Talking at the Woodpile (30 page)

The girls danced with their legs together, moving up and down, back and forth, in a Chubby Checker-style twist. I was a little surprised that anyone still danced like that, with the pony and the monkey being so popular.

After the first song more couples made their way onto the dance floor. By the third tune nothing could stop the infectious urge to dance. In one wave the crowd rushed forward. Everyone was having a great time.

By the end of the evening the brothers were accepting multiple compliments. Winch was standing on the stage, holding his guitar and bending over to shake the hands of people congratulating him from the dance floor.

People liked the Halloos' music. The Dawson City folk seemed eager to embrace them as friends. Even Walter Rather went up and shook their hands. He and his missus danced almost every dance, though I'm sure Walter invented some of them.

By 3:00 a.m. the equipment was loaded into the trucks, and I drove back to Rock Creek with Winch and Lulu. The pale sun was rising from its lowest midnight-sun setting. The air was cool, and the mist rising from the dredge ponds clung like cotton balls to the rock piles.

I could see Winch was happy with the evening's performance. Lulu sat beside him, linking her arm in his and laying her head on his shoulder. I looked out the passenger window, wondering what to do with the time I had left before returning to school. I thought I should spend more time with my parents.

“That was so much fun,” Winch said. “Can you believe it, they actually paid us to do that? I would have played for free.”

When Winch pulled the truck into the yard, Uncle Zak came running out the kitchen door, missed the last porch step and crashed to his knees. He stood up, wobbled, swore, and holding onto one leg, limped to Winch's side of the truck.

Rolling down the window, Winch asked, “What's up, Zak? You okay?”

“Come in really fast,” Zak wheezed. “Your ma called last night after you left. Said it's really important. You got to call back right away.”

“But it's 4:30 in the morning,” Winch said.

“No matter,” Zak instructed. “Your Ma said as soon as you came home I was to tell you to phone. I've been waiting up all these hours to tell you. Way past my bedtime.”

“I appreciate you staying up, Zak,” Winch said.

We rushed into the house as the rest of the trucks pulled into the yard and emptied out behind us.

The phone rang only once.

“Hi, Ma, it's Chopin. Is everything okay?”

Winch listened intently for three or four minutes, not making a sound, and the colour drained from his face as he turned to the crowd. He took the phone from his ear, held it to his chest with both hands and said sadly, “Pa's gone. He died. Passed away last evening. He was walking the dog. Just fell over. The neighbours tried to help, called the ambulance, but the paramedics said he was gone before he hit the ground. Heart attack. He cut his head on the sidewalk when he fell.”

I heard gasps and wails as people ran through the house and back outside to tell those who were still arriving. In minutes the kitchen was so crammed we could barely move. People hung on every word that Winch exchanged with his mother.

“We're coming down, Ma. Just as soon as I get off the phone, we'll pack.” With that Winch hung up and turned to the crowd. “Pack everything. We're going home.”

The room emptied, and for the next two hours drawers and doors opened and banged shut as people finished their packing.

I got caught up in this whole thing and phoned my mom, who really didn't like being awakened at five in the morning, to tell her I was going with the Halloos to their dad's funeral. She was half-asleep, and I didn't say where the funeral was, so she said, “See you when you get back, dear, and take care.”

A cavalcade of trucks and cars snaked out of the yard and onto the Klondike Highway, passing those who were headed into Dawson for their day's work. People must have known something was up when they saw all the Halloos in one long procession.

Down the dusty gravel road we travelled, driving night and day. We stopped only to repair tires and to sleep at a small motel, where we rented all six cramped cabins and lined up for showers.

The first day, with Winch in the lead, we cruised through Whitehorse stopping only for gas. We made Watson Lake early the next morning. At Fort Nelson the guy in the restaurant filled forty-six orders of burgers and fries to go—he'd never done that before. Fort St. John was next, then we pushed on to Dawson Creek, then turned south for the Halloos' home town of Fort Saskatchewan, which was north of Edmonton. We arrived at dawn, four tiring days after leaving Rock Creek.

Their father's siblings planned the funeral, so there was little the Rock Creek family had to do but contribute funds. Ma was heartbroken but glad to see her family, especially the new grandchildren.

It was a bright sunny day at the gravesite. Winch, OP and Clutch, dressed in clean blue-jean bib overalls with white shirts and black bow ties, stood arm in arm by the grave and wailed like babies. Their massive shoulders shook with sobs, and their eyes were bloodshot pools of tears. Their noses ran, and they gasped for breath. Tucking their hands up their shirt sleeves, they wiped their faces on the cuffs, and soon wet stains smeared the cloth.

The family tried to console them, but they were inconsolable.

“Pa's gone! Pa's gone!” they wailed over and over again. “He won't be back. We will never see him again.” And they hollered even more, so much so that we were fearful they might become distracted and tumble into the open grave. Their wives came forward, took their arms and led them away to the chairs set out on the cemetery lawn. The children started crying too, upset at seeing their fathers in such distress, and clung to their mothers.

The Rock Creek family overflowed Ma's house, so they set up tents in the yard. The neighbours must have thought that an occupying army had come to town. Being respectful of the funeral, they complained little except when the children trespassed onto their properties. During the week the Rock Creek clan re-established its ties with the family and friends they had left behind. Everyone could see that the boys and their families were doing well, so they asked about the Yukon. So many invitations were extended that if everyone arrived on the Halloos' doorstep at the same time, there would be no place to put them all.

On the last evening of the visit, Alice led her sons Chopin, Leonard and Bernstein into the parlour. I got up to leave, but Winch motioned for me to sit down again. “He can stay, Ma. Tobias is like family. He's the little brother we never had.”

I was taken aback by the unexpected adoption into the Halloo family. All I could say was, “Thank you.”

Ma took a letter from the pocket of her apron and held it in her hands. “Sons,” she said, “your father wrote something for you just before he died. I think he had a premonition.” She handed the folded paper to OP—he was the best reader—and told him to read it out loud.

OP unfolded it, glanced at its contents and read, “My Dear Chopin, Bernstein and Leonard, when your mother gives you this letter you will know I'm gone. I want to tell you what has been in my heart and on my mind for some time. I want you to know that I love you, and along with Alice, you are my most cherished possessions. I thank God that you were my children.

“I deeply regret not having seen how important it was to support you in what life called you to be. This is my most regrettable mistake. I wanted only the best for you. In another world, in another time, this will all be put behind us, and we will be together again. Look after your mother. Love, Father.”

OP wiped away a tear, folded the letter and handed it back to Ma.

“Keep it,” she said.

Clutch and Winch cried silently.

The next morning as they packed to leave, Ma Alice called her boys into the parlour again. She was holding a violin case, and in it was a Romeo Antoniazzi violin. “Your father bought this many years ago. He told me, ‘When the time comes, give it to the boys.' He put all his savings into it with hopes that one of you would play it for a living.”

Winch took the violin and bow out of the case, tucked it under his chin and tuned it in a minute. With a nod of his head he indicated to Clutch to sit at the parlour piano. “This is for Pa,” he said. He and Clutch played Chopin's “Fantasie-Impromptu” from their hearts.

I slept all the way on the drive back home, which was completed in typical Halloo fashion, as quickly as possible. A week after arriving, the three brothers and I sat with Uncle Zak on the worn living room couches and stared at the violin case sitting on the oversized coffee table. Zak opened the case and laid the violin on top of it.

“It's got to be worth some money,” OP said.

“It's a gift, for heaven's sake!” Clutch said. “We can't sell it.”

“Like hell we can't! It's ours to do whatever we want with,” Winch said.

“I'd rather have a new truck,” Zak said. “You can't drive a violin.”

Zak's opinion held weight, and no one argued with him.

Months later Lulu did some research and contacted Sotheby's auction house in New York. Winch crated the violin and sent it via Canadian Pacific to Vancouver, and Brinks delivered it to the dealer. Shortly after that a cheque arrived in the mail made out to Lulu Halloo for a little more than US$70,000.

When the Halloos opened the envelope, the hooting and hollering could be heard a mile from the house, and the men and women linked arms and danced a hoedown in the kitchen.

Within days two new trucks appeared in the yard, and one of them was for Zak. Everyone had new clothes, and the brothers took turns driving an ATV all over the hills behind the house.

A carpenter was hired to repair and renovate the house. He built new cabinets in the kitchen, but the walls and floors were so uneven and out of plumb that he took twice as long as usual and charged twice as much to complete the job. A bathroom with an oversized Jacuzzi tub was added on to Lulu and Winch's bedroom. They tried to keep it private, but the kids lined up in their bathing suits with water wings and snorkels, and soon everyone was using it.

“Turn on the jets for us, Auntie Lulu,” they sang in chorus.

“Looks like a damn swimming pool in there,” Winch complained.

Lulu had another way of looking at it. “At least we don't have to drag them in to take a bath.”

Zak booked every Friday night and lay back in a bubble bath smoking a cigar, filing his calluses and humming softly to himself.

Simpsons-Sears was kept busy bringing in furniture, kitchenware, blankets, lamps, tools, musical instruments, toys and auto parts.

Every last penny was gone within four months. No one cared, in fact they were happy. The brothers and their wives believed money was to be spent. Pa was gone, and now so was the money.

The three new baby boys were named Chopin Winch Bruce Halloo, Bernstein Clutch Bruce Halloo, and Leonard Oil Pan Bruce Halloo. The “Bruce” was in honour of the Rock Creek boys' father. Missy and Joshua called their baby Hunker Joshua Tobias Halloo Shackelton.

Ma Alice visited Rock Creek often, staying several months at a time before heading home to rest. When she was at Rock Creek, she poked around the rooms and closets in the sprawling house. The boys would catch each other's glance and raise their eyebrows. They knew she was looking for the violin. No one said anything, and Alice never asked. The boys figured she knew what had happened; all the new things they'd bought made it obvious. Why say anything?

Their dad's passing inspired the Rock Creek boys to reflection, and each brother—in his own time and way—accepted his father's letter. The compensation they received from the sale of the violin influenced their acceptance. “Pa paid us back for all those unkind words and hard times,” OP said, and Winch and Clutch agreed.

“It's all over,” Clutch said. “Pa's gone, and we should remember only what was good about him from now on.”

“It's funny how you start to remember only the good things about a person as time goes by,” I said.

“You're right, Tobias. We should remember only the good things.”

“Yes,” I said. “Remember only the good things.”

I acknowledge the magnanimous spirit of the people of the Yukon and thank them for giving me so much to write about. I also thank Josephine Holmes, Alison Kalnicki and Susan Mayes for their encouragement, editing and thoughtful suggestions.