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  Du Pré stood back, marking time, while Bassman thumped away, putting a floor under Père Godin’s runs. Du Pré stepped forward and he slid in to the melody and Père Godin stepped back.

  Du Pré stood at the mike and he began to sing.

  Pull that paddle long time to go

  Madelaine I love her so

  Pull on that rope, my Madelaine

  And I come home to you …

  Some older couples were two-stepping on the little dance floor.

  A young boy leaped up and grabbed the wagon wheel and he hung there for a moment until his mother snapped at him to get the hell down.

  Du Pré and Bassman and Père Godin played for another twenty minutes and then they took a break.

  The crowd went to talking to one another. There were all sorts of people in the room, young and old, families, single people, and many children.

  The four waitresses were carrying armloads of plates. People had been eating a lot of beef.

  Madelaine was pulling beers and pouring shots and mixing drinks, and so was Rob. People were three deep at the bar getting booze after the music stopped.

  Du Pré and Bassman and Père Godin waited until the crowd thinned, and then they went to the end of the bar. Madelaine bustled down with three ditchwater highballs and she set them down and she went back to work.

  The three musicians drank.

  By the time they had drained their glasses Madelaine was back with three more. She set them down and was gone again.

  Carol came out of the kitchen, looking sweaty and exhausted. She drank three tall glasses of water very quickly and she went back to the kitchen.

  The bar crowd had thinned out and Madelaine waved at Du Pré and she went back to the kitchen, too.

  Rob finished the last pulls and he looked up and down the bar and then he came down to Du Pré and Bassman and Père Godin.

  “Great music,” he said, “wonderful. Madelaine is even more wonderful. God, we’d have sunk without her.” He looked at the crowd in the room.

  Du Pré laughed.

  “More people than we thought would come,” said Rob.

  “They like you,” said Du Pré.

  A couple of young hands went out the side door. Friends followed them prepared to slap the victor on his back and carry the vanquished to his truck until he woke up.

  Families with young children began to leave, hugging parents and kin, and several tables opened up. No one went to them right away, so the rush was over at last.

  Madelaine came back out of the kitchen.

  “They are down to the last half of one prime ribs,” she said. “It was a pret’ good guess.”

  Du Pré nodded. Nice crowd, nice place. Wonder how long them picture windows will last.

  The side door opened and a sound of cheering came in.

  “Punchin’ the spots off each other,” said an old rancher bellied up to the bar. “Them youngsters been at it a while now. Must be about evenly matched.”

  Père Godin wandered off to charm a woman someplace.

  Old bastard, him got what, sixty kids I hear? Half of Manitoba is Père Godin’s.

  “I work real hard,” said Bassman, “I maybe fuck one woman for his ten.”

  Du Pré laughed. Madelaine had said once Père Godin loved women and they could tell.

  Old goat.

  Highly successful old goat.

  Père Godin was sitting with a pretty lady at a small table off in a corner. He said something and she laughed.

  “Sixty-four,” said Madelaine, glancing at him.

  “Ah?” said Du Pré.

  “Him got sixty-three kids,” said Madelaine, “and believe me, that is one done deal over there, the table.”

  Bassman and Du Pré laughed.

  They wandered back up to the stage and Du Pré tuned his fiddle and he started Baptiste’s Lament.

  Black water, black forest, big canoes full of bales of pelts.

  Long time gone.

  Père Godin played some Cajun accordion. He had children down in Louisiana, too. His accordion and charm carried him far.

  The woman he had been talking to was looking at Père Godin with adoring eyes. He looked at her while his accordion played a song of love.

  Du Pré stepped in before the woman fell off her chair.

  He played a very old reel, one that Du Pré’s father, Catfoot, had said went all the way back to Brittany.

  Them people, Catfoot had said, they dance this there, they dance this on the decks, their little fishing boats, they dance this on the shore, Gulf of St. Lawrence, dance it on buffalo hide pegged to the ground, here. Long time gone.

  The tune was so old and rare that people stopped talking so they could listen closely. It spoke to the blood.

  Du Pré ended the reel with the long, lonely, wavering high F.

  The crowd clapped and clapped and cheered and whistled. A man began to pass his hat around and people dropped money in it.

  Bassman began to play a melody on his bass, his moment at the front of the stage. He stood lazily, loosely, while he coaxed notes from his fretless electric bass. His strong fingers pressed and pulled the strings.

  There was humor and self-mockery in the music, and people grinned.

  Du Pré looked at his sideman, nodding at tempo.

  Du Pré was looking at Bassman when he saw Bassman’s eyes widen, and Du Pré turned and he looked at the woman stalking toward the stage.

  Must be that Kim, and she had a little chrome-plated gun in her hand.

  Bassman backed away.

  Kim kept coming.

  She fired the pistol and Bassman’s bass took a hit.

  Bassman shrugged out of the strap and he dropped the bass and he made time for the side door and he dove through it just as some poor person was coming in. Bassman went right over the top of him.

  Kim raced after him, her tight pants and high heels slowing her some.

  When she got to the door, she fired again.

  Then she went through.

  It had happened fast, and people weren’t really sure that they had seen what they had seen.

  Bassman’s wounded bass buzzed on the floor.

  Du Pré went to the amplifier and he turned the knob. He pulled the cord that led to the bass out of its socket.

  Another couple of pops outside.

  Rob came running up.

  “Jesus!” he said, “are you OK?”

  Du Pré looked past him. Madelaine was wrestling, sort of, with Carol.

  Du Pré and Rob ran back to the bar.

  “Call 911!” Carol shrieked.

  “Non!” said Madelaine.

  They each had hold of the telephone.

  “She tried to kill him!” Carol howled.

  “Non!” said Madelaine, “leave it be. That little damn gun can’t kill no more than a gopher, can’t hit anything with it anyway.”

  Carol stopped struggling.

  “You’re sure,” she said.

  Madelaine nodded.

  “Was that his girlfriend?” said Carol.

  Madelaine shrugged.

  “One of them maybe,” she said.

  “She was shooting at him!” said Carol.

  “She hit the damn bass,” said Du Pré. “Wound it good, too.”

  “You don’t think this is something I should call the sheriff about?” said Carol.

  Madelaine grinned.

  “True love,” she said, “sometimes it is a hard thing.”

  Another couple of pops sounded outside.

  CHAPTER 4

  PÈRE GODIN CARRIED THE last of Bassman’s things to the shed in back of Madelaine’s house.

  The Turtle Mountain people were in the kitchen having a big breakfast.

  “That Bassman,” said Du Pré, “that son of a bitch, him, he takes off, leaves his shit.”

  “She is shooting at him,” said Père Godin.

  “She is not hitting him,” said Du Pré.

  “Maybe,” said Père Godin, “Bassman, him, he is worried she is a bad shot, maybe hit him not mean to.”

  “I hope she shoots him,” said Du Pré.

  “Him good bass player,” said Père Godin. “They are all crazy. Fiddler too.”

  Du Pré grinned.

  “Accordion players,” he said.

  The Turtle Mountain people came out and they all hugged Du Pré and they got in their old cars. They drove off with Père Godin waving from the back seat of the Chevrolet.

  Madelaine put her hand on Du Pré’s shoulder.

  “Good music,” she said. “Ver’ good music, though not so good after Bassman lights out. Him, him think with his dick.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “They are fucking like minks now,” said Madelaine. “You will see.”

  Du Pré snorted.

  “You got that court case Billings tomorrow,” said Madelaine. “Meet them lawyer tonight you remember.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Those damn journals,” said Madelaine, “big fight. You find them they are yours, yes?”

  Du Pré laughed. The lost journals of William Clark, cached on the way back home after the Corps of Discovery had gone all of the way to the Pacific Ocean.

  “I go and find Benetsee,” said Du Pré.

  He went to his old police cruiser, which still had a working light bar and siren. The decals had been taken off the sides.

  He drove out of town and up the long bench road to the west and down to the little valley where Benetsee’s cabin was, on a low shoulder of land above Cooper’s Creek.

  There was smoke coming from the chimney.

  Du Pré drove up the winding rutted track and he parked in the dead weeds.

  Snow, mud, dust, Du Pré thought, Montana seasons.

  Du Pré
stepped up on the porch, and he waited until the door swung open and he went on in.

  The old man smiled, his wizened weathered face like a ball of twine with sparkling black eyes in it.

  I see him he is smaller each time a little, Du Pré thought.

  The cabin was very warm. There was a heavy smell. A spice. Cardamom.

  Du Pré nodded and he went back out to the cruiser and he opened the trunk and he got out a jug of the fizzy wine Benetsee liked. Madelaine had left a small plastic bag of venison and plum stew on the seat. Du Pré took that, too.

  The old man was waiting on the porch when Du Pré came back. He had a clean quart jar in his hand. Du Pré filled the jar with wine and the old man drank it down slowly and steadily.

  “I got to go, Billings,” said Du Pré. “That Lewis and Clark stuff we find. The government is suing me.”

  Benetsee held out the jar and Du Pré poured. He rolled the old man a cigarette and he lit it and he passed it to him.

  “Pret’ fancy,” said Benetsee. “You must be ver’ big man, have a government sue you, Du Pré.”

  “Pain in the ass,” said Du Pré.

  “Government,” said Benetsee, shrugging.

  “That stuff,” said Du Pré, “I lose, don’t give it to them, they will throw me in jail.”

  Benetsee nodded.

  “You been in jail,” he said. “It is not so bad.”

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “I don’ need your bullshit now, old man, this is not a joke,” said Du Pré.

  “Hee,” said Benetsee, “Ever’thing is a joke, Du Pré, even death, him.”

  Du Pré nodded. He rolled himself a cigarette.

  “OK,” said Du Pré, “I get bail maybe, have a little time, me, before they throw me in the can. So I come here, shoot you, make myself feel better.”

  “Sure,” said Benetsee, “that Du Pré, I say, him, ver’ smart.”

  Du Pré sighed.

  “OK,” he said, “old man, what I do here?”

  “I go with you,” said Benetsee.

  “OK,” said Du Pré. “I say the judge, here is old fart got that stuff you want. So throw him in jail, yes.”

  “Ah,” said Benetsee, “good wine.”

  The old man went inside and Du Pré could hear him rummaging around. He came out in a moment with a blue nylon backpack.

  “OK,” said Benetsee, “we go now, yes.”

  Du Pré looked at him.

  “You are coming with me?” he said.

  Benetsee nodded.

  “Good,” said Du Pré, “they hang us both then.”

  “Good thing,” said Benetsee, “have company.”

  “Hang on the rope there,” said Du Pré, “ver’ lucky me.”

  Benetsee patted him on the knee.

  “We just go,” he said, “that Billings.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “OK,” he said, “mess on the front seat, you ride in back?”

  He got in and opened the rear door for Benetsee. The cruiser still had the cage wire behind the front seat and no handles on the inside of the rear doors.

  Du Pré got in and he pulled the flask from under the seat and he had some whiskey and then he rolled a smoke and he lit it. He started the cruiser’s big engine and he backed around and went down the track.

  When he got to the county road, he turned left instead of right.

  “Billings, that way,” said Benetsee.

  “Madelaine, that way,” said Du Pré.

  “You are a bastard, Du Pré,” said Benetsee.

  Du Pré drove to Toussaint, and he parked in front of the house.

  He got out.

  Madelaine stood in the open front door.

  “Benetsee, him want to go with me,” said Du Pré.

  “OK,” said Madelaine, “me, I think I see.”

  “Big trial,” said Du Pré. “Good witness him.”

  “Smells bad, though,” said Madelaine. She wiped her hands on her apron and she came down the steps and out to the car.

  Benetsee sat like stone in the prisoner’s cage.

  “Old man!” said Madelaine, “you need, that bath! Clean clothes.”

  “You,” said Benetsee, smiling at Du Pré, “me, I am behind you, walking ver’ softly, like death.”

  “Old man,” said Madelaine, “in the goddamn house, the shower. I see about clothes for you, yes.”

  Du Pré opened the door.

  “Son of bitch,” said Benetsee pleasantly, “you, him.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “It is worth it, die now,” he said.

  Benetsee went up the walk and inside.

  Madelaine grinned at Du Pré.

  “Old fart,” she said, “fix him, yes, me. I will make him wear a tie.”

  Du Pré roared.

  He reached in to the back of the car and he got the blue nylon backpack.

  Madelaine took it. She frowned as she felt the stuff inside.

  She unzipped the bag.

  Some underwear made of doeskin. Fringed pants of deerhide. A pair of moccasins with Nez Percé beadwork on them. And a long fringed shirt at the bottom. Madelaine pulled it out and she unfolded it.

  The shirt was of pale tan deerskin. It had many designs done on the yoke and chest in porcupine quills dyed with roots pounded and boiled, the old way.

  A single blue star on the back, with six points.

  “This is ver’ beautiful stuff, Du Pré,” said Madelaine.

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Him always know everything,” said Du Pré.

  “Get you drive here his bath,” said Madelaine.

  “Yes,” said Du Pré.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE LAWYER WAS WAITING for Du Pré in the hall. The Federal Building had long corridors that smelled of polish. Muted voices far away decided fates.

  Benetsee padded along beside Du Pré, his moccasined feet making slip slip slip noises on the buffed poured stone.

  “Massingham,” said the lawyer. He held out a huge beefy hand and Du Pré shook it. He offered it to Benetsee and the old man waved it away like it was a fly.

  The lawyer shrugged.

  “We have appealed,” he said, “I think you know. This hearing is to show cause why you have not turned over the artifacts pending the outcome.”

  Du Pré nodded.

  “Him not turning them over,” said Benetsee, “him not have them. They belong, his daughter, me. I have them, Du Pré does not know where they are hidden. Me, I know.”

  The lawyer looked at Du Pré, who nodded.

  “You really don’t know, do you,” said the lawyer.

  Du Pré shook his head.

  “Christ,” said the lawyer, “this judge may not like that.”

  “I talk to him,” said Benetsee.

  “You have no standing at the moment, sir,” said the lawyer.

  “I am standing, here,” said Benetsee. He turned to Du Pré.

  He came close.

  “You go have nice drink someplace,” said Benetsee. “I take care of this chickenshit.”

  Du Pré laughed.

  The lawyer looked at the ceiling.

  “Christ,” he said.

  “I come,” said Du Pré, “him, Benetsee, he needs to speak.”

  The lawyer sighed.

  “We’ll see what the judge says,” he said.

  “Judge, him talk to me,” said Benetsee.

  The lawyer threw up his hands. He looked at his thick gold watch.

  “Down here,” he said.

  He held the door for Du Pré and the old man and just beyond it was a guard and a metal detector. The lawyer handed over his briefcase and the guard peered into it and he set it on the other side of the metal frame. The lawyer handed the watch to the guard and he went through the detector and the guard gave him the watch.

  Du Pré pulled the multitool from its sheath and he handed it to the guard and he walked through the metal detector. The dingus buzzed.

  The guard motioned him to come back.

  Du Pré sighed.

  “The belt buckle,” said the guard.

  Du Pré took off the belt with the heavy oval buckle and he gave it to the guard.

  He walked through the metal detector and it buzzed.

  Du Pré took out his pocketknife and all the change he had and he gave them to the guard and he walked through the metal detector.

  It buzzed.

  Benetsee laughed.

  Du Pré spread his hands.

  “You got any metal in you?” said the guard. “Steel pins, surgical hardware?”

  Du Pré shook his head.