Beyond the Mirror
Copyright© 2012/2014
Chapter 18
When Tom parked, he made certain that the plow blade on his truck wasn’t blocking anyone by backing into an outer parking spot, then paused and looked over at the two women.
“I’ve brought the guitar, but I think I’ll leave it in the back of the truck for now. After all, I don’t know what the people here like, and I really haven’t played in public for a while. I can always come out and get it if they’re playing something that I can play along with, but if I take it inside, people are going to expect me to join in,” he explained. “So please be sure your door is locked, would you?”
As they clambered out of the pickup, Sandy paused and reached back inside to grab Tom’s guitar case, then turned to him with a defiant look in her eye. “I didn’t buy you a guitar for you to leave it sitting in the back seat so some crook could come by and smash a window to steal it. I don’t care if you play or not, but this thing goes inside with us so we can keep an eye on it.”
Tom wasn’t in the mood to argue, so he rolled his eyes, shrugged his shoulders, and took the case from her hand.
“Tom, are you sure you’re related to Jack, since you gave up so easily?” Laura chuckled, walking gingerly on the hard-packed snow.
“Ann asked the same thing the other night,” Sandy chortled. “But after living in the same house with Tom’s dad for a few days, I can see why.”
“You should ask Mom about that,” Tom laughed. “I’ve heard her brag that she knew exactly where each of us kids was conceived because in each case she and Dad were totally isolated and they had no other form of entertainment. I remember Mom saying that I was conceived in the Yukon, during a blizzard that lasted for something like six weeks and they never saw hide nor hair of another human in the whole time they were stuck there.”
“That would be almost indubitable proof,” Sandy nodded. “And I don’t have the gall to question your mother.”
“Indubitable?” Laura snorted.
“Would you prefer the word irrefutable?” Sandy grinned.
“Good Gosh! What did you do, swallow a dictionary tonight?” Laura teased.
“Maybe,” Sandy answered with a grin and a wink, just as Tom opened the door.
As a result, they were all smiling and chuckling as they stepped inside, and the first person Tom saw was Sergeant Devons.
“Well, if it isn’t my favourite accountant, our town’s new lawyer, and the man that I caught plowing our parking lot today, and all of you are smiling. Welcome to the Bear Creek Legion,” Matt Devons greeted them and pointed off to one side. “Tom, the ‘A’ team, and their friends are seated at the long table by the stage, and I warned them to save a couple of seats for surprise guests. I hope you don’t mind? You go ahead and grab a seat, and I’ll see that the bartender sends you a couple of jugs of beer and a few glasses.”
“Thanks for the offer, Matt, but I’m a pilot, so since there’s a slim chance that I might be flying tomorrow, I won’t be drinking at all. Oh, and since this is our first night here, I’d prefer to pay for the ladies’ drinks too, but it’s not that I don’t appreciate your offer or anything. It’s just that I wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that I’d sponge off a veteran,” Tom winked at him. “I’d like to buy you a drink, though.”
“What I said about your grandfather before, Tom? You just proved it! Independent as hell, but a gentleman to the end,” Matt laughed. “You folks go enjoy yourselves, and I’ll talk to you later.”
No one was playing on the stage yet, so they were the centre of attention as the three of them walked across the floor, and Tom noticed several people nudge their partners. A few leaned over and made a comment to others, but a lot more either waved a hand or nodded in their direction. Tom was used to that by now and acknowledged the nods and waves by nodding his own head at people he recognised. Sandy and Laura weren’t used to that much attention, though, and he knew it was making them a bit uncomfortable.
“All those staring eyes make you feel like a plucked chicken surrounded by coyotes, doesn’t it?” he whispered softly, making both Sandy and Laura break into giggles.
Then Arnie noticed them and hopped to his feet. “Hey, guys, the boss is here, and he’s brought his axe. Gonna play us a song, Boss?”
“Aww gee, I was hoping you’d give me lessons, Little A,” Tom grinned and answered him in the same tone. “I heard you were the maestro of modern music, and I came hoping to pick up a tip or two.”
By that time, Liz and Russ had turned to look, and Alvin was grinning widely. Then Liz did the honours of introducing Sandy and Laura to their two friends. It was only a minute or two before they had found seats, then Tom had opened the guitar case to let the guitar warm up, so Sandy saw the guitar he’d brought that night.
“Hey, that isn’t the guitar I bought you!” she said sharply.
“Nope, this is the guitar my Granddad bought me, and I brought it because the guy who met us at the door was in the service with Granddad in Korea. I don’t know why, but I thought it was more fitting to play it tonight, rather than the newer one.”
“But this one looks so old and plain,” she commented.
“Excuse me, Sandy, but that plain old guitar is worth a mint. It’s a Martin, an old Martin,” Alvin said almost reverently. “How old is it Tom, do you know? I’m not sure, but from the colour of the wood, I’d say it was one of the old Hawaiian specials from the mid-20s.”
“Close,” Tom nodded. “Granddad found it in a pawn shop in Calgary and bought it for a couple hundred bucks, then gave it to me when I turned sixteen. He took it to a music store to have them check it out to make sure it was a decent guitar, and the guy went nuts over it. When they cleaned and restrung it, he checked the serial number, so we know it was made in 1928. I’m not sure, but Sandy may have picked up a more valuable guitar in Victoria recently, though, and that’s the guitar she was mentioning. My problem is I like them both, but they each have a very different sound, so one night I feel like playing one, and another night I prefer the sound of the other.”
“Well, if you don’t mind my asking, who made the other guitar?” Arnie asked.
“Sandy found a Gibson J-45 Legends guitar in a junk store and gave it to me for Christmas.”
“No wonder you like them both,” Alvin laughed. “Not many guys have a choice of playing two different guitars worth about ten grand apiece.”
“Not very many guys would bring a ten-grand guitar to a jam either,” Arnie shook his head.
“Arnie, that’s a damn selfish point of view,” Tom frowned. “Why have something that you enjoy if you aren’t willing to share it with others? I simply can’t see any sense in buying something special, then hiding it away. If I locked this guitar in a vault, I couldn’t enjoy playing it, and you couldn’t even see it, let alone hear it, so as far as I’m concerned, it’d be a waste of money. Things like this guitar are just objects that should be used and enjoyed. This guitar was built by a craftsman, and it was meant to be played, not hidden away in a closet somewhere and regarded as a treasure, but never used.”
“I suppose,” Arnie said quietly with a slight frown on his face.
“Look, I just saw an illustration of that sort of attitude the other day,” Tom sighed. “The old guy who owned the house Sandy is buying died a week or two ago, but he had built up a fantastic collection of rare cars that he never drove. There are about half a dozen of them, hidden away in a fancy building, all perfectly restored, but they were seldom if ever started and driven, let alone used. Now his wife, his daughter, and his son-in-law are going to drive three of those cars to Arizona to try to honour the old man’s dreams, so they’re going to make the drive he planned to enjoy. Old Abe spent all those years working on those cars and dreaming of that trip, but now instead of him and his wife enjoying a great summer trip, his family is in for a sad drive in the middle of winter. I find that very depressing, and I can’t help but think it was a waste of years and years of work, and thousands and thousands of dollars.”
Tom hadn’t been paying attention to anyone coming up behind him, so he jumped slightly as someone standing at his shoulder cleared her throat.
“Hi folks, I’m Linda Devons, the granddaughter of the guy you met at the door, and I’ve been asked to be the entertainment director for the jam sessions. I try to go around and get groups together, then get them on the stage in some semblance of order. Now this is a Legion post, so we start our night with ‘Oh Canada,’ but after that, we like to have a new group get up to start our evening’s entertainment. Since I know you folks aren’t regulars, I was wondering if you could do the next song?”
“Well, I’m sort of a stranger to the others, at least musically,” Tom shrugged and smiled. “I don’t have any idea of what anyone plays or even if they have instruments. All I brought was my guitar, and I usually play backup. I don’t sing because I sound like Johnny Cash with a bad cold and a touch of laryngitis.”
“Well, I sing and play the keyboard, Linda,” Liz offered. “My husband, Russ, plays drums, and Andy plays just about anything with strings, but I see he has his guitar along tonight. Arnie is almost as talented, and he has his fiddle and banjo here, so I think they must have figured on playing and singing country tonight. I don’t know what Laura and Sandra do, since we only met them yesterday.”
“I just plan to listen tonight, and I think Sandy may have the same idea,” Laura grinned.
“Well, Laura can at least sing, but I can’t carry a tune, and I can’t play anything,” Sandy laughed.
“Well, can I list you five as a group then and ask you to start out the evening?” Linda asked.
The other four all looked at Tom, but he just shrugged, so Andy was the one who nodded.
“We’ll give it a whirl and ask Liz to sing an oldie to start us off. How’s that?” Andy smiled at her.
“Could you do two songs, because oldies are usually short?” Linda winked at him.
“Sure, we’ll do ‘Tennessee Waltz’ first. Then, since Tom says he sounds something like Johnny Cash having a bad night, we’ll get him to try ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’ and see if we agree,” Liz grinned.
“Well, I’ll give it a try, but you’ll be sorry,” Tom rolled his eyes. “I’d like to let my guitar warm up for a few minutes, though, since it was sitting in my truck for about an hour, so it got cold, and I don’t want to stress it by playing it too soon.”
“Don’t worry, we don’t start until eight, so you’ve got half an hour to warm up your baby,” Linda grinned at him and made a note on a pad she carried. “I’ll introduce you after the anthem, which will give you time to get set up onstage.”
When they did get called up, Linda introduced them alright - in fact, she gave the audience a quick history lesson about each of them.
“To start off the evening, we’re going to have a new group come onstage to entertain us. Last night, I met two of these guys who call themselves the ‘A Team,’ and they mustered out of the army only a short while ago. Alvin Armstrong is the great big fellow holding the fancy guitar, and Alvin Anderson is the skinny character with the fiddle and the grin. Both of them were injured in Afghanistan, and they spent time in rehab with the next couple, Russ and Liz Smith, who were pilots of a Chinook. They were both injured by the same IED as the ‘A Team,’ and Liz, who is a field medic as well as a pilot, saved all of their lives, including her own.
“Liz and Russ mustered out almost two years ago, got married, bought a Chinook helicopter, and were leasing it out to the oil exploration folks up around Fort St. John until recently. Unfortunately, the oil business has tanked in the last while, so they were having a hard time making ends meet. Then, their copter ate a bird as it was landing and blew up an engine. Now you all know those engines are expensive, and they were in a pretty pickle until a white knight came flying into town,” Linda paused and winked at Tom. “I imagine by now you’ve guessed who the white knight was - the same fella who chased the crooks out of Bear Creek, and he even plowed our parking lot tonight. Not only did Tom fix the bird, but he bought it from the Smiths by trading them for stock in White Out Wilderness Services, then hired them to fly it as well.
“Of course, we all know Tom Dunn doesn’t do anything by halves, so it’s no surprise that he’s also trying to hire the ‘A Team’ to work for him up on that gold lease of his. Then, to top things off, Tom brought a guitar tonight and is going to play backup as Liz entertains us with ‘The Tennessee Waltz.’ So put your hands together and invite a brand new group that I think should call themselves ‘Done Did It,’ because between the five of them, I think they have.”
There was hearty applause after that intro, then Liz began to sing and the room fell silent - that young lady could sing and Tom could feel the energy pass through the rest of the group. Somehow they all clicked and fed off each other so the song sounded as if they’d done it a thousand times before. After the last note there was a second or two of silence, then a roar of applause at least twice as loud as the sound they had been greeted by when they were introduced.
Then it was Tom’s turn to step up to the mic.
“Wow! Can that gal sing or what?” he turned and bowed slightly to Liz, which got another short round of applause for her and he waited politely for it to ease off. “Unfortunately the next singer isn’t quite so good. You see I told them I couldn’t really sing because I sound like Johnny Cash with a head cold and a sore throat, only Liz doesn’t believe me. She wants me to try to sing ‘Ghost Riders.’ To be honest, I’m not sure I remember all the words, so I’ve got a favour to ask of all of you folks. How about all of you sing along with me? If you sing loud enough, you might drown out my off-key bellowing, so the neighbours won’t think we’re stringing up a cat.”
And with that, he strummed the first notes of the song. With the whole audience as a backup, he didn’t do all that badly and miracle of miracles he even remembered all the words. He was sure the audience was applauding for each other afterward because he knew he didn’t deserve the applause he received and was quite glad to get off the stage.
As he walked back to the table, Liz moved to his side and looked up at him, then frowned; “Don’t take this wrong, Tom, but if you’d open your mouth and sing - instead of mumbling the words, you’d be a pretty darn good singer. Even now you aren’t all that bad, so quit saying you can’t sing, because that’s a lie.”
“You tell him, Mighty Mite,” Andy said from Tom’s other side, “And, Boss, you need to remember tempo too. You did a good job of leading that song, but you played and sang it a little too fast. Other than that, you did dang good.”
They didn’t actually convince him that he’d done the song well, but half a dozen requests from the audience did sway him into singing ‘Folsom Prison Blues’ later that night. He still wasn’t very comfortable about singing, but he wasn’t feeling quite as lost either, so he suspected he might do it again - in a few years - maybe. It wasn’t going to be that night though. He did get up and accompany the group again, but he hadn’t had much sleep the night before and he’d been up early that morning. Then he’d had a busy day, so he began yawning about ten o’clock. It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that Laura, Sandy, and Tom left for home shortly after eleven.
The house was quiet when they got home, and Tom slipped downstairs with his guitar, then even ignored the flashing light on his office answering machine. He felt too tired to make any decisions regarding business right then and was soon back upstairs, getting ready for bed. He was asleep seconds after resting his head on the pillow.
Wednesday morning, Tom awakened to a very quiet house. There wasn’t even any wind noise, so he hoped the blizzard had broken. Instead of worrying about the weather right then though, he dressed quickly, then made his morning coffee and headed for his office. There were two messages on his answering machine, but thankfully neither one was urgent, so he felt a lot less guilty about not listening to them the night before.
The first call was from Anna Morgenstern, asking if he and Sandy could drop around Thursday evening or early Friday morning to pick up the keys to all the buildings on the acreage. She said she’d arranged to have movers come and pack her possessions on Thursday, then her family planned to leave sometime Friday morning. She was quite effusive with her thanks for the speed with which their business arrangements had been completed and apologised for all the hustle and bustle she had instigated. Then she said he needn’t call back that evening, but that she would appreciate a call the next day to arrange a time to turn the property over to Sandy and that she would prefer it if he could be there as well.
Tom just shook his head, almost unable to believe the speed with which the whole bargain had been completed and how everything had seemed to fall into place so easily. However, he was definitely finding it hard to comprehend how Mrs. Morgenstern had made all the necessary arrangements to move away so quickly. Just arranging to have the movers there on a specific date and on such short notice was a minor miracle at any time, but doubly so now, since she’d managed to do everything during a blizzard. He left the message on the machine for Sandy to hear, just in case Mrs. Morgenstern had left more info on this machine than the one upstairs, but he was certain there was a message there as well.
The other message on Tom’s machine was from Jim Burke and was only a short statement that he’d call back. Tom just deleted that message, then pulled out his notes from the day before. He’d just drained his coffee cup and was thinking of going upstairs when there was a tap at his door and he looked up to see his dad standing there with a tray in his hand.
“Good morning, Tom. I thought I’d bring you a second cup of coffee, but I wasn’t sure how you take it, so I brought a bit of milk and sugar, just in case. I see the weather has broken and we have a few good days forecast, so I could fly out, but I answered the phone last evening and took a message from Mrs. Morgenstern who said that she is leaving on Friday. So, I was wondering if you and Sandy would be moving this weekend and if you might need a hand.”
“Good morning, Dad and thanks for the coffee, but I’ve learned to take it black since cream and sugar are a bit scarce out in the bush. I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen with the move, because originally we weren’t even going to be buying the house until Friday. I suppose Ann is in a hurry to take possession of this place, is she?”
“You can say that again!” his dad laughed. “Since everyone else was out of the house last night, Ann did her best to wear both Kelly and me to the bone. I think we measured every room and every closet at least twice and we measured every door and window at least once. Then we got to the kitchen and laundry room and she had us measuring every darn drawer. Ann must have fifteen or twenty sheets of paper covered with drawings, sketches, and measurements that she doodled while she was making plans of what she wants to do to this house. Finally, about ten o’clock, I complained that I was getting a sore back from all the bending and stretching, so I went to bed. Kelly came in a bit later, but I didn’t hear a darn thing after that.”
“Well, Sandy and I went down to the Legion so I could introduce her to Alvin and Arnie, and Laura tagged along with us. Then we found that Liz and Russ were there as well, so we spent the evening with them,” Tom grinned. “Hey, did you say the forecast was for clear weather for a few days?”
“Yeah, the weatherman said it should last about a week or maybe even ten days, why?”
“Well, I have a crew now and a flight-worthy copter, so I could start hauling in the supplies I’m going to need up at the mine. At least we could fly in the ones that aren’t going to be damaged by freezing. Heck, you could even come along with us and see where I spend my summers. If we got our butts in gear, we might even be able to fly in a load today.”
“So why are we sitting here?”
“First off, it’s not even seven in the morning, and secondly, I’m waiting for a phone call from Jim Burke. He left a message last night and said he’d call back today, but he sounded a bit lost and tentative, so I think he has a problem of some sort, and I’d like to be here to catch that. Maybe I can help him out in some way, but besides that, I think he should know that I’m planning to use the Chinook.”
Just like clockwork, the phone rang then, and when Tom checked the call display, he saw it was showing White Out’s office number, so he winked at his dad as he picked up the phone.
“Good morning, Jim.”
“Hello, Tom, and how are you today?”
“I’m fine. How are you, and what’s up?”
“Well, to be honest, I’m a bit pissed off. You know that Bell Jet Ranger that I told you was rolled and wrecked? Well, it’s gonna be a pain in the ass. We hauled it out of the bush and brought it back here, but there were no drugs on board or hidden nearby, so the cops washed their hands of it. To make it worse, the insurance people aren’t even going to touch the wreck, since the idiot that owned it screwed around with the antennas to the radio and the GPS, which is what really caused the accident. Not only that, but his kid was flying it without his permission, and the kid hasn’t got a license of any kind, not even a driver’s license for a car. So we’ve ended up with the bloody chopper sitting here, and the idiot father hasn’t got the money to repair it. “ Jim sighed heavily. “We can’t even drop it off at his hangar because the damn fool was flying out of a residential area and is being charged for that, as well as a whole load of other crap. He’s one of those idiots who doesn’t think the law applies to him or his family, but the cops have finally caught up to his shenanigans, so he’s going to have to pay the piper.”
“So the guy is broke and up on charges, but we’re going to get stuck with storing his junked machine?”
“That’s about it. The whole dang thing is turning into a major pain in the butt.”
“Cheer up, Jim, because I don’t see a pain in the butt; instead, I see a way that you might be able to make a buck,” Tom laughed. “Doesn’t CHC fly a bunch of Jet Rangers?”
“Yeah, so what?”
“Then why don’t you act as an agent for the doofus whose bird is wrecked? He can’t afford to repair it, so convince him to sell it, then flog it off to CHC as a parts machine and collect a handling fee, maybe even a delivery fee.”
“I thought of that. The problem is CHC already has a couple of wrecked Jet Rangers that they’d love to unload on us since their mechanics are up to their eyebrows in their own repair problems.”
“Well, that sounds even better,” Tom chuckled. “You’ll have to talk to the guys before you tackle it, but you might be able to buy the wreck from the doofus for peanuts and one of the wrecks from CHC for even less, then haul them both down here. Stow each one in one of our empty ‘T’ hangers for now, then after the move and over the next year you could have Ron and Travis spend their spare time restoring one of the two wrecks. Once it’s done you can either sell it as a rebuilt machine or use it for the company. You’d just be doing the same thing Serge did when he started the company, or something similar to what we did with the Chinook.”
“Yep, you’re like old Serge was alright, that might even work, “ Jim snorted. “So what else are you going to do today that will make my life more interesting?”
“Well, Dad and I were discussing the idea of taking the Chinook out to the lease with a load of supplies that won’t be damaged by being frozen. That’ll give me an opportunity to show Russ and Liz the best passes to fly on the route and it’ll give Dad and the two men I’m going to hire to work up there a chance to see the place. Besides, I’m homesick for my mountain valley and would love to go back for a short visit, just to be sure that the cabin is still there.”
“So are you planning to use the Chinook to take one of your shipping containers up there?”
“No, the two containers I’ve got on lease aren’t well braced, so I’m just using them as storage at the airstrip. I’m not going to try to haul a container up there until I can set it level and that’s a bit hard to do with all the snow and frost. Besides, I thought the SkyCrane would probably be better for that job than the Chinook.”
“Where are you going to put the things you want to haul up there today? Will everything you’re flying in fit inside your cabin?”
“Most of it will, since a lot of it is flooring for the cabin and sheathing for the ceiling. I’ve also picked up an old aluminum scaffold and some ladders that will make working on the ceiling a lot easier, and we’ll be taking that along. Nothing that I’m thinking of taking up there now will be hurt by the frost.”
“Well, I’d like very much to have all of our people see your valley and your cabin, but I think we should do it with two or three people at a time. We have a pair of shipping containers here that we purchased, but we seldom need them. If you’d like, I could send one down there in the near future, then you could load it with material, and you could guide the pilots to your lease.”
“Well, actually, I have a pair of reinforced containers coming in from Dunn-Redding on Thursday or Friday, and they’re already loaded with equipment that I got from Calgary. Unfortunately, they’ll have to be unloaded and sorted here before going to the lease because some of the items are going to need to be worked on. However, there’s a small bulldozer and a bobcat coming on a flat-deck in the next few days, so I’ll have the Chinook take those up to the lease, then I’ll be able to level an area for the containers. Once I have that done, I was thinking of asking you to have the SkyCrane fly the containers into the site.”
“That’s a good idea. I think I’d prefer to keep Ron and Donna as the regular pilots on the SkyCrane, but I’d like both Russ and Liz to be familiar with the controls on it too. It wouldn’t hurt at all to have the two couples make a few flights together, then they could train each other on both machines, and this time of the year is a good time to do it. In fact, I’d like to cross-train all our pilots for all the different machines we have since we’ve been adding to our fleet lately.”
“I agree with you that all the White Out people should see the lease and check out landing sites just in case there’s a time when they need to fly there for one reason or another. As far as training or piloting is concerned, that’s your job; you chose which pilots fly at any time and which machine any of them fly, not me. It does make sense to cross-train them though and not just on the choppers, but the planes too.
“Just so you know, I have a dozen plastic drums going up there on an early load, and one of my first fair-weather projects will be to use those drums as floats to build a dock on the upper lake. A decent dock will make loading and unloading a float plane a lot less risky. With a dock in place and a decent trail running from the lake to the cabin, I’ll be able to use either an ATV pulling a trailer or a snowmobile towing a toboggan to get my supplies shifted. I’m going to set up a landing area for the helicopters near the cabin as well, but the cabin has a shake roof, and I can’t have that landing area too close, or the downdraft will damage it. Let’s face it, I started from scratch up there, but everything snowballed over the winter, so I’m not set up for all this stuff yet.”
“Now, that surprises me.” Jim chuckled. “As organised as you are, I was thinking that you had a lot more done at your lease and cabin than you do. I was forgetting that it’s not even two months since Serge died, and you inherited the funding to do this. I think the only way I’ll get a handle on it will be to see for myself, so if you don’t mind, sometime in the near future, I’d like to make a trip out there with you. In fact, I was thinking of bringing Travis down there next week so he could do some work on the Chinook and the Beaver - how would it be if we spent a few days with you, just helping out? Maybe we could even fly out to your lease and look over your setup, then we’d be able to have some idea how to help you with any problems that crop up?”
“You’ll be made welcome, but I might put you to work,” Tom laughed. “Sandy is going to be moving to a new house, and once my new office building and warehouse are remodelled, she’ll want to move her office too. I’m hoping that by the time I pull out of here and move to the cabin for the summer, a lot of changes will be made, but in the meantime, I’m quietly going nuts. I have too many things to do and too little time to do them in.”
“Well, I won’t hold you up any longer, but thanks for your advice on that Jet Ranger. I’ll keep you up to date on that, and I hope you have a good day.”
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