“CHRIST,” YELLED PIDGEON. “DO you have to drive like this?” Du Pré laughed. The countryside was shooting by very rapidly. They were north of the Yellowstone River and south of the Missouri. The Big Dry. Where the last wild buffalo in America were slaughtered by a Smithsonian expedition.
Du Pré’s great-grandfather had watched from a nearby butte.
The expedition moved on and Du Pré’s grandpère had butchered out the three cows and he had smoked the meat and taken it back to his family. It was the last of the buffalo for the Métis.
Beef is pret’ good, though, Du Pré thought.
“You fucker,” yelled Pidgeon.
Du Pré looked over and he grinned.
“Drive that fifty-five you never get anywhere,” said Du Pré, at the top of his lungs. “Big place, this Montana.”
Pidgeon tried to light a cigarette but she couldn’t get the flame on her butane lighter to keep going long enough to do it. Du Pré took the cigarette from her and he lit it with his old Zippo and handed it back.
Pidgeon smoked and looked out the window.
Du Pré slowed down to eighty-five to humor her.
“How fast were we going?” she said.
“About right,” said Du Pré. From the bench he could see the Interstate along the south bank of the Yellowstone River. It was heavy with traffic and it looked very busy in the calm and empty landscape.
They crossed over the river and went up an on-ramp and headed west.
South at Hardin, on the Crow Reservation, headed for Sheridan.
Du Pré drove at sixty-five. You could drive like hell on the two-lane but the superhighways were heavily patrolled.
This schoolteacher, she was from Billings.
Dumped near Sheridan.
Missing for two days.
First one we got that’s fairly fresh, Du Pré thought.
He’s around.
I find him.
“I think we’ll get some cooperation,” said Pidgeon, “but you never know. The Bureau didn’t try to spare anyone’s feelings till recently.”
No shit, thought Du Pré.
“So I talked to the Sheriff and he’s meeting us at the Denny’s at the north exit into the town.”
Du Pré nodded.
Find your way around America by hamburger.
Bad hamburgers, too.
They came to the exit for the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Eleven Métis, they die there. That Mitch Bouyer, he is leading the scouts, he try to send his friends away. He knows how many Sioux, Cheyenne, all them Plains people are down there.
Custer sends his favorite Crow scout, Half Yellow Face, away.
Mitch, he die there. Lonesome Charley Reynolds, the old trapper, he die there, too.
That Custer, he is a bastard.
Them Indian, they have their Day of Greasy Grass.
“My heart has quit pounding,” said Pidgeon. “You can speed up now. I know it hurts you to obey the law.”
“Me,” said Du Pré, “I obey all them good laws.”
“Right,” said Pidgeon.
She was dressed in jeans and hiking boots and a cotton shirt and a photographer’s vest. Her gun, ID, handcuffs, and such were in the pockets. She carried a camera and many rolls of film. Little tape recorder.
“There have been three other bodies left near Sheridan in the last ten years,” said Pidgeon, “all young women, all mutilated, none identified. All of them treated as isolated cases. Since they were dumped years apart, I suppose.”
“Me,” said Du Pré, “I never know that so much of this happens.”
Pidgeon nodded.
“I got into this,” she said, “because of a term paper. How many women were killed and dumped and no one ever charged in their murders. Over the last twenty years, there have been thousands. Thousands. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Pret’ hard to find, people who do it,” said Du Pré. “They are not part of any place. Come in, kidnap someone, kill them, leave them somewhere else. Don’t go back. Or kill them poor whores. They got to get in cars with men. Can’t attract too much attention, cops bust them.”
“These are young girls mostly,” said Pidgeon, “of lower-class origin. I have heard them called trailer trash. Money’s pretty damned important in this country.”
Du Pré nodded. Pretty important everywhere.
“Was Bart pissed when you said you didn’t want to take the offer of a plane from him?” said Pidgeon.
“No,” said Du Pré, “I am trying to help him, he is too generous, some people take him for much money. He wants to help, he is a rich boy, I want him to know I like him even though he has got a lot of money.”
Pidgeon snorted.
“He is a good guy.”
“I like him,” said Pidgeon. “He has such a sad, sweet face. A middle-aged boy who is sort of bewildered by all the trouble the world causes itself and him personally.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré.
They rode silently the rest of the way to Sheridan. Du Pré got off at the first exit. He could see the Denny’s sign from the highway.
“We’re early,” said Pidgeon.
Du Pré parked the cruiser. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead and he rubbed his eyes and he yawned.
He leaned back for a moment, eyes shut.
“Hey, Du Pré,” said Pidgeon. “Guess what? The Denny’s is being robbed. Hey, hey.”
Du Pré sat upright in a hurry.
“No sudden movements,” said Pidgeon. “That car, across from the door out in the street? The one that is running? With the kid at the wheel who is smoking like hell and staring at the front door. And I notice that though Denny’s is open and there are cars in the lot, I can’t see anybody in there. Bet they are all lying on the floor.”
Du Pré looked. Nobody was stirring in there.
“What you going to do?” said Du Pré.
“Have fun,” said Pidgeon. “It’s important in life, you know, to have fun. Real important. Most folks don’t.”
This Pidgeon, she reminds me some of that poor Corey Banning, thought Du Pré. FBI lady poor Packy killed. Some shit, that. Wolves. Balls.
Pidgeon had slid her gun out of its pocket.
She lit a cigarette.
“Oh.” said Pidgeon. “Tell you what. It is so against every Bureau regulation, do what I would like to do, that I’m gonna let you do it. Here.” She racked the slide and handed the Sig Sauer to Du Pré.
“What I don’t like to?” said Du Pré.
“I’ll tell Madelaine you wussed out,” said Pidgeon. “Oh, don’t kill anybody.”
“OK,” said Du Pré. He got out and he tucked the automatic in his waistband at his back. He walked across the little parking lot and down to the sidewalk beyond the decorative planting. The kid in the car glanced at him. Just a cowboy.
The kid went back to staring at the front door of the Denny’s.
Du Pré crossed the sidewalk and he went in front of the car and he stepped out into the traffic lane.
When a truck passed, Du Pré sprinted.
He walked up to the open driver’s window and he squatted down and put the barrel of the gun against the kid’s head.
“Don’ move,” said Du Pré.
The kid shuddered.
Du Pré reached in the window and he turned off the car and pulled the keys out of the ignition and he stuck them in his pocket. He was out of sight, behind the driver.
“How many friends you got in there,” said Du Pré, jamming the gun against the kid’s head.
“Two,” whispered the kid.
“OK,” said Du Pré. “What guns they got?”
“Couple pistols. Twenty-twos.”
“That’s very good,” said Du Pré.
Two young men came flying out of the Denny’s doors. They were each carrying paper sacks in one hand and little Saturday Night Specials in the other. They ran like hell for the car.
When they were twenty feet away Du Pré stood up and he fired one round into the sky.
“Down on the ground,” he said, lowering the gun.
One kid froze. The other stumbled and tripped and he went face-first into the side of the car.
Crump.
The other kid dropped the sack and his gun and he put his hands on the top of his head.
Du Pré opened the driver’s door.
“You get out now,” he said.
The kid did.
Du Pré prodded him around to the sidewalk. The kid who had hit the car was on his knees, holding his face, and blood welled between his hands.
Du Pré heard a siren.
Two cop cars came, lights flashing.
The cops screeched to a stop.
Du Pré waited, gun on the three young men.