The Adventures of Brute Noir: A Tall Tale
by W.M. Butler
From the beer parlours and speakeasies of Saskatoon to the opium dens and chop suey joints of old Shanghai, it was whispered that Brute Noir had been born to a Parisian whore. She had been sold to fur trappers in the wilds of Quebec for two wolf pelts and a rabbit skin cap. People said she escaped and traveled on foot across the great expanse of the Canadian wilderness to the base of the Rocky mountains. Half starved and ragged from her journey, she knew she would never make it up the cold jagged passes of the mountains on her own. It is said that she was found at crossroads by a man whose past was as misty as the great cloud capped peaks of the Rockies themselves. The tales say that she bedded him for his assistance up into the Crow’s Nest Pass. The stranger led the way and once they had reached the pass the man disappeared and left her heavy with child.
Brute was born high up in the stone cold crags of those mountains in the dead of winter during the biggest snowstorm of the century. When the squalling babe was finally birthed near the banks of a vast frozen lake. Rumour was that he came out with hair curly and wild like his mothers but not of the same colouring. Hers was hair of spun gold but due to the extreme cold the babe had hair as blue black as a raven’s wing. When the light caught it just so, it shone a true indigo. Brute’s eyes were the colour of the icy lake he was born beside all stone cold grey shot through with icy veins of the bluest blue. Some even say if you look deep into the eyes of Brute Noir you can see the clouds dragging their bellies across the surface of that lake. Still other’s say if you look deeper still, you can see into the depths of that lake and down into the roots of the mountains of the rocky range. Continue reading…
