Notches by Peter Bowen

Author:Peter Bowen [Bowen, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4677-1
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2012-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

“CHRIST,” YELLED PIDGEON. “DO you have to drive like this?” Du Pré laughed. The countryside was shooting by very rapidly. They were north of the Yellowstone River and south of the Missouri. The Big Dry. Where the last wild buffalo in America were slaughtered by a Smithsonian expedition.

Du Pré’s great-grandfather had watched from a nearby butte.

The expedition moved on and Du Pré’s grandpère had butchered out the three cows and he had smoked the meat and taken it back to his family. It was the last of the buffalo for the Métis.

Beef is pret’ good, though, Du Pré thought.

“You fucker,” yelled Pidgeon.

Du Pré looked over and he grinned.

“Drive that fifty-five you never get anywhere,” said Du Pré, at the top of his lungs. “Big place, this Montana.”

Pidgeon tried to light a cigarette but she couldn’t get the flame on her butane lighter to keep going long enough to do it. Du Pré took the cigarette from her and he lit it with his old Zippo and handed it back.

Pidgeon smoked and looked out the window.

Du Pré slowed down to eighty-five to humor her.

“How fast were we going?” she said.

“About right,” said Du Pré. From the bench he could see the Interstate along the south bank of the Yellowstone River. It was heavy with traffic and it looked very busy in the calm and empty landscape.

They crossed over the river and went up an on-ramp and headed west.

South at Hardin, on the Crow Reservation, headed for Sheridan.

Du Pré drove at sixty-five. You could drive like hell on the two-lane but the superhighways were heavily patrolled.

This schoolteacher, she was from Billings.

Dumped near Sheridan.

Missing for two days.

First one we got that’s fairly fresh, Du Pré thought.

He’s around.

I find him.

“I think we’ll get some cooperation,” said Pidgeon, “but you never know. The Bureau didn’t try to spare anyone’s feelings till recently.”

No shit, thought Du Pré.

“So I talked to the Sheriff and he’s meeting us at the Denny’s at the north exit into the town.”

Du Pré nodded.

Find your way around America by hamburger.

Bad hamburgers, too.

They came to the exit for the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Eleven Métis, they die there. That Mitch Bouyer, he is leading the scouts, he try to send his friends away. He knows how many Sioux, Cheyenne, all them Plains people are down there.

Custer sends his favorite Crow scout, Half Yellow Face, away.

Mitch, he die there. Lonesome Charley Reynolds, the old trapper, he die there, too.

That Custer, he is a bastard.

Them Indian, they have their Day of Greasy Grass.

“My heart has quit pounding,” said Pidgeon. “You can speed up now. I know it hurts you to obey the law.”

“Me,” said Du Pré, “I obey all them good laws.”

“Right,” said Pidgeon.

She was dressed in jeans and hiking boots and a cotton shirt and a photographer’s vest. Her gun, ID, handcuffs, and such were in the pockets. She carried a camera and many rolls of film. Little tape recorder.

“There have been three other bodies left near Sheridan in the last ten years,” said Pidgeon, “all young women, all mutilated, none identified.

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