Beyond the Mirror
Copyright© 2012/2014
Chapter 19
Even with all the shifting and shuffling they’d had to go through, the chopper was loaded and everyone was aboard for the trip shortly after noon. Russ lifted them tentatively and rose about five or ten feet, then set the chopper back on the ground so they could unstrap the bobcat, shift it and part of the rear load forward a couple of feet, then strap it back down again. He gave a thumbs up on the second lift though and they were on their way.
“Sorry about that, Boss. The old gal was loaded a bit tail-heavy and that makes these beasts a bitch to fly,” Russ grinned and winked at Tom who was sitting in the navigator’s seat right behind Liz for the moment.
“I thought you did a marvellous job of balancing the load since I wasn’t a lot of help with my estimate of weights,” Tom grinned back. “I can see you’ve done this sort of thing before though.”
“Yeah, Liz and I have handled some dillies,” Russ sighed, then looked a little guilty. “But Boss, what I did is really frowned on and if it ever got back to the powers that be, I’d be in deep doo-doo, so please forget what you just saw happen. What we’re going to have to do in the future is work out the weight of our cargo before we bring it on board, then we can balance the load properly.”
“Well, I doubt if we’ll have too many inspectors around, but I’ll do better with weights the next time, especially since Harry does have a set of scales we can use,” Tom said, almost apologetically.
“You mean White Out has a decent set of scales at the Bear Creek airstrip that will handle anything up to a ton and we can use those scales whenever we need them,” Harry corrected him with a grin.
“Okay, I stand corrected, boss,” Tom grinned and winked at him. “Remember, I’m just the customer today, but I seem to be having a hard time getting across the idea that I’m not acting as a shareholder in the business right now. All of you White Out people are going to have to get accustomed to the idea that I don’t run the business; Jim and Harry do, depending on which airstrip we’re using that day.”
“Yeah, we know,” Russ sighed, “but it’s going to take some time to get used to the idea.”
“This whole friggin’ outfit is gonna take some getting used to,” Alvin bellowed from the jump seat behind Tom.
“Yeah, the chopper and the weather remind me of Afghanistan, but the scenery is sure nicer,” Arnie added. “The company is a whole lot easier to take too, and a guy could get spoiled flying like this, but not worrying about stray bullets zinging by near your ears.”
“So who’s going to be navigator today?” Liz asked. “And why don’t you all put on a headset so we can chat without yelling?”
“I guess I’ll be navigator, if Tom doesn’t mind,” Harry said, getting a nod from Tom. “He’d probably have you following his route along a mule trail, but instead of that, why don’t you aim for that pass you see about ten degrees off to the right.”
Tom did try to pick out the trail he and the Dumont’s had used and succeeded in finding one section to point out to the others, but even as he pointed to the area, an avalanche roared down across it.
“I wonder if we caused that?” Jack asked.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Russ answered. “We’re a bit high for the sound of the chopper to set off avalanches, but I’ve seen it happen before. There are times when the snow is just barely hanging on, and the repetitive sound the chopper makes when we’re flying over is enough to set one off. That’s something you learn to watch out for when you’re landing and taking off in an area where there’s a danger of slides. It’s just one more thing that makes flying in winter a touch more exciting than normal.”
Since five of the seven people on the chopper were pilots, that comment led to a discussion about winter flying, and as a result, the trip to Misery Flats seemed to pass very quickly. When they did arrive over the town, Alvin had Liz land on the roadway that led through town instead of in the deep snow of the field behind his mother’s house. That set off quite a circus, though, because no one had thought to call ahead to let anyone know they were coming until a few minutes before they landed. Even then, the only people Alvin talked to on the CB were his mom and Hank Anderson. Several of the locals must have been listening in on their CB radios, though, because only moments after they landed, the chopper was surrounded by people.
Since they’d agreed that they couldn’t stay in town very long, Tom slipped away from the main group after saying ‘Hi’ to Hattie and Hank, then walked over to talk to Harvey Bartlett.
“Hello Harvey, how are you doing?”
“Hello Tom. Health-wise, I’m doing fine, but my business isn’t doing so well,” Harvey nodded toward the chopper. “It looks like you’re doing well, though. That helicopter can haul quite a bit more than your two mules did, so I guess you found a gold mine after all?”
“Yeah, I’ve got a small mine and a mineral lease up above the Mirror, so I might be bringing in a few people, but I heard a rumour that you might be thinking of closing your store.”
“Well, I’m barely hanging on,” Harvey sighed. “Between high shipping costs and fewer customers every year, the business isn’t doing well at all.”
“That’s not good, but since I’ve inherited some trucks, planes, and choppers, I could probably cut down your shipping costs if I could lease some property nearby. It would be a lot cheaper for me to bring in the supplies I’ll be needing by semi-trailer, then transfer them to choppers here, rather than flying everything in from Bear Creek. The ideal would be to have lakefront property, so I could land a floatplane here as well, though. I can almost guarantee that you’ll have more business if I do set up something of that sort.”
Harvey grinned at that and shook his head; “I suppose you know that my grampa homesteaded a quarter section of land that borders Lonesome Lake, don’t you? That’s only a few miles out of town, and I could probably be talked into either leasing or selling a section of the lakefront and an easement for an access road. I don’t think I want to sell the whole place, though, since the lake provides water for the whole town, and I have a fellow raising beef cattle out there too.”
“I’ve never even heard of Lonesome Lake. Where’s that at?”
“Well, when you hiked in from the Mirror with your mules, you had to hike along the edge of my place on Lonesome Lake for a short distance. You’d have been on the north side of the lake since the trail leads along the edge of my property, which is about four miles out of town. Do you remember seeing a big fenced meadow up there?”
“Not at the moment, I don’t, but then that was a couple of years ago, and my mind was probably on other things,” Tom grinned. “For one thing, I was fighting off a bad case of gold fever about that time. I didn’t say anything at the time, but I’d already staked a claim, only I hadn’t registered it yet, so I was being secretive.”
“Well, do you remember when the trail widens out a bit and becomes a road? There’s a big gate in a barbed wire fence, and you’d have been walking on a fairly well-travelled dirt road the rest of the way into town.”
“Oh, I know where that is,” Tom nodded when Harvey mentioned the gate and the fence. “That area sounds promising, but how about acreage nearer town as well, at least for the time being?” Tom asked. “Do you know of a place where I could park a couple of semi-trailers within the next week or two? I’d need to be able to land a chopper there though, and with this much snow I’d want to be fairly close to town, but I don’t want to have to land on the street like we did today.”
“Huh, since half of the town is abandoned, you could find an empty lot or two in just about any part of town,” Harvey snorted. “This is an unincorporated area, so you could pick up a small acreage near town for peanuts, which would probably suit you better. Hattie has about ten or twelve acres right here, for instance, but there are several other places with easier access for trucks. In fact, the next piece of land up the road from Hattie’s is abandoned.”
Tom really didn’t want to be landing helicopters too near any houses on a regular basis though, since their noise disturbed people, so he suggested they head even further out to have a look at property. About half a mile further on, they found a large lot sitting on a knoll which was somewhat wind-swept and had less snow than was covering the acreages nearer town. Tom arranged to lease that acreage as a place to park the two semis as soon as the road was plowed, but he steered clear of owning the property for the time being. After all, he might not need it for long because as well, he made a tentative offer to either buy or lease part of the quarter section of land that Harvey Bartlett owned bordering on Lonesome Lake. Finally, just before they left town, he swapped phone numbers with Harvey so they could keep in contact. That way, Harvey could warn Tom about weather and road conditions, or he could call Tom if anyone in the community needed help. As well as that, Tom could let him know when a truck was coming in, then they could include a few supplies on the incoming load, which would top-up Harvey’s stock while reducing his shipping costs.
When they lifted off out of town and flew toward the lease, Tom had Russ overfly Lonesome Lake, then asked Harry to look it over and see if the little lake could be used to land a float-plane.
“I think it would work for a ski-plane even now,” Harry said tentatively when he saw the small lake. “To be honest though, I’d like to see the lake when it isn’t covered with deep snow to be sure if it would be safe to land there. There might be trees, bushes, or some other problem hidden under the snow and ice in the winter. By the way, is that a farm I see down there, and is it occupied?”
“Yeah, Harvey has a guy living there who raises a few cattle and some hogs. Then, a few times a year, they butcher one or two of the animals. I don’t think he sells that meat in his store, though,” Tom shrugged. “I think any meat he sells in the store has to be inspected, and I doubt if he’d get an inspector to come out here for only one or two animals.”
“You’re probably right there,” Harry agreed. “Now we’re a bit off of the course I usually use to fly into your lease, Tom. Would you like to take over the job of navigation for the rest of the trip?”
“Actually, I’d like it if we could fly along the trail that I use when I hike out to Misery Flats or Bear Creek,” Tom nodded. “I know there are probably avalanches along there in the snowy season, but I’m wondering if we might be able to widen the trail enough to be able to use ATVs on it in the summer.”
“Actually, you could widen almost any trail that an ATV can use until it would be wide enough to take a jeep and a trailer, Tom,” Arnie suggested. “All you’d need is another foot or two.”
“Only if you disregard weight and turning radius, Arnie,” Tom frowned. “Eventually, we might have to cut in a road, but I don’t want to get carried away and spend a lot of time building one this year. Instead, what I was thinking of doing was looking at the trail I used before to see how much work it would take to widen it just enough to make it easier to travel. If we can work out a way to get a road wide enough for an ATV through that, that would be great, but even improving it enough to make an easier trip with a mule-train would be good.”
Tom told Russ and Liz where to head, but the attempt to see anything worthwhile from the Chinook was a waste of time. In the first place, the Chinook wasn’t built to be an observation platform, and the view out of the round side windows was extremely limited. Then too, if they flew low enough for Tom to make out where the trail ran, the downdraft from the chopper stirred up too much of the fresh snow for him to see any detail. Then, if they flew high enough not to disturb the snow, Tom had a hard time even seeing the trail. In the end, Tom told Russ to fly through the pass at a higher and safer altitude and didn’t bother wasting any more time looking for signs of the trail. As a result, it only took a few more minutes for them to fly through the pass, and they came out just upstream of the top end of Mirror Lake.
Tom pointed out the fault line that formed the legal boundary of the lower end of his lease, so everyone had a good view of the cliffs near the end of the lake. Then he had Russ fly upstream above the river gorge that drained from the upper escarpment and led to the main part of his lease. After pointing out the small lake where Harry normally landed, Tom had Russ gain even more altitude so they could see the plateau where he lived and the cliff behind his mine. Finally, Tom was able to see his log cabin, but Liz saw it first and drew in a sharp breath at what she noticed.
“Tom, it looks like you might have trespassers in your cabin. There’s smoke coming from the chimney,” she said sharply.
“Oh dang, I forgot about that. Before I left here last December, I gave Johnny Bowman permission to stay in the cabin so he could do some trapping this winter,” he said just as Liz commented on the smoke. “I doubt if that’s going to cause any problems, though. He’s a nice guy, and I’m sure he’ll get along well with everyone.”
“Well, looking at how big the place is, there’s sure room for more than three of us there, Tom,” Alvin commented.
“Yeah, Boss. That ain’t a little cabin, it’s a two-story log house!” Arnie agreed. “I like the idea that you built it back against the cliff that way. With the trees on one side and the rock face at your back, you’re sure sheltered from a lot of the winds.”
Tom didn’t comment on that, since he was looking at the two snowmobiles parked near the front door of the cabin and watching as two figures came rushing outside when they heard the chopper. One was definitely Johnny, but the other was obviously a woman, and Tom didn’t recognise her. The next few moments passed in a flurry as Tom had Russ and Liz land the chopper on the plateau, but well away from the cabin. However, as they swept in over the area, all sight of the couple and the cabin disappeared in the miniature snowstorm stirred up as the downdraft blew around the top layer of freshly fallen snow. The two pilots set about shutting down the bird then, beginning by lowering the ramp at the rear of the chopper to allow Harry, Alvin, and Arnie to start preparing to unload the cargo. Meanwhile, as soon as the mini-blizzard had settled, Tom and his Dad headed toward the cabin.
“I’m not sure if I agree with Arnie about the way you’ve positioned your cabin,” Jack said with a frown. “Aren’t you worried about a snow cornice building up on the edge of the cliff, then having it break free and fall on your roof?”
“Nope, in the first place, the roof has rough-cut 2x12’s on twelve-inch centers for rafters, and those were sheathed over with two-inch lumber, so the roof will take a huge snow load. Secondly, the snow doesn’t seem to build up on that section of cliff for some reason - I think it’s the shape of the rock face, but if you look at the other end of the cliff, you can see the snow built up above the entrance to the mine. I don’t even go close to that area for most of the winter,” Tom was going to say more, but just then Johnny interrupted their conversation.
“Klahowya Tillicum, big Tom!” Johnny shouted. “Wha’d’ya do, draft ‘t’army ta fly ya in?”
“Hiya Johnny, you might not believe it, but I own that machine. It’s a long story, but to shorten it up a lot, I bought the mineral lease on this area, then the old guy who originally owned the lease died and left me a lot of shares in a flight business,” Tom answered as he grabbed Johnny’s hand to shake it as they ‘man-hugged’ and slapped each other on the back with their other hands.
When they parted, Tom introduced Johnny and his father; “Johnny Bowman, this is my dad, Jack Dunn, but who’s your friend?”
“Hiya, Jack,” Johnny said as he and Jack shook hands. “Ya got yerself one helluva a son and a bloody good neighbour. Now, I’d like ya ta meet my gal, April White Stone from Manitoba. She came out here ta check out our background fer da Métis Council last fall, but she and me hit it off - big time. We got hitched at New Year’s, so dis trapping trip has been our honeymoon. T’be honest, we were just cleanin’ up an’ packin’ up, gettin’ ready ta head back ta da Bluff cuz trappin’ ain’t been so good, too dang many wolves an’ wolverines what robbed our traps. Den dat last snow storm put a cap on it, so we wuz out dis mornin’ pullin da last o’ our traps. If you’d come tomorrow, we’d prob’ly bin gone.”
“Hi, April,” Tom shook her hand, but to his surprise, she wasn’t satisfied with a handshake and she hugged him as well.
“I made you a gift for being so nice and lettin’ us stay here,” she grinned and blushed as she pulled back and looked up at his face. “I hope you don’t mind, but I used a bunch of the quills off your porcupine skin and some of your moose hide too. If that’s a problem, you can blame Johnny for tellin’ me that it’d be okay.”
“Hey, April showers, are ya tryin’ ta rain on my parade and git me inta trouble?” Johnny teased her.
“Well, you got me into trouble,” April patted her belly and teased right back. “But at least you made an honest woman outta me - after you knocked me up.”
Jack and Tom looked at each other and rolled their eyes, not exactly sure what to say or do, but just then Arnie started up the Bobcat and backed it partway out of the chopper. That little disturbance saved them from having to comment in any way since everyone looked to see what made the sound.
“What da blazes?” Johnny stared in surprise.
“Oh, I brought in a couple of guys to work here as well as that machine, some material, some equipment, and a few supplies,” Tom grinned, then noticed Liz coming their way, carrying the cat cage. “April, meet Liz, one of my pilots. She’s pregnant too, so you two have something in common to talk about. She’s got my cat, but he’s not an outdoor cat, so we’d better get him into the cabin before he freezes.”
“Oh boy, this could get fun, because Johnny brought you a ferret as a gift,” April rolled her eyes. “I dunno how the two of them will work out.”
“Aw, if’n they don’t git along, we kin take Houdini back wit’ us,” Johnny shrugged his shoulders. “He kin take care o’ himself anyway, and besides, he’s always got along wit’ da cats at home. But, if’n da two’n ‘em kin live wit’ each other, Tom’ll have a mouse-proof cabin. By t’way, Hiya Liz, and howdya git tangled up wit’ Tom anyways.”
While Johnny, April, and Liz got to know a bit about each other, Tom took the cat carrier and headed inside with Jack, but the others followed along. The cat was happy to get out of his carrier, but he’d hardly taken a step before there was a rustle from the pile of packs and other belongings Johnnie and April had stacked along the wall near the door. Then the ferret appeared. As soon as he was fully out of the cage, the cat took one look at the ferret and charged, but Houdini was even faster than the cat. He waited until the cat was ready to pounce, then leaped over the cat and spun to face him again. For the next few minutes, they leaped, bounced, raced, and prowled all over that cabin from end to end and top to bottom, but to Tom’s surprise, it was the cat who finally called a halt to the action. He leaped up onto the moose-hide sling chair that Tom had made for Sandy and settled down there, but his eyes never left the slinking ferret, who appeared to be trying to tease the cat into playing even more.
“Well, that was entertaining, but I think it’s time to unload the chopper, which means we need some space to stack the building material and supplies that need to come inside,” Tom announced, glancing around the room and noticing that it was clean and neat. “April, I’m impressed with how clean and tidy the place is. You’ve done a good job of looking after the cabin while you stayed here.”
“It wasn’t hard. We just cleaned up after ourselves if we messed things up a bit. We had three whole days of blizzard, though, which made cleaning up easy. We didn’t dare go far from the house, so we had to do something to keep busy. That’s when I finished making you a pair of kamiks, which are almost the same as what most folks call mukluks,” April smiled and handed Tom a pair of native-style, knee-high mocassins that had been decorated with chevron beading made from porcupine quills. “These are made with moose-hide soles and meant for hunting in the winter, but they won’t last too long if you wear them once the snow is gone. They ain’t fancy or nothing, so they’re meant to be worn.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. Thank you. They look something like the ones I saw in the Yukon in the Dene villages when I was up there,” Tom smiled as he looked them over closely. “The style is similar, but the beading is a lot different.”
“That’s probably because one of my grannies is an Inuit, and that’s why I call these kamiks.” April grinned. “I did the shape and the beading more in Granny’s style than in Manitoba Cree style. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dene beading.”
“Well, I have a parka done in Dene style, but it’s still in storage. I got stuck in a Dene village by a whiteout a few years ago, and I lived for a while with a Dene family. During the time I was there, an old granny made me a parka out of a caribou hide with wolverine skin trim on the hood. That has to be the warmest parka I’ve ever had, probably because she had cured the caribou hide with the fur still on it, and she put that on the inside. I’ll show you that parka when I move up here and bring in all my stuff that I’ve got stored. You and I are going to need to have a long talk about the different ways the elders did things like that, but for now, we need to unload the chopper, so we need to make space for the material we brought along.”
Then Tom walked over toward the wall opposite the entrance and began to move things to make some room, but while they were busy inside, the other half of the crew were hard at work outside. There had been a foot or so of snow on the plateau, so the first thing Arnie had done was to put the front-end scoop on the Bobcat. Next, he cleared two paths to the cabin, one to the main door and one to the enclosed area in the former breezeway near the cliff. Then he and Alvin swapped jobs, and after changing the front-end bucket for the lifting forks, Alvin began moving pallets from the chopper to the cabin. In the next hour, the whole group worked like beavers and unloaded everything from the chopper. Supplies and materials that could be damaged by the frost went inside the cabin, but items that wouldn’t be hurt by the cold were stored under the roofed area in the back or were stacked near the cliff and out of the way, then covered with tarps.
Of course, having the doors to the cabin opening and closing as things were carried inside cooled the cabin a lot, but once the foodstuffs were carried inside, Liz and April began putting them away. At the same time, they added wood in the stove, then put the coffee pot and tea kettle on to heat up. By the time everything was unloaded and put away, the kitchen area was warm, both coffee and tea were ready to be served, and everyone was glad to take a break. That’s when Tom was finally able to take the time to show his dad and the others around the cabin.
While he was doing that, Tom showed Alvin and Arnie the improvements he wanted made and explained exactly how he wanted the jobs to be tackled and finished off. As he said, he knew he was being fussy, but the cabin was his home, and he didn’t want to create any future problems by being hurried or slipshod on the projects that were being done now.
“Ain’t so much that you’re being fussy, boss. Instead, you’re telling us how to do the jobs well, and I take it as a compliment that you’re trusting us to do them the way you would,” Alvin shrugged. “If you think you’re fussy, you ain’t never been in the Canadian military or worked with Brits, who are even pickier. That’s when you learn what fussy really means.”
It wasn’t long before Russ mentioned that they should head back soon, though, since he didn’t really want to land at Bear Creek after dark. By then, Tom had been thinking about the whole situation, and he suggested that since they were planning to come back the next day, Johnny and April might appreciate another night alone. Only to Tom’s surprise, the two of them indicated that they’d rather have company, probably since they’d been alone for several weeks and were a touch cabin happy. Then Arnie threw Tom a curveball by mentioning that both he and Alvin had airbrake experience and were licensed to drive semi-trailer trucks.
“That’s great, but we don’t know when the snowplow will clear the road to Misery Flats,” Harry said instantly.
“Not only that, but we’ve got no way to clear a parking spot there to park the trucks when you get them to town,” Tom added. “I was thinking that we’ll need to keep a second bobcat there in the future, then we’ll have it available if we need it either in town or out at the lake, that is, if we end up using the lake to land floatplanes. Right at the moment, I’m not too sure if that’s a good idea or not, since it means an additional investment of time and money with little benefit.”
“Well, the first thing you should know is Lonesome Lake ain’t natural,” Arnie said quickly. “A bunch of miners built the dam there not long after gold was discovered in the area, but they did it so they could set up a flume so they could use the water in sluice boxes. That was done at least ninety years ago and it’s only an earth and rock-filled dam, made by dynamiting a cliff into Misery Creek. With the dam being that old and darn poorly maintained for the last few years, you can’t expect it to last forever.”
“Oh, do you know if all the trees were cut from the area that would become the lake bed before it was flooded?” Harry asked.
“What trees?” Alvin snorted. “My grandad said that area was a swamp before, so all they did was raise the water level until it would run out through a rock cut they dynamited into one bank. There’s no sluiceway, just a gully in the side of a hill, but the water does flow over solid rock. There might have been some willows around the outside of the swamp, but there wouldn’t have been any big trees there.”
“Yeah, but I still think the water has had a lot of years to erode its way through the fill in the dam,” Arnie argued.
“Arnie, nothing will happen on that deal before spring, but I’ll have someone check the dam out before I sign a lease, okay? Thanks for the heads up on it though,” Tom sighed. “Right now I’m trying to modify my shipping plans to take advantage of that acreage I’ve leased in Misery Flats. It’ll be a lot cheaper to truck our supplies in that far and transfer them to the chopper there, rather than flying everything all the way from Bear Creek. By the way, Russ, how much fuel do we have left in the Chinook after flying here?”
“Oh, we have enough that we could haul in a light load from Misery Flats and still have a decent reserve to fly back to Bear Creek safely,” Russ shrugged. “Remember, though, we weren’t heavily loaded this time, and I do have to stay within safety guidelines. All it would take would be one strong headwind to screw us up, so having the same amount of fuel left at this point isn’t guaranteed on all future flights.”
“Okay, but what that means to me is that we could haul a light load from Bear Creek and then top up the load at Misery Flats before unloading here. Then there’d be a good chance of having enough fuel to make a second trip back and forth from the Flats before heading home safely, wouldn’t there?” Tom asked.
“I think so, but I’m not sure, and I’m not about to make any guesses on that score. Remember, landing and taking off again takes a lot more fuel than flying straight through,” Russ shook his head slowly. “Let’s make a few trips first and see what we find out about fuel consumption, okay?”
“Oh, no argument there,” Tom nodded his head in agreement. “What we’ll be bringing in tomorrow is a fairly heavy load because we’re going to bring in the little bulldozer, and that’s about eight tons. I’ll have the fuel topped up on the Chinook after each trip, so we’ll have an idea of where we stand for fuel consumption. Once we have that dozer here, we can scrape out a level base for those two containers we have on the trailers at Bear Creek, then we can truck those to Misery Flats and shift them the rest of the way later.”
“Umm, boss, we stored most of our gear in Liz and Russ’s lockup at your warehouse this morning, so eventually, that has to all come up here too,” Arnie said quietly. “Besides that, we’ve got more stuff stored down at Misery Flats from before we went into the army. All we really brought along from there today was a couple of rifles and some cold weather gear.”
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