Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Ten - Part Six

THE ALPS

Jack thought about what Gaston had said: he thought about the murders he had committed.

Gaston was a way ahead, the other half of the picnic supplies packed into the rucksack on his back. He was a lot older than Jack but very spry and sure of his footing. He moved down the steep slope swiftly but very surely. It didn’t seem to occur to him to check to see if his daughter was okay in Jack’s care and for her part, Christine seemed happy enough on Jack’s shoulders.

“Where we headed!” called Jack. Gaston raised his hand and pointed. Ahead the path disappeared into a rocky crevice.

Christine started again on her English practice, this time counting out the numbers. “One, two, three, four…”

“Five,” supplied Jack.

She giggled. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten!” Each time she said a number she tapped one or other foot against his chest.

Jack reached the incline. The red rock was cut away by a narrow river almost hidden by the crevice. Gaston was no longer in sight. Holding onto Christine’s ankles and wary of the weight of his own pack, Jack started to follow the most logical route down. It wasn’t clear where Gaston was going but he obviously knew what was waiting down there. Because of the steepness it was slow going. Christine started wriggling, shifting Jack’s centre of balance forward and back erratically. He cast his memory to the French he learned at school. There wasn’t that much of it. “Christine! Arrêt! Give me a break!”

She giggled again but stopped wriggling thankfully.

“Merci,” he said.

At the bottom of the slope he came to a kink in the stream. The water came round a bend and then bent back on itself almost immediately. It came from a waterfall no taller than the little girl. Because of the kink the water was deeper here, still no more than waist height at the most but deeper than further down. The valley became a cliff two or three storeys high directly opposite. Further on it dropped down into a narrow channel that wound its way down the mountain gradually, cutting deep into the rock.

Gaston was sitting at the edge of the pool, his shoes and socks already off and placed neatly beside him. He was rolling up his trousers. They were loose and didn’t become too tight to stop rolling until they reached his thigh. He winked. “Will you join me?” Jack shrugged and lowered Christine to the floor. She started to blab away in French excitedly but Gaston clipped it short with a firm “Non.” He looked back at Jack. “It will be too cold for her.” Jack set his rucksack down and joined the older man at the edge of the water barefoot. “Make sure you are ready for this,” said Gaston.

“How bad can it be?” asked Jack.

Without replying Gaston walked into the water. Jack stepped in after him and waded up to his knees. It felt warm and tingly, not unpleasant at all. Then the cold hit him. It was colder than anything he had ever felt. He opened his mouth to cry out but the second wave of cold hit and the sound dried up in his throat. His arms flailed about by themselves and he almost lost his balance. When a sound finally came from his lips it was a tiny squeak. He dashed for the edge of the water, throwing up diamonds of icy splatter and struggled up onto dry land. The cold stayed with him for almost thirty seconds, rolling up and down his calves. When it eventually dropped away he realised he could hear the others making fun of him. Christine was clapping and giggling and Gaston, his arms folded was still knee deep in the icy stream, his head thrown back, bellows of laughter coming out of him.

“How bad can it be,” he said, still laughing. “Eh, Jack?”

Jack started laughing too. “You wouldn’t think it was quite so funny if I came and pushed your head under.”

“You’re welcome to try.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

Gaston came out of the stream, unconcerned. “It’s thawed snow from the very top of the mountain. The sun has melted it all down here but up there it is still winter.” He sat down on the rock beside Jack and broke out the remaining water bottle from his rucksack. “Thirsty?”

“Yeah. Please.”

“Christine? Do you want to join our guest and me for a drink?”

She squinted at him. He chuckled and repeated it in French and she nodded rigourously.

“Up in the village,” said Jack, “when we were talking about your book…”

“Mmmm?”

“You started to talk about how the murders affected the friends and relatives of the people he killed.”

“Oui.”

“If you think about the connections a person has,” said Jack, “made up of people they know; it creates a huge web, a network that spreads in every direction. If I think about all the people whose lives I’ve touched, everyone who would be affected if I were to die, it’s amazing; there are so many of them.”

“And are you so sure that the majority would care if something happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“People die every day. We all know someone who has passed on. The older I get, the fewer people are alive that I knew as a boy. There are almost none left at all. We get used to it. How many people do you know who would REALLY care if you died? There would be some, yes, who would be devastated. But others, the majority, would be sad for a short while and then go on with their lives. Even the ones closest to you have to go on somehow. In time, even they would forget.”

“I still think about my parents.”

“But they are out of your life now Jack,” he said. “I bet that you do not think of them as much as you could. Days and weeks go by without a memory. Am I right?”

Jack gazed into the water, his arms clasped round his knees.

“There is always mourning when someone dies, always; but is a transitory thing; it goes away. The grief they feel, in the end, is nothing.”

“Compared to the pleasure to be gained from killing, is that what you mean?”

Jack caught himself. His remark had come out a lot more forcefully than he had meant it to. Gaston was a very interesting man but his opinions were quite offbeat. Jack found himself reacting stronger than politeness allowed. For a second Gaston’s expression caved in, his eyes turning black, then the benign smile returned.

“What do you mean my friend?”

Jack told himself to keep his mouth shut, to change the subject, but when he opened it to do so the angry words just started coming and he couldn’t stop them. “You seem to have measured up their grief against the pleasure this bastard gained and decided that their feelings aren’t as important. Is that right? You really believe that? Don’t you judge him at all? It sounds like you admire him.”

“I would say so, yes.”

“What makes his feelings so damn important and his victim’s families irrelevant?”

Gaston raised his eyebrows. “I am a selfish being at heart. In many ways I am the perfect example of humanity in that account. I do put my own pleasure first. Why shouldn’t I? Every one of us on this beautiful planet are put here with a mind and the freedom to choose. I can use that freedom to do as I wish, as can you. As can the subject of my book, if he even exists as a single person. If you choose to kill for whatever reason then I would not stop you. You have as much right to take their lives as they have to defend themselves.”

“But who stands up for the people who can’t do that; who can’t defend themselves?”

Gaston thought for a moment then tilted his head. “Perhaps somebody like you Jack.”