Talking at the Woodpile (23 page)

“Brian, honey, I never realized until I saw these pictures again just how much I miss my folks back home. We have to make plans to visit them real soon. We could load up the Winnebago, and the three of us will just go.” She was sitting on the couch holding a picture of her mother, and her eyes looked damp.

I was glad this was over. I'd always thought the belief in aliens was immature and showed that people weren't really thinking the whole thing through. It made for interesting stories, but the nagging thought of the folly of it all was always in the back of my mind.

Brian eventually burned his Roswell files and numerous boxes in the wood stove. The rest we piled high in the back of his pickup truck and drove to the city dump at the north end of town. Brian backed the truck to the water's edge, and we shovelled everything directly into the Yukon River. He stood on the tailgate watching the boxes float downstream.

“There goes my life, Tobias,” he said raising a hand in a mock toast. “Here's to a new one, whatever that might be.”

I couldn't even imagine what might come next.

Brian and Winch stopped seeing each other. Winch had enjoyed the status of working with Brian, but without him, he had no choice but to abandon the alien cause.

“Enough of that idiot stuff,” he told me one day at the garage.

This pleased everyone at Rock Creek immensely, and the Halloos' family relationships started to fall back into place. OP and Clutch always seemed to be laughing. They were happy now that they had their brother back. They gleefully slapped each other on the back, thinking that they had something to do with it.

“I told you those questions we asked at the convention would help bring Winch to his senses,” Clutch announced to anyone who would listen.

“Your questions were just as stupid as the answers,” Uncle Zak said, but Clutch and OP didn't listen.

Two weeks after the reuniting, the Halloos organized a big, smoky barbecue to celebrate Winch's homecoming. Many folks turned out, drawn by the promise of a barbecued pig.

After dinner, people watched in horror as the three brothers leaped arm in arm across the blazing bonfire in a ritual of unity, only to stumble and crash back onto the burning logs. A cloud of sparks and smoke leaped high into the overhanging trees. With their hair, beards and clothing singed or on fire, the three men bolted for the river, still locked arm in arm and laughing their fool heads off. Patches of flames and smoke streamed off their backs as they threw themselves into the water before there was any serious damage.

“You're ruining your clothes!” Stella yelled as she ran after them down to the river.

Winch pulled her in, sputtering and laughing. Others dived in and joined the thrashing and splashing. Then, in a chorus from the water, the brothers started hollering over and over at the top of their lungs, “Yahoo hullabaloo Halloo! Yahoo hullabaloo Halloo!” as if it was a national anthem. The women who came near were pulled into the water, and soon kids and dogs joined in the fray.

I took a few pictures of it all. I was glad things had gotten back to normal—for the Halloos—and there seemed no permanent harm to the family relationships.

As the months went by, I saw less of Brian. He went from home to work, then back again. His life had toned down dramatically.

He did confide in me. “Tobias, you know how some men have women on their mind? Well, I have something on mine, and it's causing me a lot of concern.”

A shiver went through my body.
My God
, I thought,
Brian is stepping out on Maude. She and that dog will kill him.

I was greatly relieved when he said, “I've been reading the Bible, Tobias, but I can't say I understand it, especially Revelations and the Old Testament.”

“I tried reading Revelations when I was about twelve,” I said, “but all the stuff about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the destruction of the world scared me.”

“I found a Quran in the library and took it out. It's interesting and understandable if you study it along with Islamic history. And Joshua gave me a Baha'i book called
The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys
, which refers to Sufi poetry,” he said.

“I don't know much about any of that but I agree it's interesting,” I said. “To tell the truth, I've had an interest in the Eastern world since I was young but never pursued it.”

“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.

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 and 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.