Up in the Meziaden
Harrison Kim
Summer 1992. I couldn’t stop drinking and smoking dope. That’s the main reason I worked as a tree planter way up north, that and to escape Kayla and the kids. I could drink, smoke, and party in the wilderness work camps with the other free spirits, without consequence or complaint. I met a smiling hustler named Cody up there. He said I looked trustworthy, then he asked me for a hundred bucks. Like me, he loved binging on booze, and he possessed a wacky sense of humor. Even when I was stoned, drunk and rambling on a stream of broken consciousness, he’d crack a joke that’d split our sides.
After I complained about my wife Kayla for the hundredth time, he’d stand like a police officer leaning into a car window and say, “You’re very unresponsible, we’re taking you to husband jail.” He made me feel good, like I was in the right after all. Any man would want to escape from Kayla’s bitching. Six months before, I came home from a two-day job cutting brush up in the Porcupine Hills and she and the kids were gone, back to her parents’ place in Vancouver. She still harangued me constantly for child support. I sent what I could, but it was never enough.
Cody was twitchy, with wavy blonde hair, always grinning, except when he didn’t get what he wanted. “It’s best only to bury ten per cent of your trees,” he told me. “That way the boss doesn’t get suspicious.”
“Yeah,” I said. “People get greedy.” We got paid forty cents for each tree we planted. If you buried a bunch, you could make faster bucks, as long as you didn’t push your luck. Cody and I were both excellent at discretion.
“You’re a special guy,” he grinned. “Not many people would lend a hundred dollars to a recent acquaintance.” He spent the money on marijuana the cook sold on the side. After a week, we ran out of booze. It was hard not to drink after a twelve-hour day busting our asses planting trees. After the first payday he got the idea to drive down to Hyder for a break. “I choose you to come with me,” he said. “You’re the most interesting guy here.”
“What makes me so interesting?”
“Well, you’re generous” he laughed, “and you’re a guy I can trust to keep his word.”
We turned up the Kitwanga logging road, drove ten kilometers to another tree planting camp. Cody wanted to see if the wage prospects were better. “I hear they pay by the hour,” he said. “You can slack off.” The camp sat on the side of a remote mountain. The van bumped its way in. We saw the main trailer, some canvas tents and a few vehicles, but no people. I turned off the engine, and heard a raven call above an awesome quiet. “They must be all up in the hills planting,” I said. Cody jumped out of the car. “Just going to check.” He slammed the door hard.
“Hey, man, that’s loud!” I said. “I was grooving on the silence.”
He nodded. “Just to see if there’s anyone here.” He disappeared awhile, behind the trailer. I sat there rolling another doobie and eating from our stash of chocolate bars.
Then he came tearing towards me, a paper bag under his arm. “O. K., man, let’s drive!”
“Did you find anyone around?” I asked, and he said, “Just get out of here, man.”
I drove.
He opened the bag beside me, held up a thick stack of twenty-dollar bills. I saw another equal stack still in the bag. “How much d’you think?” he said.
“Where’d you find that?” I pounded on the brakes. The van slid to a halt on the muddy road.
“Go easy, man.” Cody waved the bag in the air. “It’s the planters advance pay. They must’ve got it sent in last night, probably going to give it out after work.” He grinned. “But we got there first!”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “Real risky, man. Think of those poor planters.”
“Look,” said Cody. “There’s about three thousand bucks here. I’ll give you twenty per cent. Is that enough? Can I trust you to keep it zipped?”
“How did you know the pay was there?”
“Let’s just say I’m smarter than I look. Or just lucky.”
I shook my head. “Twenty per cent’s okay, I guess.”
“Come on,” said Cody. “Six hundred bucks will buy a bit of hard-earned happiness. Their insurance company’ll pay for the loss.”
“I guess,” I said. I thought about telling Cody to take it back, then vowed to send most of my share to my kids, pay back what I owed in child support. “Stealing for a good cause.” I concluded.
As Cody recounted our money, I steered my way down the logging road, out onto the main route through the Stewart Pass. I drove for an hour. In that time, we only met five vehicles. Cody stuffed our money back in the bag. It started to rain hard. I wasn’t paying attention, thinking about the disappointed tree planters discovering their financial loss. The front wheel hit a rock and my old van lurched, then bumped and slid to one side. I braked, held the wheel as we swerved through the mud, stopping at the edge of a big ditch roiling with water. We sat there, way up in the wild Meziaden Pass.
We stepped out into the cold rain. “Jeez,” said Cody. “I can see a nail in the tire. That rock must’ve pushed it in further.” Rain and sleet fell almost horizontal as Cody and I tried to fix the flat. We kept the engine going to heat up the interior so we could take breaks and warm up without getting hypothermia. One lug nut wouldn’t come off. It had rusted right onto the wheel. Above us loomed the giant Meziaden Glacier, dull white and foggy. An icy wind blew from the top, pushing more sleety rain into our faces. “This thing’s fused to the f…. wheel,” said Cody, looking up, water dripping down his face.
“Flag someone down, Jared.”
I stood out in the cold April rain holding a piece of cardboard over my head. After about fifteen minutes an old green and white pickup truck appeared over the hill, slowed as it approached. I waved my arms. The truck stopped. A window opened. A white bearded older guy with a veiny nose stuck his head out. Beside him a stout lady at the wheel, chewing gum. “You guys ok?”
“Changing a tire, we need some penetrating oil to loosen up the lug nut.” I said. The guy looked me up and down.
“O.K. boys, we can’t leave you stranded. It’s damn freezing out here.”
The old fellow opened his door and tottered out slow, stood up, stretched in the rain. “Nice and cool,” he said, rubbing his big stomach. He pointed behind us and way up the road I saw a dot.
“Black bear,” he nodded, and rummaged under a tarp, pulled out a can of lubricant, tossed it in my direction.
“What’s your name, man?” asked Cody. “We’re eternally grateful.”
“Sam,” said the man, as I sprayed the lug nut and cautiously removed it with a wrench.
“Here’s twenty bucks for your trouble,” Cody said.
“Naw,” said Sam. “This didn’t cost me anything.”
“You trusted us,” Cody said. “You stopped for us and helped.”
The old guy laughed, as rain dripped off that bulging nose. “I’m going down to Hyder. Buy us a drink there!”
“We really appreciate this,” I said.
“It’s nothing,” said Sam. “I know you guys would do the same for me. It’s the way things are up here in the north. People trust each other.”
We changed the wheel fast and made it down it to Hyder in twenty minutes. Cody pulled out a joint and smoked it, passing it over from time to time. “Man, I have to mellow out after that experience!”
“Yeah,” I said. “We could’ve hit that ditch. We were damn lucky that green truck came along.”
“They were pretty stupid, though,” said Cody. “We could’ve been carjackers.”
We pulled up across from several taverns, the main buildings in the tiny town. “Time to get blasted, man!” said Cody. “To celebrate our arrival back in civilization.”
Inside the Grizzly Toe tavern, we stumbled over the dark purple velour floor, around green tables, no one in there but our friends from the highway. “Hey, let’s buy them a drink,” I said.
Cody shook his head. “He didn’t take my money up there. He had his chance.” He looked at me. “I don’t want folks to recognize us, man.”
“I’m ok with him,” I said. “He’s a good guy. We could’ve frozen up there.”
“Suit yourself. I’m gonna order at the bar.”
I walked over to Sam and the stout woman and sat down. “I’ll buy you both a beer. It’s the least I can do.”
Sam nodded. “Sure.” He pointed at the woman. “Evie’s drinking tomato juice. She’s driving. We came all the way from Hazelton today.”
Cody sat at a far table, smoking. He ordered a few beers from the skinny, blue jeaned server.
“Yeah,” remarked Evie, lighting her own smoke, “this is about the only place you can puff in a bar these days.”
“Your friend seems pretty worked up,” said Sam. “I never saw a guy finish a cigarette so fast.”
Cody lifted his glass and toasted us from across the room. “Cheers,” he said, and downed most of his drink in one big chug a lug.
Cody and I spent the night in a hotel room above the bar. He left the light on. “I don’t like the dark, man. That’s when the boogie man comes.” He passed out on the bed, I smoked a doobie lying on the floor, watched the smoke drift to the swaying ceiling.
In the night I woke up, rolled over on the carpet. Cody’s hand dangled over the edge of the bed. It twitched, the fingers resembled snakes. I heard a voice, deep and resonant. It emanated from out of the blinding electric light above me. “This…” said the voice. It paused for a moment. Then it began again. “This is the devil.” Cody’s hand twitched some more. I sat up, my heart pounding, the light bright all around me. Who was the devil? What voice was this? I felt the room tilt and grabbed a paper bag near the empty beer bottles. I put the bag over my face and breathed into it awhile. I could hear echoes of the voice repeating “This is the devil.” After a while, I put the bag down and tried to go back to sleep.
I told Cody about the voice when we woke up late the next day.
“Must’ve been some acid in your dope,” he said, rummaging in the cooler for another beer. “Why’d you put your face in a bag?”
“I’ve got anxiety,” I said. “The bag inhaling slows my breathing. I need to stop smoking so much dope, man.”
Later, as we headed back up to the camp after our binge in Hyder, I wondered why I chose Cody as a friend.
“You’re a guy who lets things happen to him,” Kayla always reminded me. “You don’t have any spine.” I let those echoes sink in, atop the ones from the midnight room.
Cody and I stopped off the road on the other side of the pass. This time, the glacier ice shone brilliant under the sun, light silver and ivory on the mountains and snow above it.
“The northern wilderness!” I exulted, glad to be out of that hotel and away from that dark voice. I stood under blue sky in clear air and breathed in deep.
Cody wrapped our stash of money securely in the paper bag, then sealed it with more plastic bags and string. He slipped under the van and tied it up above the gas tank.
“That doesn’t look real safe where you put the stash,” I told him.
“It’ll do” he said. “No one’s gonna find it there.” He grinned. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I smiled back at Cody. “Okay,” I said.
We stopped once more, at the crossroads by the Kitwanga logging road. Cody’d finished off a six pack of cider and had to relieve himself. He walked into the bush. He didn’t like to pee where anyone could see, even in the middle of nowhere. “Scared of the boogie man, I guess,” he said. I jumped out of the van, swatting off a few early blackflies. The spring warmth already bought out these biting pests. I waited for a moment, then walked to the other side of the road behind some trees and did my own bathroom business.
About a half hour later, we pulled into our tree planting camp. Several long-haired young people milled around the cook’s trailer. A tall, skinny guy wearing a bright orange reflective vest pointed at us as we drove up. A police car sat parked in front of the trailer. “Lucky I hid that stash,” said Cody.
We clambered out of the van. Cody acted pretty drunk, he steadied himself and went over to lean against a tree. Sally, the camp supervisor, and the officer walked over. “This is Officer Tomma,” said Sally. “He’s come up all the way from Hazelton.”
“I hope you fellows weren’t drinking and driving,” said Officer Tomma.
The hollow cheeked guy beside them pushed his way forward. “You guys seen anyone spending a lot of money? I heard you went into Hyder.” He stood about six inches from my face.
“No, haven’t seen anything like that,” I said, stepping back.
“Hey, Luke, it’s ok,” said Officer Tomma, walking over and standing between us. “Luke’s the supervisor at the camp up on the Kitwanga. He says someone stole their advance pay.”
“How did they do that?” Cody piped up. “Didn’t you guys have it in a secure location?”
Luke stared at him. “How do you know it wasn’t in a secure location?”
“I never said that.” Cody smiled. “Why the heavy hand on us?”
Sally talked, holding her dirt smudged tree planter hands over her big hips. “Did you see anyone else on the road that looked suspicious? You passed that area.”
“I’m not sure,” I traced a pattern on the ground with my shoe. “We got distracted by that huge rainstorm.”
Luke walked round the van on his spidery legs. He opened the side door and looked in. I jumped forward. “Hey!” I said. Luke stared at me from over the hood. “Just checking you out,” he said.
I shrugged. “Go ahead, we’ve got nothing to hide.” Luke stepped inside the van and started rummaging around. I could see his head bobbing up and down as he rummaged under the driver’s seat and in the glove compartment.
Cody rubbed his hand under his chin, slurred his words from time to time. He talked loudly so Officer Tomma and Luke could hear. “Jared, do you remember that old green and white truck? You know, the one turning out of the Kitwanga forest road intersection?”
“No, I don’t,” I looked up sharply. “I didn’t see any vehicle turning out of there.”
“I think it had an elderly man and a woman in it,” Cody gesticulated excitedly.
“If you saw them there, they were just out mushroom picking or something,” I said.
“They sure took off in a hurry,” Cody continued. “Maybe they stole that money.”
“I’ll take a description.” Officer Tomma opened his notebook.
Luke slammed the van door. “Yeah, please get all the details.” He ducked underneath the vehicle and scrambled around on his back, poking his hands up under the chassis. Cody ran forward “Hey, what the hell is he doing?”
I shrugged. “It’s no problem. Let him go for it, Cody.” I nodded at Sally. “All his workers are going to be very pissed off.”
Luke stood up and brushed off his pants. “I”m going to fucking lose my job. You guys got anything in your pockets?”
“Come on, Luke.” Sally said.
Luke swore again. “I want you guys to open the hood.”
I walked over and flipped it up. Luke and Officer Tomma peered inside. The policeman walked around, checking the vehicle. “O. K., you guys can go,” he finally announced.
“The real culprits could be spending your money in Hyder right now.” Cody frowned and walked off to his campsite.
I stepped into the van and drove over to my own tent area. I parked, grabbed a couple of beers, and opened them by the fire pit. I needed a good drink or five.
Cody came running up ten minutes later. “Want a beer?” I said.
“I want to check my stash!” he shouted. “Why didn’t that skinny asshole find it?” He rolled under my van and then I heard a loud “Fuuuck!”
“What’s wrong, man?”
“The stash is gone!”
“I told you to secure it better.”
“Shiiit! I thought I tied it up good! We’ve got to get back on the road right now and find it!”
I took a swallow of my beer. “I don’t think so” I said. “Night’s coming, and it’s gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack. Also, if we take off now it’ll look suspicious.” I stared up at the spruce trees. “Besides that, I’m enjoying this peace and quiet.”
Cody swore several more times. He checked under the van again, then rolled out of the dirt. “I’ll give you fifty per cent, man, if we find it.” He sat closer. “Listen. You didn’t talk. You’ve got a great poker face, Jared my friend.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I took a doobie out of my pocket and fumbled around for the lighter. “Why did you try to finger Sam and Evie?”
“Just trying to be helpful,” Cody said. “To take the heat off us.”
“I poked a cold campfire log with my boot. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere right now.”
“O. K. you just sit around, buddy,” he retorted. “I’m gonna take my own car. It’s back to twenty per cent for you.”
“Fine, Cody. I don’t mind.”
“Make that ten per cent.”
He stumbled off, almost walking into my clothesline. I put the doobie back in my pocket and threw some kindling around the fire pit. I lit the paper under it, sat back to watch the fire and finish my beer.
I was pretty sure Cody wasn’t going to find the money stash. When we stopped at the Kitwanga logging road and he went into the bush to relieve himself, I slid under the van with a jackknife and cut the package free. Then I walked to the other side of the road and hid it behind some trees under a few large rocks.
I didn’t feel bad about that, especially after Cody tried to finger Sam and Evie. “He’s a real evil bastard,” I thought to myself. “Maybe Kayla’s right. I’ve got no spine. I should’ve made him put that cash back.”
I thought about the money. I planned to dig it up and send some over to Kayla. Maybe she could buy the kids something nice. I’d eventually mail most of it back to the tree planting company, no return address. Maybe I’d keep a few hundred. It’d come in handy for gas money, and my stash of marijuana was running low.
I remembered what old Sam told us. “The north runs on trust.” Cody could trust me not to talk. I wondered if I could trust myself not to spend all that money on my own vices.
“My intentions are good, but my instincts are bad,” I said to myself. I had to quit drinking, no doubt about it. “I’ve fallen so fuckin’ low,” I said to the black spruce above me. I thought about all those tree planters, stranded without their pay. “Come on conscience, come on!” I rocked back and forth in front of the fire. I thought about buying my kids brand new bicycles, seeing their appreciative faces. “Thanks, you’re a good Dad.”
I wanted, more than anything else, to hear that midnight voice talk to me once again. If Cody was the devil, then what did that make me? I wanted the voice to call me by the name that I deserved. Then I would know what to do. I stared up at the clear-cut hills and thought about all the new trees I’d planted there and poured the rest of my beer onto the ground.
~ ~ ~
Sept 2026
Harrison Kim
Summer 1992. I couldn’t stop drinking and smoking dope. That’s the main reason I worked as a tree planter way up north, that and to escape Kayla and the kids. I could drink, smoke, and party in the wilderness work camps with the other free spirits, without consequence or complaint. I met a smiling hustler named Cody up there. He said I looked trustworthy, then he asked me for a hundred bucks. Like me, he loved binging on booze, and he possessed a wacky sense of humor. Even when I was stoned, drunk and rambling on a stream of broken consciousness, he’d crack a joke that’d split our sides.
After I complained about my wife Kayla for the hundredth time, he’d stand like a police officer leaning into a car window and say, “You’re very unresponsible, we’re taking you to husband jail.” He made me feel good, like I was in the right after all. Any man would want to escape from Kayla’s bitching. Six months before, I came home from a two-day job cutting brush up in the Porcupine Hills and she and the kids were gone, back to her parents’ place in Vancouver. She still harangued me constantly for child support. I sent what I could, but it was never enough.
Cody was twitchy, with wavy blonde hair, always grinning, except when he didn’t get what he wanted. “It’s best only to bury ten per cent of your trees,” he told me. “That way the boss doesn’t get suspicious.”
“Yeah,” I said. “People get greedy.” We got paid forty cents for each tree we planted. If you buried a bunch, you could make faster bucks, as long as you didn’t push your luck. Cody and I were both excellent at discretion.
“You’re a special guy,” he grinned. “Not many people would lend a hundred dollars to a recent acquaintance.” He spent the money on marijuana the cook sold on the side. After a week, we ran out of booze. It was hard not to drink after a twelve-hour day busting our asses planting trees. After the first payday he got the idea to drive down to Hyder for a break. “I choose you to come with me,” he said. “You’re the most interesting guy here.”
“What makes me so interesting?”
“Well, you’re generous” he laughed, “and you’re a guy I can trust to keep his word.”
We turned up the Kitwanga logging road, drove ten kilometers to another tree planting camp. Cody wanted to see if the wage prospects were better. “I hear they pay by the hour,” he said. “You can slack off.” The camp sat on the side of a remote mountain. The van bumped its way in. We saw the main trailer, some canvas tents and a few vehicles, but no people. I turned off the engine, and heard a raven call above an awesome quiet. “They must be all up in the hills planting,” I said. Cody jumped out of the car. “Just going to check.” He slammed the door hard.
“Hey, man, that’s loud!” I said. “I was grooving on the silence.”
He nodded. “Just to see if there’s anyone here.” He disappeared awhile, behind the trailer. I sat there rolling another doobie and eating from our stash of chocolate bars.
Then he came tearing towards me, a paper bag under his arm. “O. K., man, let’s drive!”
“Did you find anyone around?” I asked, and he said, “Just get out of here, man.”
I drove.
He opened the bag beside me, held up a thick stack of twenty-dollar bills. I saw another equal stack still in the bag. “How much d’you think?” he said.
“Where’d you find that?” I pounded on the brakes. The van slid to a halt on the muddy road.
“Go easy, man.” Cody waved the bag in the air. “It’s the planters advance pay. They must’ve got it sent in last night, probably going to give it out after work.” He grinned. “But we got there first!”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said. “Real risky, man. Think of those poor planters.”
“Look,” said Cody. “There’s about three thousand bucks here. I’ll give you twenty per cent. Is that enough? Can I trust you to keep it zipped?”
“How did you know the pay was there?”
“Let’s just say I’m smarter than I look. Or just lucky.”
I shook my head. “Twenty per cent’s okay, I guess.”
“Come on,” said Cody. “Six hundred bucks will buy a bit of hard-earned happiness. Their insurance company’ll pay for the loss.”
“I guess,” I said. I thought about telling Cody to take it back, then vowed to send most of my share to my kids, pay back what I owed in child support. “Stealing for a good cause.” I concluded.
As Cody recounted our money, I steered my way down the logging road, out onto the main route through the Stewart Pass. I drove for an hour. In that time, we only met five vehicles. Cody stuffed our money back in the bag. It started to rain hard. I wasn’t paying attention, thinking about the disappointed tree planters discovering their financial loss. The front wheel hit a rock and my old van lurched, then bumped and slid to one side. I braked, held the wheel as we swerved through the mud, stopping at the edge of a big ditch roiling with water. We sat there, way up in the wild Meziaden Pass.
We stepped out into the cold rain. “Jeez,” said Cody. “I can see a nail in the tire. That rock must’ve pushed it in further.” Rain and sleet fell almost horizontal as Cody and I tried to fix the flat. We kept the engine going to heat up the interior so we could take breaks and warm up without getting hypothermia. One lug nut wouldn’t come off. It had rusted right onto the wheel. Above us loomed the giant Meziaden Glacier, dull white and foggy. An icy wind blew from the top, pushing more sleety rain into our faces. “This thing’s fused to the f…. wheel,” said Cody, looking up, water dripping down his face.
“Flag someone down, Jared.”
I stood out in the cold April rain holding a piece of cardboard over my head. After about fifteen minutes an old green and white pickup truck appeared over the hill, slowed as it approached. I waved my arms. The truck stopped. A window opened. A white bearded older guy with a veiny nose stuck his head out. Beside him a stout lady at the wheel, chewing gum. “You guys ok?”
“Changing a tire, we need some penetrating oil to loosen up the lug nut.” I said. The guy looked me up and down.
“O.K. boys, we can’t leave you stranded. It’s damn freezing out here.”
The old fellow opened his door and tottered out slow, stood up, stretched in the rain. “Nice and cool,” he said, rubbing his big stomach. He pointed behind us and way up the road I saw a dot.
“Black bear,” he nodded, and rummaged under a tarp, pulled out a can of lubricant, tossed it in my direction.
“What’s your name, man?” asked Cody. “We’re eternally grateful.”
“Sam,” said the man, as I sprayed the lug nut and cautiously removed it with a wrench.
“Here’s twenty bucks for your trouble,” Cody said.
“Naw,” said Sam. “This didn’t cost me anything.”
“You trusted us,” Cody said. “You stopped for us and helped.”
The old guy laughed, as rain dripped off that bulging nose. “I’m going down to Hyder. Buy us a drink there!”
“We really appreciate this,” I said.
“It’s nothing,” said Sam. “I know you guys would do the same for me. It’s the way things are up here in the north. People trust each other.”
We changed the wheel fast and made it down it to Hyder in twenty minutes. Cody pulled out a joint and smoked it, passing it over from time to time. “Man, I have to mellow out after that experience!”
“Yeah,” I said. “We could’ve hit that ditch. We were damn lucky that green truck came along.”
“They were pretty stupid, though,” said Cody. “We could’ve been carjackers.”
We pulled up across from several taverns, the main buildings in the tiny town. “Time to get blasted, man!” said Cody. “To celebrate our arrival back in civilization.”
Inside the Grizzly Toe tavern, we stumbled over the dark purple velour floor, around green tables, no one in there but our friends from the highway. “Hey, let’s buy them a drink,” I said.
Cody shook his head. “He didn’t take my money up there. He had his chance.” He looked at me. “I don’t want folks to recognize us, man.”
“I’m ok with him,” I said. “He’s a good guy. We could’ve frozen up there.”
“Suit yourself. I’m gonna order at the bar.”
I walked over to Sam and the stout woman and sat down. “I’ll buy you both a beer. It’s the least I can do.”
Sam nodded. “Sure.” He pointed at the woman. “Evie’s drinking tomato juice. She’s driving. We came all the way from Hazelton today.”
Cody sat at a far table, smoking. He ordered a few beers from the skinny, blue jeaned server.
“Yeah,” remarked Evie, lighting her own smoke, “this is about the only place you can puff in a bar these days.”
“Your friend seems pretty worked up,” said Sam. “I never saw a guy finish a cigarette so fast.”
Cody lifted his glass and toasted us from across the room. “Cheers,” he said, and downed most of his drink in one big chug a lug.
Cody and I spent the night in a hotel room above the bar. He left the light on. “I don’t like the dark, man. That’s when the boogie man comes.” He passed out on the bed, I smoked a doobie lying on the floor, watched the smoke drift to the swaying ceiling.
In the night I woke up, rolled over on the carpet. Cody’s hand dangled over the edge of the bed. It twitched, the fingers resembled snakes. I heard a voice, deep and resonant. It emanated from out of the blinding electric light above me. “This…” said the voice. It paused for a moment. Then it began again. “This is the devil.” Cody’s hand twitched some more. I sat up, my heart pounding, the light bright all around me. Who was the devil? What voice was this? I felt the room tilt and grabbed a paper bag near the empty beer bottles. I put the bag over my face and breathed into it awhile. I could hear echoes of the voice repeating “This is the devil.” After a while, I put the bag down and tried to go back to sleep.
I told Cody about the voice when we woke up late the next day.
“Must’ve been some acid in your dope,” he said, rummaging in the cooler for another beer. “Why’d you put your face in a bag?”
“I’ve got anxiety,” I said. “The bag inhaling slows my breathing. I need to stop smoking so much dope, man.”
Later, as we headed back up to the camp after our binge in Hyder, I wondered why I chose Cody as a friend.
“You’re a guy who lets things happen to him,” Kayla always reminded me. “You don’t have any spine.” I let those echoes sink in, atop the ones from the midnight room.
Cody and I stopped off the road on the other side of the pass. This time, the glacier ice shone brilliant under the sun, light silver and ivory on the mountains and snow above it.
“The northern wilderness!” I exulted, glad to be out of that hotel and away from that dark voice. I stood under blue sky in clear air and breathed in deep.
Cody wrapped our stash of money securely in the paper bag, then sealed it with more plastic bags and string. He slipped under the van and tied it up above the gas tank.
“That doesn’t look real safe where you put the stash,” I told him.
“It’ll do” he said. “No one’s gonna find it there.” He grinned. I looked at myself in the rearview mirror. I smiled back at Cody. “Okay,” I said.
We stopped once more, at the crossroads by the Kitwanga logging road. Cody’d finished off a six pack of cider and had to relieve himself. He walked into the bush. He didn’t like to pee where anyone could see, even in the middle of nowhere. “Scared of the boogie man, I guess,” he said. I jumped out of the van, swatting off a few early blackflies. The spring warmth already bought out these biting pests. I waited for a moment, then walked to the other side of the road behind some trees and did my own bathroom business.
About a half hour later, we pulled into our tree planting camp. Several long-haired young people milled around the cook’s trailer. A tall, skinny guy wearing a bright orange reflective vest pointed at us as we drove up. A police car sat parked in front of the trailer. “Lucky I hid that stash,” said Cody.
We clambered out of the van. Cody acted pretty drunk, he steadied himself and went over to lean against a tree. Sally, the camp supervisor, and the officer walked over. “This is Officer Tomma,” said Sally. “He’s come up all the way from Hazelton.”
“I hope you fellows weren’t drinking and driving,” said Officer Tomma.
The hollow cheeked guy beside them pushed his way forward. “You guys seen anyone spending a lot of money? I heard you went into Hyder.” He stood about six inches from my face.
“No, haven’t seen anything like that,” I said, stepping back.
“Hey, Luke, it’s ok,” said Officer Tomma, walking over and standing between us. “Luke’s the supervisor at the camp up on the Kitwanga. He says someone stole their advance pay.”
“How did they do that?” Cody piped up. “Didn’t you guys have it in a secure location?”
Luke stared at him. “How do you know it wasn’t in a secure location?”
“I never said that.” Cody smiled. “Why the heavy hand on us?”
Sally talked, holding her dirt smudged tree planter hands over her big hips. “Did you see anyone else on the road that looked suspicious? You passed that area.”
“I’m not sure,” I traced a pattern on the ground with my shoe. “We got distracted by that huge rainstorm.”
Luke walked round the van on his spidery legs. He opened the side door and looked in. I jumped forward. “Hey!” I said. Luke stared at me from over the hood. “Just checking you out,” he said.
I shrugged. “Go ahead, we’ve got nothing to hide.” Luke stepped inside the van and started rummaging around. I could see his head bobbing up and down as he rummaged under the driver’s seat and in the glove compartment.
Cody rubbed his hand under his chin, slurred his words from time to time. He talked loudly so Officer Tomma and Luke could hear. “Jared, do you remember that old green and white truck? You know, the one turning out of the Kitwanga forest road intersection?”
“No, I don’t,” I looked up sharply. “I didn’t see any vehicle turning out of there.”
“I think it had an elderly man and a woman in it,” Cody gesticulated excitedly.
“If you saw them there, they were just out mushroom picking or something,” I said.
“They sure took off in a hurry,” Cody continued. “Maybe they stole that money.”
“I’ll take a description.” Officer Tomma opened his notebook.
Luke slammed the van door. “Yeah, please get all the details.” He ducked underneath the vehicle and scrambled around on his back, poking his hands up under the chassis. Cody ran forward “Hey, what the hell is he doing?”
I shrugged. “It’s no problem. Let him go for it, Cody.” I nodded at Sally. “All his workers are going to be very pissed off.”
Luke stood up and brushed off his pants. “I”m going to fucking lose my job. You guys got anything in your pockets?”
“Come on, Luke.” Sally said.
Luke swore again. “I want you guys to open the hood.”
I walked over and flipped it up. Luke and Officer Tomma peered inside. The policeman walked around, checking the vehicle. “O. K., you guys can go,” he finally announced.
“The real culprits could be spending your money in Hyder right now.” Cody frowned and walked off to his campsite.
I stepped into the van and drove over to my own tent area. I parked, grabbed a couple of beers, and opened them by the fire pit. I needed a good drink or five.
Cody came running up ten minutes later. “Want a beer?” I said.
“I want to check my stash!” he shouted. “Why didn’t that skinny asshole find it?” He rolled under my van and then I heard a loud “Fuuuck!”
“What’s wrong, man?”
“The stash is gone!”
“I told you to secure it better.”
“Shiiit! I thought I tied it up good! We’ve got to get back on the road right now and find it!”
I took a swallow of my beer. “I don’t think so” I said. “Night’s coming, and it’s gonna be like finding a needle in a haystack. Also, if we take off now it’ll look suspicious.” I stared up at the spruce trees. “Besides that, I’m enjoying this peace and quiet.”
Cody swore several more times. He checked under the van again, then rolled out of the dirt. “I’ll give you fifty per cent, man, if we find it.” He sat closer. “Listen. You didn’t talk. You’ve got a great poker face, Jared my friend.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. I took a doobie out of my pocket and fumbled around for the lighter. “Why did you try to finger Sam and Evie?”
“Just trying to be helpful,” Cody said. “To take the heat off us.”
“I poked a cold campfire log with my boot. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere right now.”
“O. K. you just sit around, buddy,” he retorted. “I’m gonna take my own car. It’s back to twenty per cent for you.”
“Fine, Cody. I don’t mind.”
“Make that ten per cent.”
He stumbled off, almost walking into my clothesline. I put the doobie back in my pocket and threw some kindling around the fire pit. I lit the paper under it, sat back to watch the fire and finish my beer.
I was pretty sure Cody wasn’t going to find the money stash. When we stopped at the Kitwanga logging road and he went into the bush to relieve himself, I slid under the van with a jackknife and cut the package free. Then I walked to the other side of the road and hid it behind some trees under a few large rocks.
I didn’t feel bad about that, especially after Cody tried to finger Sam and Evie. “He’s a real evil bastard,” I thought to myself. “Maybe Kayla’s right. I’ve got no spine. I should’ve made him put that cash back.”
I thought about the money. I planned to dig it up and send some over to Kayla. Maybe she could buy the kids something nice. I’d eventually mail most of it back to the tree planting company, no return address. Maybe I’d keep a few hundred. It’d come in handy for gas money, and my stash of marijuana was running low.
I remembered what old Sam told us. “The north runs on trust.” Cody could trust me not to talk. I wondered if I could trust myself not to spend all that money on my own vices.
“My intentions are good, but my instincts are bad,” I said to myself. I had to quit drinking, no doubt about it. “I’ve fallen so fuckin’ low,” I said to the black spruce above me. I thought about all those tree planters, stranded without their pay. “Come on conscience, come on!” I rocked back and forth in front of the fire. I thought about buying my kids brand new bicycles, seeing their appreciative faces. “Thanks, you’re a good Dad.”
I wanted, more than anything else, to hear that midnight voice talk to me once again. If Cody was the devil, then what did that make me? I wanted the voice to call me by the name that I deserved. Then I would know what to do. I stared up at the clear-cut hills and thought about all the new trees I’d planted there and poured the rest of my beer onto the ground.
~ ~ ~
Sept 2026
