Brutal Telling

Parra, along with everyone else, thought. Then he, and everyone else, shook their heads. “Never knew there was one there.”

Gamache thought for a moment then looked outside where Dominique was just catching her breath. “A glass of water, please,” he said, and Gabri appeared with one. “Come with me,” the Chief Inspector said to Parra.

“How far was the cabin?” he asked Dominique after she’d swallowed the water. “Can we get there on ATVs?”

Dominique shook her head. “No, the forest’s too thick.”

“How’d you get there?” asked Beauvoir.

“Macaroni took me.” She stroked the sweating horse’s neck. “After what happened this morning I needed time alone, so I saddled up and decided to try to find the old bridle paths.”

“That wasn’t very smart,” said Parra. “You could’ve been lost.”

“I did get lost. That’s how I found the cabin. I was on one of the trails you cut, then it ended, but I could just make out the old path so I kept on. And that’s when I saw it.”

Dominique’s mind was filled with images. Of the dark cabin, of the dark stains on the floor. Of jumping on the horse and trying to find the path back, and holding down the panic. The warnings every Canadian hears since childhood. Never, ever go into the woods alone.

“Can you find your way back there?” asked Gamache.

Could she? She thought about it, then nodded. “Yes.”

“Good. Would you like to rest?”

“I’d like to get this over with.”

Gamache nodded, then turned to Roar Parra. “Come with us, please.”

As they walked up the hill, Dominique leading Macaroni with Parra beside her and the Sûreté officers behind, Beauvoir whispered to the Chief.

“If we can’t get in with ATVs, how’re we going to go?”

“Can you say giddyup?”

“I can say whoa.” Beauvoir looked as though Gamache had suggested something obscene.

“Well, I suggest you practice.”

Within half an hour Roar had saddled Buttercup and Chester. Marc the horse was nowhere to be seen but Marc the husband emerged from the barn, a riding helmet on his head.

“I’m coming with you.”

“I’m afraid not, Monsieur Gilbert,” said Gamache. “It’s simple math. There are three horses. Your wife needs to be on one, and Inspector Beauvoir and I need to be with her.”

Beauvoir eyed Chester, who shuffled from one hoof to another as though listening to a Dixieland band in his head. The Inspector had never ridden a horse before and was pretty certain he wasn’t about to now.

They set out, Dominique leading, Gamache behind her with a roll of bright pink ribbon to mark their path and Beauvoir bringing up the rear, though Gamache chose not to describe it as that to him. The Chief had ridden many times before. When he’d started dating Reine-Marie they’d go on the bridle paths on Mont Royal. They’d pack a picnic and take the trails through the forest right in the center of Montreal, stopping at a clearing where they could tie up the horses and look over the city, sipping chilled wine and eating sandwiches. The stables on Mont Royal were now closed, but every now and then he and Reine-Marie would head out on a Sunday afternoon and find a place to go trail riding.

Riding Buttercup, however, was a whole other experience. More like being in a small boat on the high seas. He felt slightly nauseous as Buttercup swayed back and forth. Every ten paces or so he reached out and tied another pink ribbon to a tree. Ahead Dominique was way off the ground on Macaroni, and Gamache didn’t dare look behind him, but he knew Beauvoir was still there by the constant stream of swear words.

“Merde. Tabarnac. Duck.”

Branches snapped back so that it felt as though they were being spanked by nature.

Beauvoir, instructed to keep his heels down and his hands steady, quickly lost both stirrups and clung to the gray mane. Regaining the stirrups he straightened up in time to catch another branch in the face. After that it was an inelegant, inglorious exercise in holding on.

“Tabarnac, Merde. Duck.”

The path narrowed and the forest darkened, and their pace slowed. Gamache was far from convinced they were still on the path, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Agents Lacoste and Morin were gathering the Crime Scene kit and would join them on ATVs as soon as Parra had opened the path. But that would take a while.

How long would it take Lacoste to realize they were lost? An hour? Three? When would night fall? How lost could they get? The forest grew darker and cooler. It felt as though they’d been riding for hours. Gamache checked his watch but couldn’t see the dial in the dimness.

Dominique stopped and the following horses crowded together.

“Whoa,” said Beauvoir.

Gamache reached out and took the reins, settling the Inspector’s horse.

“There it is,” Dominique whispered.

Gamache swayed this way and that, trying to see around the trees. Finally he dismounted and tying his horse to a tree walked in front of Dominique. And still he couldn’t see it.

“Where?”

“There,” Dominique whispered. “Right beside that patch of sunlight.”