Landslide

I

They had driven a new road up to the Kinoxi Valley to take care of the stream of construction trucks carrying materials for the dam and the logging trucks bringing the lumber from the valley. It was a rough road, not too well graded and being chewed to pieces by the heavy traffic. Where there was mud they had corduroyed it with ten-inch logs which made your teeth rattle, and in places they had cut through the soil down to bedrock to provide a firmer footing.

No one took any notice of me; I was merely another man driving a battered truck which looked as though it had a right to be there. The road led to the bottom of the low escarpment where they were building the generator house, a squat structure rafted on a sea of churned-up mud in which a gang of construction workers sweated and swore. Up the escarpment, by the side of the brown-running stream, ran the flume, a 36-inch pipe to bring the water to the powerhouse. The road took off on the other side of the stream and clung to a hillside, zig-zagging its way to the top and towards the dam.

I was surprised to see how far they had got with the construction. McDougall was right: the Kinoxi Valley would be under water in three months. I pulled off the road and watched them pour concrete for a few minutes and noted the smooth way in which the sand and gravel trucks were handled. This was an efficient operation.

A big logging truck passed, going downhill like a juggernaut, and the Land-Rover rocked on its springs in the wind of its passing. There was not likely to be another close behind it so I pressed on up the road, past the dam and into the valley where I ran the Land-Rover off the road and behind trees where it was not likely to be seen. Then I went on foot away from the road, taking a slanting, climbing course across the hillside until I was high enough to get a good view of the valley.

It was a scene of desolation. The quiet valley I had known, where the fish jumped in the stream and the deer browsed in the woodlands, had been destroyed. In its place was a wilderness of jagged stumps and a tangle of felled brushwood on a ground of mud criss-crossed by the track marks of the trucks. Away up the valley, near the little lake, there was still the green of trees, but I could hear, even at that distance, the harsh scream of the power saws biting into living wood.

British Columbia is very conservation-minded where its lumber resources are concerned. Out of every dollar earned in the province fifty cents comes ultimately from the logging industry and the Government wants that happy state of affairs to continue. So the Forestry Service polices the woodlands and controls the cutting. There are an awful lot of men who get a kick out of murdering a big tree and there are a few money-greedy bastards who are willing to let them get their kicks because of the number of board-feet of manufactured lumber that the tree will provide at the sawmill. So the Forestry Service has its work cut out.

The idea is that the amount of lumber cut, expressed in cubic feet, should not exceed the natural annual growth. Now, when you start talking in cubic footage of lumber in British Columbia you sound like an astronomer calculating the distance in miles to a pretty far star. The forest lands cover 220,000 square miles, say, four times the size of England, and the annual growth is estimated at two and a half billion cubic feet. So the annual cutting rate is limited to a little over two billion cubic feet and the result is an increasing, instead of a wasting, asset.

That is why I looked down into the Kinoxi Valley with shocked eyes. Normally, in a logging operation, only the mature trees are cut; but here they were taking everything. I suppose it was logical. If you are going to flood a valley there is no point in leaving the trees, but this sight offended me. This was a rape of the land, something that had not been since the bad old days before the First World War when the conservation laws came in.

I looked up the valley and did a quick calculation. The new Matterson Lake was going to cover twenty square miles, of which five square miles in the north belonged to Clare Trinavant. That meant that Matterson was cutting a solid fifteen square miles of trees and the Forestry Service was letting him do it because of the dam. That amount of lumber was enough to pay for the dam with a hell of a lot left over. It seemed to me that Matterson was a pretty sharp guy, but he was too damned ruthless for my taste.

I went back to the Land-Rover and drove back down the road and past the dam. Halfway down the escarpment I stopped and again drove off the road but I didn’t bother to hide the vehicle this time. I wanted to be seen. I rummaged about in my gear and found what I wanted — something to confound the ignorant — and then, in full view of the road I started to act in a suspicious manner. I took my hammer and chipped at rocks, I dug at the ground like a gopher scrabbling a hole, I looked at pebbles through a magnifying-glass and I paced out large areas gazing intently at the dial of an instrument which I held in my hand.

It was nearly an hour before I was noticed. A jeep rocketed up the hill and slammed to a stop and two men got out. As they walked over I slipped off my wrist-watch and palmed it, then stooped to pick up a large rock. Booted feet crunched nearer and I turned. The bigger of the men said, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Prospecting,’ I said nonchalantly.

‘The hell you are! This is private land.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

The other man pointed. ‘What’s that you got there?’

‘This? It’s a geiger counter.’ I moved it near to the rock I held — and nearer to the luminous dial of my watch — and it buzzed like a demented mosquito. ‘Interesting,’ I said.

The big man leaned forward. ‘What is it?’

‘Maybe uranium,’ I said. ‘But I doubt it. Could be thorium.’ I looked at the rock closely, then tossed it away casually. ‘That stuff’s not payable, but it’s an indication. It’s an interesting geological structure round here.’

They looked at each other, a little startled; then the big man said, ‘That may be, but you’re still on private land.’

I said pleasantly, ‘You can’t stop me prospecting here.’

‘Oh no?’ he said belligerently.

‘Why don’t you check with your boss? Might be better that way.’

The smaller man said, ‘Yeah, Novak, let’s check with Waystrand. I mean, uranium — or this other stuff — it sounds important.’

The big man hesitated, then said in a heavy tone, ‘Have you got a name, mister?’

‘The name’s Boyd,’ I said. ‘Bob Boyd.’

‘Okay, Boyd. I’ll see the boss. But I still think you’re not going to stay round here.’

I watched them go away and smiled, slipping the watch back on my wrist. So Waystrand was some kind of a boss up here. McDougall had said he’d been given a good job at the dam. I had a score to settle with him. I glanced up at the telephone line which followed the road. The big man would tell Waystrand and Waystrand would get on the telephone to Fort Farrell and Howard Matterson’s reaction was predictable — he’d blow up.

It wasn’t ten minutes before the jeep came back followed by another. I recognized Waystrand — he’d filled out a lot in the last eighteen months; his chest was broader, he looked harder and he wasn’t so much the kid still wet behind the ears. But he still wasn’t as big as I was, and I reckoned I could take him on if I had to, although I’d have to make it quick before the other two characters could get started. Odds of three to one were not too good.

Waystrand smiled wickedly as he came up. ‘So it’s you. I wondered about that when I heard the name. Mr Matterson’s compliments and will you get the hell out of here.’

‘Which Mr Matterson?’

‘Howard Matterson.’

‘So you’re still running and telling tales to him, Jimmy,’ I said caustically.

He balled his fists. ‘Mr Matterson said I was to get you off this land nice and easy, with no trouble.’ He was holding himself in with an effort. ‘I owe you something, Boyd; and it wouldn’t take much for me to give it to you. Mr Matterson said if you wouldn’t go quietly I had to see that you went anyway. Now, get off this land and back to Fort Farrell. It’s up to you if you go under your own power or if you’re carried off.’

I said, ‘I have every right to be here.’

Waystrand made a quick sign. ‘Okay, boys. Take him.’

‘Wait a minute,’ I said quickly. ‘I’ve had my say — I’ll go.’ It would be pointless to get beaten up at this stage, although I would dearly have loved to wipe the contemptuous grin off Waystrand’s face.

‘You’re not so brave, Boyd; not when you’re facing a man expecting a fight.’

‘I’ll take you on any time,’ I said. ‘When you haven’t got a gun.’

He didn’t like that, but he did nothing. They watched me pick up my gear and stow it in the Land-Rover and then Waystrand climbed into his jeep and drove slowly down the hill. I followed in the Land-Rover and the other jeep came after me. They were taking no chances of my slipping away.

We got down to the bottom of the escarpment and Waystrand slowed, waving me to a stop. He wheeled round in the jeep and came alongside. ‘Wait here, Boyd; and don’t try anything funny,’ he said, then he shot off and waved down a logging truck that had just come down the hill. He spoke to the driver for a couple of minutes and then came back. ‘Okay, big man; on your way — and don’t come back, although I’d sure like it if you did.’

‘I’ll be seeing you, Jimmy,’ I said. ‘That’s for sure.’ I slammed in the gear-lever and drove on down the road, following the loaded logging truck which had gone on ahead.

It wasn’t very long before I caught up with it. It was going very slowly and I couldn’t pass because this was in one of those places where the road builders had made a cutting right down to bedrock and there were steep banks of earth on either side. I couldn’t understand why this guy was crawling, but I certainly didn’t want to take the chance of passing and being squeezed to a pulp by twenty tons of lumber and metal.

The truck slowed even more and I crawled behind at less than walking pace, fuming at the delay. You put an ordinary nice guy in an automobile and he loses all the common decency he ever had. A guy who’ll politely open a door for an old lady will damn’ near kill the same old lady by cutting across her bows at sixty miles an hour just to beat a stop light, and he’ll think nothing of it. This guy in front probably had his troubles and must have had a good and sound reason for going so slowly. I was in no particular hurry to get back to Fort Farrell but still I sat there and cursed — such is the relationship between a man and his auto.

I glanced into the mirror and was startled. The guy in front certainly had good reasons for going slowly, for coming behind at a hell of a lick was another logging truck, an eighteen-wheeler — twenty or more tons moving at thirty miles an hour. He got so close before he slammed on anchors that I heard the piercing hiss of his air-brakes and he slowed to our crawl with the ugly square front of his truck not a foot from the rear of the Land-Rover.

I was the filling in the nasty sandwich. I could see the driver behind laughing fit to bust and I knew that if I wasn’t careful there’d be some red stuff in the sandwich which wouldn’t be ketchup. The Land-Rover lurched a little as the heavy fender of the truck rammed into the rear, and there was a crunching noise. I trod delicately on the gas pedal and inched nearer to the truck in front — I couldn’t move much nearer or else I’d have a thirty-inch log coming through the windshield. I remembered this cutting from the way in: it was a mile long and right now we were about a quarter way through. The next three-quarters of a mile was going to be tricky.

The truck behind blared its horn and a gap opened up in front as the guy ahead put on speed. I pressed on the gas but not fast enough, because the rear truck rammed me again, harder this time. This was going to be trickier than I thought; it looked as though we were going to do a speed run, and that could be goddam dangerous.

We came to a dip and the speed increased and we zoomed down at forty miles an hour, the truck behind trying to climb up the exhaust pipe of the guy in front and not worrying too much about me, caught in the middle. My hands were sweating and were slippery on the wheel, and I had to do some tricky work with gas pedal, clutch and brake. One mistake on my part — or on theirs — and the Land-Rover would be mashed into scrap-iron and I’d have the engine in my lap.

Three more times I was rammed from behind and I hated to think what was happening to my gear. And once I was nipped, caught between the heavy steel fenders of the two trucks for a fraction of a second. I felt the compression on the chassis and I swear the Land-Rover was momentarily lifted from the ground. There was a log rubbing on the windshield and the glass starred and smashed into a misty opacity and I couldn’t see a damned thing ahead.

Fortunately the pressure released and I was running free again with my head stuck out of the side and I saw we were at the end of the cutting. One of the logs on the left side of the front truck seemed to be loaded a little higher than the others, and I judged it was high enough to clear the cab. I had to get out of this squeeze. There was very little room to manoeuvre and those sadistic bastards could hold me there until we got to the sawmill if I couldn’t figure a way out.

So I spun the wheel and chanced it and found I was wrong. The log didn’t clear the top of the cab — not by a quarter of an inch — and I heard the rending tear of sheet metal. But I couldn’t stop then; I fed gas to the engine frantically and tore free to find myself bucketing over the rough ground and heading straight for a big Douglas fir. I hauled on the wheel and swerved again and again, weaving among the trees and driving roughly parallel with the road.

I passed the front truck and saw my chance, so I rammed down hard on the gas pedal and shot ahead of it and fled down the road with that eighteen-wheel monster pounding after me, blaring its horn. I knew better than to stop and fight it out with those guys; they wouldn’t stop on the road just because I did and me and the Land-Rover would be a total loss. I had the legs of them and scooted away in front, passing the turn-off to the sawmill and not stopping until I was a full mile the other side.

Then I stopped and held up my hands. They were shaking uncontrollably and, when I moved, my shirt was clammy against my skin because it was soaked in sweat. I lit a cigarette and waited until the shakes went away before I climbed out to survey the damage. The front wasn’t too bad, although a steady drip of water indicated a busted radiator. The windshield was a total write-off and the top of the cab looked as though someone had used a blunt can-opener on it. The rear end was smashed up pretty badly — it looked like the front end of any normal auto crash. I looked in the back and saw the shattered wooden case and a clutter of broken bottles from my field testing kit. There was the acrid stink of chemicals from the reagents swimming about on the bottom and I hastily lifted the geiger counter out of the liquid — free acids don’t do delicate instruments any good.

I stepped back and estimated the cost of the damage. Two bloody noses for two truckers; maybe a broken back for Jimmy Waystrand; and a brand-new Land-Rover from Mr Howard Matterson. I was inclined to be a bit lenient on Howard; I didn’t think he’d given any orders to squeeze me like that. But Jimmy Waystrand certainly had, and he was going to pay the hard way.

After a while I drove into Fort Farrell, eliciting curious glances from passers-by in King Street. I pulled into Summerskill’s used car lot and he looked up and said in alarm, ‘Hey, I’m not responsible for that — it happened after you bought the crate.’

I climbed out. ‘I know,’ I said soothingly. ‘Just get the thing going again. I think she’ll want a new radiator — and get a rear lamp working somehow.’

He walked round the Land-Rover in a full circle, then came back and stared at me hard. ‘What did you do — get into a fight with a tank?’

‘Something like that,’ I agreed.

He waved. ‘That rear fender is twisted like a pretzel. How did that happen to a rear fender?’

‘Maybe it got hot and melted into that shape,’ I suggested. ‘Cut the wonder. How long will it take?’

‘You just want to get the thing moving again? A juryrig job?’

‘That’ll do.’

He scratched his head. ‘I have an old Land-Rover radiator back of the shed, so you’re lucky there. Say a couple of hours.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in an hour and give you a hand.’ I left him and walked up the street to the Matterson Building. Maybe I just might have the beginnings of a quarrel with Howard.

I breezed into his outer office and said, without breaking stride, ‘I’m going to see Matterson.’

‘But — but he’s busy,’ his secretary said agitatedly.

‘Sure,’ I said, not stopping. ‘Howard is a busy, busy man.’ I threw open the door of his office and walked inside to find Howard in conference with Donner. ‘Hello, Howard,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want to see me?’

‘What do you mean by busting in like that?’ he demanded. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ He thumbed a switch. ‘Miss Kerr, what do you mean by letting people into—’

I reached over and lifted his hand away from the intercom, breaking the connection. ‘She didn’t let me,’ I said softly. ‘She couldn’t stop me — so don’t blame her. Now, I’ll ask you a like-minded question. What do you mean by having Waystrand throw me out?’

‘That’s a silly question,’ he snarled. He looked at Donner. ‘Tell him.’

Donner cracked his knuckles and said precisely, ‘Any geological exploration of Matterson land we’ll organize for ourselves. We don’t need you to do it for us, Boyd. You’ll stay clear in future, I trust.’

‘You bet he’ll stay clear,’ said Matterson.

I said, ‘Howard, you’ve held tree-farm licences for so long that you think you own the goddam land. Give you another few years and you’ll think you own the whole province of British Columbia. Your head’s getting swelled, Howard.’

‘Don’t call me Howard,’ he snapped. ‘Come to the point.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t on Matterson land — I was on Crown land. Anyone with a prospector’s licence can fossick on Crown land. Just because you have a licence to grow and cut lumber doesn’t mean you can stop me. And if you think you can, I’ll slap a court order on you so fast that it’ll make your ears spin.’

It took some time to sink in but it finally did and he looked at Donner in a helpless way. I grinned at Donner and mimicked Matterson. ‘Tell him.’

Donner said, ‘If you were on Crown land — and that is a matter of question — then perhaps you are right.’

I said, ‘There’s no perhaps about it; you know I’m right.’

Matterson said suddenly, ‘I don’t think you were on Crown land.’

‘Check your maps,’ I said helpfully. ‘I bet you haven’t looked at them for years. You’re too accustomed to regarding the whole goddam country as your own.’

Matterson twitched a finger at Donner, who left the room. He looked at me with hard eyes. ‘What are you up to, Boyd?’

‘Just trying to make a living,’ I said easily. ‘There’s a lot of good prospecting country round here — it’s just as good a place to explore as up north, and a lot warmer, too.’

‘You might find it too warm,’ he said acidly. ‘You’re not going about things in a friendly way.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘I’m not! You ought to have been out on the road to Kinoxi this morning. I’d sooner be friendly with a grizzly bear than with some of your truckers. Anyway, I didn’t come here to enter a popularity contest.’

‘Why did you come here?’

‘Maybe you’ll find out one day — if you’re smart enough, Howard.’

‘I told you not to call me Howard,’ he said irritatedly.

Donner came in with a map, and I saw it was a copy of the one I had inspected in Tanner’s office. Howard spread it on his desk and I said, ‘You’ll find that the Kinoxi Valley is split between you and Clare Trinavant — she in the north and you in the south with the lion’s share. But Matterson land stops just short of the escarpment — everything south of that is Crown land. And that means that the dam at the top of the escarpment and the powerhouse at the bottom is on Crown land, and I can go fossicking round there any time I like. Any comment?’

Matterson looked up at Donner, who nodded his head slightly. ‘It seems that Mr Boyd is correct,’ he said.

‘You’re damn’ right I’m correct.’ I pointed at Matterson. ‘Now there’s something else I want to bring up — a matter of a wrecked Land-Rover.’

He glared at me. ‘I’m not responsible for the way you drive.’

The way he said it I was certain he knew what had happened. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be using the Kinoxi road pretty often in the near future. Tell your truckers to keep away from me, or someone will get killed in a road accident — and it won’t be me.’

He just showed me his teeth, and said, ‘I understand you were staying at the Matterson House.’ He leaned so heavily on the past tense that the sentence nearly busted in the middle.

‘I get the message,’ I said. ‘Enemies to the death, eh, Howard?’ I walked out without saying another word and went down to the Matterson House Hotel.

The desk clerk moved fast but I got in first. ‘I understand I’ve checked out,’ I said sourly.

‘Er... yes, Mr Boyd. I’ve prepared your bill.’

I paid it, then went up and packed my case and lugged it across the road to Summerskill’s car lot. He climbed out from under the Land-Rover and looked at me in a puzzled manner. ‘Not ready yet, Mr Boyd.’

‘That’s all right. I have to get something to eat.’

He scrambled to his feet. ‘Hey, Mr Boyd; you know, something funny has happened. I just checked the chassis and it has bulged.’

‘What do you mean — bulged?’

Summerskill held his hands about a foot apart with curled fingers like a man holding a short length of four-by-two, and brought them together slowly. ‘This damn’ chassis has been squoze.’ He wore a baffled look.

‘Will that make any difference to its running?’

He shrugged. ‘Not much — if you don’t expect much.’

‘Then leave well alone,’ I advised. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I’ve had a bite to eat.’

I ate at the Hellenic Café, expecting to see McDougall but he didn’t show up. I didn’t want to see him at the Recorder office so I drifted round town for a while, keeping my eyes open. When after nearly an hour I hadn’t seen him, I went back to Summerskill to find that he’d nearly finished the job.

‘That’ll be forty-five dollars, Mr Boyd,’ he said. ‘And I’m letting it go cheap.’

I dumped some groceries I had bought into the back of the Land-Rover and took out my wallet, mentally adding it to the account that Matterson was going to pay some day. As I counted out the bills, Summerskill said, ‘I wasn’t able to do much with the top of the cab. I bashed the metal back into place and put some canvas on top; that’ll keep the rain out.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘If I have another accident — and that’s not unlikely — you shall have my trade.’

He pulled a sour face. ‘You have another accident like that and there’ll be nothing left to repair.’

I drove out of town to McDougall’s cabin and parked the Land-Rover out of sight after I had unloaded everything. I stripped and changed and heated some water. A little went to make coffee and I washed my shirt and pants in the rest. I stacked the groceries in the pantry and began to get my gear in order, checking to see exactly what was ruined. I was grieving over a busted scintillometer when I heard the noise of a car, and when I ducked my head to look out of the window I saw a battered old Chevvy pulling up outside. McDougall got out.

‘I thought I’d find you here,’ he said. ‘They told me at the hotel you’d checked out.’

‘Howard arranged it,’ I said.

‘I had a telephone call from God not half an hour ago,’ said Mac. ‘Old Bull is getting stirred up. He wants to know who you are, where you’re from, what your intentions are and how long you’re going to stay around Fort Farrell.’ He smiled. ‘He gave me the job of finding out, naturally enough.’

‘No comment,’ I said.

Mac raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I’m exercising my God-given right to keep my mouth shut. You tell old Matterson that I refuse to speak to the Press. I want to keep him guessing — I want him to come to me.’

‘Good enough,’ said Mac. ‘But he’s lost you. No one knows you’re here.’

‘We can’t keep that a secret for long,’ I said. ‘Not in a town as small as Fort Farrell.’ I smiled. ‘So we finally goosed the old boy into moving. I wonder what did it.’

‘It could have been anything, from the talk I’ve heard round town,’ said Mac. ‘Ben Parker, for instance, thinks you’re crazy.’

‘Who is Ben Parker?’

‘The guy at the bus depot. Clarry Summerskill, on the other hand, holds you in great respect.’

‘What kind of Summerskill?’

Mac gave me a twisted grin. ‘His name is Clarence, and he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t think it’s a suitable moniker for a used car dealer. He once asked me how in hell he could put up a sign saying, ‘Honest Clarence’, and not get laughed at. Anyway, he told me that any man who could do in three short hours what you did to a Land-Rover must be the toughest guy in Canada. He based that on the fact that you didn’t have a scratch on you. What did happen, anyway?’

‘I’ll put some water on for coffee,’ I said. ‘The Land-Rover’s out back. Take a look at it.’

Mac went out to look at the damage and came back wearing a wry face. ‘Drop over a cliff?’ he asked.

I told him and he grew grave. ‘The boys play rough,’ he said.

‘That’s nothing. Just clean fun and games, that’s all. It was a private idea of Jimmy Waystrand’s; I don’t think the Mattersons had anything to do with it. They haven’t started yet.’

The kettle boiled. ‘I’d rather have tea,’ said Mac. ‘Too much coffee makes me feel nervous and strung up, and we don’t want that to happen, do we?’ So he made strong black tea which tasted like stewed pennies. He said, ‘Why did you go up to the dam, anyway?’

‘I wanted to get Howard stirred up,’ I said. ‘I wanted to get noticed.’

‘You did,’ Mac said drily.

‘How much is that dam costing?’ I asked.

Mac pondered. ‘Taking everything in — the dam, the powerhouse and the transmission lines — it’ll run to six million dollars. Not as big as the Peace River Project, but not small potatoes.’

‘I’ve been doing some figuring,’ I said. ‘I reckon that Matterson is taking over ten million dollars’ worth of lumber out of the Kinoxi Valley. He’s taking everything out, remember, not the less-than-one-per-cent cut that the Forestry Service usually allows. That leaves him with four million bucks.’

‘Nice going,’ said Mac.

‘It gets better. He doesn’t really want that four million dollars — he’d only have to pay tax on it; but the electricity plant does need maintenance and there’s depreciation to take into account, so he invests three million dollars and that takes care of it. He makes one million bucks net, and he has free power for the Matterson enterprises for as far into the future as I can see.’

‘Not to mention the dough he makes on the power he sells,’ said Mac. ‘That’s pure cream.’

‘It’s like having a private entrance to Fort Knox,’ I said.

Mac grunted. ‘This smells of Donner. I’ve never known such a guy for seeing money where no one else can see it. And it’s legal, too.’

I said, ‘I think Clare Trinavant is a sentimental fool. She’s letting emotion take the place of thinking. The Kinoxi Valley is going to be flooded and there is nothing she can do to stop it.’

‘So?’

‘So she has five square miles of woodland up there that’s going to be wasted, and she’s passing up three million dollars just because she has a grudge against the Mattersons. Isn’t she aware of that?’

Mac shook his head. ‘She’s not a businesswoman — takes no interest in it. Her financial affairs are managed by a bank in Vancouver. I doubt if she’s given it a thought.’

I said, ‘Doesn’t the Forestry Service have anything to say about it? It seems silly to waste all that lumber.’

‘The Forestry Service has never been known to prosecute anyone for not cutting,’ he pointed out. ‘The problem has never come up before.’

‘With three million bucks coming in for sure she could build her own sawmill,’ I said forcefully. ‘If she doesn’t want the Mattersons in on it.’

‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ Mac asked.

‘That’s the pity of it.’ I brooded over it. ‘She’s more like Howard Matterson than she thinks; he is also an emotional type, although a bit more predictable.’ I smiled. ‘I reckon I can make Howard jump through hoops.’

‘Don’t think you can treat the old man like that,’ said Mac warningly. ‘He’s tougher and more devious. He’ll save up his Sunday punch and sneak it in from an unexpected direction.’ He switched the subject. ‘What’s the next move?’

‘More of the same. Old Matterson reacted fast so we must have hit a sore spot. I stir up talk about the Trinavants and I root about up near the dam.’

‘Why go near the dam? What’s that got to do with it?’

I scratched my head. ‘I don’t really know; I just have a hunch that there’s an answer up there somewhere. We’re not really sure that it wasn’t my prowling around there that attracted Bull Matterson’s interest. Another thing — I’d like to go up to Clare’s cabin. How do I get there without crossing Matterson land? That might be a bit unwise now.’

‘There’s a road in from the back,’ said Mac. He didn’t ask me why I wanted to go up there, but instead dug out a tattered old map. I studied it and sighed. It was a hell of a long way round and I’d have given my soul for the Matterson Corporation helicopter.

II

The next day I spent in Fort Farrell, spreading the good word and really laying it on thick. Up to then I’d mentioned the name of Trinavant to only two people, but this time I covered a good cross-section of the Fort Farrell population, feeling something like a cross between a private detective and a Gallup pollster. That evening, in the cabin, I totted up the results in approved pollster fashion and sorted out my findings.

One of the things that stood out was the incredible ease with which a man’s name could be erased from the public memory. Of the people who had moved into Fort Farrell in the last ten years fully eighty-five per cent of them had never heard of John Trinavant; and the same applied to those young people who had grown to maturity since his death.

The other, older people remembered him with a bit of nudging, and, almost always, with kindness. I came to the conclusion that Shakespeare was dead right: ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.’ Still, the same analogy applies throughout our world. Any murderer can get his name in the newspapers, but if a decent man wishes to announce to the world that he’s lived happily with his wife for twenty-five or fifty years he has to pay for it, by God!

There was also a fairly widespread resentment of the Mattersons, tinged somewhat with fear. The Matterson Corporation had got such a grip on the economic life of the community that it could put the squeeze on anybody, indirectly if not directly. Nearly everyone in Fort Farrell had a relative on the Matterson payroll, so there was a strong resistance to answering awkward questions.

Reactions to the name of John Trinavant were surer. Folks seemed amazed at themselves that they had allowed him to be forgotten. I don’t know why, but I haven’t thought of old John in years. I knew why. When the only source of public information in a town closes tight on a subject, when letters to the Editor about a dead man just don’t get published, when a powerful man quietly discourages talk, then there is no particular call to remember. The living have their own bustling and multitudinous affairs and the dead slide into oblivion.

There had been talk of a John Trinavant Memorial to face the statue of Lieutenant Farrell in Trinavant Park. I don’t know why, but it never seemed to get off the ground; maybe there wasn’t enough money for it — but, sure as hell, John Trinavant pumped enough money into this town. You’d think people would be ashamed of themselves, but they’re not — they’ve just forgotten what he did for Fort Farrell.

I got tired of hearing the refrain — I don’t know why. The depressing part of it was that they really didn’t know why, they didn’t know that Bull Matterson had screwed the lid down tight on the name of Trinavant. He could have given the Hitlers and Stalins a pointer or two on thought control, and more and more I was impressed at the effort which he must have put into this operation, although I still had no idea as to why he had done it.

‘Where are the Trinavants buried?’ I asked Mac.

‘Edmonton,’ he said briefly. ‘Bull saw to it.’

The Trinavants did not even have a resting-place in the town they had built.

After a day’s intensive poking and prying into the Trinavant mystery I decided to give Fort Farrell a miss next day. If two conversations had caused Bull Matterson to react, then that day’s work must be giving him conniptions, and acting on sound psychological principles, I wanted to be hard to find — I wanted to give him time to come really to the boil.

That cut out investigating the site of the dam, so I decided to go up to Clare Trinavant’s cabin. Why I wanted to go there I didn’t know, but it was as good a place as any to keep out of Matterson’s way and maybe I could get in a day of deep thought with some fishing thrown in.

It was a hundred and twenty miles on rutted, jolting roads — a wide swing round the Matterson holdings — and when I reached the cabin I was sore and aching. It was even bigger than I remembered, a long low sprawling structure with a warm red cedar shingle roof. Standing apart from it was another cabin, smaller and simpler, and there was smoke curling from the grey stone chimney. A man emerged carrying a shotgun which he stood leaning against the wall not too far from his hand.

‘Mr Waystrand?’ I called.

‘That’s me.’

‘I have a letter for you from McDougall of Fort Farrell.’

McDougall had insisted on that because this was Jimmy Waystrand’s father, whose allegiance to Clare Trinavant was firm and whose attitude to Bob Boyd was likely to be violent. ‘You cut his son and you insulted Clare — or so he thinks,’ said Mac. ‘You’d better let me straighten him out. I’ll give you a letter.’

Waystrand was a man of about fifty with a deeply grooved face as brown as a nut. He read the letter slowly, his lips moving with the words, then gave me a swift glance with hard blue eyes and read it again very carefully to see if he’d got it right first time. Then he said a little hesitantly, ‘Old Mac says you’re all right.’

I let out my breath slowly. ‘I wouldn’t know about that — it’s not my place to say. But I’d trust his judgment on most things; wouldn’t you?’

Waystrand’s face crinkled into a reluctant smile. ‘I reckon I would. What can I do for you?’

‘Not much,’ I said. ‘A place to pitch a camp — and if you could spare a steelhead from the creek there, I’d be obliged.’

‘You’re welcome to the trout,’ he said. ‘But there’s no need to camp. There’s a bed inside — if you want it. My son’s away.’ His eyes held mine in an unwinking stare.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s very kind of you, Mr Waystrand.’

I didn’t have to go fishing for my dinner, after all, because Waystrand cooked up a tasty hash and we shared it. He was a slow-moving, taciturn man whose thought processes moved in low gear, but that didn’t mean he was stupid — he just took a little longer to reach the right conclusion, that’s all. After we had eaten I tried to draw him out. ‘Been with Miss Trinavant long?’

He drew on his pipe and expelled a plume of pale blue smoke. ‘Quite a time,’ he said uninformatively. I sat and said nothing, just waiting for the wheels to go round. He smoked contemplatively for a few minutes, then said, ‘I was with the old man.’

‘John Trinavant?’

He nodded. ‘I started working for John Trinavant when I was a nipper just left school. I’ve been with the Trinavants ever since.’

‘They tell me he was a good man,’ I said.

‘Just about the best.’ He relapsed into contemplation of the glowing coal in the bowl of his pipe.

I said, ‘Pity about the accident.’

‘Accident?’

‘Yes — the auto crash.’

There was another long silence before he took the pipe from his mouth. ‘Some folks would call it an accident, I suppose.’

I held my breath. ‘But you don’t?’

‘Mr Trinavant was a good driver,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t drive too fast on an icy road.’

‘It’s not certain he was driving. His wife might have been at the wheel — or his son.’

‘Not on that car,’ said Waystrand positively. ‘It was a brand-new Cadillac two weeks old. Mr Trinavant wouldn’t let anyone drive that car except himself until the engine got broken in.’

‘Then what do you think happened?’

‘Lots of funny things going on about that time,’ he said obscurely.

‘Such as?’ I prompted.

He tapped the dottle in his pipe on the heel of his boot. ‘You’re asking a lot of questions, Boyd; and I don’t see why I should answer ’em, except that old Mac said I should. I ain’t got too much love for you, Boyd, and I want to find out one thing for sure. Are you going to bring up anything that’ll hurt Miss Trinavant?’

I held his eye. ‘No, Mr Waystrand. I’m not.’

He stared at me for a moment longer, then waved his arm largely. ‘All these woodlands, hundreds of thousands of acres — Bull Matterson got ’em all, ’cept this tract that John left to Miss Trinavant. He got the sawmills, the pulp mills — just about everything that John Trinavant built up. Don’t you think the accident came at the right time?’

I felt depressed. All Waystrand had were the same unformulated suspicions that plagued Mac and myself. I said, ‘Have you any evidence that it wasn’t an accident? Anything at all?’

He shook his head heavily. ‘Nothing to show.’

‘What did Cl... Miss Trinavant think about it? I don’t mean when it happened, but afterwards.’

‘I ain’t talked to her about it — it ain’t my place — and she’s said nothing to me.’ He shook the dottle from his pipe into the fire and put the pipe on the mantel. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said brusquely.

I stayed up for a while, chasing the thing round in circles, and then went to bed myself, to the sparely furnished room that had been Jimmy Waystrand’s. It had a bleak aspect because it was as anonymous as any hotel room; just a bed, a primitive wash-stand, a cupboard and a few bare shelves. It looked as though young Jimmy had cleared out for good, leaving nothing of his youth behind him, and I felt sorry for old Waystrand.

The next day I fished a little and chopped some logs because the log pile looked depleted. Waystrand came out at the sound of the axe and watched me. I had stripped off my shirt because the exercise made me sweat and swinging that axe was hard work. Waystrand regarded me for a while, then said, ‘You’re a strong man, but you’re misusing your strength. That’s not the way to use an axe.’

I leaned on the axe and grinned at him. ‘Know a better way?’

‘Sure; give it to me.’ He took the axe and stood poised in front of the log, then swung it down casually. A chip flew and then another — and another. ‘See,’ he said. ‘It’s in the turn of the wrists.’ He demonstrated in slow motion, then handed back the axe. ‘Try it that way.’

I chopped in the way he had shown me, rather inexpertly, and sure enough the work went easier. I said, ‘You’re experienced with an axe.’

‘I used to be a logger for Mr Trinavant — but that was before the accident. I got pinned under a ten-inch log and hurt my back.’ He smiled slowly. ‘That’s why I’m letting you get on with the chopping — it don’t do my back no good.’

I chopped for a while, then said, ‘Know anything about the value of lumber?’

‘Some. I was boss of a section — I picked up something about values.’

‘Matterson is clearing out his part of the Kinoxi,’ I said. ‘He’s taking everything — not just the normal Forestry Service allowable cut. What do you think the value per square mile is?’

He pondered for a while and said finally, ‘Not much under seven hundred thousand dollars.’

I said, ‘Don’t you think Miss Trinavant should do something about this end? She’ll lose an awful lot of money if those trees are drowned.’

He nodded. ‘You know, this land hasn’t ever been cut over since John Trinavant died. The trees have been putting on weight in the last twelve years, and there’s a lot of mature timber which should have been taken out already. I reckon, if you made a solid cut, this land would run to a million dollars a square mile.’

I whistled. I’d underestimated her loss. Five million bucks was a lot of dough. ‘Haven’t you talked to her about it?’

‘She’s not been here to be talked to.’ He shrugged rather sheepishly. ‘And I’m no great hand with a pen.’

‘Maybe I’d better write to her?’ I suggested. ‘What’s her address?’

Waystrand hesitated. ‘You write to the bank in Vancouver; they pass it on.’ He gave me the address of her bank.

I stayed around until late afternoon, chopping a hell of a lot of logs for Waystrand and cursing young Jimmy with every stroke. That young whelp had no right to leave his old man alone. It was evident that there was no Mrs Waystrand and it wasn’t good for a man to be alone, especially one suffering from back trouble.

When I left, Waystrand said, ‘If you see my boy, tell him he can come back any time.’ He smiled grimly. ‘That is, if you can get near enough to talk without him taking a swing at you.’

I didn’t tell him that I’d already encountered Jimmy. ‘I’ll pass on the message when I see him — and I will be seeing him.’

‘You did right when you straight-armed him that time,’ said Waystrand. ‘I didn’t think so then, but from what Miss Trinavant said afterwards I saw he had it coming.’ He put out his hand. ‘No hard feelings, Mr Boyd.’

‘No hard feelings,’ I said, and we shook on it. I put the Land-Rover into gear and bumped down the track, leaving Waystrand looking after me, a diminishing and rather sad figure.

I made good time on the way back to Fort Farrell but it was dark by the time I was on the narrow track to McDougall’s cottage. Halfway along, on a narrow corner, I was obstructed by a car stuck in the mud and only just managed to squeeze through. It was a Lincoln Continental, a big dream-boat the size of a battleship and certainly not the auto for a road like this; the overhangs fore and aft were much too long and it would scrape its fanny on every dip of the road. The trunk top looked big enough to land a helicopter on.

I pushed on to the cabin and saw a light inside. Mac’s beat-up Chevvy wasn’t around so I wondered who the visitor was. Being of a cautious nature and not knowing what trouble might have stirred up in my absence, I coasted the Land-Rover to a halt very quietly and sneaked across to look through the window before I went in.

A woman was sitting quietly before the fire reading a book. A woman I had never seen before.