Notches (23 page)

He reached under the seat and took out a tracking unit, set it on the dashboard and switched it on. Nothing.

That Simpson don’t come down this way he went to Miles City, hunting that girl in the choir, and Harvey has a couple people on that, Du Pré thought. But I don’t think he do that. I think that that Simpson, he come down straight now. He will come here, maybe 10
P.M.

Du Pré slipped the fifth of whiskey out from under the seat and he had a slug and he rolled a smoke and then he started the cruiser and he got back on the old road and he headed north. The little highway that stobbed down from Canada to hit Highway 2 was perhaps twenty miles east of the campground at Raster Creek.

He got to come down that way, turn left, turn right, Du Pré thought.

One or the other.

The little highway ended at Raster Creek. Du Pré put the cruiser out of sight behind a screen of alders and he waited. He rolled a smoke and he got out and he wandered over the empty parking lot. A couple of semis barreled past, headed west. A pickup truck. Not much traffic this night.

He sipped a little whiskey. He watched the stars. He glanced, from time to time, at the tracking unit on the dashboard.

Suddenly, the green dot appeared, headed south on the little road from Canada. The liquid crystal display read 47 miles. Du Pré watched the dot. It was coming south. Simpson was traveling at a good rate. When he got to the T-junction, he turned right. Headed west. Right for Du Pré.

Du Pré started the cruiser. He waited until Simpson was five miles away and then he drove out on the highway and he parked by the entrance to the rest stop. He reached under the backseat and he took out a flare and when the tracking unit said Simpson was a mile away he lit the flare and he dropped it on the road.

And now we pray no fucking cop comes along, Du Pré thought. Du Pré hunkered down out of sight and he racked a round into the chamber of his 9mm and he waited. He could see the light from Simpson’s headlights on the top of the closest hill.

Simpson slowed down and moved out on the center line. He crept up to the flare and pulled in behind Du Pré s cruiser and he stopped and his door opened.

He stepped out.

He walked forward.

Du Pré stood up. He leveled the 9mm at Simpson, who was only fifteen feet away.

“Ho, Simpson,” said Du Pré, “I kill you now, you know. You killed little Barbara Morissette, eh? Kill a lot of others. All up, down the highway, Texas to here.”

Simpson froze. He said nothing.

Du Pré walked forward.

“You’re crazy,” said Simpson.

“Maybe I look, your van,” said Du Pré. “Got little knives, stainless steel, black plastic handles? Little box, got earrings, maybe? Watches? Pieces of skin?”

Simpson was looking steadily at Du Pré.

“Let’s look, your van,” said Du Pré. He waved his gun and Simpson backed up toward the open door of his van.

“Let’s look maybe,” said Du Pré.

Du Pré’s finger tripped the magazine release on his pistol. The magazine popped out and it landed on the asphalt with a metallic thump.

Simpson dived into his van and he slammed it into drive and he drove straight at Du Pré. Du Pré rolled away, toward the barrow pit.

Simpson swerved and he headed west, the van accelerating rapidly.

Du Pré watched the van crest the next hill.

He bent down and he picked up the magazine.

He put it back in the gun.

He picked up the burning flare and he carried it to the barrow pit and he doused it in a puddle.

A bright yellow light flared up to the west.

Du Pré heard a distant explosion.

He nodded and he got in his cruiser and he drove south toward home. When he got to the dirt road that led out to the pishkun he turned off and drove very slowly, the headlights throwing the rocks sticking up out of the thin soil into high relief.

It took the better part of an hour for Du Pré to grind up to the base of the tall cliff. He took the tracking unit and he scrambled up the steep trail to the top. He took the little black box apart and he dropped the pieces down rock fissures. Someday the ice would tear the rocks away from the cliff face. Some day, long time. He kept the batteries.

Du Pré took the whiskey out of his jacket pocket and he had some and he rolled a smoke and he looked up at the stars and then he looked out to the west where the plains rolled on, dark red and black, with pale blotches where the grass was thick.

Long time, Du Pré thought, some people say this was a sea, went all the way from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.

Long time.

Du Pré felt the rock he was sitting on get colder. He stood up and he walked around till his butt wasn’t so chilled.

Long time.

Du Pré felt very tired.

He struggled back down the trail and he got in his cruiser and he sat there for a while, smoking and drinking. There was enough water in the air to dew. It was damp and chilly out.

Du Pré took his bedroll out of the trunk and he carried it to a patch of thick grass by a dead spring.

He slept a long time.

The sun’s heat brought him awake.

He stood up and he walked a couple steps and he pissed.

He stretched and yawned.

The plains went on west forever.

D
U
P
RÉ LOOKED AT
the crumpled burnt van. It had been crushed and then the gas tank had exploded and some of the glass that had stayed in the frames had melted to globs.

Harvey Wallace and Pidgeon were standing near the wrecked semi. It had flipped about three hundred yards away and the cab had been flattened down to the doorline. The trailer was on its side.

Du Pré walked over toward Harvey and Pidgeon.

Harvey glared at Du Pré and he walked away quickly.

Pidgeon looked at Du Pré for a long moment.

“Rolly was alive,” she said. “They flew him out. Where he is, I don’t know.”

Du Pré nodded. I lie to Rolly, I kill the one who killed his little sister. But the only two know that are me and maybe Pidgeon, and now, who cares?

“Harvey’ll get over it,” said Pidgeon. “He’s just ticked. He’s sure you set this up but, of course, no way to prove it.”

Du Pré shrugged.

A wrecker with a lowboy tilt-trailer behind pulled off the highway and it bounced over the ground to the smashed van. The driver backed the trailer up and he got out and put a cable on the van and he set the trailer bed down and he began to winch the burned hulk up onto the oak planks.

“Go through that with a very fine comb,” said Pidgeon. “I expect we will find a few things. Simpson, and I don’t know how, was alive enough to have started to crawl out when the fire started. He burned to death.”

Du Pré nodded.

Good. Hope it hurt bad.

“Now,” said Pidgeon, “I expect there will be just two hundred and some odd murder cases open forever. We won’t ever really know. Thing about it is, you talk to these bastards, you never really know either. They ain’t human, Du Pré. I don’t know what they are.”

Pidgeon took a filter cigarette from a pigskin case and she lit it. The little breeze ruffled her long auburn hair.

An accident records van pulled up and technicians got out and began to walk back up the highway, looking for the black skid marks.

“You be around some?” said Du Pré.

Pidgeon shook her head. “Got some charmer down in Alabama who skins his victims. Alive. Got another in western Pennsylvania, strangles and then beheads. Got a lot of them, Du Pré. This is over. And, it’s never over. Harvey and me, we’ll stop in Toussaint on our way down to Billings, but not for long. It’s what we do, you know.”

Du Pré nodded.

“Harvey’s calmed down some,” said Pidgeon. “I can tell by the way he stands. You want to talk to him, maybe it’s a good time.”

Du Pré glanced over at Harvey, who had his hands in his pockets. He was looking off in the far distance.

He walked over and stood by his friend.

Harvey glanced at him and went on looking far away.

“Pidgeon say you maybe stop in Toussaint, your way back,” said Du Pré.

“Yeah,” said Harvey.

“Well,” said Du Pré. “I think I go, maybe, we have something to eat you get there.”

“We will,” sighed Harvey. “Du Pré, just keep your fucking mouth shut, will you?”

He went back to looking far off.

Du Pré turned his cruiser around and he headed back to Toussaint. It was late afternoon when he got there. The bar had several trucks and cars parked in front of it.

Du Pré went in.

Benny Klein was standing at the bar, having a beer. Susan was pulling a draft pitcher for a couple cowboys.

Du Pré walked up and he stood next to Benny.

“Afternoon,” said Benny, twinkling. “Heard about some wreck up on the Hi-Line. You know anything?”

“Semi hit this van,” said Du Pré.

“Messy,” said Benny.

Madelaine came out of the women’s John.

Du Pré looked at her.

He nodded, once.

Madelaine smiled. She smiled and her white teeth shone. She came to Du Pré and she put her arms around him and she hugged him swaying a little.

“Come sit,” she said. “I get you a drink.” She went behind the bar.

Du Pré saw her beaded purse on one of the little tables by the far wall. He went and sat with his back to the room.

“That Lourdes she will be back in two days,” said Madelaine. “She like that Chicago. I talk to Bart’s Aunt Marella. She is a good lady. She said Bart, he thinks she is his maiden aunt but he is so drunk both times that she is married he don’t remember. She got two daughters, one about Lourdes’s age. Bart, he don’t remember they are his cousins.”

“Yah,” said Du Pré. “Well, that Bart he drink some there for some long time, you know.”

“It is over, yes?” said Madelaine.

Du Pré nodded.

“Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “you drink some whiskey, we eat some food, you get your fiddle and make some music. It is our life, yes.”

Du Pré drank a little. Madelaine dragged him out to the dance floor and she danced and then Du Pré did, too. There were a couple good dance tunes on the jukebox, a record Du Pré had brought from Canada.

They danced to “Boiling Cabbage.” They danced heel-and-toe to “The Water Road.”

Susan Klein brought Du Pré a big steak and some more whiskey.

Du Pré ate like a pig.

Madelaine leaned over and she smiled.

“You that,” she said. “My babies they are safe now.”

The bar filled up.

Bassman showed up and some more of Du Pré’s cousins from Canada and from Turtle Mountain, the old Red River country. There were maybe ten good musicians and they all played, sitting in and leaving, dancing and drinking.

Du Pré stopped fiddling for a minute and he went to the john and he came back out and he ran right in to Benetsee, who was standing at the back of the crowd with Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name.

The old man was as solid as a tree trunk rooted in earth.

Du Pré grabbed his shoulder and he turned him around.

Benetsee was laughing.

“You old bastard,” said Du Pré, “what are you here now for, eh?”

“Come in, drink some wine,” said Benetsee, his black eyes laughing, “You got some tobacco? Some manners?”

Du Pré nodded and he rolled a thick smoke for the old man.

He lit the cigarette and he passed it to Benetsee.

“Pret’ good,” the old man said.

He smoked happily.

Susan Klein brought him a beer mug full of the awful cheap white wine that he liked. She kissed him on the cheek.

“Damn,” said Benetsee. “Wine, pretty women they are kissing me. I like this place.”

Young-Man-Who-Has-No-Name laughed.

“I call this one ‘Pelon’ now,” said Benetsee.

“What him call him?” said Du Pré.

“I don’t care,” said Benetsee.

“Pelon,” said the young man.

“I got to talk, you,” said Du Pré.

Benetsee shook his head.

“We sweat some soon,” he said. “I am here, drink wine, kiss pretty women, and maybe I play the flute.”

Du Pré nodded.

He went back up and he fiddled with Bassman and some guitar pickers and a guy he didn’t know who played pret’ good accordion.

Pidgeon and Harvey came in and they stood by the door. When Du Pré looked at them Pidgeon tossed her head a little.

Du Pré finished the song and he stepped down from the little stage and he made his way through the crowd to them. Pidgeon and Harvey went outside and Du Pré followed.

It was cool and pleasant out in the night air. It was very hot in the bar.

“We’re on our way,” said Pidgeon. “Just wanted to say hello.”

Harvey stood there.

“Challis is in the hospital in Billings,” said Pidgeon. “He was hurt pretty badly. They had to take out his spleen and he had a collapsed lung, some fractures, pretty smashed up.”

“OK,” said Du Pré.

“It’s been real nice,” said Pidgeon. She shook hands with Du Pré.

Du Pré turned to Harvey.

Harvey hit him, hard, in the jaw.

Du Pré flew over the handrail and he landed on his head in the dirt.

He struggled to his feet.

“Don’t fuck with me again,” said Harvey.

“Harvey!” said Pidgeon.

They walked off to a tan government pool car.

Du Pré sat up. He rubbed his jaw.

He looked up. Madelaine was standing there.

She put her hand to her mouth and she ululated.

Victory’s song.

Harvey drove off without looking back.

Du Pré and Madelaine waved anyway.

D
U
P
RÉ STOPPED FOR
a minute in the parking lot of the hospital. He looked up at the blank glass windows and he shook his head and he went on. Madelaine held his arm tighter.

She pulled him to a halt fifty feet from the front doors.

“Your wife die here, Du Pré,” she said. “Old hurts, they leave scars. It is all right. I love you.”

Du Pré looked at her a moment. She know what is bothering me, he thought, when I do not know.

He smiled a little and he nodded. They went on in.

The front desk clerk directed them toward the right floor.