THEY WENT ROUND THE southern end of Lake Champlain and then turned north on a freeway. Du Pré was drinking lousy thin coffee from a Styrofoam cup and steering, and what he most wanted to do was pull off and rip the bandage away and scratch his itching forehead.
I got the good healing flesh, Du Pré thought. I can take these damn stitches out pretty soon.
“You maybe ought to change that bandage, Papa,” said Maria. “We get you one, fluorescent green like that dragline of Bart’s.”
Goddamn kid.
“So you will tell me maybe where we are going?”
“Up next to Canada, ” said Du Pré. “I am thinking this Lucky isn’t Chippewa; I think about how he does things. So then I think maybe he is Mohawk.”
“Mohawk?” said Maria. “Why them?”
“Lot of them are ironworkers,” said Du Pré. “They run around long way off the ground on steel beams, no safety lines, move like cats.”
All the other Quebec Indians had moved like woods people, careful not to make noise. But Lucky moved for balance. Lucky grabbed the ground with his feet. Lucky pulled it up to him.
Or maybe I am full of shit, too.
“How you gonna look for him, that flag on your head?” said Maria.
Good question.
“You got a picture of him?” she said.
“In the glove box,” said Du Pré. The photos Bart had taken of the crew were there, taken right after they had pulled the canoes out at the bay.
Maria riffled through them.
“It’s this guy standing next to you and then here’s another of him speaking into a microphone. He’s kind of cute,” said Maria.
“Christ,” said Du Pré.
“You aren’t laughing enough, Papa,” said Maria.
Du Pré didn’t feel like laughing. His head itched.
“So I will be a real pain in the ass till you laugh.”
Du Pré laughed at that.
“I don’t really know,” said Du Pré, “I think he would have left D.C. right away. I am thinking the Mohawks because they are right next to Canada there and it is so easy to go across the border.”
“Okay, Papa,” said Maria.
“If we got to go across the border, you leave them damn guns somewhere,” said Du Pré. “Them Canadians don’t like people have pistols.”
“I know, Papa,” said Maria. “They don’t shoot each other much. We got more murders each year in Omaha than they do in all their whole country. I wonder why Americans shoot each other so much.”
“Television,” said Du Pré.
“Television?”
“Every time I watch television, it is so damn dumb, I want to go out and shoot somebody,” said Du Pré.
“Okay,” said Maria, “you are better now.”
They drove for a couple of hours, then pulled off to have lunch. Du Pré studied the map while waiting for his cheeseburger.
“Little dinky states back here,” he said. “We got ranches bigger than Vermont.”
“It’s so pretty there, Papa,” said Maria. “People have been there a long time, pretty little churches and towns. Makes me think Montana is so new.”
Also very old, Du Pré drought. People hunting buffalo there a long time before them pyramids were built, I wonder when Benetsee was born? Long time gone.
They drove on. They had left the interstate and wound along a good two-lane blacktop road, coming to little towns every fifteen miles or so. There were orchards in heavy leaf; the land was rich from rain.
Du Pré found a motel about forty miles from the Mohawk reservation. He rented two rooms for two days. The woman behind the desk gave him the keys and a packet of tourist information. She recommended a little inn just up the road, very good food, though somewhat pricey.
Du Pré had left all of his spare clothing at Bart’s. He gave some money to Maria and sent her off to buy some spare things, took a shower, and went to sleep. When he woke up it was getting on dark. There was a big paper sack on the suitcase stand.
The clothes had been washed and carefully folded. Du Pré got dressed, pulled on his boots, threaded his belt through the loops on the tan jeans. He put his wallet and keys in his pocket. He knocked on the door connecting the two rooms.
“You up, Papa?” said Maria. “Everything fit?”
“Yes,” said Du Pré. He opened the door.
Maria was at the little desk in her room, studying. With a 9mm pistol holding down her notes.
“Where did you get that gun?” asked Du Pré, curious.
“Bought it,” said Maria, “if it make you feel better.”
“You are not old enough to buy a gun.”
“Jacqueline is.” She smiled sunnily.
“Okay,” said Du Pré. Well, he didn’t have to worry about Maria if she was on guard. The girl would consider carefully before shooting, but she would shoot. Probably hit what she shot at, too. Maria didn’t like to do anything poorly.
“How many that hold?” asked Du Pré.
“Fourteen,” said Maria.
“Four-inch group?” said Du Pré.
“Yeah,” said Maria. “Nine, ten seconds. If I rush, I don’t hit so good.”
If I rush, I don’t hit so good. Well, well, well.
“Now we are here, I don’t quite know how to do this,” said Du Pré.
“He will not be expecting you,” said Maria. “Just find him and that will scare him.”
“I think I try to call Bart,” said Du Pré, “Michelle too, find out anything.”
He went outside and looked at the sun. Maybe eight o’clock.
He got Michelle on the first try, at her desk in D.C.
“Where the fuck are you?” she said. “Bart’s up in Quebec. He called earlier, but I was out. Now I can’t raise him. Some sort of atmospheric problem. I’ll try in a while.”
“Upstate New York, I guess they call it,” said Du Pré. “I wanted to see if you had any suggestions.”
Michelle was silent. “No,” she said finally. “I don’t. We don’t have any evidence against Lucky good enough to get a warrant.”
“How ’bout assaulting me?”
“Sure,” said Michelle, “but if we pop him for that, maybe he just goes to ground. Any attorney will bargain it down to where all he’ll have to do is send in a check or forfeit bail. This is D.C., murder capital of the country. The courts are choked.”
“Michelle,” said Du Pré, “you call Madelaine, see if she can get old Benetsee to call and talk with you maybe.”
“Why?” said Detective Leuci.
“Make you feel better,” said Du Pré.
He hung up and went back out to look at the sunset.
The food at the old inn was very good and very expensive. Du Pré had some bourbon.
He slept well that night.