High Stand

by Hammond Innes

  Tea and biscuits, and then we were off. It was cold and very still, the sky clear and the stars diamond bright, the trail quite visible as soon as our eyes became accustomed to the night. It followed the contour line of the mountain, running above the placer plant, then dipping quite sharply. Soon we were below the timber line, small sticks at first, but the scrub becoming gradually taller and thicker. Tom was leading, a rifle slung over his back. ‘Just in case we meet a grizzly.’ And he had grinned at me, his eyes gleaming and his teeth white in the starlight. Later, as the timber became taller and the vegetation more dense, we had to use our torches. He had said it was about six miles and shouldn’t take us more than two hours. In fact, we reached the Squaw just after five, the water quite shallow where we forded it, and ten minutes later we were approaching the Tarasconi claim along a well-developed track.

  It was the fire we saw first. We turned a bend and the darkness ahead glowed with the orange flicker of flames. The camp was beside the grey shingle bed of a tributary stream. There was a battered-looking caravan jacked up on boulders, a log store shed, an old tent with a small bucket tractor close by, and two pick-up trucks side by side and facing downstream. The camp was virtually dismantled for the winter and they were sleeping in the open. We could see their figures, three of them rolled tight in their sleeping bags close beside the fire.

  Tom stopped. ‘So he did bring them here.’ Again that hesitancy and his voice trembling. His hands searched his pocket. ‘You got any paper on you ? A dollar note — anything?’ He had pulled me back into the shelter of some small spruce, his tone urgent.

  I was shivering then, my feet wet from fording the Squaw and very cold. A niggling little breeze breathed icily from off the heights. I felt in my hip pocket and pulled out the wad of Canadian currency I had obtained in Vancouver, wondering what the hell he wanted money for. ‘How much?’ I held it out to him.

  ‘Anything — doesn’t matter.’ He seized a ten-dollar bill, his fingers trembling; then he was gone, into the bushes. I saw the flash of his torch, and after a while I heard him sniffing. It was more like a snort really, then silence. A moment later he emerged. He didn’t say anything, just handed the note back. It was curled up now as though it had been rolled into a tight tube.

  It dawned on me then - ‘Cocaine?’ I asked him.

  He gave what sounded like a giggle. ‘A three-and-three, that’s all, and it’s well cut. You want some? I’ve still got a little left.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘You missed something. Better than alcohol if you’re properly supplied and do it right.’ This in a low whisper, the words running together.

  ‘You trying to get high?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course.’ He gave that little giggle again. ‘What do you expect? Weeks of solitude, then you - and right on your heels those two bastards. And now … I’ve never done anything like this before.’

  ‘Keep your voice down,’ I whispered. It had become slurred and very excited. ‘What haven’t you done before?’

  ‘Never mind. Just do as I say.’ His teeth showed and I sensed a wildness in him, his breath smoking in the raw air. ‘Come on now. Let’s get it over with.’ His hand had fastened on my arm, his grip convulsive as he dragged me forward.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I was scared of him now.

  Talk to them. I’ve got to talk to them.’ And suddenly he had moved out into the open, a crouched run that took him across the banked-up debris of the old streambed. He had almost reached the fire, and I was following him, when one of the recumbent figures stirred, sat up, then began struggling to free his arms from his sleeping bag. It was the smaller of the two South Americans, the man named Lopez, and he was reaching inside his anorak when Tom yelled, ‘Don’t move!’, repeating it in Spanish - ‘No se mueva!’ I stopped then, seeing the scene like a film in slow motion, the three figures lit by the red glow of the embers and all of them in movement, Lopez with his hand coming clear of his anorak, the dull gun metal glinting redly, the big man’s bald head like polished ivory as his hand closed on the rifle beside him, and Tony Tarasconi, his eyes wide and his mouth open. And then the sharp crack of a gun, the smack of a bullet striking sparks on a rock and the whine of its ricochet, all the figures suddenly frozen into stillness and Tom’s voice shouting wildly, ‘Drop it! Sueltelo!’ And then to me, sharply over his shoulder - ‘Get their guns. Quick. And don’t get in the way.’

  He was round the fire then, and while I was retrieving the gun Lopez had dropped, he prodded the big man in the belly, demanding to know who had sent them. ‘Did you bring this?’ He pulled Miriam’s note from the pocket of his anorak, thrusting it under the man’s nose. ‘Well, did you? It was left at Ice Cold, pushed under the bunkhouse door some time yesterday.’

  It was then that the little man jumped to his feet with the speed of a cat, hands clawing and gripping hold of my arm. The next thing I knew his shoulder thudded into my ribs and I was flung to the ground. I looked up and he was standing over me, reaching down for the gun I had dropped, the big man stepping back and Tom turning. I saw it all as an instant flash, the three of them all caught in violent motion, their faces lit by the fire. Tom let out a yell, something in Spanish, the barrel of his rifle slamming home, his knee coming up as the big man bent double with a gasp. There was a gurgling cry, the body writhing on the ground an arm’s length from me, the dark, bearded face contorted with pain, the bald head running with sweat. ‘Hold it! Don’t move!’ The rifle was pointed at the man’s belly, Tom’s hand on the trigger, and the man above me frozen into stillness as the words were repeated in Spanish. ‘Get his gun.’ And when I didn’t move, Tom yelled at me, ‘Get it, d’you hear!’

  I scrambled to my feet then and grabbed at the man’s arm, wrenching it from his grasp, a nasty little black-metalled automatic. As I slipped it into my pocket Tom bent down, his rifle still jabbed into the big man’s belly; he zipped open the man’s parka, reaching down for the automatic in its armpit holder. I felt suddenly dazed, conscious of Tony Tarasconi, lit by a flicker of flame, standing frozen into stillness halfway to the trucks. And all the time Tom talking, questions in Spanish, the barrel of his rifle thrust into the body at his feet, the man mouthing replies.

  Finally he stood back. ‘You know about knots. Tie them up,’ he told me and called to Tarasconi to get some rope. He hadn’t got the answers he wanted and he was high on coke, his mood dangerous. But there seemed no alternative so I did what he asked, Tony handing me the ropes, his hands trembling and his eyes so large with fear they seemed to be starting out of his head. As soon as they were roped, Tom turned the big man over on his side, and with that crumpled paper in his hand, began yanking on the rope linking wrists to ankles, repeating over and over again — ‘De donde lo consiguio usted? Quien les mando? Camargo - Digame donde - donde - quien les mando?’ Finally he turned his attention to the other man. ‘Your name Lopez?’

  The little man nodded and began to squirm away.

  ‘Ese tnensaje. De donde lo consiguio? Quien les mando?’ He repeated the question several times. Then suddenly he went over to the fire, selected a half-burned length of wood and turned back to Lopez, who screamed, ‘No. No. No lo haga usted.’ ‘You can’t do it.’ My voice sounded hoarse.

  He rounded on me then, his eyes blazing - ‘So her life doesn’t rate against this little rat. You don’t care -‘ I started to protest, but he interrupted, speaking very quietly - ‘All right then. Let’s see you do it.’ And he held the glowing brand out to me. ‘Better still, pick the little shit up and dump him in the fire. Well?’ He laughed, watching me. ‘So you don’t care where she is. Well, I do -‘ And he turned, thrusting the ember down towards the man’s face.

  ‘No lo se, no lo se.’ Lopez was suddenly pouring out an incomprehensible spate of words. He had rolled over and was facing Camargo. Tom joined in, a babble of voices, the three of them all talking at once, their faces lit by the glow of that ember, and I just stood there. I wa
sn’t thinking of the two men lying on the ground. I was thinking of Tom, what he had been through to bring him to this pitch of desperation… And Miriam. What the hell had he got himself mixed up in, that two gunmen had come north to the Yukon looking for him, bringing him that note from his wife. Bogota … There was Lopez mentioning it again, the big man answering him. Bogota was Colombia, and Colombia was the land of Raleigh’s Eldorado. ‘What are they saying? Where is she?’

  Tom shook his head, turning away in disgust. ‘He doesn’t know.’ He tossed the ember back into the fire. ‘Neither of them know.’ His voice sounded bitter and despondent. ‘Let’s get going. You got the key of their truck?’

  ‘No.’

  He bent over Camargo, searching his pockets. Tony began to slip away into the shadows, but he stopped him. The keys of your truck, too.’ He took them and stood for a moment staring down at the two Colombians. They were hired in Bogota and flew up to San Francisco. That’s where they were given Miriam’s note. In a bar down by Fisherman’s Wharf. A man they’d never seen before and he didn’t give his name. Handed them the note and gave them verbal instructions, details of an account they could draw on at the Bank of Canada office in Vancouver, and that’s about all they can tell us, except that they were to report my movements; yours, too, if you came up here.’ He turned to Tony. ‘You’re coming with us. A nice long walk, and while you’re walking, and those two hoodlums are chewing on their ropes, you can be thinking about the Gully and how it’s got you into dangerous company, eh?’ He was laughing.

  ‘Who do they report to?’ I asked.

  ‘Just a telephone number.’ He repeated it and I wrote it down, a Bella Coola number.

  ‘No name?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the people who hired them didn’t say why they were being sent up here?’

  He shook his head. ‘They don’t know anything.’ He was standing there, looking dazed. And yet it seemed obvious. ‘It’s the Gully they want. Isn’t that right?’ I asked. ‘That second claim your father acquired.’ But it was beyond belief that he should have become mentally unbalanced and disappeared, all because the mine he’d lived on all his life had run out of gold, when he had a second mine still undeveloped.

  ‘Gold?’ He stared at me as though he couldn’t believe it. Then he was laughing again, quite uncontrollably, the sound of it echoing back from the rocks above, and his voice, half-merged with the murmur of water in the creek bed, saying, ‘So it’s true — Miriam didn’t write to you from Vancouver; you really don’t know.’

  PART III

  Bella Bella

  1

  That drive down the Ice Cold track was in keeping with all the rest of the night, a nightmare ride that in the final stages required all my powers of concentration to stay awake and keep driving. Tom led the way in Tarasconi’s old Ford. For the first ten miles or so I can’t remember anything very much other than the track and the rear lights of the truck ahead bucking and swerving, and myself fighting the gears of the big Chevrolet I had been landed with, bouncing up and down, the front wheels slithering wildly in the ruts, juddering and grinding against the mudguards in the rough stony sections. I was dimly aware that Tom was driving hellishly fast; conscious, too, of the heat in the cab and myself sweating with the effort of keeping up with him in a strange vehicle, but it didn’t occur to me that there was anything odd about it. I just put his speed down to the fact that he was a very accomplished driver.

  But then, after he had dropped Tarasconi off, telling him he could either walk back up to Ice Cold and set the two gunmen free or walk out to the highway and thumb a ride up to the Lodge - ‘I advise the Lodge. You’ll find your truck there and you can get some food and think out what you’re going to do about your friends at the mine.’ This was shouted at Tarasconi. ‘But I tell you this, you’ll never get the Gully. Not now.’ And he slammed the truck into gear and went careering off down the track.

  I remember Tarasconi’s face, caught in the glare of my headlights, a look of confusion, fear, and hate - yes, hate. It was there in his eyes, glimpsed for a moment. He yelled something as I passed him, and then he was gone, a lonely, pathetic-looking figure swallowed by the night.

  It was after that I began to notice the erratic behaviour of the truck ahead. By then I think I was becoming accustomed to the vehicle I was driving so could spare a thought for what was happening in front of me; also, of course, Tom was now on his own. The track became steeper. It was the section where it looked like the bed of a stream, all stone with a drop to the left that was covered with scrub. I had closed up and my headlights showed the whole rear of the pick-up, so that I could follow its course as it meandered from side to side. Tom’s driving was like that of a man half-asleep. My own eyes had felt heavy-lidded, but now I was wide awake. Stones and boulders gave way to mud, my wheels locking as I braked. I changed down quickly and an instant later I saw the truck ahead slithering almost sideways. He got it under control, but then it happened again, and he didn’t correct in time. The left front wheel mounted the edge of the track, careered along it for a moment, then slipped over onto the slope, the cab tilting, the chassis bellying down, tipping slowly over onto its side.

  I had stopped by then and I sat watching it slide and crash down into some stunted aspen, snapping the thin boles until finally it came to rest, hanging there.

  It didn’t catch fire, and after a moment Tom clambered out, apparently unhurt. He called to me, but the sound of my engine drowned his words. He staggered around for a moment like a man drunk, then he stood still, staring up at me, his face pale and his hair, almost white, standing up in a thick brush. Finally he clambered up onto the side of the cab, yanked open the door again and reached in for his things.

  It was some time before I realized he was suffering from shock as well as the after-effects of drugs. Fatigue probably came into it as well. He had been so hipped-up and excited when confronting those men, no wonder his driving had been erratic. I had to help him up the slope, he was so weak. And when I had got him into the cab of my vehicle, he went out like a light, his face so pale I thought at first he had fainted.

  In fact, he was asleep, and he didn’t wake up until we reached the lower ford across the Squaw. Dawn was showing a faint glimmer above Dalton’s Post, the trees black in silhouette beyond the creek, the water and the banks of stone and silt no more than a grey blur. I had to shake him really hard before he was conscious enough to guide me across the fording place, and he was asleep again before I had reached the further bank, his head rolling and nodding like some broken doll as my wheels ground their way over the rocks and boulders of the river bed and the water swirled up to the bonnet, seeping under the door and sloshing around the floor of the cab.

  He didn’t wake again until I had made the highway and we were several miles on our way to the Lodge. In fact, I didn’t realize he was awake until I heard an odd snuffling and saw he was sitting slumped forward with his head in his hands. •What’s the matter?’ I asked. ‘You all right?’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘You’re not hurt?’

  ‘No.’ He sat back, feeling in the pockets of his anorak. It was only then I realized he was crying. He produced a dirty-looking handkerchief and wiped his face. ‘I have to thank you,’ he murmured. And then, after a while, he said, ‘Everything’s gone wrong.’ He seemed to pull himself together. ‘I’ve had a marvellous life — then suddenly…’ Silence again. I didn’t say anything, thinking he was running back over his life, but then he leaned forward and gripped my arm, his mouth trembling. ‘You saw the deeds, did you? That plantation — my father’s trees. You saw what he wrote?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, preparing myself for what he would ask next.

  ‘The mine I could stand. I could live with that. But now… now I wish to God I were dead.’ He gave a sort of laugh, self-mocking. ‘But I couldn’t do it. When it came to the point — well, it was just a sham. I couldn’t do it, not properly.’ His grip on my arm tighten
ed. ‘Do you believe a man’s spirit can come out of his grave to defend something he created when he was alive? Do you believe that?’

  ‘It’s more a question whether you believe it,’ I answered him, and he nodded.

  ‘It was only when I had signed that agreement and I went up there and saw them felling - it was only then… Odd, isn’t it?’ He took his hand away. ‘Damn frightening.’ He had his handkerchief to his face then and he was crying again, a soft, gurgling sound.

  ‘Did Miriam know?’

  ‘What-the deeds?’

  ‘That, and about your selling those two hectares.’

  ‘No. She didn’t know anything. The only people who knew the mine was finished were here, people like Jonny and Kevin — Tony, too.’

  ‘What about Stone Slide?’

  The Gully? Yes, I could have sold the Gully. Or leased the claim. But not for much, and it would have been only a drop in the ocean of what I was beginning to owe.’ And he added, ‘But it’s been a good life. Trouble is, that doesn’t solve the problem of today, let alone the future, and looking back… I never was one for looking back.’ He was silent then, not crying, just deadly silent as dawn broke, the grey slash of the highway between walls of spruce becoming clearer every minute, my headlights fainter.

  I thought he was asleep again, his head back against the rear of the seat, his eyes closed. His face looked lined and tired, his mouth beneath the thick flared nostrils a tight gap that bared his teeth in a grimace. He had always looked so young, but he seemed to have aged in the last few months. I knew his age, of course - he was fifty-seven. But now he looked a lot older.

  I was thinking about his father then, about that curse he had written into the deeds. Obviously he had seen his son for the sort of man he would grow up to be and had done his best to prevent him taking the easy way out of any financial difficulty. He may even have known the mine would run out of gold in a few years. At least he had anticipated it. And now Tom had done what old Josh Halliday had feared, he had started cutting into High Stand. But I couldn’t see that cutting those trees could be the cause of his wife being seized and South American gunmen hired to keep watch over his movements. But perhaps he had sold the whole lot on a word of mouth deal and then refused to deliver the deeds? Or more likely, far more likely, it concerned Ice Cold, or maybe the Gully - it had to be gold surely.