The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2

by Robert Udulutch

  Ben noticed some of the same puzzles from the ranch on the bar at the club, including a large one made from old gun parts and empty shells. Lissa told him Harry made all of the puzzles in his workshop, including the ones Hamish sent down to his family in Pembury.

  Harry leaned forward and tapped Lissa on the arm. She looked at him and repeated what she’d said. He read her lips, nodded, and used sign language to converse with her.

  Ben and the pups watched intently as Harry signed, and they noticed he was missing some fingers.

  Ben looked at Spot and Smudge, and they nodded the slightest nod. They had understood everything the man had signed.

  Lissa said, “Harry says there’s weather coming in. It’s gonna make it even tougher for that bear to find food.” She had left out the part where Harry thought Ben must be slow.

  “Aye,” Hamish said, nodding to Harry, “We’re heading to town and I think the captain’s coming through later so I’ll mention it.”

  Ben asked, “Is it possible the crazy woman by the river saw the winter bear instead of a wolf?”

  Harry raised his eyebrows, signed to his wife, and laughed.

  Lissa smiled but also shook her head and dismissed her husband with a wave.

  Ben signed back to Harry, Yes, I may be an idiot kid, and we Yanks do sometimes have trouble telling a brown bear from a brown streak in our shorts, but maybe the bear had just scared the crap out of her.

  Lissa laughed out loud, and translated for the benefit of the rest of the gaping table.

  As Hamish and the Nellis’ broke into laughter Harry raised his beer to Ben and signed, Touche, you little bastard. He followed it up with a raised finger for the rest of the table that needed no translation.

  Chapter 31

  When Ben commented that the shooting club was on the outskirts of Piege, Hamish pointed out that everything in Piege was pretty much on the outskirts as the whole town was one block long. Hamish told him when the ore mines boomed thirty years ago there were almost four thousand workers in the surrounding valley. Most of the people lived at the mines in company provided housing, so the town was where they shopped, drank, and visited the brothel.

  There were some abandoned buildings and a few slab foundations left at the far end of town but most traces of the boom were gone. The remaining life in Piege consisted of a handful of two story shops and offices with some houses scattered around them, and four light poles with two traffic lights that had been disconnected long ago.

  At the edge of town Hamish suddenly stopped the truck in the middle of the road. He jumped out and Ben watched him through the side mirror as he walked past the red glow of the taillights and disappeared into the dark. He returned a few seconds later holding up a frozen, furry brown and slightly flattened roadkill animal. Hamish opened and then closed the tailgate, and got back into the truck. He just smiled a big toothy grin at Ben and waggled his eyebrows before driving on.

  Once in the center of town they pulled up to a small combination grocery and hardware store. Hamish parked next to a medium size motor coach that looked to seat about twenty, and aside from its muddy wheel wells appeared to be brand new.

  As they walked towards the entrance of the store a short man in a brightly colored and very tight one piece ski outfit flung the front door open and stepped quickly in front of them. His boots were untied and flopped when he walked.

  “Wait till I tell you this one!” he said as he fist-bumped Hamish and adjusted his thinly covered package. The man had a little strip of hair that ran down both sides of his jaw and up his chin, but no mustache. He wore square glasses and a floppy striped hat that looked Jamaican. He wasn’t much taller than Ben.

  “Hey,” he said to Ben as he fist bumped him, too, “Willie Cooke.” He turned back to Hamish and said, “The group’s over at The Grub, let’s go.” Willie started to walk off without waiting to see if he was being followed.

  Before Ben could ask Hamish who the heck just happened, the grocery store door opened in front of them again and a tall woman with long blonde hair backed through it trying to hold onto two overflowing paper grocery bags. She wore a skin-tight white ski suit and finished pushing the door open with a bump from her perfectly formed rear. Twirling away from the front door she tiptoed through the slush in fashionable high-heeled winter boots. She was focusing on not dropping the groceries and ran smack into Hamish. When she bounced off him a loaf of sandwich bread fell from her bag and landed at Ben’s feet.

  He quickly snatched it out of the snow, stood, and stared.

  Between the paper bags was a zipper that was low enough to expose a tiny bit of lace pink bra. The bra was struggling to hold back the largest breasts Ben had ever seen. The tan, pretty young woman looked down at him and smiled a too-white smile as Hamish took the bread from Ben and placed it back into her bag. She started to thank him but her smile dropped when she noticed Willie walking away from them.

  “Hey you fucking son of a bitch!” she yelled, “Am I like your fucking pack mule? Get your midget ass back here at take these fucking bags from me!”

  Willie had made it to the middle of the street where he stopped, threw up his hands, and spun around on one planted foot. “Sorry, sorry, get off my back you’re hurting it,” he said as he slunk back to take the groceries. As he tossed them onto the passenger’s seat of the motor coach he called out introductions, “Hamish, and little guy, Valerie.”

  “Oh mi-God,” Valerie said with her whole body as she reached out to grab the tips of Hamish’s fingers. She shook his hand, and her boobs, and said, “So, like, you’re the wolf guy Willie keeps going on and on about?” When Valerie spoke her head rolled on her shoulders and her voice went up and down like a rollercoaster, ending each sentence on a high note.

  Willie hit the remote lock on the van and joined them. He said he’d tell Hamish all about the wolf only if he agreed to a beer, and to meeting his latest group of tourists. He had told them all about the wolf reintroduction and the man who ran it, and he wanted them to meet the local legend. Hamish declined but Willie said, “Hey man, this save the local economy by growing the tourists thing was mostly your idea, and the wolves are a big draw. These gawkers woulda’ had to fly another four hundred kilometers to see them in the wild and it’s all they talk about.” He lowered his voice and leaned in close to Hamish as he said, “And you and I both know the chance of actually seeing them is slim to none until you loosen up on that tracker policy so you gotta help a brother out and press the flesh a little, Paul Bunyan.”

  Ben got the dogs and they all followed Willie and Valerie across the street to the only remaining bar in town; The Grubbery.

  An hour and two scotches later Hamish was standing in front of the riveted table of tourists. His lined, bearded face was warmly lit from the dim antler chandelier above the table, and he was deep into a story about getting stranded in Nord Du Quebec after losing his sled. He had crashed through a hidden patch of sikuag, or thin ice, and had been able to cut three of his dogs loose before the rest of the team, and his sled, had slipped below the ice of Clearwater Lake. He had his emergency gear, which he always carried on his back, and he had found a suitable spot to make a fire and dry out. He explained that the sun barely rises that far north in winter and it was already setting by two in the afternoon, so he put up a shelter and he and the dogs settled in for the night…and that’s when the wolves came.

  Ben and the rest of the table were hooked. Not only was it a captivating story and one he’d not heard in his family’s rich oral histories, but Hamish was also a world class storyteller just like his Papa had been. They could hold an audience as they toyed with them and led them down dead ends, only to bite them in the backside with a surprise ending. Hamish seamlessly wove in French and Inuit phrases, deftly working in their translations and explanations where needed. The rich textures of the foreign words, along with his facial expressions and deep voice made for an immersive experience. Even the wind whistling through the tavern’s old eaves seemed
to rise just as he reached the climax of his story.

  The table erupted when Hamish finished with his hands formed into claws clamped down on Valerie’s shoulder.

  He nodded for Willie to join him at the bar as the elated tourists turned their millions of wolf questions on Ben. Hamish watched Ben for a while and noted he wasn’t a stranger to spinning a good story himself. He smiled as the boy told the group about their encounter with Glasgow and her pack’s alpha. Hamish was also pleased to see Ben didn’t let a silly thing like accuracy get in the way.

  “Hamish, I just don’t know,” Willie said, waiting until the bartender left the bar to check on his table of tourists. The place was otherwise empty.

  “I wasn’t there to see it,” Willie said, “but afterwards she came running into camp screaming her fool head off. It took me ten minutes to get her to calm down, and even then she still looked like someone had just shot her cat. The woman was a pain in the ass the whole trip. Just one of those idiots that had no business heading into the woods. She thought Nordic skiing was going to be like Nordic Track with scenery. Still, something spooked her pretty good. She couldn’t wait to get the hell off the trail, and she didn’t say word one about a refund.”

  Hamish made Willie tell him the woman’s story twice, once forward and once backwards. He didn’t see any inconsistencies, but it still didn’t make any sense. Wolves just didn’t randomly attack people taking a pee by a river.

  As far as Hamish knew the only wolves in central Quebec were the ones he had brought in. Every so often the club would come across an idiot who thought it would be cool to have a wolf, and some other idiot who would hook them up with a smuggled in juvenile or puppy. The idiots and their wolves usually surfaced pretty quickly and got confiscated. The other odd thing was all of his wolves were healthy and doing well. They had plenty of game and there was very little harassment. Nothing that would force them to attack. There was no way the wolf felt trapped, it could have just walked away from the river. Wolves were far more skittish than most people realized. Part of their success was their reluctance to engage with humans which made seeing them in the wild such a rare treat. They could sense humans and head in the other direction long before most stupid people ever knew they were nearby.

  “No, of course not,” Willie was saying, “You and the guys at the club are the only ones who know.”

  The bartender came down and asked if they wanted another. Hamish didn’t recognize him but that wasn’t surprising as Hamish rarely stopped at the bar. The Grubbery was mostly a logging and miner dive, and they were a transient bunch. He did, however, immediately pick up on his accent.

  Hamish then noticed a piece of a tattoo sticking out from under the young man’s sleeve. It was a blue curve with the word “Club” visible, and Hamish assumed the rest of the tattoo would lead to a blue circle with the Scottish red royal standard lion in the middle.

  “Hullo, hullo…” Hamish started to sing lowly, “…You’ll know us by our noise…”

  Willie looked at the big Scot like he was nuts.

  The bartender didn’t look up from washing a glass but started to sing softly as well, “…We'll give anything to see our team...”

  Hamish responded, a little louder, “…At Ilbrox or away...”

  “…For we are…” the bartender added, a bit louder as he looked up at Hamish.

  “…The Glasgow Rangers Boys!” they finished together, and at the top of their lungs.

  Ben, the dogs, and the rest of the table of tourists stared.

  “Well that was weird,” Willie said, and took his drink back to the table.

  “Hamish Walker,” Hamish said as he extended his hand.

  “Tavish, Tavish McLendon sir, glad to know yeh,” the bartender said, wiping his hand before taking Hamish’s.

  An hour and two additional scotches later Hamish and Tavish were loudly agreeing, or disagreeing, Ben wasn’t sure which. The topic was the virtues and failings of the Old Firm, which was something to do with Glasgow’s Celtics and Rangers. Even though Ben was fluent in tipsy-Mimi Scottish he was struggling to keep up with their abbreviated, bar-pounding conversation so he and the pups decided to explore The Grubbery.

  The tavern was one big open space, and it looked like two separate buildings that had been smashed together. Where the back third had ancient wide plank walls and log ceiling trusses, the front two thirds had painted plywood for walls and metal roof rafters. It looked like someone had sliced the front wall off a big, cool looking old cabin and stuck on an ugly new warehouse. The entire back wall was stone with a large blackened fireplace in the middle that held a rusty old pellet stove. There were several large round tables spread around it and the bar, and a dingy jukebox against the wall. Ben read the CD labels and saw the most recent song was ‘Bark at the Moon’. Two dusty pool tables separated the round tables and the bar from the newer front of the tavern which was empty, unused space. The dim antler chandeliers above the bar and the tables barely reached past the pool tables, and none of the utilitarian hanging fluorescents in the front were on. The heat didn’t travel past the pool tables either, so it was a long cold walk through the dark to the front door.

  Hamish told Ben The Grub was far bigger than its current crowd needed it to be. He said the front abomination had been added in the seventies when it would have been packed to the seams on any given Saturday night. And then the blood and the beer and a few condoms and tabs of LSD would have been mopped up on any given Sunday morning.

  Next to the bar was a stone archway and a short hallway that led to the bathroom. Beyond the bathroom was a tiny combination kitchen and storage room, and the back door. Cardboard boxes and plastic crates with dry goods and paper products overflowed into the hallway.

  Ben thought the bathroom was pretty neat. The floor had a single long stainless steel urinal in the center. There was a pipe with the faucets right above the peeing trough so it was one stop shopping, as Mimi would have said. Spot tried out the urinal and Smudge wagged when Ben turned the water on above her brother’s head.

  Smudge pointed out there was no women’s bathroom, but one of the two toilet stalls had the iconic ladies room symbol carved into it. Someone had used a black marker to add breasts and a triangle patch of pubes.

  There were pictures and posters covering every inch of open wall space in the Grubbery, including the bathroom. There was a huge variety of photos ranging from large framed ones mounted with screws to small Polaroids tacked up with a staple. Most of the pictures in the back third of the tavern were older and ornately framed. Some were ancient looking black and white photos that had yellowed to sepia tones. Almost all of them were of men in groups, and usually they were standing on or in a large piece of logging or mining equipment, or holding fish or dead animals.

  Ben and the pups stopped near the juke box when they noticed a faded advertising poster of a buxom, windswept woman. She was wearing an apron and a big smile, and held three beers in each hand. The mustache and nipples drawn on her in black marker were interesting, and based on the curve and the proportions Ben assumed it to be the same artist from the bathroom. As interesting as the poster was, it was the very old framed photo peeking out from behind it that had caught Smudge’s eye. Ben slid over a chair and stood on it to get a better look it. He moved aside the poster and saw the photo was of a group of bearded, grim faced men with rifles. Ben looked closer and noticed what Smudge had picked up on.

  One of the men didn’t have a beard. In fact he wasn’t a man at all, he was a tough looking woman. She held a big rifle, and Ben saw the carved sign nailed above the doorway of the cabin behind her read ‘Amaruq Irriq’. The woman looked more than a little like Christa. She had one foot on a dead wolf, and there were a dozen more wolf carcasses lined up in front of the men.

  Ben shared a long look with the pups before hopping down from the chair and returning to the bar.

  Ben was spinning around on his stool, chatting with Hamish about the shooting club, and lying to
him about how he had learned sign language in school. As he sipped a soda and picked at his hamburger and mound of fries, Tavish puttered behind the bar.

  Sholto had been given a burger and went to crash out near the back hallway next to the warm pellet stove. She was spread out on Hamish’s jacket, alternating between snoring loudly, passing gas, and chasing something in her dreams.

  The pups were sitting on the floor next to Ben listening to the conversation, and every so often snapping up a fry or a chunk of broken up hamburger dropped onto the plate they were sharing.

  Valerie had come up a few times to buy a round for the tourist’s table, on Willie’s tab. She found excuses to lean against Hamish while she ordered and flirted with Tavish. As she played with her hair she asked for a string of drinks with odd, suggestive names that had never been made in this bar, and weren’t about to get made just because she was batting her eyes when she asked. Hamish was pretty sure by her third trip Valerie was inventing drinks so she could linger at the bar as Tavish politely shook his head at her.

  Tavish was a rather good looking bloke, Hamish noted. He was fit and tall as a Scot should be, with a strong jaw. He thought the lasses of Edinburgh were likely missing him.

  “Away and raffle your arse,” Tavish said quietly to Hamish after Valerie returned to her table with a tray of beers, “That aviation blonde ain’t worth the paper she’s printed on. Her fanny’s had enough graffiti written on its walls to make Banksy jealous.”

  Ben looked down at Smudge with a raised eyebrow.

  Smudge looked around to make sure no one was watching. Using Spot’s body to help block her split paw from view she subtly explained to Ben who Banksy was and then signed, An ‘aviation blonde’ is a blonde with a black box.