He looked up at me. ‘Aye, ye can use it,’ he said. ‘But ye’ll no’ contact anybody. The line’s been down for a week past.’ He smiled dourly. ‘Ye see, there’s only two subscribers in Come Lucky now — meself and Trevedian. The company dinna worry over much about us.’
I went back to my seat and ordered another beer. I had a sudden sense of being cut off. A bell rang in the depths of the hotel and the Chinaman came to tell me dinner was ready. As I got to my feet a man pushed open the street door and came in. He was short and dark, with black hair and a smooth, coppery skin. There was something arresting in the way he threw open the door and stood there, looking round the room. But it was the scar that made me look at him more closely. It ran all across the right side of his face, from the corner of his lip to his ear, half of which was missing. It didn’t exactly disfigure his face, but it gave a queer twist to features that were almost classic in their cleanness of line, the jaw hard and square, the forehead broad and the nose sharply chiselled and quite straight. ‘Hiya, Mac.’ He came forward into the bar, a pleasant, cheerful smile on his face that disclosed the even line of very white teeth. He carried a leather grip and the backs of his hands were marked with the dark purple of burns.
Old Mac got to his feet and shook his hand. ‘It’s grand to see you, Boy.’ There was real pleasure in the old man’s voice. ‘Jean was only saying the other day it was time you came back for your trucks.’
‘She’s still here then?’
‘Aye.’
‘Are they through to the hoist yet?’
‘Not quite. But they’ll no’ be long now. Creasy’s working through the fall right this minute.’ Mac shook his head. ‘It was bad luck that fall. How did you make out this winter?’
The other grinned. ‘Oh, not too bad. Went wild-catting with a bunch of hoodlums up in the Little Smoky country. Have you got a room for me? I guess I’ll stay up here now until the hoist’s working and I can get my trucks down.’
‘Aye, there’s a room for ye. And ye’re just in time for dinner.’
‘Well, thanks, but I thought I’d go and scrounge a meal off Jean.’
‘Ye think the lass has been pining for ye, eh?’ The old man poked him in the ribs.
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ the other grinned. ‘But I’ve been pining for her.’
Their laughter followed me as I went through into the kitchen. When Mac came in I asked him who the newcomer was. ‘That was Boy Bladen,’ he said.
‘Bladen?’
‘Aye. He’s the laddie who did the survey up in the Kingdom last summer.’
Bladen! ‘… Bladen was keen, as keen as Stuart.’ I could hear old Roger Fergus’ words still. It seemed that providence had delivered Bladen into my hands for the sole purpose of discovering the truth about that survey.
‘… and he had to abandon all his equipment, leave it up in the Kingdom all winter,’ old Mac was saying. ‘You saw that fall they were clearing when you went up the road today?’ I nodded. ‘Well, that happened just before he was due to come down.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘That’s tough on a boy, all his capital locked up in a place like that. Never had anything but trouble from the Kingdom,’ he growled.
‘About that survey,’ I said. ‘Did my grandfather know the result of it?’
‘No. He went and died while the letter containing the report was waiting for him down here in my office. It would just about have killed him anyway.’
After the meal I went up to my room and lay on the bed and smoked and tried to think the thing out.
It was shortly after four that I heard James McClellan shouting for his father. If he was back, presumably Trevedian was too. I got up, put on my coat and went down through the hard-packed snow to the bunkhouse. The door of the transport company’s office was ajar and as I climbed the wooden steps I heard the sound of voices. I hesitated, my hand on the knob of the door.’… you should have thought of that before you took your trucks up there.’ The man’s tone was easy, almost cheerful. ‘If I weren’t clearing that fall and rebuilding the road you’d never get them out. I’ve got a lot of dough tied up in-’
I was just turning away when another voice cut in, harsher and less controlled. ‘You may own the valley, but you’ve only a half share in the hoist. McClellan’s got some say in-’
‘McClellan will do what I tell him,’ the other replied. ‘You do as I say and you’ll get your trucks down.’
‘God damn you, Trevedian!’ The door flung open and Bladen came out, pushing past me and walking angrily up the slope towards Come Lucky.
I knocked and went in. The office was small and bare and dusty. An old-fashioned telephone stood on a desk littered with papers and cigarette ash and behind the desk sat a stocky man of about forty-five. The bone of his skull showed through the close-cropped, grizzled hair and, since it was a round, solid head jammed close in to the shoulders on a short neck, it bore a remarkable resemblance to those concrete balls that adorn the gate pillars of Victorian houses. But though the head was round, the position of cheek bones and jaw gave the features length, so that with the long nose and rather pursed lips under the clipped grey moustache the features seemed to lose some of the strength of the head. The eyes were black and they had little pouches of loose flesh under them. He was like a fine rugby scrum-half gone to seed, and yet the heaviness of his body wasn’t fat, for, apart from the greyness of his skin, he looked fit. ‘Mr Peter Trevedian?’ I asked.
He rose to greet me. ‘You must be Bruce Wetheral.’ His hand was hard and rough, the smile of welcome rubber-stamped on his leathery features. ‘Sit down. James told me you’d arrived. Cigarette?’ He produced a silver cigarette case from the pocket of his jacket and held it out to me. ‘You’re Campbell’s heir, I understand.’ He flicked his lighter for me and his small, black eyes were fastened on my face.
I nodded.
‘Well, I think I can guess why you’ve come to see me.’ He smiled and sat back in his chair with a grunt. ‘Fact is, I was just coming up to have a talk with you.’ He lit his cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I’ll be quite frank with you, Wetheral, your refusal to sell the Kingdom has put me in a bit of a spot. As you probably know, through my holding in the Larsen mines, I’ve got the contract for supplying all materials for the completion of the Solomon’s Judgment dam. But the contract is a tricky one. The dam has to be completed this summer. To get all the materials up on the one hoist I had to be in a position to begin packing the stuff in the moment the construction people were ready to start work on the dam. To do that I had to have the road cleared ready. I couldn’t wait for the okay from Fergus. So I took a chance on it.’
‘A bit risky, wasn’t it?’ I said.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you want to make money out here you’ve got to take risks. If I’d waited for Fergus’ okay, I’d have been too late to pack all the stuff in on the one hoist. I’d have had to build a second hoist and believe me that would have cost a lot at current prices.’ He leaned back. ‘Well now, what are you holding out for — more dough?’ The unwinking stare of his black little eyes was disconcerting ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not that.’
‘What is it then? Mac said something about your planning to live up there.’
‘Yes.’
‘What the hell for? It’s pretty God-damn lonely up there and in the winter-’
‘My grandfather lived up there,’ I said. ‘If he could do it-’
‘Campbell didn’t live there because he liked it,’ he cut in sharply. ‘He lived there because he had to; because he didn’t dare live down here amongst the folk he’d swindled.’
‘Are you suggesting he was a crook?’ I demanded angrily.
He leaned forward and stubbed his cigarette out in a big quartz ash-tray. ‘See here, Wetheral. You know Campbell’s history as well as I do. He was committed to trial and sentenced by an English jury for fraud. If I remember right he got five years. To that jury it was just a Stock Exchange ramp. But out here it was the last gamble of men trying to recoup themselves for the loss of the Come Lucky mine. They believed in Campbell. Maybe I’m a bit bitter. Perhaps you’ll understand my attitude better if I tell you that my father, Luke Trevedian, backed Campbell when he decided to drill up beyond the cleft of Solomon’s Judgment. Most of the old-timers were with him in that venture. Well, it failed. The rock was hard, it cost more than they budgeted to get equipment up there. When they found they’d bitten off more than they could chew Campbell went to England to raise capital. My father put every last penny he possessed into the Rocky Mountain Exploration Company and when he got the news that Morton, the director brought in by your grandfather as financial adviser, had disappeared with all the capital, he got on his horse and rode out into the snow of a winter’s night. We never saw him again.’