Still Waters

excerpt

question. Don’t make me answer it tonight, please.”
“I’m sorry, Tyne. I don’t want to push you.” He took a deep breath
and let it out slowly. Their eyes met and held. “I’ve told myself a
thousand times these past few days that I have to wait … to give you
time. But my heart obviously doesn’t want to listen. I love you, Tyne,
and I want to marry you.” The last words came out on a rush, then he
took a deep breath and sat back in his chair. “There, I’ve said it and I
can’t take it back, and I mean every word of it.”
Tyne struggled for control. She hadn’t dreamed … never suspected
that his feelings went so deep. And marriage? Oh no, Cam, I’m not
ready. Can’t we just go on being friends?
She lowered her head and began moving her water glass around
the table, watching small wet circles form on the polished top. She
searched for words, but the only ones that would come were the ones
her heart had just cried. “Can’t we just go on being friends for a while
longer?”
He reached out and covered her hand with his own. Looking up,
Tyne saw the sadness and resignation in his eyes.
“Forgive me, Tyne, I spoke too soon. Yes, we’ll be friends all our
lives, of that I’m sure. But I won’t give up praying that, someday,
you’ll love me and want to marry me.”
As Deedee placed their meals in front of them with her usual
cheerful remarks, Tyne wondered, with some surprise, if that day
was closer than she realized after all. 
At eleven o’clock Tyne was sitting at the kitchen table in her pyjamas
and housecoat, drinking hot chocolate and trying to sort out
the events of the evening and the feelings they had aroused in her.
She heard the outside door open, followed by Moe’s footsteps on the
stairs.
“Hi,” Tyne looked up when her roommate appeared at the door to
the kitchen, “how was the big date?”
Moe kicked her shoes off and threw her handbag on a chair. “Fun,”
she said. “Ken’s a nice guy. Don’t know why I haven’t noticed that
before.”
“I don’t know why, either. After all, you’ve dated him on and off
since our first year in training.”

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Poodie James

excerpt

“Sonny, there’s something we must pursue. It seems the mayor
is recruiting field commanders for his campaign against Poodie
James.”
The stream’s volume was half what it was in the spring when the
snow melt coursed out of the mountains and the creek churned
brown and expanded into pastures, fields and meadows, ripping
young trees out of the banks. In autumn, with the air warm in sunlight
and chill in shadow, the creek ran low and clear among the
boulders and idled a while in the little lake behind the falls before it
made its leap. The force and weight of the water shook the ground,
stirred the air, settled mist onto Poodie’s face. Vapor fashioned the
sun’s rays into a thousand rainbows that intersected, combined and
danced above the creek’s plunge into itself. No trout broke the surface
of the pool below the falls today, and there were no fishermen
along the creek, just the peace that he found in this place.
Poodie felt at one with water. He needed to be near it, with it.
He felt happiness at the pool, playing in the water with children,
teaching them to swim. He pulled his wagon alongside the canals
that brought water to the apples, slow narrow ditches flowing
through overhangs of weeds, wide ones rushing through concrete
channels, pouring through sluice gates into orchards. He loved to
be by the river, by the creeks and streams that fed it. The Columbia
flowing past his cabin occupied his dreams, called to him, pulled at
him.
The wind blew down from the north, whipping and churning
the Columbia into fields of waves that rose and hung suspended
and foaming before they collapsed back into the river. Poodie
imagined that the waves were creatures popping up from the
depths of the river, dissolving, sinking, reassembling and elevating
again to catch glimpses of the world above the surface. The idea
was no more fantastic, he thought, than life in the ocean; coral
reefs that seemed to be stone but were animals, fish with lanterns
growing from their foreheads, fields of worms waving in currents
like grass blowing in the wind, whales the size of houses …

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562868

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08W7SHCMV

Ken Kirkby – Warrior Painter

excerpt

the press virtually ignored it. That indicates just how regional this
country was as recently as 1992.
Coincidentally, Revenue Canada declared Ken in arrears on taxes.
He was meticulous about paying taxes and had employed an accountant
in Toronto to manage his financial affairs during the years devoted to the
Arctic project. The gigantic painting had been costly and over the four years
of its creation he had raised a great deal of money to finance the work, but as
Isumataq was never sold it was technically a work in progress and therefore
not taxable.
He reviewed all his records and redid the calculations.
“I do not owe anything, and I can prove it,” he told his Vancouver
accountant.
“File for bankruptcy,” he was advised. “It’s impossible to fight
government. Revenue Canada has the resources to wear you into the
ground.”
Ken insisted that the papers proved his case and was certain that if he
had the chance to explain it, the tax department would agree.
Karen was beyond furious. “You’re going to get that Viking thing going
again, and it will be another bloody war! Just file for the damn bankruptcy.”
He was dismayed. “But, why should I capitulate when I can prove that
I don’t owe them anything?”
She was rigid with frost. “Because this will hurt my career!”
Ken felt the chill wrap around his spine. This would be a battle with no
winners. He thought it over carefully, but there was only one right thing to
do. He contacted Revenue Canada with a proposal. “You appoint a federal
court tax judge, and in the Inuit tradition, we’ll meet and agree to carry out
the discussion until the matter is settled one way or another.”
His offer was accepted, and on the agreed date, Ken gathered all his
information and made his appearance at the assigned place and time. A
striking, no-nonsense woman entered the boardroom within a few short
minutes of his arrival. She introduced herself as the Judge.
Ken had previous experience conducting his own legal defence, but
this one seemed to have more riding on it. He began, “I would ask for the
opportunity to tell you my story. I have no problem paying what is rightfully
due because I believe together we can achieve things that cannot be done…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562902

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CB8W4CG

The Incidentals

Old Mathew’s Donkey
On regular days he would get up at dawn
even before the Morning Star
shone upon the firmament, old Mathew
would go to the stable and find his
donkey awake and ready for the days
chores at the orchard where the master
would cut the ripened watermelons or
at the grapevine field during harvest
and the donkey knew the load he had
to carry on his back, as fate had it
and the old Mathew also knew his
years were passing and he had done all
he had to do, he had raised two sons
who both lived in the big city and Lenio
his pride, the most beautiful girl in the village
who graced him with a grandson as
the holy books had allotted to him, as
per tradition which he had followed
and he had talked to the trees with their
wise silence and he had many discourses
with boulders he’d pass, old Mathew,
like a bird too, many a time
he had sung with the birds, sounds
that came out of his lips ravaged by
the scorching sunlight and like
a wise owl, he had taught wisdom
to his children yes old Mathew had lived
a simple life like all other pious people
who revered life in every form
nothing was left for him to see or
to experience other than that moment
when the joyous Hades will come
to claim his take out of the man
who had nothing left undone
just like his donkey, he had led
the life of the donkey that this morning
he found in the stable, awake and ready
for the daily chores in the orchard

https://draft2digital.com/book/3745812

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763637