Talking at the Woodpile

by David Thompson

  “Reading all this, I’m beginning to think religions are from the same source but appear at different times in history. Like gold nuggets, they all came from the same motherlode,” he said.

  Maude wasn’t happy with Brian’s new-found “hobby,” as she called it. Her family pictures were being replaced with new books. The post office was constantly delivering material of every description. Fritz, the postmaster, told Brian, “We’re going to have to build you a bigger mailbox.”

  “Where the hell am I supposed to put my knick-knacks, Brian, on the floor? You’re taking up all the shelf space again,” she said.

  “I’ll put up more shelves. There’s plenty of room in the kitchen yet.”

  “You’re not putting shelves in the kitchen, Brian, don’t even try it,” Maude threatened.

  I was staying the weekend with the Halloos when Maude complained to Stella that Brian might be becoming a religious freak. “If I had known he was going to be this much trouble, I would never have hooked up with him. Aliens, religion, what happened to life without a cause?”

  “Well, you could have married James Dean,” Stella said. “He was a rebel but didn’t have a cause.”

  “I’ve never heard of him but I’d like to meet that man,” Maude said.

  Brian was reading Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha again, and he was hooked. He couldn’t get out of his mind the image of Siddhartha meditating by the river.

  “I like the book,” he told Winch and me one day when we were having coffee at the Flora Dora Café, “but Hesse was mistaken that enlightenment could be achieved through meditation alone.”

  “Then why do you sit in the middle of your living room floor, looking like a human pretzel with your legs crossed over your head, while Maude vacuums around you?” Winch asked.

  “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with meditation,” Brian said. “All I’m saying is that when Hesse described a group of monks on a journey to visit the Buddha, I wished Siddhartha had joined them—that he had met Buddha and received enlightenment from the source.”

  Brian tried to encourage Winch to join him in meditation. “Come on, Winch, it will be good for you—and fun.”

  The thought of a four-hundred-pound man trying to get into some of those positions worried me, so later I encouraged Winch not to participate.

  “You’ll blow a tire, I just know it, Winch, so take it easy.”

  Winch’s sensitive side came out. “You saying I’m fat, Tobias?”

  I was in a no-win situation, so I had to be firm. “Look, if you take up yoga or whatever you call it, I’m telling Lulu.”

  And that fixed that.

  Days later I was with Joshua, having coffee and apple pie à la mode for lunch in the Flora Dora, when Brian walked in and sat in our booth. He looked different; the anxiety was gone from his face.

  “I had an epiphany,” he said.

  “What’s an epiphany?” I asked.

  “A sudden understanding,” Joshua answered.

  “When did this happen? What was it?” I asked, pulling out my notebook as if I was covering a city council meeting.

  Brian didn’t seem to mind that I took notes. He turned his head and sat sideways in the booth, looking out the window.

  “A few days ago I was by the river and got caught up in the sound of the wind rattling the leaves in the trees. It sounded like the rattles that Natives shake before they speak in council.”

  “Right.” I’d heard that at potlatches.

  “Then, out of the blue, for one brief moment, the doors of perception opened wide and I saw that all of creation started from a single point. I saw that the earth is the point of intellectual life for the universe. We have been created to inherit and inhabit the universe. There is no one else here, there are no aliens. We are alone.”

  “That’s interesting. I’ve heard of that type of experience before, when a friend of mine met a holy man,” Joshua said.

  Brian didn’t seem to hear Joshua but looked straight ahead, concentrating on what was revealed to him. “We are space pioneers, and I think religion is the charter for our advancement. The universe is ours, a gift. We own it. It’s an indication of someone’s love for us.”

  Joshua nodded, clearly impressed, as I took notes.

  Then he looked back at us. “I felt dwarfed by the massive energy and power around me and the sense of spirituality that domed the earth. We are a spiritual creation. God made us spiritual. Wherever I looked, I saw all things in perfect order. The universe brimmed with the sound of expansion. I sensed the massiveness of the planet turning on its axis. Then, just as quickly as it had begun, it was over. I realized I’d had a glimpse of reality. The invisible had become visible. Things are more orderly than we imagine. The epiphany was a gift.”

  “Congratulations,” I said.

  “Good work,” Joshua said.

  “Thank you,” Brian said. Then he sighed and turned toward us. “Tobias, Joshua, I cannot believe how out in left field I was. I apologize to both of you. I’ve been apologizing to everyone. It seems when you don’t know the facts, you make them up, and that confuses things even more.” He rubbed his eyes as if rubbing years of weariness out of them. “You have to be patient. The truth deserves patience. I’m being patient from now on.”

  “I had an epiphany years ago,” Joshua said. “It’s probably why I’m here in Dawson City getting away from it all. It scared the hell out of me.”

  We all laughed.

  “What was it?” I asked.

  “I was reading a book called The Hidden Words that said we should ponder at all times in our hearts how we were created. It seemed like good advice, so I sat at my desk where I worked and I did just that. I thought about my parents and how they were created by my grandparents and so on. I was back about four or five generations when I skipped ahead and went to ancient man, skipped that and went to the moment of the big bang when the creation of our universe began. That’s when I became terrified.”

  “Why?” Brian asked.

  “Because I suddenly realized we are created, and it wasn’t our choice. I felt that deeply. I was so frightened I yelled out loud, ‘We are androids!’ My friend at the next desk looked over the divider to see what I was talking about. At that moment I felt more powerless than I ever had in my entire life. Something created us, and we are held in the palm of that Being’s hand.”

  “God,” Brian said, nodding in agreement.

  We said no more, as if we didn’t dare say His name.

  I scribbled notes and asked them, “Is that it?”

  Both nodded yes.

  I finished my coffee, thanked them for sharing this and headed back to see my mom, who was working at the post office. I had the feeling those two men had forged a new friendship through their epiphanies.

  Later that day I walked home along Front Street and met Brian and Joshua coming the other way.

  They stopped. Joshua asked casually, “Do you know why we have to perfect ourselves, Tobias?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, taken off guard by the depth of the question.

  “Because God deserves a perfect lover,” he said.

  “Oh,” I said. We continued on our separate ways.

  As I walked on, I looked at the lush green hills that surrounded the valley and the deep turquoise Klondike River flowing into the mighty Yukon River, and I sensed that the future of Dawson City and its people was bright. Smiling, I rounded the corner next to the Historical Sites building and saw Winch on the riverbank struggling to get into the lotus position.

  Jealousy Among Friends

  I returned to Keno City that fall. I’d visited there during the summer looking for people to interview but found much more than I expected. Now I was sure that Bob, the store owner, had met with foul play. Maybe the mystery novels I’d read as a kid were influencing me more than I liked.

  What would Agatha do? I asked myself, and when that didn’t inspire me, I wondered what Bogie would do. I decided that Agatha a
nd Bogie would investigate. Agatha especially would never leave this alone; she would have Hercule Poirot on this as quick as a wink. I also had the urge to write a great Klondike murder mystery, but my instincts told me to be careful; I had knowledge that could make people nervous.

  Along the way I stopped at McQuesten River Lodge for gas. One of the last tourist buses of the season was parked in the yard, and the hungry travellers were crammed into the dining room enjoying a lunch of tomato soup and tuna sandwiches. The youngest children and the most elderly adults had red rings around their mouths. The lodge’s pet pig, Blossom, walked around beneath the tables snuffling up scraps, some of them deliberately dropped. The owners rushed about filling coffee cups and rotating ketchup and mustard dispensers from table to table. I wasn’t hungry, so I petted Blossom, gassed up and drove on my way.

  I arrived in Keno City late that afternoon. It was cloudy, and a light snow had dusted the town. I walked around and found the lady gardener I’d seen on my unsettling last visit. She was walking backwards down her wooden walk, swinging a corn broom back and forth and sending clouds of snow onto the garden. Where knee-high patches of vegetables had grown a few weeks earlier, there were now rows of neatly piled soil waiting for next year’s planting.

  “Hello,” I said, not daring to say more in case she ignored me and walked back into the house.

  “Hello,” she said, pausing to lean on her broom. “You’re that nice young man who interviewed Arnold.”

  Arnold had to be aware by now that I knew something, so it was a bit disconcerting to hear that he spoke highly of me.

  “I wanted to talk to you,” I said, feeling cautious but pleased that a conversation had started. “Especially because you seem to have lived here a long time.”

  “I’m Lily Bluebell Manchester,” she said holding out her hand. “Yes, I’ve lived here a long time—maybe too long for some people.” She laughed and blushed.

  Her hand was strong like a tradesman’s, and her eyes were the brightest blue. I could see how she got her name.

  “Pleased to meet you,” I said.

  Lily gestured toward the house, and we walked to the door, stomping the snow off our boots. The house was neat and tidy, and the wood stove gave a warm welcome as we stepped into the kitchen. The aromatic smell of fresh baking filled the room.

  “Ginger snaps,” she told me. “Do you like them?”

  “I love anything home-baked. My mom bakes all the time.” I hung up my coat and hat and sat at the table.

  “Arnold told me Hudson and Rebecca are your parents. I met them both a few times when I visited Dawson,” she said.

  “I’ll tell them I visited with you.”

  Lily reached up to lift down her best cups from a high shelf and set the table for tea. Soon the kettle whistled on the stove. She straightened her apron, then sat down.

  As we sipped tea, I hungrily devoured all the cookies on the plate. She watched as if she had seen this many times before.

  After two cups of tea, I took out my notebook, crossed my legs and asked her, “Would you tell me about Bob Harmond?”

  Her face took on a stark expression, and she rubbed her hands nervously. “There’s nothing to say. The RCMP dealt with that.”

  I had made her uncomfortable, so I quickly changed the subject. “What about you? How long have you lived here?”

  She brightened up. I think she was glad to be asked.

  “I’ve lived in this area all my life. My father was James Copper—Jim—the uncle of Joseph Copper. My mother was an immigrant Norwegian schoolteacher who moved from Seattle and met my father in Whitehorse. I have one brother, Twobee.”

  “I’ve met Twobee and I know Joseph. I see him all the time. He’s an interesting person with good stories,” I said. “I never met your father, though Joseph has mentioned him.”

  Lily went on. “My husband was Ed Manchester. He was Arnold’s business partner until his death.”

  “I heard about one partner leaving Arnold over a bear, then another partner meeting an accident,” I said.

  “The bear had nothing to do with the partnership breaking up. It was more complicated than that,” she said.

  “How so?” I scribbled notes, feeling vindicated that my instincts were right. There had been more to this story than a fight over a bear.

  “I’ll show you something.” Lily went into her back room, and I could hear her opening and shutting drawers. I glanced around the room. An antique glass-doored china cabinet had shelves filled with collectibles; I recognized some Royal Doulton pieces because my mother also collected them. I glanced at the bottom shelf, and my heart stopped. There sat Arnold’s bear skull. It was partially covered with a cloth, but I recognized the empty socket where it was missing a tooth. I almost got up to leave, but the newspaperman in me kept me seated.

  Lily walked back into the room, her arm full of photo albums stuffed with loose pictures, and took in the expression on my face. Then she quickly glanced down at the bear’s skull and back at me. I didn’t know what to say.

  “Let me explain,” Lily said, and dropped her albums on the table so that the pictures spilled out.

  The kitchen had become a courtroom; she was the defendant, and I was the prosecutor and jury. The truth and only the truth was to be spoken. A piece of her hair had strayed from behind her ear, and she carefully pulled it back. Lily regained her composure and opened the photo albums on the table. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d then said, “Members of the jury … ”

  She pulled out a creased black and white photo with bent edges. It showed four people. Two young men in baggy pants and windbreakers leaned on either side of an automobile. Their hair was greased back in ducktails, and they had confident smiles. Between them two pretty young women sat on the hood, their hair tied with scarves, wearing long skirts that fell below their knees. One girl smiled shyly, and the other was laughing.

  Lily pointed to each in turn. “Bob, Alice, me and my husband Ed. We were such good friends—we did everything together. Bob and Ed worked in the store off and on. Then Bob went to work with Arnold, and Ed started in the silver mine at Elsa. Victor the Gypsy was his partner.”

  “I know Victor well,” I said.

  She sifted through the pile of pictures and pulled out another one. “This might interest you. Do you recognize anyone?”

  I took the picture from her hand. It was a group of young men with their arms around each other’s shoulders. They all had big smiles on their faces.

  “Victor, Ed, Bob and Arnold,” I said. “But I don’t know the other two.”

  “That’s Buford and Craven when they were young,” she said. “They were all friends.”

  “Craven and Buford were my neighbours,” I said. “I liked them.”

  Lily laid another group of pictures on the table. They showed a group of people in parkas and hats standing around a grave on a cold-looking, cloudy day. Wreaths lay on top of the snow. The next picture was of a headstone. Chiselled into it were the words “Edward L. Manchester. Beloved Husband of Lily Bluebell. 1920–1949.”

  She looked up, and her eyes were teary. “Would you like to go see the gravesite?”

  I looked out through the window. In the darkness, light from the kitchen illuminated the falling snow. “Now?”

  Lily nodded. “I visit it almost every day at all times of day.”

  We put on our coats and walked toward the end of town. The moon was as bright as a street lamp. We carefully helped each other up a steep, slippery trail to a graveyard with about thirty graves. Some of the markers were wood, others stone or marble, but every one was different. Each one leaned or stood in its own direction. If it had been day and I’d had more time, I would have liked to read each stone to see what history lay there.

  “Ed is over here,” she said. She reached down and brushed the snow off a headstone with her gloved hand. “This granite is from what was then the deepest part of the Elsa Mine. The miners made the headstone.”

&nb
sp; I could see the stone had high-grade silver running through it. The miners chose right.

  “I always say a prayer,” Lily said.

  We stood there as she silently prayed. She closed her eyes, and I watched her lips move. The snow continued to gently fall in the still evening air. Then she took my arm, and we walked back to the cabin and took off our coats. Lily put the kettle back on, and we sat down. Both of us had red cheeks from the cold.

  “I’m sorry about your husband. It must have been a terrible time for you,” I said.

  “It was the worst of times. It still is. I never got over losing Ed.”

  “I heard it was an accident—Arnold told me that.”

  “It wasn’t an accident. It was all because of jealousy,” Lily said. “Bob was always sweet on me. He married Alice but he let it be known that I was the one he wanted. Ed was the only man I ever loved. Bob meant nothing to me. I told him that to his face.”

  “Did your husband know about this?” I asked.

  “The whole town knew. There are no secrets here. Ed spoke to Bob on a number of occasions. Bob would show up drunk in the middle of the night, knocking on the door and wanting to talk to me. Ed would go out and push him out of the yard. One time they came to blows, and Ed beat up Bob. Alice would get upset. It was an embarrassment, especially in a small town like this.”

  “What about Arnold and Alice?”

  “Arnold and Alice were the best of friends, nothing more than that, but Bob was insanely jealous. He accused Alice of all kinds of things. I don’t know how Alice put up with it all those years, his drinking and abuse,” she said.

  “The argument over the bear was the last straw. It just showed how crazy things were getting. Arnold had had enough of Bob and bought him out. A while later Ed went to work with Arnold, and the mine struck a solid vein of silver. We became relatively rich. Bob never saw a cent of it, and that drove him crazy. All these years Bob has made Arnold’s life as miserable as he could. I think he treated Alice the way he did to spite Arnold. He was mean like that.”