THEY APPROACHED THE GREAT bay. Two weeks on the river and they had not seen anything threatening. A TV crew had descended once, planes flopping down, but the weather turned nasty and the pilots took off, with the cameramen shooting and cursing.
Du Pré stood up and dropped his pants and mooned them.
“They don’t use that on the five o’clock news,” said Du Pré.
Nappy nodded; he was giving them the finger.
No nothing. Not a trapper or a fisherman. The season was too late for good fur and too icy for good fishing. The bugs were just beginning to bloom in numbers.
Lucky fretted. He had expected more coverage—more TV crews, more ink, more everything.
“If there is no one there, we did this for nothing,” Lucky said. He was so upset, his cup of coffee lopped over the rim.
Maybe this Hydro-Quebec bought everybody off, Du Pré thought. They probably do that sort of thing, they planning to spend $20 billion. Also New York, they need those hot tubs and lights.
Bart was talking to Michelle. Every time they stopped, he punched in a number and there she was, usually. She could call back, too.
No Benetsee, no nothing in Washington, no Paul Chase, who for all they knew was a day behind them or something.
Maybe Chase come busting out of the side waters near the river’s mouth, Du Pré thought, but I think they will be waiting for him this time. That woman reporter is nobody’s fool.
What a world, this twentieth-century. Du Pré tried to think of something he liked about it. He thought of duct tape and the penicillin, since he had gotten a good case of clap once. He couldn’t think of anything else right offhand.
There was a town, Kuujjuarapik, just norm of the river’s mouth.
Maybe two days down the river to the bay, Hudson Bay, shallow and mean with storms and shoal waters.
And then the skies were full of helicopters and little floatplanes and Lucky quit spilling his coffee.
Reporters paddled out in little rafts, helicopters flew down close enough to nearly capsize the canoes.
The party paddled past, smiling. When they pulled into the last camp before the bay, the newspeople converged like flies on a nice cat turd.
A couple of the smarter crews brought food—fresh fruits and vegetables and ice cream, steaks, booze. Bribes.
Du Pré and Nappy still stood watch.
Much easier now for something to happen, maybe, or maybe it would happen down at the bay, or not here in Canada at all. Maybe, Du Pré thought, I am wrong about everything.
Bart wandered out to where Du Pré was sitting, rifle across his knees, with half a bottle of whiskey and a plate of food. He let Du Pré eat and have a couple snorts and then he dialed Madelaine.
“Du Pré!” said Madelaine, “You forget what your Madelaine look like. I see you on the TV! Your clothes need a wash.”
“So do I,” said Du Pré.
“I can’t find Benetsee and no one else can, either,” she said.
Maybe the old bastard was dead and the coyotes had dragged him to a den and he was just a few stumps of bones. Could be.
But he could have said good-bye somehow. He die, his own time.
What am I doing here?
“Damn,” said Du Pré. “I miss you.”
“Yeah,” said Madelaine. “Since I see you so long ago, my hair gone all white, my tits down to my knees, and I got no teeth.”
“My dick fell off,” said Du Pré. “I got this fungus.”
“You come right home, Du Pré,” said Madelaine. “Them Quebec girls can’t last.”
She hung up.
Du Pré had a tight feeling in his chest.
“Mr. Du Pré,” said a woman’s voice behind him, “I need to talk to you. We met in York Factory, remember?”
The woman reporter who’d stayed to get the story on Chase.
“Why did you come on this trip?” she asked.
See if I can kill some bastard killed some people, Du Pré thought.
“I wanted to see this country,” said Du Pré. “Pretty fine country to drown, you know.”
The reporter looked at him.
“What do you think of Hydro-Quebec’s plan?” she said.
“I think we have destroyed enough of the world,” said Du Pré. “We maybe ought to take better care of it.”
“Are you part Indian, Mr. Du Pré?” she asked.
“I am Métis,” said Du Pré, “Red River Breed. Twice we rebel against them English. My people came down to Montana from Canada after the second one. Lots of distant relatives up there.”
“Is the Métis a tribe?”
Du Pré thought.
“I guess so,” he said. “We fight them Sioux and Assiniboine and Gros Ventre pretty good.”
“Where is Paul Chase?” she said. “I thought he’d be here at least by now.”
So did I.
“I have not seen him,” said Du Pré.
“You sitting out here with a rifle because of Chase?” she said. “Guy’s got no more guts than a Junebug.”
“Lots of people don’t want us to be doing this,” said Du Pré. “There is a lot of money here.”
“Tell me about it,” she said.
Du Pré rolled a smoke. He felt like a fucking fool.
“I am going back, get some whiskey,” said Du Pré.
They walked back toward his tent. The light was bright and the evening cool hadn’t started, but it felt like it would frost good tonight.
The reporter took a tin cup of whiskey, nodding at Du Pré.
“What about the murders?” she said.
“Police are working on them,” said Du Pré. “
“So are you,” said the reporter.
“I am just here paddling.”
“I come from California,” she said. “On the back side of Shasta. Cattle and sheep country. Isn’t like California at all. Not many people. My daddy once killed somebody. For trying to molest me when I was a kid.”
Du Pré waited.
“He didn’t say anything about it and no one pinned it on him and he died without telling me he’d done it. But he had this look in his eyes, Mr. Du Pré. He was out of another time and he had killed someone and he would again and ask no one’s leave if he felt it right. You have that same look, Mr. Du Pré.”
“I am tired,” said Du Pré.
“My card,” said the reporter.
Anybody turned up dead, I’d best call, I guess, Du Pré thought.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” said the reporter. She was a very pretty woman with very hard green eyes. Laugh lines.
She walked off.
Du Pré stared at the card in his hand.
Helicopters. Lights.
Bullshit.
Frost.