nose wrinkled, and she looked puzzled. Hers was a very small nose, slightly turned up at the end. “To be sure this place is so ordinary that I’m disappointed. I would have thought it would be bigger and more grand.” She wrapped herself tighter in the thick woollen shawl and shuddered. “Who would believe that such a dreadful thing happened here?”
“Pardon?”
“My cousin wrote to me of it. She told me that a young boy, scarcely older than I, kept vigil here with a dying man. Bridget says this boy nearly lost his own life here. It was a miracle that he was rescued from the deadly fumes of the great fire. My cousin believes it was the ghost of the hanged man who saved the lad.”
Ghost? I did not want to speak of ghosts. I took a breath, wondering how I should answer. But I didn’t have to say anything, because Jenny went right on talking.
“He was most brave, don’t you think, sir? This boy. Although he will have grown by now, as I have. But he was very young—it happened more than two years ago—when he sat here alone and comforted a dying man. He would have been afraid, don’t you think?”
I swallowed hard, my urge to introduce myself vanishing.
“My cousin says I must be sure to meet this young man,” she continued, unaware of my silence. “He was to be a doctor, but when the fire came he knew he was needed elsewhere, so he took work as a carpenter and helped to rebuild the town. Do you know of whom I speak?”
I swallowed again but managed to say, “Yes,” my voice threatening to squeak on even that little word.
“Ah, you’re fortunate. He must be a very courageous person, for when he was even younger he helped to arrest the man who committed that other murder I spoke of. Oh, but you know of that evil deed.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice higher than normal. “Yes, I do. Very well.”
“Only twelve was this lad, so Bridget says, when he bravely pointed out the murderer who would have escaped had it not been for—”
“I’m afraid I’m late for work,” I interrupted. “Forgive me, I must go.” Jenny had her mouth open to ask me—or to tell me—something else, but I bowed and made my escape, almost running down the street, heading for Pa’s shop.
I took a quick look behind me. She was staring after me, hands on her hips, mouth open as if about to call me back. Or as if she were going to chastise me for my rudeness in leaving so abruptly. Perhaps it was my imagination, but I thought she stamped one sturdily booted foot as she watched me retreat.
Jenny had spoken of bravery. Although anyone would have to be brave to try to carry on a conversation with this talkative young woman, I would need to be especially courageous the next time I met her.
For I was the “brave” person she spoke of, and right now I did not feel brave at all.
I had lied to Jenny. I wasn’t late for work. My father didn’t expect me at the carpentry shop this morning. I had stayed away with his permission.
“I can manage without you tomorrow,” he had told me the previous night, “though it will be difficult. You’ve become a fine craftsman, and many of my customers now ask for you when they need a carpentry job done. But on the anniversary of your friend’s death you should spend time mourning him. Go to the graveyard and honour his memory.”
It was hard to believe a year had passed since Dr. John Wilkinson had died. I had always called him “J.B.,” not “doctor” or “Mr. Wilkinson,” and for a short time I had been his apprentice. And, like Bridget, I had also been his friend.
I missed him greatly, so much so that at times I thought I heard his voice, or saw him going by on the street or leaning out the window of the stagecoach. Once I ran after a man, shouting, “J.B., it is you!” The stranger turned, puzzled. I muttered some excuse, my face red with embarrassment, my eyes prickling with unshed tears.
His grave was marked only by a simple wooden cross. Less than an hour earlier I had knelt beside it, shivering in the bitter cold. “I miss you, my friend,” I said. “I miss you, J.B.”
I had planned on going to the Wake Up Jake restaurant to have something to eat before heading to work, but now I wasn’t hungry. Perhaps Pa would close the shop for a while and come eat with me later when my appetite returned. Of course, Pa didn’t like eating in restaurants. He said it was foolish to spend good money on food that could be brought from home for much less cost. So maybe I would eat alone. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t hungry.
My father glanced up when I came into the carpentry shop, but he didn’t say anything. I began to explain about the murder, but he already knew.
“I heard,” he said. “But you have work to do. We’ll talk later.” Our carpentry shop was only a short distance from Ah Mow’s restaurant, and gossip travelled quickly through Barkerville’s streets.
I added wood to the stove and placed a pot of glue on top of it. A rocking chair, a fine piece from England, lay dismantled on my work bench. The dry air of Cariboo country had shrunk the glue holding the chair together, turning it into a dry powder that no longer kept the rocker intact. I had promised the chair’s owner that it would be as good as new by tomorrow, and now would have to work quickly to keep my promise.
It was nearly lunchtime when a knock on the door startled us both. Pa called, “Come in.”
Chief Constable Lindsay blew into the shop. “It’s bitter for so early in November,” he said, wrestling to close the door against a gust of icy wind. “The winter may be a long and harsh one.”
My mother maintained that all winters in Barkerville were long and harsh. Many miners and storekeepers left the Cariboo for the milder climate of the coastal areas, but my family stayed winter after winter, struggling to keep the path to the outhouse cleared of snow, waking several times during the night to stoke the wood stove, braving the ice-covered road on every journey to town.
Most of the time I liked being in Barkerville through the winter. Even though many of the stores were closed and shuttered tightly, the homes and businesses that remained open were always decorated for the Christmas season. In December lamps glowed softly against evergreens wreathed around windows, and lace tablecloths and silver candlesticks graced tables. If the weather wasn’t too bitter, the Cariboo Glee Club would go carolling. There would be sleigh rides, with warm drinks, good food, and dancing afterward. Since so few people stayed in town, those that remained grew closer in friendship. There were many dinner parties, dances, and literary evenings to while away the long, dark winter nights.
Like us, the chief constable spent the winter in the gold fields, for crime is no respecter of seasons.
“What’s happened?” I asked. “Has Mr. Tremblay been arrested?”
“Unfortunately I did have to arrest him, Ted, though it doesn’t seem right. He’s an upstanding member of our community, and it’s a shame that he’ll be locked away. However, we’ll do our best to keep him comfortable. I had a new mattress brought to the jail, and my wife, a fine cook as you may know, will prepare his meals herself.”
“But if he killed Ah Mow–”
“If—and that remains to be seen—he did, it’s obvious it was self-defence, Ted. You know how
