BART STUMPED THROUGH THE slop. The Black Wind, the Chinook, had come, warm with the Pacific Ocean’s heat, and it had hammered down the snow to a thick, wet crust and swelled the streams till they jammed with ice and pooled and flooded the pastures. The cattle were soaked. If another hard arctic cold air mass descended, they’d die, glazed, standing, with grass in their mouths.
He stopped by one of the big picture windows. A dead magpie lay in the mud. It had flown into the window in a high wind and the smash had left a patch of blood and feathers on the unyielding glass.
“If I landscape now,” Bart grumbled, “I’ll have to use a spoon.”
Du Pré nodded. In some places, the county roads were washed out. Over by Miles City, the freeway was closed because an ice dam on the Yellowstone had backed water over it.
“Jesus Christ,” said Michelle Leuci, lifting one foot as she leaned against a door frame. She was looking, in some awe, at six inches of gumbo that had attached itself tenaciously to the sole of her boot. The mud was the consistency of peanut butter. It looked like peanut butter made from bleached peanuts.
“We’d best take our boots off inside,” said Bart.
“Splinters,” said Du Pré.
“You finished the fucking floor,” said Bart. “So not a splinter in sight.”
They took their boots off and stepped in. Bart picked up a long, sharp splinter immediately. He yelped and sat and peeled off his sock and pulled it out, wincing.
“Good help is hard to find,” said Du Pré.
“You’re fired,” said Bart.
“Poor darling,” said Michelle. “You dumb shit.”
True love, Du Pré thought. He remembered Bart’s swollen, alcohol-bloated face the first time that he saw him. Good going, Bart.
“I still can’t get over how right you were,” said Michelle, looking at Du Pré. “Chase has been in that loony bin for four months going on five; nothing happens at all. I gather they raked him off the ceiling finally. Drugs. Fried mind. The killer must hate him a lot.”
“His money protected him,” said Bart. “I know quite a bit about that.”
Michelle went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“This Lucky says while we have been frozen so bad, they have had the mildest winter anyone ever heard of,” said Du Pré. “So I will go when he says, I guess. Runoff in April maybe, instead of June.”
“The weather’s changing,” said Bart.
“Yeah,” said Michelle. “You got ten months of it here, and two more of real bad sledding.”
“City girl,” said Bart.
“I remember the perfume of bus exhaust on summer mornings,” said Michelle, “and the muggers hatching in the twilight.”
They had come just for the weekend. Michelle was to be on duty first thing Monday morning, two thousand miles away.
“What about your brand work?” said Bart.
“My son-in-law, Raymond, will do that,” said Du Pré. “If it is someplace I know funny things happen, I will go with him.”
“So you want to do this?” said Bart.
“Sure,” said Du Pré. Lot of finish carpentry on this log house. I like the smell of the wood and the way it comes up in your eye when you rub the oil of tung on the finished piece. Catfoot liked making things with his hands—knives, guns, strange machines, fiddles, headless corpses. Oh, fuck it, that shit brother of Bart’s needed killing. Had me pretty lost there for a while, Bart, too.
“I want some arrows in the roof,” said Michelle.
“Huh?” said Bart. Du Pré looked at her.
“I want some fucking arrows in the roof,” she said, “or the cops I work with won’t believe it is still Montana. They won’t believe I ever came here. They think the Little Bighorn was last week and you folks beat off Indian attacks every few nights.”
“I got drunk in Fort Belknap and got attacked by Indians,” said Bart.
“Can’t blame them,” said Michelle. “I have heard some stories of you drunk.” The telephone rang in the empty house.
Bart went and got it. He pointed to Michelle and held the receiver out to her.
“Leuci,” she said. She listened, frowning, her teeth holding her lower lip.
“Jesus Christ,” she said, “a whole fucking week.”
She listened some more, looking worried.
“Rollie,” she said, “unless we have a lot more folks and luck, there’s no way we can keep track of him. His estate has too many ways out of it. Look, I’ll…” She listened again, interrupted.
“You’re right,” she said. “Okay.” She hung up.
“Chase was released a week ago,” she said, “been at home. We just found out that he was out. You know how? An announcement in the Smithsonian’s newsletter. After an extended illness, Dr. Paul Chase will resume his duties. On Monday.”
Du Pré sighed.
“What time does that thing start?” said Bart.
“Four,” said Du Pré. He was fiddling in a contest at the Toussaint bar, the long contest ended at the summer all-Montana fiddler’s contest in Poison. Du Pré didn’t go to Poison anymore, since he’d won twice. It seemed unfair.
Bart pulled a check out of his shirt pocket and gave it to Du Pré. Thirty thousand dollars. Well, he’d have to pay some other subcontractors out of it and who knew what else.
“I am going to set up an account with this,” said Du Pré.
“Set up an account, set up three mistresses,” said Bart, “I don’t give a shit.”
“Big talk,” said Michelle, “Biiig talk. Madelaine would stop that. Most interestingly.”
“I see you there,” said Du Pré, turning and walking to his boots. He sat on the doorsill and pulled them on. When he stood up and tried to walk, the heavy mud off-balanced him and he fell back into the door.
“Drunk again,” said Bart. “Dock him.”
Du Pré made the universal sign for eat shit and die.
He picked up a shingle scrap and scraped. The mud hung on. Finally, it tore free, making a gross sucking sound. The other was easier. He stood up and walked toward his car, platforms rapidly building.
He slumped into the seat and pulled the clabbered boots off. He started the car and drove. Mud stuck to the tires slammed hard against the wheel wells.
This goddamned country, Du Pré thought. It is a person.
He got to Madelaine’s and parked so he could step out on the grass in his stocking feet.
She met him at the door.
“You have to leap out a window, Du Pré,” she said. “Some jealous husband, eh?”
“Gumbo,” said Du Pré.
“His name was Gumbo?”
“I am wet and tired,” said Du Pré. “I want to take a nap and then I got to go fiddle.”
“No nap,” said Madelaine, taking his hand. “I’ll think about maybe you fiddle.”