I stepped into Bill’s and ordered one of his homemade bearclaws and a tall cup of black coffee.  Bill was a Floridian who’d moved up to Haines Junction more than twenty-five years ago.  I’d heard somewhere that he was a Vietnam vet but he never mentioned the war so I never mentioned it to him.  And even though he was an American, he didn’t do the predictable patriotic things most expats did such as flying Old Glory and exploding fireworks on the Fourth of July.  In fact the only time I even heard him reference his native country occurred last winter.  Something scandalous had happened in Washington and even the locals up here were intrigued.  The Champagne man who owned the ATV and snowmobile dealership just down the street had asked Bill what he thought of the state of affairs in his country.

Bill had been wiping down the counter but he stopped and stared at the man sitting on the stool before him.  With his wooly white beard and scarred face, Bill bore the likeness of a jaded Santa Claus.

“I didn’t move into heaven to keep tabs on hell,” he said.  Then Bill slammed his fists on the counter and grabbed everyone’s attention.  I’d been sitting alone in a booth, working on a bowl of black bear chili.  “Listen up!” Bill hollered.  “If you want to discuss current events in the United States, do it elsewhere.  I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to listen to it in my diner.”

But on this quiet morning Bill was friendly and sedate.  Bach filled his diner and I noticed that he’d been writing in a journal.

He handed over my change and asked me whether I reckoned it was going to snow.  I told him I hoped so and he smiled, said he did too.

I sometimes wondered if Bill suspected me.  There was this kindred energy whenever we locked eyes.  But I didn’t worry about Bill.  Different circumstances might have guided us to Haines Junction but we both desired the same thing.  And we were getting it too.  I think we sensed the repose in one another.

Gathering my cup of coffee and pastry, I left Bill’s and headed toward the last building on this side of the street, a two-story structure that more resembled a ski lodge than a public library.  But it was appropriate architecture for this bucolic community.

As I walked the clouds continued to thicken.

It grew cold and still.

I wanted to be home before the snow began to fall.

The first floor of the library comprised a book collection that was almost endearing in its degree of deficiency.  But I hadn’t come to check out books.

I passed by the front desk and climbed the spiral staircase to the second floor which consisted of a study room, the periodical archives, and a computer lab that provided the only dial-up internet access in all of Haines Junction.

I entered the lab and sat down at one of the three unoccupied workstations.