For many years I was a criminal lawyer. By the ’80’s I was travelling far and wide and was involved in a number of notorious cases. One of them was in the Yukon. An old prospector Al Kulan, had been killed in a bar in Ross River Yukon with a single shot from a .357 revolver. He had been killed by his old friend John ‘Jack’ Rolls, my client.

For a few years I was a character in a John Grisham novel; a young ambitious lawyer, tough cases, sex, drugs and always a memorable cast of characters and it was fun! It couldn’t last of course but the stories are there forever. And this is one of them.

The protagonist in my story, Beau ‘Bear’ Jackson, is me or at best my alter ego. I gave him a name and a nickname I have always liked. I’m the author, that’s my prerogative. This is fiction. I did meet a US marine in Whitehorse, a bitter Vietnam vet who I spent one incredible night with, a night which ended with him stark naked in front of me in my room, demanding that I inspect his war wounds. But his name was not ‘Shrap’ and he didn’t have two mercenary mates. I did meet a world class cellist in Whitehorse but her name was not ‘Penny’. A prominent psychiatrist did testify at the second trial but his name was not Dr. Jonathan Pringle. In real life the victim was Al Kulan, in my story Hank Woods. In real life my client was John ‘Jack’ Rolls, in the story Joe Stokes.

There are sixteen chapters. This is Chapter One. Let me introduce you to me, Beau ‘Bear’ Jackson.

Chapter One

FRIENDS FOR LIFE

September 12, 1977: He lay motionless on the floor of the only bar in Ross River, Yukon. Hank Woods had been dropped by a single bullet from a .357 magnum revolver. The shooter now seated on a bar stool over at the long mahogany bar, put the gun down, spun it along the bar and told the stunned bartender, “There. Now call the RCMP!”

Joe Stokes was an old prospector and a lifelong friend of Hank Woods. You could have heard a pin drop; everyone knew these two old prospectors. They had searched together for decades, trekking the hinterland each summer, driven by the dream of riches that had fueled the imaginations of men since the days of the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898.

They were typical of the type of men drawn to this remote, difficult land; tough, resourceful and independent. They’d grown close over the years, their shared mutual dependence helpful in the always unpredictable events of life in the wild; fighting off marauding grizzlies, fording raging rivers, falling from high pathways, these two had faced much together and at their best trusted one another with their lives and secrets. It was the kind of bond that tie men together forever.

They would talk for hours late into the night, the howl of wolves echoing through the darkness, the Northern Lights giving awe to the majesty of the Yukon, each man swearing a lifelong oath of friendship, one that would never be broken.

Hank had made Joe Stokes swear on all he held sacred that if either man was to ‘make it’, if either man struck it rich they would share their bounty with the other, “This is where I’m at peace” Joe admitted, “I can’t ever imagine not having this life, prospecting in the summer and wintering in Ross River.” Hank, always more reflective, would nod in silent confirmation.

And so it was, for twenty eight years these two men, joined in common declaration and blessed with a friendship which had never failed them, trekked the Yukon, fueled by their singular dream of riches beyond imagination.

One day, late in the summer of 1973, Hank returned to their campsite. He had gone off alone for ten days, as they often did, telling Joe that he had a ‘good feeling’ in his gut. They kept nothing from each other, confident that one man’s good fortune would be shared by both. That is what they had always said.

But this time Hank seemed a bit different; he wasn’t straightforward when Joe asked where he’d prospected and it struck him as odd when Hank told him he was going back to Whitehorse the next day. They still had six weeks left before the winter weather would force them back to Ross River and he couldn’t remember the year that Hank had cut the prospecting season by even a few days let alone six weeks.

But as the late afternoon wore into night and the two men shared some rye whisky and the tall tales which often came with drinking and friendship, Joe’s doubts evaporated and he told himself to stop worrying.

The next day Hank packed up his gear and with his pack horse loaded down, began his trek down the mountain, turning back one last time waving at his old friend, “Take care of yourself you Old Bastard, I don’t want to have come back up here and save your sorry ass. Again!” his laughter floating on the air as he disappeared from view. The uneasiness Joe had felt when Hank had announced he was heading into Whitehorse returned, whispering dark thoughts in his ear.

And once again Joe brushed it off, angry that his trust for his great friend was being so easily shaken. Doubts are like seeds. Once they’re planted, they take root, and sprout and grow like noxious weeds in a garden, strangling things that are healthy, blocking the sunlight. And doubt had found its dark way into Joe’s world, growing with each day as he continued his search in vain for the promises of the Yukon.

Alone, all that late summer of 1973, Joe found himself descending into a dark place. He had to get back to Whitehorse. He had to reconnect with his lifelong friend, that was the only way to kill this doubt that had invaded his mind.

“LOCAL PROSPECTOR STRIKES IT RICH” screamed the front page of the Whitehorse Star. The news hit Whitehorse like a hurricane. Word of Hank Woods’ good fortune was on everyone’s lips. Joe had not heard from Hank at all, so when the bartender at the Taku hotel slid his favourite drink across the bar and asked him how he and Hank had found the copper, Joe reeled back; it was as though he’d been hit by a huge wave. He’d had no idea!

But he knew right away that this was why Hank had left so abruptly. “He’d struck it rich!” and he had betrayed everything they had sworn to one other. “God damn him! He swore to me. On his honour!”

It wasn’t unusual at the end of the summer for these hardened old prospectors to come back into Whitehorse and spend a solid week, carousing and drinking and womanizing and telling their tall tales to anyone who would listen. A man could carry open liquor on the streets of Whitehorse and there was always some saloon open, 24 hours a day.

And this year, Joe sank deep into that place, increasingly angry with Hank, who had still not come to talk with him. And as doubt leads to distrust, anger can lead to hate. And hate was taking root in Joe’s deep recesses. He had been betrayed.

Hank, in fact, was out of town.

It turned out the copper he had discovered was actually one of the world’s largest copper deposits and he’d had been swept up in the flurry of business partners and lawyers and agreements and all the hangers-on that come with the prospect of incredible wealth.

As it turns out, Hank didn’t return to Whitehorse that fall and he didn’t winter in Ross River either. Word was he might never come back.

This copper claim was now being called the greatest find in the history of the British Commonwealth. Hank Woods was going to be one of Canada’s richest men. The Cyprus Anvil mine would be built and Hank would never have to work another day in his life.

As the years passed Joe Stokes grew increasingly bitter. As one season passed into another Joe repeated the rhythm of his life in the north, prospecting late spring to late summer, wintering in Ross River, each day finding his way to the bar in Ross River, speaking with no one in particular, drinking himself into a drunken rage, spitting into the wind, “If that sonofabitch ever comes here again, I’ll kill him!”

For his part, Hank embraced his good fortune and incredible wealth with enthusiasm, spending his money before he woke up and found out it was all just a dream.

He moved to West Vancouver and built a spectacular mansion in the British Properties, at the time the most prestigious address in BC. And he bought a Rolls Royce. But over the years the initial elation wore off and the thrill of being able to buy whatever the hell he wanted, wore off as well. And these fancy people in West Vancouver weren’t his people, they didn’t get him and he sure as hell didn’t get them. He decided to move back to the Yukon.

Word was everywhere in Ross River. ‘Ya hear Hank’s moving back. Gonna’ build up on the flats overlooking town’. And this time the ‘Yukon telegram’ was dead on. Hank had his mansion in West Vancouver torn down and shipped up the coast to the port at Skagway, in Alaska. From there he had it freighted to the headwaters above the White Pass, put on barges and brought to Ross River. Brick by brick the people watched Hank’s mansion rise above the Ross River where it met the Pelly.

Everybody was thrilled, Hank was what their own dreams looked like and he’d come back to be with them. Everybody was thrilled, except Joe Stokes. For Joe this was the final treachery, a mocking of everything they had pledged and it was inescapable. This mocking mansion rose above town. It was the first thing Joe saw in the morning and the last thing at night as he staggered home from the bar.

And then, the final straw.

One clear day late in the spring of 1976 a big Chinook helicopter appeared in the skies above Ross River, a heavy load suspended beneath the chopper, shrouded in canvas. As the Chinook came closer people gathered, even Joe wanted to know what this excitement was all about. When the canvas was stripped away Joe’s jaw dropped, first in astonishment and then disbelief. It was a Rolls Royce! Hank Woods had flown his Rolls Royce into Ross River. A Rolls Royce. What could be more insulting, more disrespectful, more intentional than what Woods had just done. There weren’t even any real passable roads in Ross River, just a few kilometres of corduroy to permit winter travel through town. Why would you bring a Rolls Royce to such a place? Joe knew why. It wasn’t to drive, it was to mock him. To make him, Joe Stokes, a laughing stock.

Joe headed off to the saloon.

People in Ross River knew Joe Stokes. He was harmless, he’d never been in any trouble, none whatsoever. Not even a bar fight. And he wasn’t the first old prospector who went a little stir crazy as the walls of the cold winter prison these men called Ross River closed in before the spring thaw.

Joe Stokes was charged with first degree murder. At the trial, Sam Webster, an old timer himself testified, “Oh hell … oh, sorry your Honour that just slipped out – Joe didn’t mean nuthin’ by it. There was always one of us going off about somethin’ or other that made us mad, we didn’t think much of it at the time. I guess, lookin’ back, I guess we were wrong.”

“Did he ever threaten Hank Woods?” pressed the prosecutor.

“Hell yeah … damn it, sorry your honour … all the time and never, I mean he was angry no doubt but like I said we didn’t give it no never mind, Joe was just blowing off steam. If you counted all the threats we would shout at each other over the years, there’d be no one left in Ross River.”

“But did he ever threaten to kill Hank Woods?”

“Well yes, there was that one time. It must’ve been sometime in March of 1975. Old Joe had been drinking a lot and I remember him standing up in the bar and screaming, ‘If Hank Woods ever comes in this bar again. I will shoot him dead. On the spot!’. Yeah I remember that.”

Next, Chapter Two: The First Trial