The Land God Gave to Cain

by Innes, Hammond;

  The door slammed behind him and I stood there, feeling numbed and exhausted. I should have stopped him, made one final effort. But what was the good? Even if he’d known the name of the lake all along, it didn’t mean he could find it again. And the world had got used to the idea that the men were dead. That was the thing I was up against—that and the stubbornness of men like McGovern who couldn’t see a thing unless it was presented to them as hard fact. “Damn them! Damn them to hell!”

  A hand gripped my arm. I’d forgotten Bill Lands was still there. “What did you expect?” he said in a kindly voice. “We don’t abandon men easily up here in the North.”

  I swung round on him. “But don’t you see …” And then I stopped because I realised that he’d sat through it all and he still believed that Briffe was dead. He wasn’t involved. He was outside it and if I hadn’t convinced him, what hope had I of convincing anyone else?

  “I’ll just go and check this Montreal flight, and then I guess you’d like some food.”

  He was gone about ten minutes, and when he came back he told me it was all fixed. “Flight leaves at around twenty-thirty hours.” He took me out into the slanting evening light, across flat gravel that had the silt look of a river bed, and in the distance a locomotive hooted an inexpressibly mournful note. “Supply train going up the line to Head of Steel,” he said. “Going up myself to-morrow.” There was pleasure in his voice and he smiled at me. He had warmth, this big American with his eyes screwed up against the westering sun.

  We entered a hut similar to the one we had just left, to be greeted by a murmur of voices, the rattle of crockery, and the smell of food. It was good, that smell of food, for I was hungry, and I sat down with Lands at a table full of strangers, who took no notice of me and ate with concentration. What talk there was centred around the line and it carried with it the breath of railway engineering. They were blasting rock at one point, bearing down on the muskeg at another, and the rail-laying gang at Head of Steel were driving forward at the rate of a mile and a half a day. Dozens of construction camps, thousands of men, even an air lift to supply them—a whole world in itself, thinking, dreaming, eating, sleeping nothing but this railway. I felt myself being sucked into it mentally, so that it was difficult, whilst I sat there eating with them, not to feel a part of it.

  And then somebody asked me whether I was going up the line. When I told him No, that I was going back to England, he stared at me as though I were some creature from another planet. “Well, well—and we got such a good climate up here.” They laughed, and their laughter made me less of a stranger.

  Lands waited for me to finish eating, and then we went outside and all the western sky was aglow with the setting sun. “You’ll see a sight before you leave to-night, I reckon,” he said. “The northern lights should be real good.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s early for your flight yet, but I got to go down town. Don’t mind if I drop you off at the airstrip right away, do you?”

  I shook my head and he went off to change and get his car. I was to pick up my suitcase and meet him at the Q.N.S. & L. Office. I moved out across the flat gravel space, feeling conspicuous and alone. All the purpose seemed to have been drained out of me. Glancing back, I saw that Lands had stopped to chat to a woman down by the farthest hut. I could see them looking at me and I went quickly on towards the office, conscious that others must know by now what had brought me here. Staffen would have told them, and the knowledge made the sense of failure overwhelming. If only I could have convinced Lands. I liked Bill Lands.

  I reached the office and found my suitcase, and I went out and stood looking at the western sky, which had flared up into a violent furnace red. And now that I was leaving, I felt again the strange pull of this country.

  Footsteps sounded, quick and urgent on the gravel behind me, and a voice that was soft and slightly foreign said, “Are you Mr. Ferguson?”

  I turned and found it was the woman who had been talking to Lands. Or rather, it wasn’t a woman, but a girl with black hair cut short like a boy and a dark, full-lipped face that had no trace of make-up. I remember, even in that first glimpse of her, she made a deep impression on me. It was her vitality, I think, and a sort of wildness, or perhaps it was just that her eyes caught and reflected the strange, wild light in the sky. Whatever it was, I was immediately aware of her in a way that was somehow personal. “Yes,” I said. “I’m Ian Ferguson.”

  She didn’t say anything, just stared at me, her nostrils aquiver and her eyes blazing with the reflected glare. Her wrists were very slender and her hands gripped the edge of her leather jacket so that she seemed to be holding herself in.

  And then she said, “I’m Paule Briffe.”

  I think I’d known that from the first moment, the sense of emotion dammed up inside her had been so strong. “I’m sorry,” I murmured awkwardly. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Bill told me your father is dead, that that is why you come.” She spoke in a tight, controlled little voice that trembled on the edge of hysteria. “I can understand that. Believe me, I can understand that.” And then, suddenly losing the grip she had on herself, she cried out, “But it doesn’t help him. It cannot do any good.” The words came in a rush. “Please. Go back to England. Leave us alone.”

  “It was because of your father that I came,” I said.

  I thought that would steady her, but she didn’t seem to hear. “You came here and you hurt people and you do not care. Please, please, leave us alone.”

  “But your father—” I began.

  “My father is dead,” she cried. “He is dead—dead; do you hear?” Her voice was wild, unrestrained, her eyes wide and scared.

  “But suppose my father was right,” I said gently. “Suppose that transmission—”

  “Your father! Mon Dieu! You do not care about us—what we feel. You are afraid to admit that your father is mad so you come here to make trouble.” Her small fists were clenched and her tight breasts heaved against the leather of her Indian jacket. And then, whilst I stared at her, appalled, she reached out her hand with her breath caught and said, “No. That was wrong of me.” She was staring at me. “But it is so horrible,” she breathed. “So very horrible.” She turned away then, her face towards the sunset. “I do not mind so much for myself—father is dead. There’s nothing to do about that. But for Albert”—she pronounced his name in the French way—“it is driving him out of his mind. I have just been talking to him. It is a terrible thing you are saying.” This last in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

  “But suppose he has made a mistake?” I said.

  She rounded on me then, her eyes blazing. “You don’t seem to understand,” she cried. “He is with my father when he died, and it is because of him they stop the search. And now you come here and try to tell us that my father transmit on the radio, not when they crash, but two whole weeks after. That is what is terrible.” She was crying now—crying wildly in a terrible flood of feeling. “It isn’t true. It can’t be true.”

  What could I say? What did you say when what you’d come to believe tore another human being in half? And because I didn’t know, I stood in silence, scared by the sight of a passion that was quite foreign to me.

  “You say nothing. Why?” She made a quick movement and caught hold of my arm. “Tell me the truth now. Please. The truth.”

  The truth! What was the truth? Did I really know it? Was it really what was written on the pencilled page of that logbook? “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “I don’t know the truth.” And I added, “I wish I did. All I know is what my father wrote. He believed your father was alive and that he was transmitting from a place called Lake of the Lion.”

  She caught her breath then. “Lake of the Lion!” She was staring at me and now there was intelligence as well as passion in her eyes. “You say Lake of the Lion. How do you know?”

  “The transmission,” I said. “It was implied in the transmission my father picked up.”

  “It only said
a narrow lake with a rock in it.” Her voice trembled slightly. “That was all. I read it myself. Albert showed it to me.”

  “Did he show you Ledder’s reports, too?”

  She shook her head.

  “Lake of the Lion was mentioned in that.” I spared her the context and went on to tell her about the map in my father’s room and the log books and how my father had been obsessed with Labrador because of the Ferguson Expedition. And all the time I was talking she was staring at me, her eyes wide, almost shocked. “So you see,” I finished, “I felt I had to come.”

  She didn’t say anything for a moment and her face had gone quite white. “Lake of the Lion.” She murmured the name to herself as though it were something she’d dreamed about. “My father talked about it—often … over camp fires. He knew the story, and always he thought he would find it some day—always he was searching. All my life I hear that name on his lips.” She, had turned away from me, staring at the sunset. “Dieu me secourrait!” she breathed. God help me! Her hands were gripped together as she said it, as though she were kneeling before an altar. She looked at me slowly. “You are honest. At least you are honest. And I thank God for that.” Her eyes held mine for a long moment and then she whispered, “I must think. I must pray to God.” And she turned and walked slowly away, and there was something so forlorn about her, so matching my own mood of loneliness that I started after her.

  But I stopped, because with a sudden perception that I scarcely understood, I realised that I could do no good. This was something that she had to discover for herself. It was a terrible choice, striking as it did at the roots of her relationship with Laroche, and I felt her dilemma as though it were my own. And in some strange way it strengthened my resolve. It was as though this other human, whom I had never met till now, had reached out to me for help. I knew then that I couldn’t give up, that I must go on until I’d found the truth.

  It was strange, but the past and the present seemed suddenly inextricably mingled, with Lake of the Lion the focal point, and I turned my face towards the north, feeling the chill of the faint wind that blew from the Labrador plateau.

  This was my mood when Bill Lands drove up in his mud-spattered station wagon and told me to jump in. “I’m not going,” I said.

  He stared at me, still leaning across the passenger seat with his hand on the door he’d thrown open for me. “What do you mean, you’re not going?”

  “I’m staying here,” I told him. “I’m staying here till I’ve discovered the truth.”

  “The truth? You’ve had the truth. You had it from Bert Laroche this afternoon.” He was frowning at me. “Did Paule find you? Did you talk to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you say to her?” His voice was trembling with anger and his fist was clenched as he slid across the passenger seat and out on to the gravel beside me. “Did you try and tell her that her father was still alive out there?” He stood over me, his eyes narrowed and hard, looking down into my face. “Did you tell her that?” I thought he was going to hit me.

  “No,” I said.

  “What did you tell her then?”

  “She asked for the truth and I said I didn’t know what the truth was.”

  “And that set her mind at rest, I suppose? Why the hell Bert had to tell her about you, I don’t know.” He gripped hold of my suitcase, wrenching it from me and tossing it into the back of the wagon. “Okay. Let’s go. You’ve done enough damage for one day.” His voice still trembled with anger. “Go on. Get in.”

  “But I’m not going,” I repeated, my voice childishly stubborn.

  “You’re going, son, whether you want to or not.” Then he caught hold of my arm and literally flung me into the seat and slammed the door.

  There was no point in arguing with him—he was a big man, powerfully built. But as he got in behind the wheel and we drove off, I said, “You can take me down to the airstrip, but you can’t make me board the plane.”

  He looked at me, frowning. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “Why the hell don’t you accept Bert’s statement and leave it at that?” And when I didn’t say anything, he asked, “How much money you got—Canadian money?”

  “None,” I said.

  He nodded. “That’s what I thought.” He was smiling. “How the hell do you expect to stay on here? This is a boom town. It costs money to live here.”

  “Staffen’s short of engineers,” I said quietly. “And I’m an engineer.”

  We had swung out on to the dirt road and he headed east, his foot hard down on the accelerator. “Alex won’t give you a job, and nor will anybody else when they know you’re just here to make trouble.”

  “I’m not here to make trouble,” I said. “I just want to find out the truth. And if it’s the girl you’re worrying about,” I added, “then don’t you think she’s entitled to the truth too? She knows I’m here and she knows why. She knows about that transmission, and if she never learns the truth of it, she’ll wonder about it all her life.” He didn’t say anything and I went on: “You say her father was a hero to her. Well, she knows there’s one person who doesn’t believe he’s dead, and if it’s left at that she’ll worry about it till the day she dies.”

  We had come to the airstrip and he turned in through the wire and pulled up at the despatch office. “All the more reason why I should get you out of here to-night.” He flung open the door. “You leave to-night and she’ll know there was nothing to it. Okay?” He sat there, looking at me, waiting for me to say something. “Well, it doesn’t much matter whether you agree with me or not. You’re taking this plane out of here to-night and that’s the end of it. And don’t try anything clever,” he added menacingly. “If I find you still here to-night when I get back from town, Goddammit, I’ll half-kill you. And don’t think I don’t mean it. I do.” He got out then and went into the despatch office.

  The sky was a darkening splurge of colour, lurid red down by the horizon, but fading to purple as night spread across it from the east. An old Dakota stood in black silhouette, a fork lift trundling supplies out to it and a little knot of men standing waiting. They were all types, men waiting to be flown up the line. I wished I were going with them. I was feeling the need for action. But maybe I could do something down at Montreal, see the authorities, something.

  The door beside me was jerked open. “Okay,” Lands said. “It’s all fixed. That’s your plane over there.” He nodded towards a small, twin-engined aircraft parked behind us. “Take-off is at twenty-thirty hours. If you’ll come into the office now, I’ll hand you over to the despatcher.”

  I got out, feeling suddenly tired—glad to be going, to be getting out of Seven Islands.

  “Can you lend me some money?” I asked as he handed me my suitcase.

  “Sure. How much do you want?”

  “Just enough to see me through till midday to-morrow,” I said. “That’s when my plane leaves Montreal.”

  He nodded. “Twenty bucks do you?” He pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and handed me four fives.

  “I’ll send you the sterling equivalent as soon as I get home,” I said.

  “Forget it.” He patted my arm. “To be honest, I’d have paid that and more to get you out of here. I guess I’m a sentimental sort of guy. I just don’t like to see two people’s lives busted up for the sake of something that nobody can do anything about.” He took my suitcase and led me across to the despatch office. The despatcher was the same man who had been on duty when I arrived. “Ed, this is Mr. Ferguson. Comes from England. Look after him for me, will you? And see he doesn’t miss his flight.”

  “Sure. I’ll look after him, Mr. Lands.”

  “Here’s his flight pass.” Lands handed over a slip of paper. And then he turned to me. “I’ve got to go now. Ed will see you on to your plane.” He held out his hand. “Glad you saw it my way in the end.” He hesitated as though he wasn’t sure whether he ought to leave me there on my own. But then he said, “Well, s’long. Have
a good flight.” And he went out and climbed into his station wagon and drove out through the wire.

  “You’ve got about an hour to wait,” the despatcher said, writing my name on a despatch sheet. Then he slapped my pass on to a spike with a lot of other papers. “Flight leaves twenty-thirty hours. I’ll call when they’re ready for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and walked out into the hangar that adjoined the office. It was full of stores, and outside it was dark. The last patch of red had gone from the sky and the arc lights had been switched on, flooding the apron, and the Dakota was still there, waiting. The last of the freight was being loaded into it by hand, the fork lift standing idle beside the hangar door. A starter motor was wheeled into position under the port engine and there was a sudden surge amongst the waiting men as they crowded close around the open door of the fuselage.

  Maybe the idea had been at the back of my mind all the time. At any rate, I found myself walking out across the apron to mingle with the construction men who were waiting to board the plane. I hadn’t thought it out at all. It was just that this plane was going up the line and I was drawn to it by a sort of fascination. “Gonna be cold in that rig, ain’t yer?” said the man next to me. He had a dark, wizened face half-hidden by a large fur cap with ear flaps. “First time you bin up the line?”

  I nodded.

  “Thought so.” And he spat a stream of tobacco juice out on to the ground. “Where you bound for?”

  I hesitated, but he was looking at me, expecting an answer. “Two-two-four,” I said, remembering that a replacement engineer was being sent up there.

  The little man nodded. “Be snowing up there I wouldn’t wonder.” He said it with a grin, as though he relished the thought that I should be cold.

  I moved away from him, edging my way in amongst the rest of the men. “You on this flight?” A man in a long-visored cap standing in the door of the fuselage was staring down at me.