The End of the Line

by Stephen Legault

  “No sir.”

  “Do you know a man named Kauffman? William Kauffman?”

  The MP’s eyes were cast at the floor. “I do not.”

  “You’ve never heard this name around Parliament?”

  “There are two hundred Members of Parliament, and each has his staff, and there are clerks and the Parliamentary Library . . .”

  “So that is a no?”

  “I have never heard that name.”

  “What sort of business is your family in, sir?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Your business. What is your family business?”

  “Sergeant Wallace, I am a Member of Parliament.”

  “Your business!” Durrant shouted.

  “I don’t have to answer these questions.”

  “Are you involved in the Northumberland Glycerol Company?”

  “My name is not associated with that business.”

  “But you know it.”

  “Of course. It’s a prominent business in my constituency.”

  “And it employs how many of your constituents.”

  “I can’t say.”

  “Guess.”

  “I am not a guessing man, sir.”

  “One hundred?”

  “Likely many more. It’s quickly becoming one of the largest manufacturers of explosives in this country.”

  “The fact that the Canada Explosives Company of Mount Saint-Hilaire won the contract for the Big Hill—was a blow to your constituents?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Only that losing that contract hurt your riding.”

  “We’ve won many others.”

  “We?”

  “My constituents.”

  “You’re not here trying to win back that contract?”

  “I am here on Parliamentary business.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Sergeant Wallace, I am the Vice-Chair of the House of Commons Select Standing Committee on Railways, Canals, and Telegraph Lines. When the Liberals win office again, I will likely be elected Chair. In fact, I may be asked to sit as the Minister in charge of the railway for the government. I am well within my rights to inspect the work here at the end of steel.”

  “I am not contesting that, sir. I do find it odd that a man named William Kauffman has been sending cables from the House of Commons to the foreman who was to be leading the explosives work on the Big Hill just days before he died. And that you, sir, represent a riding where one of the largest employers is a rival explosives manufacturer to the one who won the contract for the Big Hill. Tell me, sir, is the Northumberland Glycerol Company a contributor to your campaign war chest?”

  O’Brian stood up. “I will not take this any longer, Sergeant. Steele will hear from me, and so will the Minister! This is an outrage!” His face was as red as blazing ember, his massive sideburns wild.

  Durrant pushed himself up. His voice was stern and even as he said, “You are not here by coincidence, Mr. O’Brian. I can tell you that much. You are lying to me. I will find out the truth about why you are here. I can assure you that the law does not require that the killer be present at the murder of a man to find him guilty of conspiracy to commit the crime. Am I clear?”

  O’Brian put his hat on his head and left the office.

  “Mr. Wilcox?” Durrant called his voice raspy. Durrant stepped from the room, but no one was there.

  • • •

  Before he left the station, Durrant went to the telegraph machine and sent a wire to Fort Calgary to ask that Lieutenant Dewalt keep watch for both Frank Dodds and Hep Wilcox. He gave Dewalt a description of both, and requested a constable meet each train coming from the west until the matter had been cleared. Dewalt would not like the implication of the request—that Durrant could requisition troops—but he had to be thorough. Did he believe that either man had left Holt City? No, he did not. It was, however, possible that they might try, and he needed to ensure his prime suspects didn’t disappear eastward before he could brace them one last time.

  When Durrant returned to his cabin, Charlie was waiting for him. It was late in the afternoon, and the heavy snow had brought down the darkness early to the deep valley. Charlie stood by the door, the Winchester rifle in his hands when Durrant entered. The boy lowered the rifle when Durrant stepped inside.

  “What is it?”Durrant demanded. Charlie put the rifle down and picked up a scrap of paper from the desk and handed it to Durrant. Durrant read it aloud.

  “I seen Deek Penner’s merder. Meet me in the stables after dark.” Durrant put the note down and looked at Charlie. “There something else?”

  Charlie nodded. He picked up the writing tablet. “Someone was in the woods?” asked Durrant. Charlie nodded. “When?” Charlie scribbled. “Alright. We’re going to the stables together. Get your coat. We’re going to put an end to this.”

  • • •

  The snow swirled before them on the path like something out of the wildest vision of Hades. As night fell the wind picked up, driving the snow against the men as if it were buckshot. Though not as cold as it had been, the wind was bitter and tore at their coats and found its way down their necks, so that by the time they reached the barn and stables, both were shivering.

  “Alright, son,” said Durrant, standing before the blackness of the stables. “I’m going to head in and talk with whoever saw Mr. Penner killed. I need you to stay here and cover me. You understand?” Charlie nodded. Durrant handed him the Winchester. “If anybody else comes in through these doors, I want you to fire a warning shot up in the air. If they turn on you, you cut them down. I know this ain’t what you signed onto, but we’re in this together, and frankly, son, I need your help. I won’t ever let you down, and I know you won’t let me down, either. Can I count on you?” Charlie nodded.

  “Alright, get yourself out of sight and stay as warm as you can, maybe hunker there out of the wind,” Durrant pointed to a snow-covered buckboard wagon. “I’ll make this as brief as I can.”

  Charlie stepped towards the wagon and crouched down, disappearing up to his waist in the snow. He held the rifle before him awkwardly, but his attention was rapt. Durrant considered how much had changed in his life, that a mere lad was covering his back while he braced a witness.

  Many things had changed, though. Two weeks back on the job—the real job—had returned purposefulness to Durrant. Maybe that was why he hadn’t asked Steele to send him reinforcements after the incident with the nitroglycerine. Maybe that was why he was relieved now that heavy snow had effectively isolated him and Charlie at the end of track. As he closed in on a possible witness, maybe that was why he was able to stand upright and walk with more ease than he had in three years. He was alive again. Alive, and doing the work that he had signed on to do in order to keep the opaque darkness at bay.

  The door to the barn was latched when he reached it. He glanced back over his shoulder at Charlie’s shape through the falling snow. The boy still held the rifle before him. It felt good to have someone at his back again.

  Durrant reached up and unhooked the latch to the barn. Gravity pulled the door towards him, but then the wind pushed it closed, so that he had to pull hard to open it wide enough to step inside. The scent of hay and horses wafted over him as the wind propelled him into the space. Over the gale he could hear the animals breathing and shuffling. He propped the door ajar by wedging it hard into the snow, then quickly stepped to one side of the room. As he did, he slipped the Enfield from its holster. The British Bulldog was in his outside coat pocket. With the pistol pointed at the dark space in front of him, he walked forward.

  The building held twenty horses in two rows of stalls. Durrant moved from one stall to the next making his way towards the back of the barn. He could hear nothing else in the dark over the breathing of horses and the wind howling outside. Halfway to the tack room at the far corner of the barn, Durrant risked a look back over his shoulder. The door was still ajar; snow was swirling in as the wind pushed at the
boards.

  Durrant looked back down the centre of the barn. He stepped out and moved down two more stalls, the horses shuffling, their heavy flanks pressing against him while he tried to find cover next to their rumps. He heard the wind howl louder and shake the door, and then it slammed shut.

  He turned and brought the pistol up before him with a start. The room was dark as the inside of a mine. He didn’t move. A muffled sound came from the far end of the barn. He remained perfectly still. The horse next to him jostled his body and he held onto his crutch to keep it from clattering to the floor. There was someone in the barn. He heard a floorboard squeak and then go quiet. He could hear a man breathing. He slowly raised the pistol and felt his finger brush against the trigger. His thumb itched to pull back the hammer, but he feared even that sound would give away his presence. He heard a man draw another breath. He sensed movement in the middle of the barn and levelled the pistol.

  The sound of a voice almost caused him to pull the trigger. The voice said, “Sergeant Wallace . . .” It was a small voice, that of a man fearing for his very soul.

  “I’m here,” he said, pistol still before him.

  “I can see you. Don’t shoot me.”

  “Who is it?”

  “It’s Devon Paine.”

  “Mr. Paine, I’ve got the drop on you. Why don’t you shed some light on this situation?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Paine, and he moved again. Durrant saw a shape pass him in the dark and in a moment, a candle was lit in the tack room and Paine stepped out again. He was holding the candle on a tin plate in one hand and a double-barrelled shotgun in the other.

  Durrant drew a long breath. He eased the hammer back, no longer concerned about the noise it would make, his adversary squarely in front of him. Across the forward sight of the Enfield, Durrant watched as Paine seemed to calculate his next move.

  “Put down the gun,” said Durrant. Paine did as he was told. “Step over there, well away from it.” Again, Paine moved.

  “You write that note?”

  “Yes, sir. I did. I saw Deek Penner get killed.”

  • • •

  “I suppose I know the answer to this, but I feel I should ask anyway. Why the hell didn’t you tell me this when I first questioned you?” Durrant sat on a wooden tomato crate, his prosthetic extended before him. The tack room smelled of freshly oiled metal and the rich tang of leather. Charlie stood at the tack room door, the Winchester at port, watching the entrance to the barn. He still had his scarf pulled up over his face. Paine sat on another crate with his back to the harnesses on the wall.

  Paine looked down. “You don’t know these people,” he said. “I was afraid of what might happen.”

  “I don’t blame you. It would have made things easier if you’d come forward and told me, though.”

  “Easier for who?”

  “For me, I guess. Did you see the man who killed Penner?”

  “Not his face, just the shape. It was dark and I was far away.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, some of it you already know. That bastard Dodds came at me and laid into me pretty good. You understand, Sergeant, I’m not a big man, but in a fair fight I can hold my own. I’m not so bad with my hands, you see. Put a sawed-off shotgun in my possession and I can take care of myself. I used to ride with the stagecoaches down in Wyoming and Colorado. I told you that, didn’t I? I think I might even have killed a man once . . .” His voice trailed off. “It was a fair fight. The Marshall told me so. I shot the man right off his horse when he was coming for the strongbox. That there’s the gun that did it!”

  Durrant regarded the sawed off shotgun. It was a Remington Whitmore 78, one of the most popular and effective guns of the day.

  “Anyways, I’m not bragging on it. I’m just saying I can hold my own. Dodds is a big man and he really come at me. He busted my nose and knocked out two teeth!” Paine pointed at the gap in his dental work.

  “Them Mahoney brothers tried to pull him off, but I don’t think they was trying too hard. That’s when ol’ Deek just moved all three of them off me. He was a big lad, that one. He just pushed ’em all off me. I don’t think even Frank or Pete would pick a fight with him. Not face to face I mean.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Deek and Frank got into it about moonshine. Deek said he was going to report Frank to Hep Wilcox and that would be the end of things. Hep knew all about what Frank was doing. Everybody did, but Hep knew that if Deek ratted Frank out, he’d have to do something, or lose his contract as general manager here at Holt City. Frank knew it too.”

  “You think it was Dodds that killed him?”

  “Well, I just don’t know. I left next after Deek. I didn’t want to hang around lest maybe Pete and Ralph and Frank all lay into me and then it would be just John and Grant there, and they ain’t much for fighting. I think Grant could hold his own, but John is just a little mouse of a man.

  “I went off to put some snow on my face, and I got to thinking I should go and tell Deek what I knew. I drove the team that dropped that milled lumber off for Frank’s still up the Pipestone. I didn’t know what he was building, I really didn’t. I just did what he told me; I mostly work for him, see. That was in January after the Pipestone froze good and hard. Anyway, I thought I’d tell Deek what I knew so I went and knocked on his door, but he was gone. I guessed that he was going to the station to wake up Hep, or maybe to send a wire. Maybe he wanted to get the drop on Frank, right?”

  “I think you guessed right.”

  “So I followed along the path to the station, and that’s when I saw it.”

  “What did you see?”

  “I was just where the path goes alongside the tracks when I saw Deek up in the distance, heading back into the trees. I was maybe a hundred yards back. It was pretty dark, but I could tell by the size of him and the way he walked—kinda like a big ol’ draft horse—that it was Deek Penner. I was just going to call to him when someone came at him from behind. Just jumped out from behind one of them little pines. Deek turned around, but I don’t think he saw the blow coming. I think he turned just a second before he got hit. I saw the man swing at him with something and knock him down, and then he stood over Deek and hit him again and again.”

  Paine had an absent, ghostly look on his face. From the door Charlie looked toward the man and Durrant could see that the man’s pain had registered with the boy. Durrant motioned for Charlie to keep his eyes on the barn door.

  “I couldn’t do nothing. It all happened so fast.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Well, I was going to run, you know? Just run. But I couldn’t move a muscle. I just stood there. Whoever it was that hit Deek then grabbed him by the legs and began to pull him into the snow, toward the river.”

  “The river was frozen over.”

  “Oh yeah, and lots and lots of snow. Even more than now. I guess they was going to leave the body there and come the spring it would just melt through. I don’t know, but the going was real tough. The snow was deep and the murderer was having a hard time. That’s when I think he saw me.”

  “Really? What makes you think that?”

  “They just stopped pulling. He sort of looked up in my direction.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran off.” Paine looked down at his hands. The candle flickered on its plate, the dark shadows playing across the faces of the men and the tack that hung around them.

  “Back the way you’d come?”

  “It was the only way. The snow was too deep otherwise, and the way to the station was blocked. I circled around a few times, afraid whoever it was might be hunting me. I waited an hour before coming back to my bunk here.” Paine was silent a moment, then he added, “I’m real sorry about not talking with you before.”

  Durrant looked him over. “It’s alright. I have a few questions. How big was the man that you saw hit Mr. Penner?”

  “It was so hard to tell. He ha
d a heavy coat on. He was shorter than Deek, but most are. He came at him from the deep snow so he seemed a lot shorter, like he was sinking up to his knees.”

  “That matches what I have seen of the wounds on Deek’s head, Mr. Paine.” Durrant considered his next question. “Would you say the man was as heavy as Deek?”

  “No, sir. He wasn’t as big in the shoulders. I could see that much.”

  “Bigger than you, though?”

  “I can’t say. The coats, you know . . .”

  “I understand. Everybody looks the same when they’ve got four layers of wool on,” said Durrant. Paine nodded.

  “What was the man wearing on his head?”

  “A beaverskin hat.”

  “You didn’t see the man’s face?”

  “No, sir.”

  Durrant drew a deep breath. “Before you ran away, did you see John Christianson come along?”

  “No, sir. There was nobody else there. You don’t think John could have . . .”

  “At this point, Mr. Paine, I think it’s best that I keep my convictions to myself. I urge you to do the same.” Paine nodded. “I’m going to take my leave now,” Durrant said.

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Paine, standing up.

  “Should this case ever come to a trial, you will be an important witness for the Crown, Mr. Paine. I urge you to keep quiet about what you have seen, at least until I can clear this matter up.”

  “When will that be?”

  “I have nearly all the pieces in place now. There is way more to this than meets the eye. I’m going to go at once to the stationhouse and wire my superiors what I know about the various nefarious undertakings here at the end of track. Come the morning, I will begin to make my arrests, with or without reinforcements. Too many of the principal players are already beginning to fly.”

  Paine nodded again, looking bewildered.

  “You had best stay out of sight, Mr. Paine.”

  “I got a place that’s safe,” he said.

  “Good, then,” said Durrant.

  “I figure I’m not just hiding from one man, am I?”