BUT BENETSEE WASN’T THERE. The sweat lodge was cold and empty and no smoke came from the chimney. The dogs were on the front porch of the shack. There was a pile of gnawed bones and scrap meat a little ways away and they could drink from the creek, eat the scraps, and sleep in the warm place under the porch.
Agent Banning scratched their ears.
“I think he’s watching us,” she said, “either from that bunch of rocks over on the ridge there or the willows just across the creek. You mind we wait a bit? Actually, we wait a bit. I got to talk to him. Oh, well. Tell you what, I’ll just bet you there’s a chopping block back there, and I’ll just go and put this wine and tobacco and meat back on it and then come back and we just sit here on the front porch, have us some more of that whiskey and I’ll bum a couple smokes off you and we’ll wait.”
“I am supposed to meet my Madelaine, hour or so,” said Du Pré. “I got to go then.”
“Actually, you don’t,” said Banning. “I talked to her, see, she was in the bar when I talked to Susan Klein and I said, look, I got to do this with your Du Pré, sorry about that. She said fine, tear your ass off if I needed to.”
Yah, thought Du Pré, that sound like my Madelaine, all right. She think this is funny.
“So we’ll just wait till he comes. We’ll wait all night and all day tomorrow and all week and still be here when the snows fucking melt but I just got to talk to this Benetsee and I won’t have it any other way or with anyone but you.”
She walked round back and put the wine and meat and tobacco and a small knife on the chopping block. She pulled a twist of sweet grass out of her jacket and lit it and set it on a stone on the ground.
“Uncle!” she yelled. “I must speak with you! You can help me! Please, Uncle!”
“Good,” said Du Pré.
“I hear he’s a very sacred person,” said Banning, “and I will not be a smart-ass with him. My mother had kidney cancer and the Mayo Clinic told her to go home and die quietly. So I took her to a person like this Benetsee and she is seventy-six and on the third husband now, the other two died.”
“Oh,” said Du Pré.
“My daddy was a test pilot,” she said, “you know how that goes. Lost him when I was three. Next one was a drunk and a lawyer and you know how that goes.”
“OK,” said Du Pré. He waited. “Who is the third?” he said.
“A really good guy,” said Banning. “A blind blues saxophone player, wonderful man. Blind and black. They live in Paris.”
Du Pré laughed.
“No shit,” said Banning. “Great guy. She’s wonderful. Sends me these frilly things. Tells me to get married.”
“And?” said Du Pré.
“Well, I got married the one time but it didn’t work out,” said Banning.
“What happened?” said Du Pré.
“I shot the son of a bitch for pissing out the bedroom window. It bothered me, so I became an FBI agent so I wouldn’t do that again.”
There is a true story in there somewhere, Du Pré thought. I chew on it long time maybe I guess it.
“Now, these people who shot the kids they get murder two,” said Agent Banning, “ ’cause I don’t think they were thinking about it till they saw the stupid little bastards cutting the fences and shooting the cattle, and you know we got to stop this because otherwise it’s going to be a sport, you know, shoot anything walks funny, eats tofu, or carries around a flag with baby seals on it. You know, I know, small-town West is going to die, our wonderful government is going to kill it off. They like doing that to small cultures, did it to the Indians and now it’s us but it’s how history moves, and beef is a bad word now and we live in a democracy and we got a very small voice. Oh, by the way, when they release those damn wolves up there they’ll last about two hours and I know that and I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it, or about it. That’s Fish and Wildlife crap, doofuses. They pulled me off some drug murders, Jackson Hole, to send me up here. God, that place is unbelievable. Good place for a nuclear accident you ask me. Well, we had this when it was good.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré, “it was. I don’t think that we lose it, though. This is just one bad moment.”
“Hope so,” said Banning, “but I don’t think so. Well, we had it when it was good and I actually feel for the poor little bastards who came here to save everything, bring back the woolly mammoth and such. It was gone when they got here because when they came they came in a tide and they just swamped it. All the drinking water in the Rockies is poisoned now with giardia. Thank you, backpackers.”
Du Pré laughed.
How many more people dead before this is over, he thought sadly. It came on him suddenly. He looked down at his feet.
Banning held the whiskey bottle in front of Du Pré.
“We got to do this,” she said. “It’s ugly enough now, Gabriel. Really ugly. And you know how bad it could get.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré, “I am not going to enjoy being a good guy this time, if I am.”
“Gray hats, for sure,” said Banning. “I give that old bastard about five minutes before he comes round the shack. I hope I didn’t leave him too much wine.”
“Not possible, leave him too much wine,” said Du Pré. “You know these persons. I got more, he wants it. He is some old man. I sometimes want to break his dirty old neck, but then I think, sometimes he don’t know the answers, just the riddles.”
“Case you are wondering,” said Banning, “I just want to ask for his help and he’ll do it or not and I’ll take what he gives me and it’s all right, whatever.”
“I knew that,” said Du Pré. “I tell you I help. You are right, it was not right, kill those people. I wish it had not happened. I wish for many things in my life. I wish it happened someplace else, I wish my leg was broke. I wish much. But I help you. I will find myself in front of somebody I went to school with, hunted with, drank with, maybe someone who saved my life, this country almost take it few times. I don’t like this.”
“Thanks,” said Banning. “I didn’t know if you could fly high enough to see it. I am truly grateful.”
“I have lived here always,” said Du Pré. “Little time, the army, but that is all. My papa is brand inspector, and when he is killed I am. I got one daughter here with many children, the other she is finishing up her doctor’s degree, at Yale. That Bart, he pay for her everything. But me, I am here, I don’t know too much else. Now I got to go to my life, my friends, cut some of them out, put handcuffs on them, see them off to bad prisons, have their families hate me forever. I don’t like it.”
Banning nodded.
“I say I help you and I will, unless this Benetsee he tells me I can’t. I am sorry, I give you my word and then I think of this. If he says no I go away.”
“He won’t say no,” said Banning. “Whatever is bad now will only be worse if you don’t help and he will know that. A bad time, it’s here, and we have to deal with it. Your Madelaine told me something about you, Du Pré, she knows you well. She said you’d charge hell with one bucket of water. I ain’t heard that for thirty years.”
The old dogs stirred. They got up and woofed wheezily.
“Benetsee!” said Du Pré. “We need you, my friend.”
The old man was behind them on the porch.
“Some good wine,” said Benetsee. “I like maybe a good smoke. You roll it thick, yes?”
Du Pré did. He handed it to the old man and held out his lighter to him. Benetsee drew deeply on the cigarette.
Benetsee knelt down and held the smoke in front of Banning. She took it and had a long drag.
“You got a good spirit,” said Benetsee, “falcon spirit. Pretty swift, little too sure sometimes, get you in trouble, crash into things.”
“Yes, Uncle,” said Banning.
Benetsee moved down the steps. He squatted in front of her and he looked at her face for a long time. He finished his cigarette.
“You better be my daughter,” said Benetsee. “I can help you more.”
She nodded. “A great honor,” she said.
“No shit,” said Benetsee. “You going to need it. Now, Falcon Woman, you got more to do, you know.”
Banning’s head snapped up. She looked levelly at Benetsee.
“Coyotes sing early this morning,” said Benetsee. “They tell me sad things.”
No, Du Pré thought, please, no more.
Benetsee stood up and he tugged at Banning’s sleeve till she rose and she followed him.
“People, last night they let wolves out up there. They sneak them in three days ago, pen them, last night they let them loose. Eight wolves. Four people up there with them.”
“Oh, God,” said Banning.
“Two wolves left now,” said Benetsee. “They get lucky, run right.”
“The people?” said Banning.
“Coyotes say two wolves left,” said Benetsee.
Agent Banning looked up at the Wolf Mountains, bright with snow. A thin line, gray as the lead of a pencil scraped over paper, stretched east from the tops of the peaks.
“It’s going to snow like hell up there,” said Banning.
Shit, Du Pré thought. Shit. Goddamn it.
Six.