‘Who brought him up?’ I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Life, I guess. He’s been everything—gold prospector, trapper, Hudson’s Bay Company trader. Then he took to flying. He became one of the best bush fliers in the North Western Territories. Maybe that was the Indian in him. He could find his way anywhere. Then the war came and he was shot down in flames over Germany. That’s where he got the scar and the burned hands. He had a year in a prison camp and when he came back to Canada he found he couldn’t fly any more. His eyesight was bad and he’d lost his nerve.’ She looked up at me and added, ‘I wanted you to know about him so that—’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He’s a queer mixture of daring, poetry and utter, wretched silence. He’s full of childish enthusiasm one minute and then suddenly it’s gone and he’s silent and moody and goes off on his own.’ She gave a quick laugh. ‘I’m afraid I’ve made him sound very odd indeed. But he’s one of the nicest men . . .’ She turned towards the door. ‘Pauline will be getting tired of waiting.’
She took me back to the Victorian drawing-room and the two old ladies. A few minutes later I was walking through wet snow in the dark, dismal street of Come Lucky.
5
WALKING BACK TO the hotel my mind unconsciously dwelt on the hatred these people had for my grandfather and thinking about this had a queer effect on the way I saw Come Lucky. The place was no longer just an ordinary shack town that was gradually falling into ruin. The desolation seemed suddenly to have a menace of its own. It had become something alive and positive. The hardness of the mountains seemed to have moved in among the dark shapes crouched against the glimmer of the snow and as I negotiated the crumbling sidewalk, clutching the cardboard box under my arm, I felt fear creeping up my spine and prickling my scalp.
I think something of this communicated itself to Pauline for she suddenly said, ‘How long will you be staying here?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered.
Her hand tightened on my arm. ‘Do not forget the winters are long here.’
‘How do you mean?’
We had reached The Golden Calf. Lights showed through the windows and there was a murmur of voices. She paused with her hand on the door. ‘Things that are small to you become big to us here at this time of the year.’
I remembered the Victorian drawing-room and the sharp grey eyes of Miss Garret avid for gossip, the sudden violence of Max Trevedian and the sullenness of James McClellan. The wind blew up the valley with the damp chill of the sea. The water gurgled under the snow.
‘We will go in through the bar,’ Pauline said. ‘The snow is too soft now for us to go round the back. It is always like this when the chinook is blowing.’ She pressed the latch of the door and pushed it open. The murmur of voices died as we entered. There were fully a dozen men clustered round the fire now and they stared at us with the dumb, curious gaze of cattle scenting a stranger. ‘Here he is now,’ one of them hissed. ‘Give him the telegram, Hut.’ I saw Peter Trevedian watching me. He was sitting with his brother at one of the tables. Bladen was there, too, talking to Mac.
An old man with long, sad moustaches rose slowly and came towards me. He was dressed all in black with a shapeless, wide-brimmed hat on his head and he was as slim-hipped as a boy. ‘You Bruce Wetheral?’ His voice was mild and gentle.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Then this’ll be for you, I guess.’ He held out a telegraph form. ‘I brought’n in from Keithley this evenin’.’
The paper was creased and much thumbed. I opened it out and took it to the lamp, wondering who could possibly know I was here. BRUCE WETHERAL, COME LUCKY, B.C. The message read:
HAVE PERSUADED LARSEN COMPANY TO INCREASE OFFER. URGENT I SEE YOU. HOPE ARRIVE COME LUCKY TUESDAY, BRINGING HENRY FERGUS, CHAIRMAN LARSEN MINES. PLEASE AWAIT OUR ARRIVAL. VITAL WE FINALLY COME TO TERMS RE PURCHASE OF KINGDOM OR ALTERNATIVE PLAN WILL DEFINITELY BE ADOPTED. SIGNED—ACHESON.
I glanced at the head of the form. It had been handed in at Calgary at 4.10 p.m.
The silence in the room was intense as I stuffed it into my pocket. The men’s eyes were fixed hungrily on my face and it was obvious that they knew the contents of that wire. The beast that had crouched out there in the darkness of the tattered town seemed to have moved into the huge, empty bar-room. I turned quickly and started for the door, intent upon escaping to my room.
But the old man who had given me the wire barred my way. ‘We’d take it as a favour if you’d spare us a moment of your time,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ I asked him.
He tugged awkwardly at his moustache. ‘We-ell. It’s like this, I guess, Mr Wetheral. What we want to know is—are you going to sell or not?’
‘I don’t see that it concerns you.’ I tried to keep my voice natural, but it sounded abrupt against the tension in that room.
He stared at me. ‘You wouldn’t understand, I guess. You’re a stranger here. But the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam means a lot to us. You’ve seen what Come Lucky is—they call it a ghost town.’ He suddenly raised a gnarled fist and declaimed. ‘The wrath of the Lord descended upon it and upon us, its inhabitants. Fire and brimstone was sent to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Here for our sins the Lord has sent age and decay.’ His eyes gleamed like bright stones as he got into his stride. ‘We came from far places, from decent communities of honest, hard-working people, lured by the riches of gold and oil. We worshipped Mammon and we were abased. We worshipped the golden calf and the Lord sent avalanches to destroy our mines. Oil sprang from the rocks and we took it for a sign.’ He flung wide his arms like some fantastic scarecrow. ‘I tell you it was the Devil who—’
‘It was old man Campbell, Hut,’ somebody cut in.
‘Campbell was the instrument—the means of our temptation,’ the old man cried. ‘We were tempted. We forgot the forty days in the wilderness. We forgot the words of the Holy Book. We were tempted and we fell, and for our sins the Lord decreed that our sons should leave us and our town decay, that we should waste our lives in fruitless hopes and finally perish and be sentenced to everlasting hell fire.’
‘Come to the point, Hut.’ It was the man with the fur cap.
The old man glared at the interruption. ‘Peace, George Riley. The way of the wicked is as darkness. We have been tempted and have fallen into evil ways, but the day of our redemption is nigh.’ And then, reverting to his ordinary voice with startling abruptness, he added, ‘You, sir, hold the power to redeem us.’
‘What he means is that if they complete the dam Come Lucky will have a new lease of life.’ This from James McClellan. He turned to his wife. ‘You clear off, Pauline. You shouldn’t be in here.’ His eyes slipped back to me, hard and anxious. ‘You may not realise it, but your grandfather is largely responsible for the way things are in this town. This damned story of oil flowing out of the rocks below the Kingdom was believed by my father and most of the men in this room now. Campbell talked them into putting—’
‘He was the Devil himself,’ the old Hutterite cried. ‘The Devil himself come to tempt us. He offered us riches and we sold our families into slavery and brought ruin to our town. Wretched is he—’
‘Campbell was a swindler.’ The cry piped shrilly from Max Trevedian’s huge bulk. ‘A bloodsucking—’
‘Shut up, Max.’ Peter Trevedian’s quiet voice silenced his brother instantly.
‘Max is right,’ McClellan said. ‘Your grandfather got the people of this town to put their money into his oil companies and they lost everything. The place gradually fell into decay and when their sons and daughters grew up they left home and went—’
‘The sins of the fathers—’ the old man cried.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Hut.’ McClellan half shrugged his shoulders and then he came slowly across the room towards me. ‘See here, Wetheral. Your grandfather was an obstinate old man. He thought more of his damned Kingdom than he did of the people he’d ruined.’ There was a growl of agreement. ‘This
scheme has been talked about for more than a year now. But he wouldn’t sell and he swore he wouldn’t leave. They didn’t dare drown the old—’ He left the sentence unfinished and his hand clenched tight. ‘The damned visitors who came up here regarded him as a character. They went up there and filled him full of rye and listened to his stories. Newspaper men, too. They wrote columns about him and they’d have fought the company if they’d tried to flood him out. Well, he’s dead now. And nobody ain’t going to fight for you, Wetheral. You’re a stranger here.’ He looked round the men at the tables. ‘We want to be sure that you’re not going to stand in the way of the townsfolk here the way the old man did.’
The others nodded. ‘We want to be certain sure you’re going to sell to the company,’ the bundle of old rags with the fur cap said in a reedy voice. ‘If you do that then there’ll be money in Come Lucky again, I guess. I can open up my store. Ain’t bin open since 1941.’
‘George is right,’ exclaimed another. ‘There’ll be money, and work for those that want it. Peter’ll have the cable going again, won’t you, Peter? There’ll be all the machinery to haul up and the materials to complete the dam. It’ll be like old times here in Come Lucky.’
‘It sure will.’
‘Well?’ McClellan asked. ‘What are you going to do? Let’s have it right here and now so that we know where we stand.’
‘Ar. Let’s hear now.’
I stared at them, all eyeing me, all silent now, waiting. McClellan’s eyes were fixed on me greedily. And suddenly all of them seemed to have the hunger of greed in their eyes, as though the old boom days were just around the corner. They were like a bunch of shiftless curs eyeing a bone.
‘Well?’ The old Hutterite’s voice was hard with eagerness.
‘I’m not selling,’ I said.
Peter Trevedian’s chair flung back against the wall with a crash as he got to his feet. ‘You said you were going to think it over.’
‘I’ve done so,’ I said. ‘And I’ve made up my mind. I’m not selling.’
He swung round on the others. ‘I told you what it would be. We’re going to have the same damned nonsense all over again.’ He got control of himself then and came towards me. ‘Look, the townsfolk here want this scheme to go through. It’s important to them.’ His tone was considered and reasonable, but his eyes were hard and angry as they stared at me. ‘You owe it to the people your grandfather ruined.’
‘And suppose he was right?’ I said.
‘What—about the oil?’
There was a hoot of laughter.
‘Then show us the river of oil,’ somebody called out. And another shouted, ‘Aye. You drown Come Lucky with oil. We’ll drown the Kingdom with water. See who’s flooded out first.’ A shout of laughter followed this.
Under cover of it Trevedian said quietly, ‘Take my advice, sell the place and get out.’
I turned to Bladen. ‘Tell me the truth about that survey,’ I said.
‘Oh, to hell with the survey,’ Trevedian snapped. ‘Why don’t you think about the people here for a change?’
‘Why should I?’ I cried. ‘What did they ever do for my grandfather except try and cash in on his discovery and then blame him when they lost their money. I might have been willing to sell but—’ I looked round at the group facing me. The watery eyes of the old men glistened in the lamplight. They looked as ghostly as the town and their eyes had the fever-brightness of men about to jump a claim. ‘But I’ve just discovered that my grandfather knew the results of that survey. Somebody took a copy of the report up to him just before winter set in.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’ James McClellan demanded.
‘Just this.’ My voice trembled. ‘In my opinion the man who did that was responsible for my grandfather’s death. Because of that the welfare of this town is no longer a consideration as far as I’m concerned. And if I knew who’d done it—’
‘If you knew, what would you do, huh?’ Max Trevedian had thrust his massive body to its feet. ‘I took that report up. I gave it to Campbell.’ He lurched forward, hot hate in his eyes. ‘It killed him did it? That is good.’
I stared at the foolish grin on his thick lips. ‘You’re mad,’ I heard myself say.
‘How was my brother to know that the report showed there was no possibility of oil up there?’ Peter Trevedian said. ‘We naturally thought the old man would want to know the result.’
I turned to him, staring at him. ‘You sent your brother up with that report,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Yes. I sent him.’
‘And how did you get hold of a second copy?’ He didn’t say anything, but just stood there, smiling at me. ‘Did this man Henry Fergus send it to you?’
He moved a step closer and his hand gripped my arm. ‘What do you think we are—a bunch of cattle to be sucked dry without any feelings about it? There’s forty years of hatred stored up in this town, hatred of Campbell and everything he did to us.’ He dropped my arm and turned away.
I looked round at the others. What I had seen in his eyes was reflected in theirs. It was then I noticed that Bladen had left. Feeling suddenly sick at heart I crossed to the door and went up to the seclusion of my room. It was bare and cold and very quiet. I put the cardboard box gently down on the chest of drawers. I had been clutching it very tightly as though it were the old man’s ashes and my fingers were stiff. My face looked grey and haggard in the blotched mirror. I poured myself a stiff whisky, but the liquor didn’t warm me and I was still shaking as I slumped down on to the bed. The stillness seemed to close round me, the embodiment of the utter loneliness I felt. The scene in the bar-room had given me a foretaste of the struggle that lay ahead. All I had wanted to do was to crawl away to the seclusion of my grandfather’s kingdom and forget the outside world. I heard myself laugh. I hadn’t known the place was dominated by a half-completed dam. That dam was growing in my imagination to nightmare proportions. It seemed to hang over me.
I must have fallen asleep for I was suddenly startled by a knock on the door. ‘Come in,’ I murmured. It was Pauline McClellan. She stood looking at me nervously. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said, pushing myself up on to my elbow. ‘What is it?’
‘Boy Bladen is down below. He wants to talk to you. Shall I tell him to come up?’
‘Yes.’
She hesitated. ‘Is there anything I can get you?’
‘No thanks.’
‘Goodnight then.’ She smiled and closed the door. I sat up and lit a cigarette. A moment later I heard Bladen’s feet on the stairs. He knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Mind if I come in?’ His voice was quiet, but his dark eyes had a peculiar brightness. He shut the door and stood there, hesitantly. ‘I’ve just been talking to Jean.’
He didn’t seem to know how to go on so I said, ‘Pull up a chair.’
I don’t think he heard me for he turned away towards the window. ‘When you spoke to me after tea this evening I didn’t know you’d immigrated to Canada, prepared to live up in the Kingdom and start out where Stuart had left off.’ He turned suddenly round on his heels, a quick, lithe movement. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’
‘I didn’t see any necessity,’ I murmured.
‘No, of course not.’ He lit a cigarette with quick, nervous movements. I had the feeling of something boiling up inside him. ‘You were outside Trevedian’s office this afternoon. How much did you hear of what we were saying?’
‘Enough I think to understand why you agreed with the report on your survey.’
‘You knew all the time I wasn’t being honest with you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It was only when Jean Lucas confirmed that you’d been enthusiastic about the prospects of finding oil in the Kingdom that I began to put two and two together.’
‘I see.’ He turned away again towards the window. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, still with his back to me. ‘I thought you were just out to get the best price you could for the property. I thought
. . . Hell!’ he said, turning sharply and facing me. ‘I was scared of losing my trucks. I’ve a lot of dough tied up in that equipment and if Trevedian had refused to bring them down on the hoist—’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘All I’ve made in years of flying and in prospecting since the war is invested in that outfit.’
He suddenly pulled up a chair and sat down astride it, his hands gripping the back. ‘Now then, about the survey I did: I don’t know what the hell Winnick has been playing at, but I formed the impression I was surveying a perfect anticline. I can’t be sure. I’d need to plot the figures I got on a seismogram. But that was certainly my impression. It ran just about east and west across the Kingdom. Whether the nature of the rock strata was likely to be oil bearing I wouldn’t know. You have to be an expert geologist to determine that. But I do know this—the report Winnick made on the figures I sent him is a lot of hooey. I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw that article in the Edmonton Journal. I came across it quite by chance in a bar in Peace River. I was in town for a couple of days’ rest from the wildcat I was working on. I wrote to Louis right away, but all he said in reply was that if I cared to come and check the figures against the seismograms his office had prepared I’d find them accurate.’ He paused and blew out a streamer of smoke. ‘Maybe I slipped up. I’m not an expert and I’ve only been in the game three years. But I took time out to get a working knowledge of how the results of a seismographic survey were worked out and I can’t believe that the figures I sent him could have given the results he reported.’
‘Have you seen him?’ I asked.
‘No. I haven’t had a chance. I’ve only just come off this wildcat. But I will.’
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