Specimen Song Read Online Free Page B

carry this all the way from where the dead are,” said Benetsee, pointing at the black carving. “Our dead. This is very old, you know. The songs I am talking about, they come after this, but you know after the priests come, we speak them French some everywhere. So you go and get those songs; there is one for you.”
    Well. My son-in-law Raymond can fill in for me, inspect those cows, since he is through the paperwork for brand inspector. Not that the cow business is much left.
    Benetsee was walking back along the path the coyote had taken. The conversation was over, Du Pré was going, and that was that.
    Buy me few extra sets fiddle strings, Du Pré thought. Buy me a lot of insect dope, scare off them blackfly, too.

CHAPTER 6
    T HE CATTLE WERE JAMMING up in the chute. Du Pré and Raymond had already checked the brands and Du Pré had Raymond sign off on them.
    “Way this cow business is, I don’t know they need brand inspectors much longer,” said Du Pré.
    “Some people say they will raise buffalo,” said Raymond.
    “Oh sure,” said Du Pré. “They say that, they don’t know buffalo. I went out to South Dakota once, help some people round up buffalo. They don’t round up. They tore up the corrals like so much wet paper and then they tore up the trucks and a lot of them got out. Buffalo. Bah. You know them things pivot on their front feet? They change directions so fast, while a horse, he has to take this wide circle he moving any fast.”
    “I guess they still have to be branded and inspected,” said Raymond. He liked this better than hanging sheet-rock or plumbing. Du Pré could not blame him for that.
    “Madelaine said you were going to drive all those miles to Lac La Ronge,” said Raymond.
    “Fuckin’ A I am,” said Du Pré. “I fly to that Washington, D.C.; I will not do that again. Moves too fast and I am too old. Whoosh. Makes my head ache. Scares me shitless, too.”
    They got into Du Pré’s old Plymouth cruiser. Du Pré’s car was badly dented on the passenger’s door where he had slid into a fence post on a road mudded up good. Corner fence post, railroad tie stuck down in some concrete. Crunch. Railroad tie hadn’t moved much.
    “How come you aren’t taking Bart?” said Raymond. Kid was worried about something, asking a lot of questions. Shut up, Du Pré thought. Go on home and make me another grandbaby.
    “That Bart is so rich, he would sort of buy the trip up,” said Du Pré. “We would be out in the bushes there, and a helicopter with a big dinner and a chamber-music group would show up.” Also, if he got drunk and off his head back there, he could be a real problem.
    They drove on the wet yellow road back toward town. It had rained hard the last two days, unusual for late July. The weather seemed to be changing.
    Du Pré had read somewhere that the big volcano that blew off in the East Indies had caused this. But Du Pré also remembered some old songs about much rain and cold winters, so maybe the weather just did this, but over a long time, time greater than one human life. Pretty big world there, and those stars are very far away.
    When Du Pré and Raymond got to Du Pré’s house, there were people there already putting up trestle tables and stapling tablecloths to them, against the wind that would come up late in the afternoon. Always did, blew out of the west hard for maybe a quarter of an hour and then either kept up if there was rain coming in a day or quit if there wasn’t.
    Jacqueline’s babies were toddling around the lawn. Madeline’s and some of their friends were playing volleyball in the pasture over the creek.
    Du Pré showered and put on fresh clothes. His suitcase was packed—or, rather, a nylon duffel bag Bart had given him, along with a sackful of crap to survive on in the wilderness. Best way to survive in the wilderness is stay warm and dry and fed and don’t get lost, but you make those arrangements before you go there.
    Du Pré sat on his porch,