DU PRÉ STOOD AT the back of the hearing room in Cooper. There were a bunch of very angry ranchers there, and some well-dressed young people in yuppie outdoor clothes, ugly colors and stupid buffalo designs on them.
“We will now listen to public testimony in the matter of reintroducing the gray wolf to the Wolf Mountains.”
“We’ll just kill the bastards!” shouted a weathered rancher.
The first speaker moved to the podium. A young woman in hiking boots and multipocketed clothes.
“We need to restore the predators…” she began. She stopped. There was a hail of cowshit landing on her and the Fish and Wildlife agents sitting at the long table on the dais.
She ducked and turned her back.
Something started hissing in the back of the room. Du Pré looked down at a stink bomb working up to good thick smoke. He ran for the door and made it through before the rest of the crowd caught on. They soon followed, choking in the fierce stench.
Du Pré laughed. He was wearing his Métis clothes, the high moccasins and Red River sash and hat, the doeskin pants and the loose shirt and leather jacket, buffalo with the fleece in. He rolled a smoke and lit it and watched the crowd sneeze and choke and bitch.
The high school auditorium would need to air a long time.
The Fish and Wildlife agents had been the last out. They coughed and cursed.
“Why don’t you sons of bitches go bust poachers?” a ranchwoman yelled. “We aren’t raisin’ cattle to feed goddamn wolves, so these California bastards like Montana better. We like it just fine and we been here a hundred years.”
Du Pré laughed. Jesus, he thought, they think they just march in here, tell us, hey, you get wolves back, we say fine? These wolves, they will not live very long, you bet.
The young woman who had tried to speak came up to Du Pré, wiping her eyes. She coughed a little.
“Excuse me,” she said, “who are you?”
“Gabriel Du Pré,” said Du Pré. “You did not get much chance in there.”
She shook her head. “These stockmen, they just won’t let us bring anything back. I’ve had cowshit thrown at me before.”
Du Pré waited.
“Are you Indian, I mean Native American?” she said.
“Part Indian,” said Du Pré. “Métis, French Cree Chippewa.”
“Oh,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Eh?” said Du Pré.
“About bringing the wolves back. It’s a major medicine animal.”
Du Pré laughed. “All animals are medicine animals,” he said, “all of them four-footed, six-footed, eight. All.”
“We came up yesterday and had a sweat with a Native American shaman,” she said.
Du Pré grinned at her. “Maybe Benjamin Medicine Eagle?”
“Yes,” she said. “Do you know him?”
“Oh, yes,” said Du Pré, “I know him very well.” Jesus. That little shit.
“It was very moving,” she said. “We prayed for the return of the wolf.”
Du Pré laughed.
“His name is Bucky Dassault,” said Du Pré. “He is a child molester, did time, Deer Lodge, he con his way to alcohol counselor, get fired from that, then he set himself up, shaman. He is a bad guy. How much he rip you off for?”
“Uh,” she said, “oh, God.”
“He didn’t come here?” said Du Pré.
“Yes,” she said, “he did, but then he said he had an appointment he had forgotten.”
“No,” said Du Pré, “I think that maybe he saw me.
“Oh,” she said. Her eyes were red from the smoke.
“There are not so very many shamans,” said Du Pré. “Medicine People are very rare.”
“He sent us an ad,” she said.
Du Pré nodded. An ad. Coupons, maybe.
“What do you think about the wolves?” she said.
“Well,” said Du Pré, “it is a bad thing, bring them back, you have heard about the murders up near the Wolf Mountains, there.”
“Those stockmen…”she said.
“You know, it is a very bad idea, cut fences, shoot someone’s stock.”
“They were friends of mine,” she said.
“I am sorry,” said Du Pré.
“I came here for them,” she said. “We won’t give up. But you didn’t really say what you think. ”
“Um,” said Du Pré. “My grandpapa, he hunt down the last two wolves in Montana, in the lower states here, with that Don Stevens. Old Snowdrift and Lady Snowdrift. Year before they kill them they find their pups, ship all but two of them to the Smithsonian. Don, he take one female pup and he train her, she was in some silent movies with a dog named Strongheart. My grandpapa, he raise a male but it get mean. He kill it. I still have the hide.”
She was looking at him in horror.
“So if you stupid people do this I don’t think that your wolves live very long. Very bad idea push these people around some. They don’t take it.”
The young woman reached in her pocket and she pulled out a tape recorder.
“I’m going to give this to the FBI,” she said, “you bastard.”
Du Pré laughed at her. He walked to his Rover and got in and drove off toward home.
Very strange, these people, he thought. The road home was a straight line north. They just come here, say everything has changed, because we told you so. I don’t like this at all.
I got to keep any more of these fools from being killed. That will not be easy. So stupid. They really want to clear everybody out from the Big Dry? Just tell them, go? Dig up the graves, your people, take them with you? We want a park here? Pretty crazy.
We got them FBIs, we got these people we never seen before. We got lot of change coming, maybe I have to go to Canada. That western Montana is very sad place. Strange people move in there, all alike mostly.
A coyote ran across far ahead of Du Pré’s Rover.
Medicine animal there, for sure, Du Pré thought, he is some joker. Sometimes he catch himself up, get caught in his own jokes, yelp.
I go see Benetsee, Du Pré thought, old coyote joker there, see what he says. Be three in the morning I get there.
He reached under the seat and took up a pint of whiskey and sipped while the Rover shot down the two-lane highway. He had bought a pack of tailor-made cigarettes at the gas station. He smoked and drank and drove.
He shot past a Highway Patrol car lurking in the shadows where a county road came into the highway.
Du Pré sighed and flipped the switch and turned on his flashing lights and siren.
The Highway Patrol car slowed and turned off its light bar.
I liked Montana better before all those social workers, they take over the legislature.
Piss on ’em.
Du Pré’s bladder sent its message. He slowed down and pulled off onto the verge and pissed in the road and got in and went on. Snow started to fall, fat flakes, so it wouldn’t last long.
He pulled up to Benetsee’s shack several hours later. He fished out a jug of bad wine from the back of the Rover and went up to the shack and banged on the door. Benetsee’s old dogs woofed.
“Hey, old fart!” yelled Du Pré. “I got to talk to you!”
Du Pré waited.
Someone grabbed his shoulder. Du Pré whirled round.
“Hah!” said Benetsee. “You bring me some good wine there? Some tobacco? We drink, have a smoke, you come on in.” He opened the door. A stench of old dogs and old man and dirty clothes and woodsmoke and stale wine hit Du Pré in the face. He rolled a cigarette and lit it and another for Benetsee. The old man poured himself some wine in a big dirty jar and he drank it in one long swallow.
“Pret’ good wine,” said Benetsee.
“You know all this bad news,” said Du Pré.
“People got to be knowing how to fight, they make war,” said Benetsee. “Pretty sad, kids, you know, they are dead now and lot of sadness. Parents lose kids, you know, they never get over it.”
Du Pré nodded. “You got anything to tell me?” he said.
Benetsee drank a long drink. He puffed on his cigarette.
“These dead people, they played,” he said. “All that they do, you know.”
Du Pré nodded.
“They think, bring back the buffalo, forget the people. Bring back wolf, eat the buffalo, forget the people. Make it a place fools can play. Wear feathers. Maybe try to dance. Rub them crystals.”
Du Pré had a slug of whiskey.
“Long time, you know,” said Benetsee, “people been here. Before the whites, we hunt meat peoples, to honor them. We kill fur peoples to honor them, keep us warm. All the peoples make themselves for us, you know, and so we all live. Between the earth and sky. Keep each other strong.”
Du Pré nodded.
“These new people they just play,” said Benetsee.
“Yes,” said Du Pré.
“So the earth hate them,” said Benetsee. “I have never felt that. Earth hating anything.”
Du Pré nodded.
“I got to go sleep,” he said.
He went out and drove to Madelaine’s.