Meg Harris Mysteries 6-Book Bundle. R.J. Harlick
Her young, ripe body tugged at the seams of her stretch pants. One look at her shocking pink outfit the first day we’d met had been enough to tell me I didn’t want this Québécoise femme fatale on my crew. We had enough work without having to carry excess baggage. But Eric had insisted, with a look in his eye that had set my insecurities jangling. Since it was his ski marathon, not mine, I’d complied.
“Beats me.” I decapitated a young spruce.
Now we had a ski trail that led nowhere. It had taken the five of us a week to get this far, one back-breaking week of chopping, sawing, clipping and hauling, and we’d only managed to clear half the planned five-kilometre distance. And what did we have to show for it? Nothing but a dead-end trail, which looked more like the aftermath of a tornado than a perfectly manicured section of the 65K Migiskan Ski Marathon. And all because a selfish old man didn’t want us on his land.
“Sacrebleu! You are screwed, that’s for sure,” joined in Pierre. He sucked deeply on the cigarette that seemed to grow from the side of his mouth. One of those dark, brooding coureur de bois types, Pierre usually kept his thoughts to himself. But this time he seemed riled enough to say the words I was also thinking.
“Monsieur Eric will find a way,” offered Chantal in the breathless Pamela Anderson voice which seemed to emerge whenever a member of the male sex was close by.
“Not unless he wants to blow up the mountain,” I countered. “But monsieur is so smart. He will find another route down this big mountain.”
Yeah, and you’ll bat your baby blues at Eric too and wiggle your bum, I said to myself. Don’t think I haven’t seen the fawning looks you’ve been casting in his direction. Well, hands off him, he’s mine. I thought these last words with more bravado than I felt. Eric and I’d been going through a rough patch lately.
Pierre, not the least concerned about niceties, said, “Et bien ma p’tite, you will make this other trail like you make this one, on your ass, eh?” which prompted an immediate unladylike reply.
I was glad Pierre had said it, not I. I was tired of hearing my own voice yelling at Chantal to pull her weight. I still couldn’t fathom why she had wanted to participate in such heavy work when it was obvious she’d rather file her nails than rip them hauling logs.
“Okay, guys, enough,” I interjected. “We still have a way to go before we’re off the old man’s land.”
We’d reached the end of the cedar swamp that filled the length of the valley floor and were starting the long slow climb back up the mountain local people called Le Nez de Champlain or Champlain’s Nose. Maybe it didn’t quite meet the heights of the western Rockies, but here in the Outaouais, or West Quebec as we Anglos call the region, in the municipality of La Blanche, we called these steep hills on the northwestern edge of the Laurentians mountains.
At least the leaving wasn’t as slow as the coming. We did have our freshly cleared trail to ease our return through the hardwood forest. As I crunched through the decaying leaves, I couldn’t help but worry about Yvette. I’d been reluctant to leave her behind with her father. No telling what he might get up to, given his mood, but I wasn’t about to take him on while he held a rifle in his hands. We’d already had one confrontation too many over his daughter. She didn’t need another.
Still, I didn’t trust him. A week ago, at the start of the trail clearing, Yvette had suddenly appeared, clippers in hand, saying her father had given her permission to join my crew. Today he’d pounced out of nowhere and pulled her away for no apparent reason other than perhaps not liking the carrot colour of my hair.
I peered through the curtain of tree trunks behind us, fearing I would see the advancing streak of his fluorescent orange vest. I didn’t fancy hiking with a rifle aimed at our backs the entire two kilometre distance back to where his property abutted the Migiskan Reserve.
“Any sign of Papa Gagnon?” I asked.
“Non,” came a quick reply from Chantal.
However, as I turned to continue our retreat, Pierre called out, “I see something.”
I looked in the direction he pointed, towards a stand of old growth hemlock about fifty metres from the trail. With no lower branches to obstruct our view, we would see Papa Gagnon if he were there.
Something twinkled from behind one of the thick columnar trunks.
“Can you tell what it is, Pierre?” I asked.
“Probably one of those tree tags.”
I waited for another flash. But the hemlock stand remained as still and silent as the surrounding maple bush.
Pierre was probably right. I’d seen enough of the markers myself, little round aluminum disks hammered into the bark of prime specimens of old growth trees. Last summer, our forests had been invaded by a group of university students conducting some kind of government survey. This could be one of their tags. On the other hand, given Gagnon’s penchant for hassling trespassers, it more likely had something to do with his own forestry operation.
As we started to leave, Pierre asked, “Where is John-Joe? I do not see him.”
“Forget him.” I scanned the empty trail behind us. “Serve him right if he gets shot by the old man.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Chantal smile rather smugly to herself. “What’s J.J. up to?” I asked, perhaps a little too sharply, but I was getting tired of her secret smiles and knowing glances.
With blue-eyed innocence she replied, “J’n’sais pas. But he is a big boy. I think he look after himself, eh?” And she wiggled her pink derrière at me as she resumed the slow climb up the hill.
I bit back the words of sarcasm I was aching to say and followed behind her.
Until this point, the trail had meandered gradually upwards over the contours of the rocky terrain. Now we began to weave back and forth as the trail scaled the steepest part of Champlain’s Nose. At the top of the climb, we would reach Kamikaze Pass and the end of Papa Gagnon’s land.
The death-like calm which invariably descends before winter’s advance gripped the forest. Our shuffling through discarded leaves was the only sound. Lifeless grey had erased all memory of summer’s flourishing green, while the songs of summer had been extinguished by the flight of its singers. Even the sky hung low and heavy. And, as if to reinforce winter’s pending arrival, a few scattered snowflakes drifted in the windless air.
“Enough. I do not carry this any longer.” A puffing Chantal threw her half-filled backpack to the ground and sank down onto the only soft spot, a moss-covered boulder.
“Don’t look at me, chickie.” Without a backward glance, I crunched onwards.
“Putain!” came a shriek from behind me.
And “bitch” to you too. I continued walking. The threatening quiet of being utterly alone in the wilds would scare her into action.
“Pierre? You help me, hein?” she said, switching to a simpering French. But it seemed Pierre was of like mind, for his footsteps continued without interruption behind mine.
I shifted the load on my back. Chantal did have a point. My pack was getting heavier with each forward step. And my leg was sore where the long-handled clippers knocked against my thigh.
It would be good to get home to the warmth of my fireplace. A week with my back bent at an angle for which it wasn’t designed, clipping never-ending saplings and dragging freshly cut trees and branches from the trail was taking a toll on this tired middle-aged body, one that usually shied away from such strenuous activity. I wasn’t entirely upset that our trailblazing had been abruptly terminated. A few days respite would be good for the aching bones.
But it couldn’t be for long. We needed to complete this last section before winter buried it under a foot of snow.
I’d reached the steep drop-off which