Gil Marsh Page 8

  He knew where she lived. He could track her down!

  But as he thought back, he wasn’t sure. Adèle had led him to the apartment each time. And she had always used a different, circuitous route to get there. He didn’t remember seeing numbers on any of the doors. And he hadn’t paid attention to street signs—he wasn’t even sure there had been any around her block.

  He could describe her, but she looked like a lot of other Québécois girls he had seen—slim, petite, straight dirty blond hair, blue eyes, a narrow nose. He didn’t even know her last name!

  “So, you want the ticket?” the man asked.

  Gil made a quick calculation. If he bought the ticket, he would have barely enough to scrounge breakfast tomorrow. On the other hand, he wanted to go north, to a bigger town. And L’Annonciation was where he had to go. He took out his wallet and handed over his last ten-dollar bill.

  The man counted out the change. “It’s coming from Montréal. Ten-fifteen. Right in front.”

  “Thanks.”

  Gil placed the ticket in his billfold. Where was he going to go now? He exited the motel. Cars and trucks whizzed by. All the shops were closed. Night had fallen, and the air had cooled. Gil dug out a jacket to wear over his sweatshirt and started walking.

  He’d have to find a safe place to sleep tonight. He thought about the picnic area off the highway and decided against it. Too many people stopped there. He was likely to be seen. He crossed the bridge over the river and saw a green sign, almost black under the streetlamp: a tent and an arrow. That was the direction to the campground. He followed the arrow.

  Houses and side streets petered out. There were no further signs. The road passed through open fields bordered by thick woods and hills in the distance. An old barn stood recessed from the road, near a small farmhouse. The sky above felt enormous in its blackness, stars peeking through the occasional gap in the clouds. The campsite was nowhere to be seen.

  Gil had left the last streetlamp more than a mile ago. A pickup, high beams on, passed him, going fast. Gil jumped into the ditch by the road. He realized how lonely and vulnerable he felt. He must have missed a turnoff for the campground at one of those side streets.

  The fields around him were rutted and smelled of cow dung. Gil had no hope of finding a dry, sheltered spot here. He decided to retrace his steps, keeping an eye out for signs to the campground. He saw none in this direction either. Perhaps the picnic area was the best choice after all.

  As he regained the more trafficked highway, he felt lighter. Yes. He was safer where there was at least some civilization. Fewer cars drove past now, but more trucks, the big eighteen-wheelers and double trailers, most going in the direction of L’Annonciation. It must be a big town.

  The parking lot was empty when he got there. A streetlamp illuminated the toilets, and another cast a yellow glow at the other end, by the battery gun. Gil headed for the bushes by the river, hoping for a stone ledge or somewhere else that was dry.

  He pushed through a gap to a narrow trail, which he hiked along for a short distance. A sandy patch opened up, four or five feet across, with large bushes curved around it. During the day, it probably offered a nice view of the river. At night, it had just enough shelter on three sides for someone to camp in.

  Pleased with his good fortune, Gil pulled out his sleeping bag, plumped up his duffel as if it were a pillow and curled up, his back to the bushes. He’d wash at the water spigot tomorrow, splurge on a box of milk and head to L’Annonciation. He was set!

  He didn’t hear the feet until they were almost upon him. Two guys had come through the bushes and walked to his sleeping spot. He sat up quickly, and the first man stopped short. He growled something in French.

  Gil froze. He could see only their outlines, but these guys were big—tall and wide. The hint of a glint, a reflection of the moon or perhaps a light across the river, came from what looked like a chain on a jacket.

  The second guy asked something. The first guy said something back. Gil still didn’t know what they were saying, but from their tone, he could tell they weren’t happy. Then the second guy pulled out a flashlight, swept the beam across the path and stopped short when he saw Gil. Gil raised a hand to block the beam’s glare.

  “Qui es-tu?” the man demanded.

  “Sorry,” Gil said, “I—”

  “An American!”

  How could they tell so quick? They switched to English without a trace of a French accent.

  “What are you doing here?” the first guy asked.

  Gil shrugged.

  The second guy searched the ground with his light, lingering briefly on the duffel before blinding Gil once again.

  “You sleeping here?”

  The first guy stepped forward, picked up the bag and began emptying it. The phone tumbled out. The man pocketed it.

  “Hey! Give that back!”

  The man turned on Gil with a smack, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Shut up.” He unzipped the toiletry bag and dumped the contents on the ground. “Nothing else.”

  “The pockets,” the man with the flashlight said.

  The first man unzipped the duffel’s side pockets. He pulled out a snapshot of Gil and Enko, taken at a meet. Gil had forgotten that it was there. The man threw it aside, toward the river.

  “That’s mine!” Gil yelled.

  The man responded with a swift kick to the side of Gil’s head. An explosion of pain was quickly snuffed out by total blackness.

  When Gil came to, he thought he had gone blind. He could not see anything at all.

  Painfully, he dragged his hand up and touched the side of his head. His fingers came away wet. He must be bleeding. He’d need to put something on it. He stretched out his hand, hoping to find his duffel, but instead he scratched himself on the prickly stems of a bush. He had somehow rolled, face-first, up against the bushes.

  He heard the roar of motorcycle engines, the screech of tires on the gravel and the sound disappearing into the distance. The men. They had escaped.

  He rolled backward and saw stars. His eyes worked fine after all. The moon shone between clouds over the opposite shore, casting a faint light.

  Gil was alone. He sat up gingerly. His head hurt at every motion. He scanned the small area, his sleeping nest, and realized that his duffel and sleeping bag were gone. The men must have taken them. He rescued his toothbrush, half out of its case, and a small bottle of acetaminophen that had rolled behind a rock. They had stolen everything else—including his half-used toothpaste and floss and the old toiletry bag.

  At least he had been wearing his sweatshirt and jacket. They didn’t take those!

  That was when he remembered his pouch—the one he kept safely around his neck. He quickly patted his chest, the sudden motion sending shooting pains through his head.

  Nothing. Nothing was there. They had stolen that, too!

  A feeling of intense violation overwhelmed him: they had pulled him out of his bag, lifted his shirt, patted around his body to find the pouch. They had touched him all over! He wanted to rip his clothes off, jump into the river, wash away his revulsion. But even the thought of moving caused him more pain.

  And then it sank in. Nothing was left. No passport. No ID. No money. No change of clothes. Not even the bus ticket to L’Annonciation! He clenched his fist, his thumb reaching up to his ring finger. That was when he noticed that the ring was gone, too.

  Enko’s ring. His last connection to his friend. Taken by thugs!

  Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  He clutched his toothbrush and bottle of pills and scootched backward while curling inward like an armadillo. He felt the bush’s branches poke into him. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, shut his eyes and let blackness reclaim him.

  When Gil awoke, the sun had risen—but Gil wasn’t sure where it was. Thick gray clouds blanketed the sky. A misty rain dampened the edge of his hood, the only part of him that wasn’t covered by the bush.

  Getting ou
t took some effort. The small branches had hooked themselves into the fabric of his jacket, and he had to tug to pry himself loose.

  It also hurt. The branches didn’t bother him so much, but he had a splitting headache and extracting himself only seemed to make it worse. His limbs felt sore and sluggish, as if his clothes were made of lead. He slowly lifted his hand to the lump on his head where the thug had kicked him. He felt crustiness where his blood must have dried.

  He needed to get out of here. The thugs had stolen his phone. They’d see the messages from his parents. They’d figure out pretty quick that he had run away. What if they decided that he was worth something to them? Ransom maybe.

  He walked to the gap in the bushes very slowly, even slower than his sluggishness demanded, and stopped.

  Although his head hurt and his muscles ached, his hearing seemed particularly acute. He heard the rumble of cars, the downshift of a tractor-trailer, the caw of a crow across the river, answered by another overhead. A child babbled in the distance—in the parking lot—and a woman answered in the twanging tones of Quebec French. He heard their footsteps recede. Doors slammed. A car engine started. Gravel crunched as wheels disappeared onto the highway. Silence. No, not quite. A bird whistled.

  Gil stood motionless, listening intently. More cars and trucks rumbled past. Nothing. Nothing else.

  As he stepped through the bushes, he heard a loud clap of wood against wood that made him jump. The owner of the casse-croûte across the way was opening the building’s shutters.

  Gil ducked behind the outhouses, not wanting to be seen. The spigot was there, behind a slight rise that encircled the outhouses. He searched his pockets, hoping for a scrap of tissue, anything to wash his face with, but all he found was the useless Québecpass that Adèle had sold him.

  If Adèle was her name, he thought.

  He stole a roll of toilet paper from one of the stalls. Then, gingerly, bracing for the sting, he dabbed cold water on the side of his head, taking away streaks of brown dirt and dark red dried blood. He used almost the entire roll, until the paper came away clean, then washed his face. He ran his fingers through his hair, hoping that he didn’t look too disheveled. He tried to brush the dirt off his jacket and jeans, but under the misty rain, it just smeared. Well, there was nothing to be done.

  He drank as much water as he could manage and swallowed two acetaminophen tablets to dampen the headache. Four sleek motorcycles zoomed past, heading north.

  Gil crouched behind the outhouses. He remembered the sound of bikes and the glint of a metal chain.

  He couldn’t stay here. He needed to hike out of town. The man from the store had told him L’Annonciation lay twelve kilometers north. He could walk that. It was a bigger town. Maybe he’d find an odd job there, pay for a bed in a shelter, get something to eat.

  The misty rain turned into a light but steady one. Gil pulled his hood back over his head. He had maybe a dollar in coins—the thugs had missed that one pocket—not enough for real food. He pushed the thought away. He wasn’t really hungry, he told himself. He had strength enough to follow the highway.

  He passed another casse-croûte, a couple of gas stations, a cemetery, a few businesses with names that made no sense to him. The road rose and fell. Buildings were few and far apart. A thick, uninviting forest covered any ground not being used for commerce or cultivation. Cars passed him, more trucks, and at one point a bus—his bus, he realized, to L’Annonciation.

  He tried hitching, but no one stopped.

  He dug his hands deeper into his jacket and plodded on. Then, as he reached blinking yellow lights at an intersection near a small factory, he heard motorcycles again—a deep, loud rumble. He looked up. They were coming from the north. He ducked down into a ditch. They slowed down. Had they seen him? Panic froze him. He watched the two bikers approach.

  They rode oversized Harleys, sported black leather with chains across their chests and were tall, burly and bearded. They wore black helmets that looked as though they came from some video game, and had bug-eyed goggles over their eyes. He hadn’t seen the men’s faces last night, but staring at them now, he was sure: these were the thugs who had beaten and robbed him. They had Enko’s ring.

  A truck rumbled north, obstructing Gil’s view for a few seconds. When it had passed, the bikes had disappeared! He stood tall and now saw them: they had turned right, up the road past the factory, escaping beyond the bend.

  Gil only hesitated for a second. Clambering out of the ditch, he crossed the highway and began hiking the crossroad. He was going to get Enko’s ring back.

  He walked about a mile, winding past wilderness and one lonely house; then the road forked. A sign pointed to the right. “La Minerve.” Another pointed to the left. “Lac de Couleurs.” Which way did the bikers go?

  The road to the right dipped and curved before heading into what appeared to be empty hills, while the one to the left climbed sharply but leveled out. He could see the very top of a roof over the rise. And there were other signs, too—all weathered, one hanging sideways—for businesses whose names he didn’t understand. These all pointed to the left.

  His hunger had grown, and the headache had returned with a vengeance. The steady rain soaked through the shoulders of his jacket and although it wasn’t too cold out, with the rain came chill. Gil needed to find shelter soon. That decided it. He took the left fork.

  He plodded on for a while longer, but his legs were so tired. His arms felt like heavy weights. Ahead, recessed a little from the road, a tall maple grew with wide, inviting branches. About half the leaves had turned but almost none had come down yet. He thought there might be a dry patch next to the trunk.

  Why Gil stumbled, he didn’t know, but his right knee landed hard on rock. Intense pain shot up his leg. The tree was so close. He dragged himself the last few feet and collapsed under the canopy. The ground was dry! Several branches grew out of a knot overhead, and the leaves had funneled the raindrops elsewhere.

  The pain in his knee was subsiding. He sat up and leaned back into the trunk, feeling the strength of the ancient maple and the warmth that came with the tree against his back. He let his head sink backward, too, and the wood welcomed him, providing a small cradle for the one spot on his head that didn’t hurt. He pulled both knees up. A sharp pinch came from his right knee, reminding him that he had just injured it, but the pain was short-lived. He allowed his arms to fall to his sides. His eyes closed.

  The smell. The smell was so comforting. A mix of pine, earth and water. Yes, he smelled the water. Fresh. Not the damp rain, but the lake water that he heard through the drops, lapping up close by.

  He woke to a hand gently shaking his shoulder.

  “Voyons. Wake up. Wake up!”

  Gil scrambled backward in fear. He banged his head on the trunk, which sent a new wave of stars through his vision.

  The man rocked back on his heels. “It’s okay. It’s me.”

  Gil focused.

  The short gentleman from the quincaillerie crouched across from him. His round face was furrowed in worry, his black hair sprinkled with beads of rain. “You can’t stay here, young man.”

  Gil tried to stand and fell over. His damaged knee seemed to have seized up. His head pounded. And his arms didn’t want to do what he asked them to.

  The man rushed over and took him by the arm. “Lean on me. My truck is right here.”

  The man was stronger than Gil expected. Gil stumbled over to the dark blue pickup. It had one of those covers with windows over its bed. The man opened the door and helped Gil hoist himself in.

  They drove up and down hills, past occasional houses, following the lake. Gil gripped the door’s armrest, trying to focus on the asphalt ahead.

  “Someone beat you up?” the man asked.

  “Last night,” Gil said.

  They lapsed into silence, much to Gil’s relief. The road continued for some distance, curving along the water’s edge. They drove along the foot of a hill, the ground
falling precipitously to the shore on their right, and then climbed past an old, empty gravel lot to a large white-and-blue farmhouse. The man parked the truck around back.

  “Come,” he said.

  With help, Gil stumbled out of the cab. The man led him inside, sat him at his kitchen table and poured him a glass of water, which Gil swallowed in a few gulps. As Gil thanked him, the man placed some cold toast and a tub of grainy white cheese before him, then put the kettle on.

  “Eat a little,” he said.

  It might have been cheap sliced white bread, but the toast tasted delicious. The cheese was a cross between cottage cheese and ricotta—bland but filling.

  The man sat across from Gil and put his hands on the table. “Now—”

  “Thank you,” Gil interrupted.

  The man nodded.

  “Really,” Gil said. “Thank—”

  The man raised a hand, interrupting him in turn. “Now we make the introductions.”

  Gil reddened. He wasn’t sure why he was embarrassed, but there was something about the man’s gentle formality that made him sit straighter. “I’m Gil Marsh.”

  “I’m Hervé Durocher. Welcome to my home.”

  Gil blinked. He looked around. The kitchen opened into a living room. He saw pictures on walls, carpets on the floor, but none of it registered—if asked, he would have been unable to describe what he had seen.

  “Thank you,” he said again. He couldn’t think past his gratitude at being out of the rain and fed.

  Hervé Durocher looked him over.

  “Viens,” he said.

  Gil knew that he had just been told to come, and he did try to stand. But his knee wouldn’t cooperate. He fell over, catching the table just long enough to slow himself.

  Hervé squatted next to him. “Take my arm.”

  Gil sat up, gathered his good leg under him, took Hervé’s arm and, leaning heavily, pulled himself up. Hervé led him to a small room with a metal-framed bed and sat him on it.

  “You will need to take off your jeans,” he said, “so I can see the knee. Can you manage?”