Notches by Peter Bowen Page A

the bodies weren’t discovered until they were nothing but bones. Can’t get a real good fix on that.”
    “How many skinned?” said Du Pré.
    “Nineteen,” said Harvey, “or maybe more, we just haven’t found the skins.”
    “This guy is pretty smart,” said Du Pré.
    “Very smart,” said Harvey. “We may never catch him.”
    Du Pré snorted.
    “We’re gonna try good, though,” said Harvey. “Where is that god damned Benetsee?”
    “Dunno,” said Du Pré.
    “He ever gone this long before?” said Harvey.
    “No,” said Du Pré.
    “You know how to get hold of him in Canada?”
    “No,” said Du Pré, “I ask people, who are from there, but, one thing, I don’t even know what tribe he is. I guess maybe Cree but them Cree they don’t talk, each other’s business at all. Very close. Anybody publish anything about their religion, they sue them. They don’t want them fool New Age people bothering them.”
    “Like Bear Butte,” said Harvey.
    “Yah,” said Du Pré.
    Bear Butte was sacred, a vision place to many Plains tribes. So now men’s movement groups and New Age idiots went there, did what they thought were Indian ceremonies. How they like it, we have a Sun Dance in the cathedral, there in Washington? We don’t do that. Leave Bear Butte alone. Leave us alone.
    Du Pré snorted. Here I am, bad Catholic, worse Indian. I guess I am more religious than I know.
    “Shit,” said Harvey. “We even tried some psychics. Not helpful. Or maybe we just can’t unravel their babble. I dunno. I’d try reading animal guts like the Romans I thought’d help.”
    “Oh,” said Du Pré, “I am forgetting, Rolly, he say to tell you hello.”
    Harvey laughed long.
    “That son of a bitch,” he said. “I can’t help but like the guy. Though I’d never admit it, like every other American, when Banker Bob takes it in the shorts but good I can’t help but feel a little better.”
    “Him got something else,” said Du Pré.
    “What?” said Harvey, suddenly collected.
    “I don’t know,” said Du Pré. “I have just this hunch, you know, that he was going to tell me something else and then he changed his mind.”
    “Damn,” said Harvey.
    “One other thing,” said Du Pré. “That Rolly he is a killer.”
    “Killed who?” said Harvey.
    “Dunno he did,” said Du Pré, “yet.”
    “You’re right there,” said Harvey.
    “So maybe he think he get close he just do that, see if this stops,” said Du Pré.
    “That has worried me,” said Harvey.
    “Uh,” said Du Pré. “He got them eyes, you know.”
    “Oh, yes,” said Harvey.
    “Maybe I am wrong,” said Du Pré.
    “Nope,” said Harvey. “Another thing worries me.”
    “Uh,” said Du Pré.
    “You got those eyes, too, Gabriel. Remember, I’ll bust your ass.”
    “Thanks,” said Du Pré.
    Harvey hung up.’

CHAPTER 15
    D U P RÉ STOOD BY the silvered pile of boards still marked with the yellow tape that the investigators had used to cordon the area off. The dirt under where the single body had been found was turned and mounded. There were bootprints on the loose soil and the marks of the feet of horses and cattle.
    A coyote had scratched at the earth, perhaps scenting the meat that had rotted here. But not much. Then the coyote trotted on toward the slash of pale green where a tiny plume of water ran through the soil, coming out as a small spring miles away.
    Du Pré looked up. The eagle was a speck so high in the sky that he never could have seen it had he not known exactly where to look.
    That eagle, Du Pré thought, he must like it up there some. Nothing to eat, and by the time he dive the thing he is after would be ten feet under the ground.
    Du Pré remembered nearly forty years before, when he was hunting with his father, Catfoot, that they had come to the edge of a meadow covered three feet deep in snow, hoping for elk on the far side. But what they saw was a deer with an eagle on its back. The big golden bird had its talons