Badlands Read Online Free

hamburgers,” said Madelaine. “Nobody throw them through the window, that is good.”
    Not yet they don’t, thought Du Pré.
    “This Host of Yahweh,” said Madelaine, “Father Van Den Heuvel says they got a lot of money. They sue plenty.”
    Du Pré nodded.
    “They are ver’ careful about the law,” said Madelaine. “Get a lot of messed-up rich kids. They got a leader but he is pret’ invisible. Call him the White Priest. Always wears white robes.”
    “That Father Van Den Heuvel,” said Du Pré, “he is keeping track, the competition.”
    “That is what he said, too,” said Madelaine.
    “I don’t like this,” said Du Pré.
    “Nobody like this,” said Madelaine, “have a bunch strange people take over.”
    “They are taking over?” said Du Pré.
    “They will try,” said Madelaine. “Father Van Den Heuvel he say they have some trouble, California, the White Priest says he will talk, God, find a place they can call their own.”
    “Christ,” said Du Pré.
    Madelaine swung her hand through the air, brushing across the Wolf Mountains and the plains and the sky.
    “It is yours, Du Pré,” said Madelaine, “but it isn’t either. You don’t own nothing finally but enough earth, bury you in.”
    “This earth,” said Du Pré.
    “Somebody else got to do that for you,” said Madelaine, “so you don’t own much you see.”
    Du Pré laughed.
    Some more vans with dark-tinted windows went past. Du Pré counted eight. All white with blue patterns, like china, painted on them.
    “Why they come here?” said Du Pré.
    “Why we come here?” said Madelaine.
    Du Pré laughed. The Métis came down to Montana from Canada. They had eaten all the buffalo, Manitoba, Saskatchewan. Fight the Sioux for buffalo here. The Métis had more guns and better guns.
    “Maybe they don’t bother nobody,” said Madelaine.
    Du Pré sighed and rolled a smoke.
    He lit it and Madelaine took it for her one long drag. She handed it back to him.
    “OK,” said Du Pré.
    “Bullshit,” said Madelaine. “Me, I don’t want them here either but they are. There will be trouble, you know, Du Pré. Maybe bad trouble.”
    Du Pré nodded.
    That rancher Bill, for one, had a bad temper and fast fists.
    “It is bad,” said Du Pré. “Them things they are always bad.”
    “They always go bad,” said Madelaine, “but this one is not yet. Lots of sick people, people on drugs, living on the streets, they come to the Host of Yahweh, get cleaned up.”
    Du Pré nodded. It is like that yes.
    “I want, talk to Benetsee,” said Du Pré.
    “That would be good,” said Madelaine.

CHAPTER 5
    “U NBELIEVABLE,” SAID B ART. H E was looking down at the Host of Yahweh compound ten thousand feet below. There were neat rows of prefabbed houses laid out in a grid, six large metal barns, and a pair of poured foundations for what would be large buildings.
    “A church and a palace for the White Priest,” said Bart. “Montana Power ran a quad of 880’s in there to service them all. There will be over six hundred people living there.”
    The pilot looked back over his shoulder.
    “Fly the boundaries,” said Bart. “It’s the map I gave you.”
    The pilot turned back, nodding.
    Du Pré looked down on the old Eide spread from his seat. The land rolled yellow and green with old grass and new grass, cut through with stone outcrops and weathered buttes. The badlands stretched to the east, fantastic pastels of purple and gray and ochre.
    “Fencing crews,” said Bart. “They plan to run a herd of buffalo. So they need stouter fencing than the Eides had. Pricey. Twenty thousand dollars a mile. Number nine wire and twelve-foot mains sunk in concrete.”
    Du Pré shook his head.
    “Buffalo are the coming thing,” said Bart. “The yuppies worry about fat in their diets and buffalo meat has less than beef does.”
    “They are going to herd buffalo?” said Du Pré.
    “I doubt they thought that far,” said Bart.
    Buffalo, they go where they