Tumbler, page 18
“Eavesdroppers,” said Du Pré. He sighed and he went back into the shed and he put the disc back where it had been.
Henkel’s eyes were half open.
Neither he nor Soldner was tied up at all.
“That Thommassen, he knew what I would do,” said Du Pré.
The helicopter was getting closer.
Du Pré sat on the hood of his old cruiser, sipping whiskey and smoking.
The helicopter came close and circled him. A man in a dark suit was looking out the open window and jabbering into a mouthpiece. The helicopter did not land, it just circled.
A line of three tan government sedans shot over the top of the hill to the east, and they began to slow down and then they turned on to the rutted road that led to the old shed.
Two of the cars blocked Du Pré in. The FBI agents got out, guns drawn.
Du Pré yawned.
His cell phone chirred in the car. He looked at it for a moment. It chirred again. Du Pré picked it up.
“Good afternoon,” said Harvey Wallace. “Where is that prick Thommassen?”
“I don’t see him,” said Du Pré.
“How did you find whoever you found then?” said Harvey.
“Birds,” said Du Pré. “They talk, I listen.”
Harvey was silent for a moment.
“Is it Henkel and Soldner?” he said.
“Yah,” said Du Pré.
“That son of a bitch,” said Harvey. “Damn, he is good.”
“These guys, yours,” said Du Pré, “got their guns out.”
“Pointed at you?” said Harvey.
“Non,” said Du Pré, “they are just glaring.”
“Give the phone to one of them,” said Harvey.
Du Pré handed it to the agent nearest him.
Benny Klein’s cruiser turned in.
Du Pré nodded.
The agent with the cell phone was looking at Du Pré and saying yeah into it.
Du Pré got in his cruiser and he drove off through the grass and back out to the highway.
Benny Klein stopped and he rolled down his window.
“Assholes,” he said.
Du Pré yawned.
“Let them have them,” he said. “You don’t really want them now, do you?”
Benny looked at Du Pré. Then they both laughed.
CHAPTER 39
DU PRÉ AND BENETSEE stood up when Judge Clemens entered the room.
The judge sat and he looked out at the attorneys and Du Pré and Benetsee and a good three dozen reporters and the public three deep at the back of the room.
“Ralph,” said Judge Clemens to the government attorney, “I really can’t do much but dismiss all of this. The lot.”
The government attorney glared at Du Pré and Benetsee.
“The stuff was fake and these guys know where the real Lewis and Clark artifacts and the journal are,” said Ralph.
Judge Clemens nodded.
“You haven’t established that any artifacts or journals were in fact indisputably connected to the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” said Judge Clemens. “So far as we know, the fakes were fakes all along.”
The government attorney grew red.
“All charges dismissed,” said Judge Clemens. He rapped once with his gavel and he shot through the drapes that covered the door to his chambers.
Du Pré and Benetsee moved slowly through the mass of reporters. They did not say anything. When one particularly aggressive newsman planted himself in front of Benetsee the old man slowly looked up at him, and when their eyes met the reporter backed away.
One of Bart’s big SUVs, dark green with heavily tinted windows, stood at the curb. Du Pré and Benetsee got into it.
“Around back?” said Bart.
“Yeah,” said Du Pré, “there is this door says IN on it.”
Bart pulled away, and he went round behind the building and down to the parking garage in the underground.
Judge Clemens was standing near the elevator, dressed in worn denims and cowboy boots and a stained and battered old hat. Bart pulled up and the judge got in and Bart went out into the sun.
The judge turned and he looked at Benetsee.
“The bones are being shipped,” he said. “I will see that they get to you.”
Benetsee grinned, showing some stubs of black teeth.
“They here now,” he said.
Bart slowed down.
“Up there?” he said, pointing to the airport on the sandstone benches that rose above Billings. A big jet was swooping in.
Bart changed lanes and he turned right and they soon were at the terminal.
“Over there,” said Judge Clemens, pointing to the freight terminal. Bart drove past a guard who did not even look up.
Judge Clemens got out and he went into the terminal office and he came back out a few minutes later. He filled his pipe and he lit it and he leaned against the SUV. Du Pré got out, too, and he rolled a smoke.
“You understand all of what went on?” said the judge.
Du Pré shook his head.
“Too rich here,” he said. “America got too much money.”
The judge nodded.
“The people who were kidnapped are all right?” said Judge Clemens.
Du Pré snorted.
“Yah,” he said.
“I am curious,” said the judge, “about the Lewis and Clark material. I suspect that the real things exist. I expect that the old man knows where they are.”
Du Pré nodded.
“Strange,” said the judge, “a few things lost and a couple of centuries later they get people killed.”
“Fools,” said Du Pré.
“Have you ever known any other medicine people like Benetsee?” said the judge.
“One, him, enough,” said Du Pré. “Old joker, Old Coyote. Him like drive people crazy.”
“I don’t agree,” said the judge. “I think that Benetsee tries to teach people to see what is really there.”
“Yah,” said Du Pré, “people, they can’t handle what is really there, most.”
“How old do you think he is?” said the judge.
“Him old,” said Du Pré, “when my grandfather he knows him. He is old then.”
A clerk appeared at an open door. He held a box about the size of the banana box that Du Pré had hidden the fake Lewis and Clark stuff in.
“Ah,” said the judge, “time for my signature.”
He tapped out his pipe and he went in and he soon came back with the box, a waxed carton with plastic seals and bands.
Bart popped the rear door open and the judge put the box in the back and he closed the door and then he and Du Pré got in.
“Drop me back at the Federal Building,” said Judge Clemens. “I wonder if it would be all right if I came to the funeral for those people back there.”
Benetsee looked at him.
“Honor the dead,” said Benetsee. “You help them come home they would like you there.”
“When will that be?” said the judge.
“Soon as we get back,” said Benetsee. “They been out of their earth a long time gone. Very tired of that.”
“I can have you flown back here,” said Bart.
“Good,” said Judge Clemens. “That would be very good.”
Bart headed east on the Interstate and then he turned north and he drove on the two-lane blacktop.
He kept the speed legal.
“Does this goddamned thing go any faster?” said Judge Clemens. “I’m from North Dakota, you see.”
Du Pré laughed. He fished a flask out of his jacket and he had some whiskey and he rolled down the window and he made up two cigarettes. He lit them both and he passed the first to Benetsee. The old man sighed and puffed.
They did not speak again until they got to Toussaint.
Madelaine was behind the bar, beading another purse. She didn’t look up when they came in.
“Du Pré!” she said, “that judge don’t throw you in the can forever!”
“Non,” said Du Pré.
“Non,” said Judge Clemens.
Father Van Den Heuvel came out of the men’s room. He tripped over a chair leg and he fell halfway and he caught himself and he came on.
“OK,” said Madelaine. She put the purse down. She put her reading glasses on top of it.
Judge Clemens smiled at her.
“I’m the judge who didn’t throw Du Pré in jail,” he said.
“Why not, you son of a bitch,” said Madelaine and they both laughed.
Madelaine put the sign on the bartop.
MIX AND PAY YOUR OWN DAMN SELF. RIGHT BACK.
They went out to the SUV and Du Pré got the box with the Métis bones in it and they walked up the street to the little cemetery behind the white clapboard Catholic Church. There was a blanket spread on the ground beside a newly dug grave.
Du Pré cut the seals and he opened the box and he carefully lifted out the bones and skulls and he put them in the red blanket and then he folded it round them and he stepped down in the grave and he put the bundle gently down and he got out again.
Father Van Den Heuvel said the burial service and Benetsee began to sing, his old voice high and clear.
It did not take very long.
Bart and Du Pré filled the grave while Benetsee made tobacco around it.
Benetsee was still in his finery.
They walked back toward the saloon, but when they passed the little creek that ran through town Benetsee turned off and he began to trot up the path that ran beside it. For all his years he moved very swiftly.
“That,” said the judge, “is undoubtedly the greatest man in Montana.”
“You could maybe hang him for that?” said Du Pré.
Everyone laughed.
Four ranchers were sitting at the bar with the drinks they had made.
“Shit,” said one, “now we gotta pay fer ’em.”
Madelaine went back to her stool behind the bar and she smiled at the four while Du Pré and Bart and the judge and the priest took stools down at the far end.
The till was open and four dollars lay on the ledge above the drawer for tips.
“Shake?” said Madelaine. She got the dice cup and they began to play for the pot, a jerky container that held a gallon of mixed small bills.
“I miss this,” said the judge. “There was a place just like this in the little town I grew up in. Everybody went there. This feels like that place.”
“A good place,” said Bart.
The telephone rang and Du Pré went to answer it so Madelaine could go on shaking dice with the ranchers.
“Yah,” he said.
“We got him,” said Harvey. “Of course he stuck his pistol in his mouth when he saw the cars. So that’s over.”
“Harvey,” said Du Pré, “any of this make any sense, you?”
“None whatever,” said Harvey. “I have to admit a good deal of what people do makes no sense at all. For instance, we have nuclear weapons—.”
“Why him do this?” said Du Pré.
“Why anyone?” said Harvey. “He damn near made it, though. Had a plane there and he was about thirty seconds from being airborne and gone in the night. We could maybe have tracked him but then again maybe not. Well, he can’t explain it now anyway.”
“Lewis and Clark stuff, it was fake,” said Du Pré.
“I’m sure it was,” said Harvey. “And where is Benetsee?”
“Holding up the world,” said Du Pré.
“You know,” said Harvey, “finding things is all right, but the looking for them is a lot better.”
They both laughed.
Du Pré hung up the telephone.
“Bassman call,” said Madelaine. “They want you play that roadhouse, next Friday.”
“Where is it?” said Judge Clemens.
“Down on the Missouri,” said Madelaine, “new people, but they are very nice.”
“Maybe that Kim kill him this time,” said Du Pré.
CHAPTER 40
THE WIND BLEW WITH force.
The door of the Toussaint Saloon banged open and banged shut and banged open again.
“Christ,” said Booger Tom, “’bout enough to blow the hair off a dog.”
Bart came back to his stool and he stood there.
Du Pré got up.
“You watch that wind, Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “you are flying when you go over hills sometimes.”
Du Pré laughed.
Bart went out and Du Pré after him and they got into Du Pré’s old cruiser and a tumbleweed got stuck in the windshield wiper for a moment and then it tore away.
“I’d drive,” said Bart. “I suppose I could.”
His left hand was in a nylon cast. He had broken some of the bones in it when a torque wrench sheared off a bolt.
“Non,” said Du Pré.
He got to the north-south highway and he turned left and he gunned the big engine. The cruiser got up to ninety-five quick enough.
“I got a call from Markham Milbank,” said Bart. “He wondered what he could do to help anyone that all this hurt.”
Du Pré snorted.
“It is too much money,” he said.
“That’s what I said,” said Bart. “I told him he was a fat hog and everyone wants a slice.”
Du Pré nodded.
“They don’t have schools,” said Bart, “to teach you how to be rich.”
The wind rose and screamed and dust devils raced across the High Plains, and rows of tumbleweeds danced over the road.
The heavy old cruiser rocked on its springs whenever the wind gusted. But it sat down on the road low enough so there wasn’t much for the wind to grasp.
“One of my Suburbans would be in the ditch,” said Bart.
Du Pré nodded. He rolled himself a smoke and he lit it and he sucked in a good lungful.
“Where does Benetsee have the real stuff from the expedition?” said Bart.
Du Pré shook his head.
“That old goat,” said Bart, “is ahead of us all.”
Du Pré nodded.
A huge motor home appeared on the top of the next hill, pushed a good thirty degrees off plumb.
Du Pré braked and he slowed and he turned off on a county road.
The motor home sailed past.
“Smart,” said Bart.
“There it goes,” said Du Pré.
The motor home had tipped over and it was coming apart.
“Shit,” said Du Pré.
“Shit,” said Bart.
Du Pré turned and he drove back to the mess of aluminum sheeting and household goods strewn over the highway and the downwind verge.
A man was struggling out of the wreckage.
Du Pré and Bart got out of the cruiser.
The man looked at them.
“You all right?” said Bart.
“Not at all,” said the man. “I’ll need you to drive me to the nearest place I can get some help for this.”
“Anyone else in this thing?” said Bart.
“Just me,” said the man.
“Good,” said Bart. “Fuck you, and you can wait until someone comes along who gives a shit, and that ain’t us.”
Du Pré and Bart got back in the cruiser. Du Pré backed and turned.
“I’ll sue you sons of bitches,” screamed the man.
“Don’t worry,” said Bart. “Somebody will kill him.”
Du Pré laughed and he punched the accelerator and they were soon back to the usual ninety-five.
There was little traffic. Anyone with a grain of sense was home.
They got to the Interstate and Du Pré turned west and he slowed down to seventy-five.
Semis going past on the opposite lanes were laboring against the wind. The few ahead of the cruiser in the westbound lanes were weaving from the wind shoving the trailers against the tractors.
“I don’t recall it blowing this hard,” said Bart.
“It does,” said Du Pré, “from the east there is a bad storm coming maybe.”
“Freaky weather this year,” said Bart.
“Montana we got no other kind,” said Du Pré.
They got to Billings and Du Pré drove on up to the airport and he stopped in front of the passenger terminal.
“Thanks,” said Bart. “Go on home to that lovely woman.” He took his briefcase and small suitcase out of the trunk and he slammed the lid.
Du Pré waved as he drove away.
Twenty miles east of Billings Du Pré slowed and stopped. There had been an accident and a semitrailer was slaunchwise across the eastbound lanes. Loose sheets of aluminum flapped in the wind on the wrecked trailer. The tractor was on its side.
Two giant tow trucks were cabling the mess out of the way.
A highway patrolman walked back to Du Pré’s cruiser.
He bent down.
“A few minutes,” he said.
“OK,” said Du Pre.
The highway patrolman was young and he looked very lost so someone had died.
The two tow trucks winched the wreckage away and Du Pré was waved on through and he waited until he was a mile away before speeding up.
He got to the north-south highway that led home and he turned off and crossed over the Interstate and he gunned the engine and got up to ninety-five. Like God intended for folks to drive at in Montana, which was very big and pretty empty.
Du Pré rolled a smoke and he lit it and when he had stubbed out the butt he reached under the seat for his flask and he fished it out and shook it. There was only a teaspoon or so in it.
“God damn … forgot to fill it, stupid bastard,” he said pleasantly.
He shoved the flask back under the seat.
A few miles ahead there was a roadhouse off on the right, in the middle of nowhere.
Du Pré pulled in to the lot and he parked and he went in.
A pleasant-looking woman looked up.
“Afternoon,” she said.
A man in a wheelchair grinned at Du Pré. He had coppery skin and a round face. Mexican, probably, Du Pré thought.
Most of them Indians, too.
“I have a ditch,” said Du Pré, “fifth of that Jim Beam maybe too.”
The woman mixed his drink and set it over and then she went to the cabinet where the brown goods were stored and she got out a fifth of whiskey and she put it in a paper sack.
She put two dollars on the bar.
