A Dismal Thing To Do

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “It’s all my family’s doing. Bert, you make sure the boys get to bed at a decent hour, eh.”

  “Never you mind us,” her husband retorted. “Just remember you’re there on official business and don’t go whooping it up with Armand and his crowd. If any of those guys get fresh with you, have Madoc take their names so I can bust their jaws for ’em sometime when I get around to it.”

  Madoc promised he’d do any necessary busting. They went off in a flurry of last-minute orders from Annabelle and hypocritical assurances from her husband and sons that these would be followed to the letter. Janet, who’d come down in her bathrobe to see them off, waved from the kitchen window. Everybody else hollered from the doorstep. Annabelle settled her coat, fussed with her scarf, and hoped she’d do all right. She was nervous as a partridge in hunting season and relieved her tension as Annabelle naturally would, by a running monologue on everything from crime to patchwork, punctuated by an occasional “What’s old Jase really up to, Madoc?”

  “We’ll know when we’ve winkled out the facts,” he told her, and kept on driving. He didn’t mind Annabelle’s flow of conversation. In fact, as the son of a choral director, he found it both natural and comfortable. Annabelle had an agreeably low-pitched voice, as well as a clever way of turning a phrase which one seldom found in the lyrics of oratorio and anthem. Nor did she keep repeating the same few words with trills and variations for page upon page.

  It took them the best part of an hour to get out to Bull Moose Portage, not because the distance was so great but because the driving was so slow once they left the main road. They hadn’t had to wait at the big shed Perce had mentioned for a jeep to take them in; a big sign had told them, somewhat optimistically: ROAD OPEN, GO AHEAD TO LODGE. Probably it had been smooth enough when it was plowed out, but traffic must have been brisk since the last snowfall, for the ruts were deeply carved. The number of cars around the lodge when they finally got there confirmed Madoc’s deduction. Armand and his home-grown talent were really packing them in.

  The lodge itself was pretty much what Madoc had expected, deliberately rustic on the outside and barny on the inside. Its most outstanding decorations were two stuffed bears standing on their hind feet, one wearing a hunter’s cap and fluorescent vest, the other demure in a frilly apron and flowered headscarf. A small stage had been knocked up of rough planking at one end of the room and a good many small tables with chrome underpinnings and red plastic tops were clustered around it. He led Annabelle to one of the few that were unoccupied, and ordered them each a vin blanc.

  It was a middle-aged woman who took their order, and Madoc would have been willing to bet she was at least a cousin of Eyeball Grouse. She turned her hyperthyroid gaze thoughtfully on Annabelle before she went off to the bar, which was far and away the most popular spot in the room.

  Annabelle was amused. “That’s Armand’s wife’s sister Prissy. Doesn’t know whether to recognize me or not. I suppose they have to be careful in a place like this, not to scare off the customers. I’d better say my little piece when she comes back, not that she’ll believe me.”

  She said it, and Prissy smiled and nodded, but Madoc doubted whether she’d been able to hear a word. A gaggle of young Bergerons were onstage now with their secondhand instruments, squeaking and banging and hooting and thumping their feet and flapping their elbows in the approved manner of modern dance bands. To Madoc’s tone-deaf ears they didn’t sound much worse than his sister Gwen used to when she was starting her clarinet lessons, though they were certainly making a lot more noise.

  Nobody else seemed to be minding the racket, either. Couples were out on the floor doing something that involved putting their thumbs to their foreheads and spreading out their fingers, bending at the hips to an approximate right angle, and doing even stranger things with their legs. Armand, with his penchant for home talent, must have conscripted the game warden as choreographer, Madoc thought. He leaned over to Annabelle.

  “How do you like it?”

  “It’s nice. The curtains are pretty.” A typical Annabellian reply. “Bernice must have run them up.”

  “Which is Bernice?”

  “Oh, you’d never catch her in a place like this. Bernice is awfully religious. But naturally she’d want to help out her brother. Doesn’t Cecile look pretty tonight?”

  “Which is Cecile? The one at the piano?”

  “No, that’s her niece Yvette. Cecile must have been giving her lessons. Cecile ‘s over at that table in front of the stage with Basil McLumber and some man I don’t—ah, I’ll bet that’s the new boy friend. Cecile’s not done so badly for herself, hein?”

  So that was the fabled Pierre Dubois. Annabelle’s enthusiasm was justified, Madoc supposed, if a woman went in for tall, broad-shouldered types with curly beards and hawkish dark eyes. He himself had dark eyes, but they were rather more like those of a scolded spaniel. That was irrelevant to the issue at hand; anyway, Janet liked them. Janet wouldn’t be impressed by Pierre.

  The man had got himself up like an old-time coureur de bois in fringed buckskins and a wide sash handwoven in a mélange of bright colors. He’d even perched a scarlet toque with a pompon atop his overlong black curls. The toque looked brand-new. Madoc wondered if Cecile had just finished knitting it for him, possibly comparing herself to Elaine of Astolat embroidering the cover for Sir Lancelot’s shield as she murmured, “Knit two, purl two.”

  Cécile was dressed in a long gown of some softly draped material in a pale shade Madoc couldn’t make out in the dim light. Annabelle would tell him later, no doubt. Anyway, she was a wispy, big-eyed little thing with slender, fluttery hands that fluttered fairly often in the direction of Pierre’s buckskin thrums. She looked like the type who could picture herself floating down the river in a funeral barge with a lily on her bosom. Only it would have to be a birchbark canoe to maintain Pierre’s image, and where would you find one these days? And what would happen when she got to the rapids?

  Regardless of all that, Cecile appeared in lively enough spirits tonight. She was smiling up at Dubois, who in turn was smiling down at her. He showed a fine set of teeth unchipped by the hunting knife he carried strapped to his hip and would perhaps do his celebrated trick with before the evening was much further spent. The secret, of course, was to catch it with the lips before it ever got to the teeth; which was not to say the stunt didn’t require nerves of steel, the reflexes of a mountain cat, and a penchant for silly deeds of meaningless derring-do intended to impress moony young women like Cecile and harebrained youths like those who were clustered around Pierre.

  Sure enough, they were urging him to do it. He was flashing his, teeth and shaking his head, either being modest or stalling until the band stopped playing and he could have everybody’s undivided attention. Madoc suspected the latter, and was right. No sooner had the dancers quit their mooselike antics and left the floor than Pierre shrugged, flung out his hands in a fine Gallic gesture of surrender, threw back his picturesque head, pulled the famous knife from its well-worn sheath, for which Cecile might secretly be embroidering a cover, and flipped it nonchalantly into the air.

  Then the bright steel blade was quivering upright with its point hidden in the exuberant mass of his beard. Everybody applauded except Madoc and Annabelle, Madoc because he suspected Pierre was pulling a fast one and Annabelle because she thought that man was setting a dreadful example and some kid would be darned lucky if he didn’t wind up with a hunting knife down his gullet from trying to copy that crazy stunt.

  She said so to the waitress, who only smiled and reached for their empty glasses. “And furthermore, a person might think a man his age would know enough to take off his hat indoors in the presence of ladies. I’m surprised Cecile hasn’t dropped him a hint.”

  That at least brought a reply. “Oh, I don’t think there’s much Pierre Dubois could do wrong in Cecile’s eyes. That was two white wines, right?”

  “Unless he’s got a bald spot he’s trying to hide,”
Annabelle finished defiantly. The waitress smiled again and hurried off. Annabelle could think what she pleased; Armand’s sister-in-law’s job was to keep the drinks going.

  Nobody was going thirsty tonight. They were three-deep around the bar now. Madoc excused himself to Annabelle and meandered to the men’s rest room, mainly so that he’d have a chance to see whether anybody was paying any attention to the impressive array of brand-name bottles stacked behind the bartender. He’d have been willing to bet most of them were either empty or illegally refilled with something other than what their labels advertised. As far as he could tell, no matter what anybody ordered, it all came from the same under-the-counter source and sold for a dollar a slug. Madoc wondered if perhaps Armand was relying on home talent in the booze department, too. Bootlegging was still a thriving industry in certain parts of Canada, and the RCMP had had some interesting times determining which parts.

  As he was pondering this interesting subject on his way back, Madoc noticed Annabelle had acquired tablemates. These proved to be a couple name Flyte from downriver a way. Maybe Flyte was the man’s real name, though it could well have been a nom de guerre, since he made no bones about having been a draft dodger from Boston during the Vietnam War.

  “Didn’t they declare an amnesty some years ago?” Madoc asked him.

  “Yes, they did. I could have gone back, but I decided I’d rather stay in New Brunswick. It’s a better way of life, to my thinking. Besides, I’d met Thyrdis here, and she was none too keen on leaving her own people.”

  “They’ve turned their house into a lovely gift shop,” Annabelle put in. “Janet and I have been down there a couple of times. That’s how we happened to recognize each other. Let’s see, you’re Donald, aren’t you? And you’re the one who makes those cute mugs shaped like pigs and chickens?”

  “I’m a potter,” Donald replied rather stiffly. “I make a great many things. Most of my designs are more serious attempts to interpret the medium, but we’ve found we have to bend a little if we want to stay in business. I guess you farmers don’t have that problem, eh, Madoc?”

  “Oh, we do plenty of bending.” Madoc was quite willing to be a farmer for the evening. “Potting business pretty good, is it?”

  “Not so bad.” Donald picked at the frayed cuff of his tweed jacket. “Of course, this is our slow time of year.”

  “Not that we care,” said his wife staunchly. “It gives a breather to prepare for the tourist season.”

  “Thyrdis does some beautiful things.” Donald abandoned the cuff as a bad job and began running his fingers through the fringe of a woven sash he was wearing. It was similar to the one around Pierre Dubois’s waist except that it had a blue stripe down the center instead of a red one, and might have made more sartorial sense with something other than that ratty but respectable suit.

  Madoc nodded over toward the piano, where Cecile was evidently getting ready to play. Pierre was standing ready to turn her music for her. “I see there’s another of your customers.”

  “Cecile?” said Thyrdis. “She bought one of my shawls a while back, but she isn’t wearing it tonight.”

  “I meant the chap with the sash.”

  “Oh no, that’s not one of mine. I never work that pattern.”

  In a pig’s eye you don’t, thought Madoc. He’d seen enough Welsh tapestry weaving to have an eye for a pattern. Having verified his suspicions about the whiskey from a surreptitious sniff at Donald’s glass—rotgut with a dash of caramel, obviously, though Donald didn’t seem to be minding—he let Annabelle carry the conversational ball while he took inventory around the room.

  It intrigued him to note how many of the men in the room were wearing those same woven sashes. Most of them had the blue stripe like Donald’s, five went in for a shade like spruce green, but only Pierre Dubois had a red one. The greens included Blaise Bergeron, his brother Etienne, their cousin Achille, who was obviously much the eldest of the trio, and a couple of other men around Achille’s age, one of them called Jelly McLumber—short for Gilles, Madoc supposed—and the other Clarence Grouse. Several more Bergerons were in the blue stripe squad, along with a fortyish Jelly Grouse and a young Clarence McLumber, a pair of Fewters who were connected somehow with the old woman from Pitcherville, another McLumber who turned out to be the popeyed youth from the hardware store, Fred Olson’s wife’s cousin Henry Skivins and his nephew Bartlett, though what they were doing together in a place like this was more than Annabelle could fathom, and that odd Mr. McAvity from over by the Forks who collected butterflies. There were a couple more whom she’d never set eyes on before. Madoc counted twenty-three in all, and these out of a crowd of maybe a hundred at the most, including the women and the staff, if such they could be called.

  Of course it was by no means unheard-of for young fellows to copy the style of some man they admired. Pierre Dubois was a charismatic type, not that Canadians went in much for charisma, as a rule. But these weren’t all kids by any means, and they weren’t actually trying to ape Dubois. Madoc didn’t see another buckskin thrum in the place. The men were wearing pretty much what anybody would wear on a Saturday night to a hunting lodge in the boondocks: anything from a sports jacket like his own with a light pullover under it to a red-and-black checked flannel shirt or a snowmobiling outfit. Only the sashes were uniform. Madoc wondered if “uniform” might possibly be the operative word.

  He knew better than to ask. Flyte would no doubt say they were trying to reaffirm the ethnic spirit of the region, or something equally high-minded and obscure. If there was any such movement afoot, why wasn’t anybody talking about it? Or peddling sashes for the good of the cause?

  Cecile had been strumming rather aimlessly on the piano keys. Warming up, Madoc had supposed, to warble some cheerful ditty about unrequited love or untimely demise. Instead, she suddenly whipped into a jiggy barn dance tune. A Bergeron kid with a concertina stepped forward to help her out, and another of the tribe stepped to the microphone.

  “Oh super,” cried Thyrdis. “Etienne’s a fabulous caller. Come on, everybody.”

  She made sure her woven dirndl was firmly hitched, flung her long woven scarf backward over her woven blouse so the ends could swing wide as she pranced and twirled, and ran with Donald on to the floor. Annabelle turned to Madoc with such a look of pleading that he couldn’t have resisted if he’d wanted to, which in fact he didn’t. In the first place, he’d far rather be hopping about than sitting here swilling whatever this stuff was that Armand called wine. In the second, he was intrigued to find out why not only Donald Flyte but every single blasted one of those twenty-three sash wearers—young, old, or in between, with or without a partner—was leaping out to join the sets like a bullet from a gun.

  Etienne was indeed a first-rate caller, and Annabelle an adept partner. Madoc didn’t get to keep her to himself much, however. Etienne went in for a lot of intricate switching about. Madoc could swear he’d had a swing around with every woman on the floor and half the men before they’d been at it ten minutes. It was like being one of the little pieces of colored glass in the kaleidoscope he’d played with as a kid.

  Lots of the dancers were good, but the beau of the ball was Pierre Dubois. He was everywhere, thrums flying, feet stamping, white teeth flashing from behind that curly black beard, never missing a figure. He was also up to something. Madoc didn’t know what, but he watched the red toque systematically bobbing its way to each and every one of the men wearing the woven sashes. On one pretext or another, Dubois would take that man’s hand. Often as not, especially if the man wasn’t one of the better dancers, he’d leave the floor soon after he’d been touched.

  Was this some part of a secret ritual, a mystic laying-on of hands, a grip of brotherhood? Or was Dubois passing on a message? He couldn’t be handing out notes, not in that number and not at a gallop, with so many people around and so many chances to fumble the passing. Maybe he squeezed their hands in Morse code, but how much could he convey in those brief contacts?
Enough, apparently, or he wouldn’t be taking the trouble.

  The kid from the hardware store was among the last to receive the magic handshake. Madoc was clear across the dance floor at the time, and he had a feeling Dubois had made sure he was before approaching young McLumber. Somebody must have tipped him off that the Mountie was present. If Dubois was any judge of men at all, he might be having a qualm or two about this particular recruit. The kid had impressed Madoc as a know-it-all just in that brief transaction over the Loyalist Blue paint. Get a few beers under his belt and he’d be shooting his mouth off right and left. Most of the men touched had shown more sense than to let on anything of importance had passed between them and Dubois. Young McLumber was looking so damned guileless that any policeman worth his salt would have collared the fellow on general principles.

  Well, this wasn’t Madoc Rhys’s collar to make, but at least he now knew whom to lean on should it become necessary to unravel the tangled web of those multicolored sashes. The caller was out of breath; the dance was winding down. Madoc bowed to his partner of the moment, who happened to be an elderly man in a lumberman’s plaid, found his panting but joyous sister-in-law, and escorted her back to their table.

  Chapter 13

  AFTER THE DANCE, THE band played a couple of more or less recognizable golden oldies while Cecile and the concertina virtuoso refreshed themselves, Cecile with a petit verre and the kid with a Pepsi-Cola. Dubois was all over Cecile again, gallantly pulling out a chair for her, fetching her wine from the bar, getting himself a beer to keep her company. It was only his second or third drink of the evening, Madoc noticed, and nobody could say the man hadn’t earned it.