THE BIG COP HAD SWEATED his linen sport coat dark under the arms and down his spine. He sweated so much that he messed up the notes he was trying to take.
“Fuckin’ heat,” said the cop. “So you caught this horse. You’re one a the performers here?”
“Uh-huh,” said Du Pré.
“Why you catch the horse?”
“I know horses pretty good,” said Du Pré. “This horse, he was some scared, and all he wanted was someone around who seemed to know horses. So I just walked up to him and grabbed his bridle.”
The detective waved to a uniformed patrolman. The patrolman came over slowly.
“I need to have you hold on to this horse,” said the detective.
The cop looked at the horse, the horse looked at the cop. Neither was favorably impressed. The cop moved a hand slowly toward the bridle.
The horse’s eyes got big.
“Look,” said Du Pré, “this will not work. This horse, he needs someone who talks horse. I don’t think you can talk horse. So, I maybe hold him till you find the owner or something.”
Du Pré saw a young man in jeans and boots and a sleeveless T-shirt coming toward them. Kid had on a straw cowboy hat that had seen hard use.
“Jerry!” said the young man. He had a blond ponytail and a woven horsehair belt buckle. The horse shuffled a little and tossed his head. This was someone he knew.
“Thanks,” said the kid. He took the horse’s bridle from Du Pré and he stroked the animal’s neck. “Got to get you to some water,” he said to the horse.
“Whose horse’s this?” said the detective.
“Van Orden Stables,” said the handler. He pulled a sweated wad of business cards from the hip pocket of his jeans and offered the detective one. “Miss Price called from the hospital.”
“Lady who found the body,” said the detective.
The handler nodded.
“Christ,” said Du Pré. “A body?”
The detective nodded. “You’ll be here for the festival?” he said to Du Pré.
“Yeah,” said Du Pré. “You need me, the office is in that striped tent over there. They will know where I am playing. I don’t hardly go to the hotel, you know. We sit here after dark and play music. Too hot to sleep, anyway, and I hate air conditioning.”
“Thanks for catchin’ old Jerry,” said the handler. “He musta been some lonely.”
“Where you from?” said Du Pré.
“West Texas,” said the young man. “Can I please take him? He needs water real bad.”
The detective nodded; the handler led the horse away.
“What is this about now?” said Du Pré.
“If I need to talk to you, I’ll find you,” said the detective. He tucked his notebook into his sweaty linen coat. Du Pré got a glimpse of the butt of a gun under the man’s arm. He nodded to Du Pré and walked away.
Du Pré made his way back to the stage. He saw his rawhide fiddle case against the back curtain, near the cables snaking under toward the sound booth out front. There was a band playing old-time music at the microphones. Du Pré waited until they finished their piece and the applause started, then he went as quickly as he could to his fiddle, popped the case open to make sure the instrument was in it, went to the side of the stage, and dropped down to the grass. There were sandwich wrappers and empty Styrofoam cups everywhere about. The grounds had garbage cans every few yards, but some people just would not use them.
Du Pré went to the festival offices in the striped tent. It was little more than a phone-and-message bank for the performers. Three young women wearing as little as they could sat wearily on folding chairs, sipping huge glasses of iced tea.
“You know where Paul Chase is?” said Du Pré.
The women glanced at one another. “He’s…at an appointment,” she said finally.
“I know the police found a body,” said Du Pré. “Is he talking to them?”
More glances. Finally, one nodded.
“Do you know when he will be back?”
More glances. Then the women looked past Du Pré. Du Pré turned, to see Paul Chase, looking like he was making his face brave, coming toward the tent.
Chase nodded to Du Pré and went on to the three young women and spoke in a low voice. Du Pré couldn’t hear the words. They looked hot and weary and frightened.
Chase turned. His face was gray.
“I found some horse,” said Du Pré, “so I had the police talking to me, too.”
Chase nodded. “Woman who discovered the body was on a bridle path over that way”—he waved his hand—”wouldn’t have seen it if she had been walking. The extra height, you know. She got down and looked in the shrubbery, and then she screamed and the horse panicked. So did she. She had a terrible asthma attack.”
“Okay,” said Du Pré. “So who was killed?” Madelaine was right about this Washington, D.C.
“A young Cree woman from Canada,” said Chase. “She was here as part of a singing group. Someone stabbed her to death. It’s just terrible.”
A telephone rang; one of the women answered.
Chase stood still, shaking his head after a minute.
“I don’t need this,” he said suddenly, his voice savage.
First they get shocked, then they either choke up or get mad, Du Pré thought.
“I needed to talk to you about another matter, anyway, Mr. Du Pré,” said Chase. “I need to think about another matter. Any other matter. We here at the Smithsonian would like very much to tape your versions of some of the old voyageur ballads, the ones you play and sing so competently. Could you possibly stay over a few days after the festival?”
“No,” said Du Pré. “I don’t like this place much. So I will be happy to tape what you want, but I do it at home. My daughter, she has a tape recorder.”
“Uh,” said Chase, smiling, “I hardly think that will do. We will need a studio, you see. Recording is very difficult.”
“Okay,” said Du Pré. “We got recording studios in Montana. Maybe not so fancy as you got here, I don’t know. But we got them and they have to do. I stay here till my plane out Sunday night, but I sweat enough for the rest of my life.”
Chase nodded. “The land upon which Washington, D.C., is built was largely swamp when the sundry states donated it. Since then, the swamp has risen, I often think.”
“Besides,” said Du Pré, “I got to go to a powwow, been planned long time.”
“Play fiddle?” said Chase.
Du Pré shook his head. “No,” he said, “both my father and grandfather were canoe builders, and I still got some of their tools. I am not all that good, but lots of that stuff got forgotten, so I try to remember.”
“Canoes,” said Chase. “What sort of canoes?”
“What the voyageurs called ‘big bellies,” said Du Pré. “They were kind of little freighters for the fur trade. They had a couple funny things about them—you know, way the struts and braces were fitted. Used bone joints where things were twisted a lot, like that. I have made a couple since for a museum up in Calgary, but they weren’t very good. You know how you got to do something a lot before you know it.”
Chase was thinking.
“So you give me a list of these songs you want, you get hold of a recording studio—there are several in Montana—pay them, I go in and make that music for you,” said Du Pré. He felt a little proud. Besides, once the music was safely here at the Smithsonian, it maybe wouldn’t get lost.
“You’ll hear from us,” said Chase.
The telephones started ringing. Du Pré looked out in front of the tent. There were a bunch of reporters headed their way.
Du Pré slid out the back way, through a slit provided for ventilation.
Some damn thing, he thought. Always.