd in the little graveyard by the Catholic church. He wore a tan windbreaker and a soft hat of pale wool and dark glasses.

“Come to our house if you like,” said Jacqueline, “We will have food and drink, talk about Amalie. …”

People began to drift away. They got in cars or trucks and drove off, many to the work they had interrupted to come.

A man driving a little front-end loader came down the street. He waited for the crowd to leave before driving in to fill the grave.

Du Pré and Madelaine walked out of the churchyard together, her arm in his.

As they passed the stranger in the tan windbreaker, he spoke. “Mister Du Pré,” he said, “I wondered if sometime today I might have a few words with you?”

Du Pré and Madelaine stopped.

“I'm a writer,” the man said, “Michel DuHoux, from Toronto. …”

“What you write?” said Du Pré,

“Magazine stuff, a couple of books,” said DuHoux. “I heard a little about Amalie. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“So I wanted to talk to you,” said DuHoux.

“OK,” said Du Pré.

“When would be good?” said DuHoux.

“Come to my daughter's. You can follow us, we are in that car there …” he said and pointed to the new old cruiser. Du Pré and Madelaine got in and she looked at him.

“I talk my cousin, up in Manitoba,” said Madelaine. “She say there is a lot of stink, the TV, about Amalie. That granddaughter of hers. …”

“Suzette,” said Du Pré. He rolled a smoke, lit it, gave it to Madelaine for her one puff.

“She is claiming kidnapping, how the Americans steal old ladies from Canada,” said Madelaine. “Cheap papers are having articles about it.”

Du Pré nodded.

“So you watch out,” said Madelaine.

Du Pré nodded.

He drove off, and a small station wagon, the sort that has four-wheel drive but is so light it does not help much in mud or snow, pulled out and came up behind them.

“Maybe he is a bad guy,” said Du Pré. “If he is, we should know it soon.”

“Ah,” said Madelaine, “the kids.”

Du Pré nodded.

He parked where he could get out easily and he waited for DuHoux. The man parked beside Du Pré's cruiser, and when he got out, he took off his hat.

“Michel DuHoux,” he said, offering his hand to Madelaine.

“Madelaine Placquemines,” said Madelaine, offering hers. He bowed, just a little. They walked on into the house.

Jacqueline and Pallas and Lourdes were bustling around setting up food, a big pot of buffalo stew, a potato salad, fry bread, and chokecherry preserves.

… him got Indian blood, Du Pré thought, looking at DuHoux's skin, his long ear lobes.

When he got inside, DuHoux took off his dark glasses. He had gray-blue eyes.

“You are Métis,” said Du Pré.

DuHoux nodded. “Pretty assimilated,” he said, “so much so I was raised an Episcopalian in America. In Charleston, South Carolina.”

Du Pré nodded.

“There are quite a few of us there,” said DuHoux. “Troublemakers, I guess. Deported from Canada by the British after the French and Indian War. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“They take the French there, New York, Virginia,” said Du Pré.

DuHoux nodded.

“So you are Canadian now?” said Madelaine.

“Yes,” said DuHoux, “I began to not like America very much. It seems to have lost its way. …”

Father Van Den Heuvel came in, suddenly, tripping on something or other and falling on his face. The house shook. He was a very big man. He got up, brushing dust from his priestly garb. No one laughed.

“I haven't shut my head in the car door this year,” he said, looking round the room.

“Still got six months,” said Pallas.

Everyone laughed, including the big priest.

“How did you meet Amalie?” said DuHoux.

Madelaine laughed. She laughed and laughed until she choked and she had to go and get a glass of water.

“Père Godin's pecker,” said Du Pré.

“Oh,” said DuHoux.

“He is old goat,” said Lourdes. “One, those men charm women, have so many babies he needs a box of cards for them all. …”

“I see,” said DuHoux.

“It is a little more than that,” said Du Pré.

“Yes,” said Lourdes, “but if it is not for Père Godin's pecker, you don't know dick about any of it. …” And she smiled and walked away, shaking her hands above her head, triumphant.

“Suzette Murphy is an interesting person,” said DuHoux.

“Murphy?” said Du Pré.

“I assume he was a drunken Irishman,” said DuHoux. “Man'd have to be stoned to put up with that horror. …”

“You talk, her?” asked Du Pré.

“I listened. The burden of what she said was she was sure there was money she was owed in all this …” said DuHoux. “I didn't sense there was a great deal of filial devotion to her passion.”

Du Pré nodded. “There is a song …” he said.

DuHoux looked at him and nodded. “Why the willow roots are red,” he said, in French. Du Pré looked at him. DuHoux smiled. “I studied literature,” he said, “and one of my courses was in the songs of the Métis. They were largely illiterate until the last century, of course, so the songs were their records.”

Du Pré nodded.

“The little girl thrown by her father over the bank into the willows,” said DuHoux, “where she hides and then makes her way alone. …” Du Pré nodded.

“Often it happens,” said DuHoux, “that a folktale or a song has a very real basis, or a great poem. Wasn't Schliemann's explanation for his discovery of Troy that he found the directions in the
Iliad
?”

“Good poem,” said Du Pré, “I remember one line I like. …”

Madelaine came back then, with a cup of pink wine. She had a tall glass of whiskey and water for Du Pré. “You want a drink,” said Madelaine, “there is booze, the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” said DuHoux. He made his way through the crowd to the back of the house.

“So?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré shrugged. “He seems all right,” he said.

“Seems,” said Madelaine.

“I do not know,” said Du Pré. “He comes a long way, speaking to that Suzette creature. …”

“She don't sound, good person,” said Madelaine.

Du Pré shook his head. “
Non
,” he said, “she is not.”

“What he want?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré shrugged. “Story maybe,” he said.

“That is what you want,” said Madelaine.

DuHoux threaded his way back through the people, all talking.

“Before I forget,” he said, “What was the line you liked from the Iliad?”

“… of all things which crawl upon the earth,” said Du Pré, “there is none so dismal as man. …”

DuHoux nodded, and sipped his drink. “Suzette wants money,” he said. “And when she hears of Amalie's death, she will become insistent. The, uh, gutter journals will wonder why the old woman died here. …”

Du Pré nodded.

“But Suzette will overreach,” said DuHoux. “She's been doing that all her life. She served three sentences for theft, the last one just six years ago.”

“Amalie deserved better,” said Du Pré.

DuHoux nodded, sighed, looked up at the ceiling.