A Better Man

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They stood on the frozen field, a few kilometers upriver of Three Pines, and watched as Billy’s backhoe dug into the banks of the Bella Bella.

The strong beam from the light on the front of his cab illuminated the ice and muck and stones as the shovel dug in.

Reine-Marie held her phone in her mittened hand. They had, away from the forests and on the clear, crisp night, a fragile signal. That came and went. But was at least there. For now.

Jean-Guy was beside the river, and Armand stood on the running board, guiding the digging of the trench. While Reine-Marie listened for reports back from Three Pines.

They’d left Clara and Myrna on the bridge. The river was now up to the second sandbag.

Ruth was in Clara’s cottage with her landline. Reporting back.

“River’s still rising,” Ruth shouted into the phone. Partly to be heard over the roar of the river and partly because she always shouted into a phone.

“Did you see that?” Myrna shouted into Clara’s ear.

Damn her, thought Clara, who was busy trying to pretend she hadn’t seen anything.

But Myrna rarely looked away from some awful truth. Preferring to know rather than to live in blissful, if dangerous ignorance. It was one of her worst qualities.

“They’ve shifted.” Myrna turned and yelled across to Ruth. “Tell them to hurry. They’ve shifted.”

“What’s that?”

“They’ve shifted!”

“Well, you’re pretty shitty, too!”

Gabri, standing beside Ruth in the kitchen, grabbed the phone. “Here, give me that. Reine-Marie? The sandbags are beginning to shift.”

“Merde.”

“Hey! Hey!”

They turned and saw a flashlight approaching.

“Keep digging,” Armand yelled into Billy’s ear, then jumped off the backhoe.

“What’re you doing? This’s my land,” came a man’s voice.

Armand gestured to Reine-Marie to stay where she was and walked toward the light and the shout. “Sûreté. Who are you?”

But he knew the answer to that. Because he knew whose land they were on.

Jean-Guy left the river and joined Armand. The man was still twenty paces away. And held a flashlight in one hand and something else in the other.

“He’s got a gun,” said Jean-Guy, his sharp eyes not leaving the man slipping and stumbling toward them.

“Oui,” said Armand, and took a step in front of Reine-Marie. “A .22. Hunting rifle. Saw it earlier, in the search. He has a permit.”

“Fuck,” muttered Jean-Guy, shaking his head.

A .22. Small-gauge. But it could still do damage. To a gopher. A fox. A human.

“This’s private property,” Tracey shouted. “Get off.”

They were downwind of him and could smell the whiskey. The donkeys had been put in the barn overnight, so it was just humans now, in the field.

“Monsieur Tracey, it’s Armand Gamache. We met earlier today.”

“I don’t care who you are. You’re on my land.” Tracey stopped ten paces away and raised his rifle. “Get off.”

“Armand?” said Reine-Marie, stepping forward.

“It’s all right,” he said, and put his arm out to gently move her behind him.

Obviously, she thought, his idea of “all right” and hers were very different.

“What’s happening?” came Gabri’s tinny voice down the phone. “Reine-Marie?”

“Drop the gun,” commanded Beauvoir.

“Gun?” came the tinny voice. “Hello?”

“Get off my goddamned land,” yelled Tracey. The rifle still raised.

Billy had stopped digging. Armand turned to him and shouted, “Whatever happens, keep digging.”

“Yurz.”

The machine began again, and Tracey stepped forward, slipping slightly on the snow and mud.

The danger, Gamache could now see, wasn’t just that he’d fire the rifle on purpose but that he’d slip and it would go off accidentally.

“I said stop,” yelled Tracey.

“And I said drop the gun,” said Beauvoir, stepping directly in front of Armand. Directly in front of the gun.

“Oh, my God,” shouted Armand, and waved toward the river.

Reine-Marie, alarmed, turned.

As did Tracey.

The only one who didn’t was Beauvoir, who was expecting Gamache to do something like this. Divert, just for a moment, Tracey’s attention.

Jean-Guy’s hand shot out and wrenched the rifle from his grip.

When Tracey lunged for it, Beauvoir pivoted and knocked him to the ground.

Gamache bent down and lifted the drunken man to his feet.

“We’re diverting the river,” he explained. “To stop the—”

“You have no right. This’s private land,” Tracey shouted. With a yank, he twisted away from Gamache and ran toward the backhoe, waving and shouting, “Arrêt! Arrêt! Stop.”

But, of course, Billy did not.

He hadn’t seen that Beauvoir had disarmed him. As far as Billy knew, a man with a rifle was running toward him. And might very well shoot.

But Billy didn’t care. Myrna was down there. The bags were shifting. And only he could stop it.

He pushed the shovel in deeper and dragged it forward into the field just as Gamache caught up with Tracey and, grabbing him around the waist, hauled the man around and away.

With a gush, the Bella Bella began pouring into the field.

“Hello?” came a tinny voice.

There was no deluding herself any longer.

The wall was coming down.

It was time to leave, Clara knew. Not just the bridge but her home. The village. Time to abandon Three Pines to fate.

Myrna and Clara quickly made their way off the bridge, half walking, half running.

The last of the villagers had to get out of Clara’s home, out of Three Pines, and up to the church.

From there they would witness the destruction.

“Wait,” said Clara, grabbing Myrna’s arm.

Every particle of Myrna’s being was straining forward. Telling her to flee. Now.

But she stopped. And waited, for a moment. Because Clara had.

Too afraid to even speak, she stared at the circle from Clara’s flashlight. It rested, trembling, on the now-askew sandbags. Some had fallen, some were preparing to slide away, pushed by the force of the water.

She had to make sure.

“Oh, shit,” she heard herself whisper.

Armand was physically holding Carl Tracey around the abdomen, while the man kicked and squirmed.

Jean-Guy hurried over to help contain him, but just as he arrived, Tracey slowly stopped thrashing, and a moment later he was standing still, clasped against Gamache’s body.

Both men were staring.

“Stop!” This time it was Gamache who was shouting at Billy.

The floodlight on the top of the backhoe was pointing at the bucket of debris Billy had just dropped onto the field, next to the water rushing out of the Bella Bella.

“What’s that?” asked Reine-Marie, taking a step closer.

Beauvoir saw then why Gamache had stopped the digging. Why Tracey had stopped fighting. And why he’d been so hysterical to stop the digging.

“What’s that?” Gabri shouted at Clara and Myrna. He tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “What’re you saying?”

The two women were waving their arms and yelling something about the river. If he had to guess, and it seemed he might have to, whatever they were shouting was not good news.

Billy went to dismount his machine, but Armand waved him to stay where he was. And told Reine-Marie the same thing.

Then he and Jean-Guy slowly approached the trench.

“Armand, Gabri’s saying something. Something’s happened.”

“What?” yelled Billy from the cab of the machine.

“What?” yelled Gabri again, completely forgetting he had Reine-Marie on the line.

“What?” came the tinny voice.

“The water level’s going down!”

Gabri and Reine-Marie heard it at the same moment. Clara’s shout. And then Reine-Marie heard shouts of joy. Even Ruth was cheering. At least she thought that cackling was a cheer.

“The water level’s dropping!” Reine-Marie reported. “It’s worked. It’s dropping.”

Billy gave a whoop. But while both Armand and Jean-Guy looked over, Armand smiling with relief and Jean-Guy nodding, they quickly looked away.

In the harsh beam from Billy’s backhoe, something pink was lying in the muck.

Armand knelt and reached out.

It was a bright pink duffel bag. With a name tag. A single embossed letter.

V.