“Oui, Chantal Bergeron. She is the daughter of a business associate.”
I breathed more easily. “I didn’t know Yvette knew her. She never let on.”
“Non, they never met before. In fact, I myself didn’t know she was working here until her father phoned me this morning.”
“Why are you asking?”
“I hope you can assist me. Her father is worried. It is five days since he expected her to return to her home in Montreal, but she did not return, nor has she contacted him. His daughter is not, how you say, reliable. He was not concerned until her friend telephoned last night. This friend and Chantal had tickets for a rock concert, but Chantal did not come. Her father asked me to find out if she is still in this area.”
Remembering who had the nerve to assign her to my team in the first place, I said, “Call Eric Odjik, the organizer. He should know.”
“But wasn’t she one of the persons helping you clear the trails?”
The image of Chantal’s contorted face screeching a French insult jumped to mind. “She was. However, last time I saw her was on the trail. Eric said he saw her later at the Forgotten Bay Fishing Camp.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes… No, wait a minute. Eric said something about Pierre finding her. Try him. Or even John-Joe.” From the way she’d been pawing both of them, I could see her deciding that unzipping either guy’s pants, or even both of them, would be more fun than any rock concert.
“Pierre? John-Joe? How do I contact these men?”
“Eric should know where to find them.”
“I do not mean to disturb your good morning with such a trivial concern. Unfortunately, she is like too many young Québécoise, in a hurry to leave the protection of her father’s house. Probably I will find her with one of these young men. When I do, I think it will be necessary to invent a story for her father, non?”
He laughed with complicity while I thought about the chauvinism underlying his words. But I shouldn’t have been surprised. He was, after all, the son of a man who kept another young Quebec woman, his own sister, firmly bound to the parental home.
After a brief hesitation, I accepted his invitation to join him Saturday night for dinner at Auberge du Somerset. If Eric could spend a night out, why not I?
I hung up the phone and continued watching the snow through the kitchen window. It seemed to enclose me inside a moving white prison from which I had only fleeting glimpses of the broader world beyond. I felt that no matter how hard I tried to penetrate the veil, it would slip back into place before I had a chance to identify what lay ahead.
Finally I shook myself, sure that this was nonsense, and left the kitchen to put on sufficiently warm clothing to survive the blustery day ahead, checking the marathon trails with Eric and the other trail leaders.
Eric greeted my arrival at the Fishing Camp with a broad, dimpled grin. “So the old man came through.”
“Yes,” I said, waiting for him to come up with an excuse for not returning my call last night. When he didn’t, I continued, “Why didn’t you tell me about this feud with Papa Gagnon?”
He put on his innocent little boy look.
“Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It has to do with a dispute over ancestral burial grounds. That’s why the old man wouldn’t let you use his land.”
“Oh, that,” he grinned sheepishly. “It was my predecessor, Joe Tenesco. He and Gagnon got into a fight over some illegal logging the old man did on our land. To get back at him, Joe threatened to take some of his land away by claiming sacred grounds. They hashed it out for a number of years, but I let it drop. Wasn’t really anything in the claim. Besides, the old man has stayed on his own property.”
“And you didn’t think it would cause you problems with this marathon?”
“To tell you the truth, I forgot.”
“Papa Gagnon hasn’t. He’s only doing this because I saved his daughter. So you can thank me for saving your marathon.”
“Ornery old buzzard, isn’t he?”
We continued to stare at each other as if not quite certain what to say next. Then Eric ran his hand through his thick mane and glanced down at his boots, almost as if he were trying to avoid my eyes. For a second I thought he was going to say something, but when he didn’t, I felt I had to escape this awkwardness.
I started to walk away. “Meg, look, I…” I stopped. “There’s something I’ve been mean—” He stopped when he saw Gerry approaching.
My heart lurched, then I panicked. I wasn’t ready, not yet, to find out what this woman meant to him. I quickened my pace and joined the other crew leaders by their snowmobiles and pretended all was well.
I generally avoided skidoos like the plague. Their engines drowned out the subtle voices of the forest, their gas fumes the cleansing scents of winter. But sometimes, like this day, when speed was important, I was prepared to accept their polluting noise and smell.
The blizzard had diminished to scattered flakes by the time our four skidoos headed out from the Fishing Camp a little after ten o’clock. Our initial plan had been to check out the entire sixty-five kilometre marathon circuit in one day and remove, if possible, any remaining obstacles.
However, the fresh powder left behind by the storm, combined with the previous snowfall, meant it would be slow going. As a result, we’d probably still be on the trail when the late November night closed in. Eric suggested we head in the direction of Papa Gagnon’s land to make sure we had more than enough daylight to assess the amount of work required to complete the remaining section.
With Eric’s unspoken words still loud in my ear, I’d wanted to go with Gerry or one of the other crew leaders, but Eric was so insistent, I felt I couldn’t turn him down. We took the lead, followed by the three other trail leaders. Starting with the first section, the one cleared by Gerry Whiteduck’s crew, we spread the skidoos across the three-metre-wide trail to make sure we didn’t miss any buried obstructions. The machines growled and groaned through the powdery whiteness. Without the benefit of a helmet and its protective visor—few men on the reserve bothered with such citified gear—the wind soon whipped my face numb, while my view of the trail became framed by the ice crystals coating my eyelashes.
Whenever a skidoo howled with the friction of a hidden object, we would stop to determine if it would impede the eventual packed smoothness of the course after another two months of snow. If too high, we’d remove the offending object, which invariably proved to be a felled tree that hadn’t been properly removed from the trail. With Eric casting exasperated glances at Gerry over his laxity, we’d all struggle to carry, push or roll it through the half-metre deep snow to the side of the trail. Then we would pile back onto our respective machines and continue. It made for slow going.
A couple of times Eric, looking none too pleased, was forced to use his chainsaw to remove a stump that hadn’t been shortened to ground level. The third time it happened, he flung a stream of ungentlemanly curses at Gerry, who tried to apologize as best he could. I began to worry over how bad my section would be. Given the less than committed work ethic of Chantal and John-Joe, there would no doubt be a few surprises.
Eventually we reached the summit of Champlain’s Nose, where we halted for a brief break. Not wanting to be alone with Eric, I joined the others, while Gerry poured each of us a cup of steaming coffee. Eric remained by his machine, fiddling with his chainsaw.
After a few minutes of polite conversation, I retreated with my coffee to the snow-washed pimple of Champlain’s Nose and looked out over what could best be described as a black and white Ansel Adams photograph of winter, undulating white hills with trees ribbed in black. Although it wasn’t snowing where I stood,