Landslide

I

I was still giving myself a headache at the microscope when Mac came back from town. He dumped a box full of groceries on the table which made the slide jiggle. ‘What you got there, Bob?’

‘Trouble,’ I said, without looking up.

‘For us?’

‘For Matterson,’ I said. ‘If this is what I think it is, then that dam isn’t worth two cents. I could be wrong, though.’

Mac cackled with laughter. ‘Hey, that’s the best news I’ve heard in years. What kind of trouble has he got?’

I stood up. ‘Take a look and tell me what you see.’

He bent down and peered through the eyepiece. ‘Don’t see much — just a few bits of rock — leastways, I think it’s rock.’

I said, ‘That’s the stuff that goes to make up clay; it’s rock, all right. What else can you tell me about it? Try to describe is as though you were telling a blind man.’

He was silent for a while, then he said, ‘Well, this isn’t my line. I can’t tell you what kind of rock it is, but there are a few big round bits and a lot of smaller flat ones.’

‘Would you describe those flat bits as card-shaped?’

‘Not so as you’d notice. They’re just thin and flat.’ He straightened up and rubbed his eyes. ‘How big are those things?’

‘The big roundish ones are grains of sand — they’re pretty big. The little flat ones are about two microns across — they’re the clay mineral. In this case I think it’s montmorillonite.’

Mac flapped his hand. ‘You lost me way back. What’s a micron? It’s a long time since I went to school and they’ve changed things pretty much since.’

‘A thousandth of a millimetre,’ I said.

‘And this monty-what-d’you-call-it?’

‘Montmorillonite — just a clay mineral. It’s quite common.’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t see anything to get excited about.’

‘Few people would,’ I said. ‘I warned Howard Matterson about this, but the damned fool didn’t check. Anyone round here got a drilling-rig, Mac?’

He grinned. ‘Think you found an oil well?’

‘I want something that’ll go through not more than forty feet of soft clay.’

He shook his head. ‘Not even that. Anyone who wants to bore for water hires Pete Burke from Fort St John.’ He looked at me curiously. ‘You seem upset about this.’

I said, ‘That dam is going to get smashed up if something isn’t done about it fast. At least, I think it is.’

‘That wouldn’t trouble me,’ said Mac decisively.

‘It might trouble me,’ I said. ‘No dam — no Matterson Lake, and Clare loses four million dollars because the Forestry Service wouldn’t allow the cut.’

Mac stared at me open-mouthed. ‘You mean it’s going to happen now?’

‘It might happen to-night. It might not happen for six months. I might be wrong altogether and it might not happen at all.’

He sat down. ‘All right, I give up. What can ruin a big chunk of concrete like that overnight?’

‘Quick clay,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty deadly stuff. It’s killed a lot of people in its time. I haven’t time to explain, Mac; I’m going to Fort St John — I want access to a good laboratory.’

I left quickly and, as I started the jeep, I looked across at the cabin and saw Mac scratch his head and bend down to look through the microscope. Then I was moving away from the window fast, the wheels spinning because I was accelerating too fast.

I didn’t much like the two hundred miles of night driving, but I made good time and Fort St John hadn’t woken up when I arrived; it was dead except for the gas-refining plant on Taylor Flat which never sleeps. I was registered by a drowsy desk clerk at the Hotel Condil and then caught a couple of hours’ sleep before breakfast.

Pete Burke was a disappointment. ‘Sorry, Mr Boyd; not a chance. I’ve got three rigs and they’re all out. I can’t do anything for you for another month — I’m booked up solid.’

That was bad. I said, ‘Not even for a bonus — a big one.’

He spread his hands. ‘I’m sorry.’

I looked from his office window into his yard. ‘There’s a rig there,’ I said. ‘What about that?’

He chuckled. ‘Call that a rig! It’s a museum piece.’

‘Will it go through forty feet of clay and bring back cores?’ I asked.

‘If that’s all you want it to do, it might — with a bit of babying.’ He laughed. ‘I tell you, that’s the first rig I had when I started this business, and it was dropping apart then.’

‘You’ve got a deal,’ I said. ‘If you throw in some two-inch coring bits.’

‘Think you can operate it? I can’t spare you a man.’

‘I’ll manage,’ I said, and we got down to the business of figuring out how much it was worth.

I left Burke loading the rig on to the jeep and went in search of a fellow geologist. I found one at the oil company headquarters and bummed the use of a laboratory for a couple of hours. One test-tube full of mud was enough to tell me what I wanted to know: the mineral content was largely montmorillonite as I had suspected, the salt content of the water was under four grams a litre — another bad sign — and half-an-hour’s intensive reading of Grim’s Applied Clay Mineralogy told me to expect the worst.

But inductive reasoning can only go so far and I had to drill to make sure. By early afternoon I was on my way back to Fort Farrell with that drilling rig which looked as if it had been built from an illustration in Agricola’s De Re Metallica.

II

Next morning, while inhaling the stack of hot-cakes Mac put before me, I said, ‘I want an assistant, Mac. Know any husky young guy who isn’t scared of the Mattersons?’

‘There’s me.’

I looked at his scrawny frame. ‘I want to haul a drilling-rig up the escarpment by the dam. You couldn’t do it, Mac.’

‘I guess you’re right,’ he said dejectedly. ‘But can I come along anyway?’

‘No harm in that, if you think you’re up to it. But I must have another man to help me.’

‘What about Clarry Summerskill — he doesn’t like Matterson and he’s taken a fancy to you?’

I said dubiously, ‘Clarry isn’t exactly my idea of a husky young guy.’

‘He’s pretty tough,’ said Mac. ‘Any guy called Clarence who survives to his age must be tough.’

The idea improved with thinking. I could handle a drilling-rig but the stone-age contraption I’d saddled myself with might be troublesome and it would be handy to have a mechanic around. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Put it to him. If he agrees, ask him to bring a tool kit — he might have to doctor a diseased engine.’

‘He’ll come,’ said Mac cheerfully. ‘His bump of curiosity won’t let him keep away.’

By mid-morning we were driving past the powerhouse and heading up the escarpment road. Matterson’s construction crew didn’t seem to have made any progress in getting that armature towards its resting-place, and there was just as much mud, but more churned up than ever. We didn’t stop to watch but headed up the hill, and I stopped about halfway up.

‘This is it.’ I pointed across the escarpment. ‘I want to drill the first hole right in the middle, there.’

Clarry looked up the escarpment at the sheer concrete wall of the dam. ‘Pretty big, isn’t it? Must have cost every cent of what I heard.’ He looked back down the hill. ‘Those guys likely to make trouble, Mr Boyd?’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘They’ve been warned off.’ Privately I wasn’t too sure; walking around and prospecting was one thing, and operating a drilling-rig was something very different. ‘Let’s get the gear out.’

The heaviest part was the gasoline engine which drove the monster. Clarry and I manhandled it across the escarpment, staggering and slipping on the slope, and dumped it at the site I had selected, while Mac stayed by the jeep. After that it was pretty easy, though time-consuming, and it was nearly two hours before we were ready to go.

That rig was a perfect bastard, and if Clarry hadn’t been along I doubt if I would ever have got it started. The main trouble was the engine, a cranky old two-stroke which refused to start, but Clarry cozened it, and after the first dozen refusals it burst into a noisy clatter. There was so much piston slap that I half expected the connecting-rod to bust clean out of the side of the engine, but it held together by good luck and some magic emanating from Clarry, so I spudded in and the job got under way.

As I expected, the noise brought someone running. A jeep came tearing up the road and halted just behind mine and my two friends of the first encounter came striding across. Novak yelled above the noise of the engine, ‘What the hell are you doing?’

I cupped my hand round my ear. ‘Can’t hear you.’

He came closer. ‘What are you doing with this thing?’

‘Running a test hole.’

‘Turn the damned thing off,’ he roared.

I shook my head and waved him away downhill and we walked to a place where polite conversation wasn’t so much of a strain on the eardrums. He said forcefully, ‘What do you mean — running a test hole?’

‘Exactly what I say — making a hole in the ground to see what comes up.’

‘You can’t do that here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because... because...’

‘Because nothing,’ I snapped. ‘I’m legally entitled to drill on Crown land.’

He was undecided. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said belligerently, and strode away back to his jeep. I watched him go, then went back to the drill to supervise the lifting of the first core.

Drilling through clay is a snap and we weren’t going very deep, anyway. As the cores came up I numbered them in sequence and Mac took them and stowed them away in the jeep. We had finished the first hole before Jimmy Waystrand got round to paying us a visit.

Clarry was regretfully turning off the engine when Mac nudged me. ‘Here comes trouble.’

I stood up to meet Waystrand. I could see he was having his own troubles down at the powerhouse by his appearance; he was plastered with mud to mid-thigh, splashed with mud everywhere else, and appeared to be in a short temper. ‘Do I have to have trouble with you again?’ he demanded.

‘Not if you don’t want it,’ I said. ‘I’m not doing anything here to cause you trouble.’

‘No?’ He pointed to the rig. ‘Does Mr Matterson know about that?’

‘Not unless someone told him,’ I said. ‘I didn’t ask his permission — I don’t have to.’

Waystrand nearly blew his top. ‘You’re sinking test holes between the Matterson dam and the Matterson powerhouse, and you don’t think you need permission? You must be crazy.’

‘It’s still Crown land,’ I said. ‘If Matterson wants to make this his private preserve he’ll have to negotiate a treaty with the Government. I can fill this hillside as full of holes as a Swiss cheese, and he can’t do anything about it. You might get on the telephone and tell him that. You can also tell him he didn’t read my report and he’s in big trouble.’

Waystrand laughed. ‘He’s in trouble?’ he said incredulously.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘So are you, judging by the mud on your pants. It’s the same trouble — and you tell Howard exactly that.’

‘I’ll tell him,’ said Waystrand. ‘And I can guarantee you won’t drill any more holes.’ He spat on the ground near my foot and walked away.

Mac said, ‘You’re pushing it hard, Bob.’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Let’s get on with it. I want two more holes today. One on the far side and another back there by the road.’

We hauled the rig across the hillside again and sank another hole to forty feet, and then laboriously hauled it all the way back to a point near the jeep and sank a third hole. Then we were through for the day and packed the rig in the back of the jeep. I wanted to do a lot more boring and normally I would have left the rig on the site but this was not a normal operation and I knew that if I left the rig it would look even more smashed up by morning.

We drove down the hill again and were stopped at the bottom by a car which skidded to a stop blocking the road. Howard Matterson got out and came close. ‘Boyd, I’ve had all I can stand from you,’ he said tightly.

I shrugged. ‘What have I done now?’

‘Jimmy Waystrand says you’ve been drilling up there. That comes to a stop right now.’

‘It might,’ I agreed. ‘If I’ve found out what I want to know. I wouldn’t have to drill, Howard, if you’d read my report. I told you to watch out for qui—’

‘I’m not interested in your goddam report,’ he butted in. ‘I’m not even interested in your drilling. But what I am interested in is this story I hear about you being the guy who survived the crash in which old Trinavant was killed.’

‘Are people saying that?’ I said innocently.

‘You know goddam well they’re saying it. And I want that stopped, too.’

‘How can I stop it?’ I asked. ‘I’m not responsible for what folks say to each other. They can say what they like — it doesn’t worry me. It seems to worry you, though.’ I grinned at him pleasantly. ‘Now, I wonder why it should.’

Howard flushed darkly. ‘Look, Boyd — or Grant — or whatever else you call yourself — don’t try to nose into things that don’t concern you. This is the last warning you’re going to get. My old man gave you a warning and now it’s coming from me, too. I’m not as soft as my old man — he’s getting foolish in his old age — and I’m telling you to get to hell out of here before you get pushed.’

I pointed at his car. ‘How can I get out with that thing there?’

‘Always the wisecracks,’ said Howard, but he went back and climbed into his car and opened a clear way. I eased forward and stopped alongside him. ‘Howard,’ I said. ‘I don’t push so easily. And another thing — I wouldn’t call your father soft. He might get to hear of it and then you’d find out personally how soft he is.’

‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours,’ said Howard, and took off. His exit was spoiled by the mud on the road; his wheels failed to grip and he skidded sideways and the rear of his auto crunched against a rock. I grinned and waved at him and carried on to Fort Farrell.

Clarry Summerskill said thoughtfully, ‘I did hear something about that yesterday. Is it right, Mr Boyd?’

‘Is what right?’

‘That you’re this guy, Grant, who was smashed up with John Trinavant?’

I looked at him sideways, and said softly, ‘Couldn’t I be anyone else besides Grant?’

Summerskill looked puzzled. ‘If you were in that crash I don’t rightly see who else you could be. What sort of games are you playing, Mr Boyd?’

‘Don’t think about it too much, Clarry,’ advised Mac. ‘You might sprain your brain. Boyd knows what he’s doing. It’s worrying the Mattersons, isn’t it? So why should it worry you, too?’

‘I don’t know that it does,’ said Clarry, brightening a little. ‘It’s just that I don’t understand what’s going on.’

Mac chuckled. ‘Neither does anyone else,’ he said. ‘Neither does anyone else — but we’re getting there slowly.’ Clarry said, ‘You want to watch out for Howard Matterson, Mr Boyd — he’s got a low boiling-point. When he gets going he can be real wild. Sometimes I think he’s a bit nuts.’

I thought so, too, but I said, ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about that, Clarry, I can handle him.’

When we pulled up in front of Mac’s cabin, Clarry said, ‘Say, isn’t that Miss Trinavant’s station wagon?’

‘It is,’ said Mac. ‘And there she is.’

Clare waved as she came to meet us. ‘I felt restless,’ she said. ‘I came over to find out what’s going on.’

‘Glad to have you,’ said Mac. He grinned at me. ‘You’ll have to sleep out in the woods again.’

Clarry said, ‘Your auto going all right, Miss Trinavant?’

‘Perfectly,’ she assured him.

‘That’s great. Well, Mr Boyd, I’ll be getting along home — my wife will be wondering where I am. Will you need me again?’

‘I might,’ I said. ‘Look, Clarry; Howard Matterson saw you with me. Will that make trouble for you? I’m not too popular right now.’

‘No trouble as far as I’m concerned — he’s been trying to put me out of business for years and he ain’t done it yet. You want me, you call on me, Mr Boyd.’ He shook his head. ‘But I sure wish I knew what was going on.’

Mac said, ‘You will, Clarry. As soon as we know ourselves.’

Summerskill went home and Mac shepherded Clare and me into the cabin.

‘Bob’s being awfully mysterious about something,’ he said. ‘He’s got some crack-brained idea that the dam is going to collapse. If it does, you’ll be four million dollars to the bad, Clare.’

She shot me a swift glance. ‘Are you serious?’

‘I am. I’ll be able to tell you more about it when I’ve looked at the cores I’ve got in the jeep. Let’s unload them, Mac.’

Pretty soon the table was filled with the lengths of two-inch cylindrical core. I arranged them in order and rejected those I didn’t want. The cores I selected for inspection had a faint film of moisture on the surface and felt smooth and slick, and a check on the numberings told me that they’d come up from the thirty-foot level. I separated them in three heaps and said to Clare, ‘These came from three borings I made today on the escarpment between the dam and the powerhouse.’ I stroked one of them and looked at the moisture on my finger. ‘If you had as many sticks of dynamite you couldn’t have anything more dangerous.’

Mac moved away nervously and I smiled. ‘Oh, these are all right here; it’s the stuff up at the escarpment I’m worried about. Do you know what “thixotropic” means?’

Clare shook her head and Mac frowned. ‘I should know,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m damned if I do.’

I walked over to a shelf and picked up a squeeze-tube. ‘This is the stickum I use on my hair; it’s thixotropic gel.’ I uncapped the tube and squeezed some of the contents into the palm of my hand. ‘Thixotropic means “to change by touch”. This stuff is almost solid, but when I rub it in my hands, like this, it liquefies. I brush it on to my hair — so — and each hair gets a coating of the liquid. Then I comb it and, after a while, it reverts to its near solid state, thus keeping the hair in place.’

‘Very interesting,’ said Mac. ‘Thinking of starting a beauty parlour, son?’

I made no comment. Instead I picked up one of the cores. ‘This is clay. It was laid down many thousands of years ago by the action of glaciers. The ice ground the rock to powder, and the powder was washed down rivers until it reached either the sea or a lake. I rather think that this was laid down in a fresh-water lake. I’ll show you something. Got a sharp knife, Mac?’

He gave me a carving knife and I cut two four-inch lengths from the middle of the same core. One of the lengths I put on the table standing upright. ‘I’ve prepared for this,’ I said, ‘because people won’t believe this unless they see it, and I’ll probably have to demonstrate it to Bull Matterson to get it through his thick skull. I have some weights here. How many pounds do you suppose that cylinder of clay can support?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Mac. ‘I suppose you are getting at something.’

I said, ‘The cross-section is a bit over three square inches.’ I put a ten-pound weight on the cylinder and quickly added another. ‘Twenty pounds.’ A five-pound weight went on top of that. ‘Twenty-five pounds.’ I added more weights, building up a tower supported by the cylinder of clay. ‘Those are all the weights I have — twenty-nine pounds. So far we’ve proved that this clay will support a weight of about fifteen hundred pounds a square foot. Actually, it’s much stronger.’

‘So what?’ said Mac. ‘You’ve proved it’s strong. Where has it got you?’

‘Is it strong?’ I asked softly. ‘Give me a jug and a kitchen spoon.’

He grumbled a bit about conjuring tricks, but did what I asked. I winked at Clare and picked up the other clay cylinder. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I assure you there is nothing up my sleeve but my arm.’ I put the clay into the jug and stirred vigorously as though I were mixing cake dough. Mac looked at me unimpressed, but Clare was thoughtful.

I said, ‘This is the meaning of thixotropic,’ and poured the contents of the jug on to the table. A stream of thin mud splashed out and flowed in a widening pool of liquidity. It reached the edge of the table and started to drip on to the floor.

Mac let out a yelp. ‘Where did the water come from? You had water already in that jug,’ he accused.

‘You know I didn’t. You gave me the jug yourself.’ I pointed at the dark pool. ‘How much weight will that support, Mac?’

He looked dumbfounded. Clare stretched out her hand and dipped a finger into the mud. ‘But where did the water come from, Bob?’

‘It was already in the clay.’ I pointed at the other cylinder still supporting its tower of weights. ‘This stuff is fifty per cent water.’

‘I still don’t believe it,’ said Mac flatly. ‘Even though I’ve seen it.’

‘I’ll do it again if you like,’ I offered.

He flapped his hand. ‘Don’t bother. Just tell me how this clay can hold water like a sponge.’

‘Remember when you looked through the microscope — you saw a lot of little flat chips of rock?’ He nodded. ‘Those chips are very small, each about five-hundredths of a millimetre, but there are millions of them in a cubic inch. And — this is the point — they’re stacked up like a house of cards. Have you ever built up a house of cards, Clare?’

She smiled. ‘I’ve tried, but it’s never got very high. Uncle John was an expert at it.’

I said, ‘Then you know that a house of cards structure is mostly empty space.’ I tapped a core. ‘Those spaces are where the water is held.’

Mac still looked a little bewildered, but he said, ‘Sounds feasible.’

Clare said quietly, ‘There’s more, isn’t there? You haven’t shown us this just as a party trick.’

‘No, I haven’t,’ I said. ‘As I said, when this sediment was first laid down it was at the bottom of the sea or a lake. Any salts in the water tend to have an electrolytic action — they act as a kind of glue to stick the whole structure together. If, however, the salts leach out, or if there were very few salts in the first place, as would happen if the deposit were laid down in fresh water, then the glueing effect becomes less. Clare, what is the most characteristic thing about a house of cards?’

‘It falls down easily.’

‘Right! It’s a very unstable structure. I’d like to tell you a couple of stories to illustrate why this stuff is called quick clay. Deposits of quick clay are found wherever there has been much glaciation — mainly in Russia, Scandinavia and Canada. A few years ago, round about the middle fifties, something happened in Nicolet, Quebec. The rug was jerked from under the town. There was a slide which took away a school, a garage, quite a few houses and a bulldozer. The school wound up jammed in a bridge over the river and caught fire. A hole was left six hundred feet long, four hundred feet wide and thirty feet deep.’

I took a deep breath. ‘They never found out what triggered that one off. But here’s another one. This happened in a place called Surte in Sweden, and Surte is quite a big town. Trouble was it slid into the Gota river. Over a hundred million cubic feet of topsoil went on the rampage and it took with it a railroad, a highway and the homes of three hundred people. That one left a hole half a mile long and a third of a mile wide. It was started by someone using a pile-driver on a new building foundation.’

‘A pile-driver!’ Mac’s mouth stayed open.

‘It doesn’t take much vibration to set quick clay on the move. I told you it was thixotropic, it changes by touch — and it doesn’t need much of a touch if the conditions are right. And when it happens the whole of a wide area changes from solid to liquid and the topsoil starts to move — and it moves damn’ fast. The Surte disaster took three minutes from start to finish. One house moved four hundred and fifty feet — how would you like to be in a house that took off at nearly twenty miles an hour?’

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Mac grimly.

I said, ‘Do you remember what happened to Anchorage?’

‘Worst disaster Alaska ever had,’ said Mac. ‘But that was a proper earthquake.’

‘Oh, there was an earthquake, but it wasn’t that that did the damage to Anchorage. It did trigger off a quick clay slide, though. Most of the town happened to be built on quick clay and Anchorage took off for the wide blue yonder, which happened to be in the direction of the Pacific Ocean.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Mac.

‘There are dozens of other examples,’ I said. ‘During the war British bombers attacking a chemical factory in Norway set off a slide over an area of fifty thousand square yards. And there was Aberfan in South Wales: that was an artificial situation — the slag heap of a coal mine — but the basic cause was the interaction of clay and water. It killed a schoolful of children.’

Clare said, ‘And you think the dam is in danger?’

I gestured at the cores on the table. ‘I took three samples from across the escarpment, and they show quick clay right across. I don’t know how far it extends up and down, but it’s my guess that it’s all the way. There’s an awful lot of mud appeared down at the bottom. A quick clay slide can travel at twenty miles an hour on a slope of only one degree. The gradient of that escarpment must average fifteen degrees, so that when it goes, it’ll go fast. That power plant will be buried under a hundred feet of mud and it’ll probably jerk the foundations from under the dam, too. If that happens, then the whole of the new Matterson Lake will follow the mud. I doubt if there’d be much left of the power plant.’

‘Or anyone in it,’ said Clare quietly.

‘Or anyone in it,’ I agreed.

Mac hunched his shoulders and stared loweringly at the cores. ‘What I don’t understand is why it hasn’t gone before now. I can remember when they were logging on the escarpment and cutting big trees at that. A full grown Douglas fir hits the ground with a mighty big thump — harder than a pile-driver. The whole slope should have collapsed years ago.’

I said, ‘I think the dam is responsible. I think the quick clay layer surfaces somewhere the other side of the dam. Everything was all right until the dam was built, but then they closed the sluices and the water started backing up and covering the quick clay outcropping. Now it’s seeping down in the quick clay all under the escarpment.’

Mac nodded. ‘That figures.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’ asked Clare.

‘I’ll have to tell the Mattersons somehow,’ I said. ‘I tried to tell Howard this afternoon but he shut me up. In my report I even told him to watch out for quick clay, but I don’t think he even read it. You’re right, Clare: he’s a sloppy businessman.’ I stretched. ‘But right now I want to find out more about these samples — the water content especially.’

‘How will you do that?’ asked Mac interestedly.

‘Easy. I cut a sample and weigh it, then cook the water out on that stove there, then weigh it again. It’s just a sum in subtraction from then on.’

‘I’ll make supper first,’ said Clare. ‘Right now you’d better clear up this mess you’ve made.’

After supper I got down to finding the water content. The shear strength of quick clay depends on the mineral constituents and the amount of water held — it was unfortunate that this particular clay was mainly montmorillonite and deficient in strength. That, combined with a water content of forty per cent, averaged out over three samples, gave it a shear strength of about one ton per square foot.

If I was right and water was seeping into the quick clay strata from the new lake, then conditions would rapidly become worse. Double the water percentage and the shear strength would drop to a mere 500 pounds a square foot, and a heavy-footed construction man could start the whole hillside sliding.

Clare said, ‘Is there anything that can be done about it — to save the dam, I mean?’

I sighed. ‘I don’t know, Clare. They’ll have to open the sluices again and get rid of the water in the lake, locate where the clay comes to the surface and then, maybe, they can seal it off. Put a layer of concrete over it, perhaps. But that still leaves the quick clay under the escarpment in a dangerous condition.’

‘So what do you do then?’ asked Mac.

I grinned. ‘Pump some more water into it.’ I laughed outright at the expression on his face. ‘I mean it, Mac; but we pump in a brine solution with plenty of dissolved salts. That will put in some glue to hold it together and it will cease to be thixotropic.’

‘Full of smart answers, aren’t you?’ said Mac caustically. ‘Well, answer this one. How do you propose getting the Matterson Corporation to listen to you in the first place? I can’t see you popping into Howard’s office tomorrow and getting him to open those sluices. He’d think you were nuts.’

‘I could tell him,’ said Clare.

Mac snorted in disgust. ‘From Howard’s point of view, you and Bob have gypped him out of four million bucks that were rightly his. If you tried to get him to close down construction on the dam he’d think you were planning another fast killing. He wouldn’t be able to figure how you’re going to do it, but he’d be certain you were pulling a fast one.’

I said, ‘What about old Bull? He might listen.’

‘He might,’ said Mac. ‘On the other hand, you asked me to spread that story around Fort Farrell and he might have got his dander up about it. I wouldn’t bank on him listening to anything you have to say.’

‘Oh, hell!’ I said. ‘Let’s sleep on it. Maybe we’ll come up with something tomorrow.’

I bedded down in the clearing because Clare had my bed, and I stayed awake thinking of what I had done. Had I achieved anything at all? Fort Farrell had been a murky enough pool when I arrived, but now the waters were stirred up into muddiness and nothing at all could be seen. I was still butting my head against the mystery of the Trinavants and, so far, nothing had come of my needling the Mattersons.

I began to think about that and came up against something odd. Old Bull had known who I was right from the start and he had got stirred up pretty fast. From that I argued that there was something he had to hide with regard to the Mattersons — and perhaps I was right, because it was he who had clamped down on the name of Trinavant.

Howard, on the other hand, had been stirred up about other things — our argument about Clare, his defeat in the matter of my prospecting on Crown land, another defeat in the matter of the cutting of the lumber on Clare’s land. But then I had asked Mac to spread around the story that I was the survivor of the Trinavant auto smash — and Howard had immediately blown his top and given me twenty-four hours to get out of town.

Now, that was very odd! Bull Matterson had known who I was but hadn’t told his son — why not? Could it be there was something he didn’t want Howard to know?

And Howard — where did he come into all this? Why was he so annoyed when he found who I was? Could he be trying to protect his father?

I heard a twig snap and sat up quickly. A slim shadow was moving through the trees towards me, then Clare said in a warm voice, ‘Did you think I was going to let you stay out here alone?’

I chuckled. ‘You’ll scandalize Mac.’

‘He’s asleep,’ she said, and lay down beside me. ‘Besides, it isn’t easy to scandalize a newspaperman of his age. He’s grown-up, you know.’

III

Next morning, at breakfast, I said, ‘I’ll have a crack at Howard — try to get him to see sense.’

Mac grunted. ‘Do you think you can just walk into the Matterson Building?’

‘I’ll go up to the escarpment and put a hole in it,’ I said. ‘That’ll bring Howard running to me. Will you ask Clarry if he’ll join the party?’

‘That’ll bring Howard,’ Mac agreed.

‘You could get into a fight up there,’ Clare warned.

‘I’ll chance that,’ I said, and stabbed at a hot-cake viciously. ‘It might be just what’s needed to bring things into the open. I’m tired of this pussyfooting around. You stay home this time, Mac.’

‘You try to keep me away,’ Mac growled, and mimicked, ‘You can’t stop me fossicking on Crown land.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘Trouble is, I’m a mite tired.’

‘Didn’t you sleep?’

He kept his eyes studiously on his plate. ‘Too much moving around during the night; folks tromping in and out at all hours — could have been Grand Central Station.’

Clare dropped her eyes, and her throat and face flushed deep pink. I smiled amiably. ‘Maybe you ought to have slept out in the woods — it was right peaceful out there.’

He pushed back his chair. ‘I’ll go get Clarry.’

I said, ‘Tell him there might be trouble, then it’s up to him if he comes or not. It’s not really his fight.’

‘Clarry won’t mind a crack at Howard.’

‘It’s not Howard I’m thinking of,’ I said. I had Jimmy Waystrand in mind, and those two bodyguards of his who ran his errands.

But Clarry came and we pushed off up the Kinoxi road. Clare wanted to come too, but I squashed that idea flat. I said, ‘When we come back we’ll be hungry — and maybe a bit banged up. You have a good dinner waiting, and some bandages and the mercuro-chrome.’

No one stopped us as we drove past the powerhouse and up the escarpment road. We drove nearly to the top before stopping because I wanted to sink a test hole just below the dam. It was essential to find out if the quick clay strata actually ran under the dam.

Clarry and I manhandled the gasoline engine across the escarpment and got the rig set up. No one paid us any attention although we were in plain sight. Down at the bottom of the hill they were still trying to get that generator armature into the power plant and had made a fair amount of progress, using enough logs on the ground to feed Matterson’s sawmill for twenty-four hours. I could hear the shouting and cursing as orders were given, but that was drowned out as Clarry started the engine and the drilling began.

I was very careful with the cores as they came up from the thirty-foot level and held one of them out to Mac. ‘It’s wetter here,’ I said.

Mac shifted his boots nervously. ‘Are we safe here? It couldn’t go now, could it?’

‘It could,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think it will — not just yet.’ I grinned. ‘I’d hate to slide to the bottom, especially with the dam on top of me.’

‘You guys talk as though there’s going to be an earthquake,’ said Clarry.

‘Don’t sprain your brain,’ said Mac. ‘I’ve told you before.’ He paused. ‘That’s exactly what we are talking about.’

‘Huh!’ Clarry looked about him. ‘How can you predict an earthquake?’

‘There’s one coming now,’ I said, and pointed. ‘Here comes Howard with storm signals flying.’

He was coming across the hillside with Jimmy Waystrand close behind, and when he got closer I saw he was furious with rage. He shouted, ‘I warned you, Boyd; now you’ll take the consequences.’

I stood my ground as he came up, keeping a careful eye on Waystrand. I said, ‘Howard, you’re a damn’ fool — you didn’t read my report. Look at all that mud down there.’

I don’t think he heard a word I said. He stabbed a finger at me. ‘You’re leaving right now — we don’t want you around.’

‘We! I suppose you mean you and your father.’ This was no good. There was no point in getting into a hassle with him when there were more important things to be discussed. I said, ‘Listen, Howard: and, for God’s sake, simmer down. You remember 1 warned you about quick clay?’

He glared at me. ‘What’s quick clay?’

‘Then you didn’t read the report — it was all set out in there.’

‘To hell with your report — all you keep yammering about is that goddam report. I paid for the damn’ thing and whether I read it or not is my affair.’

I said, ‘No, it isn’t — not by a long chalk. There may be men ki—’

‘Will you, for Christ’s sake, shut up about it,’ he yelled.

Mac said sharply, ‘You’d better listen to him, Howard.’

‘You keep out of this, you old fool,’ commanded Howard. ‘And you too, Summerskill. You’re both going to regret being mixed up with this man. I’ll see you regret it — personally.’

‘Howard, lay off McDougall,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll break your back.’

Clarry Summerskill spat expertly and befouled Howard’s boot. ‘You don’t scare me none, Matterson.’

Howard took a step forward and raised his fist. I said quickly, ‘Hold it! Your reinforcements are coming, Howard.’ I nodded across the hillside to where two men were coming across the rough ground — one a chauffeur in trim uniform supporting the other by the arm.

Bull Matterson had come out of his castle at last.

Clarry’s jaw dropped as he stared at the old man and at the big black Bentley parked on the road. ‘Well, I’m damned!’ he said softly. ‘I haven’t seen old Bull in years.’

‘Maybe he’s come out to defend his bull-calf,’ said Mac sardonically.

Howard went to help the old man, the very picture of filial devotion, but Bull angrily shook away the offered hand. From the look of him, he was quite spry and able to get on by himself. Mac chuckled. ‘Why, the old guy is in better shape than I am.’

I said, ‘I have a feeling that this is going to be the moment of truth.’

Mac glanced at me slyly. ‘Don’t they say that about bullfighting when the matador poises his sword to kill the bull? You’ll have to have a sharp sword to kill this one.’

The old man finally reached us and looked around with a hard eye. To his chauffeur he said curtly, ‘Get back to the car.’ He cast an eye on the drilling-rig, then swung on Jimmy Waystrand. ‘Who are you?’

‘Waystrand. I work down on the power plant.’

Matterson lifted his eyebrows. ‘Do you? Then get back on your job.’

Waystrand looked uncertainly at Howard, who gave a short nod.

Matterson stared at Clarry. ‘I don’t think we need you, either,’ he said harshly. ‘Or you, McDougall.’

I said quietly, ‘Go and wait by the jeep, Clarry,’ and then stared down the old man. ‘McDougall stays.’

‘That’s up to him,’ said Matterson. ‘Well, McDougall?’

‘I’d like to see a fair fight,’ said Mac cheerfully. ‘Two against two.’ He laughed. ‘Bob can take Howard and I reckon you and me are fairly matched for the Old Age Championship.’ He felt the top of the gasoline engine to see if it was still hot, then nonchalantly leaned his rump against it.

Matterson swivelled his head. ‘Very well. I don’t mind a witness for what I’m going to say.’ He fixed me with a cold blue eye and I must have been nuts ever to think he had the faded eyes of age. ‘I gave you a warning, Grant, and you have chosen to ignore it.’

Howard said, ‘Do you really think this guy is Grant — that he was in the crash?’

‘Shut up,’ said Matterson icily and without turning his head. ‘I’ll handle this. You’ve made enough mistakes already — you and your fool sister.’ He hadn’t taken his eye off me. ‘Have you anything to say, Grant?’

‘I’ve got a lot to say — but not about anything that might have happened to John Trinavant and his family. What I want to say is of more immediate impor—’

‘I’m not interested in anything else,’ Matterson cut in flatly. ‘Now put up or shut up. Do you have anything to say? If not, you can get to hell out of here, and I’ll see that you do it.’

‘Yes,’ I said deliberately. ‘I might have one or two things to say. But you won’t like it.’

‘There have been a lot of things in my life I haven’t liked,’ said Matterson stonily. ‘A few more won’t make any difference.’ He bent forward a little and his chin jutted out. ‘But be very careful about any accusations you may make — they may backfire on you.’

I saw Howard moving nervously. ‘Christ!’ he said, looking at Mac. ‘Don’t push things.’

‘I told you to shut up,’ said the old man. ‘I won’t tell you again. All right, Grant: say your piece, but bear this in mind. My name is Matterson and I own this piece of country. I own it and everyone who lives in it. Those I don’t own I can lean on — and they know it.’ A grim smile touched his lips. ‘I don’t usually go about talking this way because it’s not good politics — people don’t like hearing that kind of truth. But it is the truth and you know it.’

He squared his shoulders. ‘Now, do you think anyone is going to take your word against mine? Especially when I bring your record out. The word of a drug-pusher and a drug-addict against mine? Now, say your piece and be damned to you, Grant.’

I looked at him thoughtfully. He evidently believed I had uncovered something and was openly challenging me to reveal it, depending upon Grant’s police record to discredit me. It was a hell of a good manoeuvre if I did know something, which I didn’t — and if I were Grant.

I said, ‘You keep calling me Grant. I wonder why.’

The planes of his iron face altered fractionally. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he said harshly.

‘You ought to know,’ I said. ‘You identified the bodies.’ I smiled grimly. ‘What if I’m Frank Trinavant?’

He didn’t move but his face went a dirty grey. Then he swayed a little and tried to speak, and an indescribable choking sound burst from his lips. Before anyone could catch him he crashed to the ground like one of his own felled trees.

Howard rushed forward and stooped over him and I looked over his shoulder. The old man was still alive and breathing stertorously. Mac pulled at my sleeve and drew me away. ‘Heart-attack,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen it before. That’s why he never moved from home much.’

In the moment of truth my sword had been sharp enough — perhaps too sharp. But was it the moment of truth? I still didn’t know. I still didn’t know if I were Grant or Frank Trinavant. I was still a lost soul groping blindly in the past.