Chapter 2

Sylvie patched me up. She insisted I go to the hospital to get stitches, but I refused. There was some adhesive tape in the first aid kit. I told her it would be okay.

“Adhesive tape! That’s not going to hold like sutures. You’ll have a nasty scar.”

“That’s no big deal.”

I wanted to have a nasty scar on my face. Make me look mean. I knew it would have an effect on Chloé. And I was right. She gave me the whole serious injury treatment: pampering, little kisses, the whole kit. What a feeling.

That evening, Larry came by the house to see me and make sure I was doing the exercises he’d assigned me during my convalescence. He showed up in his usual pale blue jogging suit, wearing his smoky blue shades. Pink calamine to soothe his fly bites covered his face. Even though he was a lot better than before, he was still in a miserable state.

“Let me see,” he said, coming up to me.

With a grimace, I tore off the bandage so he could take a look.

“We’ll have to keep a close eye on it. If it doesn’t improve, you’ll end up disfigured.”

I shrugged.

“How’s it going with Tommy?”

“Not great. We don’t see each other so much.”

“Shit happens… Pretty soon you’ll both be training together. I like Tommy a lot. He’s a hard worker and he wants to succeed. But if I were you, I’d keep him always in my sights. Don’t skate too long with your head down. Be sure you always know where he is on the ice. Because he’s going to test you, you can count on it.”

Could Tommy have been deliberately trying to hurt me over the past few days? I couldn’t believe it. It had only been as a result of his clumsiness. Even if he’d turned himself into a hulk since he began pumping iron in his cousin’s gym, I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d turned downright mean. Maybe we’d be competitors one day, but we’d always be friends, first and foremost. But after what Larry had said, I was a little bit concerned. I’d have to start watching out for him. And as for myself, once on the ice, I wasn’t going to yield an inch. With my long reach and explosive speed, I was a force to be reckoned with and could dish it out to absolutely anyone.

Chloé’s hair was tied up in a headband, with a long braid that hung down her back. She was wearing a black shirt splotched with paint, khaki camouflage pants with pockets all over and work boots. She was stocky, not too tall, with broad shoulders and hips and an irresistible pretty little face with a smile that never quit. She seemed designed to be happy, Chloé did. But now, for the first time since I’d known her, her smile was gone. And her eyes seemed to shine even brighter.

She grabbed the chainsaw at her feet, pulled firmly on the starter cord. The chainsaw started up on the first try, sending a cloud of blue smoke all over the yard.

Sitting on a lawn chair not too far away, I watched her work as I nibbled on vinegar chips and drank very lemony— and not very sweet —lemonade that Chloé’s mother had made. It had my cheeks puckering. Chloé let out the clutch and the chain started to whirl, the engine singing at the top of its voice the song our forests knew so well.

She began to carve up a log, sending chips flying in every direction. She stopped only to brush the sawdust from her face or to spit out what had gotten in her mouth. After a while, looking not quite satisfied with herself, she turned off the saw and put it down.

I went over to where she was. And with both hands in my pockets, I looked at the carved-up log.

“What’s it supposed to be?”

“Don’t know.”

It’s true, you couldn’t tell what it was.

“Not even a clue?”

“Not even one.”

“You carve something and you don’t have any idea what it is?”

“No idea.”

We kissed each other like crazy.

I’d been dying to jump onto the ice since May. My ankle had healed. It was time. I’ve been playing hockey since I was old enough to put on skates. Some memories are fresh in my mind. I’m four years old, leaning on my little hockey stick to keep from falling. My father and some of his buddies are flying by on their skates as I turn circles. They make jokes and crack up laughing, hitting the ice with their sticks, calling to me to pass them the puck.

“Pass it to me, Alex!”

“To me!”

“No, to me!”

But without fail I feed the puck over to my father who heads for the net and scores. There’s no feeling like it.

Hockey is so ingrained in my life that I start to go into withdrawal if I don’t skate for a couple weeks. It’s like the oxygen we breathe or the water we drink. If I don’t skate for a while, I start to feel like I’m suffocating or dying of thirst. I’m like a junkie looking for a fix. In fact, I’m an addict. And Larry knows it.

That’s why he was stringing me along; that’s why he had me running barefoot in the sand, planting trees, and a whole bunch of stuff that wasn’t relevant. He wanted me to work out and get in shape, but not play. What he actually wanted was for me to go into withdrawal. So when the time came to skate, it would be like food for a starving man, with all the passion of someone stranded for years on a desert island.

And it worked. As soon as I hit the rink, I felt like I had wings. My new blades bit into the ice with each thrust and then glided as I relaxed, then straightened my body. I was literally flying from one end of the rink to the other, jamming on the brakes and sending up a cloud of snow. I’d never felt this way before: so strong. My confidence growing, I was convinced I was ready for anything: training, camp, making the team.

Tommy hadn’t shown up yet. The story was that he needed a few days to finish his cousin’s program. And it looked as though he could lift more than twice his own weight.

It was a kind of relief not to have to deal with him. I could work my ankle without any pressure. I skated for hours under the steely eye of Larry, who made sure I never settled into my comfort zone, and pushed me relentlessly to surpass myself: stop-and-go, weaving around cones, skating backwards. Which I did with genuine pleasure. Because it felt good having the ice to myself at the beginning of August. Which made Larry say I was a show-off and not a team player, that I should’ve been a figure skater. And in the evening, I would hook up with Chloé. We’d go stretch out on the beach, far from the bonfires, preferring the blackness of the night, the stars and the dark mass of the sea lapping at our feet.

The news broke two weeks before the start of training camp. Shawinigan and Quebec were involved in a trade. Two starters for a defenceman. A rookie rounded out the transaction: Tommy heard the news before me. He had a cell phone, and his agent was able to reach him immediately.

“Cool, eh?” he said before hanging up.

I listened to the message on the answering machine three or four times to make sure I had understood it. The second message was from Pierre, my agent. He confirmed the news and asked me to call him back to discuss a few details.

Settled in on the green couch like I was on an amusement park ride, I was perplexed: Was it a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn’t figure it out. I called Chloé to tell her that we wouldn’t be able to see each other that night.

My father came home from work around seven o’clock. It was raining, and he didn’t usually like sleeping up at the camp on rainy nights. He was carrying two beautiful rainbow trout. Probably from the stock they’d seeded a few years earlier. He shook them in my direction, saying we were in for a real treat. Then, noticing the doubt on my face and that I seemed kind of down, he asked me what was going on. I told him.

“Good for you guys, that makes me happy,” he said. “You’re going to be able to help each other when things get tough. Nobody up there is going to be handing it to you on a platter. And especially not you, Alex, there’s a couple of veterans gunning for you.”

But seeing that I didn’t exactly share his opinion, he started asking questions. And I had a hard time responding, unable to put my ideas in order. So I made up some nonsense that seemed to irritate him:

“Don’t you think we’ll be fighting for the same spot?”

He came to sit next to me, still holding his trout, dripping water onto the living room carpet.

“Alex, son, don’t let that worry you. Tommy’s just not in the same league as you. He’ll be fighting for a spot on the fourth line. You belong on the number one line. You don’t fight the same fights. Remember, we talked about it with Pierre. If you don’t make the first or at least the second line, we’re going to ask that you be sent back to the midgets.”

With that, I sighed, shaking my head no from left to right. I couldn’t stomach the idea that Tommy could make the team and that I might not.

“Alexandre, that’s the way it is. You agreed back in the spring. It’d be useless for a talented guy like you to be banging it out on the fourth line at the age of sixteen. As for Tommy, it might be his only shot at the NHL. And I’m counting on you to be supportive. Got it?”

Supportive? That’s a good one. My buddy is turning himself into some kind of a gorilla with his muscles growing at the same velocity as his brain is shrinking, and I’m supposed to be supportive. I hadn’t told anybody that he’d knocked me down on the road the other day. It seemed to me that I had already done more than my share.

“Of course we’ll work together,” I said, not wanting to hurt my father’s feelings. “We come from the same town.”

“Great! Come on, let’s get the trout going. Is Sylvie out?”

I followed him into the kitchen. The trout left a trail of blood on the floor. I went to get the mop and cleaned it all up while he was preparing the filets. Fish guts, fins and heads were lying on the kitchen table, stacked on a scrap of newspaper. I didn’t know where Sylvie was. She could’ve been out in the woods or visiting friends. She didn’t return until late in the evening. I was sleeping on the couch when she came in on tiptoe.

As she took off her shoes and coat, I got up and sleepily walked towards the stairs. As she brushed by me, I asked her where she had been. It wasn’t her style to stay up late.

“None of your business, kid. You’d better hit the sack if you want to be able to get up tomorrow morning.”

When Sylvie used that tone of voice on me, I knew she was hiding something. Usually something about a guy. I was sure of it. I didn’t say anything, and went up to my room. I lay down on my bed knowing that wouldn’t be the final word.

She woke me up in the morning, shaking me vigorously by the shoulders. I opened my eyes, completely confused, as if I had been teleported back down to Earth on a space shuttle. How long had I been asleep? Sylvie was really upset. She threw my underwear and my socks on my bed and opened the curtains, tossing my dirty laundry to the back of the closet, doing everything all in a whirl like when I was little and about to miss the school bus. When she told me I was late for practice and that Larry had called, it was my turn to be really upset. It was Monday morning. It was a quarter past seven. The guys had already been skating for fifteen minutes and I wasn’t there. I jumped out of bed.

All my gear was in the washing machine. I started the dryer while my father, who had also just gotten up, chewed me out, saying that from now on he’d have to come home and sleep at the house every night and that I was irresponsible. Sitting on the dryer, which was warming up my bum, I watched as he brushed his teeth, his broad back turned to me. I hadn’t missed a single workout all summer, I told him. I’d gotten up every morning. He turned around with his mouth full of bubbles from the toothpaste, talking and spraying me with foam. I didn’t understand a word, but I’m pretty sure he was telling me he didn’t give a damn.

You can be sure that he spun the pickup’s wheels coming out of the driveway, peppering the garage with gravel. Then we hightailed it into town like a couple of yahoos, right up to the arena. In the locker room, I was pulling on my still-damp gear, forty-five minutes late, when Larry came in. I started to apologize, but he simply raised his hand to silence me.

“I just got off the phone with your father.”

“Larry…”

“Listen up. When I signed on to coach you, I met the both of you at the beginning of June. I said that you were going to have to do what I said and follow my recommendations. Otherwise, why go to all the trouble? Your father was in agreement, and you agreed too. We signed a contract, Alex. You have to respect it. Zero tolerance for lateness. Everyone’s busted their ass to be on time. The guys are here to train, but also for the pleasure of playing with someone who’s on his way to the juniors. You made the front pages of the papers in Quebec City when they held the draft. Do you get what I’m saying? It’s not just me you’ll be letting down. It’s everybody. But the most important thing I want you to understand is that the biggest loser will be you. Are you with me? If you don’t make the team, you’ll be just another wet firecracker, like so many others.”

I nodded that I’d had enough; that I understood. I knew perfectly well he’d gotten a kick out of giving my father an earful after what he’d suffered planting trees a few weeks back. As I walked out, he told me that if I was late one more time, he’d wind up the program. I could go find somewhere else to train. I didn’t think it was true. He wouldn’t let me down. He had even made arrangements to stay at his sister’s in Quebec City so that he could be with me during camp and at the start of the season.

“Is Tommy here?” I asked, before Larry could close the locker room door.

“I’d say so. By the time everyone else showed up this morning, he had already been skating for over half an hour.”

Half an hour, plus forty-five minutes… That added up to more than an hour he’d been training. And he never got tired.

Everyone greeted me with a nod, but no more than that. Not that they were angry at me for being late, like Larry claimed. The guys have known me for a long time. They knew it wasn’t the first time I’d been late, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. None of them would’ve said a word about it. They were just too tired from the workout to say anything at all. On that Monday morning at the arena, Sergeant Larry had decided it was time for a gut check. He had piled it on, and they had given it all they had. They were drenched with sweat, gasping for breath. Everyone except Tommy, who seemed fresh as a daisy. On the other hand, even if his tongue wasn’t hanging out like the others, he looked all pasty and puffed-up. Under the arena lights, you could see that there were pimples all over his face. Which I hadn’t noticed before.

I skated circles alone in one corner of the rink, doing my warm-ups and then some power exercises. After he was sure that I was dead tired and had paid for my lack of discipline, Larry allowed me to join the others at the end of the rink for some technical exercises: passing and positioning. After that, we got to play for a while just to relax.

Bastien was in goal. Samuel and Félix were there. We played two on two. You had to come out of the defensive zone with the puck on your stick. Then you had to come in at top speed while the two opponents took up defensive positions. It was just a game, but as always, we competed full out.

Samuel and I paired up. Félix, small and fast, was with Tom. I noticed from the outset that Samuel seemed to be out of synch. Maybe he had something on his mind; maybe he wasn’t quite in shape yet or maybe he just didn’t have his heart in it. Most likely a combination of all three, but I was leaning more towards the idea that he had his mind on something else. He seemed like a guy who wasn’t really enjoying himself, not because he didn’t care, but more because he was feeling down, and because of his negative attitude. After every bad play, he’d criticize the other players or find fault with them instead of concentrating on improving his game. No doubt he wished he was still on vacation, having fun with his new girlfriend, sitting around the pool without a care in the world.

But Félix, he was totally involved. Always speedy and energetic, he covered me tightly, giving me no room to skate. I managed, with my long reach, to get enough space to make a pass. But, unfortunately, Samuel was no match for Tommy, who was making his life miserable. A linesman would’ve surely handed Tommy a couple of obstruction penalties for planting himself in front of Sam like a cement pillar. The poor guy was totally checked, incapable of budging Tommy so much as an inch. And since he was always quickly covered, I had no one to pass to. Despite making some good plays, we quickly fell behind, four to one.

I managed to score a second goal, but I had to do it by myself. I beat Félix with a nifty shoulder fake coming in on the left. I didn’t even think about Samuel, figuring Tommy had him pinned to the boards. I came in alone against Bastien who did the splits. I lifted the puck and scored on my backhand. When Larry whistled the end of the game, we had lost, four to two.

Right at the end, I found myself along the boards battling Tommy for the puck. I was determined to beat him on my own, since Sam was so unconnected. I took a powerful shoulder check, as if I had run into a brick wall. I went down hard, unable to stay on my feet. Looking up, I saw Tommy give me a wink before leaving the zone with a strong thrust of his heavy blade.

“Okay, guys,” said Larry, “that’s it for today. Thanks for showing up on time. We took it easy today to set our pace. But I assure you, by the end of the week, you’ll be wanting to call your moms to say you’re finished with hockey. Tom, it’s supposed to be no contact.”

“But Alex hit me first.”

Larry didn’t respond, and I didn’t protest, unable to take my eyes off Tommy’s face. I couldn’t believe he had been so quick to squeal on me to the coach. A real friend would have kept it zipped. True, I’d given him a little action in the corner. But he’d been doing exactly the same from the get-go.

Tom, who might have had a secret lobotomy, looked at me with that stupid smile that never left his face. He was probably feeling pretty good about his first day on the ice and the amazing success of special training program his cousin from Baie-Comeau had put him through. It wasn’t the hard fall that had me thinking— you have to expect things like that when you play hockey —it was mostly the fact that Tommy hadn’t moved an inch that annoyed me.

That’s how it was all week long! Tommy took to the ice, not fast, nothing fancy, but with thunderous form and extraordinary power. He was moving all the time, like a freight train, and no one was able to shove him off the rails. Every time he came to check me, I’d give ground, which put me on the defensive and made me vulnerable to his crushing hits. For the first few days, Larry insisted on no contact. But soon enough we started to play rough. You had to learn to be tough enough to take a hit from twenty-year-olds weighing over two hundred twenty pounds. At the beginning of our mini-camp, I went to the net like a bolt of lightning, scoring goals one after the other. My game was much better in every way than anyone else’s, and no one seemed able to stop me. But soon, Larry made us tighten the game and play his man-to-man system, yielding as little space as possible, constantly back-checking. And slowly but surely, Tommy overshadowed everyone. Claiming more and more space every day and becoming increasingly dominant. After six days, it was as if he owned the ice. And everyone trembled when they saw him coming. The boards trembled too, the glass whipping back and forth alarmingly and the thuds reverberating all over the rink whenever Tommy sent someone flying into them.

There were some new guys in camp. Gagnon and a talented young player, Nicolas Landry. Gagnon and I were the only ones who could stand up, if ever so slightly, to Tommy’s intimidation. But Landry, who was only fourteen, went off to the locker room at the end of his second day, gasping for breath, his rib cage flattened, following an unfortunate encounter with our team bully, who had shown him no mercy. I didn’t feel good about it when I saw Nic creamed into the boards.

Disgusted, I went to see Larry.

“Hey, tell him to calm down.”

“Tell him yourself, he’s your friend. So far, he’s playing within the rules. It’s up to the rest of you to handle it.”

“He just about ripped Nicolas’s head off!”

“Nic knew what he was in for when he decided to play with the older guys. He wanted it. He’ll remember what he learned here when he’s playing midget this year, and be a better player for it.”

Really, now I’d heard everything. Larry could be a nice guy, but as soon as he set foot in a rink, it was as if he thought he was in a military barracks or a trench in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He became, like a soldier under enemy fire, a perfectly inhuman machine.

I wanted to respond, but he pointed his finger at me while looking me right in the eye, with his steely gaze, behind his smoky blue-tinted glasses.

“And you’re going to have to toughen up, yourself. You can finesse everybody around here. You can talk a big game and fake everybody out. But it won’t work like that in Quebec City. In a couple of years, you’re going to be just like your father Louis: six four and over two hundred thirty pounds. You’ll never be one of the fast guys in the NHL and you’re going to have to learn to play more physically. I structured your training program with that in mind. You’re a power forward, Alex, and don’t you forget it.”

I stood leaning on both elbows against the boards, watching my sergeant coach head towards his office. I felt a breath of cold air ripple along my back. It was Tommy, who always put in an extra half-hour skating after practice. He whizzed by me like a speeding locomotive, practically melting the ice with every stroke of his skates.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. What am I supposed to do with it in Quebec City?”

“But you’ll be back over the holidays.”

“Well in that case, I’ll borrow it back.”

Mike had just about stood on his head to turn down my offer to lend him the Skiroule. The snowmobile needed a good mechanic to keep it in top shape. My father had had his Polaris 500 fixed so he wasn’t likely to be puttering along at 30 clicks an hour in my semi-antique. I didn’t want it spending the winter hibernating in the back of the garage either. It was like a living thing. I’d seen the proof plenty of times last winter; she needed to move, to slide along the snow, to be treated with care. But the main thing was that Mike still had bad memories of what happened up at Lake Matamek, when I forced him to throw his Leafs hat at my feet. He didn’t like thinking about his long ordeal and the humiliation that went with it. He knew I absolutely couldn’t tolerate him wearing a Bruins cap. He must have smelled the trap.

“Why don’t you leave it with your girlfriend? She’d have fun with it for sure.”

I pretended not to know what he was talking about and he started cracking up.

“Sorry, sonny boy. But you must be the only one in town who thinks you don’t have a girlfriend.”

So that was that. The cat was out of the bag. I was seeing Chloé. Everyone knew it. We might as well call the priest and set the date. A wedding between two villagers. That would make everybody happy. Great for the local gene pool too. And I looked down to see if someone hadn’t strapped ten pounds of lead to my feet. This time, if I jumped into the water, there’d be no one to save me. Not even Mike. I’d sink straight to the bottom.

Mike tossed his wrench onto the workbench. He tapped me on the shoulder and then we went for a walk on the dock.

It was mid-afternoon and there were quite a few fishermen there. The Boivin brothers, two retired gentlemen, would spend almost every day fishing for smelt, mackerel and flounder. The whole town would gather there on a summer’s evening. That’s why every rumour had the same source: the dock. Old folks and young: people of all ages mixed together. Some were listening to music and drinking beer. Others indulged in their favourite pastime. The fishing was good when the east wind was blowing and the tide high, and the village fishermen thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Smelt and mackerel lay scattered on the dock, flopping back and forth on the asphalt.

Mike and I worked our way through the crowd of people, greeting everyone we knew. Some of the guys offered us their rods, inviting us to take advantage of the great fishing, but we turned them down, continuing on our way out to the lighthouse. The government had built a security fence just in front of it, since the old dock was showing signs of wear. We climbed over it and clambered down to the pier.

Seated comfortably in between the large rocks piled up to reinforce the original concrete structure, we stayed there for a long time, silently looking out to sea. A long swell rolled in, a sure sign that a storm was on the way. When the waves come in from the east, you can usually predict a low-pressure system will follow, bringing with it a couple of days of bad weather. The waves usually come before the wind and the clouds. Judging by the size of them, we knew that we were in for a whale of a storm.

Long waves that had started in the faraway gulf were gently ending their journey against the rocks.

“I’ve started going out with Sylvie,” said Mike, stretching his legs.

“I know,” I said.

…Even if it wasn’t exactly true. But at least I found out why she came in late the other night, and that made me happy. It more than made up for sleeping in and being late for hockey practice.

A longer, taller wave than the others curled over the ebbing surf and crashed heavily onto the jetty, sending spray high into the air. In no time at all we were completely soaked. In the warm sun still shining through the clouds, it was a great feeling.

It was probably Chloé’s and my last chance to be together, at least for a stretch of time. Sure Sylvie had invited her for dinner the night before I left, but we decided we’d rather be alone since I’d be in Quebec City and on the road throughout the fall and winter. We weren’t going to have much of a chance to see each other. I took Michel’s advice and offered her the Skiroule.

Sitting side-by-side on the stairs, only the sound of passing trucks interrupted our heart-to-heart talk.

When I asked her if she wanted the snowmobile, she started to giggle.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t know how to drive those things.”

“It’s not that complicated.”

Side by side we walked to the garage. When I pulled the dusty cover from the 1970 Skiroule 440 I noticed the change come over her. She stopped laughing and went over to the machine, eyes wide. Chloé was an artist and I just knew she was going to love my old vintage skidoo. I showed her how to start it, giving the pull start a yank.

Chloé shook her head from side to side, laughing. She must have been imagining her mother and grandmother’s faces when they saw her sliding along, come winter.

Already the two biddies, who took tea every afternoon at four o’clock sharp, had enough trouble with the fact that she was out in the yard running a chain saw; when they saw their little Chloé flying around at top speed on a skidoo they would be sure to faint dead away. No way they were going to accept the idea. For sure that was what Chloé had in mind when she enthusiastically accepted my offer as she sat on the shiny leather seat, gunning the motor and making faces. Choking on the fumes we rushed out to the garage, buzzed and sick to our stomachs, but having a lot of fun.

My father finally arrived around five o’clock in the evening. I recognized my quad’s distinctive sound. Like a show-off, he swerved into the driveway sending dust flying every which way. It was to be his first meeting with my first— official —girlfriend and he was trying to be funny. I thought for a moment he was going to go straight through the yard, jump the fence on top of the rise and finally land in the sandpit. But he got control of the Suzuki just in time. Then, feeling proud of himself, he pulled up in front of us, one knee poised on the seat.

He took off his bright orange hat and shook the long grey hair that he wore Indian style, like in a shampoo commercial. He was quite a sight, his shirt unbuttoned to the navel, and even worse, that big forced smile of his.

“Hi Chloé,” he went.

“Hello, Mr. McKenzie.”

“Mister’s for my father. I’m Louis.”

I hate that reply. Can’t stand it: “Mister’s for my father.” Blah blah blah. I was seriously ticked off.

Chloé laughed and so did my father, turning on the charm and running his fingers through his hair. Then he began to tell us about his day’s work: the desiccated trees provided by the government; the inspector who was supposed to come the week before and still hadn’t shown up; Jean St-Pierre who had come to give him a hand. It wasn’t so much the empty chatter that was getting on my nerves, no, it was the way he pulled his hair over his shoulder and began nonchalantly to braid it matter-of-factly. Of course, it attracted Chloé’s attention, and she began asking him questions. Then they started comparing each other’s hair and braiding techniques. I wasn’t feeling great.

As she leaned closer to him the better to observe his hair, he gave me the thumbs up sign to let me know I’d snagged myself a fine filly. Me, I let him know I wasn’t amused.

“What’s the matter, son?”

“We’ve been waiting for you for two hours.”

“Sorry. I had to make a stop up at Robert Pinchault’s. He wanted to show me the inside of the barn now that it’s finished. You ought to go see it. He asked after you.”

Sylvie, always perceptive, had been watching her brother’s performance through the window. She hurried out to tell him she needed his help right away. The tap was leaking in the upstairs bathroom and she was afraid there would be water damage. I knew she was lying, and I made a mental note to remember to thank her. By the time my father realized that Sylvie was playing a trick on him, we were deep into the forest.

Chloé hugged me hard from behind while I accelerated up Mill Road. We were heading up to the cabin where we would spend the night.

The sun was setting behind the mountain, but we still had two hours of daylight left. We dropped our packs off on the porch and went down to the water’s edge. I pushed the old canoe into the water and we made for the middle of the lake, Chloé paddling awkwardly in the front, and me steering in the back. A loon cried off in the distance, warbling its long, sad song. The still water of early evening reflected the clouds as they turned blue edged with orange in the fading light.

There we cast our lines, letting them sink down deep to the bottom. I wanted to impress Chloé, and I knew we could find some spectacular trout there. All of a sudden I felt water around my knees. I hadn’t noticed any leaks the last time I’d gone fishing with Tommy. It struck me as curious. After having twisted my ankle and almost ripped out my eye, could he have possibly punched a hole in my canoe to drown me? It didn’t make any sense.

My first thought was to go ashore near the beaver dam, but the water is low at this time of year. Branches you can’t see in the spring, gnawed to a sharp point by the beavers, make an impenetrable barrier to any approach in the shallow water. I could have tried walking on the bottom, but I would have sunk deep into the mud, which didn’t seem like a great idea. So I concluded the best thing would be to turn back, even if I wasn’t sure we’d make it. The canoe was filling up fast.

Chloé, seeing the water rising in the canoe, was getting nervous.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “Everything’s under control. We’ll get back in time.”

Whatever… By the time we found ourselves out in the middle of the lake, I was seriously beginning to wonder if we were going to make it. We might have to swim. We’d be able to do that without any problem. I was pissed at myself, remembering that I’d seen the bailing bucket in the thicket at the edge of the water, and didn’t bother to bring it along. Which might mean that I risked losing all my fishing gear.

I was heavier than Chloé. And the canoe’s stern was sinking deeper and deeper. Every stroke of the paddle was tougher than the one before, and it was getting harder to keep the canoe level. Even though nobody could see us, we pretended that nothing was wrong. We reached the flat rock in front of the cabin just in the nick of time. Water completely covered the stern and was pouring in over both sides.

It was no easy task to turn the canoe over and empty the water. When I finished, and set the canoe on a couple of birch logs, and then I inspected the wicked little hole that must have been punched out by I don’t know what, I turned to find Chloé … half naked. She’d taken off her jeans and t-shirt and stood watching me, wearing only her bra and panties. She was shaking like a leaf.

I froze, dumbfounded, looking her up and down. She was short and plump and her long wet black hair hung down over her shoulders and back. Her belly stuck out a bit, and she had broad hips, and heavy breasts that her bra could barely contain. The girl who was always comfortable anywhere and with anybody, now for the first time seemed bashful and uncertain. Maybe she didn’t like the shape of her body. Me, I thought she was very pretty, but I think it was mostly my inquisitive and clumsy eye that made her feel ill at ease. I didn’t know what to say, but I knew what I should do. I went over to her, hugged her against me, and she stopped shivering. We stayed for a long time in each other’s arms, stretched out on the big rock still warm from the heat of the day. When the last rays of sunlight had disappeared and all you could see were the stars, we walked barefoot to the cabin. Chloé was shivering again. Her lips were blue. I lit a fire in the stove while she began making dinner. Once the fire was crackling, I went outside to get some wood from the woodpile.

It was a clear night with no moon. The stars above my head were dizzying. If you stared at them long enough you felt like you could fall right into the Milky Way. I called out to Chloé.

“Close the door, there’s too much light!” I told her.

When she joined me, I pointed up to the sky. She looked up. After a few seconds of holding her head all the way back, she began to sway. I put my arm around her waist to support her.

“I almost fell!” she exclaimed.

Our eyes were burning for one another. We were about to join in a passionate kiss when from far away, a long howl rang out over the lake and the forest.

“Is this the first time you’ve ever heard one?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I think so.”

It was a wolf. A moment later, the pack responded in full chorus to the call of what appeared to be a lone animal.

As usual, I hid my emotions, a reassuring smile on my face. But even if it didn’t show, I was feeling uncomfortable. And maybe a bit nervous.

I’d heard wolves howling before, during trips deep into the woods with my father. Louis would tell me about them with a passion. He came alive, as if captivated by magic. With shining eyes, he would try to locate them. According to my father, who felt completely at home in the woods, the little boy who was his son had no reason ever to be afraid. He could have vanquished a black bear in hand-to-hand combat and it wouldn’t have surprised me. Now, it was my turn to provide a measure of comfort and reassurance. I felt unsure of myself. Would I be up to the task? I knew full well that there was absolutely no danger. The wolves would never come close to the cabin, and there was no way they’d ever attack us. Even so, my encounter with the strange creature on the road a few days back had left me feeling less certain. The howling of a wolf pack in the northern forest is always something fascinating and disturbing.

Chloé headed back up to the cabin to finish cooking dinner, while I adjusted my headlamp and headed out behind the cabin where we stacked the firewood. The beam of light swung from side to side, lighting the path in time to my steps. The wood was stored in a little shelter about twenty metres away. My father had spent a lot of time up at the cabin over the summer because of the transplanting project. The stack was getting low and there was hardly any birch, mostly softwood, and pretty green at that. While shining my lamp here and there in hopes of finding another cord that might have been stacked further away, my eye was drawn to the top of a low hill. There was something up there that looked like a pile of rocks. Intrigued by the unfamiliar pile, I climbed up to the crest, using the trunks of the small evergreens that grew on the flanks of the hill as handholds. There I found a pile of rocks in the shape of a person. It was a small inukshuk, a symbol the Inuit use to mark their trails through the huge expanse of semi-desert land in the Far North.

It was hard for me to imagine my father building an inukshuk in the woods just to amuse himself. It wasn’t his style and it didn’t make any sense. When I saw the dug-up earth and the traces of fur and bone, I immediately thought of the grave of Nuliak, Mike’s dog. I remembered when he asked me if he could bury him on our land last winter. I never would have thought he would bury her within fifty feet of the cabin. It had been well into December when he dug up the frozen ground.

Unfortunately the hole wasn’t deep enough, and scavengers had dug up the carcass for food. I could see the bones with darkened flesh still sticking to them scattered around; maggots were crawling over them. It made me sick. I had to step back for a moment and take a few deep breaths. Once my disgust had passed, I gathered everything I could find by the light of my lamp. With the old rusty shovel that I found under the cabin, I began to dig a “real” hole to bury the old husky’s remains.

I hadn’t turned over three shovelfuls of earth when I once again heard the howl of the wolf. I stood completely still and pricked up my ears. My father had taught me that wolves could fool you; that it was hard to tell where their howl was coming from. You think the wolf is in a particular place when it’s actually somewhere else. And with the echoes bouncing off the lake and the mountain, I couldn’t tell where the howl was coming from. But one thing was for sure; it was closer now. And while I was thinking about that, I heard the pack respond far off in the distance.

I started digging again when I heard the cabin door open, with a distinct creak of its hinges. They needed oiling; it was spooky. Down the hill, I could see a beam of light shining from the porch to the lake. I heard Chloé calling me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll just be a minute. Some animals have made a big mess up here.”

She said something I couldn’t hear as I had just struck a rock with my shovel. I yelled for her to repeat what she had said. But this time, she didn’t hear me, since she had closed the cabin door behind her. It was a big rock and even using the shovel as a lever, I couldn’t lift it. I got down on my knees and grabbing it with both hands I managed to turn it over with a great deal of effort.

It was then that I felt a blinding pain in my left knee. I cried out, falling on my side holding my leg with both hands. A sliver of bone had pierced my jeans and lodged in my kneecap. Fortunately, it hadn’t gone in too deep and I was able to pull it out without causing any bleeding.

But when I stood up I could barely put any weight on my leg. By the light of my headlamp, I realized I’d been kneeling right on a pile of bones and decomposing flesh and that I’d rolled right in it when I had fallen. I finished the job, burying the remains. With a sense of satisfaction, I tamped down the soil with the back of my shovel, promising myself that I’d give Mike a piece of my mind first chance I got.

With my shovel on my shoulder, I was just about ready to leave when I suddenly shivered and my blood froze. I was certain there was someone or something behind me, watching me. All my senses were on full alert. I could hear the breeze ruffling the leaves. The rustling of the brook and the lapping of the lake water against the shore. It was too dark to see anything. But there was no mistaking the odour on the air. It was musky and definitely alive. My heart was pounding in my chest and my pulse was racing. I wanted to take off running, but I knew I mustn’t panic. I had to stay cool. A northwest wind was blowing. The smell had to be coming from there. With an impulse that I can’t explain, I turned off my headlamp, as if I had suddenly realized my life was in danger and that it would be a good thing to disappear. As if the darkness would be my friend if I had to flee.

Fear held me in its thrall. Slowly my eyes adjusted to the dark and I turned around. The treetops were outlined against the sky. Before me stretched the spruce forest, black and opaque. I couldn’t make out a thing. Yet I was sure something was watching me. Something was out there, crouching in the dark. I could feel its anxiety, its desire … Its hunger.

As my eyes played over the nocturnal forest, I saw the flicker of two incandescent flames: the eyes of the wolf. I was spellbound. It was as if the entire forest was converging from all directions toward this intense gaze.

I took a long, deep breath, inhaling to fill my lungs with oxygen. My heart was pounding too, pumping blood into my muscles; I could feel them warming. And my senses were on a razor’s edge, alert to the slightest movement or sound, the faintest odour. Then, suddenly, he sprang at me. I bolted, running with all my strength, leaping from the crest of the hill, carried along by my momentum. I spotted the lake and the cabin, then tumbled violently to the ground a few metres along. I sprang back onto my feet and kept going. I took the cabin steps four at a time and burst in with a bang, slamming the door behind me.

Busting in like a fugitive from an insane asylum, I frightened Chloé half to death; she screamed. She was standing there in front of the table, arms crossed, eyes and mouth wide open, wide-eyed. It took her a couple of tries before she could get it out:

“My God, Alex, what happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

She shook her head from side to side as though she was dealing with the biggest weirdo in the world.

I didn’t want to tell her that I’d seen the wolf. That he was still out there, behind the cabin, that he was definitely watching us. Most of all, I didn’t want to let on that I was scared shitless. So I smiled the dumbest smile I could, my thumbs hooked into my pockets. Seeing her sit down, a puzzled look on her face, I wanted to go over to her, but she raised her hand to stop me. It wasn’t the howling of the pack that frightened her; it was me. I was filthy. When I fell to the ground after hurting my knee, I rolled over Nuliak’s remains, tufts of husky fur clung to my hunting jacket and jeans. With my bewildered and frightened expression, I wasn’t exactly going to be winning any beauty contest.

“Umm,” I said, dusting off the fur stuck to my clothes, “there was a dead animal lying around out back. I had to dig it a proper grave. The scavengers won’t be bothering it anymore. I promise.”

And I laughed out loud, while she kept silent, her face impassive.

We ate our spaghetti without a word. Chloé’s mom’s sauce wasn’t as good as my aunt Sylvie’s. But it seemed better not to mention it.

The rest of the evening we spent in almost total stillness. Every time I tried to get close to her, she moved away. And when I finally took her in my arms, I could feel that she was embarrassed and uncomfortable, trading kisses but not really putting her heart into it.

Odours are important. Even if we don’t always realize it. And me, that night, I stank. I stank of carrion: of dead dog.

So I didn’t say a thing. Or do anything all evening. I wasn’t really there with her. We were a hundred thousand kilometres apart. Each of us alone with our thoughts. My mind and my sharpened senses were concentrated outdoors, listening for the sound of footfalls and trying to catch the animal’s scent. Throughout the night I got up to stoke the stove. She lay wrapped in her sleeping bag, back to me and face to the cabin wall. She wasn’t asleep and I knew it. When daylight came, I was relieved that the night was over. I think I slept for an hour or two, around five or six in the morning. When I got up, Chloé was already dressed and ready to go. She had to get back, no time for breakfast, she had too much to do. That night, as planned, she came over for dinner. My father put on his clown act and Sylvie tried to lighten the atmosphere by being as nice as possible to Chloé, who, in her easygoing way, jumped right into the conversation, showing interest in everything: my aunt’s salty herbs and my father’s stupid jokes. But I could see that she was worn out. Our evening together had taken a lot out of her. After dessert, Louis and Sylvie pretended they were tired and went off to bed, at nine o’clock. They wanted us to have the living room and the sofa to ourselves. No sooner had they disappeared upstairs than Chloé told me she was too tired and asked me to drive her home. Which I did without a peep.

We traded cold and lifeless kisses. She walked hesitantly towards her house, and then turned about and ran up to me. Then told me she loved me. But I didn’t believe it. I just nodded, like a jerk, unable to respond. A confused look glazed her eyes and she vanished behind the front door.

I gunned the quad and popped a wicked wheelie that carried me all the way down the street. I hopped the ditch, and headed full-speed down the trail that leads to the 138. I exited the bush six feet in the air, trailing dead leaves, grass and pine branches behind me and landed in the middle of the highway, in front of a van that had to jam on the brakes, leaving rubber on the road. The driver, infuriated, blasted the horn a couple of times with a sound that echoed off the mountains. But with the throttle cranked to the max, I was already far away, headed straight for the beach.

Fires were twinkling along the shore. There were a lot of people out, partying. I kept on rolling like a demon, hopping dune after dune, as if each time I hoped to rise up flying toward the stars. No such luck. It wasn’t just my heart that was heavy, but the Suzuki too, and we always fell back to earth, landing hard. The shocks hit bottom and the frame rattled with every blow, which I absorbed, swearing. I imagined that the people sitting around the fires were wondering who the idiot was that had just roared by at such an ungodly hour and in such a peaceful place. Well, it was me.

Later on, sitting alone on the sand, I looked out towards the dark sea. The tide was out and the smell of the seaweed and jetsam tingled my nostrils, and then straight into my heart. From time to time, I spotted a bird picking its way through the tidal pools that seemed like giant mirrors laid out on the ground. It was a shorebird, making the best of low tide to search through the mud for crabs and other tiny shellfish. Suddenly I knew it was time to get out. There was nothing more for me to say, nothing more for me to do. I turned my back to the sea and drove home. The next day my father and I were speeding down the 138, next stop: Quebec City.