Free Specimen Song by Peter Bowen Page B

shot twice and two birds folded up and fell.
    I am some hot shit, Du Pré thought. He walked into the trees and picked the birds up, crumpled on the ground, the little wind ruffling their soft feathers.
    He drove on to the end of the road and saw no more birds. He backed and filled at the Kelly hump that blocked the road and then headed back down, in no particular hurry. He got back home with an hour of sunlight to spare. He cleaned the birds, shucked their skins, and put the carcasses in salty water. He would bake them in aspic and then chill them overnight and they would be tender then, make wonderful sandwiches.
    Shadows.
    He went to the violin case and got out the slingshot.
    He went down to the creek.
    What about this, now? he thought, sending a stone in flight.
    What about this?
    Blood dropping from the sky? Long time ago.

CHAPTER 16
    B ART SHOWED UP, LOOKING chastened. Du Pré drove him home from the airstrip in Cooper, and Bart stared out the window. Once, Du Pré looked over, to see him wiping his eyes.
    Du Pré was a good friend; he kept his mouth shut and waited.
    “She didn’t tell me to go,” he said. “I suddenly realized I was acting like Gianni. So I told her about that. She just smiled at me and said she was a simple girl, really. So I took back most of the stuff. Said I’d go home for a while and think, I hadn’t had a lot of practice in being human.”
    Du Pré laughed. After a while, Bart did, too.
    “She has a week of vacation the second week of October and she’s going to come out here. At least I can send a plane for her.”
    “Yeah,” said Du Pré. “Anytime you can avoid the Denver airport is better than a time you can’t.”
    “I love her.”
    This was not news to Du Pré. Under the embarrassment, Bart was very happy. He would go on being very happy till Madelaine lit into him ever so sweetly. But Madelaine was very smart about people. She’d fry Bart good but not burn him.
    He is trying very hard, Du Pré thought. I am proud of my friend here.
    Bart was building a modest log home with the help of Booger Tom and such ranch hands as were between tasks. The ranch had been running as a tax write-off for years; there were more hands than the place needed, but Bart refused to fire or lay anyone off. He had said time would shrink the crew.
    But if a cowboy broke down within a hundred miles, they knew they could come here and work up a stake to go on.
    Bart was well thought of among the cowboys.
    “I will be glad when I can get that trailer out of here,” said Bart.
    Most of the logs were stacked for the house’s sides. Then the rafters and rooftree had to be set and the place sealed off before the winter. Bart’s big dragline had been pressed into service to lift the logs, the bucket replaced with a ball, hook, and choker chain.
    Booger Tom was sitting on the log pile, whittling and spitting tobacco. The old goat was out of another time, still wore the checked pants and custom high-topped boots and gigantic pure silk scarf—so dirty, it was hard to discern the pattern in it, true, but pure silk nonetheless.
    “Shit,” said Bart, “I thought it’d all be done by now.”
    “We wuz all too ignorant,” said Booger Tom. “We need a leader.”
    Bart grinned and so did Booger Tom.
    “The hands is all off working,” said Booger Tom, “but I expect a couple could come help tomorrow.”
    “She is lookin’ good,” said Du Pré. He suddenly thought of the money of Bart’s he had. He fumbled for his wallet.
    “Bart,” he said, “that lawyer, Foote there, he give me all this cash—I don’t know what for.”
    Bart looked at the thick green wad.
    “Oh, that,” he said finally, as though it took him a few moments to think up what it was.
    “Yeah, this,” said Du Pré. He got annoyed when Bart did this, and then annoyed with himself for getting petty with Bart when the big man was just generously trying to help.
    “I need some help here,” Bart said, groping. “You know I got to