cows because that’s what they’d always done. The brands were all good, Du Pré had known these people all his life.
He drove off to the last loading, some ten miles away. One of the bigger outfits, out-of-state money, probably a tax dodge.
Du Pré nodded at the foreman. He’d busted the man once. Before the man lost the ranch he tried one year to slip forty head of someone else’s cattle past Du Pré. Well, it is pretty easy to spot bright new scar tissue, hardly had the scabs off, hard to sketch in a forged brand with a running iron and get the size right.
The man did a little time without complaint, and was always courteous to Du Pré.
Du Pré hadn’t liked busting the guy. Now some assholes the government paid to lose money on cattle had the man’s place. Including the little graveyard where his folks were buried.
The foreman lost the place, lost his money, worked for someone else on his family’s land. Made that one try, he’d have done better to rob a bank, maybe.
The cattle marched past. Du Pré had to look hard at only one brand, had a bad tear across it, probably the animal fell onto a sharp rock or something. Just a rip across the brand, I know that’s OK.
“Thanks, Du Pré,” said the foreman, when Du Pré signed off.
“You bet, Jim,” said Du Pré.
I still feel bad about busting him, thought Du Pré as he drove off. I always will.
CHAPTER 20
D U P RÉ PULLED HIS car over to a turnout on the dirt road, high up on the Bench, to look down the high plains toward Toussaint and Cooper and the blue haze beyond. He could see fifty miles south and east from the shoulders of the Wolf Mountains.
He rolled a cigarette, lit it, walked to the edge of the scraped dirt where the fireweed rattled. Late fall, soon on winter. Hadn’t had a winter in a long time, but the summer had been cool and wet.
The winter right after the poor Métis fled south to escape the wrath of the English was the worst anyone remembered, 1886-87. That year there was no summer, two springs, the lilacs bloomed twice, some said because of the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the East Indies.
In December the winds howled high overhead, the air unstirred on the ground. The sky was pale gray and glittered. Snow began to fall, snow so fine that the cattle and horses inhaled it and froze their lungs and died of pneumonia. The temperature dropped to forty, fifty, sixty degrees below zero.
Then the Blizzard came.
The winds came.
Coulees a hundred feet deep filled with snow. Cattle wandered out into the flat white, sank into fluff. In the spring, the tops of the cottonwood trees had dead cattle in the forks of the branches.
Ninety percent of the range cattle in Montana died. The Texas herds had overgrazed the plains, too, so the cattle went into the winter lean and weak.
The Métis huddled in their tiny cabins, boiled moccasins for thin, stinking soup.
Corpses were stacked in the woodsheds, the ground was frozen many feet down.
Hard winter. There would be another someday.
Du Pré spat. He pissed, looking down at a couple of pickups racketing along the low road, one had a horse in back. Drivers were going too fast but everybody did here, you’d never get anywhere if you didn’t.
I drive too fast. Now where the hell is Benetsee? The old man came and went, dropped his riddles. The old fart knows something. If the Headless Man is Gianni Fascelli, is who killed him down there right now? Could I see him if I had my binoculars?
Play my fiddle at midnight in the graveyard, summon up the Headless Man, have him tell me who? And this Headless Man, what would he speak with?
A rifle sounded, far away. Up in the mountains. All the hunters from the Flat States come here, think the game feeds on the snow up top of the peaks or something. Very little game up there in the deep green trees. Nothing for them to eat. Down here, there is a lot for them to eat. The haystacks of ranchers, for one.
I ought to go hunt this weekend, make winter
He drove off to the last loading, some ten miles away. One of the bigger outfits, out-of-state money, probably a tax dodge.
Du Pré nodded at the foreman. He’d busted the man once. Before the man lost the ranch he tried one year to slip forty head of someone else’s cattle past Du Pré. Well, it is pretty easy to spot bright new scar tissue, hardly had the scabs off, hard to sketch in a forged brand with a running iron and get the size right.
The man did a little time without complaint, and was always courteous to Du Pré.
Du Pré hadn’t liked busting the guy. Now some assholes the government paid to lose money on cattle had the man’s place. Including the little graveyard where his folks were buried.
The foreman lost the place, lost his money, worked for someone else on his family’s land. Made that one try, he’d have done better to rob a bank, maybe.
The cattle marched past. Du Pré had to look hard at only one brand, had a bad tear across it, probably the animal fell onto a sharp rock or something. Just a rip across the brand, I know that’s OK.
“Thanks, Du Pré,” said the foreman, when Du Pré signed off.
“You bet, Jim,” said Du Pré.
I still feel bad about busting him, thought Du Pré as he drove off. I always will.
CHAPTER 20
D U P RÉ PULLED HIS car over to a turnout on the dirt road, high up on the Bench, to look down the high plains toward Toussaint and Cooper and the blue haze beyond. He could see fifty miles south and east from the shoulders of the Wolf Mountains.
He rolled a cigarette, lit it, walked to the edge of the scraped dirt where the fireweed rattled. Late fall, soon on winter. Hadn’t had a winter in a long time, but the summer had been cool and wet.
The winter right after the poor Métis fled south to escape the wrath of the English was the worst anyone remembered, 1886-87. That year there was no summer, two springs, the lilacs bloomed twice, some said because of the eruption of the volcano Krakatoa in the East Indies.
In December the winds howled high overhead, the air unstirred on the ground. The sky was pale gray and glittered. Snow began to fall, snow so fine that the cattle and horses inhaled it and froze their lungs and died of pneumonia. The temperature dropped to forty, fifty, sixty degrees below zero.
Then the Blizzard came.
The winds came.
Coulees a hundred feet deep filled with snow. Cattle wandered out into the flat white, sank into fluff. In the spring, the tops of the cottonwood trees had dead cattle in the forks of the branches.
Ninety percent of the range cattle in Montana died. The Texas herds had overgrazed the plains, too, so the cattle went into the winter lean and weak.
The Métis huddled in their tiny cabins, boiled moccasins for thin, stinking soup.
Corpses were stacked in the woodsheds, the ground was frozen many feet down.
Hard winter. There would be another someday.
Du Pré spat. He pissed, looking down at a couple of pickups racketing along the low road, one had a horse in back. Drivers were going too fast but everybody did here, you’d never get anywhere if you didn’t.
I drive too fast. Now where the hell is Benetsee? The old man came and went, dropped his riddles. The old fart knows something. If the Headless Man is Gianni Fascelli, is who killed him down there right now? Could I see him if I had my binoculars?
Play my fiddle at midnight in the graveyard, summon up the Headless Man, have him tell me who? And this Headless Man, what would he speak with?
A rifle sounded, far away. Up in the mountains. All the hunters from the Flat States come here, think the game feeds on the snow up top of the peaks or something. Very little game up there in the deep green trees. Nothing for them to eat. Down here, there is a lot for them to eat. The haystacks of ranchers, for one.
I ought to go hunt this weekend, make winter
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