(sample)

chapter one
Foundation

Though the weather remained warmed by the gentle arid zephyr flowing softly from the Sonoran desert at its terminus in the Okanagan valley, the air of Arawana was flavoured with the scent of emerging autumn. The soft fragrance of thousands of apples ripening on thousands of tree limbs spread through the town's bright atmosphere. The strongest aroma rising from overripe windfalls exhaling ethylene, the plant hormone common to apples and pears in the early days of their late life as decomposing seed carriers.

On the day Devil Brigham returned from his long trek astride Rascal with the tethered and combative blond filly yearling following behind him, William Kennet, 'Sailor Bill' to his cohorts, stood outside his family's cabin tent above the village of Naramata drinking his morning coffee. Kennet allowed his eyes to sweep the rolling horizon of hills and valleys but also saw the untapped wealth nested within every knot of human industry blended into the vista.

Kennet felt what the Norse warlord gone a-viking must have felt in 793 when he first sighted the proud Monastery of Lindisfarne; a holy island in Northumbria where the cult of Saint Cuthbert clung in all its gold and silver glory. But unlike that Norse warlord, he wouldn't rob all he could carry to leave only death and destruction in his wake; he would take only a taste of everything that was produced here and sold elsewhere. He was, after-all, a businessman experienced in the buying and selling of sought-after commodities.

It was important to a practiced parasite that the host be kept alive.

Kennet listened to his two daughters kicking up a growling fuss as they faced off against his wife Sheila-Anne inside the tent. They wanted griddle cakes for breakfast in the Arawana Hotel dining room instead of the porridge Sheila-Anne had prepared. Myrna and Clara didn't like porridge no matter how much brown sugar and sweet cream it was camouflaged with. The hotel dining room served fat and fluffy griddle cakes with butter and stewed fruit compotes of blackberry, blueberry, or cherry to smother them with. Each girl finishing breakfast there with smiling lips and cheeks painted purple or red much to the dismay of their mother and the secret delight of their father.

The girls' stubbornness made Kennet smile. They knew what they wanted and refused to settle for anything less, just like their old man.

Kennet believed stubbornness was more favourably viewed as determination, and his determination had lifted him from abject poverty to where he wanted to be in life. And at that moment, building a new home in Arawana for his family while new business opportunities open up for him was where he wanted to be.

The south Okanagan valley with its acres of fruit trees and vegetable farms was a goldmine for his transportation company. At the same time the larger towns provided fresh customers for his other, less wholesome products.

All the towns from Kelowna to Osoyoos were littered with customers for a secret commerce that would make him rich, save the one he chose to make his home. Arawana, named for the 1906 song 'Arrah Wanna' written by Theodore F. Morse, Kennet vowed would remain pristine.

Kennet would ensure his new hometown would remain a wholesome place for his daughters to grow up in, and being wholesome it would thrive even in these darkened days of the Great Depression.

Three events had coincided to draw Kennet far from his home-base in Vancouver to the Okanagan valley to expand his empire. The first was the reliable Trans-Provincial Highway from Vancouver to Alberta that wove a flat, tarred gravel ribbon through the southern foot of the valley on its way to the Crowsnest Pass through the Rocky Mountains. The second was the recent availability of gas powered refrigeration units for the fleet of trucks that proudly bore his name. The third, and most nostalgically lamentable for Kennet, was the unfortunate 21st Amendment, repealing the Volstead Act of 1919 to make liquor sales once again legal in the United States.

Kennet, in his nom de guerre 'Sailor Bill', had grown his wealth running Canadian Club whiskey across the border in swift, two-masted sloops. But that ended on December 5th, 1933 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the end of prohibition. Like many rum-runners who followed the landscape of politics, Kennet had predicted the cross-border gravy train was drying up to dregs before Roosevelt went and smashed the tureen like an unwelcome dinner guest.

Finding himself landlocked, Kennet invested in a new form of transporting goods, legal ones this time; refrigerated cargo trucks buying produce cheap in far flung areas to deliver it to his Vancouver depot fresh as the hour it was picked. He'd begun with the invasion of Fraser valley farms, but the abundance of fruit and vegetables grown in the Okanagan made this a land of opportunity for him. His strategy was to buy cheap here and sell high down on the highly-populated pacific coast. Gasoline and truck drivers were cheap.

The Okanagan was a land begging to be staked, and drive a stake through its heart he would, just like he planted his stake in downtown Vancouver long ago as a wayward delinquent, rallying Irish, French, and mongrel rough lads around him to form the Beatty Street Boys.

As a juvenile street gang they committed strong-arm robberies and break-ins and naively thought they were rich from the spoils. As they grew more sophisticated, they added a protection racket and a numbers betting pool. But when Kennet took notice of prohibition in the United States he knew selling booze bought legal or boosted in Canada across the border to other criminals was the pathway to true riches.

He led a handful of boys from Beatty Street who followed him into this new method of gathering ill-gotten wealth. They started with a stolen and repainted twenty foot dory, rowing it across Boundary Bay in the dead of night from White Rock to Blaine. It wasn't long by reinvesting his profits, they were sailing a single-masted sloop from Vancouver to Bellingham, adding a two-master, and soon had a small fleet venturing deeper into United States waters and wealthier markets. Not an hour in a day passed without a fully laden Kennet sloop gracing the pacific northwest waters; sailing south with crates of bottled spirits or north with bags of currency.

During those years he grew deep pockets that bought powerful friends in Vancouver. Then he met Sheila-Anne and later sired his girls, making his life close to complete. But the tide turned for Sailor Bill in 1933, so he turned his eyes from the sea to landward with his new fleet of refrigerated trucks, working his way ultimately to the Okanagan. Here he would put down roots and grow his empire even larger, his enterprises cashing in on the coast and the interior.

"You seein' dat, Bill?"

Kennet pulled his gaze away from the lake view.

It was his right hand man and lead enforcer Léon Chéret standing nearby looking at something up the hill. Kennet followed his gaze and watched a cowboy on horseback leading a blonde pony emerging from Main Street in the slumbering town above them.

"Dey got cowboys, 'ere?" Chéret chuckled.

"No, Léon. I think that's their Chief of Police."

"Don' got no Chief. Dey Provincials like da rest up 'ere."

"I know. But I've heard that many people still call him Chief."

Chéret hocked and spat on the ground, following the mounted man with his eyes, "Ech. 'e don' look so big."

Kennet smiled at Chéret.

His man was half French and half negro, a large and capable mulatto he'd put up against any man. Chéret had fists of iron and handled the club inside his jacket like a home run batter and the straight razor he kept in his pocket like a surgeon. Always decked out in the finest suits and hats his money could buy, he was one of the original rough Beatty Street Boys who was dedicated to him and had saved his life more times than Kennet cared to admit.

"We'll see." Kennet said, "We don't go looking for trouble up here, Léon. The Kennet Transportation Company is a legitimate trucking firm and that's what we want everyone to believe. We play it friendly until we're pushed."

"Den we push back." Léon said.

"Yes. Only then, and only on my say-so." Kennet warned and turned his eyes to stonemason Joe Morelli's crew working around the carpenters raising his new home, "For now we need to get to know everything about this copper before we meet him. I'd rather make him a friend than an enemy."

Chéret hocked and spat again at the thought of making friends with another flatfoot instead of laying him out with his club.

"As for the other business." Kennet squinted at Chéret, "Remember what I told you."

"Don' crap where we eat."

"That's right. And stop spitting, Léon." Kennet said as he walked closer to the building site, "It makes you seem crude and uncultured."

The breeze climbing up the hill brought the earthy fragrance of the sun-warmed lake with it and ruffled Kennet's hair as he made his way toward the growing skeleton of his new home. He missed the salt rich winds coming off the sea during his smuggling days, but was certainly enjoying the quiet of this small Okanagan town. It brought him peace.

'Arrah Wanna, on my honour, I'll take care of you, I'll be kind and true, we can love and bill and coo' the lively old song rolled through his mind.

"Mister Morelli." Kennet called as he closed on the rising house.

Morelli lifted his head from the fireplace he was creating; mating round, glacial till stones together with thick mortar, assembling the smooth rocks into a perfectly level and squared box before he placed the firebricks within it. The fireplace was one of three on the main floor and the roots of each were anchored deep in the stone foundation Morelli and his crew had also cobbled together.

The stonemasons had reached ground level from the pit that labourers dug a week before under his direction, including pony walls that would support the load-bearing walls on the main and upper floors. The voids between and around the stone walls were backfilled with sand and tamped to pack it tight, anchoring the house that would stand well back from the silt cliff that edged the rear of Kennet's property to the west. Kennet made a mental note to have a white picket fence installed there to keep the girls away from the drop.

"Yes, Mister Kennet?" Morelli set down his trowel and climbed out through the gap between studs.

"How is it coming?"

"We'll have the ground floor chimneys and fireplaces finished today and can start on the smaller ones in the bedrooms upstairs as soon as the floor is laid."

"So, ahead of schedule."

"Yes, sir."

"Good. That's good." Kennet said, admiring the man's craftsmanship and appreciating that his crew kept working diligently even though their boss' back was turned, "Have the inserts for the girl's bedrooms arrived?"

"They'll be delivered to my shop tomorrow."

"Cast iron coal-burning with the thick glass slats?"

"As you ordered."

"And the keyed doors to keep the girls out of them?"

"Of course."

"Excellent, Mister Morelli. Most excellent."

Morelli made a little bow with his head.

"I know you live on the other side of the lake, " Kennet said, "But what can you tell me about the policeman people call Chief over here."

"Brigham?"

"Is that his name? Brigham?"

"Yes."

"What's his nature?"

Morelli shrugged, "I've never met him face-to-face, but he's been in the papers a couple times and the townspeople here like him. I've heard he's a tough one. A man criminals don't choose to cross twice."

"Lays down the law with a heavy hand?"

"Yes, sir. People say he lives up to his name."

"Brigham?"

"No, his Christian name." Morelli squinted at Kennet who was backlit by the morning sun, "Devil."

"Devil. Devil Brigham." Kennet repeated, "Good to know. Thank you, Mister Morelli."

As Morelli climbed back up to his work, Kennet again looked up the hill but the cowboy had gone.

"Devil." Kennet whispered, "I guess we'll see."

•

Kennet and Léon weren't the only people who noticed Devil's return.

Further north along Lakeview Loop, Miss Jessie Folger stood at her office window in the Tumble Down Lakeside Hotel watching the hive of activity around Sailor Bill's growing house that had been a fresh dug trench less than two weeks before.

The Tumble Down Lakeside Hotel was neither on the shore of a lake nor indeed a hotel. It was a brothel, also known colloquially as a fast-sheet joint, the moniker deriving from the policy that bed linens be changed after each john so no man discovered another's spillage.

Jessie Folger was its proud owner and Madam.

She was frowning. She didn't like close neighbours, and especially didn't like this one.

"He's brought trouble with him." Jessie softly told her reflection in the glass, "I feel it in my bones."

Jessie recalled brothels she'd operated in the past that unfortunately found themselves too near civilian homes and attracted constant complaints from the prudish women who resided near it. It was ironic that the husbands of the women who complained the loudest were some of her most frequent and loyal customers. Then again, perhaps that was the reason the wives complained with such venom.

Lust was a man's sport and Jessie knew how to extract the most money to quench that heat for them. Her parlour had always been a luxurious oasis, free of nagging wives and screeching children, populated with the finest young female flesh; girls who smiled and smelled fresh and clean always.

It was ironic as well that the Coppers who responded to those wives' shrill complaints by raiding her bordellos were also good customers, enjoying the law enforcement discount that Jessie offered.

None of the Arawana coppers took advantage of that discount and she was certain Devil saw to that.

To be a good neighbour Jessie always ensured the front gardens of her houses were the finest on the block. When charity cans were rattled on the street, Jessie's girls were the first to fold dollar bills small enough to stuff into the coin slots. When the Spanish Influenza washed through her neighbourhood, Jessie spent most of her days brewing large pots of soup and baking loaves of bread, and it was her girls who delivered them to quarantined family homes with only silk scarves over their mouths and noses for protection.

It was a madness-making balance Jessie and her girls strived to maintain, being good neighbours to people who often times loathed and complained about them.

She had found paradise on Lakeview Loop in Arawana as the only house on that u-shaped lane. There was no reason for anyone to walk past the Tumble Down Lakeside Hotel except for teenaged boys and girls on their way to Lover's Lane, and she cherished a police department who left them alone so long as they behaved.

Like she had in the past, her large yard was mowed weekly and her gardens were bright with flowers until the first dusting of snow buried them each winter. Though there were no neighbours within earshot, Jessie still insisted the phonograph be held at a modest volume and loud men were cautioned to mind their manners by Bill, her capable bouncer. Any john who caused trouble as he left her establishment was unwelcome from that day forward.

But now a new category of trouble had come to disturb her peace.

Jessie shuddered seeing the large, well-dressed lout hanging around her new neighbour. The lout had filled her doorway this past Saturday night, a solid light-skinned negro, dressed to the nines as he walked slowly around her parlour like he was inspecting the meat case in a grocery store. The expression on his face as he ran his eyes over her girls was carnivorous and dark despite the smirk on his face; a smile as warm as a circling shark.

When Bill offered the newcomer a drink, the man took and downed it in a single swallow, then without so much as a thank you, dropped the glass to clatter on the bar and walked away.

His voice was deep and rich and he introduced himself to Jessie as "Monsieur Chéret".

"You 'ave a nice place 'ere." Chéret had said surveying the decor, "You need to be protected."

"We get by just fine, Monsieur Chéret." Jessie struggled to keep the tremor out of her voice, looking up at a man two heads taller than her who radiated menace like a stove's heat, "We don't allow trouble at the Tumble Down Lakeside Hotel."

"What ef trouble comes, 'eh? What den?" Chéret smiled, more like a jackal than a welcome visitor.

"Then we have Bill." Jessie said, nodding toward the bar.

"Tha' old dog?" Chéret chuckled low and mocking, "We'll see. Jus' might test 'is teeth one day."

Then the man swaggered through the parlour, pinching one of the girls' bottom cheeks and swayed out the door like a dandy returning to his master at the construction site.

Now she watched Chéret slowly walking his orbit around his master, hawking and spitting the foulness from his black soul. Jessie had never been one to wish ill on another person, but if God saw fit to send a lightning bolt right then to turn Chéret to a pile of smouldering ash, it wouldn't trouble her conscience in the least.

Chéret hadn't been back since that night but Jessie Folger was relieved to see Devil's return all the same and planned to visit him at the police station in the next few days. Devil was sure to be able to deal with Chéret, but she still had Bill keep the loaded .38 revolver behind the bar just in case he didn't.