High Stand

by Hammond Innes

  ‘I told you not to go looking for Rodrigo.’ He had turned to face his father, hot anger blazing in his dark eyes. ‘I warned you.’ He swung round on me. ‘What happened?’ And when I had told him, he turned on Tom again. ‘God, Jesus! You bloody fool! You could have had Miriam maimed for life and those bastards with an agreement signed that gave them the right to do what they’re doing. You played right into their hands. Don’t you realize there’s anything up to a million dollars in the forest your father planted?’

  ‘It’s not the trees,’ Tom said. That’s just a cover.’

  Thunder rolled down from invisible mountains, a flash of lightning.

  Brian shook his head. ‘I warned you, and bloody hell, you took no notice.’ The sky had taken on a livid hue, the head of the inlet blocked out. ‘All you care about is yourself and getting enough coke to keep you high, just so you don’t have to face up to the reality of what you’ve done, letting these people in.’

  ‘I tell you, it’s just a c-cover.’ Tom’s voice was taut as though on the edge of losing control himself.

  ‘Listen!’ And Brian went straight on, ignoring his father’s attempt to tell him something, ‘Do you hear it - those chain-saws?’

  They stood facing each other, the echoes of the thunder dying away across the peaks. ‘Listen!’ he said again. ‘Now do you hear it?’ And he seized hold of his father’s arm and dragged him down the slope of the track. ‘Come on, I’ll show you. We’ll go down through the timber and you can see for yourself.’ Miriam tried to stop him, but he waved her away. ‘It’s time he realized just what he’s doing. Once he’s seen it, maybe he’ll understand.’

  The single-purposedness of the man was quite extraordinary. He must have been as tired as I was, and yet he could still radiate a sort of demonic energy, his obsession with trees filling his mind to the exclusion of anything else, so that I felt it was a sort of madness that had taken hold of him. And Tom went unresisting, a dazed expression on his face as though he were in the grip of Fate and had no volition of his own.

  Only once did he break away. ‘Must have a pee,’ he murmured. And it was the same as it had been up near Ice Cold. I heard him snorting the stuff up his nose, and as we went on down into the forest, he developed a spring to his step, something near to a swagger in his walk. Miriam was by my side and she said, ‘Stop them, can’t you? They’re so -explosive. The two of them together.’ She was very tense herself. ‘They’ve always had this effect on each other.’

  I shook my head. It wasn’t for me to interfere, and anyway we were nearing the end of the track, light showing through the tree boles and the sound of the saws getting louder every moment.

  We came to the edge of the clear-felled area, the time 15.55 and the only difference from when I had been there in the morning was that the two fellers had moved half a dozen trees or more northwards, so that our view of the camp was partly obscured by the piled-up brash of lopped branches. Also the thunder was nearer, a closeness in the air and the lowering cloud base getting darker. The sound of the saws was loud here, a small wind carrying it towards us, one man working his way along the bole of a newly fallen tree, snicking branches off with the tip of his saw, the other bent over a standing giant that already had a gaping wedge sawn out of its base to guide the fall.

  Brian had hold of his father’s arm again, moving him forward under cover of the standing stems. He was talking all the time, but the sound of the chainsaws was so loud I couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then timber splintering and the man nearest us looked up from the fallen tree, his chainsaw idling, the other man stepping back from the base of the stem he had been cutting into.

  ‘… Stop them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘For God’s sake, you’ve got a gun.’

  Both saws idling now, the top of the tree beginning to move, branches snapping and the three of us staring as the tree slowly toppled forward, the green top of it arcing down across the backcloth of cloud-filled mountainside, black rock and the pale gun-metal flatness of the water… Then the splintering crash of the branches, the thud of the stem hitting the ground, an explosion of dust and debris. ‘That must be about the tenth I’ve seen felled today - ten in the few hours I’ve been here.’ Brian’s voice was harsh with anger. ‘You watch - he’ll move straight onto the next in line.’ And suddenly he swung Tom round, facing him. ‘Remember what you told me, all those years ago - about your father, what he’d written in the deeds. Remember? And now I’ve read it. And if you won’t stop them…’

  ‘You can’t do it, Brian.’ Miriam had moved forward, tugging at his arm, trying to push her way between them. ‘He’s your father. You can’t goad him like that.’ She was half-sobbing, her voice vibrant. The saws started up again. The feller had moved and was bending down by the next tree, the saw labouring under full power as the blade cut into the base of it.

  Tom pushed Miriam away, his eyes fixed on the man as though mesmerized, watching the first cut made, Brian silent now, and Miriam standing there, her mouth open, her eyes wide. ‘No!’ I heard her cry that, and then the blade was making the slanting cut, her voice drowned.

  Slowly, like a man in a trance, Tom moved out into the open. For a moment he stood there, the gun held ready across his body. The saw laboured, both men intent on what they were doing, the one felling, the other trimming. At last the guide wedge was finished, the feller straightening up, pushing it out with the tip of his saw, the motor idling. Then he was moving round to the rear of the tree, and the sight of him settling himself into position to begin the main saw cut that would fell the tree seemed to trigger something off in Tom’s mind. He suddenly started forward, shouting at the man to stop.

  The man didn’t hear him at first. Neither of them seemed to hear him. By then he was half-running towards them, yelling to them at the top of his voice. The laboured sound of the saw ceased abruptly, the blade withdrawn and the engine dying as the man straightened up, staring at Tom. ‘Drop that saw! Drop it!’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Tom told him his name and the man laughed. ‘You don’t give orders around here.’ And he bent to the base of the tree again, the note of the saw rising.

  I suppose it was the man’s manner, his deliberate, almost contemptuous ignoring of him, that touched off the rage that had been building in Tom, so that it became a desperate hepped-up madness. He raised his gun and fired, a snap shot. But the man had seen it coming; he ducked round the end of the tree, slipping the saw blade out from the cut, so that it was held in both his hands as he stood up, flattened against the still-standing stem. The other had also stopped sawing, both of them watching as Tom stumbled forward, working the bolt.

  Then he had stopped and was fumbling in his pocket. ‘Oh God!’ Miriam was close beside me, Brian just starting to move, and I stood there, staring, as Tom started forward again, reversing the gun so that he held it by the barrel to use as a club.

  ‘No!’ The exclamation, forced out of her by fear of what was going to happen, rang out in what seemed a desperate stillness, everything happening in slow motion, Tom running forward, and the man stepping out from behind the tree, the engine of his saw revving and the chain of it screaming on the blade.

  Tom shouted something, the gun rising in his hands, ready to strike, and the man swinging his saw up so that the blade was stuck out in front of him. Whether Tom stumbled, or whether the man thrust the blade forward and he ran straight onto it, I shall never know. All I recall is the sight of him lunging forward, the rifle coming down and then the thin scream as the blade bit into his chest, bone and flesh flying, blood streaming from it where before I had seen only sawdust, and the poor devil pitching forward, the scream cut off, his body almost ripped in half.

  And at the same instant the rifle I was holding was plucked from my hands and Brian had fired it, the crack of the shot followed by the man with the saw being slammed round. His hand clasped at his shoulder. Then he had ducked behind the tree again.

  Suddenly all
was still, the saws silent, both fellers hidden, and Tom’s body lying there, the green of his anorak merged with the green of lopped branches, and Miriam standing beside me, her eyes wide with horror, a low moaning sound coming from her open mouth.

  ‘You got any ammunition for this thing?’ Brian’s voice sounded half-choked, his face white against the black of his hair.

  I shook my head, remembering how Tom in the euphoria of his singing had plucked it out of Camargo’s hands.

  The fool! I never thought…’ He had turned to Miriam, trying to exonerate himself, and she just stared at him in blank horror, glassy-eyed.

  The man Brian had wounded was crawling into the forest, dragging his chainsaw behind him. I thought at first he was merely trying to get away from us, but then I saw he was making for the place where they had left their anoraks and their lunch packs.

  Brian had seen it, too. He raised his gun, though there was nothing in it, shouting at the man to stop. But at that moment Miriam started forward. He reached out, catching hold of her arm. ‘There’s nothing you can do for him.’

  ‘How do you know?’ She wrenched herself free, moving fast as she ran the thirty yards or so to where Tom lay, face-down on the ground, his body still. And when she reached him, she called out to him, bending down and turning him over. ‘Tom!’

  I can see it so clearly, the ripped clothing and the gaping wound, blood still flowing and his eyes fixed and staring. You didn’t need any medical training to know that he was dead. Miriam had taken his head in her hands, kneeling there, her face gone paper-white and a sort of croon issuing from her mouth — of love, or horror, I don’t know which it was as she clasped that poor, mangled body to her.

  At what point Brian and I had moved forward I don’t know, but we were there beside her, standing with our heads bent. In such circumstances, it seems, one is too shocked to say a prayer. I had seen injuries before, car accident injuries, dead bodies, too, but always in the cold isolation of a mortuary or a funeral parlour. To see violent death at the instant of dying, the eyes so wide and the teeth bared, the skin of the face still flushed with the exertion of that final rush… My limbs seemed suddenly paralysed, my mouth dry as I swallowed desperately.

  ‘Drop it!’ Brian’s voice was harsh and high, the gun raised. He was pointing it at the man who had been crawling to where they had left their things. He had a walkie-talkie in his hands and in the stillness I heard him say, quite distinctly, ‘Hurry! They’re armed.’ And then he dropped the radio onto the ground, sitting up and placing his hands on top of his head.

  I walked over to him. ‘My name’s Redfern,’ I said, ‘and I’m an English lawyer.’ Lawyer always sounds stronger than solicitor. ‘The man you have just killed is my client and the owner of the trees you are illegally felling. You’ll be charged with murder.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The hard, leathery face cracked open to reveal a row of broken teeth. ‘You saw what happened. An unprovoked attack …’

  ‘It was murder,’ I repeated.

  ‘He stumbled, fell right onto the saw, didn’t he?’

  ‘Time we were moving.’ Brian had picked up the walkie-talkie handset. ‘Wolchak will be here in a moment.’

  ‘Then he can take us up to his office,’ I said. ‘He’ll have an R/T set there and we can get onto the police, maybe get that Coastguard cutter back.’

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Philip.’ It was Miriam. She had got to her feet, her hands covered in blood, and there was blood all over her skirt, her lips a tight line, her eyes frozen. ‘Nothing you can do for Tom. Nothing any of us can do.’ There was no emotion in her voice. ‘All we can do now is try and get out of here, alive.’

  I started to argue with her, but she cut me short, her manner quiet and very controlled. ‘I don’t think you understand. Either of you. This isn’t about forestry. It’s nothing to do with trees.’ She looked towards the two men sitting there and staring at us. Then she turned abruptly. ‘We’ll go back up to the lake now.’

  I hesitated. Then I followed her, realizing suddenly that her words were for the benefit of the two fellers, that what she wanted to tell us couldn’t be said while they were within earshot. Brian stood there for a moment longer. He was genetically incapable of accepting instructions from a woman, but in the end he followed. There had been something in Miriam’s tone, and in her manner — a decisiveness, almost a cold-bloodedness in the way she had torn herself away from her husband’s body - that was very compelling.

  We reached the track, and when we had gone up it a little way, she left it and headed into the dark of the forest. Not until we reached the edge of it, almost at the spot where Brian and I had stood earlier in the day looking out towards the camp, did she turn and face us. She was so choked up, so near to tears that she could hardly speak: ‘What I have to tell you - you, Brian, in particular - is that what is going on here has nothing to do with the forest your grandfather planted. Nothing at all.’ It had begun to rain, all the end of the inlet blotted out.

  ‘Balls!’ Brian’s voice exploded in sudden anger. ‘Why do you think Tom changed his Will? Why did he leave these trees to me? Because I know the value of them and understand why my grandfather -‘

  ‘It’s not that.’ Her chin was suddenly lifted, a sharp determined line. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is that these people -‘

  ‘SVL Timber and Milling? They’re sawmillers handling high quality cedar for a specialized market. There’s a million dollars locked up in this plantation if they can get it out before I stop them.’

  ‘They aren’t sawmillers. They’re dope smugglers.’ Her face was flushed with anger. ‘The trees here are a cover for a drug-importing racket into the States.’

  He stared at her unbelievingly, the forest darkening behind him as the clouds thickened. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea?’

  Tom - up at Ice Cold.’ Thunder crashed, a blinding fork of lightning. ‘Why do you think he disappeared? Why do you think he was desperately trying to find gold? These people had their claws into him and he didn’t know how to get clear of them. That’s why he was back on drugs. He was scared -scared out of his wits.’

  ‘But -‘ Brian stared at her, frowning, and then he voiced the question I had been on the point of asking her: ‘The SVL Company in Seattle. I went and saw them, a man named Barony. It’s an old-established timber company, founded back in the First World War when demand was high.’

  ‘But who’s behind it now?’ she asked. ‘I spoke to Barony, too, I asked him for the name of the major shareholder and he told me to mind my own business. Also, he said his company merely bought timber standing. The people felling and loading it were self-employed, nothing to do with him.’

  It was what I had been told, what Brian had been told, too. We stood there talking it over for a moment longer, but so much of what had happened fell into place that I think even Brian would have been convinced if I hadn’t told them about the customs operation and how a barge loaded with logs from the Cascades had been searched, the tug, too, without anything being discovered. If they were smuggling drugs, then the method was not apparent, and Tom hadn’t told her how it was being done. Nor had he confided in me, not even on the ferry when he had lain there in his cabin mulling over those Chicago press cuttings.

  Finally Brian said, ‘Well, there’s only one way to find out.’ He was gazing out to the quay, where the squat shape of the barge showed drab against the approaching cloudburst.

  Wolchak had just come out of his office. He paused for an instant, looking up the valley, the sound of the rain audible as lightning flashed. He wrenched the door of the pick-up open and jumped in, thunder crashing and the office disappearing. The sound of the rain was like surf on a sand shore. The pick-up stayed just ahead of it, so that we could see him quite clearly as he drove past, and the next instant the rainstorm was on us, breaking against the forest tops with a roar that almost drowned the next clap of thunder.

  Sheltering behind separate tree boles, the rain such a flood
of water and the noise so overwhelming that each of us cowered there in isolation, the horror of what had happened and the motives that had driven Tom to such a point of desperation had time to sink in. I saw Brian glance uncertainly at Miriam, could see what was going on in his mind. His appalled realization that he was to some degree responsible for what had happened to his father was there in his face.

  He said something, but either she didn’t hear or she didn’t want to hear, her face set and stony, no forgiveness in it at all. He looked down at the walkie-talkie, then at the one still slung over my shoulder, and the sight of that means of communication with the outside world seemed to turn his mind to practical matters. The full force of the rain was passing now, but it was still a downpour blotting out all sign of the camp and the jetty as he stepped out from behind his tree. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

  I stared at him blankly, seeing the rain streaming down his face, his black hair plastered to his head. ‘Where?’ Just opening my mouth to say that one word filled it with water, the fresh sweet taste of rainwater on my tongue.

  ‘The barge. It’s our chance now - to get aboard - unseen.’ He passed me the handset and turned to Miriam. I thought she would refuse, that he would have to waste time arguing with her. But she nodded and went with him without question, out into the rain, as though, like me, she had realized the logic of his suggestion. If we were ever to get away from the Cascades and the Halliday Arm of the Cascade Inlet our only hope was the barge, and to get on board without being seen we had to do it now while the whole place was awash with rain.

  We ran. We ran blindly through the storm, our clothing soaked, water streaming down our bodies. I could feel it cold on my skin, my trousers clinging and my anorak getting heavier by the minute. But somehow we made it, reaching the drowned quay only yards away from the shadowy bulk of the barge. It looked huge close-to; I had never seen such a giant of a barge in my life, not even on the Dutch waterways.