THE CATTLE WERE JAMMING up in the chute. Du Pré and Raymond had already checked the brands and Du Pré had Raymond sign off on them.
“Way this cow business is, I don’t know they need brand inspectors much longer,” said Du Pré.
“Some people say they will raise buffalo,” said Raymond.
“Oh sure,” said Du Pré. “They say that, they don’t know buffalo. I went out to South Dakota once, help some people round up buffalo. They don’t round up. They tore up the corrals like so much wet paper and then they tore up the trucks and a lot of them got out. Buffalo. Bah. You know them things pivot on their front feet? They change directions so fast, while a horse, he has to take this wide circle he moving any fast.”
“I guess they still have to be branded and inspected,” said Raymond. He liked this better than hanging sheet-rock or plumbing. Du Pré could not blame him for that.
“Madelaine said you were going to drive all those miles to Lac La Ronge,” said Raymond.
“Fuckin’ A I am,” said Du Pré. “I fly to that Washington, D.C.; I will not do that again. Moves too fast and I am too old. Whoosh. Makes my head ache. Scares me shitless, too.”
They got into Du Pré’s old Plymouth cruiser. Du Pré’s car was badly dented on the passenger’s door where he had slid into a fence post on a road mudded up good. Corner fence post, railroad tie stuck down in some concrete. Crunch. Railroad tie hadn’t moved much.
“How come you aren’t taking Bart?” said Raymond. Kid was worried about something, asking a lot of questions. Shut up, Du Pré thought. Go on home and make me another grandbaby.
“That Bart is so rich, he would sort of buy the trip up,” said Du Pré. “We would be out in the bushes there, and a helicopter with a big dinner and a chamber-music group would show up.” Also, if he got drunk and off his head back there, he could be a real problem.
They drove on the wet yellow road back toward town. It had rained hard the last two days, unusual for late July. The weather seemed to be changing.
Du Pré had read somewhere that the big volcano that blew off in the East Indies had caused this. But Du Pré also remembered some old songs about much rain and cold winters, so maybe the weather just did this, but over a long time, time greater than one human life. Pretty big world there, and those stars are very far away.
When Du Pré and Raymond got to Du Pré’s house, there were people there already putting up trestle tables and stapling tablecloths to them, against the wind that would come up late in the afternoon. Always did, blew out of the west hard for maybe a quarter of an hour and then either kept up if there was rain coming in a day or quit if there wasn’t.
Jacqueline’s babies were toddling around the lawn. Madeline’s and some of their friends were playing volleyball in the pasture over the creek.
Du Pré showered and put on fresh clothes. His suitcase was packed—or, rather, a nylon duffel bag Bart had given him, along with a sackful of crap to survive on in the wilderness. Best way to survive in the wilderness is stay warm and dry and fed and don’t get lost, but you make those arrangements before you go there.
Du Pré sat on his porch, watching the hummingbirds at the flowers along the creek. Summer ended when those whirring little birds left—usually about the middle of August. The Métis had known that, and when the English had come and put out little feeders for the hummingbirds, the Métis protested and said it made the birds stay around too long, so that there were not enough flowers to the south of them to feed them on their long journey. The English looked down their long noses and left the feeders up, and each year there had been fewer birds, until some English newspaper had said the same thing the Métis had. Du Pré knew some songs that weren’t complimentary to the English. They did that sort of thing a lot.
People began to arrive, bringing hot dishes and salads and jugs of wine or big plastic thermoses of iced tea. Father Van den Heuvel came with Bart. The big, clumsy priest with the sweet smile and the former rich drunk who was now for some time just rich. Bart had bought a huge dragline some time ago and had found he sort of liked moving earth, and he had a little business digging stock ponds. He had a backhoe, too, and he dug basements, though there weren’t many new houses going up. Not like in the western part of the state, which was turning into one big suburban resort.
“You didn’t get Benetsee?” said Du Pré to Bart. “I will go and get him, then.”
“He wasn’t there,” said Bart. He looked past Du Pré to the knots of people milling around the tables. “But he’s here. Maybe he changes himself into a bird and flies here and then ducks behind a bush and changes back.”
“No bird could carry all that bullshit,” said Du Pré. They laughed. Sometimes Benetsee was an eerie singer and prophet, and sometimes they had to make bail for him when he got too drunk and did something foolish. Once the sheriff, Benny Klein, had tried to take the old man home, but all Benetsee did was fumble a minute at his flies and then piss all over the sheriff’s new boots, which was more than even patient Benny Klein could stand.
Another time he had swiped the sheriff’s car and spent a pleasant fifteen minutes weaving down the county road with the lights flashing and the siren going. He put the car off a steep bank and Bart had to buy the sheriff a new one.
Benny Klein tried hard to like Benetsee, but he found it tough going.
“I don’t guess jail would do him any good or anything else,” Benny had said mournfully, looking at Bart’s check, “but, goddamn it, I am supposed to enforce the law, and he broke about six of them.”
But nothing had come of that. Once, though, years before, Benetsee had been arrested in Miles City and jailed. And the story went, the old man howled out the barred window of his cell. There was an answer. And soon coyotes began to come into town, a lot of them, and the police were getting a lot of calls. The coyotes collected beneath the window of the jail and they howled back.
A couple cops took shots at the coyotes, but the coyotes didn’t notice. This was strange.
The judge was old and smart. When they called him at home, he said to take the old man a few miles west of town and let him go. They did, and the coyotes left, too.
So Du Pré had heard.
The party picked up some speed early on. Most of these folks were little ranchers and this was a busy time, so it wouldn’t go on too late. Du Pré fiddled some and there was some dancing and the food was hot and good and plentiful.
Du Pré was taking a leak out behind the lilacs when old Benetsee shuffled up to him. The old man took a little bundle out of his rags and pressed it into Du Pré’s hand.
Leather. Du Pré unrolled it. A slingshot. Two long, thin straps of deer skin with a pouch in the middle for a rock. The Métis had used them to hunt birds, Du Pré knew.
“Learn how to use this sling here,” said the old man. Then he took it back, put a stone in the pocket, wrapped the thongs around his right hand. He swung the slingshot around his head. It whirred.
Benetsee let go of one thong and the rock shot straight and true toward a magpie perched on a branch in the tag alder. The stone slammed into the bird, which crumpled. Benetsee went to the dead bird and pulled some feathers out of the tail.
“Nothing on these,” the old man mumbled. He acted drunk. “Ah, here,” he said, holding a tail feather like all the others up.
“See?” said Benetsee.