Beyond the Mirror
Copyright© 2012/2014
Chapter 15
Once more, Tom had the stick, and as soon as they hit the Rockies, he knew they were flying into a storm because they started to run into minor turbulence. He’d flown through far worse, though, and he was in a plane that handled extremely well. In fact, it handled so well that Tom was grinning as they bounced and jittered, bumped, and rolled through the heavier turbulence over the mountains. He even glanced over and winked at his dad after one particularly rough sequence.
“I take it from the grin that you’ve flown through crap like this before?” his dad growled softly.
“Lots worse, Dad, but never in a plane that handled as well as this one does. This is one sweet bird, and one day when I’m rich and famous, I hope I can afford to buy one.”
That struck his dad as funny, so he chuckled, then tried to relax and quietly watch Tom, who almost seemed to anticipate the gusts that lifted or dropped the plane erratically. As far as Jack could tell, those gusts and sharp shifts of the wind seemed to come without rhyme or reason, yet Tom appeared to react the instant each gust struck, even seeming to anticipate some of them. The flight took much longer on the return trip because they were battling a headwind, but then Tom wasn’t pushing the plane as hard either. It wasn’t until they were through the interior mountains and turned to follow the Fraser Canyon that the bumpiness eased somewhat, and Jack was able to relax enough to actually watch the scenery or study the scudding clouds.
The KingAir flew the last few miles into Bear Creek airstrip through light snow flurries, but that was the first precipitation they’d seen since they’d flown out the day before. It was fortunate that they returned when they did, though, since a storm was forecast for that evening and was expected to dump almost a foot of snow on the area. Actually, by the time they had moved their vehicles out of the hangar and pushed the plane into the space where the rental car had been parked, the snow was falling quite heavily, and the wind was rising. As a result, they drove back into the town of Bear Creek in a rapidly developing blizzard.
When they arrived back at the house, they had a moment or two of excitement because Sandy discovered that the folding door to the closet in her bedroom was partially open. She knew it had been shut when they left because she kept a small safe in that closet, and she’d locked some important papers in the safe just prior to leaving the house. It hadn’t been a break-in or an intruder, though, not unless you counted Ebony, Sandy’s female cat, who had decided that closet was the perfect place to hide and give birth to four kittens on one of Tom’s old shirts. How and why she had pulled that shirt down from where it had hung was anyone’s guess, but Sandy seemed to feel that the cat was a traitor for choosing Tom’s old shirt over one of her fancy blouses or expensive skirts.
Of course, there was a great fuss made over the cat and kittens, but it didn’t last all that long. Then everyone split up to do their thing. Tom’s mother and his sister, Ann, decided to cook a ‘comfort’ meal for everyone. Since they weren’t going to have to cook, Sandy and Laura chose to do some laundry and a few other chores. Meanwhile, Tom’s dad turned on the TV to check the weather and news channels. Tom headed for his basement office to write a few notes as reminders of tasks he needed to do, that way he could make up a schedule of jobs to be done over the next few weeks. He didn’t get a chance to do that right away, though. Instead, he noticed that he had messages waiting for him on his answering machine, so he flipped it to replay.
“Tom, it’s Harry. Just calling to let you know your Chinook is here already, so I’ve put it into hangar number two and fired up the heater in there. You might want to call the Blue Roof Inn so you can talk to the two pilots, Russ and Liz. They tell me they want to live out near me on the other side of the lake from the airstrip, which would put them close to the operation, but not too close, if you know what I mean. Since you’ve got thirty acres on that side of the lake, I think you might be able to set it up, but you’d have to talk to the county about that. Call me, would ya?”
There was a double beep and then a second message.
“Tom, it’s Jim from White Out. Have you looked over your big chopper yet? Give me a call when you do, because Ron and Travis want your okay to make some changes in the instrumentation, and they want to repaint the whole thing before you use it very much. Oh, yeah, Russell and Liz are staying in one of the local motels down there until the movers bring their trailer down to Bear Creek. I think they want to talk to you about setting it up on your property out near the airstrip - they did say something about being near Harry if possible. Call me and let me know about everything that you plan to do so we aren’t working at cross purposes, would ya?”
Another double beep and a third message began.
“Mr. Dunn, it’s Russ Smith. Liz and I brought the Chinook down as soon as the inspector gave us clearance to fly, so it’s out in one of your hangars at the airstrip. We dropped off Ron, Donna, and Travis on the way and met the whole White Out crew while we were there, then we met Harry when we landed here. All of them seem to be great people, and we’re really impressed with what we’ve seen of the business. As you know, we’ve got wheels on this bird, and Harry soon had a hangar set up for us, so we towed the Chinook into the biggest one for now. It was close, but there was just enough room for the blades to fit, but only if we have them all swung the right way.
We did salvage a lot of that other Chinook, even our old wrecked engine. In fact, we loaded a half-size container with all the bits, pieces, and parts that we salvaged. We worked out that it was cheaper and easier to load everything into a container, then hire a truck to haul it down, rather than try to load it all into the Chinook, just because of fuel costs.
“Oh, you should know, we have some of our furniture, kitchen stuff, and other belongings sitting in the chopper for now. We own a forty-foot trailer in Fort St. John, and we’re going to have it brought down as soon as we can, but for now, we’ll have to arrange for a place to store our stuff, but maybe we’ll rent an apartment. Harry said we might be able to close in a corner of the hangar and use that for storage until we get a place, but that’s up to you and him. I hope we aren’t in any trouble for loading it all in the chopper and bringing it along, but we just couldn’t see much sense in paying for shipping when we had an empty bird making the trip. What we brought doesn’t weigh that much, so Ron and Donna figured it would be okay, so they helped us load it on Friday afternoon.
“Harry gave us a ride to a motel called the Blue Roof Inn, and we’re in room 127, so let me know what you want us to do. I can go to work tomorrow or Monday, and so can Liz, just as long as the weather hangs in there, but it doesn’t look so good. Of course, we don’t have to fly; we’re ready to work at anything you need us to do. Anyway, talk to you later, and thanks again for helping us out.”
There was even a fourth message on the machine.
“Hi Tom, it’s Charlie, give me a call, would you? I was talking to Harry, the guy from your airfield, and he was asking me if I’d heard anything from you about the land you own on the other side of your lake. Did you want me to see what you can do about renting or leasing that out to some of your new people? No rush, but if you want me to check anything about that sort of thing, let me know, would you?”
When Tom got done listening to all the calls, he had to shake his head because he hadn’t expected the Chinook to be ready so soon. In turn, that meant he hadn’t anticipated all the complications that were involved with having a big helicopter ready to fly and based at Bear Creek.
He called Harry first, explaining that he really didn’t know what he wanted to do about leasing the property on the far side of the lake and wanted his opinion.
“I’d do it if I were you, but only if it was okayed by the county,” Harry said quietly. “I’m living on an acreage across the road, but I have a boat that I moor on a little dock on the lake, so I use that to get back and forth on nice days. That way I can sit at my kitchen window and watch what’s going on over at the airstrip, but I can still be there in a short time if I need to. What I’m saying is that I can be over here and avoid any frustrations, but even on days when I’m not flying I still feel involved, if you know what I mean.”
“Well, weren’t you saying that area by the lake is quite swampy though?”
“Not up near the road it isn’t, but the part down near the lake is pretty wet in some places. I wouldn’t recommend the area as a place to build a subdivision or anything like that, but you could lease out some of the solid land nearest the road for folks to set up double wides and trailer homes. The only thing you might have to worry about is percolation for a septic system. I don’t know how good that would be and I think you’d have to get permission from the county land-use board for septic.”
“I think you just mentioned the killer to the idea, because I’m not about to have the lake polluted by sewage,” Tom sighed. “What about up on the Farmington place, since the road carries on up that way and there’s lots more room for housing up there?”
“That might be a better idea, but isn’t that your sister’s portion of the property?”
“Oh, I think she’s more interested in the idea of owning half of the airstrip than she is in fussing about housing,” Tom chuckled. “You should have heard her teasing Dad about using her half of the landing strip and the extravagant fees she was going to charge him for running one wheel of his plane on her side. She had Sandy giggling and Mom laughing aloud, but then I was even grinning at her nonsense. By the way, she says she wants to talk to you about taking flying lessons.”
“I’m surprised, since I thought you’d be the first to ask for lessons,” Harry chuckled.
“Oh, I intend to ask you for help to get my commercial license and update my float plane endorsement, but I’ve had my single engine license for several years. That’s what put the bug in Ann’s bonnet, because I flew Dad’s plane to Calgary and back.”
“But ... when you were talking to Dave about the Moose, I thought you said that you...”
“Dave mentioned putting floats on the Moose so I could land on the lake, so I said something about possibly needing a license or approval for that, referring to the plane,” Tom chortled, “but I didn’t say anything about not having a pilot’s license.”
“I should have known, because you were always so familiar around the airstrip and aren’t the least bit nervous around planes. I’ll bet Serge knew you had a pilot’s license, didn’t he?”
“I’m not sure if he did or not. I don’t remember mentioning it to him, but we did talk about a wide range of subjects, so I could have said something. I do know that he was annoyed with Dad over something, only he never told me much about that, at least not that I can remember. I’ve heard Dad’s side of the story, but he made Serge out to be the villain and I rather doubt if he was. I wish I’d made time to talk to the old geezer more than I did.”
“I recall Serge mentioning you, and I know you impressed him by staying up at your claim for so long and establishing yourself there. I know he was happy that you visited him as much as you did, so I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Well, I lived through that one bad winter in the old cabin even before I ever met him. Anyway, to change the subject, what do you think of Russ and Liz? Do you think you can work with them?”
“Oh yeah, I can’t see any problems there! Right about now, they think you walk on water, and they’re certainly willing to dig in and go to work. They’re nice folks who’ve gone through a rough time, and since you dug them out of a hole, you’ve hired yourself two more very loyal employees.”
“Well, I didn’t really hire them; I sold them part of the company, and I wouldn’t have done that if they hadn’t impressed both me and the crew I had along when we met. Have you got anything else I need to know about?”
“Nope, not really.” Harry chuckled. “I’ll bet you have a ton of calls to return, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do have a few calls to make, so I’ll talk to you later. Call me if you need me for anything.”
“Ditto. Be seeing ya.” And Harry hung up.
Tom dialled Jim next.
“Hello? White Out Wilderness Services.”
“Hi Jim, it’s Tom, and before you ask about the copter, it was snowing and blowing quite a bit when we landed, so we headed straight back here to the house. I did talk to Harry, but I haven’t talked to Russ or Liz, and I didn’t see the Chinook. In fact, I didn’t know it was here until I heard about it from everyone who called my answering machine.”
“Okay, thanks for calling. I wanted to talk to you about the chopper, since I understand one side of it looks like a patchwork quilt, but it flies okay and responds well. Ron got the airworthiness certificate from the inspector quite early on Friday afternoon and did a test flight, but with a weather system expected today, they decided to try to beat it here. They managed to get to Dawson Creek by late Friday night, then came the rest of the way this morning. Ron and Donna are really impressed with Russell and Liz as pilots and they like them as people too, so I think they’ll work out fine. We’ve got them signed onto the books as employees and Angie post-dated that to Tuesday when you bought them out. You’ll have to arrange for your lawyer to talk to them about the stock transfer because they aren’t too certain how that works. Hell, to be honest I’m not too sure of that myself.”
“I have to call both Charlie and Russ later anyway, then I can straighten out the stock transfer thing with them. I’m glad Ron and Donna think Russ and Liz will work out well. I don’t imagine that giving up their dream of having a business sits too well, so we’d better watch for any sort of resentment. The only real question I have is to ask you is who is paying their motel bill right now?”
“Oh, Angie charged that to the company, is that okay?”
“Hey, you’re running the company and I trust your judgement,” Tom laughed shortly. “That also means that it’s your decision about the instrumentation and paint on the Chinook. Consider me to be your backer or the guy you lease the airstrip and a couple of machines from, but mostly I’m a customer. The day-to-day decisions about maintaining things and running the business are your headaches, not mine.”
“Well, okay, but that copter is yours, so you need to be the guy who makes the final decisions about what to have done with it.”
“Okay, my decision is that you’ll have to decide what that machine needs to have done to it and how it gets used, at least when I don’t have it booked. As far as I’m concerned, I’d say you should paint it to match the rest of the planes and copters at White Out, because you folks will be using it most of the time.” Tom grinned, even though he knew Jim couldn’t see him. “I’m not a businessman; I’m just a prospector who got lucky and made friends with a millionaire. I may make suggestions, but you and your crew make the final decisions about what gets done, just like you did when Serge was alive.
“As far as putting any trailers or other double wides on the property out there, you’ll be arranging that with my sister, Ann. I’m hiring her as the manager of the property I own around Bear Creek, and she’ll be working with Laura Preston and Charlie Jamison to set that up. While I’m thinking of that, you might make a note that Preston and Jamison are our real estate lawyers as well as our business lawyers. Just so you know and won’t worry about it, I’m in favour of the idea of having folks live onsite, but I’m not sure how much of that we can arrange while the ground is frozen. Harry tells me that we’ll have to get permission from the county land-use board to do that, and I imagine they’ll want to check and see if a septic system will percolate. Since I won’t be here in April or May when the ground melts, I’m going to toss that hot potato to Ann and Charlie, then let them handle it. Actually, it might be an idea if you come down and meet Ann, Charlie, and Laura sometime soon, so you know who you’ll be working with on a regular basis. Besides that, the whole crew needs to talk to Charlie about that inheritance of stocks thing, so everyone knows where you stand.”
“Well, since there’s a blizzard blowing in up here at the moment, it won’t be today or tomorrow.” Jim sighed. “Actually, I don’t dare leave the area right now. When we have weather like this, I’m always on edge because too many people take chances, and if they get into trouble, we often get called out to rescue the damn fools.”
“Well, I won’t tie up your phone any longer then. If you need help, though, you know how to get hold of either me or Harry.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be much you could do without equipment or training, but thanks for the offer. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, and I hope you have a quiet Sunday with no rescues in the offing.”
As soon as Tom heard the click of Jim’s phone disconnecting, he began to dial the number for the Blue Roof Inn, and when the call was answered, he asked to be connected to room 127.
“Hello? This is Russ.”
“Hi Russ, it’s Tom Dunn. You and your wife took me by surprise since you arrived in Bear Creek so soon. I expected the repair of the Chinook to take a lot longer than it did.”
“You aren’t the only one who was surprised. Those mechanics of yours are fantastic, and they work extremely fast, but they sure know what they’re doing. Then what really surprised me was how cooperative the airframe inspector was when he came to check the machine. You guys must have a really good relationship with them because Ron called him about noon, and he was there inside of an hour.”
“Well, that doesn’t really have anything at all to do with me; that’s all to do with the people at White Out. I’m just a stockholder in the company.”
“Oh, come on, Boss. Ron and Donna told us all about you.”
“Well, in the first place, I’m not your boss. I’ll leave being the boss up to Jim for the overall company business and up to Harry when it comes to fixed-wing business and the airstrip down here. I plan to leave the running of the company up to others, because I’m really just an old-time prospector and gold miner with a lease up in the mountains. I own one of the Beavers and half the airstrip here in Bear Creek, but I lease them to the company. Only now I guess I’ve added the Chinook to that list, haven’t I? But really, all I’m interested in is having a reliable company handling my supply problems, so the real reason I bought your helicopter was so the company would be able to handle more heavy loads. I’ll admit my sympathy for your problems played a part in the deal, but really, if I couldn’t have seen a profit for the company and a gain for myself in what I did, I wouldn’t have bought you out.”
“Oh, I know that, and I don’t blame you for thinking of the company first, but it was you that made the deal. We’re going to be the ones who benefit from the shares that you’re paying us with, and I know they came out of your portion of the company.”
“Well, I inherited those shares, so they don’t seem to be worth any real money yet, at least not as far as I’m concerned. If I can use those shares to make my supply problems at the lease simpler, I’m certainly going to jump on it. This year I need to move several heavy loads up to the lease to make my life easier, and the SkyCrane is already under contract for much of the year. That meant I needed to find something like your Chinook to do a lot of my work,” Tom explained. “Say, while we’re talking about money, have you got enough cash for a few days, or do you need a draw on your future salary?”
“Oh, we’re fine. We weren’t completely broke when you showed up, but we were headed that way. We certainly didn’t have enough cash to repair the chopper, but we had enough to pay off all our other bills and still live for a month or two. Then, just before we left town, I sold the big truck that I had been using to haul loads to the chopper, so we’re in good shape for the time being. I think we need to find an apartment if we can, though, because I don’t like living in a motel, and trying to move our trailer down here in winter weather would be stupid. As well as that, I want to buy a car or a pickup, but I can afford a used one easily enough.”
“Well, that’s good news, but you do have jobs and you’re being paid, so as soon as the weather cooperates, I’m going to see if I can get you and Liz together with Harry and arrange a meeting with my sister. I’ve hired her to manage my interests here in town while I’m up at the lease, which is where I have my gold claim and my cabin. Besides the airstrip, which I co-own with Ann, I have an office building and warehouse in town. Once I’m out of town, Ann will handle purchasing materials, which will have to be brought from the warehouse to the airstrip, then loaded and flown up to my lease. I imagine that most of those will be flown up there in the Chinook, so you’ll be working with Ann quite a bit.
“As well as that, Harry was saying that you want to set up your trailer out on the land near the airstrip. Unfortunately, before you can set it up out there, we’re going to have to arrange for power, water, septic, and so on. Ann will probably be the person who will have to handle the county land-use people and have a percolation test done for septic, then arrange for all the other utilities. That percolation test can’t be done in the winter, though, since the ground is frozen solid, so I’d say your idea of renting an apartment in town would be a wise move for now.”
“Man, oh man, I’d hate to play chess with you.” Russ laughed softly. “Ron warned me that you thought quickly and covered a lot of questions in a hurry. I’m glad he did though. Otherwise, I’d be lost about now. As it is, I scribbled down notes just to keep up, and I’ll bet I’ll still be asking you a lot of questions on Monday.”
“Hey, if you find I think quickly, wait until you talk to Ann. She’s the bright one in the family, her and JJ, my older brother,” Tom chuckled. “Anyway, welcome to Bear Creek and the White Out crew who work here. Now I have more phone calls to make, so I hope to see you Monday, if we aren’t all snowed in by then.”
“Okay, Boss. We’ll see you then,” and before Tom could say anything, Russ hung up.
Tom just shook his head and dialed Charlie’s number.
“Hello. This is Charles.”
“Hi Charlie, it’s Tom. Sorry to call you on your time off, but you did say to call when you left your message. I was just talking to Harry, and he was mentioning the idea of leasing land to the employees of White Out, just like he did you, but he added a twist for me. It seems we’ll need to get permission from the county land-use board, and to do that, we’d need to have a percolation test for each trailer that needs to run in a septic system. Could you run a check on that for me?”
“I already have, and although Harry had to have that done on his acreage, you are under no such limitation on your property since it doesn’t fall under county regulation. The road between those two properties is the dividing line between Bear Creek County and the unregulated provincial lands which border the Fraser River. Your property and the airstrip are fully outside of the county and fall under provincial regulation. That regulation only limits you from building any permanent structure within the high water level of any body of water, but that distance is now under review. At the moment all you really have to worry about is staying a hundred metres from the lake, but you’ll also have to worry about the possibility of sewer effluent. If your tenants were to pollute the lake and the provincial government could prove it, they’d come down on you and your tenants like a ton of bricks.”
“Are you telling me that even though that lake is completely surrounded by land that I own, the provincial government can regulate what I do with it?”
“Yes they can. Because it is a freshwater lake which is spring fed and drains into the Fraser River system. Not only that, but the lake has fish in it, which is why the regulations are so strict,” Charlie chuckled. “You’re lucky that Harry’s father was a flier and had an airstrip on that site before the regulations were toughened up or that business would never have been allowed. As it is your airfield is operating under a grandfather clause, but I will warn you that they’ll look at you extremely closely concerning pollution. For goodness sake be careful about fuel and oil from your planes, because if any large amount of any petroleum-based pollutant was spilled and seeped into the water, the government might shut down the whole operation.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Tom frowned. “Now I suppose I should ask you if you or Laura can try to do some research on the area, because I’d like to have a soil survey done. That way I’d know what we have to worry about, at least in the way of pollution.”
“I already have done some work on that since I knew this problem was coming.” Charlie laughed softly. “I’m surprised you thought of it though, but then you were a geology major in university. Anyway, the soils near the lake are quite heavily clay-based, but those further away and higher up have a sandy texture. By the time you get two or three hundred feet from the lake, the percolation should be decent for an individual home septic system.”
“So it might be possible to lease small acreages across the road from Harry’s place then?”
“I believe so, but it might be an idea to run a percolation test on each area you were considering leasing to anyone. I take it you were considering this as a place for those employees whose homes were portable, such as trailers and double-wide mobile homes? I wouldn’t advise leasing property to those wishing to build permanent homes, not only due to the possibility of polluting the lake, but also considering the noise level from the airfield.”
“You’re absolutely right, and I think we should hold off on those leases until late April or May, so the frost will be out of the ground. Even then I think the water used on the percolation tests should be coloured with a dye, then we can check to make certain there is no possibility of polluting the lake.”
“Good point and I’ve made a note of that. Now is there anything else you wanted to talk about?”
“Not at the moment, but I imagine Ann will be talking to you about construction permits and such for the old Lister building. Besides that, I’ll be bringing in folks from White Out to meet you and Laura sometime in the near future because all of them want a rundown on how company shares work. Oh yeah, one last point, who do I talk to about insurance on my new chopper?”
“Well, Ann has already approached me about the main building, and I’ll check out insurance for you, but you might try the people who insured your truck before you try to find another agent. I believe they insure airplanes too, since I know Harry was using the firm. That reminds me, you need insurance on the buildings at the airfield, or have you already arranged for that?”
“Good point on my present agent, but actually, I might already be covered on that, since they transferred Harry’s insurance on the business into my name when I bought him out. The Moose and the Chinook might not be covered though, because both of those were separate deals. Anything else you can think of?”
“Not at the moment, but I’ll give you a call if I run across a problem.”
“Okay, have a good evening, Charlie,” Tom said as he hung up.
After that, he leaned back and sighed softly, then looked down at the notes he’d made as he was speaking to the four men. Once he’d rewritten those notes into a semblance of order, he stood and left the office to go upstairs.
When Tom walked into the kitchen, Ann and his mother were sitting at the table, having coffee while keeping one eye on what they were cooking. He paused and drew in a deep breath, then grinned at the two of them.
“Hi, little Bro, want a coffee?” Ann asked.
“Sure, but what are you cooking?” Tom asked. “Whatever it is, it sure smells good, only there’s a muddle of odours.”
“Well, if you look outside, we’re having a bit of a blizzard, so Ann and I decided we needed to cook some comfort foods,” his mom smiled. “I started a moose stew, using one of the hunks of moose meat you brought down from your lease, and while I was doing that, Ann whipped up some baking powder biscuits.”
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.