Campbell's Kingdom

CHAPTER ONE

The road up Thunder Creek was like the bed of a stream. Water poured across it. The groundgrips of the big car were either slithering and spinning in a morass of yellowish mud or bumping over stones and small boulders washed down from above. Some of the log bridges were unable to dispose of the volume of water coming down the gullies they spanned. It banked up above them and poured across, a foot deep in places, so that they looked like small weirs. But Jeff never once suggested turning back. A car to him was an expendable item, a thing to fight nature with and he sang softly to himself as he wrestled with the wheel.

Above us, through the trees, the moon sailed fast among ragged wisps of cloud, a full circle of luminous yellow that lit the winding trail in a macabre light, half drowning the brilliance of the headlights. Thunder Creek, below us to the left, was a dark canyon of shadow out of which came the steady, relentless roar of water. And as we climbed, the black shadow of the fault capped by the snow-white peaks shouldered its way up the sky till it blotted out the moon and seemed to tower right over us.

It was here, in the dark shadows, that we suddenly emerged from the timber into a clearing where roofless log huts sprawled amongst the sapling growth. We had reached the camp built in 1939 when work on the dam had begun. The trail, blazed by the piles of slash on either side, ran straight across it and into the timber again. Gradually the trees thinned out. The surface of the road under its frozen powdering of snow became hard and bumpy. Then the timber finally fell back behind us and the headlights blazed on the most colossal rock fall I have ever seen. Great blocks of stone the size of houses were piled one on top of the other, balanced precariously and hung like the playthings of the Cornish giants against the moon-tipped edges of the racing cloud wisps. And above the slide — high, high above it — towered the black shadow of the cliff face, a gleam of white at the top where the moon caught the snowcaps, a gleam of white that Wavered and moved as mare’s tails of wind-driven snow streamed from the crests.

The headlights swung across the fantastic, gargantuan jumble of the slide as the track turned away into the wind that funnelled up the dark cleft of the valley. The track here had been hammered out of the edge of the slide itself and the wheels bounced and jolted over the uneven surface of stones. We dropped steeply several hundred feet and fetched up at a square, con Crete building that looked like an enormous pillbox. On the side facing us was a timbered staging on which rested a heavy wooden cage suspended by wires to a great cable the thickness of a man’s arm. Jeff stopped the car and switched his spotlight on to the cable, following it up the slope of the slide. It gleamed dully in the light like the thick thread of a spider, running in a long loop away up the slide until it faded into nothing, reaching beyond the range of the spotlight. Below it two subsidiary cables followed the pattern of the loop.

‘Well, that’s it, I guess,’ Jeff said. ‘Quite a place, isn’t it?’

I didn’t say anything. I was staring along the threadlike line of the cable, following it in my imagination up the dark face of the cliff, up into the narrow V between the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. The slender thread was the link bridging the dark gap that separated me from the Kingdom. If I could travel that cable … A queer mood of excitement was taking hold of me. I pushed open the door. ‘Let’s have a look in the enginehouse,’ I said.

‘Sure.’

The door flung to behind me, slammed by the wind. Inside the car we had had the heater going full blast and had been protected from the wind. Outside I found I could hardly stand. The wind tore up the valley. It was not a cold wind, but it had no power to dispel the frozen bite of the air trapped in the circle of the valley head. It was a gripping cold that thrust through one’s clothing and ate into one’s guts.

Jeff flung me a duffle coat from the back of the car and then we pushed down through the wind to the engine housing. Though McClellan had only left the place a few hours ago snow was piled up against the pinewood door and we had to scoop it away before we could open it. Inside we were out of the wind, but the cold was bitter. A powdery drift of snow carpeted the floor and the draught of air that whistled in through the horizontal slit window that faced the slide could not dispel the dank smell of the concrete and the less unpleasant smell of oil and combustion fumes.

The interior of the engine housing was about the size of a large room. One wall was taken up entirely by a huge iron wheel round which the driving cable of the hoist ran. This was connected by a shaft to a big diesel engine that stood against the other wall, covered by a tarpaulin lashed down with rope through the eyeholes. Shovel marks showed on the floor where the party which had come up that morning had cleared out the winter’s accumulation of snow. A control panel was fixed to the concrete below the slit and there was an ex-service field telephone on a wooden bracket. Back of the main engine house was a store room and in it I saw the drums of fuel oil that had been brought up from Come Lucky.

I stood there for a moment, absorbing it all, while Jeff peered under the tarpaulin at the engine. I turned slowly, drawn by an irresistible impulse. I went over to the slit and, leaning my arms on the sill, peered up to the snow-lipped top of the cliff face. The moon was just lifting above the lefthand peak of the mountain. I watched the shreds of cloud tearing across the face of it, saw the shadows of the mountain receding, watched till all the whole slide was bathed in the white light of it. The thick thread of the cable was plainly visible now, a shallow loop running from the engine housing in which I stood up to a great concrete pillar that stood on a huge slab of rock that marked the highest point of the slide. From there the cable rose steeply, climbing the black face of the cliff and disappearing into the shadows. My eyes followed the invisible line of it, lifting to the top of the cliff and there, etched against the bright luminosity of the sky, was another pillar, no bigger than a needle, standing like an ancient cromlech on the lip of the cliff.

The thing that had been in my mind ever since I had seen the slender thread of that cable suddenly crystallised and I turned to Jeff. ‘They had that engine going today, didn’t they?’

He nodded, straightening up and facing me, a frown on his friendly, open features. ‘What’s on your mind?’

I hesitated, strangely unwilling to put my idea into words for fear it should be impracticable. ‘You’re a mechanic, aren’t you?’ I said.

‘I run a garage, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Can you start that engine?’

‘Sure, but-’ He stopped and then he stepped forward and caught hold of my arm. ‘Don’t be crazy, Bruce. You can’t go up there on your own. Suppose the thing jammed or the motor broke down?’

The thought had already occurred to me. ‘There must be some sort of safety device,’ I said.

He nodded reluctantly. ‘There’ll be something like that, I guess. If the driving cable were disconnected gravity ought to bring it down.’ He took me outside and we climbed on to the cage. It was a big contraption, bigger than anything I had seen in the Swiss Alps. He flashed the beam of his torch on to the cradle where the two flanged wheels ran on the cable. There you are,’ he said. It was a very simple device. The driving cable was fixed to the cradle by a pinion on a hinged arm. If the motor failed all one had to do was knock the pinion out. The driving cable then fell on to a roller and a braking wheel automatically came into action. It was then possible to let the cage slide down on the brake. ‘See if you can get the motor started,’ I said.

Jeff hesitated, his gaze held by the shadowed void of the cliff face with its sugar-icing of snow at the top. Then he turned with a slight shrug of his shoulders. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘But it’ll be cold up there.’ There was a pilot engine for starting the big diesel. It was a petrol engine with battery starter. It started at a touch of the button. Jeff pulled the tarpaulin clear of the diesel, turned on the oil and a moment later the concrete housing shook to the roar of the powerful motor. I went to the car and got another coat and a rug. Jeff met me at the entrance to the housing. ‘Better let me go up,’ he said. ‘Tell me where that recording tape is that Boy wants and I’ll get it.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m not a mechanic and I couldn’t run the engine. Besides, I want to see the place.’

He hesitated. ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘These aren’t English mountains. You don’t want to go fooling around with them.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said.

He looked at me, frowning slightly. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Better take this.’ He handed me his torch. ‘They’ve rigged a phone up by the look of it. The wire probably runs through the main cable. Ring me from the top.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘If there’s anything wrong with the phone, I’ll bring the cage down at nine o’clock, giving one false start to warn you. If you don’t come down then I’ll run it up again and bring it down every half-hour. Okay?’

I nodded and checked my watch with his. Then I climbed on to the wooden platform of the cage. He shouted ‘Good luck’ to me and disappeared into the concrete housing. A moment later the note of the diesel deepened as it took up the slack of the driving cable. I watched the loop of the cable level out and become taut. The cage shook gently and then lifted from its staging. The wheels of the cradle began to turn, creaking slightly. The cage swung gently to and fro. I watched the engine housing slowly grow smaller and then I turned and faced the black rampart of the cliff.

It was an odd journey, alone there, slung in space in the moon-filled night. The rock jumble of the slide fell away steeply below me, a chequer-board of black and white. But ahead all was deep in shadow. A great concrete pillar moved towards me and slid past in the night, a vague shape as the cage ran from moonlight into shadow. For a moment the sound of the cradle wheels changed as they ran on the solid fixing of the cable. Then the whole cradle began to tilt sharply and the rate of progress slowed as it began to climb the vertical cliff face. I could just make it out now, a wall of bare rock criss-crossed with a pattern of white where snow and ice had lodged in crevices and on ledges. Looking back, the moon-white valley seemed miles away. I could barely see the tiny square of the engine housing. There was no sound except for the creaking of the- wheels. The wind whistled up through the cracks in the floor timbers. It was bitterly cold. I seemed hung in space, like a balloonist caught in an up-draught of air and slowly rising. I had no sense of vertigo. Only a great sense of loneliness.

It could only have been a few minutes, but it seemed an age that the cage was climbing the bare rock face of the fault. Then we lipped the top and I was in moonlight again and the world around was visible and white. The concrete pylon passed me so close I could have touched it. The cradle toppled down to an almost horizontal position. There was the sound of water in the shadowed bottom of the cleft and I glimpsed the slender veil of a fall wavering as it plunged the full length of the fault. Ahead of me now I could see the dam, a gigantic concrete wall, unfinished at the top and crumbling away in the centre where the stream ran through. The cage climbed the northern slope of the cleft until I was looking down on the top of the dam. Then it slowed and moved gently into a wooden staging that finished abruptly at a concrete housing similar to the one at the bottom. The cage stopped with a slight jerk that set the cables swaying.

I climbed stiffly out and looked about me. The dam was below me, looking like some pre-historic rampart built by ancient inhabitants to defend the pass. In places the concrete had crumbled away to spill out the great boulders that formed its core. The unfinished centre section, where the water frothed white over a small fall, gave it the appearance of having been breached in some early raid.

The top of the dam was partially covered by snow, but it was still possible to see the nature of its construction; two outer walls of concrete and the space between filled with rock and sealed with concrete.

My gaze swung to the Kingdom itself. It was a natural bowl in the mountains some five to ten miles long; it was impossible to judge the distance in that queer light. I couldn’t tell the width because a buttress of rock, part of the shoulder of the mountain, blocked my view. The place was completely bare, a white expanse of snow through which ran the black thread of the stream, branching here and there like the spine of a leaf into tributaries that faded rapidly beneath the snow. There was no sign of habitation.

I went into the concrete housing. There was no motor here, of course. It contained nothing but the big iron wheel round which the driving cable ran and some cans of grease. There was a field telephone on a wooden bracket. I lifted the receiver and wound the handle. Faint in my ear came the sound of Jeff’s voice. ‘You all right, Bruce?’

‘Yes. I’m fine.’ It was odd to think of him still down there in the valley with the car outside and the road snaking back to Come Lucky. I seemed to have moved into another world. ‘I can’t see Campbell’s shack from here,’ I told him. ‘It’s probably on the north side of the Kingdom and that’s hidden from me by a buttress of rock. I’ll ring you when I’m ready to come down.’

‘Okay. But don’t be too long. And see you don’t slip or anything,’

‘I’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘It’ll probably take about an hour if I’m to have a look round and get those figures.’

‘Okay.’

I hung up and went outside. I stood there for a moment, gazing beyond the buttress to the Kingdom. It was a crystal bowl surrounded by peaks and it wasn’t difficult to imagine how my grandfather had felt when he had first seen it. Spring would come late here, but when it came it would be splendid, and solitary. The light died out of the whiteness of the plateau until it was no more than a distant glimmer. The moon had blacked out behind a veil of cloud. The mountains closed in on either side, dark, hulking shapes. I glanced back across the lip of the fault towards the valley now deep in shadow. Far away beyond Come Lucky the moon showed white on snowy mountain slopes. I watched as the light sailed up the valley, until the dam and the rock around me were picked out in ghostly brilliance again. The moon sailed clear of the cloud veil. The stars shone in the pallid purple of space and way, way to the west a dark shadow climbed the sky. The clouds were thickening up. I turned and climbed the rock-strewn slope to the buttress.

It didn’t take me long to reach it and from the summit the whole Kingdom lay before me. And there, huddled against the lower slopes of the mountain away to my left was a low range of buildings half-buried in snow. There was nothing of the shack about them and they appeared to be constructed of logs after the fashion of Norwegian saeters. A belt of timber fringed the slopes above them.

It shouldn’t have taken me long to reach them, for it was not more than a mile, but the going was very slippery, the snow frozen into a hard crust and glazed over so that it was like ice. The altitude was also affecting me and I had to stop repeatedly to get my breath. The solitude was frightening. I felt curiously as though I were entering a dead man’s world. Everything was so white and so frozen still.

I was sheltered from the wind by the mountain, but from the slopes above me a whirl of snow came hurtling, curling and curving towards the moon like a scimitar blade. The huddle of buildings seemed crouched low against the onslaught, attempting to hide beneath their mounds of snow. The whirling snow devil swept over them and flung itself on me, a howling rush of wind and ice powder small as ground glass. It stung my face and swept on and all was still again.

I glanced back, panting with the shortness of my breath. The line of my footprints showed faintly in the powdery top layer of snow leading back to the buttress and the dark shadow of the cleft. I could no longer see the valley of Thunder Creek. I was ringed with rock and snow and the dam was again a puny man-made wall against the vast bulk of the southern peak of Solomon’s Judgment.

Behind the crystal white of the peak a heavy cloud obscured the sky like a back-drop of deepest black erected to offset the cold remoteness of the mountain. It was a monster of a cloud, great billows piled up and up into the night. Even as I watched I saw the hard edge of it reach out and clutch at the moon.

The shadow of it raced towards me across the snow. I glanced at the buildings, now less than five hundred yards away. The light was queer, distorted and refracted by the snow. It seemed to me a figure, stood there, watching me from the corner of the nearest of the buildings. I thought I saw it move. But then the shadow of the cloud was upon me and I had to adjust the focus of my eyes. And in that second the shadow had passed on and engulfed the buildings and I could see nothing but the snow gleaming white in the moonlight on the further side of the Kingdom. And then the peaks vanished, too, as though blotted out by a giant hand.

All was sudden and impenetrable blackness, and from high up on the peaks above came a dry rustling, a murmur like leaves or the soft escape of steam.

I hesitated, uncertain what to do; whether to go on to the homestead or turn back to the dam. Then all hell broke loose. There was a steady roaring on the mountain slopes above me. The wind came with a drift of powdery snow whipped up from frozen ground and behind the wind came snow, heavy, driving flakes that were cold and clinging, that blinded my eyes and blanketed the whole world that only a moment before had been so bright and clear in the moonlight.

There was no question now of fighting my way back to the top of the hoist. I knew the direction in which the homestead lay and I made for it, head down against the blinding fury of the blizzard and counting my steps so that I should not overshoot it in the impenetrable dark. I switched on the torch Jeff had given me, but it was worse than useless. It converted absolute blackness to a dazzling white world of driving flakes.

I walked straight on with the wind over my left shoulder for seven hundred counted yards and then stopped. I could see nothing. Absolutely nothing. I put the wind on my back and walked two hundred yards, turned right and walked another two hundred; faced into the wind and completed the square, eyes and nostrils almost blocked by the icy, clinging particles of the blizzard. I walked into it for another two hundred paces and again made a square. But I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t even tell whether I was walking on the flat or not. For all I knew I might have stumbled right over the top of the buildings, half-hidden as they were under drifts. Only if I walked bang up against a wall of the homestead had I any chance of locating it.

I stood still for a moment and considered, knowing that I mustn’t panic, that I must keep calm. Carefully, with the wind as my one fixed point, I searched the ground, patterning it in squares. But I might have been stumbling through an empty plain. I began to doubt whether I had seen any buildings at all. And that figure standing in the snow… There wasn’t a soul up in the Kingdom besides myself. If I could have imagined one thing I could have imagined the others. I stopped and wiped the snow from my frozen face. God, it was cold! I glanced at the luminous dial of my watch. Nine-fifteen. Nearly nine hours to go before dawn began to break. Those buildings had to be real — they had to be!

I started off again and then stopped, trying to remember what square in my pattern I had completed last, trying to get some spark of sense out of my numbed brain. It was then that I saw a faint glow though the snow, an aura of warmth as though a weak sun were trying to rise and penetrate the murk of the blizzard. It was away to my left and I stared at it, wondering whether it was a trick of my imagination or whether it was real. I blinked and rubbed at my snow-encrusted eyes. But the glow remained, a soft radiation that lit the driving snow like the deeper tints of a rainbow. It was unnatural, a queer ema nation of colour that warmed the frozen solitude of the Kingdom.

I turned towards it automatically, drawn like a moth to a candle flame in the dark. With every step the colours deepened — orange and red and yellow flamed in the blackness, spreading rosy tints into the flakes of driven snow. And then suddenly the veil of the blizzard seemed to fall back and I saw flames licking skywards and against their lurid light was etched the rough-hewn corner of a log building. A few steps more and I was in the shelter of a group of buildings low, log-built barns stretching out like two arms from a central ranch-house that had doors and windows. It was one of the barns that was on fire.

The warmth of the flames came licking out of the storm and I ran towards them, drawn by the heat, absorbing it with a feeling of sudden lassitude and wonderful, weary gratefulness. And as the warmth closed round me, melting the snow from my clothes, there was a slow creaking, a crackling of timbers, a movement, a sagging in the heart of the flames. Then with a great roar the roof collapsed. A shower of sparks shot upwards to be caught and extinguished instantly by the storm. The whole centre of the fire seemed to collapse inwards and as it collapsed half-melted snow rolled into the gap from the drift at the back. Steam rose with a roar, a great cloud that was momentarily lit by the glow of the fire. Then the fire was gone. Black darkness closed in and all that was left was a few glowing embers and the soft sizzling of snow melting in contact with red-hot ash.

I stood for a moment quite still. I think I was bewildered. It had all happened so suddenly. But it had lighted me in like a beacon. It was as though God had set forth His hand to guide me. And yet there had been no lightning. There had been nothing to cause the fire. A sudden sense of awe descended on me.

I shivered as the cold gripped me again. Whatever the cause of it the fire had shown me the place I was seeking. I felt my way through pools of melted snow to the main building, felt my way along the warm wood of the log face until I found the door. It yielded to my touch and I stumbled inside, closing it after me.

The place was cold, cold with the griping chill of a room that has had no heat in it for a long time. I fumbled for the torch again and in its beam I saw a big, ghostly room full of shadows. The walls were of log, ceiling and floorboards of split pine planks and there was the gaping hole of a huge stone chimney. On a table stood a lamp. It still had oil in it and I removed the glass chimney and lit the wick. When I set the chimney back the warm lamplight flooded the place. I stood back and stared at a room that might have been constructed by one of the pioneers who had moved into the Fraser River country a hundred years ago.

The place was dominated by the huge stone chimney which broadened out just below the rafters to a big open fireplace. It was built of rocks mortared together and on either side were baking ovens. The grate still held some half-burnt pine logs and a great heap of ash. The beams and rafters that supported the roof were rough-hewn, the marks of my grandfather’s axe plainly visible. Most of the furniture was handmade, but there were a few small pieces that had been imported. A door to the right led into a kitchen. A small range backed into the rough stone of the chimney and in one corner was a hot-water tank and an old galvanised tin bath. Near it was a lavatory and against the window a sink. A door led through into the undamaged barn, a long, low building full of shadow which the lamp could not penetrate. On the other side of the living-room was a bedroom. There was an old drum stove in one corner with an iron pipe running up through the roof. The bed was unmade. Clothes were strewn around — heavy ski boots, an old pair of jeans, a buckskin jacket beautifully worked with beads, an old and battered stetson, high-heeled cowboy boots of a fancy pattern, a gaily coloured plaid shirt, faded and sweat-stained under the armpits.

I felt as though I were an intruder in a private house, not the sole legatee of a man four months dead come to look over his properly. Everywhere I turned there was evidence of my grandfather. It seemed inconceivable that the man himself wouldn’t come in through the front door at any moment.

A pool of water was forming at my feet. There were logs piled in a bin beside the fireplace, logs brought in by Johnnie and his party when they had returned. There was a box of axe chippings and sawdust. In a few minutes I had a fire blazing in the hearth and had stripped off my clothes. I went through into the bedroom and got some things of my grandfather’s — a pair of jeans, a plaid shirt and a big fur-lined jacket. They were old and had been patched with great care. I stood close against the fire as I put them on. The flames roared, sucked up by the wind that drove across the top of the chimney. The heat of it slowly penetrated to my bones, warming the cold core of my body. The uncurtained windows showed the snow thick in the lamplight. But the only sound was the crackle of the flames in the hearth. The storm was muffled by the snow. It did not penetrate this warm, well-built ranch-house.

I lit a cigarette and went over to the desk. The drawers were full of an indescribable litter of correspondence, bills, receipts, copies of oil magazines, notes on crops, odd pieces of rock, cheque book stubs, some deeds, a few photographs, old keys, part of a broken bit. Some of the letters dated from the early thirties.

It was in the bottom of the empty Bible box lying on the floor beside the desk, that I found what I was looking for; rolled sheets of cartographic paper and a black, leather-bound book. The seismograms were quite incomprehensible to me. I rolled them up and put them back in the drawer. Then I opened the book.

This was what I had hoped to find. On the first page was written: An Account of the Efforts of one, Stuart Campbell, to Establish the Truth that there is Oil in the Rocky Mountains. The report was written in ink. It had faded a little with age and the paper had yellowed and become brittle. All the entries were dated. It began with the 3rd March, 1911, and went straight through to the entry made on the 20th November of the preceding year, the same day that he had written me that letter, the day of his death. The writing throughout was clearly recognisable as his own, but it gradually changed, the boldness blurring into the shakiness of age, and different inks had been used.

I turned back to the beginning and read with fascination the account of his discovery of oil in the valley of Thunder Creek.

‘This day, whilst on a visit to my old friend, Luke Trevedian, I was involved in the terrible disaster that overtook the goldmining community of Come Lucky. It had been snowing heavily for a week and the chinook beginning to blow there began at half-past eight in the morning a series of avalanches high up on the peak of the Overlander. These avalanches developed rapidly into a great slide that engulfed all the mine workings and spread for a whole mile across the flats of Thunder Creek, some of the rocks being of the size of large houses. For the next week everyone laboured for the release of miners trapped in the workings. But it was hopeless. In all forty-seven men and eleven boys missing in the mine and thirty-five people, including eight women and ten children, buried utterly, their dwellings standing in the course of the slide.’

There followed more details and then this passage:

‘… 11th March, I was able to push up the valley of Thunder Creek, the snows having largely melted. Geologically a most interesting journey since I was skirting the edge of the slide and could examine rocks that only a little time before had been deep below the surface of the mountain… Turning a bastion of Forked Lightning Mountain I got my first view of the falls. Imagine my astonishment on finding that the whole head of Thunder Valley had broken away. Instead of a series of falls from the hidden punch bowl Luke had shown me on my previous visit there was now a sheer cliff of new rock. The whole course of the creek had broken away and spilled forward … The awe-inspiring sight of a new cliff-face, unmarked by vegetation and standing stark and sheer for hundreds of feet, was most instructive regarding the strata of the country… In going down to slake my thirst I saw a black slime on the rocks at the edge of the swollen creek. These rocks were newly broken off and should have had no mark of vegetation. The waters of the creek were running dark and thick with a curious viscosity, and though they were swirling and thundering among the rocks, they did so smoothly … It was a river of oil. What proportion was oil and what was water I could not tell, but the deposit on the rocks was undoubtedly crude oil. It was the biggest seep I had ever seen. I made great efforts to climb up the slide to the source of the seepage, but shortly after midday it began to snow. Further falls of rock occurred and I had the greatest difficulty in getting safely down.

13th March: It snowed all day yesterday and I waited with the greatest impatience to take Luke and others up to the oil seep. Today we managed to get through, but alas, fresh falls had occurred and there was no evidence that we could find of any seep, nor could I discover any trace of the original seep though I searched the course of the creek wherever possible. I had great difficulty in convincing my companions that what I had seen two days ago …’

A draught of cold air touched my cheek and I looked up. The door to the bedroom was open. I turned with a start as something moved in the room behind me. The figure of a man was walking slowly towards the fire, his feet dragging, his long arms swinging loose. His huge body was white with snow and he had his hand to the side of his face and it was blackened as though charred by fire. He stopped in front of the grate, staring at the flames. There was something frightening in his stillness, in his complete absorption in the fire. His shadow flickered on the log walls and pools of water formed at his feet.

I got to my feet and at the scrape of my chair he jerked round. His eyes widened at the sight of me and his lips opened, but no sound came. It was Max Trevedian and naked fear showed in his blackened face. He mumbled something incoherently. His gaze darted past me to the door and he ran blindly towards it, the whites of his eyes showing in the blackened mask of his face. His big hands fumbled clumsily at the latch; then he had lifted it and the wind tore the door from his grasp and flung it wide. A blast of bitter air swept into the room. I had a momentary glimpse of him struggling in a blinding whirl of snow and then the lamp blew out and the flames of the fire flickered redly on the drift that was rapidly powdering the floor.

For a moment he disappeared into the black void of the doorway. But it was only for a moment. He couldn’t stand against the freak force of wind and snow and he staggered in again, bent low, his arms almost touching the ground, a monstrous, shapeless figure shrouded in snow. I flung myself against the door and forced it to. As I turned, panting from ‘the effort, I found him standing facing me, a dark silhouette against the firelight. He was trembling and his teeth were chattering. I can still remember the sound they made, a queer, rodent sound against the roar of the wind. Then he seemed to crumple up, falling on his knees, his lips emitting a gibbering that was only half intelligible:

‘… only a letter. I never hurt you. Never touched you. Max never mean to hurt anyone… like I do with Alf Robens. Not like that. Never hurt you… Please God believe …’ His voice died away in incoherent mumblings. And then quite clearly: ‘You ask Peter. Peter knows.’

I moved a step towards him, peering down at him, trying to see his face, to understand what it was that was scaring him, but he scrambled away from me on his knees like a horribly human land-crab. ‘Go away. Go away.’ He screamed the words out. ‘Dear God believe me. I do you no harm.’

‘Did Peter send you here?’ I asked. My voice sounded hoarse and unnatural.

‘Ja, ja. Peter send me. He tell me you will not rest till all is burned. You kill my father, so I come here to burn this place. I love my father. I do it for him. I swear it. I do it for him.’

‘Who was Alf Robens?’ I asked.

‘Alf Robens!’ I had moved so that I was between him and the fire. A log fell and in the sudden blaze I saw his face. The eyes were wide like two brown glass marbles, his lower lip hung down. It is the only time I have seen a man petrified with fear. His muscles seemed rigid. The sweat glistened on his face and seamed the charred blackness of his skin. Then his mouth began to work and at last a sound came: ‘He was a boy. Older than I was. A lot older. But I didn’t mean to kill him. They used to tie me on to the broncs — for sport. Then they tie me to a bull. And when I am free I get Alf Robens by the throat and beat his head against a stone. But I mean nothing by it. Like it was with Lucie. She make sport with me and when I am roused she is frightened. I do not hurt her, but they’ — he swallowed and licked his dry lips — ‘they try to hang me. I do not want to hurt anyone. I do not hurt you. Please leave me. Please.’ This last on a choking sob of fear.

I stood there for a moment, staring at this childish hulk of a man who was scared of something that was in his mind and feeling a strange sense of pity for him. At length I put my hand out and touched his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Max. I’m not Stuart Campbell.’ I went over to the desk then and relit the lamp. As I set the chimney back and the light brightened Max got slowly to his feet. His jaw was still slack and his eyes wide. He was breathing heavily. But his expression was changing from fear to anger.

Deep down within me I felt fear growing. Once I showed it I knew I should be lost. The man had colossal strength. The secret I knew was to treat him like an animal — to show no fear and to treat him with kindness and authority. ‘Sit down, Max,’ I said, not looking at him, concentrating on adjusting the wick of the lamp. My voice trembled slightly, but maybe my ears were over-sensitive. ‘You’re tired. So am I.’ I picked up the lamp and walked towards the kitchen, forcing myself to go slowly and easily, not looking at him. ‘I’m going to make some tea.’

I don’t think he moved all the time I was crossing the room. Then at last I was through to the kitchen. I left the door open and went to the store cupboard. There was tea in a round tin. I found cups and a big kettle. There was a movement by the door. I looked round. Max was standing there, staring at me, a puzzled frown on his face.

‘Do you know where my grandfather kept the sugar?’ I asked him.

He shook his head. He had the bewildered look of a small boy. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll find it. You take this kettle and fill it with snow.’ I held the kettle out to him and he came slowly forward and took it. ‘Ram the snow in tight,’ I said. And then as he stood there, hesitating, I added, ‘You like tea, don’t you?’

He nodded his big head slowly. ‘Ja.’ And then suddenly he smiled. It almost transformed his heavy, rather brutish face. ‘We make some good tea, eh?’ And he shambled out.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead and stood there for a moment thinking about Max, thinking of the hell his childhood must have been — with no mother, the boys of Come Lucky making fun of him and tying him on to broncs and bulls, having their own cruel stampede, and then the boy killed and a girl crying Rape and the town trying to lynch him. I wondered how his brother had maintained his domination over him during years of absence. His childhood memories must have remained very vivid.

I found some biscuits and some canned meat. We ate them in front of the fire waiting for the snow to melt in the kettle and the water to boil. The wind moaned in the big chimney and Max sat there, wrapped in a blanket, silent and withdrawn. The kettle boiled and I made the tea. But as we sat drinking it I suddenly felt the silence becoming tense.

I looked up and Max was staring at me. ‘Why do you come here?’ His voice was a growl. ‘Peter say you are not to come — you are like Campbell.’

I began to talk then, telling him about my grandfather as he appeared to me, how I had come all the way from England, how I was a sick man and not expected to live. And all the time the storm beat against the house. And when silence fell between us again and I sensed the tension growing because his interest was no longer held, I searched around in my mind for something to talk to him about and suddenly I remembered the Jungle Book and I began to tell him the story of Mowgli. And by the time I had told him of the first visit of Shere Khan I knew I needn’t worry any more. He sat enraptured. Maybe it was the first time anybody had ever taken any trouble with him. Certainly I am convinced he had never been told a story before. He listened spell-bound, the expression of his face reacting to every mood of the story. And whenever I paused he muttered fiercely, ‘Go on. Go on.’

When at length I came to the end the tears were streaming down his face. ‘It is very — beautiful. Ja, very beautiful.’ He nodded his head slowly.

‘Better get some rest now, Max,’ I said. He didn’t seem to hear me, but when I repeated it, he shook his head and a worried frown puckered his forehead. ‘I must go to Come Lucky.’ He clambered to his feet. ‘Peter will be angry with me.’

‘You can’t go down till the storm is over,’ I said.

He crossed to the door. A howl of wind and snow entered the room as he opened it. He stood there for a moment, his body a hulking shadow against the lamplit white of the driven snow. Then he shut the door again and came slowly back to the fire, shaking his head. ‘No good,’ he said.

‘Do you think it’ll last long?’

‘Two hours. Two days.’ He shrugged his shoulders. He was accustomed to the waywardness of the mountains.

‘How did you come up here?’

‘By the old pony trail.’

‘Did you ride up then?’

‘ Ja, ja. I ride.’

‘Where’s your horse?’

‘In the stable. He is all right. There is good hay there.’

‘Well, you’d better come down with me on the hoist when it clears,’ I said. ‘I don’t think you’d get far on a pony trail by the time this is over.’

‘We will see,’ he said and wrapped himself in his blanket and lay in front of the fire. I went into the bedroom and got some blankets and stretched myself out near him. I felt desperately tired. I was worried, too, about Jeff down there alone at the bottom of the hoist.

I don’t remember much about that night. Once I got up and put more logs on the fire. Mostly I slept in a coma of exhaustion. And then suddenly I was awake. It was bitterly cold, the fire was a dead heap of white ash and a pale glimmer of daylight crept in through the snow-bordered windows. Max was not in the room.

I pulled myself to my feet and stumbled across to the door. It had stopped snowing and I looked out on to a world of white under a grey sky. Footprints led to an open door at the far end of the half-burn barn. They did not return. ‘Max!’ My voice seemed to lose itself in the infinite stillness. ‘Max!’ I followed the footsteps through deep drifts of new snow to the stable door. The place was empty. The snow was trampled here and the tracks of a horse went out into the driven white of the Kingdom, headed for the cleft.

I went back into the house, rebuilt the fire and got myself some breakfast. The warmth and the food revived me and as soon as I had finished I carried out a quick inspection of the premises. The place was built facing south, the barns spreading out from either side of the house like two arms. Fortunately Bladen’s trucks were in the undamaged barn and it didn’t take me long to find the spools containing the recordings of his final survey. I slipped the containers into my pocket and then I set out along the trail Max had Blazed. The snow was deep in places and it took me the better part of an hour to reach the buttress of rock. From the top of it I could see the hoist. The cage was not in its staging. The thought that it might have broken down flashed into my mind. The place was so damnably still. A frozen silence seemed to have gripped the world. There were no mare’s tails on the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment. Not a breath of air stirred.

From the buttress Max had led his horse. Only a powdery drift of snow covered the shelving rock. It was slippery like ice. The black line of the water showed through the gap in the dam; it was the only thing that moved. To my left were the rusted remains of some machinery and part of a timbered scaffolding.

I was very tired by the time I staggered into the concrete housing of the hoist. I went straight over to the telephone, lifted the receiver and wound the handle. There was no answer. A feeling of panic crept up from my stomach. It was entirely unreasoned for I could always return to the ranch-house. I tried again and again, and then suddenly a voice was crackling in my ears. ‘Hallo! Hallo! Is that you, Bruce?’ It was Jeff Hart. A sense of relief hit me and I leaned against the ice-cold concrete of the wall. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Bruce here. Is the hoist working-’

‘Thank God you’re okay.’ His voice sounded thin and far away. ‘I was scared stiff you’d got lost. And then that fool, Max Trevedian, came down and galloped off before I could ask him whether you were all right. Were you okay up at Campbell’s place?’

‘Yes,’ I said. And I told him how I’d found it.

‘You were pretty damned lucky. I’ll get them to send the hoist up for you. Johnnie’s here. He’ll come up with it. I’m just about all in. What a hell of a night. Okay. She’s on her way up now.’

I put the phone down. The big cable wheel was clanking monotonously as it turned. I went over to the slit, watching the lip of the cliff. All the valley was white and frozen.

Ten minutes later the cage dropped into its housing with a solid thud and Johnnie was there, gripping my hand as though I’d returned from the Arctic. ‘You goldarned crazy fool!’ That was all he said and then he went over to the phone and rang for them to take us down. He didn’t talk as we dropped through space to the slide and the concrete housing at the foot of it. I think he realised that I was just about at the end of my tether.

As we dropped into the housing at the bottom I noticed that Jeff’s car had gone. In its place was one of the transport company’s trucks. Johnnie had to help me over, the side of the cage. Now that I was out of the Kingdom my body seemed weak and limp. The engine of the hoist died away and a man came out of the housing towards us. My vision was blurred and I didn’t recognise him. And then suddenly I was looking into the angry, black eyes of Peter Trevedian. ‘Seems we got to lock our property up out here now,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘Next time, let me know when you want to play around and we’ll see you get a nursemaid.’

‘Cut it out, Trevedian. Can’t you see he’s dead beat?’ Johnnie’s voice sounded remote, like the surgeon’s voice in an operating theatre just before you go under.

I ‘don’t remember much about that drive, just the blessed heat of the engine and the trees coming at us in an endless line of white. Then we were at the bunkhouse and Jean was there and several others and they half-carried me up to the hotel. The next thing I knew I was up in my room and my body was sinking into warm oblivion, surrounded by hot water bottles.

It was getting dark when I woke. Johnnie was sitting by the window reading a magazine. He looked up as I stirred. ‘Feeling better?’

I nodded and sat up. ‘I feel fine,’ I said. There was a note of surprise in my voice. I hadn’t felt so good for a long time. And I was hungry, too.

He rolled a cigarette, lit it for me and put it in my mouth. ‘Boy got in today. Wants to see you as soon as you feel okay.’

‘Boy Bladen?’

‘Yeh. He’s got an Irishman with him — a drilling contractor, name of Garry Keogh. And your lawyer feller, Acheson, rang through. He’s coming up here to see you tomorrow. That’s about all the news, I guess. Except that Trevedian’s madder’n hell about your going up to the Kingdom.’

‘Because I used his hoist?’

‘Mebbe.’

‘Did McClellan object?’

‘Oh, Jimmy’s okay. He was just scared you’d gone and killed yourself. Oh, I nearly forgot.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. ‘Mac asked me to give you this.’ He tossed it on to the bed.

It was a long envelope and bulky. It was sealed with wax. I turned it over and saw it was postmarked Calgary. That’ll be Acheson,’ I said. ‘Another copy of the deed of sale for the Kingdom. He just doesn’t seem able to take No for an answer.’ I put it on the table beside me. ‘Johnnie.’

‘Yeh?’

‘I’m hungry. Do you think you could get them to produce something for me to eat?’

‘Sure. What would you like?’

‘I wouldn’t mind a steak. A big, juicy steak.’

He cocked his head on one side, peering at me as though he were examining a horse. ‘Seems the Kingdom agrees with you. I was only saying to Jeff just now that you looked a hell of a lot better than when we saw you at Jasper.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Okay. I’ll tell Pauline to cook you up something real big in the way of a T-bone steak. All right for Boy and Keogh to come up?’

I nodded. ‘What’s the time?’

‘A little after seven.’

I had slept for over twelve hours. I got up and had a wash. I was still towelling myself when footsteps sounded on the stairs. It was Boy Bladen and there was something about the way he erupted into the room that took me back to my school days. He was like a kid bursting with news. The man with him was big and heavy and solid with a battered face and broken teeth. His clothes, like himself, were crumpled and shapeless. And in that shapelessness as well as in the loose hang of his arms, the relaxed state of his muscles, there was something really tough. He looked like a man whom the world had tossed from one end to the other and battered all the way.

‘Bruce. This is Garry Keogh.’ I found my hand engulfed in the rasping grip of a fist that seemed like a chunk of rock. Garry Keogh took off his hat and tossed it on to the chair. His grizzled hair was cut short and he was partly bald. He looked like an all-in wrestler, but his eyes were those of a dreamer with a twinkle of humour in them that softened his face to something friendly. ‘I’ve almost talked him into doing the drilling for us,’ Boy added. ‘It was Garry’s rig I was wildcatting on during the winter.’

I stared at the big rig operator. ‘You think there’s oil up there?’

‘Sure and there maybe.’ He was Irish, but he spoke slowly, as though words were an unaccustomed commodity. It gave emphasis to everything he said. ‘Boy’s impetuous, but he’s no fool. I never met Campbell. I heard he was a crazy bird. But then the story of every strike is the story of men who were thought crazy till they were proved to have staked a mine.’ He grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. ‘My father went to the Yukon in ‘98. That’s where I was born.’

‘But I don’t own the mineral rights of the Kingdom,’ I said. ‘Didn’t Boy tell you? They were mortgaged to Roger Fergus by my grandfather’s company and now that he’s dead they’ll pass to his son.’

Garry Keogh turned to Boy. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?’

‘But-’ Boy was staring at me. ‘Louis Winnick told me the old man had given you back the mineral rights. The day after you saw Roger Fergus he sent for Louis. He said he’d left him a legacy under his will. He told him about your visit and instructed him that he was to give you all the help you needed — free of any charge. He said it was a condition of the legacy. He wouldn’t have done that unless he’d known you were free to go ahead and drill in the Kingdom if you wanted to. You haven’t heard from the old man?’

I shook my head.

‘You’ve had no communication from him at all, or from his lawyers?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The only mail I’ve had-’ I stopped then and turned to the table beside the bed. I picked up the envelope and split the seal. Inside was a package of documents. The letter attached to them wasn’t from Acheson. It was on Bank of Canada note-paper and it read: On the instructions of our client, Mr Roger Fergus, we are enclosing documents relating to certain mineral rights mortgaged to our client by the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. Cancellation of the mortgage is effective as from the date of this letter and we are instructed to inform you that our client wishes you to know that from henceforth neither he nor his estate will have any claim to these rights and further that any debts outstanding with the company referred to above, for which these documents were held as security, are cancelled. You are requested to sign the enclosed receipt and forward it….’ I opened out these documents. They were in respect of ‘The mineral rights in the territory known generally as Campbell’s Kingdom.’ There followed the necessary map references. I passed the papers across to Boy. ‘You were quite right,’ I said.

Boy seized hold of them. ‘I knew I was. If Roger Fergus said he’d do a thing, he always did it. Louis said he was pretty taken with you. Thought you’d got a lot of guts and hopes for Stuart’s sake you’d win out.’

I thought of the old man, half paralysed in that wheel-chair. I could remember his words — ‘A fine pair we are.’ And then: ‘I’d like to have seen one more discovery well brought in before I die.’ There was a lump in my throat as I remembered those words. ‘I’m glad you came. If your doctor fellow’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon.’ It would be nice to tell him I’d brought in a well. But I wished he were in the thing with me. It would have been much easier. I needed somebody experienced. I looked across at Keogh and then at Boy, the two of them so dissimilar, but neither of them capable of fighting a big company backed by the solid weight of unlimited finance and with lawyers to make legal rings round our efforts. Boy didn’t understand what we were up against.

Keogh looked up from the documents Boy had passed him. He must have seen the doubt in my face for he said, ‘What do you plan to do, Wetheral — go ahead and drill?’

I hesitated. But my mind slid away from the difficulties. I could see only that old man sitting in the wheel-chair and behind him the more shadowy figure of my grandfather. Both of them had believed in me. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If Winnick reports favourably, I’ll go ahead — provided I can get the capital.’

Keogh fingered his lower lip, his eyes fixed on me. They were narrowed and sharp — not cunning, but speculating. ‘You’d find it a lot easier to raise capital if you’d brought in a well,’ he murmured.

‘I know that.’

‘Boy mentioned something about your being willing to split fifty-fifty on all profits with those who do the development work.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s about it.’

He nodded abstractedly, stroking his chin. His fingers made a rasping sound against the stubble of his beard. Then suddenly he looked up. ‘I’ve been in the oil business over twenty years now and I’ve never had a proposition like this made to me. It’s the sort of thing a drilling contractor dreams of.’ His broken teeth showed in a grin. ‘It’d be flying in the face of providence to refuse it.’ He turned to Boy. ‘If Win-nick’s report on that recording tape is optimistic then you’ll go up to the Kingdom and do another survey. Okay?’ Boy nodded. ‘If the proposition still looks good, then I’ll come up here again and look over the ground.’ He hesitated, staring down at me. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Wetheral. This is a hell of a gamble. I’ve made a bit on the last two wildcats I drilled. ‘Otherwise I wouldn’t be interested. But I’m still only good for about a couple of months operating on my own. To be any use to me, there’s got to be water handy and the depth mustn’t be more than a few thousand feet, dependent on the nature of the country we have to drill through. But if all that’s okay, then it’s a deal.’

‘Fine,’ I said.

He was staring down at his hands. ‘I started as a roustabout,’ he said slowly. ‘I worked fifteen years as roughneck, driller and finally tool-pusher before I got together enough dough to get my own rig. I was another five years paying for it. Now I’m in the clear and making dough.’ He smiled gently to himself. ‘Funny thing about human nature. Somehow it don’t seem able to stop. You own a rig and you think that’s fine and before you know where you are you’re wanting an interest in an oil well.’ His smile spread to a deep laugh. ‘I guess when a man’s finished expanding, he’s finished living.’ He turned abruptly to the door. ‘Come on, Boy. Time we had a drink. You care to join us, Wetheral?’

Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got some food coming up.’

‘Okay. Be seeing you before I leave.’

He went out. Boy hesitated. ‘It was the best I could do, Bruce. Garry’s straight and he’s a fighter! Once he gets his teeth into a thing he doesn’t let up easily. But I’m sorry about Roger Fergus.’

‘So am I,’ I said.

He had taken the spools containing the recording tape out of his pocket and was joggling them up and down on the palm of his hand. ‘Funny to think that these little containers may be the start of a new oilfield.’ He stared at them, lost in his own thoughts. And then he said an odd thing: ‘It’s like holding Destiny in the palm of one’s hands. If this proves Louis’ first report wrong…’ He slipped them into his pocket. ‘Jeff lent me his station wagon. I’ll get over to Keithley tonight so that they’ll catch the mail out first thing in the morning. We should get Louis’ report within three days.’ He had moved over to the door and he stood there for a moment, his hand on the knob. ‘You know, somehow that makes me scared.’ He seemed about to say something further, but instead he just said, ‘Goodnight,’ and went out.

I lit a cigarette and lay back on my bed. Things were beginning to move and, like Boy, I felt scared. I wondered whether I’d have the energy to handle it all. Acheson would be arriving tomorrow. Probably he’d have Henry Fergus with him. Once they knew my intention …

There was a knock at the door and Jean came in. ‘How’s the invalid?’ She had a tray of food and she put it down on the table beside me. ‘Pauline was out, so I did the best I could. Johnnie said you were hungry.’

‘I could eat a horse.’

‘Well, this isn’t horse.’ She smiled, but it was only a movement of her lips. She seemed tensed up about something. ‘Boy and that big Irishman are down in the bar drinking.’

‘Well?’ The steak was good. I didn’t want to talk.

She was over by the window, standing there, Staring at me. ‘It’s all over the town that you’re going to drill a well up in the Kingdom.’

‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but-’ She hesitated. ‘Bruce. You should have made your plans without anybody here knowing what you were up to.’

I looked up from my plate. Her face was pale in the lamplight, the scars on her jaw more noticeable than usual. ‘I haven’t any capital,’ I said. ‘And when you haven’t any capital you can’t plan things in advance.’

‘If Henry Fergus decides to proceed with the dam you’re headed for trouble.’

‘I know that.’

‘And if he doesn’t then the people here will be sore and they’ll get at you somehow. Johnnie wasn’t exactly clever in making an enemy of Peter.’

‘Appeasement is not in his line.’

‘No, but-’ She gave a quick, exasperated sigh and sat down in the chair. ‘Can I have a cigarette, please?’

I tossed her a packet and a box of matches. ‘You don’t seem to realise what you’re up against, any of you. Boy I can understand, and Johnnie. But you’re English. You’ve fought in the war. You know what happens when people get whipped up emotionally. You’re not a fool.’ She blew out a streamer of smoke. ‘It’s as though you didn’t care — about yourself, I mean.’

‘You think I may get hurt?’ I was staring at her, wondering what was behind her concern.

‘You’re putting yourself in a position where a lot of people would be glad if an accident happened to you.’

‘And you think it might?’

‘After last night anything could happen.’ She was leaning forward. ‘What made you do such a crazy thing? You’re now branded as a fool where mountains are concerned.’

‘What are you trying to tell me?’

‘That you’re going about this business so clumsily that I’m afraid…’ She stopped short, and then in a sudden rush of words: ‘How do you think you’re going to get a drilling rig up to the Kingdom? From now on Trevedian will have a guard on the hoist. He won’t even allow your rig to move on the new road. It’s on his property and he’s every right to stop you from trespassing. Even supposing you did get the rig up there, do you think they’d let it rest at that?’ She got to her feet with a quick movement of anger. ‘You can’t fight a man as big as Henry Fergus, and you know it.’

‘I can try,’ I said.

She swung round on me. ‘This isn’t the City of London, Bruce. This is the Canadian West. A hundred years ago there was nothing here — no railways, no roads; the Fraser River was only just being opened up. This isn’t a lawless country but it’s been opened up by big companies and they’ve bulldozed their way through small interests. They’ve had to. Now you come out here from England and start throwing down the gauntlet to a man like Henry Fergus. Henry isn’t his father. He isn’t a pioneer. There’s nothing lovable about him. He’s a financier and as cold as six inches of steel.’ She turned away to the window. ‘You’re starting something that’ll end on a mountain slope somewhere out there.’ She nodded through the black panes of the window. ‘I know this sort of business. I was two years in France with the Maquis till they got me. I know every trick. I know how to make murder look like an accident.’ She dropped her cigarette on to the floor and ground it out with the heel of her shoe. ‘You’ve made it so easy for them. You have an accident. The police come up here to investigate. Whatever I may say and perhaps others, they’ll hear about last night and they’ll shrug their shoulders and say that you were bound to get hurt sooner or later.’

I had finished my steak and I lit a cigarette. ‘What do you suggest I do then?’

She pushed her hand through her hair. ‘Sell out and go back home.’ Her voice had dropped suddenly to little more than a whisper.

‘That wasn’t what you wanted me to do when I first came to see you. You wanted me to fight.’

‘You were a stranger then.’

‘What difference does that make?’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She came and stood over me. Her face had a peculiar sadness. This happened to me once before,’ she said in a tired voice. ‘I don’t want it to happen again.’ She suddenly held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Bruce.’ She had control of her voice now and it was natural, impersonal. ‘I’ll be gone in the morning. I’m taking a trip down to the Coast. It’s time I had a change. I’ve been in Come Lucky too long.’

I looked up at her face. It was suddenly older and there was a withdrawn set to her mouth. ‘You’re running out on me,’ I said.

‘No.’ The word came out with a violence that was unexpected. ‘I never ran out on anybody in my life — or anything.’ Her voice trembled. ‘It’s just that I’m tired. I can’t-’ She stopped there and shrugged her shoulders. ‘If you come out to Vancouver-’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I’ll leave my address with the Garrets.’

‘Would you really like me more if I threw in my hand because the going looked tough?’

Her hands fluttered uncertainly. ‘It isn’t a question of liking. It’s just that I can’t stand-’ She got hold of herself with a quick intake of breath. ‘Goodbye, Bruce.’ Her fingers touched mine. She half-bent towards me, a. sudden tenderness in her eyes. But then she straightened up and turned quickly to the door. She didn’t look round as she went out and I was left with the remains of my meal and a feeling of emptiness.

I went round to see her in the morning, but she had already left, travelling to Keithley with Max Trevedian and Garry Keogh in the supply truck. ‘Did she leave any message?’ I asked Miss Garret.

‘No. Only her address.’ She handed me a sheet of paper and her sharp, beady eyes quizzed me through her lorgnette. ‘Do you know why she left so suddenly, Mr Wetheral?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t.’

‘Most extraordinary. So unlike her to do anything suddenly like that. My sister and I are very worried.’

‘Didn’t she give you any explanation?’ I asked.

‘No. She just said she needed a change and was leaving.’

‘Did she say when she’d be coming back?’

‘No. She hardly spoke at all. She seemed upset.’

‘Ruth,’ her sister’s voice called from the other side of the room. ‘Don’t forget the little box she left for Mr Wetheral.’

‘Of course not,’ Ruth Garret answered a trifle sharply. ‘It’s in my room. I’ll get it for you.’

As she went through the door her sister scurried across the room to me. Her thin, transparent hand caught hold of my arm. ‘You silly boy,’ she said. ‘Why did you let her go?’

‘Why?’ I was a little taken aback. ‘What could I do to stop her?’

‘I wouldn’t know what men do to stop a girl running away from them. I’m an old maid.’ The blue eyes twinkled up at me. And then suddenly they were full of tears. ‘It’s so quiet here without her. I wish she hadn’t gone. She was so warm and — comforting to have around.’ She dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘When you have lived shut away for so long, it is nice to have somebody young in the house. It was so restful.’

‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’ I asked.

‘Yes, very. It was — like having a daughter here. And now she’s gone and I don’t know when she’ll be coming back.’ She began to sob. ‘Youth is very cruel — to old people.’

I took hold of her by the shoulders, feeling the thin frailty of her bones. ‘Stop crying, Miss Sarah. Please. Tell me why she went away. You know why she went, don’t you?’ I shook her gently.

‘She ran away,’ she sobbed. ‘She was afraid of life — like Ruth and me. She didn’t want to be hurt any more.’

‘Do you know anything about her, before she came to Come Lucky?’

‘A little — not much. She was in France, a British agent working with the Resistance. She operated a radio for them. She was with her father and then when he was killed she worked with another man and-’ She hesitated and then said, ‘I think she fell in love …’ Her voice trailed off on a note of sadness.

‘Was he killed, this fellow she was in love with?’

She nodded- ‘Yes, I think so. But she wouldn’t talk about it. I think she used up a whole lifetime in those few years. She is a little afraid of life now.’

‘I see.’ Footsteps sounded on the stairs and I let go of her shoulders.

‘Here you are.’ Ruth Garret held out a small mahogany box to me. ‘I almost forgot about it. She gave it to me last night.’

‘Did she say anything when she handed it to you?’

‘No. Only that it was for you. The key is in the lock.’ I looked at her and knew by the way her eyes avoided mine that she had opened it and knew what was inside. She hadn’t intended to give it to me.

‘Is there any message inside?’ I asked.

She stiffened angrily. ‘No.’ She turned away and walked out of the room, holding herself very erect. Her sister suddenly giggled. ‘Ruth doesn’t like to be found out. I shall have to be very deaf for at least a week now.’ Her eyes twinkled at me through her tears.

And then with a sudden disconcerting change of mood: ‘Please go to Vancouver and bring her back. I shall miss her terribly.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shan’t be going to Vancouver.’

The corner of her mouth turned down petulantly and her lips trembled. ‘Will you let pride-’

‘It isn’t pride,’ I said. ‘It’s common sense.’ On a sudden impulse I bent down and kissed her forehead. ‘Thank you for telling me a little about her. And if she does come back, tell her to stay away from the Kingdom. Tell her to go back to Vancouver till it’s all over.’

Till — it’s all over?’

‘Yes. Till it’s all over.’ I went out on to the boarded sidewalk then and walked slowly back to the hotel, the little mahogany box clutched under my arm. Johnnie Carstairs and Jeff were just leaving. I left the box in my room and walked with them down to their car. I hadn’t seen Boy that morning and I asked about him. ‘He’s gone off into the mountains,’ Johnnie answered. ‘He’s like that. As long as Keogh was here he was full of optimism. But now — he’s like a broody hen.’ His fingers dug into my flesh as he held my arm. ‘Bruce. You know what you’re doing, do you?’

‘I think so,’ I said.

He nodded slowly, looking me straight in the eyes. ‘Yes, I guess you do. You don’t care do you?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘About life — and death. It doesn’t scare you the way it does most people.’ He bit on the end of the matchstick clamped between his teeth and spat the chewed end of it out. ‘If you want me, phone Jeff. If I’m in Jasper I’ll come. Understand?’ His hand gripped mine.

‘That’s good of you, Johnnie,’ I said.

He climbed into the station wagon and a moment later they were slithering down through the mud to the lakeside.

I walked slowly back to the hotel. The big barroom was empty, the whole place strangely silent and deserted. My friends had gone. I had nothing to do now but wait for the arrival of Acheson. I climbed wearily up to my room. The mahogany box lay on the bed where I had tossed it. I picked it up and went over to the window, weighing it in my hands, speculating about its contents and oddly reluctant to open it. The twin peaks of Solomon’s Judgment gleamed white against the grey of the sky. I could see her face in the panes of the window sill. The scars of her jaw were more marked in my mental picture of her than they were in reality. A mood of sadness enveloped me, a bitter sense of frustration. If only…

With a quick movement of my fingers I turned the ‘ key in the lock and opened the lid. Inside the box there was something wrapped up in a silk scarf. I took it out, still wrapped, and held it in my hand, feeling the hardness of the metal, the old familiar shape of it. I had stripped one of these from the dead body of an officer of the 21st Panzer Division and I’d carried it in my holster over two thousand miles of desert warfare.

I unwound the silk scarf and the Luger fell into the palm of my hand as naturally as that other had done all those years back. My finger curled automatically to the trigger. The black butt of it was notched as mine had been. I counted seven notches. And above the notches was scratched a name — Paul Morton.

I sat down on the bed, staring at the thing. Paul Morton! Paul Morton was the name of a man who had been my grandfather’s partner in the flotation of the Rocky Mountain Oil Exploration Company, the man who had run out on him with all the capital of the company. Could it be the same Morton? I searched quickly in the box, but there was no message, nothing but four spare magazines, all loaded. I wondered how Morton had come to possess a Luger. And I wondered also how Jean Lucas had become the owner of Morton’s gun.

There was a knock on the door. I slipped the ugly-looking weapon under my pillow. ‘Come in.’

It was Pauline. ‘There are two men here asking for you, Bruce.’

Acheson! Tell them I’m coming down right away.’ I locked the box in one of my grips and slipped the Luger into my hip-pocket. The action was quite automatic and I found myself smiling at it as I went downstairs. Jean was being a little over-melodramatic. They might play it rough, but not that rough. And yet the odd thing is that I’m certain the presence of that gun in my pocket gave me confidence. Not a gunman’s confidence. I don’t mean that. But it was as though the years between the end of the war and that moment were wiped away and I was back, in command, with men under me and a life to be lived for the day only with no thought of the future except how you could destroy the enemy. It was a good feeling. I liked it. It seemed to give me buoyancy and energy. And when I found myself face to face with Acheson and Henry Fergus I almost laughed, thinking of how they’d have made out at Knightsbridge with only a couple of tanks left and the whole ring of dunes spitting flame. ‘Let’s go into the bar,’ I said. ‘We can talk there.’

Henry Fergus was a tall, spare man with a slight stoop to his shoulders. He had a thin, unemotional face and even out here he managed to retain something of the man of money about him. He came straight to the point. ‘How much do you want, Wetheral?’

‘I’m not selling,’ I said.

‘What was this drilling contractor doing out here?’ Acheson asked.

‘Is that any business of yours?’ I demanded. I was thinking how Fergus had indirectly been responsible. for Campbell’s death. Acheson had been in on it, too, I had no doubt. ‘I suppose you’ve been talking to Trevedian?’

Acheson nodded. ‘We’ve just been up to the dam. That’s why we came out here. If you’re thinking of drilling up in the Kingdom I have to remind you that you don’t own the mineral rights. They were mortgaged to Mr Fergus’ father. Now that he is dead-’

‘Just who are you acting for, Acheson,’ I said. ‘Me or Fergus?’

His eyes widened slightly at my tone and the florid colouring of his smoothly polished cheeks deepened. ‘For both of you,’ he said sharply. ‘And it’s lucky for you that I am, otherwise Mr Fergus here would never have considered the idea-’

‘That’s a lie,’ I said. ‘Fergus was considering completing the dam over a year ago. It was only because his father insisted on a survey first that construction was postponed until this year.’

He stared at me, his mouth slightly open. ‘You’re not acting for me, Acheson,’ I said. ‘You never have been. You’re acting for Fergus here. As for the mineral rights, I suppose you didn’t bother to check with the Bank of Canada who has them now?’

‘What are you getting at?’ Fergus demanded.

For answer I pulled out my wallet and handed him the covering letter I had received with the documents. He read it through slowly. Not a muscle of his face moved. Then he passed it across to Acheson. I watched the solicitor’s face. He wasn’t a poker player like Fergus. ‘How did you get these?’ he demanded angrily. ‘What yarn did you spin the old man?’ He turned to Fergus, ‘I think we could challenge this. It might be a question of false pretences.’

I leaned back. ‘Now I know where I am,’ I said. ‘When you get back to Calgary, Acheson, will you kindly lodge all the documents relating to Stuart Campbell with the Bank of Canada together with a statement of any actions you have taken regarding his affairs without my knowledge. And I warn you, I’ll have the whole thing checked through by a competent and honest lawyer,’ And then, before he could recover himself, I added, ‘Now perhaps you’ll leave us to discuss this business privately since it no longer concerns you.’

He sat staring at me for a moment, his mouth open, quite speechless. Then he turned to Fergus, who had lit a cigarette and was watching the scene with the detachment of a spectator. ‘I think,’ Fergus said, ‘Wetheral and I will get on better on our own.’

Acheson hesitated. He wanted to say something. I could see him struggling to get it out, but he didn’t know what to say. In the end he pulled himself to his feet and left us without a word.

Fergus watched him go and then leaned towards me. ‘It seems you’re a good deal cleverer than Acheson gave you credit for. Suppose we put the cards on the table. In the first place, I have no alternative source of power. The Larsen Mines are low grade ore. It’s all right taking power from one of the existing companies now when lead prices are high. But I’m operating on the long view. I want cheap power permanently in the hands of the company. Therefore, you can take it as quite definite that whatever your attitude- I shall go ahead with the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam and in due course — about five months from now — the Kingdom will be a lake. I have full powers to do this under the legislation passed by the Provincial Parliament in February, 1939.

You can either accept my offer, which is $60,000, or we can go to arbitration.’

‘Then we go to arbitration,’ I said. ‘And if there’s oil up there-’

‘There’s only one way for you to prove that there’s oil up there,’ he said, and that is to drill a well.’

I nodded. ‘That’s exactly what I intend to do.’

He smiled. ‘Then you’ll have to drill it with a bit and brace for you won’t get a rig up there. I’ll see to that. Better face it, Wetheral. The courts won’t grant you anything like $60,000 in compensation.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said. ‘You’ve already monkeyed about with a survey and caused the death of an old man. That won’t look too good if it comes out in court.’

But he just smiled. ‘You think it over.’ He got to his feet. ‘$60,000 is a lot of money for a young man like you. It would be a pity to lose it all trying to drill a well. And don’t do anything foolish. Remember, Campbell was a crook and his record wouldn’t help you any if you got yourself into the criminal courts.’ He nodded to me, still with that thin-lipped smile on his face, and turned to the door. ‘Acheson! Acheson!’ His voice gradually faded away as I sat there, rigid, my hands gripping the edge of the table, my whole body cold with anger. My grandfather’s record hadn’t been thrown in my face like that since I was a kid.

At length I got to my feet and went slowly up to my room. From the window I watched the two of them leave and walk down to Trevedian’s office. I looked down and saw I was holding the gun in my hand. I threw it quickly on to the bed. I couldn’t trust myself to have it in my hand.

I was still standing there, staring up to the twin peaks of Solomon’s Judgment, when old Mac came in. His face was sour and his burr more pronounced than ever as he told me I could no longer stay at the hotel. I didn’t argue with him. From the window I could see Trevedian’s thick-set figure walking back to the bunkhouse and down the lake-shore a big American car was ploughing through the slush in the direction of Keithley.

The gloves were off and I began to pack my things.