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| I know who you are. |
Louis Shalako
And
then there was the witch, or so Hubert thought of her.
This
was only about five or ten kilometres up the road, only slightly into the hills, as
he was beginning to think of them. Her name was Dolores, no one, not even the
cops, seemed to know her last name. It meant sadness, as he recalled. Seeing a mailbox with the lid bulging, it
was tempting to pull her mail for her…they might get a glimpse of a last name,
but that would seem very presumptuous.
She
was anything but sad, as it turned out.
If
Maurice was a bore, this one was just plain mad.
Just
barely off the road, the house was interesting enough from the outside, with a
small gravelled spot out front for the vehicle. The walls were rough stucco in
a dirty white, with a few vines growing on them here and there. The windows
were small and heavily leaded in a diamond pattern, the door much less than two
metres tall and made of bolted planks.
More
chickens clucked from somewhere behind the building, it was like everybody
around there had them.
Those
bolts, ancient indeed, had been hammered out by a true blacksmith. The roof
now, the roof was still thatched in straw and the resident sparrows were
nothing if not busy and talkative. They apparently lived right in the straw,
popping in and out as they went about their daily affairs.
Hubert
had always kind of admired the sparrows, with their unrelenting cheerfulness,
busy with life and not too worried about the problems of the world around them.
If any creature could be truly said to be living in the moment, it would have
to be the sparrows.
They
hadn’t even knocked when the door opened and a wizened old woman was grabbing
at LeBeaux’s elbow and practically dragging him in. She couldn’t have been much
over one and a half metres tall.
“Oh,
hello, boys, such nice boys—come in, come in.” She beckoned imperiously at
Hubert, as LeBeaux bent a bit and went in before her. “Come in, come in, don’t
be stupid.”
With
a chuckle, he did just that.
And
again, the interior was just plain…interesting.
“Coffee?
Of course you’ll have coffee, such good boys—” She turned and bolted for the
back room.
They
stood there, looking around, noting a fireplace that could also be used for
cooking judging by a spit and a handle to crank, a cast iron grate to keep
stuff up from the actual coals, and then some impressive iron and polished
copper wares lined up beside it on a small raised shelf of flat stones…mostly
for show, thought Hubert. Unless she was cooking for ten hungry farmhands—
There
were bookshelves, jammed to the tits, doors to other rooms to the left and a
narrow staircase going up to the upper floor, where more light seemed to flood
down from above into this end of the front room.
It
was surprisingly clean, bright, and homey enough with a couch, chairs and a low
table off to his right. Hubert had the impression the real kitchen was in the
rear, and sure enough, she came out again with a tray and cups. The other rooms
were additions, he concluded, the original house had probably been just this
one room—one with an outhouse and a very small barn, or even just a shed out
behind. All of that was long since gone, leaving just a sort of traditional
cottage.
“Please,
please, sit down, sit down—such nice boys.” Placing the tray on the table, she
bustled out again.
LeBeaux
grinned, nodded and took a seat on the end.
Hubert
wasn’t quite ready for that. Coffee though, that was better than tea.
He
sighed, deeply, and took an upholstered easy chair off one end of the couch and
well into the room. One lump of sugar, no cream. One quick stir.
He
sighed.
She
came back with cookies or something on a plate, taking the other end of the
couch.
“Well,
isn’t this lovely. Simply charming. I really like your house—” LeBeaux,
exercising some more of that cop-diplomacy, which really was a big part of the
job.
“Oh,
thank you, thank you. Such nice boys.”
Hubert
nodded, about to chime in with the pleasantries, if only he could think of
something...
“I
know who you are, of course.”
He
paused, and kept the mouth shut after all.
“Pardon,
Madame?”
“Did
that idiot Dampier tell you about my dream? I’ll bet he did. Gilbert’s not so
bad. I do his wife’s horoscopes. She positively swears by them, and I have
never steered her wrong.”
She
sipped at her cup, and Hubert picked up his. LeBeaux seemed floored, sort of
unusual for him.
“Why,
no. Ah, what dream was that?”
And
LeBeaux tossed him a grateful look.
Hubert
was a pretty good partner, in the sense that he wouldn’t let you suffer too
long—
But
that last one took the cake, and on that note Éliott
picked up his own cup, taking a closer look at the biscuits, and maybe even
just listening for a while.
“They
say you’re a witch, don’t you know.” Hubert, eyes all innocent, sipped at his
coffee, which was very good. “As for the dream, half the town has probably
heard about it by now, why don’t you tell us all about it.”
“What?
Who says? Ha. Of course I’m a witch, it’s what I do, for crying out loud.” Her
eyes glittered in a kind of contempt. “Anyways, it’s none of their business, is
it.”
Hubert
laughed right along with her, in what was only the second time this week.
As
for LeBeaux, it was nothing if not educational.
As
bad as Maurice had been, this one was about as crazy as a shit-house rat.
***
 |
| Fucking hermits. A bit worn, but a collector's item. |
Then
there was their hermit—
Finding
the gentleman in question had involved a roundabout route, leading up, over and
around, right past their original farm gate and the way into the fishing hole.
Rather than going over hill and down dale, the road followed the terrain,
contour lines as they were called, switching back and forth, keeping the
gradients low, only to draw up before another gate, a good two kilometres
further up the road. There was a post, with a sign that said No Trespassing.
On
the other side of that gate, which was locked anyways, the road or track was
very rough, overgrown, with branches and leaves hanging over from both sides.
The actual road gave the impression of an archway into some kind of green
hell…and the biting insects were becoming very interested indeed.
They
were out for blood, no kidding.
“Ah.”
LeBeaux slapped at a bug on his neck. “Fuck. What are these things.”
“Ah,
mosquitoes, I believe.” Virtually unheard-of in Paris, they had waved off the
purchase of insect repellent at the time, thinking they were burning money,
which was true enough—but that might have been a mistake.
They
had their hiking boots, and their little back-packs—
They
were keeping all the receipts.
“Well.
Here we go again.”
The
roof was up, the windows were closed and the doors were locked.
“Yeah,
we’re going, all right.”
According
to Dampier’s little hand-drawn map, the path was a good seven or eight hundred
metres, whereupon they would come to a cliff-face, and then they would turn
right and follow that along, to what was described as a cliff-dwelling—whatever the hell that meant.
Familiar
enough, when the cold weather really hit, the typical Parisian would take on
that jerky, stiff-legged walk, speeding up and just trying to get where one was
going without freezing to death in the meantime, and this was similar but
different. With the woods wet, warm and windless, to stop was to tempt fate,
the fate of being bled to death by a million hungry little bugs. To slow down,
was to encourage them, to be followed by hundreds of the things. As it was,
they were just speeding along…jerkily, stiff-legged and trying not to trip over
picker-bushes and long, trailing canes of something that still had a few
blue-black berries on it.
It
was all they could do to keep going, to hope for a clearing, some sunlight,
some kind of a stiff breeze would have been helpful. The little buggers would
be most active at dusk and dawn, but up here, daybreak would come late. With
the peaks surrounding and the trees close on both sides, with every leaf and
blade of grass literally soaking in the dew, and still a suggestion of mist
between the trees, proper daylight might not penetrate for another hour or so,
and then only for a short little while.
All
the while, with the humidity causing a good sweat, and the constant climb of
the trail, it was enough, eventually, to take one’s breath clean away. This one
was uphill all the way.
“Whew.
Jesus.” Hubert paused for a good look.
“Well,
there’s the cliff.” With rocks splitting off due to winter frost and simple
erosion, there was at least an open space where the trees were smaller, there
was no underbrush, although the walking was not so good on the rubble-strewn
slope at the base.
“I
hear chickens.”
It
was just around the next turn of the cliff, and the view opened up some more,
and there it was.
“Unbelievable.”
***
Éliott
had a point. Somehow, someone had created a hovel, with planks and logs for a
sloping roof, covered in sod or maybe just dirt…there were fitted stones piled
up for a front wall. It couldn’t have been two and a half metres wide; three at
the most. There was one small tiny window, and a short door, and the thing had
taken advantage of a cleft, a place where the mountain had sort of split apart
and left just enough space. There was a rusty pipe sticking up for a chimney.
One had to wonder where the inevitable water, the run-off was going, or how
there didn’t seem to be any…perhaps the place had its own running water, a
natural spring…again with the history lesson, but some of these places might go
back centuries, back to the heretic Albigenses or what-nots, according to him.
People could hide out for a long time, as long as they kept an ear out and were
prepared to bolt at a moment’s notice, or so he said.
“That
might have even been here seven or eight hundred years ago. So now you know.”
Hubert
stood staring, as two or three chickens clucked and buk-bukked a few metres
from the door. Tame enough, perhaps a little wary of the actual woods, where
foxes might be a threat, there was a kind of box up on stilts which he took to
be where they roosted for the night, and laid their eggs sort of thing.
“Are
you sure you don’t mean the Cathari—” Where the hell that one came from, Hubert
would never know, but the blank stare was reward in itself.
“What?
What? Oh.” LeBeaux tore himself back to the present reality— “Hello. Hello—is
there anybody home?”
The
door opened a crack and one eye peered out.
“Who
the hell are you?” The voice, was harsh and grating. “Fuck off.”
The
voice of the true curmudgeon, thought Hubert.
“We’re
police officers. From the Sûreté. You’re not in any
trouble, ah, sir. It’s just that we’d like to speak to you, sir, it’s about an
important matter.”
“Go to hell. Go away—”
 |
| "Fuck off. Punks!." |
The impression, was of a craggy face, eyebrows,
or at least one eyebrow, shaggy and white, with an even shaggier head of thin
hair and a bedraggled mustache, a horrible little beard, on a lined face that
hadn’t been shaven in a month or more...
“Sir—” LeBeaux stepped back, running into Hubert who had just
taken a step forward. “Whoa.”`
The muzzle of a shotgun, poking out through the crack of the door
was unmistakable.
“Get the hell out of here. Punks.”
Closing his mouth, a chastened Éliott
LeBeaux had his hands up, and slowly backed away from the door, careful with
his feet so as not to trip himself up...it wouldn’t take much and the fellow
would shoot.
The door slammed shut and the curtains twitched behind that grubby
little window.
“Well. I’d say that went pretty well.” Hubert snorted. “Fuck,
let’s get out of here.”
They still had a few names on that list, and there was still a
little time left in the day.
If they were lucky, they could still make the last train out
although that seemed more and more unlikely with every passing minute.
END
Previous.
Chapter One, Scene One.
Chapter One, Scene Two.
Chapter Two.
Chapter Three.
Chapter Four.
Chapter Five.
Chapter Six.
Chapter Seven.
Chapter Eight.
Chapter Nine.
Chapter Ten.
Louis has books and stories available from Google Play.
See his #superdough blog.
Thank you for reading.
