High Stand

by Hammond Innes

  He had laughed then and said, ‘You mentioned terrorists, back there at the mine. I’d have made one hell of a good terrorist. Anyway, that’s how I knew about laying a charge in a rock face. Bringing down that fall was a piece of cake once Kevin had got me the tools. It kept that little bastard Tarasconi out, and anybody else who was just curious to know what was going on. Another week or so …’

  I don’t know whether it was the drink or the coke that made him fantasize so wildly, but somehow he seemed to have convinced himself that, given another month or so, he and that Indian would have opened up a new mine — just the two of them working with that one tractor and the wooden rocker and sluice box he had constructed with his own hands. ‘I’d’ve done it,’ he said. ‘I know dam’ well I would. But for the onset of winter we’d have got down to bedrock and that’s where the heavy stuff is. Winter, and Tarasconi putting the finger on me, and those two bastards. I could have broken their necks, just like that -‘ He had snapped his fingers. ‘But I wanted them to talk. And then to find they were just a couple of hit men hired to deliver that note and keep tabs on me. They didn’t know where she was.’ And he had suddenly seized hold of my arm, his face thrust close to mine, the pupils of his eyes looking very odd and his hand trembling. ‘Don’t you know? You’ve just come up here from Vancouver, you’ve seen Roy, you’ve talked to Barony over in Seattle — you must know something.’ And when I hadn’t answered - I think I just shook my head - he said, ‘For God’s sake, haven’t you any idea where she might be?’

  He had stared at me then for a long time, as though he were in a trance, and when he’d snapped out of it he had seized hold of the bottle and slopped some more whisky into our glasses. And because I had thought he was drunk enough now to tell me what it was all about, I had begun questioning him again. And instead of answering my questions, he had flown into a rage, telling me I was bloody useless and to mind my own business. After that he had gone suddenly quiet, closing up on me, silent and morose, his head in his hands. Once he had muttered, ‘I don’t know what it’s all about and I don’t want to know. They’re bastards, the whole lot of them. They should be put down, like you put down dogs that have got that rabies disease.’

  And then suddenly he had looked up at me. ‘Philip. If I don’t do what they tell me, they’ll kill her. I know they will. There’s a lot of money involved, and she and I, we’re just pawns. God in heaven! What the hell can I do?’ And he had beat his fists against his forehead. But he wouldn’t say what it was he had been told to do, and when I asked him if it was a question of the Canadian trees and SVL Timber trying to get him to sell, he’d burst out laughing. ‘If it was as simple as that… Christ! I’d make my peace with the Old Man and sign the whole thing away just to be rid of them. But it isn’t, is it?’ And he had reached for his glass and downed the whole of his whisky in one gulp, and then he had sat there staring at me with a vacant look, sad-eyed and his mind locked away in some dark cavern of its own.

  I might be his solicitor and out here of my own free will, but if you’ve rogered a man’s wife and been rumbled, it’s always there, a barrier between you that crops up at odd, unexpected moments. He had just looked at me, not saying a word, then abruptly got to his feet, heading for the gents. After a moment I had followed to find him standing, his tie loosened and holding in his hand a little gold spoon that was hung about his neck on a slender gold chain. He had taken a pouch from his pocket and was dipping the spoon into it, peering forward to see how much he had scooped up, then putting it to his left nostril and snorting it up. He had done it again with the other nostril, then seeing me his eyes had snapped wide open and he had breathed out a deep, contented Aaah! ‘Just to keep me on top, eh?’

  ‘You don’t need it, surely.’ My voice had sounded very prim.

  ‘No.’ By then he had been reaching down to unzip his flies.

  ‘A one-and-one, that’s not very much, but if it holds the high — I just like to keep it going, you see, an’ because I’ve not had any for a couple of months, a one-and-one will do it. Christ!’ He was staring down at himself. ‘And it’ll do that too!’ And he had added, ‘One time Miriam and I used it as an aphrodisiac, but it doesn’t work once you’re snorting regularly.’ He grinned at me over his shoulder. ‘Pity Miriam isn’t here now…’ But then he was concentrating and a moment later he was passing water so it hadn’t lasted long. And afterwards, while he was washing his hands, he had said, ‘Lucky you don’t snort. That’s all I’ve got now, just a few grams to last me till my ship comes in.’ And he had burst into that high-pitched laugh of his, as though he’d said something funny.

  I wondered whether he had got himself involved with some dope pushers, but he shook his head. ‘Pushers?’ His eyes had sprung very wide as he stared at me in the mirror, all the time running a comb through his bushy mop of grey-white hair. ‘No, no. I buy higher up. It’s like the difference between always having to drop into the local for a packet of fags and ordering your Havanas in boxes from one of those places in St James’s. Only now things are a little changed.’ And he had neighed at me again, his teeth showing. ‘I need some more, and pretty soon now. I can’t face these bastards without it. And Miriam - what have they done with Miriam? All this time…’ He had been pulling open the door then. ‘I’ll murder the buggers,’ he had hissed in my ear, his breath hot on my cheek as he lurched out into the dining-room.

  Back at the table he had gradually simmered down, the rush already dying. ‘Maybe Brian will be able to get me some more. Has Brian got any money, do you know?’

  ‘I think so.’ But I hadn’t told him his son had done what Miriam had done, borrowing things from the house to raise enough to get to Canada. Instead, I had asked him how much it cost to buy cocaine out here. He had shrugged, saying it depended on the quality, didn’t it? ‘The price has been falling recently. Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, they’re all flogging the stuff as hard as they can. They make it up in the mountains, little family labs, but the total of what those peasants produce often provides the bulk of the government’s income. It’s like those wine lakes m France and Italy. You can buy it cheap if you have to, but the good stuff - that always costs money. And if you don’t use good stuff, and you don’t cut it right, then you can do yourself a lot of damage. Pure cocaine - that crystalline rock stuff - it’s too strong, bad for the membranes of the nose, bad for the gums if you’re taking it orally. I always cut my own if I can.’ And when I had asked him if Brian was using it, he had shaken his head. ‘No, no. He’s tried it, but he has his own built-in high. Father to world causes, that’s Brian. But he always knows lots of people. Wherever he is he’s got contacts. He’ll know where to get it. Indians at Bella Bella probably, or further south at Alert Bay. They’re flush with money at the moment. Land sales. So there’s sure to be a pusher in Bella Bella, certainly at Bella Coola — that’s at the end of the road running in from Williams Lake and the white spruce country, along the Chilanko valley…’

  They were just names, and thinking about them I fell asleep, having decided to go along with him as far as Skagway and the ship to Prince Rupert. I could always go on then to Vancouver. And in the morning the sun was shining, the river marked by the white of steam rising from the water.

  By the time we reached the railway depot the coaches were already waiting, three of them, all rather elderly with little steel platforms at each end and wood-burning stoves. There was a party of Americans with a courier who wore a hat and looked harassed, a small group of Canadian schoolboys humping bagged-up inflatables, and individual travellers kept arriving in cars and taxis, some on foot. A general air of excitement pervaded the area between the depot buildings and the coaches, for there was a small camera crew of three taking close-ups of an actor making his way from one coach to the next.

  We found seats and stowed our gear. Tom was travelling very light with the result that the rifle was even more conspicuous than it would have been otherwise. ‘What are you going to do about that?’ I ask
ed him, suddenly conscious, now that we were in an organized system of transport, that there were such things as customs checks. Skagway was in Alaska, and Alaska was a part of the United States.

  ‘I’ve got a permit,’ he said.

  ‘Under your own name?’

  ‘Of course.’ He laughed, a tense, slightly nervous laugh. ‘The Americans don’t get fussed over guns the way the Canadians do. I remember my father telling me how Sam Steele and twenty Mounties made the Yanks coming up from Skagway hand in their guns. They didn’t like it, but that’s the way it was up there at that improvised customs post, and the con men sent up by Soapy Smith, the boss man of Skagway, to fleece the thousands staggering up that twelve-mile pass, they got short shrift. Now it’s just a train ride,’ he added and then fell silent. He was much less talkative now, almost morose.

  ‘What about the bolstered gun you took from Camargo?’ I asked.

  ‘Under my arm.’

  ‘It may be all right entering Alaska, but we’re going back into Canada - at Prince Rupert, I presume. What about the customs there?’

  They’ll be so busy checking the rifle, it won’t occur to them I’ve got anything else.’ He looked at me, frowning. ‘Come to think of it, what did you do with the gun you took from that little rat Lopez?’

  ‘It’s in my suitcase,’ I said.

  There was a sudden flurry of activity, a jolt and people boarding. ‘Maybe we better hand them in. Or toss them out as we run through the tunnel at the top of the pass. No, the ravine would be better. There’ll be a mist up there today and everybody gawping at the steel bridge.’ A lot of clanking and people shouting, then we were shunted back to finish up being hitched onto a long train of oil tankers. The diesel locomotive gave a mournful bellow, a last warning as the couplings clashed.

  I was out on the iron platform then and I saw the actor in his blue jeans running as the train started into motion, a battered suitcase in his hand and the television crews filming from the rear of the last coach, the cameraman being held precariously balanced on the outside of the observation platform. Again the mournful bellow, the wheels grinding on the rails, the actor clambering in, and the camera being passed to safety.

  The diesel engine was already nosing its way between the river and the government buildings, and looking back I saw somebody had missed the train, a small red car swinging into the depot and a man jumping out. He stopped suddenly, turned and dived back into the car, which swung quickly round and was lost to sight behind some buildings. I looked out the other side, and there was the bridge over the Yukon where we had stood the previous night and the SS Klondike looking like a white whale stranded on the grass of the bank, and as we crossed 2nd Avenue, the locomotive still bellowing, there was the little red car coming towards us.

  I caught just a glimpse of it, and then there were houses and the steep escarpment rising above us with a small plane raking off from the airport. By air I suppose it would have been no more than a few hours to Bella Bella, but most of the coast was only covered by local floatplanes and the direct flight distance was almost 800 miles. Too far, and the terrain too rugged, the weather close in to the Rockies too chancy. And by road the distance given to Bella Coola on the map I had with me was just on 2,400 miles - ‘Rugged driving,’ Tom said. He had done it. There was, in fact, no practical alternative but to go by ferry, which meant the better part of a day on the train, two nights on the American ferry stopping at five ports down the Alaska panhandle before Prince Rupert, and finally another day on the BC ferry to Bella Bella.

  My first reaction to this slow progression had been one of impatience, almost of disbelief. Tom, on the other hand, took it for granted. ‘That’s the way it is up here,’ he had said with a shrug. Travel takes time.’ He was used to the journey, had done it several times. For me, to whom the Yukon, Alaska, the Pacific, the Rockies had just been names until now, it was a wonderful experience just to be travelling through this country - except for the feeling I had of being out of my depth and involved in something I didn’t understand.

  All my training - my conventional upbringing, too -prompted me to report to the authorities. But report what? - those two Colombian gunmen when I was convinced the thing was bigger than that? And there was Tom - you can’t just shop the man you represent.

  Three days. Three days in close company travelling down the coast. In three days I ought to be able to get some sense out of him, persuade him to take me into his confidence and tell me what it was all about.

  Spruce, endless spruce, a copper mine closed by the fall in price, glimpses of the highway and mountains closing in from the right, the train dawdling as though it too was enjoying the scenery. And then, past what is claimed as the smallest desert in the world, we crept in to Carcross at the north end of Lake Bennett where it joins the even bigger Lake Tagish. This was the old caribou crossing - hence the name of the place, Tom said, talking of the huge herds he had seen once on a flight up to the North Slope oil complex. Another of those high-structured, wooden Yukon vessels lay on the shore and one of the railway’s early tank locomotives was parked beside the track, bits and pieces of it picked out in white paint, also a freight wagon. We clanked to a stop just after we had crossed the trembling timber swing bridge that spanned the junction of the two lakes and alongside us was the weatherbeaten wood front of the Caribou Hotel with several trucks parked outside, also a small red car. Then I saw them, standing there, just clear of the hotel, outside another clapboard building, Matthew Watson’s General Store painted on the front of it, standing quite motionless, their faces without expression as they searched the carriage windows.

  I had gone out to the rear platform and was just stepping down with an excited group of youngsters to take a picture when I saw them. I ducked back, but too late. They were already moving towards the coach. Those two hunters,’ I said as I sat myself down again beside Tom.

  He nodded. ‘I saw them.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Nothing. They won’t trouble us until we get to Bella Bella. Then we’ll see.’

  The two men were climbing into the coach, each carrying a grip, nothing else. They stood a moment on the iron platform staring at us through the glass of the rear door, the big one frowning slightly, his untidy beard and the moustache seeming blacker than ever in the sombre grey light reflected off the water, Lopez looking tense, his body like a coiled spring as though expecting us to make some hostile move. It was only a few seconds they stood there motionless, but it seemed much longer. Camargo was the first to move, reaching out and opening the door. Then he was pushing through it, and they went past us, not saying anything, not even looking at us.

  ‘It was only an outside chance they’d be fooled into thinking we’d left by air,’ Tom said, and he shrugged. ‘Maybe it’s better this way.’

  The train jolted into motion, and though I tried questioning him again, he wouldn’t answer, sitting there, staring out of the window at the grey expanse of the lake, his mind apparently locked on his thoughts. And those two men with their coffee-coloured skin and black oily hair sitting impassive and silent at the other end of the coach.

  At Bennett we stopped for lunch - benches and trestle tables in a bare echoing hall that was part of the depot, a full-bodied soup brought on in steaming tureens by full-bodied women, steak and bean pudding and apple pie. And when we went out to stretch our legs the mountains had gone, the cloud right down on the deck and a light drizzle blowing in our faces. Lopez and Camargo took turns to keep watch on us and a second engine was shunted on to the train for the long haul up to White Pass.

  Bennett boasted the one real section of double track on the whole no miles between Skagway and Whitehorse, so we had to wait for the daily train coming in over White Pass from the other direction with another load of passengers for another ‘gold rush’ station meal. We left just after one-thirty.

  By then the wind had risen almost to gale force, the rain slashing at the depot buildings, obliterating them a
lmost instantly as we pulled out into the murk. It was like that for perhaps half an hour, then the wind dropped and the clouds thinned to reveal a desolate landscape of bare rock and stunted scrub interspersed with innumerable little lakes. The train was moving now at a snail’s pace, the diesels labouring. We stopped by a small building that was like a signal box. We had reached the summit and the border between Alaska and BC.

  We were almost at three thousand feet then and through the first of the snow tunnels, an alpine maquis world where a carpet of autumn-gold growth hugged the ground, crouching for shelter amongst bare, black, ice-scarred rocks and beside small pools still skimmed with the night’s ice. It was here that Tom, who had seemed lost in a world of his own, suddenly turned to me and asked me to get Lopez’s gun from my suitcase. ‘There’s the first of the real rock tunnels coming up in a moment. You’ll be able to get it then without anybody seeing what you’re up to.’

  ‘What do you want it for?’ I had a sudden vision of him shooting those two down in cold blood. He had been to the lavatory quite recently and I didn’t know whether he was drugged-up or not. A man brooding like that…