Talking at the Woodpile (5 page)

William, on the other hand, had lived in Dawson almost all his life. His parents were among the first gold seekers to struggle over the Chilkoot Pass in the summer of 1896. They hadn't worked the goldfields but had made their fortune by building and operating sawmills and the Occidental Hotel. William went “outside” to McGill University, where he married and divorced, and now, like Wilfred, was content to live a bachelor's life. He'd served in the army during the Great War, where he had been wounded and had witnessed unimaginable horror as callous men pushed others into battles that they themselves could not face.

Dawson City was William's home—his sanctuary.

Dawson people craved entertainment during the long winters, and as well-travelled scholars, Wilfred and William were sought-after dinner guests and public speakers. Friends and families valued their congenial company and their stories about their world adventures. Wilfred was in the habit of taking some artifact with him to entertain the children; an old musket from northern Persia was his favourite. People respected William and Wilfred, two well-educated men in a land far distant from centres of learning. But at heart they were both sourdoughs.

In late January of 1932, during a long, deep cold spell—the kind when sourdoughs thrive, cheechakos wilt and trips to the woodpile are quick—William emerged from his cabin and trudged up the street to visit Wilfred. Under his arm he carried a stack of month-old newspapers.

Wilfred greeted him warmly. He hadn't had a visitor for more than a week because of the cold. Soon they were sitting back in their chairs, drinking coffee and filling their pipes full of aromatic tobacco, each completely absorbed in every printed word in the papers.

Time passed in pleasant silence. Wilfred refreshed the coffee pot, and Dot's fresh-baked raisin scones disappeared by the plateful. The late afternoon sun faded into twilight, and once again winter darkness set in. Tossing his paper onto the floor, Wilfred rocked forward in his chair and leaped to his feet. “Time to get the wood in,” he announced.

“I'll help,” William said.

“No need, I'm okay.”

“I insist.” William stood and followed Wilfred.

Once outside, they paused to study the inky, moonlit sky, watching for signs of a break in the weather. Seeing none, they moved quickly to the backyard woodpile.

Next door, Taffy Bowen stood at his kitchen sink, having a last sip of tea before turning in for the night. By the light of his kitchen lamp, he could see Wilfred and William heading across the backyard. Taffy set down his cup and walked the few steps to his bed, loosening his suspenders on the way and dropping his pants to the floor. Standing there in his one-piece Stanfield's, he wound the Big Ben alarm clock. He climbed in between the stack of woollen coverings and pulled up the colourful Hudson's Bay blanket on top.

William and Wilfred had barely begun to load wood when William casually asked, “Do you think we can trust these physicists not to turn atomic power into a weapon?” He'd just read in a scientific article about splitting the atom. Wilfred froze. His eyebrows arched and his ears tingled, not only from the cold but from the question. William realized in an instant what he had done—he had unthinkingly started to play the woodpile game with his friend and fellow sourdough, testing who could bear the cold longer—and looked horrified and apologetic.

But Wilfred's pride and anger surfaced quickly and emerged in an answer dripping with sarcasm. “I'd expect someone with a scientific education to have a better opinion of his colleagues.”

William regained his composure and answered in an equally curt fashion. “Is that so! It was scientists who invented the mustard gas that killed thousands in the Great War. Why do you think I'd trust them not to blow us all up?”

And the battle—a battle that should never have been—was on.

It was about an hour after he went to bed that Taffy, having drunk too much tea, got up and by chance looked out his kitchen window. There stood Wilfred and William, two feet apart and shivering uncontrollably. Thick ice had formed from their breath and covered their moustaches. Each man had his arms clasped around his chest and was dancing foot to foot. Taffy knew in an instant what had happened. Throwing on his parka, hat, gloves and boots, he leaped over the fence, and without speaking to either of them, pushed the men back into Wilfred's cabin. Neither resisted.

The men's ward at the Dawson City General Hospital was a cavernous affair that smelled of antiseptic; beds were lined up on each side beneath its towering frost-covered windows. You could always tell when the janitor loaded the wood furnace, because a puff of smoke wafted genie-like from the basement and up through the floor grates and hung around the ceiling before disappearing. Catholic nursing sisters and a decent doctor attended to both Wilfred and William. They were alone in the ward except for a young man who had suffered a gunshot wound to the buttocks for becoming too familiar with another person's belongings.

“I was only going to make myself a loan of his gold, for Lord's sake. I would have paid him back. I did leave a signed IOU,” he said.

No one listened to him. They knew he'd stolen the gold and lost it all at blackjack.

“Let the magistrate decide if you were wrong or not. I'm sure you will get your due reward or punishment,” said the eldest nun as she scurried off to tend to more innocent patients.

Wilfred spent his days convalescing and playing cards with the young man. The tips of Wilfred's ears turned black, as did the tips of two of his fingers. His toes were all right because he'd slipped on his boots to go out. William wasn't so lucky. Having lost a fingertip to frostbite on a prior occasion, he would lose two more this time. The men ignored each other and suffered in silence. Their only visitor during their week-long stay was Dot, who stood over her prone brother William and tearfully scolded him so much that the nuns had to caution her.

“And you … an educated man! What will the neighbours think?” Dot sobbed, running her hands through her dark hair, then crossing her arms to hold onto her thin shoulders to stop them from shaking. Her husband Nat had come in with her but turned his lanky frame around and fled as the berating started. “I have to go feed my dog.”

“Education had nothing to do with it. You're being too emotional,” William snapped back. Not wanting to rile her more, he rolled over, turning his back on her, and muttered, “Yeah, yeah, yeah … ” The last word faded to a long, weary sigh.

Winter passed, and spring arrived along with the first riverboat, the SS
Casca
, which brought fresh supplies and passengers. The hot sun melted the snow, which ran in rivulets down wheel ruts in the muddy streets, streaming toward the river where every drop would become part of the whole. Everything that was frozen—rocks, water, trees, metal and earth—thawed in response to the warmth.

Wilfred sat in his cabin with the door wide open, enjoying the sun that streamed in, bringing with it heat and light and chasing out the winter memories and the cold. A robin ran along the top of the fence, snatching insects off the weathered, unpainted wood. He watched it intently. It cheered his heart. Then there were footsteps on the porch … then a shadow … then a light knock.

“Can I come in?” It was William. He had a load of papers under his arm.

Wilfred didn't hesitate. “Sure, I'll put the coffee on.”

Without a word both settled in, just like old times, as if nothing had happened between them. The papers were up once more, and fresh coffee steamed in the cups. Smoke wafted from their pipes, curled above their heads and was drawn out the door. After about an hour of silence, William spoke from behind his paper. “I didn't mean to do that … ”

“I know,” Wilfred replied without looking up.

William folded the newspaper, placing it on the table. Then, standing up to leave, he approached Wilfred and offered his hand. Wilfred reached out and shook it.

“You have a bit of anger in you, Wilfred.” William's voice held a touch of annoyance, but he looked the other man straight in the eye.

“And you, a bit of pride,” Wilfred responded with a tinge of sadness.

And with that they nodded agreement and unclasped their hands.

William saw himself out the door. On the porch he adjusted his scarf and breathed a long sigh of relief. It wasn't easy settling this, but now it was done. A misunderstanding had gotten out of hand. That's all it had been. He was just thankful Wilfred wasn't the type to hold a grudge. Their friendship was still intact, maybe even better than before. He drew in a large breath of cool air and headed home.

Taffy was washing dishes in his kitchen and saw William leave. He was glad the two of them had made friends; the town didn't need another feud. And Taffy understood cold. It was like a crisis: you had to accept it, manage it; otherwise it would overwhelm you. At that moment the glass Taffy was washing slipped from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

He leaned over to pick up the pieces, and cursed the missing fingers on his right hand.

Wilfred Durant would never have expected his well-stocked, neatly stacked woodpile to become the target of a thief. He took pride in his home. The small log cabin was clean and in good repair. The snow hardly had time to settle on the boardwalk that led to the street and the back lane before he had it shovelled and swept clean. Thievery was an affront to his pride and his property.

“How could anyone do this?” Wilfred asked his neighbour Taffy over their common fence. “And to an old-timer like me? There's no respect.”

“They're idiots!” said Taffy, who always waxed philosophical. “How did you find out?”

“After that heavy snowfall I noticed an area at the back of the pile near the fence had been disturbed. I thought it was my imagination—I must have taken the wood and forgotten about it,” Wilfred said. “But a week later I noticed more wood was missing from the same spot. I knew then someone was stealing my wood.”

Wilfred decided not to do anything about it. After all, what could he do? He'd tried to stay awake and keep an eye on things, but being quick to fall asleep, it simply didn't work. Besides, falling asleep in a high-backed kitchen chair and waking up when your head smacked the table was uncomfortable and tiring. After spilling the sugar bowl twice, he decided enough was enough and quit his watch.

The stealing continued.

One Friday mid-afternoon Wilfred joined the crowd in the post office lobby. Most of the town turned out on mail days, Monday and Friday. He checked his box, then herded William, Nat and Taffy into a corner to ask their advice.

“Call the cops,” Taffy said.

“The cops are busy.”

“I've got a beaver trap,” William said.

“Too dangerous. I could catch a kid.”

“Move your wood closer to the house,” Nat said.

“Too much work.”

The suggestions ran dry, and the men left one at a time, wishing Wilfred good luck.

Wilfred made one more attempt to catch the thief. He borrowed Nat and Dot's dog Piedoe and tied him to an old doghouse at the back of the yard. The temperature was sub-zero, Arctic cold, so Wilfred strung an extension cord out to Piedoe's new house and fixed a sixty-watt bulb inside for heat. Nat came over with a bale of hay for the dog to bed on and asked Wilfred, “What's up with the light?”

“Piedoe's reading,” Wilfred said.

He fed Piedoe pancakes in the morning, and whatever he ate for dinner, he fed the dog the same.

“A dog that size will eat you out of house and home,” Nat said.

Nat's boys Iggy and Ziggy were excited about the prospect of their dog apprehending a thief. “Is Piedoe a detective dog, Dad?”

“If Sherlock Holmes had a dog, it would be Piedoe,” their father said.

“Wow, wait until the guys at school hear about this,” Ziggy said, but Nat cautioned them not to say anything unless Wilfred caught the thief.

After four days at Wilfred's house, Piedoe was becoming attached to the extra rations of food from both Wilfred and Ziggy. Since he spent more time in the house than in the yard, he also throve on the attention Wilfred gave him. On the fifth night, there was a loud commotion by the woodpile. Piedoe had surprised someone and was baying like a whistle blast on a riverboat. The air was thick with yells and curses from someone obviously surprised out of his wits.

Wilfred had been prepared, like a fireman, and quickly jumped into his clothes and slippers. He grabbed his whacking stick from beside the kitchen door and sailed out into the yard. In the moonlight, Piedoe was leaping in the air on his tether as a shadowy figure pushed a sleigh loaded with wood down the lane.

Wilfred ran down the back boardwalk, but halfway to the lane he stubbed his foot on a loose board. It brought him to a limping halt. Back in the cabin he examined the bloody nail on his big toe; it was torn and bent back.

There was a knock at the door, and Nat and Dot came in wearing parkas over their nightclothes.

“What's the commotion? Did you see him?” Nat asked.

“No, no, I saw nothing at all,” Wilfred groaned, holding his foot across his knee and rocking back and forth. He didn't want to look at the wound again.

Dot took one look at his toe and reached for the first-aid kit by the sink.

“This is war, Nat.” Wilfred spat the words between his teeth.

The following day William came over, and Wilfred hobbled around the kitchen on the heel of his foot to make the coffee. The dressing on his toe seemed bigger than necessary.

“Looks like my sister wrapped that toe to save you from ever bumping it, Wilf,” William said with a laugh.

“I'm in no mood for jokes, William,” Wilfred snapped.

“Well, you're going to have to find your own solution to this problem. You have a good imagination, so I'm sure you can catch the rat.”