He briefly wondered if it would have been better to stay cross-eyed drunk for this one.
Finally the beast lowered its head and rammed Gautier full-force. For the second time Gautier landed in the spot between the antlers, and while he remained intact, he was definitely along for the ride. The beast loped on all fours through the room, through the open balcony, and came crashing to a halt against the stone banister with Gautier clinging for dear life. A thousand feet of sheer cliff face supported the balcony, but beyond that even the pale moonlight didn’t illuminate the gorge that housed a river so far below him.
The beast thrashed its head from left to right, trying to throw him off. Unable to land a punch, Gautier strengthened his grip on the thing’s head, squeezing especially hard on something he hoped was the esophagus, and then he clenched his guts and rammed his knees repeatedly into the thing’s face until it swung him back onto the balcony and batted him off.
This was it. He was winded, sore, exhausted from the trip up the mountain under the conflicting influences of booze and coffee, and the injuries from the other fights in the castle were adding up. He had nothing left, not even his knife, which was still stuck in the beast’s throat. The impossible monster reared up like a man and loped over to him, claws extended like it wanted to just fall on him with its vicious hooks out, and let gravity finish him off. It opened its maw to roar.
A blood-chilling scream came out instead.
Behind him, Gautier vaguely registered the boom of a rifle blast at the same time. A small red spot blossomed on the beast’s chest in the torchlight, and it looked down at its fur almost confused at the notion that it even had blood. Thus distracted, it wasn’t ready for a second shot to come in and wound it in a much more sensitive area, the kneecap, which was a crack shot if Gautier ever saw one.
He thought of a rat getting blown in half.
Gautier craned his neck to see Danielle march purposefully out onto the balcony, first discarding his blunderbuss, then setting his muzzle-loading rifle aside, both of which had aimed true at her quarry. Robinette stood in the doorway, shrieking as it all unfolded, and as hard as that was to hear, Gautier was very interested in the prospect of living through this fight.
He rolled to his feet and used the distraction to his advantage. While the beast was staring incredulously at the petite woman who had shot him, Gautier got up and charged at the monster with all of his remaining strength, causing it to stumble, then topple backward, its bearlike arms windmilling as it tripped on the banister.
“No!” Robinette screamed. She dashed across the tiled pavement and reached out for the monster with both hands.
“Robinette, wait!” Gautier lunged for her even as she lunged for the beast, taking its outstretched paw in her hand and holding on as it fell back, back, back…and down. She went with him.
Gautier had just thrown himself half over the railing, holding himself in place with his knees, when he seized hold of Robinette’s other wrist. Obviously she couldn’t hold onto the beast, and when their grips broke, he plummeted rapidly into the darkness, roaring all the way down.
“Robinette…come…back up…” Gautier said. He had taken the edge of the banister in his free hand, and couldn’t spare it to pull her up. He tried to do it with one arm but she was thrashing and screaming, and the next thing he knew, he too had fallen over the edge and was holding on with just the one arm, trying not to drop her with the other.
“You don’t…have…to die…” he pleaded.
“I died when he died!” she sobbed. And suddenly he saw a glint of metal in her hand, the knife he’d stuck in the beast’s throat, and she reached up to slash wildly at him. He could only let go, or else risk a grave injury to himself. Such was the nature of his reflexes. That didn’t stop him from lamenting it when he tried to close his fingers on her arm again, only to see that she’d slipped barely an inch out of reach…
…and down she went, into the abyss, her dying wail growing ever more faint, until he could only hear the sharp winds beating at the cliff beside him.
Two hands gripped the arm that held him on the banister. He looked up to see Danielle with a sly grin on her face, her grip as strong as iron.
“Bonsoir, woodsman,” she said through gritted teeth as she pulled on his arm.
Gautier swung his free hand up to grab the banister. With her help, he hefted his own weight back up over the edge, narrowly avoiding a sharp cramp in his calf after extending one toe for leverage.
He slumped to the tile floor, exhausted, his chest heaving with the effort of drawing breath from the cold night. Danielle likewise flopped down, massaging her forearms. They said nothing for a while, just exchanged stoic glances at what they had witnessed, letting the harsh truth of it wash over them, through them, and maybe, behind them.
“You cared for her, I gather,” Danielle finally said.
“I cared for a thought of her,” Gautier admitted. “But my friend was right and I was wrong. I truly knew too little of who she is…was.”
Danielle reached out and rested a tender hand on his forearm. “I am sorry. I wish I could have done more.”
At that he let out a wry, heavy laugh. “You did plenty, Miss Danielle. Plenty.”
They sat there for some time, alone and quiet in the moonlight.
~6~
A few days passed before the main party of villagers returned to their humble mountain town. The dead had totaled thirteen among the villagers, and many more when the castle staff were counted. The burials took two days of nonstop work, and when that was done, the wounded survivors still required attention.
Among all of the nefarious objects and materials to be found in Marcel’s laboratory, he did have numerous medical salves and the like, and these were used to treat burns, cuts, and all other manner of battle wounds short of amputations, which they were all fortunate to avoid.
Naturally Gautier had dispatched a pair of messengers, the two youngest boys who had accompanied the war band up the mountain that fateful night. He didn’t want Madame Ésprits or the village wives to worry any more than they already were. Those men who were able-bodied went about looting the castle of any valuable substances, namely gold and food, to which Gautier did not protest. They loaded up the prince’s carriages and, little by little, made their heavy trek back home to a hero’s welcome.
Families happily reunited with one another, spoils were spread out among the people, and a few aspiring poets scribbled down details of the adventure so that they could record it for posterity. Those who were still sick or wounded when it was all over received extra care and lodging from Madame Ésprits, and in the meantime, everyone pulled together to mend the damaged property from the night of the attack.
All in all, it took eleven days for things to return to some semblance of normal, though Gautier suspected the villagers would speak of this night for generations to come. They would say what they would; he didn’t care to check in on them and hear their versions of the tales. Maybe they would praise him. Maybe they would overlook him. It didn’t matter. Life wasn’t as bright, and was a little rough, without his lifelong friend at his side.
Gautier realized just how much he had relied on the little red-haired man, and even perhaps how he had taken him for granted. Leroux’s parents had passed away and left him a meager piece of land which so far had not yet yielded any crops, but then Leroux had usually spent his free time hunting with Gautier, or else sleeping on Gautier’s couch, and hadn’t bothered to keep his own house.
Gautier had elected to bury Leroux there all the same, in the family plot, next to his parents.
He had stopped by on that eleventh morning, wrapped in a long forest cloak to keep the cold out, and stared at the headstone. It was not yet as dull as the two beside it, having spent less time in the elements. For all the times Leroux had playfully accused Gautier of being a poet, Gautier hadn’t been able to come up with anything earth-shaking to put on his grave. The truth seemed to fit the best, and he felt impre
ssed to go with that. Il était un ami fidèle.
“‘He was a loyal friend.’ That’s quite beautiful, actually,” said a soft voice from behind. Gautier had heard Danielle approaching, had attuned his ears to the soft footfalls of her moleskin boots on the loose snow. She had stayed in the village while nursing Philippe back to health, and then stayed longer to rebuild their damaged wagons, and stayed longer still to restock their supplies with some goods Danielle had pilfered from the castle. They hadn’t been able to sell their weapons or cured meats, but they had brought back a few hefty sacks of gold coins, so the trip wasn’t a total wash for their family.
“Yes, well, poetry is just a form of embellishment. I find that so many flowery words only serve to stroke the ego of him who speaks them,” Gautier said.
“A topic I’m sure you’re very well-versed in,” she teased, arching one eyebrow in hopes of loosening the somber mood.
“To be honest, I didn’t want it to be about me. Too much of our friendship had been just that, and so I picked something that I should have said to him at least once, but never did.” Gautier crossed himself, something he hadn’t done in years. “Hopefully he knows that I considered him a valuable friend.”
“I wager he did, woodsman.” Danielle gave him a little pat on the shoulder, then turned and slowly walked back down the path to the road.
Together they walked back toward the little cluster of shops and eateries that comprised his little town, and he felt a sort of tightening around himself. Not the general melancholy of the last week and a half, but rather a subtle realization that change was on the horizon once more, and it would arrive soon. He made small talk with Danielle as they walked, not really engaging in the conversation until he could finally put a finger on what was needling him.
“You’re leaving soon, aren’t you?” he asked.
“Yes. This afternoon, or maybe tomorrow. Might even last the weekend, if we can get away with it. You never know when the snow will hit again,” she said with a sigh.
Gautier thought about telling her that yes, she could, and that the weather was more reliably predictable than a number of things if one knew what to look for…but that would have bored her as much as it bored him in that instant. There were more important things to discuss.
As hard as it had been to adjust to life in the village after what he’d seen at the castle, he expected an even greater hardship in the wake of Danielle’s pending absence. He had already lost Leroux, but Danielle had almost filled the gap, what with having survived the ordeal at the castle, and how she had so casually stepped in to save his life. That created a unique bond that he was hesitant to let walk away.
Why not admit it? He…he was going to miss Danielle, this gun-wielding angel who had been in his village scarcely a fortnight, with a spirit of roaring fire and an indomitable will. Yes, she was beautiful. Perhaps of different shades than Robinette, but…mercy, but she was kind to his eyes, yet that wasn’t what pressured his heart at the thought of her departure.
There was a path before him. He decided to try it out.
“You know, it’s been said that there are things lurking in these woods that defy logic and reason. If you’re concerned about crossing paths with something problematic, I can refer to you the services of an accomplished woodsman, to escort you,” he said. Somehow the words lacked his signature confidence, sounding shaky, and he had almost mixed a few of them up. Fortunately he had practiced that phrase for an hour the previous night, and periodically in his head that morning.
“Oh, but Monsieur Gautier, my brother is completely healed, and I have reloaded my pepperbox. I couldn’t fathom the need of a woodsman, and I would hate to inconvenience you,” she said, arching one eyebrow. Beyond that, her face gave away nothing, least of all whether she was serious.
He had a response ready. Something came instinctively to his lips, and he almost ran with it…but the thought of Leroux’s headstone was too fresh in his memory for him not to consider what his friend would have advised. There was a certain humility that needed to be employed here, as strange a word as that was to Gautier. Something that had to be demonstrated in his demeanor, suggesting that he didn’t know whether she wanted his company or not. He couldn’t just assume it. So he didn’t.
“Let us pretend, Mademoiselle Danielle, that you at least had a reason to deliberate and postpone your departure from our humble village. What would that look like?” he asked.
She gave him a different look this time, knowing, playful, perhaps even a bit daring, like he ought to be a little bolder. Sweat formed on his brow. Oh, but how this woman vexed him with her signals, which he constantly seemed to misread. Then she winked at him, and he knew that she had known exactly what she was doing, reading the nervousness on him like an open book.
“It would look a great deal like a petit déjeuner, Monsieur Gautier. It would require eggs, bread, bacon, mushrooms if they are to be had, and rather a large amount of coffee and cream.”
“Ah. Well. They have all of those things at the tavern, if what you seek is so common.”
“Surprise me then, if you will, with something uncommon. A sizeable woodsman’s company would not go amiss.”
He smiled and leaned in quick to kiss her. She saw it coming and dodged it almost like she’d expected him to try this. He tried to stop himself but had committed to the attempt, and would only look a greater fool for pausing. Even as she put one prohibiting finger against his lips, she let half a grin form on her face, and he wasn’t sure what it meant.
For the first time in Gautier’s memory, he actually blushed, panicking slightly with the fear that he might have ruined something wonderful by reaching just a little too far, a little too soon. But then Danielle laughed, breaking the tension he’d caused.
“You are an intimidating specimen, Monsieur, this I do confess. But you’re not ready for that. Not yet. Come along.” She turned and sauntered away, looking back over her shoulder.
His heart thudded in his chest. “As you say, m’lady. To breakfast, then.”
And he went after her.
Afterword
Beauty and the Beast is one of the classic romantic fairy tales that every child seems to know from birth, whether they’ve seen a version of it or not. It’s based on a story that is thousands of years old, but the first version of the current iteration (a beautiful daughter, a father who strikes a bargain, a beast, and a rose) was written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot and published in 1740.
(I almost named my lead character “Gautier Barbot” but I didn’t want to give him my initials.)
Since then, the story has been run through the Cultural Rehash Engine dozens of times, the most popular version in our time being the Disney animated feature (soon to be released as a live-action remake.)
The story itself, to say nothing of Disney’s musical numbers, is timeless and whimsical, which is what gives it staying power. When the cartoon film first hit VHS in 1992, my brothers and I must have run that cassette raw in our family’s VCR.
In 1995, Disney did a massive stage play in Los Angeles that ran for quite some time, and my parents took us to see it that winter. Then in 2004, while I was serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a group of missionaries turned the song “Gaston” into a spoof of our mission president for that year’s Christmas conference. (Unfortunately I wasn’t a part of it, but I wish I had been, for they did a brilliant job.)
Finally in 2016, a slightly smaller budget version of the stage play came to the Smith Center in Las Vegas, and I took my wife to see it for our fifth anniversary. The actor playing Gaston had a bit of a “surfer bro” accent that made his rendition of the character uniquely memorable.
Gaston always stood out to me though, because I thought he was the most amusing character, even when I was a kid. (This probably explains a lot of the trouble I had in my dating life.) During the Smith Center play, when Gaston sang a song called “Me” (a hilarious number that is far too misogynistic to ev
er appear in a cartoon), I had a random fleeting thought: how would the story would look if Gaston really was the hero? What if there's a beast, and Belle is wrong, and Maurice really is crazy, and the town heartthrob has to save the day?
Then, to really spice things up: what if he's still an arrogant jerk anyway? The idea didn’t leave me alone, so I decided to tackle it, and this was the result.
It was hard to write a protagonist who wasn't likable, and I ultimately decided that was the wrong direction to go. I had to write a flawed character, one who was self-centered and a little ignorant, but nevertheless admirable in some small way, and thus Gautier the woodsman was born.
Since it's a story about him, and his shallowness, and his superiority, it would have to end with him learning of his own limits, and meeting someone who could knock him down, if not physically, then by some other means. This is how Danielle the gunslinger came into being, and you hold the final version in your hands.
All that said, I did want to change it enough to make the satire recognizable, but also add enough new elements to make it unique, in much the same way that Firefly was pretty much Star Wars with Han Solo as the main character instead of Luke. Hopefully I pulled it off. In the end, whether it worked is a matter of personal opinion.
So I hope you liked it! Have a great day.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Special gratitude goes to Christine and Danielle Stockton of Virginia; during a charity auction in August of 2016, I listed the naming rights to a character in a future book, and Christine won that bid on behalf of her daughter, Danielle. She ended up being the namesake and likeness of the female lead in this story.
Originally I struggled to get her character right, as I had intended the female lead to be a bit of a homely barmaid pining for our hero Gautier, who would finally notice her at the story's end and ask her out. (This was intended to be tongue-in-cheek parody but I just couldn't make it work.)
Kill The Beast Page 8