Campbell's Kingdom

CHAPTER TWO

It took me just a week to get to Calgary. Taking into account that this included a night’s flying across the Atlantic and two and a half days by train across Canada I think I did pretty well. It did not take me long to clear up my own affairs, but the major obstacle was foreign exchange. I got over this by emigrating and here I had two slices of luck: Maclean-Harvey knew the High Commissioner and the Canadian Government were subsidising immigrant travel by air via Trans-Canada so that the quickest route as far as Montreal became also the cheapest. I think, too, that my sense of urgency communicated itself to those responsible for clearing my papers.

Throughout the journey I had that queer feeling of detachment that comes to anyone suddenly jerked out of the rut of life and thrust upon a new country. I remember feeling very tired, but physical exhaustion was overlaid by mental excitement. I felt like a pioneer. There was even a touch of the knight errant in the picture I built of myself, tearing across the globe to tilt at the Rocky Mountains and make an old man’s dream come true. It was all a little unreal.

This sense of unreality allowed me to sit back and relax, content to absorb the vastness of Canada from a carriage-window. The only piece of organisation, apart from getting myself on the ‘plane as an immigrant, was to arrange for a friend to look up the newspaper reports of my grandfather’s trial and send a resume of it on to me when I could give him an address. The rest I had left to chance.

The night before we reached Calgary, just after we had left Moose Jaw, the coloured attendant brought a telegram to my sleeper. It was from Donald McCrae and Acheson:

For Bruce Campbell Wetheral, Canadian Pacific Railways, Coach BII, The Dominion, No. 7.

IMPORTANT YOU COME TO OUR OFFICES IMMEDIATELY ON ARRIVAL. PURCHASERS HAVE GIVEN US TILL TOMORROW NIGHT TO COMPLETE DEAL. THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO DISPOSE OF PROPERTY. SIGNED — ACHESON.

I lay back and stared at the message, thinking of all the cabling that must have gone on before they were able to locate me on a train halfway across Canada. They were certainly a very thorough and determined firm. They’d have me sell whether I wanted to or not. I crumpled the form up and dropped it on the floor. Like Fothergill they found it impossible to accept my attitude.

We arrived at Calgary at 8.30 a.m. Mountain Time and I went straight to the Pallister Hotel. It was a palatial palace, railway-owned like so many of the Canadian hotels, a symbol of the way the country had been opened up. I had breakfast and then rang Acheson’s office and made an appointment for eleven o’clock. That gave me time to have a look round. Calgary is a cow town, the ranching capital of Alberta, but there was little evidence of this in the streets which were cold and dusty. There were good, solid stone buildings in the centre of the town — stores like the Hudson’s Bay Company Store and offices such as those which housed the Calgary Herald — but they dwindled rapidly as the streets ran out into the flat grey of the sky. It was strangely without atmosphere, a quiet, provincial town going about its business.

The firm of Donald McCrae and Acheson had their offices in an old brick building amongst a litter of oil companies. Blown-up photographs of oil derricks and of the Turner Valley field decorated the stairs and from wooden-partitioned offices on the second floor came the clatter of typewriters and the more staccato clacking of a tape machine. By comparison the third floor was quiet, almost reserved. Mahogany doors surrounded a landing that boasted a carpet, a big black leather settee and a pedestal ash tray, the base of which was formed by the bit of a drill. I sat down for a moment on the settee to get my breath. The names of the various firms who had offices on this floor were painted in black on the frosted glass panels of the doors that faced me. There were four doors, the one on my immediate right being that of Donald McCrae and Acheson. But it was the name on the door to my left that caught my eye, for it was the name of the man who had backed my grandfather. At the top was The Roger Fergus Oil Development Company Ltd., and underneath — operating companies: Fergus Leases Ltd., T.R.F. Concessions Ltd., and T. Stokowski-Fergus Oil Company Ltd. The other two doors were occupied by Louis Winnick, Oil Consultant and Surveyor, and Henry Fergus, Stockbroker. Under the latter and newly painted-in was the name — The Larsen Mining and Development Company Ltd.

I glanced at my watch. It was just eleven. I found myself strangely nervous. The atmosphere of the place was one of business and money. Sentiment seemed out of place. I pulled myself to my feet and went through the door marked Donald McCrae and Acheson, Solicitors. A girl secretary asked me my business and showed me into a small waiting room. The place smelt faintly of leather and cigars. The furnishings were Edwardian. But through the open door I saw a young man seated in his shirt sleeves dictating into a dictaphone.

A few minutes later the secretary returned and showed me through into Acheson’s office. He was a big man, rather florid, with smooth cheeks that shone slightly as though they had been rubbed with pumice stone. He had a high, domed forehead and round blue eyes. ‘Mr Wetheral?’ He rose to greet me and his hand was soft and plump. ‘Glad to see you.’ He waved me to a chair and sat down. ‘Cigar?’

I shook my head. Behind him was a portrait of himself in cowboy garb riding a big chestnut. Round the walls were photographs of oil rigs. ‘Pity you didn’t write me before you came out,’ he said. ‘I could have saved you the journey. However, now you’re here maybe I can clear up any points that are worrying you.’ He flicked a switch on the house phone box. ‘Ellen. Bring in the Campbell file, will you? Now then …’ He sat back and clipped the end of a cigar. ‘Fothergill writes that for some reason best known to yourself you don’t want to sell.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not till I’ve seen the place, anyway.’

He gave a grunt. ‘There’s been too much delay already.’ The door opened behind me and the secretary placed a file on his desk. He opened it and flipped through the documents, the tips of his fingers smoothing his cheeks along the line of the jaw. Then he sat back and lit his cigar. ‘I quite appreciate your wanting to see the property before disposing of it, but in this case it’s just not possible. Did Fothergill give you all the details?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I wasn’t able to get the position regarding mineral rights clear and-’

‘Mineral rights!’ He laughed. ‘I wouldn’t worry about the mineral rights, if I were you.’ He leaned back and stared at me out of small, clear blue eyes. ‘It’s oil you’re thinking of, is it? I warned Fothergill to make it perfectly clear to you that there wasn’t any oil. Did he give you my letter?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And you’re not satisfied? All right. Well, let me tell you that Roger Fergus had a geophysical outfit up in the Kingdom last summer and Louis Winnick’s report on that survey finally damns Campbell’s ideas about oil up there as a lot of moonshine.’ He reached forward and pulled a document from the file. ‘Here’s a copy of that report.’ He tossed it on to the desk in front of me. ‘Take it away and read it at your leisure. In any case, the mineral rights don’t belong to you. They belong to Roger Fergus.’

‘But I thought I had a controlling interest in the Campbell Oil Exploration Company?’

‘Certainly you do. But the mineral rights were mortgaged as security for the cash Fergus advanced the company. Of course,’ he added, with a shrug of his shoulders, ‘that was just a matter of form. They weren’t worth anything. Roger Fergus knew that. He was just being kind to the old fellow and we fixed it that way so that Campbell wouldn’t think it was charity.’

He paused, evidently to let this piece of information sink in. His manner was vastly different to Fothergill’s — to any solicitor I had ever met, for that matter. It was more the manner of a business man, hard and factual. He was like a battering ram and I could feel him trying to steamroller me into selling. To gain time and sort out my impressions I glanced down at the report and my attention was caught by the final paragraph: ‘… Therefore I ‘have no hesitation in saying there is absolutely no possibility whatever of oil being discovered on this property. -Signed — Louis Winnick, Oil Consultant.’ ‘Is a survey of this nature conclusive?’ I asked him.

‘Not entirely. It won’t prove the presence of oil. But it’s pretty well a hundred per cent in indicating that a territory is not oil-bearing. In this case, when you read the report through, you’ll find that the strata under the surface is far too broken up to contain any oil traps.’

‘I see.’

So that was that. My grandfather’s vision of a great new oilfield in the Rockies was scientifically destroyed.. I suddenly felt tired and dispirited. I had come a long way, buoyed up with the feeling that I had a mission to accomplish. ‘I’d like to see the place,’ I murmured.

He leaned back and drew slowly on his cigar. I think he was giving me time to adjust myself. ‘Ever seen a big mountain range?’

‘I’ve skied in the Alps.’

He nodded. ‘Well, the Rockies are just about as high. The difference is that they extend north and.south the length of the North American continent and they’re about 500 miles through. Travel gets to be pretty difficult at this time of the year. It’s still winter in the mountains and most of the roads are blocked. The Kingdom is a goodish way from any railroad. You might not get through for a month, maybe more. Meantime, the company that’s interested in the property has got to get organised so that work on the dam begins as soon as they can get up there.

The season is a short one.’ He leaned forward and searched among the papers on his desk. ‘Here you are.’ He pushed a document across to me. ‘All you have to do is sign that. I’ll look after the rest. You’ll see the figure they agree to pay is $50,000. It’s a damn sight more than the property is worth. But they’re willing to pay that figure to avoid a court action on compensation. They already have the authority of the Provincial Parliament to go ahead with the construction, so whether you sign or not they are in a position to take over the property and flood it, subject to payment of compensation.’

I didn’t say anything and there was an awkward silence. I was thinking that the dam had still to be built. For a few months the Kingdom could be mine. Even if there wasn’t any oil it was a patch of land that belonged to me. I’d never owned any property before. I’d never really owned anything.

‘I must warn you,’ Acheson said, ‘that the purchasers’ original plan was to take power from one of the existing companies. This hydro-electric scheme is subsidiary to their main business which is the opening up of some low-grade lead mines. If you don’t sign now the odds are they’ll abandon the project.’

So the Kingdom could still be saved. I lit a cigarette, thinking it over.

‘Well?’

I stared down at the deed of sale. ‘I notice you’ve not inserted the name of the purchasing, company.’

‘No.’ He seemed to hesitate. ‘A subsidiary will be formed to operate the power scheme. If you’ll sign the deed, I’ll insert the name of the company as soon as it’s formed. Then there’ll be just the deeds and the land registration to be settled. I’ll look after all that.’ His eyes fastened on mine, waiting.

‘You seem very anxious for me to sell,’ I murmured.

‘It’s in your interests.’ He took the cigar out of his mouth and leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. His tone was one of exasperation. ‘In the letter I sent you via Fothergill I made it perfectly clear to you that my advice was to sell. Instead you come all the way out here, wasting time and delaying the whole project.’ He got suddenly to his feet. ‘I should tell you, Wetheral, that it’s largely as a result of my efforts that these people have become interested in the Kingdom at all. As I told you, their original plan…’ He turned and crossed the room towards me. ‘For two pins I’d tell you to get somebody else to handle your affairs. I’ve had nothing but trouble acting for Stuart Campbell and not a nickel for it. If it weren’t for the interests of another client…’ He was standing over me. ‘I act for old ‘Roger Fergus. He’s sunk nearly $40,000 in Campbell’s company. Now that Campbell’s dead I consider it my duty to see that the company is wound up and that debt paid off.’ He leaned down, tapping my shoulder with a large, podgy hand. ‘I’d go further. I’d say that you have a moral obligation to see that Roger Fergus is repaid.’ He turned slowly away and resumed his seat at his desk. ‘You’ve got till this evening,’ he said. ‘Where are you staying?’

The Palliser.’

‘Well, you go back to your room and think it over.’ He got to his feet. ‘Take the report with you. Read it. If there’s anything you want to know give me a ring.’

He paused and then said, ‘I would only add one other thing. Roger Fergus met the cost of that survey out of his own pocket. You owe him nothing on that score, but…’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I think you will agree that it’s in everyone’s interests that the deal goes through.’ He pressed the bell-push on his desk. ‘Come and see me about five.’

The secretary showed me out. As I made for the stairs I checked at the sight of the door opposite me. The Roger Fergus Oil Development Company. On a sudden impulse I opened the door and went in. There was a counter and beyond the counter a rather stuffy office with one typewriter and the walls massed with files. There was an electric fire and some unwashed cups on a dusty desk. A door led off it with the name Roger Fergus on it. The door was open and I got a view of a bare desk and a table on which stood nothing but a telephone. The door of the neighbouring office slammed and a girl’s voice behind me said, ‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for Mr Fergus,’ I explained.

‘Old Mr Fergus?’ She shook her head. ‘He hasn’t been coming to the office for a long time now. He’s been ill.’

‘Oh.’ I hesitated.

‘Is your business urgent? Because his son, Mr Henry Fergus-’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t really business — more a social call. He was a great friend of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell.’

Her eyes lit up in her rather pale face. ‘I met Mr Campbell once.’ She smiled. ‘He was a wonderful old man — quite a character. There was an awful lot about him in the papers when he died.’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I’ll ring Mr Fergus’ home. I’m sure he’d like to see you if he’s well enough. He had a stroke, you know. He’s paralysed all down one side and he tires very easily.’

But apparently it was all right. He would see me if I went straight over. ‘But the nurse says you’re not to stay more than five minutes. The Fergus Farm is a little way out of town on the far side of the Bow River. The cab drivers all know it.’

I thanked her and went down the stairs, past the photographs of oil wells and the clatter of the ticker tape and the typewriters on the second floor. The notice board at the entrance, listing the companies occupying the building, caught my eye. The second floor was occupied by Henry Fergus, Stockbrokers. I wondered vaguely how the Calgary stock exchange was able to support a business that appeared to be as large as most London stockbroker’s offices.

The Fergus home was a low, sprawling ranch-house building. As we swung up past the stables I saw several fine blacks being taken out for exercise, their blankets marked with the monogram RF. What appeared to be a small covered wagon stood in the yard, its canopy bearing the name The RF Ranch. ‘That’s the old man’s chuck wagon,’ my driver said. ‘Always enters a team for the chuck wagon races at the Stampede. He’s got a big ranch down in the Porcupine Hills. He started in when the Turney Valley field was opening up. Been making dough ever since.’ The corners of his mouth turned down and he grinned. ‘Still, we all come to the same end, I guess. They say he won’t last much longer.’

It was a manservant who let me in and I was taken through into a great lounge hall full of trophies, prizes taken by cattle and horses at shows up and down the country. A nurse took charge of me and I was shown into a sombre study with the temperature of a hothouse. There were a few books. The walls were lined with photographs — photographs of oil rigs, drilling crews, oil fires, a panorama of snow-covered mountains, horses, cattle, cowhands, chuck wagon races, cattle shows. And there were drilling bits, odd pieces of metal, trophies of a dozen different money-making discoveries. All these I took in at a glance and then my gaze came to rest on the man seated in a wheel chair. He was a big man, broad shouldered with massive, gnarled hands and a great shock of white hair. He had a fine face with bushy, tufty eyebrows and a way of craning his neck forward like a bird. His skin had been tanned and wrinkled by weather, but now transparency was evident in the tan and the effect was of dry, wrinkled parchment. ‘So you’re Stuart’s grandson.’ He spoke out of one corner of his mouth; the other twisted by paralysis. ‘Sit down. He often spoke of you. Had great hopes that one day you’d be managing an oilfield for him. Damned old fool.’ His voice was surprisingly gentle.

‘Five minutes, that’s all,’ the nurse said and went out.

‘Like a drink?’ He reached down with his long arm to a cupboard under the nearest pedestal of the desk. ‘She doesn’t know I’ve got it,’ he said, nodding towards the door through which the nurse had passed. ‘Not supposed to have it. Henry smuggles it in for me. That’s my son. Hopes it’ll kill me off,’ he added with a malicious twinkle. He poured out two Scotches neat. ‘Your health, young feller.’

‘And yours, sir,’ I said.

‘I haven’t got any.’ He waved his left hand vaguely. ‘They’re all hanging around waiting for me to die. That’s what happens when you’ve made a fortune.’ He craned forward, peering at me from under his eyebrows. ‘You’re from the Old Country, aren’t you? What brought you out to Canada? Think you’re going to drill a discovery well up in the Kingdom?’

‘There doesn’t seem much chance of that,’ I said. ‘Acheson just showed me the report on that survey.’

‘Ah, yes. A pity. And Bladen was so enthusiastic. Good boy, Bladen. Fine pilot. Half Indian, you know. Seems he’s not so good as a surveyor.’ His voice had dropped almost to a mutter. But he rallied himself and said, ‘Well now, what’s the purpose of this visit?’

‘You were a friend of my grandfather’s,’ I said. ‘I wanted to meet you.’

‘Fine.’ He peered at me. ‘Any financial propositions up your sleeve?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It never occurred to me-’

‘That’s okay.’ He gave me a twisted smile. ‘When you’re old and rich you get kinda suspicious about people’s motives. Now then, tell me about yourself.’

I started to tell him about Fothergill’s visit to my digs in London, and then suddenly I was telling him the whole story, about Maclean-Harvey’s verdict and my decision to emigrate. When I had finished his eyes, which had been closed, flicked open. ‘Fine pair we are,’ he said and he managed a contorted grin that somehow made me realise that he was still something of a boy at heart. ‘So now they’re going to drown the Kingdom and you’re here to attend to obsequies. Well, maybe it’s for the best. It brought Stuart nothing but trouble.’ He gave a little sigh and closed his eyes.

I liked him and because of that I felt I had to get the financial obligations settled. ‘I’ve seen Acheson,’ I said. ‘He’ll settle up with you for the amount you advanced to the company. But I’m afraid the purchase price they’re prepared to pay won’t cover the survey.’

He fixed his grey eyes on me. ‘I thought this wasn’t a business visit,’ he barked. ‘To hell with the money. You don’t have to worry about that. You’re under no obligation as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand? If you want to throw good money after bad and drill a well, you can go ahead.’

I laughed. ‘I’m not in a position to drill a well,’ I said. ‘In any case, you’re the only person who could do that. You own the mineral rights.’

‘Yes. I’d forgotten that.’ He took my glass and returned it with the bottle and his own glass to the cupboard. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. ‘The mineral rights.’ His voice was a barely audible murmur. ‘I wonder why Bladen was so keen; as keen as Stuart.’ His left shoulder twitched in the slightest of shrugs. ‘I’d like to have seen one more discovery well brought in before I died. I’d like to have been able to thumb my nose just once more at all the know-alls in the big companies. There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.’ He gave a tired laugh. ‘Well, there it is. Winnick is a straight guy. He wouldn’t pull anything on me. You’d best go home, young feller. You want friends around you when you die. It’s a lonely business anyway.’

The nurse came in and said my time was up. I got to my feet. He held out his left hand to me. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you came. If your doctor feller’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon. We’ll have a good chat then with all eternity ahead of us.’ His eyes were smiling; his lips were tired and twisted.

I went out to my taxi and drove back to the hotel, the memory of that fine old shell of a man lingering with me.

I went up to my room and sat staring at Winnick’s report and thinking of the old man who had been my grandfather’s friend. I could understand him wanting that one final justification of his existence, wanting to prove the experts wrong. I needed the same thing. I needed it desperately. But there was the report and he himself had said Winnick was straight. I think I had already made up my mind to sign the deed of sale. I might have done it there and then and in that event I should not now be writing this story with the snowcapped peaks all around me and winter closing in. Probably I should have been quietly buried away under the frozen sods of Canada. But I was hungry and I pushed the papers into my suitcase and went down to get some lunch. Instead of pocketing the key I handed it in automatically at the desk. By such a trivial act can one’s whole future be changed, for when I came out of the dining-room I had to go to the desk to get it and at the desk was a short, stockily-built man in an airman’s jacket with a friendly face under a sweat-stained stetson. He was checking out and as I stood behind him, waiting, he said to the clerk, ‘If a feller by the name of Jack Harbin asks for me, tell him I’ve gone back to Jasper. He can ring me at my home.’

‘Okay, Jeff,’ the clerk said. ‘I’ll tell him.’

Jasper! Jasper was in the Yellowhead Pass, the Canadian National’s gateway into the Rockies and the Fraser River valley. The Kingdom was barely fifty miles from Jasper as the crow flies. ‘Excuse me. Are you going by car?’ The words were out before I had time to think it over.

‘Yeah.’ He looked me over and then his face crinkled into a friendly smile. ‘Want a ride?’

‘Have you got room for me?’

‘Sure. You can have the front seat and the whole of the back. You’re from the Old Country, I guess.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Jeff Hart.’

‘My name’s Wetheral,’ I said as I gripped his hand. ‘Bruce Wetheral.’

‘Okay, Bruce. Make it snappy then. I got to be in Edmonton by tea-time.’

It was all done on the spur of the moment. I didn’t have time to think of Acheson until I was in the big station wagon trundling north out of Calgary, and then I didn’t care. I was moving one step nearer the Kingdom and I was content to let it go at that. The sound of the wheels was lost in the drift of powdery snow that whirled past the windshield and ahead of me the ranchlands rolled away to the horizon. I lay back and relaxed in the warmth of the heater and the steady drone of the engine, listening to Jeff Hart’s gentle, lazy voice giving me a verbal introduction to the province of Alberta.

We reached Edmonton just before six and got a room at the Macdonald. I had moved into another world. Where Calgary was static, an established, respectable town, Edmonton was on the move. The place bustled with life, an exciting, exotic life that had washed up from as far away as Texas and down — from the Yukon and the North West Territories. It flooded through the lobbies of the hotels and out into the streets and cafes — oil men, trappers, prospectors, bush fliers, lumber men, scientists and surveyors. This was the jumping-off place for the Arctic, the first outpost of civilisation on the Alaskan Highway. It had atmosphere, the atmosphere of a frontier town on which an oil boom had been superimposed.

We left after lunch next day and just about four that afternoon we topped a rise on the Jasper road and I got my first glimpse of the Rockies, a solid wall of snow and ice and cold, grey rock, extending north and south as far as the eye could see. The sun was shining bleakly and in the bitter cold the crystal wall glittered and sparked frostily. And over the top of that first rampart rose peaks of ice and black, wind-torn rock.

‘Quite a sight, eh?’ Jeff yawned. ‘You’re seeing them at the right time. They get to look kinda dusty by end of summer.’

We ran down to the stone-strewn bed of the Athabaska and passed the checkpoint that marked the entrance to Jasper National Park. The mountains closed in on us, bleak, wind-torn peaks that poked snouts of grey rock and white snow above the dark timber that covered the lower slopes. Below us the river ran cold and milky from the glaciers. There was tarnished snow on the road now and a nip in the air. Though the sun still shone in a blue sky its warmth seemed unable to penetrate this glacial valley.

But though the place looked gloomy with its dark timbers and grey rock and the dead white of the snow, I felt the excitement of having reached a milestone on the long road I had come. I could see the railway now, twin black lines ruled through the snow climbing in great banking curves to the Yellowhead Pass. This way my grandfather had come, riding with a caravan of ox carts because he was too poor to travel on the newly-opened railroad.

‘Do you know a man called Johnnie Carstairs?’ I asked my companion.

‘Sure. He wrangles a bunch of horses and acts as a packer for the visitors in the summer.’

Jeff Hart dropped me at the hotel. I couldn’t face any food and went straight up to my room. I felt tired and short of breath. Looking in the mirror I was shocked to see how gaunt my face was, the skin white and transparent so that the veins showed through it. The stubble of my beard, by contrast, appeared a metallic blue. I lay down on the bed, lit a cigarette and pulled from my pocket the only map I had so far been able to acquire — the Esso road map for Alberta and British Columbia. It was already creased and torn for I had acquired it at Canada House in London and all the way over I had been constantly referring to it.

I knew it almost by heart. Through the double glass of the window I could just see the peak of Mount Edith Cavell, a solitary pinnacle of ice and snow. Like a cold finger it pointed into the chill blue of the sky, a warning that my legacy was no soft one. Campbell’s Kingdom was little more than 60 miles due west as the crow flies. Lying there, feeling the utter exhaustion of my body, I wondered whether I should ever get there.

I must have dropped off into a sort of coma, for I woke up to find Jeff Hart bending over me, shaking me by the shoulders. ‘Christ! You gave me a turn,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d never come round. You all right?’

‘Yes,’ I murmured and forced myself to swing my feet off the bed. I sat there for a minute, panting and feeling the blood hammering in my ears.

‘Would you like me to fetch a doctor?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m all right.’

‘Well, you don’t look it. You look like death.’

‘I’m all right,’ I gasped, fighting for breath. ‘How high up are we here?’

‘About three thousand five hundred.’ He was bending over me, peering at me. ‘You look real bad, Bruce.’

‘I tell you I’m all right,’ I whispered peevishly.

‘Sure, sure. Here, take a look at yourself.’

I lifted my head from my hands. He had taken the mirror from the wall and was holding it in front of me. I stared at myself. My jaw seemed to have got bluer in my sleep, the veins of my forehead were more deeply etched, my lips were bloodless and my mouth open, gasping for breath. I struck out at the mirror, knocking it out of his hands. It shivered into a thousand splinters on the floor.

‘That’ll cost you two bucks,’ he said with an attempt at a laugh.

‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured, staring rather foolishly at the broken glass.

That’s all right. I’ll go over and fetch the doctor.’

I got to my feet then and caught him by the arm. ‘No. There’s nothing he can do about it.’

‘But goldarn it, man, you’re ill.’

‘I know.’ I crossed to the window and stared at the peak of Edith Cavell, now a white marble monument against the darkening shadows of night. ‘I’ve anaemia.

Something to do with the blood. I don’t get enough oxygen.’

‘Then you’d better go to sleep again, I guess.’

‘No, I’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘Just wait while I wash and then we’ll go down to the bar.’

As we went down a party of skiers came in. They were Americans and their gaily coloured windcheaters made a bright splash of colour in the drab entrance to the hotel. We went through into the saloon. It was a bare, rather utilitarian place full of small, marble-topped tables and uncomfortable chairs. It was about half full, workers from the railway yards mostly, their war surplus jackets predominating over the brighter pattern of lumber jackets and ski clothes. There were no women.

‘I sent word for Johnnie to meet us here,’ Jeff Hart said. He glanced at his watch. ‘He’ll be here any minute now.’ The bartender came up. ‘Four beers.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘This is on me. And I want a brandy. What about you — will you have a short?’

Jeff laughed. ‘Anybody can see he comes from the Old Country,’ he said to the barman. ‘Let me put you wise on the drinking habits of Canadians out West. This is a beer parlour. No women are allowed, you may not drink standing up and you may not order more than a pint at a time. If you want hard liquor, you buy it at a Government liquor store and drink it in your room.’ His gaze swung to the door. ‘Here’s Johnnie now. Make it six beers, will you, George. Johnnie. This is Bruce Wetheral!’

I found myself looking at a slim-hipped man in a sheepskin jacket and a battered stetson. He had a kindly face, tanned by wind and sun, and his eyes had a faraway look as though they were constantly searching for a distant peak. His eyelids appeared devoid of lashes and were slightly puffed as though he had been peering into snow and wind since birth. ‘Understand you bin asking for me, Bruce?’ He smiled and perched himself on a chair with the light ease of a man who sits a horse most of his time. ‘Guess I ain’t used to comin’ to lowdown places such as this.’

‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ Jeff said. ‘The old coyote is here every night.’

‘What is it you’re wanting — horses?’ He had a soft, lazy smile that crinkled the corners of his mouth and eyes.

‘I’m not here on business,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to meet you.’

‘That’s real nice of you.’ He smiled and waited.

‘You knew an old man called Stuart Campbell, didn’t you?’

‘King Campbell? Sure. But he’s dead now.’

‘I know. You were one of the party that found his body.’

‘That’s so, I guess.’

‘Would you tell me about it?’

‘Sure.’ His eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned. ‘You a newspaper guy or somethin’?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m Campbell’s grandson.’

His eyes opened wide. ‘His grandson!’ He suddenly smiled. He had the softest, gentlest smile I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. ‘Well, well — King Campbell’s grandson.’ He leaned across the table and gripped my hand. And Jeff Hart clapped me on the shoulder. ‘Why in hell didn’t you say who you were? I’d never have let you stop off at the hotel if I’d known.’

The barman came with six half-pint glasses of beer. ‘Make it the same again, George,’ the packer said as he distributed the beers.

‘You know the regulations, Johnnie.’

‘Sure I do, but we’re celebrating. Know who this is, George? King Campbell’s grandson.’

‘You don’t say.’ The barman wiped his hand on his apron, and held it out to me. ‘Glad to know you. Why I mind the time old Campbell stopped off at Jasper — remember, Johnnie? There was a bad fall up beyond the Yellowhead. He had to stop over the Sunday and they got him to read the lesson.’

‘Sure, I remember. Reckon it was the only time they got me inside the place.’

‘Yeah, me too. An’ about the only time they had to put the House Full notices up outside the door.’

‘That’s for sure.’ Johnnie Carstairs laughed. ‘Now bring those beers, George. We’ll be finished by the time you’re back.’ He turned to me. ‘What’s brought you up here? You his heir or somethin’?’

I nodded.

He smiled that lazy smile of his. ‘Reckon he didn’t leave you much. What happens to the Kingdom? Do you own that now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, well.’ The smile broadened into a puckish grin. ‘You got all the oil in the Rocky Mountains, Bruce.’

‘You were going to tell me how you found his body,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah.’ He sat back, sprinkled salt into one of his glasses of beer and drank it. ‘Queer thing that,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘He was fine and dandy when we got up there. An’ a week later he was dead.’

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Well, it was this away. I’d bin totin’ a couple of Americans round for the best part of two months. They were climbers and they did stuff for magazines back in the States.’ He produced a little white cotton bag of tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette. ‘Well, we coralled our horses at Campbell’s place and went south over The Gillie. We were away about a week and when we came down into the Kingdom again it was snowing hard. I figured somethin’ was wrong as soon as I heard the horses. Besides, there weren’t no smoke coming from any of the chimneys and no tracks in the snow outside either. The whole place had a dead look. The old man was lying face down on the floor just inside the door, like as though he was struggling to get outside and bring in some logs. Judging by the state of the stable I guess he’d been dead about three days.’

‘What do you think caused his death?’ I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Old age, I guess. Or maybe he had a stroke and died of cold. I hope when it comes to my turn I’ll go like that. No fuss, no illness — and no regrets. Right to the end he believed there was oil up there.’

He relit the stub of his cigarette and leaned back, his eyes half-closed. ‘Ever hear him playin’ the pipes, Bruce?’

I shook my head. ‘I only met him once. That was in England, and he’d just come out of prison.’

His sandy eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘So the prison stuff was true, eh? That was the only story I ever heard him tell more than once — that and about the oil. Mebbe they’re both true and you’re the richest man this side of the 49th Parallel.’ He laughed. ‘There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains. Be a joke, Jeff, if it were true, wouldn’t it now?’ He leaned across to me. ‘That’s how the nights always ended up — the old man poundin’ the table with his fist and glaring at his visitors through the mat of his white hair and roaring There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains fit to bust.’ He laughed and shook his head. ‘But he could play the pipes.’

He leaned back again and rubbed his hand over his eyes. ‘I mind one evening some years ago; it was very still and he came out of the ranch-house as the sun was setting and began to march up and down playing the pipes. The sound was clear and thin and yet it came back from the mountains as though all the Highlanders who ever lived were assembled there on the peaks and all of them a’ blowin’ to beat hell out of their pipes. And when he played The Campbells are Coming a million Campbells seemed to answer him. I guess it was about the weirdest thing I ever heard.’ He leaned forward and picked up his glass. ‘Your health!’

I raised my glass, thinking of the picture he was giving me of my grandfather and the Kingdom. ‘How do I get there?’ I asked.

‘Up to the Kingdom?’ Johnie shook his head. ‘You won’t get up there yet awhiles — not until the snow melts.’

‘When will that be?’

‘Oh, in about a month, I guess.’

‘I can’t wait that long,’ I said.

Johnnie’s eyes narrowed as he peered across at me. ‘You seem in a goldarned hurry.’

‘I am,’ I said.

‘Well, Max Trevedian might take you up. He acts as packer and guide around Come Lucky. But it’d be a tough trip, an’ he’s an ornery sort of crittur anyway. Me, I wouldn’t look at it, not till the snows melt. But then I ain’t much use without a pony. Had the devil’s job getting down last fall.’

I brought the dog-eared map out of my pocket and spread it on the table. ‘Well, how do I get to Come Lucky anyway?’ I asked.

Johnnie peered at it and shook his head. ‘Maps ain’t much in my line,’ he said. ‘I go by the look of the country.’

It was Jeff who gave me the information I wanted.

‘You’ll have to take the Continental down as far as Ashcroft. From then on it’s a car ride up through 150 Mile House, Hydraulic, Likely and Keithley Creek. Do you reckon the roads will be open, Johnnie?’

Johnnie Carstairs shrugged his shoulders. ‘Depends on the chinook. If it’s blowing then you might find somebody to take you through.’

I thanked him and folded the map up.

He looked across at me and his hand closed over my arm. ‘You’re a sick man, Bruce. Take my advice. Wait a month. It’s too early for travelling through the mountains except by rail. Don’t you agree, Johnnie?’

‘Sure, sure. Leastaways I wouldn’t try it.’

‘I can’t wait that long,’ I murmured.

‘Be sensible,’ Jeff pleaded. ‘Johnnie and I have lived up in this country a long time.’

‘I must get up there,’ I insisted.

‘Well then, wait a month.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why in hell not?’

‘Because-’ I stopped then. I couldn’t just tell them I hadn’t much time.

‘Let him find out for himself, Jeff.’ Johnnie’s voice was gruff with anger. ‘Some people are just cussed. They got to learn the hard way.’

‘It’s not that,’ I said quickly.

‘All right, then — what is it? What’s the goldarned hurry?’

‘It isn’t any of your business.’ I hesitated and then added, ‘I’ve only two months to live.’

They stared at me. Johnnie’s eyes searched my face and then dropped awkwardly. He brought out his tobacco and concentrated on rolling a cigarette. ‘I’m sorry, Bruce,’ he said gently. Accustomed to dealing with animals I think he’d read the truth of Maclean-Harvey’s opinion in my features. But Jeff was a mechanic. ‘How do you know?’ he asked. ‘You can’t know a thing like that.’

‘You can if you’ve got cancer of the stomach.’ My voice sounded harsh. ‘I had the best man in London. He gave me six months at the outside. The anaemia is secondary,’ I added. I got to my feet. My lips were trembling uncontrollably. ‘Good night,’ I said. ‘And thanks for your help.’ I didn’t want them to see that I was scared.