connected to the officer with whom he'd cracked wise about the military prosecutor's boils. 'You're not so goddamn funny when you need the Army, are you?' the other American said.
'Well, maybe not,' Moss admitted. 'I'm no fonder of being blown up than anybody else.'
'Shows how much gratitude your clients have,' the officer said.
'I doubt my clients are behind this,' Moss said stiffly. The gibe stung all the same. He didn't know why Canadians wanted him dead, either. He'd spent his whole career fighting their legal battles-and winning quite a few of them. And this was the thanks he got?
'Bring in the paper,' the man in Galt said. 'We'll run it through the lab. I doubt they'll come up with anything, but you never know till you try.'
'I'll do it,' Moss said. Doing it right away meant canceling a meeting. He canceled it. Whoever was doing this, Moss wanted him caught. He didn't like living in fear. Somebody out there, though, didn't care what he liked.
VI
Spring and snow went together in Quebec. Lucien Galtier drove with exaggerated care. He knew the Chevrolet would skid if he did anything heroic- which was to say, stupid or abrupt-on an icy road. The point of going to a dance, after all, was getting there in one piece. He wondered if he would have thought the same as a young buck courting Marie. Of course, back in those days before the turn of the century, only a few millionaires had had motorcars. It was hard to do anything too spectacularly idiotic in a carriage.
Marie… His hands tightened on the steering wheel. She was seven years dead, and half the time it felt as if she were just around the corner visiting neighbors and would be back any minute. The other half, Galtier knew she was gone, all right, and the knowledge was knives in his soul. Those were the black days. He'd heard time was supposed to heal such wounds. Maybe it did. The knives, now, didn't seem to have serrated edges.
A right turn, a left, and yes, there was the path leading to Franзois Berlinguet's farmhouse and, even more to the point, to the barn nearby. Plenty of other autos and carriages and wagons sat by the house. Lucien found a vacant spot. He turned off his headlights and got out of the Chevrolet. Snow crunched under his shoes.
Lamplight spilled out of the barn door. So did the sweet strains of fiddle music. Then, suddenly, a whole band joined in. Galtier shook his head in bemusement. Back in his courting days, nobody had owned a phonograph, either. Music meant real, live musicians. It still could-those fiddlers were real, live human beings. But it didn't have to, not any more.
The band stopped. People in the barn laughed and clapped their hands. Then the music started up again- someone must have turned the record over or put a new one on the phonograph. The live fiddlers joined in.
Lucien blinked against the bright lights inside the barn. He'd got used to the darkness driving over. Couples dipped and swirled in the cleared space in the middle. Men and women watched from the edges of the action. Some perched on chairs; others leaned against the wall. Quite a few of them were holding mugs of cider or beer or applejack. Galtier sidled toward a table not far from the fiddlers and the phonograph. Berlinguet's wife, Madeleine, a smiling woman of about forty-five, gave him a mug. He sipped. It was cider, cider with a stronger kick than beer.
'Merci,' he said. She nodded.
When the next tune ended, Franзois Berlinguet, who was a few years older than Madeleine, pointed toward Lucien. 'And here we have the most eligible bachelor in all of the county of Temiscouata, Monsieur Lucien Galtier!' His red face and raucous voice said he'd been drinking a lot of that potent cider.
The drunker the people were, the louder they cheered and clapped their hands. 'God knows what a liar you are, Franзois, and so do I,' Lucien said. Berlinguet bowed, as if at a compliment. Galtier got a laugh. His host got a bigger one.
Trouble was, it hadn't been altogether a lie. Ever since he'd lost Marie, widows had been throwing themselves at Galtier. So had the daughters and granddaughters of friends, acquaintances, and optimistic strangers. He felt no urgent need for a second wife. He'd done his best to make that plain. No one seemed to want to listen to him.
Even though the phonograph was quiet, the fiddlers struck up a tune. People began to dance again. What Lucien noticed was how harsh and ragged the music seemed. When he was young, people had enjoyed whatever music their neighbors made. Some was better, some not quite so good, but what difference did it make?
It made a difference now. People measured neighbors' music not by the standards of other neighbors' music, but against the professionals who made records. What would have been fine a couple of generations before was anything but now. We're spoiled, Lucien thought. That hadn't occurred to him before, which made it no less true.
Berlinguet came over to him. 'Will you be a wallflower?' he teased.
'If I want to,' Galtier answered. 'I can do just about anything I want to, it seems to me. I have the years for it.'
'But you will break the hearts of all the pretty girls here,' his host said. 'How can they dance with you if you will not dance?'
'Now that, my friend, that is a truly interesting question,' Lucien said. 'And now I have another question for you as well: is it that they wish to dance with me, or is it that they wish to dance with my farm and my electricity and my Chevrolet?'
Franзois Berlinguet did him the courtesy of taking him seriously. 'It could be that some of them do wish to dance with the farm and the other things. But, you know, it could also be that some of them wish to dance with you. Will you take away their chance along with that of the others?'
'I do not know.' Galtier shrugged a Gallic shrug. 'Truly, I do not. The trouble is, how do I tell with a certainty the ones from the others?'
Before Berlinguet could answer, Dr. Leonard O'Doull and Galtier's daughter, Nicole, walked into the barn. With his long, angular body and fair, Irish-looking face, O'Doull always looked like a stranger in a crowd of Quebecois. But he wasn't a stranger here. He must have treated at least half the people in the barn. Men and women swarmed up to him. Some wanted to talk about their aches and pains. More, though, wanted to talk politics or gossip. Even if he did still sound a little-and only a little-like the American he was, he'd made a place for himself in and around Riviиre-du-Loup.
Eventually, he and Nicole came over to Galtier. As Franзois Berlinguet had, O'Doull said, 'You're not dancing, mon beau-pиre. Do you think you will wear out all the sweet young things?'
'It could be,' Lucien answered. 'It could also be that I think they will wear me out. When I want to dance, I will dance. And if I do not care to… well, who will make me?'
Nicole grabbed his left hand. When she did, her husband plucked the mug of cider out of his right hand. 'I will make you,' she said, and dragged him out toward the middle of the floor. 'You don't need to wonder why I want to dance with you, either.' She understood him very well.
He wagged a finger at her. 'Yes, I know why you want to dance with me. You want to make me look like a fool in front of the entire neighborhood. How is it that you have come down here from town?'
'I talked with Madeleine Berlinguet when she came up to sell some chickens, and she invited us,' Nicole answered. 'Before too long, you know, little Lucien will want to start coming to dances, too.'
The idea that his grandson would soon be old enough to want to dance with girls rocked Galtier back on his heels. Had it really been so many years since little Lucien was born? It had, sure enough.
When the music started-fiddlers playing along with the phonograph-he had to remember where his feet went. Nicole didn't lead too obviously, for which he was grateful. And, once he'd been dancing a little while, he discovered he was having a good time. He didn't intend to admit that, but it was true.
After the song (an import from the USA, with lyrics translated into French) ended, Leonard O'Doull came out and tapped Galtier on the shoulder. 'Excuse me, mon beau-pиre, but I am going to dance this next dance with my wife.'
'You think so, do you?' Galtier asked in mock anger. 'Then what am I to do? Return to wallflowerdom?'
'Is that a word?' His son-in-law looked dubious. 'You can go back if you like, or you can find some other lady and dance with her.'
