Louis Shalako: Dead Reckoning, Chapter Twelve. An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #10. Louis Shalako.

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

Dead Reckoning, Chapter Twelve. An Inspector Gilles Maintenon Mystery #10. Louis Shalako.

"There, but for the grace of God..."

Louis Shalako

At something of a loss for what to do next, they followed the trail a little further on, noting the sudden reversal of the slope as it headed on down towards the river. On the map, it looked like less than half a kilometre. That was only the horizontal distance, it went up and down considerably as well. It was very rugged, and sure enough, after two, possibly three hundred metres, they came to the waterfall. They were on the top of it, ten or fifteen metres from the lip, which was to their left. The water, very clean, ran across a flat slab of rock and then, it just fell away.

The trail leveled out, widened out, and stopped at the water’s edge. They could see it start up again on the other side.

“Now, would have been a good time to bring the boots.” Hubert meant the hip-waders.

“Ah, the hell with it.” The leather hiking boots were disposable, or perhaps it was the fact that it was somebody else’s money, but his friend and partner lifted the pant legs a little and carefully waded across the flat rock shelf, with the rim of the gorge just to his left, and then up onto the other side. “Are you coming?”

Hubert shook his head.

“Nope. Not even breathing heavy—”

LeBeaux stared at him.

“Fuck. I thought I was bad.”

Hubert laughed, which he found was coming easier now. It was the first one that was the hardest. On that note, Hubert pulled up the pant legs and started across. The water was maybe five centimetres deep. With a coating of fine silt, and a bit of algae, the rock was slippery enough, but he was okay if he just took it carefully…

Exactly as advertised. The boots were not waterproof, and there was no way to get across quickly enough. In that sense, it was no different than splashing through any big puddle back home. That water was damned cold, and they still had to get out of there. With the hot sun now beating down upon their heads, the biting insects had taken their leave, for the most part, and they still hadn’t found the river yet, either.

As for the plan, they might just as well follow it through until the bitter end.

From there, it really didn’t take too long to confirm this was indeed their river, and in fact the trail came down right where they thought it should, not that this was much consolation when you were striking out, left, right and centre.

Water squished out of the boots with every step, eventually petering out, and the toes were chilly but not enough to worry about. It was just discomfort, and it wouldn’t kill them.

It was just water—

Deciding they could bypass the hermit’s place by skulking through the woods, on an angle between the two trails as Hubert put it, hopefully not getting lost all day in there, but they were bemused to see their hermit, coming down the trail ahead of them. The stride was purposeful. He had the shotgun, a rather short model, although not exactly sawn-off, hanging upside down on his back, the strap being a stout piece of manila rope…LeBeaux raised a hand in greeting, but the man simply ignored them as if they weren’t even there.

He had a low cap, baggy brown corduroy trousers, just a bit short for him, working boots and a sheepskin vest over a faded blue shirt with billowy long sleeves. The impression was of cast-offs from a local charity, mismatched and badly-fitted. There was a knitted cap on his head, pulled low up front.

“Good morning, sir.” Take that, thought LeBeaux…

No response.

Hubert grunted.

“Not the talkative type, I take it.” Considering the sheer traffic along these trails, they had as much right to be there as anybody else who didn’t belong there either.

Again, they were ignored, and they watched for a moment as he stepped down the trail as if he’d been born to it, which he probably had. Far more so than a city boy, Paris born and bred like Hubert knew himself to be. There was something of a suggestion, not so much of a hump, or a hunchback, as it was the way the neck had shifted forward, and with the shoulders riding up like that, with a terrible, stumping limp. Hubert wondered about congenital birth defects, or maybe a good dose of polio or something. It said something about the fellow, half-feral going by the demeanour as much as anything else, and one could sort of understand the withdrawal from human society. The sheer aloneness of the man was disheartening. It was all one could do, to just try and understand another human being sometimes. There but for the grace of God, and all of that sort of thing.

“Now there, that’s what I call a mountain-goat.” LeBeaux had that right, with the long white whiskers on his chinny-chin-chin and the bouncing stride on what was a very rocky trail. “Fuck it. Let’s get out of here and go home.”

One long, last look. LeBeaux studied him for a little bit. He wondered where the man might be going. Running short on patience, Hubert sighed, but it was all his own fault, after all.