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    Coyote Wind
    Coyote Wind
    Coyote Wind
    Ebook211 pages3 hours

    Coyote Wind

    By Peter Bowen

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    First in the crime-fiction series set in the modern-day west, starring a half-French, half-Indian “character of legendary proportions” (Ridley Pearson).
     
    Officially, Gabriel Du Pré is the cattle inspector for Toussaint, Montana, responsible for making sure no one tries to sell livestock branded by another ranch. Unofficially, he is responsible for much more than cows’ backsides. The barren country around Toussaint is too vast for the town’s small police force, and so, when needed, this hard-nosed Métis Indian lends a hand. When the sheriff offers gas money to investigate newly discovered plane wreckage in the desert, Du Pré quickly finds himself embroiled in a mystery stretching back a generation.
     
    For three decades, the crashed plane sat in the sun as the bodies inside rotted away to their bones. Two skeletons are whole, but for one nothing remains but the hands, the skull, and the bullet that ended his life. The crime was hidden long ago, but in the Montana badlands, nothing stays buried forever . . .
     
    In Gabriel Du Pré, “Bowen has taken the antihero of Hemingway and Hammett and brought him up to date . . . a fresh, memorable character” (The New York Times Book Review).
     
    Coyote Wind is the 1st book in The Montana Mysteries Featuring Gabriel Du Pré series, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateMar 13, 2012
    ISBN9781453246740
    Coyote Wind
    Author

    Peter Bowen

    Peter Bowen (b. 1945) is an author best known for mystery novels set in the modern American West. When he was ten, Bowen’s family moved to Bozeman, Montana, where a paper route introduced him to the grizzled old cowboys who frequented a bar called The Oaks. Listening to their stories, some of which stretched back to the 1870s, Bowen found inspiration for his later fiction. Following time at the University of Michigan and the University of Montana, Bowen published his first novel, Yellowstone Kelly, in 1987. After two more novels featuring the real-life Western hero, Bowen published Coyote Wind (1994), which introduced Gabriel Du Pré, a mixed-race lawman living in fictional Toussaint, Montana. Bowen has written fourteen novels in the series, in which Du Pré gets tangled up in everything from cold-blooded murder to the hunt for rare fossils. Bowen continues to live and write in Livingston, Montana.

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    Reviews for Coyote Wind

    3/5

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    • 2/5
      A cowboy has found the wreck of the plane. The sheriff of Toussaint asks Gabriel Du Pre a cattle-brand inspector who doubles as a deputy, to go with the cowboy and see what is what before he opens an investigation. Du Pre sees that the plane with two skeletons has been there a long time as trees and other plants have grown through the wreckage. What is strange is the Du Pre finds a skull with a bullet hole that does not belong to the plane. He remembers a headless corpse that was found when he was a child, 30 years ago, can it belong to that corpse? He wants to avoid the matter, but a rich man's demons, another murder and Du Pre's own past keep pulling him back.I never realized that there is a family of native-American/French Indians in Montana, the Metis migrated from Canada more than 100 years ago. The background of this tribe or family was very interesting but the writing/presentation of the mystery and Du Pre’s investigation I found confusing and distracting. Not my cup of tea but it satisfies the challenge I read it for.8
    • 4/5
      Yes, there is salty language. I didn't find it off-putting in the context of Du Pre's character. Nor the parenting style another reviewer found objectionable. Du Pre repeatedly comments that he doesn't know how to be a good father, but I think his instincts help him to do a reasonable, if non-traditional job. He clearly loves his daughters and they return that love & respect. I enjoyed learning about the Metis culture, and listening to the unabridged audiobook was a treat because of the skill of narrator Christopher Lane.
    • 3/5
      Disclaimer: Peter Bowen, who died last week, was an old friend of my father's, and I spent some time around him back in the 70s. We sang, drank, and laughed. His hunting Labrador Retriever fathered a litter with my show-class Lab and had some really fine pups who were beautiful and brilliant bird dogs. But I never had gotten around to reading any of his books, though I see them on shelves in libraries all the time. I figured this was a good time to try one, and this one - the first in his Du Pre series - had gotten some appealing reviews.

      I liked it. It took me a few chapters (but they're short) to tune my ear to the voice, but once I did, I rolled with it. Idiosyncratic, free-wheeling, thoughts and speech tumbled together. Peter was a good songwriter too, and spent a lot of hours sitting in bars, listening to conversations grumbling, muttering, guffawing, ebbing and flowing, and he's assembled that feeling here in a raw musical composition. He hadn't mastered plotting - the plot is almost afterthought, with a not-very-credible solution. I'll see if he got better at that. But the language, the imagery, the characters - down and outers, people saddled with pain and addictions yet sustained by the kindness and generosity of neighbors - and the splendid Montana landscapes that Bowen knew and loved make this a much better-than-average way to spend a few hours. Grateful for Hoopla through my local library to make these accessible while the "real world" is locked down!
    • 3/5
      This is the first in the series with Gabriel Du Pré in them. I have now read both the beginning and one near the end. I can't say I noticed a lot of difference in the writing style or the character's growth, but they are fun books to listen to on audio. Very nice cowboy mysteries. I love the sturdiness, stubbornness and sensibleness of cowboys, and Du Pré is in there with the best of them. This has more strong language than I enjoy, but it doesn't seem out of place in the story.In this novel, Gabriel faces some ghosts in his past as he is dealing with life in the present. He faces them steadfastly, naturally.

    Book preview

    Coyote Wind - Peter Bowen

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    Coyote Wind

    A Montana Mystery Featuring Gabriel Du Pré

    Peter Bowen

    For Nancy Stringfellow

    Contents

    Chapter 1

    Chapter 2

    Chapter 3

    Chapter 4

    Chapter 5

    Chapter 6

    Chapter 7

    Chapter 8

    Chapter 9

    Chapter 10

    Chapter 11

    Chapter 12

    Chapter 13

    Chapter 14

    Chapter 15

    Chapter 16

    Chapter 17

    Chapter 18

    Chapter 19

    Chapter 20

    Chapter 21

    Chapter 22

    Chapter 23

    Chapter 24

    Chapter 25

    Chapter 26

    Chapter 27

    Chapter 28

    Chapter 29

    Chapter 30

    Chapter 31

    Chapter 32

    Chapter 33

    Chapter 34

    Chapter 35

    Chapter 36

    Chapter 37

    Chapter 38

    Chapter 39

    Chapter 40

    Chapter 41

    Chapter 42

    Chapter 43

    Chapter 44

    Chapter 45

    Chapter 46

    Preview: Specimen Song

    Copyright Page

    CHAPTER 1

    DU PRÉ STIRRED IN HIS sleep. His eyes fluttered, opened, he looked up at the ceiling. He squinted, raised his head, glanced toward the rising light in the east, out the window of Madelaine’s bedroom. Little spikes of frost reached out from the corners of the wavy old glass.

    A pebble rattled against the window.

    Du Pré decided it was not a dream. He slipped from the bed, a warm breath of air thick with the scent of their bodies rose from the bed. Madelaine’s lips bubbled softly, it was as close as she came to snoring.

    Du Pré looked out toward the street, saw a crooked shadow on the short white picket fence. White hair askelter as a forkful of hay. Old Benetsee, the fool, the drunken old breed, a singer, once a dancer, old enough to have been most anything outside of town.

    Shit, Du Pré whispered, annoyed at coming out of warm sleep for this. It passed. The old man always had a reason for bothering Du Pré, even if it sometimes took Du Pré years to see it. Benetsee. Du Pré could see him long, long ago, dancing in the deserts, his head one day smiling from a platter at while the king’s wife swirled in silks and scents. God damn. Loony prophets anyway.

    Du Pré! Madelaine, now up on an elbow, rubbing her eyes.

    Benetsee, whispered Du Pré. I must go out, see what he wants.

    Take him a glass of wine, said Madelaine. Don’t tease him.

    Du Pré shrugged into his clothes, pulled on his boots, one leather mule-ear pull came off with a final chuckling rip. His heel slid down. He walked to the stairs and placed his feet carefully going down, the resinous yellow pine steps creaked five times before his boot touched the worn woolen carpet at the bottom. He went to the kitchen, took a jug of cheap white wine from the icebox, poured a big glassful, lit a cigarette, went outside.

    The old man was shivering, leaned up against the Russian olive tree, his bright old eyes brilliant black in his brown creased face.

    Benetsee nodded, took the wine and gulped it down.

    Du Pré waited, respecting the old man. He had been a good friend of Du Pré’s grandparents, long dead now. Plastic flowers on their graves, dust ricking in the petals. Du Pré washed them with holy water on saints’ days that had been dear to them.

    I dreamed of a coyote last night, said Benetsee, he went up a draw, sat and howled by some people’s bones.

    Du Pré nodded. Benetsee’s damn riddles. He wished the old fart would come to the point, which was probably five dollars. So I just give him the five dollars and go back to bed? No, the old man was not just a pest.

    Then you come and sat down on your heels and looked and looked, the old man went on, in his slurred Coyote French, but you never saw till the coyote come back and scratch the earth.

    Now my days got skeletons in them, thought Du Pré, but if the old man go to the police they throw him in jail for drunk. Me, I look at burn marks on cow asses for part of my living. It’s cold out here.

     Benetsee cleared his throat, waved the empty glass, looked at Du Pré hopefully.

    You have another drink you go to sleep, said Du Pré.

    Madelaine don’t mind, said Benetsee. She’s a saint, you could learn from her.

    Du Pré snorted, shook his head, went back in the house and got the old man another belt. Someday I find him dead in the frozen mud where he pissed his pants and passed out and stuck there, but for now, he’s happy. He heard Madelaine on the stairs, she came into the kitchen, her wool robe clutched tight around her against the cold.

    He can sleep in the shed, Madelaine said. You take him the old sleeping bag in the hall there. Also tell him good morning and when he wakes up I will make him eat something.

    Du Pré smiled. Madelaine, she would feed all the earth, soothe its pains and hungers. She was as simple and straightforward and generous as the sunlight.

    And she knows what’s bothering me before I do, Du Pré thought. He smiled at his luck.

    Du Pré opened the door and pushed the storm door away with his foot, scooped up the sleeping bag. A slop of wine drooled down his hand, he smelled the alcohol.

    The old man sniffed the wine happily, drank it in a single long draught.

    Madelaine says you got to eat, you wake up, said Du Pré.

    I do what Madelaine say, said Benetsee, taking the sleeping bag and walking off toward the shed. There was an old army cot in it, on the duckboards. Flowerpots and bags of fertilizer, garden tools on nails, sanctuary.

    Du Pré watched him go, smiled, went back in the house.

    CHAPTER 2

    DU PRÉ SIGNED OFF ON the two truckloads of steers. The brands were good and the destinations usual. Feedlots in Nebraska, then to pot roasts in Chicago or St. Louis. The drivers pulled away, the long double-deck trailers stinking, green shit running down here and there from airholes, ammonia and bawling. The buyer’s check had been handed over to the Oleson brothers, Dee and Earl, in their sixties now and bent as any other old cowboys, a life of fractures and strange strains of work which bowed the bones and made the hands grow huge. They knew horses, wore farmer shoes and tractor-driver hats, claimed it was so that folks wouldn’t think they were just truck drivers.

    Some fine day, said Ike, wiping sweat from his forehead with a hand gnarled as old roots. Earl busted his ankle again chowsing them cows outa the brush. I was too old for this forty years ago, thought I’d maybe do something else, but here I gone and done it anyway.

    Du. Pré chuckled. What was this place, Montana? Breeds, and squareheads from Scandahoovia, other families from the common American ruck. The land was tough and poor and so were the people. Old cars and old shacks fell into the earth, people starved out in the twenties, left the dried out dust-eaten little ranches with their homes in their hands. Too poor then to buy grease for the axles of their wagons. The wooden wagon beds could be found beside hundreds of the little trails, gone silver from the sun, parts of them charred from the wheels catching fire where they rubbed the axles to flame.

    When you going to fiddle again? Du Pré said, looking at Ike Oleson. The old cowboy, never married, a Hardänger fiddler, two extra drone strings on his sawbox. Du Pré fiddled, too, but just the old four-string kind, like his ancestors, the voyageurs, with their red sashes and little tobacco pipes, tasseled caps and the beaded moccasins.

    Sunday afternoon, said Oleson, at the bar in Toussaint. Good Swede music, men we let you play to clear the hall.

    Du Pré heard the squak squak squak of his two-way radio, the dispatcher’s stripped voice. What’s this? Well, sometimes I get to play lawman, when the Sheriffs deputies are all tangled up. I even have a gun somewhere in that car, I think the trunk. Maybe under the front seat.

    Du Pré walked to his old Plymouth, actually bought from the cops, shorn of lights and siren, but still with clips on the door for a rifle and one small bullet hole in the rear window.

    Du Pré. he said, pressing down the red button on the mike.

    Gabe! boomed the Sheriff’s voice, big loud man, everyone liked him even though he sometimes hurt their ears.

    Yes.

    We got a bad wreck on the highway near the Res—and Toomey is off with that busted arm. Them rich drunks own that big house in the foothills of the Wolf Mountains, you know the place?

    Yah, said Du Pré. Everyone knew the place, ten thousand square feet of house, bigger than the high school in Pomeroy, for Chrissakes, looked like it dropped from space. The people in it came from East Coast money, lots of it, enough to hire help for everything.

    One of their hands claims he found a plane wreck and some skeletons or something up in a dry draw, up high, he was looking around, he said. Probably chasing a deer he shouldn’t have shot. Wonder if you’d go look?

    Don’t the FAA handle that?

    I called them, said the Sheriff. They got no record of any missing plane could be where the cowboy says it is, so they want proof it is one ‘fore they get off their asses.

    Can I get a horse there? said Du Pré.

    Talk to this guy found it, name’s Bodie, I’d think so.

    Am I gettin’ paid for this, Du Pré wondered loudly, knowing the answer.

    You know we ain’t got that kind of money, said the Sheriff.

    For my gas, at least?

    Yeah, yeah. Bullshit bullshit.

    Du Pré wondered if the cowboy had got kicked in the head or something, was seeing things, like Benetsee.

    OK, I’ll do it, said Du Pré. You call Madelaine, tell her I be late, hear?

    SURE! boomed the Sheriff. Du Pré winced.

    What’s that all about? said Ike Oleson.

    I dunno, said Du Pré, some shit about a plane crash in the mountains. I got to go look at it.

    Up past them rich shits, in the Wolfs?

    Du Pré nodded.

    Hell, Ike said, I bet them people see things like that all the time. I saw Mrs. Fascelli out there once, she sashayed buck naked across the lawn wavin’ an umbrella, singin’ she was Mary Poppins or some damn thing.

    No shit. said Du Pré. Well, they drink a lot, I guess.

    Glad I don’t have money, said Oleson. Du Pré nodded, and got into his car.

    CHAPTER 3

    YOU DON’T LOOK LIKE no cop, said the young cowboy, Bodie. He looked very stupid. Ragged dirty shirt, stained old wool vest, brand-new jeans with the price tags still on them.

    Auxiliary, said Du Pré.

    What’s that? said Bodie, his little eyes narrowing. Too many syllables, Du Pré was making fun of him.

    Part-time, said Du Pré.

    Bodie considered the hyphenate, spat in the dust.

    I need a horse. said Du Pré, and you guide me up where you found this wreck. You stupid son of a bitch.

    You think I’m lyin’? hissed Bodie. It’s a plane, propeller and everything, lotta bones, couple skulls.

    No, I don’t think you lyin’, said Du Pré. I think you’re so fucking dumb you probably found an old campfire and two white rocks or something. And I pick out the horse I want, they must all hate you a lot.

    Hey! A shout from the huge stone and glass and redwood house, a fat red face hanging out a window.

    Who the fuck are you? said the face. Someone inside pulled, the face disappeared.

    Don’t mind him, said Bodie. He’s about ready to go off to the dry-out place again.

    Bodie walked away, Du Pré followed. He had stopped at a little grocery and beer place on the way, bought jerky and candy bars and a couple butane lighters, case he had to stay out overnight. Late as it was, he would.

    Bodie threw Du Pré a catch-rope, pointed to a small cavvy of horses, began hauling saddles, blankets, and tack out of the shed. Clouds were stacking up over the wolf country, high, stuck on the peaks. Du Pré saw an eagle floating motionless. Good. Never mind he had to hold the road map out as far as his arms could stretch to make out the names of the larger towns. Glasses had a way of getting lost and broken.

    The trail went straight up through a big fenced pasture, overgrazed, though the fences were so new and well done they could only belong to an owner who needed more to lose money than to make money in the cow business. Bodie rode ahead, fighting a little with the movements of his horse. One of those lousy riders who will never get any better. The horse kept swinging his head side to side, obviously pissed off.

    Du Pré looked up at the island mountain range, the nine peaks, robed round with bluffs and foothills. They rose up strangely from the high dry plains, catching enough water from the eastering clouds to make them green with trees and shrubs. The sight of them against the northern sky was as familiar

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