Meantime, Creasy and his construction gang broke through the fall where the avalanche had carried the old road away and the talk after the evening meal was all of opening up the camp at the head of the creek and getting the hoist working.
When I got in on the Saturday Mac handed me a slip of paper. ‘Telegram for ye,’ he said. It was from Bladen. ‘Convinced figures not mine. Send Winnick those from Kingdom soonest possible. Roger Fergus died two days ago. Leaving for Peace River. Signed — Bladen. I looked across at the old man. ‘How did this come?’ I asked.
‘The telephone line has been repaired,’ he said. ‘They phoned it through to me from Keithley.’
I thanked him and went up to my room. So Roger Fergus was dead and that was that. I was sorry. There’d been something about him, a touch of the pioneer, and he had been my grandfather’s friend. And then I remembered how he’d talked of our meeting again soon and I shivered.
When Creasy got in that night he announced that they were through to the camp. ‘We’re wondering about the hoist,’ he said to James McClellan.
‘You don’t have to.’ McClellan answered. ‘It’ll work all right — I built it to last.’
‘Aye, ye did that,’ his father said and there was a sneer in the old man’s voice.
Hot, sudden anger flared in the younger man’s eyes. ‘Lucky I did,’ he said. ‘Ain’t anything more useless than a hoist that don’t work, I guess; unless it’s a gold mine that’s covered by a hundred feet of shoe — or the mineral rights in a country that ain’t got any oil.’
Father and son glared at each other sullenly. Then the older man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Aye, ye may be right, Jamie.’
The son thrust his chair back and got to his feet. ‘You’ll get your money back,’ he said sullenly.
When I went down to see Jean that evening it was raining hard and blowing half a gale from the west. Miss Sarah Garret opened the door to me. ‘Come in, Mr Wetheral, come in.’ She shut the door. ‘My sister and I were so sorry to hear about the death of Roger Fergus.’
I stared at her. ‘How did you know he was dead?’
‘But you received a telegram from Boy today saying so.’
I wondered whether Trevedian, too, knew the contents of that wire yet and if so what he was going to do about it. I wished now I had told Bladen to write.
‘… such a distinguished-looking man. He came here several times. That was when he was interested in Mr Campbell’s oil company. You’re very like Mr Campbell, you know.’ She cocked a bird-like glance at me. ‘Not in appearance, of course. But in — in some indefinable way. Things always happened in Come Lucky when Mr Campbell was around. And I do like things happening, don’t you?’ She smiled at me and her eyes twinkled. ‘So sensible of you to get Boy to do the organising of your venture.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Why?’ She tapped me with her fingers. ‘Go on with you. Think I don’t know why? I was young once, you know, and I understand only too well how lonely it can be for a girl up here in Come Lucky.’
‘But-’ I didn’t know what to say as she stood there twinkling at me. ‘I didn’t send Boy to Calgary,’ I said.
‘Of course not. You just let his enthusiasm run away with him.’ She gave a little tinkling laugh and then turned quickly at the sound of footsteps. ‘Ah, here she is,’ she said as Jean entered the room.
‘I gather you know about the wire I got from Boy,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘Miss McClellan was here two hours ago with the details of it. The news will be all over Come Lucky by now.’ She took me through into her own room. ‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘I feel it,’ I answered. ‘Fergus’ death-’ I hesitated. I think it was only then that the full implication of it dawned on me. I suddenly found myself laughing. It was so damned ironical.
‘Please,’ she cried. She had hold of my arm and was shaking me. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing,’ I said, controlling myself. ‘Only that Henry Fergus will now inherit the mineral rights of the Kingdom.’
She turned and stared at the fire. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’ She reached for my arm. ‘But it’ll work out. You see.’ Her eyes were suddenly bright. ‘You’ve got a good partner in Boy. He’ll get the backing you need.’
She had spoken with unusual warmth. ‘Are you in love with him?’ I asked.
She stared at me in sudden shocked surprise and then turned away. ‘We’ll talk about the Kingdom, not me if you don’t mind,’ she said in a voice that trembled slightly. She sat down slowly by the fire and stared for a moment into the flames, lost in her own thoughts.
‘Why has Boy gone to Peace River, do you know?’ I asked her.
She stared slightly. ‘Has he? I didn’t know.’ Her voice was flat. She turned her head and looked at me. ‘He was working there during the winter.’
For some reason she had withdrawn into herself. I left shortly after that and returned to the hotel. I was tired anyway. The rain streamed down, steel rods against the lamplit windows of the bar, drilling holes in the greying snow. Jean had lent me several books; rare things in Come Lucky — the hotel only had American magazines and a few glossy paperbacks with lurid jackets. I planned to laze and read myself quietly to sleep. As I was starting upstairs Pauline came out of the kitchen. ‘Going to bed already, Bruce?’
‘Can you suggest anything better for me to do in Come Lucky?’ I asked her.
She smiled a trifle uncertainly. ‘I am sorry,’ she murmured. ‘It is very dull here.’ She hesitated. ‘And I am afraid we have not been very ‘ospitable.’ And then quickly, as though she wanted to say it before she forgot. ‘Jimmy is going up to the dam tomorrow.’
‘Do you mean up to the top, to the Kingdom?’ I asked.
She nodded.
‘When?’
‘They leave tomorrow after breakfast — he is going with Ben.’
‘Why do you tell me this?’
‘He ask me to tell you.’
‘Why?’
She hesitated. ‘Perhaps he thinks that if you see the dam for yourself you will understand what it means to him and to the others.’ She leaned forward and touched my arm. ‘You will go with him, won’t you, Bruce? He wants so badly for you to understand why it is we do not want this scheme to fall through. If you could see the hoist that he built…’ She stopped awkwardly. ‘He is not unfriendly really, you know. It is only that he is worried. The farm is not doing well and this hotel-’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘The visitors are not enough to keep a barn like this running.’
‘Tell him I’d like to come with him, provided he’ll take me to the top if the hoist is working.’
‘Yes, I will tell him that.’ She flashed me a smile. ‘Goodnight, Bruce.’
‘Goodnight, Pauline.’
I went up to my room, suddenly too excited to think of reading. At last I was going to get a glimpse of the Kingdom.
I awoke to find daylight creeping into the room. The wind still howled and a sheet of corrugated iron clacked dismally. But the rain had ceased. The clouds had lifted, ragged wisps sailing above cold, white peaks. Footsteps sounded on the bare boards below and a door banged. Then silence again; silence except for the relentless sound of the wind and the gurgle of water seeking its natural level, starting on its long journey to the Pacific.
I was called at seven. The old Chinaman shuffled across the room to the wash basin with a steaming jug of water. ‘You sleep well, Mister?’ His wrinkled face smiled at me disinterestedly as he gave me the same greeting he had given me every morning I had been there. ‘Snow all gone. Plenty water. Plenty mud. You get to the dam okay today.’
By the time I had finished breakfast James McClellan was waiting for me. He took me down to the bunkhouse through a sea of mud. There was a truck there and Max Trevedian was loading drums of diesel fuel into the back of it.
‘All set?’ I turned to find Peter Trevedian slithering down through the mud towards us. He wore an old flying jacket, the fur collar turned up, and a shaggy, bearskin cap.