Cutting Wood

About the Book

In 1952, awaiting his transfer from the Navy to the Air Force, Jack Fu1ton, on extended leave, takes a summer job flying an ambulance seaplane from Blackfish Harbour, a remote community at the northern end of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. He rents a small house there from Rosa Brenko, a Ukrainian woman. Her partner, Stepan Kereniuk, is a prosperous freelance logger and salmon fisherman. Fulton establishes a friendship with them. There is also an attraction between Fulton and Rosa’s daughter, Tamara. Despite the closeness and affection of Rosa’s and Stepan's relationship, there is conflict brought about by Stepan’s heavy drinking. He is a cheerful drunk, neither violent nor cruel, and he makes liberal provison unfailingly for Rosa and Tamara. Rosa, however - the dominant one in the partnership - is an uncompromising teetotaller and opposed - sometimes violently so - to Stepan’s drunkenness. Tamara confesses her fears to Fulton of an imminent violent confrontation. The summer is busy: with logging in full swing on the Island, Fulton flies a steady flow of injured loggers from the remote camps to the Blackfish Harbour hospital, and to the major medical centres in Vancouver. His work, and living in the small, close-knit community, bring him into contact, and occasional conflict, with many of of its notables, among them Ichabod, an itinerant preacher, and Hawaiian Jim, a crippled and embittered former rum-runner. With their significant parts to play as the story unfolds are: Sergeant Prokopchuk of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a disciplinarian - known to all behind his back as ‘Porkchop’: Olaf Pedersen, the village hardware merchant: Alice Royle, an eccentric, irascible elderly Englishwoman: Julie Paulen, Prokopchuk’s fiancée, who is free with her favours: Billy Langewische, a contract logger, close friend of Stepan, whose bizarre, untimely death triggers the final tragedy. Of all these characters, the two who stand out are Rosa and Stepan. Stepan has been making efforts to curb his drinking or, at least, to conceal it more from Rosa, but the death of Billy Langewische brings about a monumental bender. Rosa, enraged, snaps at last, throws Stepan out, and vows that the relationship is ended. Stepan, drunk, takes his shotgun to Rosa, and then, in an odd black comedy, is arrested by Prokopchuk. Fulton is eye-witness to the events. Although the crime appears cut and dried, there are doubts that the killing was premeditated. When Stepan is taken away to face trial in Vancouver, many in the community are convinced that, if not acquitted, he will get off lightly: the possibility of hanging is not considered. Not all are sympathetic: the strongest antipathy comes from Tamara who now hates Stepan and wishes him dead. Unable to remain at Blackfish Harbour, she leaves to begin a new life in Vancouver. Fulton, however, knowing the facts, mindful of their friendship, cannot condemn Stepan. He gives evidence at the trial, and attempts to speak out on Stepan’s behalf. He is appalled and embittered when a Guilty verdict is returned, and Stepan is sentenced to death. When Prokopchuk, jeopardising his position and career in doing so, organises a petition for clemency, Fulton adds his name willingly. Tamara, hearing of this, feels betrayed, and ends the relationship. The long summer runs out unhappily for Fulton, and he is relieved when the orders come for him to take up his new Air Force duties. Before leaving for Ontario, he is able to visit Stepan in prison, and finds him remorseful and quietly accepting of his fate. The story concludes with an Epilogue set many years later, and far away, in which, with some irony, the changes in public attitudes are pointed up, with the likelihood that, in these times, the outcome for Stepan might have been much different. * The Book is presented in the format of: (1) PROLOGUE - MANITOBA. (2) MAIN NARRATIVE - BRITISH COLUMBIA. (3) EPILOGUE - SOMERSET.

About the Author

The Author, born in Wyoming, is a former military and civil pilot who has flown professionally and extensively in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific and Africa, while pursuing a simultaneous career as a writer and broadcaster. Now retired, he devotes his time to writing from the safe haven of a cottage overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in the Duchy of Cornwall, England.