High Stand

by Hammond Innes

  I didn’t say anything and she pushed him away — but gently, almost reluctantly. ‘Tom, you’ve been taking that stuff again. You’re high.’

  ‘Of course I’m high. I’m on top of the world.’ He laughed, the sound of it a little wild. ‘If I hadn’t been high I’d never have had the guts to come here with that little Mexican bugger Rodrigo looking for you and walking s-slap into the bloody neat little trap they’d laid for me.’

  She came across to me then, holding out her hand. ‘Thank you, Philip.’ And as I took it she leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the mouth. ‘I’m filthy,’ she said. ‘I’m going down to the lake to clean up.’ But she hesitated, staring down at the man who had been her jailer moaning and squirming on the ground, only half conscious now.

  ‘Did he kill Olsen?’ I asked her.

  ‘In a way, yes.’ She had turned back to the two-tier bunks to grab a piece of soap and a towel that was hanging there. ‘Thor wasn’t young,’ she said, turning to face me. ‘Over sixty, he said, and he’d had a hard life. I think it was a heart attack. He was tied up and that sadistic beast was hammering at him with a rough jagged end of a cedar branch, and then suddenly Thor collapsed, and he was dead - just like that. No sign of life. I gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but no good. He was gone.’

  She went out then, stepping past the figure on the ground and going down to the lake, where she stripped off her clothes and began washing herself, her movements practical and energetic, an essential action for any woman who had been cooped up for several weeks in a small room, but I still couldn’t take my eyes off the scene. It was so like some of the great pictures I had seen in magazines and books—Nude Bathing in a Lake. She looked beautiful.

  ‘You going to gawp at my wife all day?’

  I turned to find Tom laughing at me. And then I remembered - Camargo and Lopez. And I shouted to Miriam, a sudden vision in my mind of the canoe emerging out of the grey veil of the mist and one of them lifting his gun to his shoulder. Swan Lake and Miriam in the role of Odette, falling and dying there, naked by the quiet, still waters of a lake deep in the Rockies.

  She came back into the hut then, her breasts bare and the towel wrapped round her middle, her skin glowing with the coldness of the water.

  I started explaining to Tom how his son and I had gone down into High Stand and how we had split up, Brian staying there while I hurried back up to the lake ahead of the two South Americans.

  ‘So they could be here any minute.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And they’re armed.’ He was already moving round the hut, gathering up food, kit, clothes and a torch. ‘We must be out on the lake before they get here. You got all you want? Miriam! Bring your blankets, we may have to sleep out tonight, it depends when the tug arrives.’ He took down the walkie-talkie hanging on the wall and passed it to me. ‘Sling that over your shoulder. Now let’s get moving. We’ll take the hut work boat and tow yours. Then they’ll be stuck here till that dirty little lying pusher of a Mexican comes back for more snow.’ I’d never seen him like this, so sure of himself, so in command, not even at his own dinner table back at Bullswood House. But the mention of Rodrigo made me wonder whether the man could have heard the shot, might even now be lurking in the mist at the edge of visibility. Tom was sure not. ‘He’d never have heard it, not above the sound of water falling to the lower lake. Ready?’

  I nodded and he called to Miriam again. She came out of the room, fully dressed with a bundle of blankets under her arm. ‘I’ve enough here for both of us,’ she told him.

  ‘Good.’ He went out and I followed.

  Miriam hesitated. ‘What about Thor? We ought to bury him,’ .

  ‘No time.’ He was standing over the man whose knee was a pulp of blood and bone showing through his trousers. The dark eyes were blank with pain, his breath coming in quick gasps. ‘I ought to knee-cap both your legs,’ he said, and I saw the man wince, his eyes half-closing and his teeth gritted as he waited in fear for the impact and the agony. Then he passed out.

  We shut the door of the hut, locked it and took the key. ‘If they land here th-they’ll be fully occupied dealing with that guy and trying to get back down to the camp.’ Tom was moving across the little beach to where the aluminium boat lay. We dumped our things in it, dragged it down to the water, and while Tom dealt with the outboard, Miriam and I carried the semi-inflatable down, making the painter fast to an aluminium cleat close by where Tom was sitting.

  He was pulling the starter cord then, and as we climbed in, the engine burst into life. I thought I heard a shout, somebody calling out of the mist. Miriam had sat herself on the flat platform of the punt’s bow and she thought she heard it, too. But by then I was pushing off with an oar, the outboard lowered and the prop biting, a froth of water astern as the boat gathered way.

  It was then, as we were moving out from the shore, the hut already gone and the trees fading into mist that Tom saw it, and as I turned it was just emerging from the mist, a canoe’s bows and a man’s body, ghostly and unreal.

  Tom half rose, his eyes widening, his mouth open. The engine roared, the boat skidding round in a tight turn, and he was suddenly singing, bawling out at the top of his voice: ‘… the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored -‘ The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the boat driving straight for the canoe, which was now broadside to us, the two men in it kneeling and staring at us.

  Lopez was the first to react, leaning forward and grabbing his rifle.

  ‘You fool!’ I yelled, for Miriam, seated in the bows, was more at risk than either of us.

  ‘.. . the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword -‘

  Camargo, too, had got hold of his gun, both of them starting to aim and the canoe so near and clear now I could see the moisture beads on moustache and beard, the frayed stitching of an anorak and their faces set, their dark eyes staring.’.. .

  sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men -‘ The crunch as we hit the canoe was instantaneous with the crash of their rifles, the flat punt-end riding up on it, trampling it down into the water, the two men falling, their hands thrown up and Tom’s voice still drumming out the words, the crash of the shots reverberating, wood splintering… ‘Our God is marching on.’

  He leaned out and grabbed hold of Camargo’s rifle, wrenching it out of his hand as the canoe disappeared. ‘Swim for it, you buggers,’ he yelled at them, lifting the outboard clear of the wreckage, then revving the engine again and heading down the lake, the semi-inflatable riding through the remains of the canoe and their two heads watching us from the water, two disembodied faces staring in disbelief.

  ‘He is coming like the glory of the morning on the waves; He is wisdom to the mighty, He is succour to the brave…’

  I think I must have said something like, ‘You can’t leave them to drown,’ for he stopped singing long enough to shout above the engine’s busy noise, ‘Can’t I? Don’t you know why they were coming up here, to the hut? I heard it all on that thing.’ He pointed to the walkie-talkie. ‘They were going to play around with Miriam. Do whatever was necessary to get me to sign. And I wouldn’t have had any alternative. I’d have signed away High Stand to save Miriam, and you want me to hang around and pick the bastards up.’ He gave a wild laugh, the two heads fading into the mist, open-mouthed, their shouts inaudible.

  ‘So the world should be His footstool, and the soul of time His slave. Our God is marching on!’ He sat down suddenly, throttling back on the engine and staring into the void. ‘I don’t care if they drown. I should have killed them, up there at Ice Cold. And Wolchak. What about Josef Wolchak?’ His eyes fastened on mine. ‘He’s down there at the camp, isn’t he? And Mandola. What about Mandola and all the others?’

  ‘What others?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘All the others, the men who run the pushers, the big boys who pull in the
money. Who’s down at the camp?’

  ‘Wolchak was the only one I saw, apart from the loggers and truck drivers.’

  ‘And Brian’s down there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They’re still felling, then. Have they got a scow there?’

  ‘A barge,’ I said.

  ‘Scow, barge — what the hell! Aleksis said something about it having to be loaded by morning. He was talking on the radio. Wolchak had to have my signature to the document by noon tomorrow at the latest. That was when they expected the tug.’

  The wildness seemed to have gone out of him, the eyes dead, as though the destruction of the canoe had got some of the anger and the hate out of his system. He was staring along the cascade shore of the lake, trees like phantoms standing in the mist, his eyes blank, his thoughts turned inwards. I didn’t say anything, thinking of Camargo and Lopez, two heads in the water beyond the inflatable and disappearing into the void, wondering whether they’d be able to swim ashore or whether the coldness of the water and cramp would drown them first.

  Even then I hadn’t realized the violence of the world into which I’d been dragged. Only Miriam knew, and she was silent, huddled in the bows, her face tense and very pale. ‘You all right?’ I asked her and she nodded, no glimmer of a smile, no change of expression, and her eyes on Tom.

  ‘Where did those two come from? There’s a way down; at the end of the lake, is it?’ He had to shout to make himself heard above the engine.

  ‘Just follow the shoreline,’ I told him. ‘There’s a bit of a bay. I’ll point it out to you. It’s not far then to the old extraction track.’

  ‘You’ve been down it, have you?’

  ‘I told you.’

  He nodded, but I could see he hadn’t taken it in, so I told him again how we’d gone down into High Stand, watched the felling of the timber, and then, when Wolchak had driven Camargo and Lopez to the start of the track, Brian had stayed there while I hurried back ahead of the two South Americans to commandeer the boat and arrive at the hut just when Rodrigo was leaving. ‘I suppose he told you he’d take you to where Miriam was being held?’

  He smiled then, but it was more of a grimace. ‘I didn’t trust him, of course, but I was desperate. I wanted to believe him, and then when I saw Miriam… I’d forgotten they could communicate by VHP, that the whole thing could be stage-managed so that she was there, tied to the door bar; that was all I saw till that bastard with the big ears swiped me across the back of the head.’ He put his hand up, feeling it gently. ‘I’ve still got a hell of a bump. Then they flung me into that room with the corpse of poor old Thor … One day perhaps I’ll be able to look Rodrigo in the face knowing he’ll spend half the rest of his life behind bars. Perhaps I should have…’

  But I stopped him there, for we were approaching the end of the lake, the mist swirling to a puff of wind and trees appearing in the gap. He slowed as I motioned him to turn towards the shore and then the aluminium bottom of the boat was bumping on boulders, scraping on the dark grit that ran up to the tree roots. Without being told, Miriam took the painter and stepped over the side, moving slowly, like an .automaton, as she splashed her way to the bank. Tom was bent over the outboard, unbolting it from its bracket, and when he’d brought it ashore he looked at me with a quizzical expression. ‘Don’t reckon we’ll be wanting it again, do you?’

  I shook my head and he smiled, walking with it to the sloping rock where Brian and I had landed from the canoe and tossing it into the lake. He stood there for a moment, watching it sink, as though in that action he had virtually burned his boats. His mood communicated itself to me, so that as we gathered up our things I had the feeling that whatever lay in store for us down below, there would be no turning back.

  It was almost three in the afternoon when we started down that track, myself in the lead and seeing my own footprints in the mud. The breeze was moving the mist, so that the light came and went, strange cloud shapes forming, and there was a rustle of leaves, or was it the distant murmur of the water falling? I felt very tired then, my limbs heavy, my brain numbed with lack of sleep and the unaccustomed exercise. I think we were, all three of us, pretty near the limit of our reserves, Miriam in particular. She didn’t talk. Even when asked a direct question she scarcely bothered to answer. There was no expression in her face, and the way she moved she seemed to be in a daze.

  We reached the end of the spur, and before following the curve of the hairpin, we stood for a moment looking down at the camp through a gap in the clouds that were billowing raggedly between the rock walls of the inlet. The barge, lying against the quay, was deeper in the water now, the logs stacked in two great bundles, butts facing outwards against the blunt ends of the vessel, the tapering tops laced together like the ringers of some huge hand; there were at least a dozen more logs stacked on the quayside, the boom crane moving all the time as it lifted others from the big tractor transporter. Another log was clamped in the rock niche against the cliff, the A-frame mobile rig drilling into the butt end. ‘Your son thinks they’re constructing a logging boom,’ I said. ‘And that that means they’re going to fell the whole area of High Stand.’

  ‘Could be.’ He nodded slowly. And then suddenly he turned on me and said in a voice taut with nerves, ‘So what the hell does he expect me to do about it? What can we do?’

  ‘Get an injunction, I suppose.’ I said it without any enthusiasm for the idea, my tired mind thinking ahead to all the work involved in getting an action like that against an American company through a British Columbian court.

  ‘An injunction! That’s all you lawyers can think of. Fees for yourself and a court order, a bloody little piece of paper and some poor devil of a bailiff, if there is such a thing, traipsing all the way up here from Vancouver… Have you any idea of the sort of people he’d be dealing with? Well, have you?’

  At the time I don’t think I really understood what he was talking about, but I could see his point about the bailiff. It would be a civil action and the police would only become involved if there was contempt of court. By then, of course, so much time would have passed that the whole of High Stand would have been felled and shipped, our only recourse the courts again for payment of a proper price for the sale of the timber standing.

  The clouds were lifting. For a moment they were above our heads, so that we could look right down the long arm of water, great banks of vapour vaulted over it, the mountains either side cut off, everything looking sombre and very wet. He had turned his head and was staring down at the camp again, men moving around the drilling rig and on the flat platform of the quayside where two of them were working at the butt end of the log that had just been lowered to them. ‘What do you think they’re doing?’ I asked.

  He shrugged. ‘Brian’s probably right in thinking they’re constructing a booming pen. They’ll need it if they’re planning to shift the whole stand out in a hurry. There isn’t storage space on the quay and the poorer logs they’ll probably raft out anyway.’ He had been speaking slowly, as though by putting it into words he could convince himself that Brian’s explanation was the right one. ‘Why else would they be drilling the butts of selected logs?’

  He looked at me then, his eyes staring, his shoulders sagging. There was a weariness about him that I found disturbing, and my mind flashed back to that lunch at a place near Lewes — it seemed a whole world away now — and Miriam telling me how one minute he’d be on top of the world — ‘the stars in my lap’, I remembered her words — and the next nothing, a bundle of nerves and temperament, full of insecurity. ‘It’ll sort itself out, I suppose.’ He said it wearily and I saw Miriam watching him, a frown on her face, and there were lines, so that she looked suddenly older, and the expression in her eyes - I think it was pity.

  His gaze lifted. They stood looking at each other for a moment and I sensed something pass between them. And then he straightened up, pushing his hand through the wet brush of his hair and squaring his shoulders. ‘Let’s get on, shall we
?’

  He gave one final glance down at the camp below, then continued on round the hairpin bend, moving fast. I caught up with him in the first salmonberry thicket. ‘What are you planning to do when you get down there?’ I asked him.

  ‘See what Brian’s up to. Try and stop them if I can.’ He shook his head, clearly irritated by my question. ‘I don’t know. We’ll just have to see.’

  Miriam caught up with me then, her hand grasping mine, her fingers fastening tight as she held me back. ‘Watch him,’ she whispered. ‘Please. I don’t know how much of the stuff he’s had. But I know this mood.’ She half slipped on a patch of mud, and then she muttered something about his being unpredictable.

  ‘Unpredictable?’ I repeated, and she nodded: ‘He could do something stupid, so please - keep an eye on him.’

  We were glimpsing the cascades up on the rim of the lake above, the murmur of water filling the horseshoe basin with gentle sound and, below us, the green vista of the cedar tops silvered with moisture, the cloud-topped gut of the inlet beyond. Then the cloud came down again and for a time we could see nothing but the down-slope of the track ahead disappearing into vapour that the breeze rolled around as though it were smoke.

  We must have been quite close to the upper edge of High Stand when I thought I saw movement. Tom had seen it, too, for he was suddenly standing very still, his head stretched forward, peering into the mist. Slowly he unslung the rifle from his shoulder, his thumb on the safety catch as he held it poised in both his hands. Faint from below came the sound of a power saw muffled by the trees.

  I still held the gun he had snatched from Camargo and then passed to me. I looked down at it, finding the safety catch and wondering whether it was loaded. I’d never fired a rifle in my life. He moved forward in a crouch, and I followed, and then a voice called up to us.

  It was Brian.

  He didn’t look at his father, walking straight past him, his eyes on Miriam. ‘So you found her,’ he said to me, his face lit by a smile. And then they were hugging each other, and Miriam crooning over him as though she really were his mother. Her reaction, the sudden outpouring of pent-up emotion, was a reminder of the long period of uncertainty and fear she had suffered up there in that hut.