Bitter Creek by Peter Bowen Page B

Jacqueline’s.
    Amalie was in the backyard. It was a very warm day; she sat in a loose cotton dress without her shawl.
    â€œThis is my friend Pidgeon,” said Du Pré. “She wants, talk to you some about back then. …”
    Amalie nodded. “Women as beautiful as her usually aren’t too smart,” she said, “or they are really smart, which one is it?”
    â€œYou were just leaving,” said Pidgeon.
    Du Pré shrugged. He walked back to his cruiser and he drove off to the road that led up to the bench where Benetsee’s cabin was. He smelled woodsmoke when he turned in the rutted drive. He parked by the cabin.
    A badger stuck its masked head up from a hole near the cabin’s foundation, loose stones set on the ground. The badger drew its head back in.
    Du Pré knocked on the cabin door. The old man opened it, grinning with his brown teeth.
    â€œYou are never here,” said Du Pré. “Why you here now?”
    â€œMost times I don’t want talk, you,” said Benetsee.
    Du Pré sighed. He went to his cruiser and got a jug of bad wine and he came back and he sat on the porch and he rolled two smokes.
    Benetsee brought out a quart jar and Du Pré filled it for him and he drank it all in one long swallow.
    â€œGood,” he said, holding out the jar.
    Du Pré shook his head and he poured.
    â€œThis is all, you,” he said. “I bring Chappie here, get him sober, you are here then you are doing this. …”
    Du Pré lit a smoke and gave it to the old man.
    â€œWhere is Bitter Creek?” said Du Pré. “Under that water, the Fort Peck Dam?”
    Benetsee said nothing.
    A red-tailed hawk flew up to the top of a tall pine and perched.
    â€œDon’t know,” said Benetsee. “I don’t do this anyway, Bitter Creek people do this, they come, I don’t ask them to. …”
    Du Pré nodded.
    â€œSo you don’t know where is Bitter Creek,” he said.
    â€œ Non ,” said Benetsee.
    â€œSo what I do now?” said Du Pré.
    â€œBe Du Pré,” said Benetsee, “like you have to anyway.”
    â€œShe is something, that old woman,” said Du Pré.
    Benetsee nodded. “She find it for you,” he said. “She know where it is, just can’t say yet.”
    â€œPidgeon she is talkin’ her,” said Du Pré.
    â€œStones break,” said Benetsee. “We go and get more.”
    â€œI am busy,” said Du Pré.
    The old man got up and he went to the cruiser. He got in and so did Du Pré. They drove east and then down a long grade. The ice had come and shoved stones along from Canada, some of them good rocks to heat. The Wolf Mountains were made of bad rocks to heat.
    Du Pré stopped at a gate, got out and opened it, got back in the car, drove through, got out again, shut it, and got back in the car again.
    They bumped along for three miles and came to a cut where the road ended. There was a wide place to turn around.
    Benetsee jumped out and he scampered down into the gully. He looked at some round stones at the bottom, nodded, and lifted one and set it up on the bank by Du Pré. It was the size of a small head of cabbage.
    Du Pré ferried the stones from the lip of the cutbank to the trunk of his car.
    Benetsee selected an even dozen, then Du Pré grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him up out of the cut. The old man did not weigh much.
    They bumped back to the gate, the old car nearly running aground a couple of times on the transmission case.
    Back at Benetsee’s cabin, they carried the stones to the little grade, dropped them, and let them roll down to the flat.
    â€œGood rocks,” said Benetsee, “come from six, seven hundred miles north. …”
    Du Pré nodded. They went back to the front porch and Benetsee had some more wine. “Why the Bitter Creek people choose Patchen?” said Du Pré.
    Benetsee looked off in