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The Rolands and the McIntyres spent their Sunday evenings together, drinking beer, barbecuing in summer and eating great feasts of pasta and garlic bread in the colder months. The two men talked about their week, while their wives, Janice and Tracy, put the final touches on supper. This week, the TV spoke softly of hockey, the Oilers and Kings. "So, how's business, Mac? Save any babies from burning buildings?" Brent "Mac" McIntyre was fire chief of the local auxiliary station. When not in fire coat and boots, he worked in the mill with five hundred other souls. He was a safety inspector. "Nah. How about you? Catch any naughty hunters?" Jessie Roland, local Conservation Officer for Fish & Wildlife shook his head. "Nothing yet, but hunting season's just starting. We should start thinking about where we want to hunt for moose this year. I've heard Wilson Lake is better than some. Then there's Fifty-Six Mile." Brent nodded amiably. Janice and Tracy called from the kitchen that supper was ready. Tracy had fixed her excellent lasagna. The aroma of melted cheese filled the McIntyre household. Sitting down to eat, Jessie asked if Melanie would be joining them. Melanie was Mac's niece from Vancouver. Jessie regretted it the moment the words finished leaving his lips. Janice gave him a 'too late to shut up" look. She obviously knew something he didn't. Mac and Tracy both had expressions of angst, quickly swept away by false cheer. No more was said about the matter. It was only when the Rolands were driving home in their blue station wagon that Janice explained. "Melanie's found it very hard adjusting to life here." Here was Alexander, British Columbia, small mill and mining town in the heart of BC's forested wilds. Two hours from Dawson, and another ten to Vancouver and God's Country. "Mel's not used to having only one grocery store, no place to shop and all her old friends are on the Coast. Mac and Tracy have been trying very hard to make her feel welcome, what with her parents dying and all, but...." Janice let the sentence trail off. "But what?" Jessie insisted. "But she's fallen in with a rough crowd -- and Mac and Tracy don't know what to do about it. She's been seeing the Pini boy." Jessie nodded his head at the name. He knew William Pini well enough. The conservation officer had talked with the boy's father when Willy was in the ninth grade. The Pini boy had tried to press himself on Michelle, Jessie's teen-aged daughter. The elder Pini, Dick, a millwright in better times, had laughed the boy's actions off until he saw the court order. Dick Pini could not make the boy do much, but there had been no more problems with Michelle. But that wasn't to say that Willy had stayed out of trouble. Arrested for shop-lifting, drug possession and reckless driving, his name had quickly become a household word for dirt in the small close-knit town of Alexander. And now, he was seeing Mac's niece, Melanie. "Has
Mac talked to Willy?" Jessie wondered aloud. "Has he
talked to his dad?" |