Cowboy. Louis Hamelin

we should look for their lodge,” I suggested in a low voice.

      “Hmmmm....”

      “We’d have to come back and lie in wait at night, at dusk...”

      “Hmmm....”

      The Old Man seemed reluctant to leave the road. He shrugged, pretending to believe that our mere armed presence, at the edge of their domain, would give the highway sappers a beneficial fright. I was going to venture another tactical consideration, but the Old Man stopped me with a gesture. He’d spotted a can of Budweiser at the edge of the road, grabbed it, and placed it at some distance in front of a sand knoll.

      I was holding an electrifying object, a genuine legend of the North-American arsenal: a 30-30 Winchester, the ancient rifle of cowboys. Trying to control my breathing, I raised the weapon, a gesture seemingly conscious and mechanical, as though controlled from far away. Put one knee to the ground and the heavy killing device seemed made of silence in my arms. I pulled the trigger and the projectile raised a small plume of dust a good metre from the can, which rapidly dissipated, while a frightful tearing froze the forest. On my second try, the bullet pierced the sand one inch below the target which went flying vertically through the air, intact. It was already an improvement. I could see the gash on the side of the dune. But the Old Man prodded me to be off. The peal of the discharge had been enough for him and he seemed to think it would be enough for the beavers as well. The small family must’ve been mocking us under its roof of branches, in the musty shadows filled with the flash of yellow incisors. With the rifle on my knees, I was pensive and vaguely dissatisfied, filled with a strange fascination for what had just happened, as though Id stepped onto the threshold of an ancient and important discovery.

      Grande-Ourse lived under the sign of hope. The whole town played the lottery. These people, so quick to disagree about all possible subjects, would mysteriously stick together when the Old Man, an unparalleled leader wherever money was concerned, organized a collective participation in the 6/49 lottery. Everyone hurried to give him their contribution. Most, however, quickly learned to have their arms twisted. When time came to collect dues, Legris and Moreau invariably had gone fishing, the Old Man having just missed them. He railed against these evasions whose perpetrators, he claimed, didn’t hesitate to sacrifice the common good to their immediate interest. He’d become the accredited publicist of fortune. It was a marvel to see him going through his newspaper to find the section with the winning numbers, clipping it feverishly, pinning it to the stores bulletin board. He’d spend long moments contemplating those naked numbers, musing about their power to create dreams. A simple and secret process, like setting a trap: people placed their future in the hands of a half-dozen sure numbers hurled through the emptiness of uncertain immensity, knocking wood while they awaited. It seemed that the 6/49 was the only thing that could still save the village.

      Benoît had another image of the jackpot. A spirited and energetic woman would step off the train one day, and fall in love with him as she entered the store. She’d never leave Grande-Ourse. And he’d rebuild the crummy village with his bare hands, realizing an economic miracle for which he’d be acclaimed as a genuine hero. For Big Ben, the jackpot was the huge black bear he’d been doggedly tracking for over a week; listening to him, it must’ve been the Sasquatch’s brother at the very least. He’d devote a good half of his days to him, borrowing the Outfitters’ truck for the mission, driving off at the majestic speed of a knight straddling his mount. Benoît would protest, “He’s going to hide in the woods, so he can twiddle his thumbs!”

      But the Old Man emphasized the anticipated profits this amazing hide would represent when shown to the Americans on their arrival, with the innocent remark befitting the circumstances, “One of the smallest bagged this year, isn’t that right Big Ben, pal?”

      “Ooh Oh Oh Oh yes Oh Oh yes.”

      Every night, Big Ben returned empty-handed, flopping down in front of the store, oblivious to the swarms of blackflies bumping into the thickness of his fat hide. He sighed powerfully, looking for a comfortable position on the cement stairs. His exhaustion was supposed to convince us the chase was no picnic.

      “So, Big Ben, pal? How’d the bear hunting go?”

      The Old Man’s attitude showed he was ready to believe any seamless yarn.

      “Oh Oh the big Bear! Oh! Ooh! Followed the tracks! Oh the damned big Bear! Oh not far! Tomorrow! Oh tomorrow the damned big Bear!”

      It was always impossible to learn more about the roving bedside rug. The beast existed where it had to, sheltered from imaginations. Everyone here had a plan, a fantasy, a mental edifice more or less in the process of collapsing.

      Jacques Boisvert hovered above the fray. His wonderful arrogance made him elusive and he was unlike most of his peers. Their solid parochialism invariably brought them back, after a few wrong-way turns down one-ways, from the big-city streets to their tiny point of origin on the map, while Boisvert allowed himself outings into society. His Beaver gave him a perspective that necessarily relativized Grande-Ourse in his mind. Based on Lac Légaré with his hydroplanes, he’d take nature-sampling enthusiasts farther north than any of his immediate competitors. Boisvert spent winters down south, living the high life, chasing women and drumming up future customers among the powdered noses in Miami. High society is where he’d set his winter trap line. Since his wife’s death, he’d brought more than one poor little thing back to Grande-Ourse who, quickly disillusioned, set sail after a few months.

      The last one to date, his official chick, as the Old Man would’ve said, was Brigitte. He’d harpooned her one night when he’d gone on an epic drunk in a St. Denis Street bar, where his transient loathing of celibacy had taken him. Jacques Boisvert could look quite the gentleman when he wanted. Although well into his fifties, he looked dapper, and thought highly of himself. And he needed a woman to run the hotel, since he never set foot there. Haunted by bad memories, he preferred to concentrate on his sky. With shrewd brevity, he’d told the lady about his intense and untamed life over in his fiefdom, nestled amid pines, firs and spruces sprinkled with incidental fetuses of humanity.

      Brigitte was thirty years old, had an iron grip, and a heart-shaped face. Even Moreau, it was said, behaved in front of her. Boisvert was still peerless in his ability to choose a woman. And, moreover, able to fly after drinking twenty-six ounces of scotch. No one had ever seen him drunk. It must be said that, up there, space for zigzagging was plentiful.,.. He always landed his Beaver like a water lily. He crashed only once (which explained the shell I’d seen in the scrap yard), getting out without a scratch, of course.

      Every time the character’s name was brought up, the Old Man had trouble containing himself. An old, carefully maintained rivalry existed between them, fuelled by the pranks of the one, and the swaggering of the other. It was a battle to the finish between the perennial braggart and the man of action, the big talker and the terrible doer.

      That day, amid feverish preparations for leaving, Boisvert burst into the store. I was posted behind the counter and, with his dark stare lingering on me as though neglectfully, I thanked fate for placing me out of his way. Hérode narrowly escaped the pounding of the large work boots, taking refuge in the arms of Admiral Nelson who stood at attention nearby. Boisvert, supple and straight, headed for the Old Man, rolling his knotty shoulders. He stood in front of the grandfather, fists on his hips, and summed up what he really thought. “You cant cross the Seven Mile Bridge with a heavy truck...”

      The tone was scathing and irrefutable. He’d already turned around and was heading away. The Old Mans reply caught up to him at the doorstep. “I know that road like the back of my hand!”

      Boisvert turned around theatrically, and said jeeringly, “You probably do know the back of your hand well... But were talking about beavers here, not rats!”

      He gave free rein to his mirth. The Old Man, who’d paled, pointed a spirited digit at him, “I know that road inside out. And I know what I’m talking about!”