The Long Way Home

“We’re taking our car,” said Jean-Guy, tossing his bag into the trunk.

“I’m going with you,” Chartrand said. “No need to take two vehicles. You can come back for yours when we get back.”

The two men stared at each other.

“Get in,” said Clara.

She climbed into the van, looked at Jean-Guy and patted the seat next to her.

Beauvoir looked at her, then at Chartrand. And finally at Gamache, who shrugged.

“You heard her, Jean-Guy. Grab your things.”

“Patron,” Jean-Guy started to say, but Gamache put his hand on Beauvoir’s arm to stop him.

“Clara’s in charge. She knows what she’s doing.”

“She once ate potpourri thinking it was chips,” said Jean-Guy. “She took a bath in soup, thinking it was bath salts. She turned a vacuum cleaner into a sculpture. She has no idea what she’s doing.”

Gamache smiled. “At least if it all goes south, we have someone else to blame for once.”

“You do,” mumbled Beauvoir, tossing his bag into the back of the van. “I always blamed you anyway. I’m no further ahead.”

Twenty minutes later, Chartrand turned into the tiny airport at La Malbaie and pulled up to the shack.

“Is that it?” asked Myrna, eyeing the small plane on the tarmac.

“I guess so,” Gamache said, and tried not to think about it. He was used to taking tiny planes into remote villages and landing on what most pilots would not consider a runway. But it was never fun.

“Dibs on the exit row,” said Myrna.

A young man came out of the shack and looked at them, assessing them like cargo. “I’m Marc Brossard, the pilot. You the ones who emailed last night?”

“That’s right,” said Jean-Guy. “Four to go to Tabaquen.”

“Five,” Chartrand said.

Beauvoir turned to face him. “You dropped us off. That’s far enough. You can’t come with us.”

“But I can. All I have to do is buy a ticket.” He handed over his credit card to the young pilot. “There. Easy. I can fly.”

He said it in such a Peter Pan way that Myrna laughed. Beauvoir did not. He scowled at the gallery owner and turned to Gamache.

“Nothing we can do, Jean-Guy.”

“Not if we don’t try,” he said. “Sir.”

Gamache leaned in to Beauvoir and said, “We can’t stop him. And do we want to?”

But Beauvoir hadn’t given up. “Is there even room?”

“Always room for one more, my mother says,” said the pilot, returning Chartrand’s card to him and looking to the east. “Better hurry.”

“Why?” Myrna asked, and wished she hadn’t. Sometimes it was best not to know.

“Red sky in the morning.” The pilot gestured to the violent red sky. “Sailors take warning.”

“Something else your mother says?” asked Beauvoir.

“No. My uncle.”

“But you’re a pilot, and this isn’t a boat,” said Clara.

“Same difference. Means bad weather. We’d be better off in a boat.” He looked from Myrna to Gamache. “Ballast. Good in a bateau. Not so good in the air.”

“Maybe he should stay behind.” Jean-Guy gestured toward Chartrand.

The gallery owner was staring into the gaudy sunrise, his back to them.

“No,” said Clara. “He was kind to us. If he wants to come, he can.”

“Are you kidding me?” Beauvoir hissed at Gamache. “She’s making decisions based on what’s ‘nice’?”

“It’s worked so far, hasn’t it?” Gamache watched Beauvoir’s face flush with frustration.

Myrna approached, saw his red face and, taking warning, turned around.

“You coming?” The pilot had loaded their bags and was standing by the door of the plane.

They squeezed in, the pilot directing them where to sit so that the weight was fairly evenly distributed. Even so, the plane waddled into the air, one wing dipping dangerously and almost hitting the runway. Gamache and Clara, on that side, leaned toward the middle. Like mariners, after all, heaving ho.

And then they were airborne, and on their way. The plane circled, and Gamache, his face forced against the window as Jean-Guy’s body shifted in the turn, could see what was only visible from above.

The crater. The giant, and perfect, circle where the meteor had struck hundreds of millions of years ago. The cosmic catastrophe that had wiped out all life. And then had created life.

The plane banked again and headed east. Away from there. And into the red sky.

“Have you been flying this route for a while?” Clara shouted above the drone of the engines.

She’d finally stopped praying and felt it was safe to open her mouth without shrieking.

“A few years,” he called back. “Started when I was eighteen. Family business.”

“Flying?” asked Clara, feeling slightly more confident.

“Fruit.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Myrna shouted. “Leave well enough alone and let him concentrate on flying.”