Nothing to Lose

IV

Ten minutes later the cage dropped into its housing with a solid thud, and Johnny 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 realized 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. Johnny 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 toward us. My vision was blurred and I didn’t recognize 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.

“Cut it out. Trevedian. Can’t you see he’s dead beat?” Johnny’s voice sounded remote, like the surgeon’s voice in an operating theater 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 on 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. Johnny was sitting by the window reading a magazine. He looked up as I stirred. “Feeling better?” he asked.

I nodded and sat up. 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, saying, “Boy got in today. Wants to see you as soon as you feel okay.”

“Boy Bladen?”

“Yes. 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 on envelope. “Mac asked me to give you this.”

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. “Johnny, 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. You look a lot better than when we saw you at Jasper.” He turned toward the door. “Okay. I’ll tell Pauline. All right for Boy 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 toweling 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.

“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 looked like an all-in wrestler, but his eyes were those of a dreamer, with a twinkle of humor in them that softened his face to something friendly. “He says he’ll take a chance on it.”

I stared at the big rig operator. “Are you serious?”

“And why wouldn’t I be?” 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 slaked a mine.”

“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 didn’t you tell me that?”

“But—” Boy was staring at me. “Louis Winnick told me the old man had given him back the mineral rights. The day after you saw Roger Fergus he sent for Louis Winnick. 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 notepaper and it read:

I opened out the documents. They referred to the mineral rights in the territory known generally as “Campbell’s Kingdom.” There followed the necessary map references. I passed them 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 hoped for Stuart’s sake you’d win out.”

I thought of the old man, half paralyzed in that wheel chair. I could remember his words: “fine pair we are,” And then: “I’d like to have been able to thumb my nose just once more at all the know-alls in the big companies,” 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. 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.

Keogh looked up from the documents Boy had passed him. He must have Been 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 favorably. 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.”

I sat down on the bed, trying to think ahead. “Yes,” I said. “The company is prepared to share profits on that basis between itself and all those who may contribute to operations that result in a discovery well prior to the flooding of the Kingdom.” I was choosing my words carefully, realizing that a lot might depend on them. “In the event of the hydroelectric scheme being abandoned, the offer stands for two years from the time I sign a contract. If, after that period, the operations have not produced oil at the surface, then the agreement automatically terminates and all costs of development are the responsibility of those concerned and are not to be regarded as in any way a charge on the company.” I paused. It seemed all right, “That’s my proposition,” I said.

Ho nodded abstractedly, stroking his chin. 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.” He turned to Boy. “If Winnick’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. But I’m still only good for about a couple of months operating on my own. But if it looks okay, then it’s a deal.”

“Fine,” I said.

“Then it’s a deal.” He smiled gently to himself, “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, then slipped them into his pocket. “Jeff lent me his station wagon. I’ll get over to Keithley tonight, so that it’ll catch the mail out first thing in the morning. We should get Louis’ report within three days.” He seemed about to say something further, but instead he just said “Good night” and went out.

I lay back on my bed. Things were beginning to move and 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, Johnny said you were hungry.”

“I could eat a horse.”

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, 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. Johnny 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.

“You don’t seem to realize what you’re up against, any of you. Boy I can understand, and Johnny. 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. 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.”

“What are you trying to tell roe?”

“That you’re going about this business so clumsily that you’re going to get hurt. 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 his new road. 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. 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 block 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. 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 your crazy stunt last night, and they’ll shrug their shoulders and any that you were bound to get hurt sooner or later.”

I had finished my steak. “What do you suggest I do, then?”

She pushed her hand through her hair. “Sell out and go back borne.” Her voice had dropped to 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. “Good-by, 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. “Good-by, Bruce.” Her fingers touched mine. She half bent toward me, a sudden tenderness in her eyes. But then she straightened up and turned quickly to the door. She didn’t look round, and I was left with the remains of toy meal and a feeling of emptiness.

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

“Only this.” She took a piece of paper from the heavy rolltop desk in the corner. “It’s her address in Vancouver.” Her sharp, beady eyes quizzed me through the lorgnette. “Do you know why she left so suddenly, Mr. Wetheral?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t.”

“Most extraordinary. I can’t understand it. 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.”

“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 — and comforting to have around. It was — like having a daughter here. And now she’s gone.” 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 Inst 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.”

“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 stayaway 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 onto the boarded sidewalk then and walked slowly back to the hotel, the little mahogany box clutched under my arm. Johnny Curs fairs 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,” Johnny 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, Johnny,” 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.

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 the 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 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 overmelodramatic. 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. 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. 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 in the African desert 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 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 suppose you’ve been talking to Trevedian?”

Acheson nodded. “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 coloring 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 the 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 about 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.”

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? And I warn you, I’ll have them checked 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 storing at me for a moment, his mouth open, quite speechless. Then he turned to Fergus, who had lighted 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. In the end he pulled himself to his feet and left us without a word. Fergus watched him go and then leaned toward me. “It seems you’re a good deal cleverer than Acheson gave you credit for. Suppose we put the cards on the table. The Larsen mines are low-grade ore. I want cheap power permanently in the hands of the company. Therefore, 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 sixty thousand dollars — 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 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 sixty thousand 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. “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.

At length I got to my feet and went slowly up to my room. I was standing at the window, 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. The gloves were off and I began to pack my things...

Two days later I was in Calgary, and Boy and I heard from Winnick’s own lips his report on that last recording we had malted to him. He was guardedly optimistic. “All I can Bay is that it looks like an anticline. Before I can tell you anything definite I’ll need to have the results of a dozen or more shots from different points over the same ground.”

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was enough to confirm our suspicions that there had been substitution of the original recordings. Boy wired Garry Keogh the result and left for Edmonton at once to pick up the rest of his team. He planned to go up to the Kingdom by the pony trail just as soon as he could get through. He would bring the results of the survey out himself. He reckoned it would take about a month.

I stayed on in Calgary. I had a lot to see to. Acheson’s office handed over all the documents and by the time I had unraveled the affairs of the Campbell Oil Exploration Company and had got somebody to act for me, a week had passed. At the same time I did everything I could to make myself familiar with the operation of a drilling rig. Winnick, a little man with pale eyes and spectacles and a rather sad-looking face, took Roger Fergus’ instructions very literally. He gave me every possible assistance.

And at the end of that week the jaded mechanism of my body ran down and I hadn’t the strength to crawl out of bed. Winnick came round to see me and sent at once for his doctor. I knew it wasn’t any use and I told him so. But he insisted. He was a kindhearted little man, fussy over details and with an immense regard for the infallibility of his own judgment.

The doctor, of course, wanted me to go straight into a hospital. But I refused. I’d been better in the cold, crisp air of the Rockies. I wanted to get back there. I felt that time was running out and if I was going to die I wanted to die up in the Kingdom.

A week later, very weak and exhausted, I staggered down to Winnick’s car and we headed north for Edmonton and Jasper. Winnick drove hard and about three-thirty in the afternoon we topped the foothills and saw the white wall of the Rockies ahead of us. We spent the night at Jasper, and Johnny Carstairs and Jeff Hart came to see me in my room. I remember something that Johnny said to me then. Winnick had told him I’d been ill and he knew what the cause of it was.

He said, “Take my advice, Bruce. Stay in the Rockies. The mountains suit you.”

“I intend to,” I said. “I’m going up to the Kingdom.”

He nodded. “Well, if they try and smoke you out, send for me.”

Next day we made Keithley Creek and the following morning we plowed through the mud of the newly graded road to Come Lucky. Now that I was in the mountains again I fell better. My heart was racing madly, but the air was cool and clear and I was suddenly quite confident that I should get my strength back.

We didn’t turn up to the bunkhouse, but continued straight along the lakeshore road to the dark, timbered mouth of Thunder Creek. I had warned Winnick that we might not be allowed to go up by the hoist, but he wasn’t convinced. He was Henry Fergus’ oil consultant and he’d known him since they were kids together. He thought that, would be enough.

But it didn’t work out that way. About a mile up the creek, where the road cut back into the mountainside to bridge a torrent, we were stopped by a heavy timber gate supported by a tall post like the corral gates around Calgary. There was a log hut with an iron chimney that sent a drift of wood smoke through the trees. A man came out of it as we drew up, and through the open doorway we saw a rifle propped against a wooden bench.

“Can I see your pass?” The man was short and stocky and he was chewing gum.

I certainly hadn’t expected precautions as elaborate as this, and my companion was equally surprised. “My name’s Winnick,” he said. “I’m a friend of Henry Fergus.”

“I don’t know any Henry Fergus,” the man replied. “I take my orders from Trevedian, and he says you got to have a pass.”

“Who’s in charge up at the camp?”

“Fellow named Butler, but that won’t help you, mister. You got to have a pass signed by Trevedian, an’ Trevedian’s down at Come Lucky. You’ll find him at the company’s office.”

Winnick didn’t say anything for a moment, but sat staring first at the rifle inside the hut and then at the man who was leaning on the gate watching us. At length he put the car in gear, turned her and headed back down the valley.

“Seems you were right after all. We’ll have to find Trevedian,” he said.

“You won’t get a pass nut of him,” I said.

“Of course I will,” he said.

We were running out of the timber and he swung the car up toward Come Lucky and stopped at Trevedian’s office. “You wait here.” he said.

He was gone about ten minutes, and when he came out his mouth was set in a tight line, “We’ll have to ride up,” he said. “Do you know where we can get horses and a guide?”

“No,” I said. “Unless—” I paused, looking up to the line of shacks that marked the single street of Come Lucky. Then I climbed out of the car. “Let’s walk up to the hotel and have a drink. There’s just one person who might help us.”

“Who’s that?”

I didn’t answer. It was such a slender chance. But if we didn’t get horses here, it would mean going back to Keithley and starting out from there. As we walked up along the rotten boarding of the sidewalk to The Golden Calf, Winnick said. “Maybe you were right about that survey.”

“How do you mean?”

“About Henry Fergus arranging for the recording tapes to be switched. When Trevedian refused to give us a pass to go up the creek, I got through to Calgary. Henry told me I’d no business to be here. He warned me that if I continued to act for you, he’d see to it that I got no more business from his companies or his friends. I knew he was a cold-blooded devil, but I never the thought he’d try a thing like that.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Go up to the Kingdom with you.”

We had reached The Golden Calf. As we pushed open the door, old Mac came to meet us. “Ah’m sorry, Wetheral,” he said sourly, “but ye ken verra well Ah canna have ye here.”

I said, “Well, don’t worry; we’re not here for the night. We just want a drink, that’s all.”

Mac hesitated, and then he said angrily, “Och, o’course ye can have a drink.” He looked at me and his face softened slightly. “If ye’d care to come into ma office, there’s a wee drop o’ Scotch ye could have.”

We went through into a small room with a roll-top desk and a grandfather clock. I introduced Winnick. The old man stood looking at him for a moment, and then he went over to the desk and brought out a bottle and glasses from the cupboard underneath.

“So ye’re the oil consultant from Calgary.” He posed the bottle across to Winnick. “And what brings ye to Come Lucky, Mr. Winnick?”

“We want to get up to the Kingdom,” I said. “But there’s a guard at the entrance to Thunder Creek.”

He nodded. “Aye. And there’s another at the hoist. Ye’ll no get to the Kingdom that way, laddie, not unless ye get Trevedian’s permission, and I dinna think ye’ll get that.”

“He’s already refused,” I said.

“Aye.” He nodded. “An’ he’s within his right.”

“Where’s the pony trail start?”

“The pony trail?” He rubbed the stubble of his chin with his bony fingers. “You cross Thunder Creek by a ford a few hundred yards above the Jake and it runs up through the timber below Forked Lightning Mountain and then over the Saddle below the northern peak of Solomon’s Judgment.” He shook his head. “It’s a bard trail to follow. Ye’d never make it on your own.”

“I was afraid of that,” I said. “Is Max around today or has he gone to Keithley for supplies?”

“Max Trevedian? Aye, he’ll be doon at his place. But Max’ll not take ye up.”

“Where’s his shack?”

The old man stared at me for a moment, and then took me to the window and pointed it out to me, a dilapidated huddle of buildings standing on their own a few hundred yards above and beyond the bunkhouse. “It’s Luke Trevedian’s old place.”

“You wait here,” I said to Winnick. “I won’t be long.”

As I walked down the street I saw Peter Trevedian come out of his office and get into the truck parked by the bunkhouse, He drove down to the lakeshore and turned up toward Thunder Creek. I couldn’t help smiling. Trevedian was making certain of his guards, and all because I had arrived in Come Lucky, A wisp of smoke came from the stone chimney of the old Trevedian home. A big saddle horse stood tethered to the railing of the veranda and it pricked its ears at me as I knocked on the front door. The door was flung open and Max Trevedian stood there, staring at me, his mouth agape. His eyes slid toward the shape of the bunkhouse.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Your brother’s gone up Thunder Creek. May I come in?”

“Ja, ja. Come in.” He closed the door after me and stood there, watching me. But for a moment I was too astonished to say anything. I was in a big lounge hall of tawdry magnificence, looking at the faded grandeur of Luke Trevedian, mine owner and collector. And everywhere there was dust and an air of decay.

“Why do you come here?” Max’s voice, hard and Teutonic, growled round the rotting tapestry hanging on the walls.

I turned and faced him, trying to measure his mood. His small eyes were narrowed, his body hunched forward with the arms hanging loose. His expression was one of resentment at my intrusion. He glanced furtively round, and then, with a sudden smile that was like a gleam of wintry sunshine in his rugged face, he said, “We go into my father’s room. This” — his big hand indicated the room — “this is not his.”

He took me down a short passage and into a small, very simple room. It was furnished almost entirely with colonial pieces from the loyalist houses of the east. The furniture here gleamed with the care that had been lavished on it. I had a sudden feeling of warmth toward Max. He was clumsy and loutish, and yet he’d kept this corner as a shrine to his father’s memory with the delicate care of a woman.

“It’s a beautiful room,” I said.

“It is my father’s room.” There was pride and love and longing in his voice.

“Thank you for letting me see it.” I hesitated. “Will you take me up to the Kingdom, Max?”

He stared at me and shook his head slowly.

I went over and sat at the desk, fitting my mood to the atmosphere of the room, to the man who had once occupied it, “Max,” I said gently, “you didn’t have a very happy childhood, did you?”

“Childhood?” He stared at me and then shook his head. “No. Not happy. Boys made fun of me and did cruel things.”

“Boys made fun of me, too,” I said.

“You?”

I nodded. “I was poor and half starved, and my grandfather was in prison. And later, something was missing-some money — and they ganged up on me and said I’d stolen it. And because my grandfather had been to prison and my mother was poor, they sent me to a reform school.” It seemed only yesterday. It was all so vivid in my mind still. “You loved your father, didn’t you?”

He nodded. “Ja. I love my father.”

“It was different with me,” I said. “I had no father. He was killed in the first war. I loved my mother very dearly. She always believed my grandfather innocent. She brought me up to believe it too. But when I was sent to the reform school and she died, I began to hate my grandfather.” I went slowly across to him and put my hand on his arm. “Max, I now know I did him a great wrong. I know he is innocent. I’m going to prove him innocent. And you’re going to help me because then Campbell and your father will once again be remembered as friends. He didn’t ruin your father. He was convinced there was oil up in the Kingdom. And so am I, Max. That is why you’re going to take me up to the Kingdom.”

He shook his head slowly, unwillingly. “Peter would be angry.”

I wanted to say “Damn Peter,” but instead I said, “You know I’ve been to Calgary?”

He nodded.

“I was very ill there. I nearly died. I haven’t much time. Max. And it’s important. It’s important for both of us. Suppose there is oil up there — then you’ve done Campbell a great injustice. You remember when you took that report to him up in the Kingdom? That killed him as surely as if you’d battered his head against a stone.” I saw him wince. “You had hate in your heart. That was why you went up, wasn’t it? That’s why you did what Peter asked you? But you had no cause to hate him and you must give me the chance to prove it.” I saw his childish mind struggling to grasp what I had been saying, and knew I must put it in a way that was positive. “Campbell will never rest,” I said, “until I have proved there is oil up there.”

I saw his mouth open, but I didn’t give him the chance to speak. I turned to the door. “Meet us at the entrance to Thunder Valley in half an hour,” I said. “I’ll need two saddle homes. I’ve a big oil man with me. You needn’t worry about your brother. He’s gone up to the dam.” I paused, my hand on the door. “If you don’t do this for me, Max, may the dead ghost of Stuart Campbell haunt you to your dying day.”

I left him then. Outside, the sunlight seemed to breathe an air of spring. I paused when I reached The Golden Calf and looked back to the aid house. Max was making his way slowly toward the stables. I knew then that we’d get up to the Kingdom. I didn’t like trading on the man’s simpleness. But it had been the only way. I turned and went into the hotel, feeling a sense of pity, almost of affection for that great, friendless hulk of a man.

A quarter of an hour later Winnick parked his car in a clearing at the entrance to the valley of Thunder Creek. It was screened from the road and we waited there for Max. Half an hour passed and I began to fear that I had failed. But then the clip-clop of hoofs sounded on the packed, rutted surface of the road, and a moment later he came into sight, leading three horses, two saddle and one pack. He dismounted and helped us into the saddle, adjusting our stirrup leathers, tightening the cinches. In all else he might be a child, but he was a man when it came to horses. He was in his own element now and his stature increased immeasurably. He was the leader and he behaved like a leader.

We moved off, Max leading the pack horse, I following and Winnick bringing up the rear. We went through thick brush and black pools dammed by beavers to the rushing noise of Thunder Creek. We crossed the swirling ice-cold waters, the horses swimming, their heads high, their feet stumbling on the bottom. Then we were in timber again and climbing steadily.

Now and then we paused to rest the horses. At the stops nobody talked, but I saw Winnick watching me, speculating whether I’d make it or not. But as my muscles became exhausted my body sank lower and more relaxed into the saddle, until the movement of the horse became easy and natural, as though it were a part of me and I a part of it.

The sun was low in the sky as we crossed the Saddle and saw the bowl of the Kingdom at our feet. There was little snow now. It was green — a lovely, fresh, emerald green — and through it water ran in silver threads, I could see Campbell’s ranch house away to the right, and toward the dam two trucks stood motionless, connected to the ranch house by the tracks their tires had made through the new grasses. I was tired and exhausted, but a great peace seemed to have descended upon me. I was back in the Kingdom, clear of cities and the threat of a hospital. I was back in God’s own air, in the cool beauty of the mountains.

I turned to Max. “We can find our way down from here,” I said. I held out my hand to him. “Thank you for bringing us.”

He looked at the peak rising above us. “Perhaps they are together — my father and Campbell.” He turned to me. “Tell Campbell I have done what you ask.” He clapped his heels to his horse’s Hanks and turned back the way he had come, trailing the pack horse behind him.

“What about the horses?” I called to him.

“Keep, them till you return to Come Lucky!” he shouted back. “The grass is good for them now!”

The mountain create were Hushed with the sunset as we rode into Campbell’s Kingdom, and from the end of the wheel tracks where the trucks were parked came the sharp crack of an explosion as Boy fired another shot and recorded the Bound wave on his geophones. The echo of that shot ran like a salvo of welcome through the mountains as we slid from our saddles by the door of the partly burned barn. I stood there, hanging on to the leather of my stirrup, staring out across the new grass of the Kingdom as the sun went down. I was too weak with exhaustion to stand on my own, and yet I was strangely content. Winnick helped me into the house and I sank down on the bed that my grandfather had used for so many years. And as I slid into a half coma of sleep I know that I wouldn’t be going back — that this was my kingdom now.

I slept right through to the following morning and woke to sunshine and the clatter of tin plates. They were having breakfast as I went out into the living room of the ranch house. Sleeping barn lay in a half circle round the ember glow of the wood ash in the grate and the place was littered with kit and equipment. Boy jumped to his feet and gripped hold of my hand. He was seething with excitement, like a volcano about to erupt.

“Are you all right, Bruce? Did you have a good night?” He didn’t wait for me to reply. “Louie has been up all night, computing the results. We’ve all been up most of the night. I knew it was an anticline. That shot we fired just as you got in was the last of five on the cross traverse. It’s a perfect formation. Ask Louis. It’s a honey. We’re straddled right across the dome of it. Now all we’ve got to prove is tint it extends across the Kingdom and beyond.”

I looked across at Winnick. “Is this definite?”

He nodded. “It’s an anticline all right. But it doesn’t prove there’s oil up here. I’ll ride over the ground today and do a quick check on the rock strata. It may tell me something.”

But however matter-of-fact Winnick might be, there was no damping the air of excitement that hung over the breakfast table. It wasn’t only Boy. His two companions seemed just as thrilled. They were both of them youngsters. Bill Mannion was a graduate of McGill who had recently abandoned government survey work to become a geophysicist. He was the observer. Don Leggert, a younger man, was from Edmonton. He was the driller. These two men, with Boy, were mucking in and doing the work of a full seismographic team of ten or twelve men. I didn’t need their chatter of technicalities to tell me they were keen.

I stood in the sunshine and watched them walk out to the instrument truck. They walked with purpose and the loose spring of men who were physically fit. I envied them that as I watched them go. Winnick came out and joined me. He had a rucksack on his back and a geologist’s hammer tucked into his belt.

“Well,” he said. “Now you know you’re on an anticline, why not let me try and interest one of the big companies in this property?”

“No,” I said, staring out toward the ring of the mountains. “There isn’t a chance of that, and you know it. If it’s to be done at all. I’ll have to do it myself.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But think it over. Now Roger Fergus is dead, his son controls a lot of finance. You’re a one-man show up against a big outfit. You’ll be running neck and neck with the construction of the dam, and every dollar that’s Bunk in that project will make it that much mare vital to Fergus that you don’t bring in a well up here.”

“How far do you think he’ll go to stop me?” I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I wouldn’t know. But that dam is going to cost money. Henry Fergus will go a long way to see that his money isn’t thrown away.”

When I made my decision to drill for oil in the Canadian Rockies, I realized that even if I did bring in a well, I might not live to see it.

My name is Bruce Campbell Wetheral. On the day my physician told me I had only a few months left to live, I also learned that I had inherited from my grandfather, Stuart Campbell, a tract of land in the Rockies called Campbell’s Kingdom. My grandfather had spent his life trying to prove there was oil in the Kingdom, and his last request to me was to prove him right.

Apart from my fatal illness, there were other obstacles I had to overcome. A man named Henry Fergus was financing the construction of a dam just below the Kingdom that would be completed in about five months — and flood the Kingdom. Also, the only way to get drilling equipment up to the Kingdom was on a hoist owned by Peter Trevedian, who worked for Fergus. I knew that Trevedian would never let me use the hoist.

My partner, Boy Bladen, had made a survey of the Kingdom which Louis Winnick, an oil consultant and surveyor, found encouraging. I took Winnick to the Kingdom. On the way up, we discovered that Trevedian had posted guards around the hoist and along the road that went part way up the mountain.

Winnick reminded me I’d lose everything if the Ham was finished before I found oil. And Winnick warned me, “Henry Fergus will go a long way to see that his money isn’t thrown away.”