Greenwood by Michael Christie

Author:Michael Christie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2019-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

COULD’VE GONE EITHER WAY

HARRIS RETURNED FROM Yale three years later, a new man. He’d traded his logger’s garb for a tweed suit and a well-formed hat. He brought another man back with him, a short, sturdy fellow who drove Harris’s automobile and helped him get around. “Meet my second in command, Mort Baumgartner,” Harris proudly declared, shaking each of our hands with his strong grip. What exactly he was in command of wasn’t initially clear.

Still, we held a celebration at the community hall to mark our native son’s return. Harris claimed he’d written to his brother many times over the years, but Everett could still neither read nor write, so no replies were received. At the dinner, Harris toasted our generosity, and loudly proclaimed to have forgiven his brother for his trickery. He then expressed his intention to found a logging company with him as a full partner, upon Everett’s return. The coming post-war boom was predicted to spike the price of commodities like metal, chemicals, coal, as well as timber, and it was common knowledge that lumber concerns worth any salt were poised to make a killing.

While they awaited the ceasefire, Harris and Baumgartner stayed three months in the crooked log cabin, travelling extensively throughout the region, cruising for timber, making maps, hatching plans, and tagging half of the Craig woodlot for logging. Then, just prior to demobilization, we learned from a local boy who was serving overseas as a medical orderly that a Private Greenwood had been admitted to the No. 5 Canadian General Hospital at Liverpool.

“Was he hurt?” Harris asked when we informed him, his hands clawing at the armchair he was sitting in.

We told him there was no mention of physical injury, and that he was awaiting transfer back to Canada. Harris then asked us to see to it that a letter he’d written for Everett be delivered immediately to the hospital, and that the orderly from our township read it to him personally and confirm that Private Greenwood had understood it. We did as instructed, though prior to sending the letter we steamed open the envelope—not out of nosiness, but rather to ensure it didn’t contain some kind of murderous challenge or lingering grudge—and found an earnest proposition for the terms of their partnership, along with a stilted apology for Harris’s stubbornness about cutting the entire woodlot, and a modified proposal to cut just half as Everett had suggested. It ended with a request for Everett to return home immediately following his discharge.

After Harris learned his brother had been read the letter and that he’d accepted the proposal and intended to return home, he borrowed funds from our local bank to finance a great feast to be held in Everett’s honour. Harris and Baumgartner doubled their efforts in the weeks following, and managed to secure a preferred rate with the Canadian National Railway to have their timber transported to the mills in Kingston once it was cut.

It was another month of waiting before a wire

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