Wolf, No Wolf by Peter Bowen

Author:Peter Bowen [Bowen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4676-4
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2012-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

“SOME DAMN WINTER, THIS,” said Du Pré.

Bart and Booger Tom and Du Pré were standing in the mud of a snowplow turnout, looking down on the lands below the bench. The Chinook wind had come, warm and thick with rain. The snows were melting, the creeks roared, the river was jammed with ice and out of its banks, and all the flat fields were flooded with water and sheets of ice. The cattle were soaked, their hair plastered; the horses snorted nervously and kept to the highest ground they could find.

“If it freeze bad,” said Du Pré, “we will have some bad trouble.”

“Ain’t seen this since ’49,” said Booger Tom.

“The Gold Rush?” said Bart, sweetly.

Booger Tom looked at Bart for a long moment.

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t come to Montana till after they invented grass.”

Du Pré looked down at the county road. Bill Stemple’s pickup was struggling up it toward them.

“Hey, Bart,” said Du Pré, “something is…Stemple, he would not come up to us unless he had to. Too much work he has now.”

Bart went to his truck and he switched on his radio, shaking his head. He spoke into it for a moment.

“Let’s go down,” he said when he came back. “There’s bits of cloth and I don’t know what all washing out of Cooper Creek. Pieces of those idiots got killed by the avalanche. Stemple tried to get hold of me but I’d turned off my radio. The dispatcher couldn’t raise me.”

They drove down toward Bill Stemple, who turned off and waited.

Bart pulled up and rolled down his window.

“Howdy,” said Stemple. “Listen, there’s scraps of cloth floating out from under that mess of snow up the canyon there. I can’t figure it. The cloth’s been torn up, ripped. It don’t look like the avalanche done it.”

Bart nodded. “Puzzling,” he said. He looked at Du Pré.

“How much cloth?” said Du Pré, shouting past Booger Tom, who was sitting in the middle of the seat.

“Damn near half a bushel,” said Stemple, “strips and scraps.”

“We’ll be right along,” said Bart.

They drove on down the hill. Stemple turned around and followed, not close. The road was either muddy or slick.

“What do you think?” said Bart, as they plowed on toward Stemple’s.

Du Pré and Booger Tom shook their heads.

At the ranch they got on a pair of snow machines, Bart and Booger Tom, Du Pré and Bill Stemple, and slopped and roared up to the mouth of the canyon. Du Pré looked up at the deep, deep snow, melting down rapidly. The creek roared, high and brown.

He saw some bright red pieces of cloth float past. There were other pieces of ripstop nylon on the brown boiling water, stuck in the tangled branches of alder at the verge of the creek bottom.

Du Pré eased down the bank far enough to grab a couple scraps. He sidestepped back up the sodden bank and stood, turning the scraps around. He knitted his eyebrows.

“What?” said Bart.

Du Pré shook his head.

He walked over to Bill Stemple.

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