I’VE BEEN TRYING,” SAID Michelle Leuci, “but the phone’s out up there. The mail plane is going to check, but that isn’t for another week.”
“I am worried about Lucky and them,” said Du Pré.
“The Mounties don’t care to be bothered,” said Michelle.
“It’s just Indians with a broken telephone,” said Du Pré, “so, no, I don’t think that they would care.”
Du Pré sighed.
“Are you okay?” said Michelle.
“Yes,” said Du Pré. “No,”
“I get to where I can’t sleep,” said Michelle, “thinking about bad guys. They rob everybody.”
“Uh-huh,” said Du Pré.
“So you’ll be here in two weeks for the festival?” said Michelle.
“Yeah,” said Du Pré.
“The old man told you the killer would be there?”
“Benetsee,” said Du Pré, “yes, that is what he said. But you have to watch what he says real close, you know. He says what he means exactly.”
“That’d be enough to confuse about anybody,” said Michelle.
“Yeah,” said Du Pré. “You tell that Bart it is pretty out here now and his house is coming along good.”
“His house at the end of the world,” said Michelle.
They said good-bye.
Bart may never have that much to do with his house, Du Pré thought, but then, he was always just hiding out here; his life now that he has one is somewhere else.
Du Pré took his fiddle and drove over to Jacqueline’s, mumbling the names of his grandchildren over and over and hoping he could get them right this time. Jacqueline had wanted to be a mother and she had started very young. There were five now, and she wouldn’t even be twenty-one for a couple of months. She’d married a nice young man, Raymond, who loved kids, and Raymond was coming along, learning how to be a brand inspector like Du Pré, just when the cattle business was about done for.
Jacqueline was frying chicken while Raymond and Father Van den Heuvel rode herd on the brood of kids, the youngest still rocking the crib as hard as he could and Jacqueline pregnant again.
The big blond priest and Du Pré were good friends, even though Du Pré seldom went to church and almost never to confession. Du Pré sat on an old chair on the front porch and fiddled. The little children came and listened for a while and then, bored, began to tussle with one another.
Du Pré watched them getting their clothes dirty and was thankful he’d had just the two girls to raise, though they had pretty much raised him, too, after Du Pré’s wife died so suddenly.
“How was your trip on the river?” said Father Van den Heuvel.
“That is some cold black country,” said Du Pré. “I see pretty much how they think those woods hold the loup-garou up there.
“You learn any new songs?” said Father Van den Heuvel.
Du Pré shook his head.
“No,” he said finally. “I am not sure now what the point was in going. You know that Hydro-Quebec wants to build a bunch of dams up there, ruin the country, kill the fish. I had thought that there was a good reason, maybe get some publicity, it is so far away from anything, but now I have gone down that River of the Whale, I don’t know if anything will come of it.”
“I saw you on television,” said Father Van den Heuvel. “Just for a second. You were standing with Bart off to the side while one of the Indians spoke.”
Du Pré nodded.
“What have the murders to do with that?” asked the priest.
“I don’t know,” said Du Pré. He fiddled for a moment and then let the notes die away.
“You know the story about the various nationalities committing murder,” said the priest. “The Frenchman will explain logically why he has to kill you, the German will weep copiously, and the Englishman will say, ‘Uh, what knife?’
Du Pré laughed. Well, that was how the English were remembered by the older Métis.
Madelaine arrived bearing potato salad and a huge jug of iced tea. She took the salad inside and left the tea on the porch. There was a big chunk of ice in the jar.
“I just wonder who would profit from killing those unfortunate people,” said Father Van den Heuvel.
“I can’t think of anyone,” said Du Pré. “There was this bad, weak, rich man we thought was the one, but there is no reason for him to do it, and he is just crazy and weak, too.”
Madelaine came out and greeted the priest. She kissed Du Pré and then she sat on the porch steps.
“Hydro-Quebec isn’t foolish enough to make martyrs,” said Du Pré. “And to be killing people in America, it’s too risky. They are mean bastards and twenty billion dollars is a lot of money, but there is too much at stake to risk all that.”
“What are we talking?” said Madelaine.
“Trying to think who wins with these murders,” said Du Pré.
“It is some crazy person,” said Madelaine. “Anybody who would kill anyone else is a crazy person.”
Du Pré nodded. He’d once killed a man who was trying to kill him and it was a very crazy few seconds. It still made Du Pré want to puke.
They ate chicken and potato salad and made small talk and then it was time for Jacqueline’s children to nap. Du Pré and Madelaine left, Du Pré dropping the priest off at the little Catholic church, and then Du Pré went over to Madelaine’s. They sat in the soft May sun. The lilacs dripped heavy perfume.
There were heavy black rain clouds in the west.
Her children were all off doing adolescent things. They went to bed in the late afternoon and fell asleep after lovemaking and didn’t wake until dark. The light stayed late now, a little more than a month away from the summer solstice.
The storm struck just at sunset, the wind came up and lightning stabbed down on the plains to the west. Pinkish black clouds roiled around the peaks of the Wolf Mountains to the north. They watched the clouds seethe.
“Come on,” said Du Pré, “I will take you down to the bar, buy you some pink wine.”
Madelaine checked her children. They were at home but the oldest boy, who had a girl and so was hardly ever around, anyway.
“Pretty good kids,” said Du Pré.
“They are that,” said Madelaine. He had seen her be stern with them. Then the kid would slouch off and Madelaine’s face would break out in smiles. So they got instructed but not hurt.
The rain pounded down. Du Pré let Madelaine off right at the front door and he parked a little bit away and ran to the bar, with huge drops slapping his hat.
The place was crowded. Country music on the jukebox and a few couples dancing tightly on the tiny dance floor.
They stayed late.
That night, Du Pré woke up in the deep dark. He could still smell the storm, which had passed.
Who gets what from these murders? Some crazy person.
Who?
What do they want?
He got up and went out on the porch and smoked. He flicked his cigarette butt onto the lawn. They do it because they like it. That’s all.