The Night Travellers

2. Up the Gatineau

Up the Gatineau "They are coming soon," said Madame Pelletier. "On vient bientot. ll faut changer la chambre. You must move. Downstairs." Mary had just come in with Kathy. They had been walking, up to the ferry and back. It was going to snow. "Who are they?" She spoke each word slowly, fully, repeating in French, "Qui sont-ils?" Anyone who came might be carrying some message from Jeff stuffed in a back pocket or buried in a gun case. A hurried telephone call was all she'd had to go on, back in Montreal, plus that scrap of a letter folded in with the tickets. "Hunters," said Madame Pelletier. "My brother take them tomorrow . He does his living this way." "American?" "Je suppose" Madame Pelletier, who had called her from the house as she passed with Kathy, pulled on a coat and hastened down the front steps, hustling before them along the road to the little lodge next door. "On cherche des moose" she could be heard to say. Then they were moving, changingrooms. Mary had had the corner room upstairs in the lodge since she had come in late September. The few couples who had arrived to fish had taken the small room downstairs. Now there would be three men, one sleeping on the sofa bed in the large downstairs room and two above, in Mary and Kathy's room. Mary and Kathy would move into a little downstairs room with upper and lower bunks. Madame Pelletier was in a hurry. She had dinner to cook for the lot of them. Mary barely managed to squeeze past her on the wooden 224 2 Scatterings 225 stairs to the floor above. Once in her room she seized the framed picture of Jeff, and a handful of letters, thrusting them in her carry sack. Her heart beat loudly. In what she admired daily, others might see a wanted man. Madame Pelletier, entering behind her, flung open her closet door. She glanced back at Mary. She was a quick, square-built woman, once pretty, whose brown hair was laced with gray. Some locks curled free from pins, along the back of her neck. "Je vous aide." She smiled. There was nothing insensitive, Mary knew, about Madame Pelletier's intrusion. She had probably never given a thought to privacy. And now she probably had to drive three miles and back to shop for groceries before they came. "We go back to Montreal, Mommy?" That was Kathy, hopeful, swinging on the bedpost. She had gotten tired of daily trudges either up the river or down, back into the woods or out to the pier. It was only a few times a week that Madame Pelletier thought to ask them in to watch TV. On Saturday mornings Kathy often missed Captain Nemo. "No, precious, we're just changing for downstairs. Just for tonight." "Tomorrow, too. Maybe. I don't know." Madame Pelletier laid a sheaf of clothes across her arm. "Maybe tomorrow night, too," Mary filled in. She was gathering up boots and shoes. It was all quickly done, in two trips. Kathy helped, carrying small armloads. In the new room, she looked doubtfully at the bunk above. "You can sleep with me," Mary promised. Otherwise she'd stay awake, with visions of a small body tumbling past her face. "Oh, Madame Pelletier?" Madame Pelletier turned back from the door. "The bathroom—" Mary began. First there was puzzlement, then comprehension. There was a downstairs bathroom but it was across the whole width of the big open lounge where the fireplace was, and the dining table. It was partially a junk room, with a corner containing a rusty shower that had no.curtain. The toilet sat out in the room, like a chair. Madame Pelletier considered. "Okay. You walk out the back. You come to the house." She pulled on her coat, a man's duffel, fleece lined. As she left the lodge the first flakes began to fall. 2 2 6 T H E N I G H T T R A V E L L E R S "Not bad atall," said the heaviest of the three hunters, his back to the fire. They had been eating silently, with Madame Pelletier running back and forth from the kitchen to offer more helpings, and her brother Gerard Belliveau rising often to replenish the wineglasses from half-gallon bottles. The pork roast had...