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Nobody said anything. The table had become suddenly silent. Anger underlay the mildness of Johnnie’s tone, and it showed in his eyes.

‘You’d better go and talk to Peter Trevedian,’ McClellan said awkwardly.

‘Sure I will, but at the moment I’m talking to you. Jeff here saw Boy Bladen in Edmonton the other day.’

‘Well?’

‘Boy seemed kinda mad about something. You wouldn’t know what that something was, would you now?’

‘No.’

Johnnie was lighting his cigarette, and his eyes were on McClellan through the smoke. ‘I thought you were Trevedian’s partner?’

‘Only on the hoist.’

‘I see. Not when it comes to substituting phoney survey figures and driving an old man to his death.’

McClellan pushed back his chair and got to his feet. ‘What the hell are you getting at?’

‘Nothing that you can’t figure out for yourself.’ Johnnie had turned away. ‘My advice to you, McClellan, is — watch your step,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You’re riding in bad company, boy.’ He turned suddenly. ‘Now, where will I find Trevedian?’

McClellan didn’t answer. He just turned on his heel and walked out. Johnnie gave a slight shrug. ‘Know where Trevedian is, Mac?’ he asked.

I don’t think the old man heard the question. He seemed lost in thought. It was Creasy who answered. ‘You’ll find him down at the bunkhouse. If he’s not in his office, he’ll most likely be in his quarters round at the back.’

‘Okay, Thanks.’ Johnnie had turned to the door. Jeff and I got up and followed him. ‘You boys stay here,’ he said. ‘You can order me a beer. I’ll be thirstier’n hell by the time I get through with Trevedian.’

We sat and waited for him by the stove in the bar. He was gone the better part of an hour and by the time he got back men from Creasy’s construction gang were filtering in in ones and twos. They were a mixed bunch, their hands hard and calloused: Poles, Ukrainians, Italians, a negro and two Chinamen. They wore war surplus clothing relieved by bright scarves and gaily coloured shirts. They were the same crowd that I had seen in the bar each evening. ‘Well?’ Jeff asked as Johnnie slid into the vacant chair at our table.

‘Trevedian wasn’t there,’ he said and called to the Chinaman to bring more beer. ‘I went along and saw Jean instead.’ His eyes crinkled as he looked across at me. ‘Leastaways you got yourself one friend in Come Lucky. She’s a real dandy, that girl. If I were a few years younger…’ He smiled gently to himself and drank his beer.

‘If you were a few years younger, you’d still be a bachelor,’ Jeff said.

‘Sure, I know.’ He nodded slowly. ‘A girl’s all very well, but when it comes to living with her…’ He stopped suddenly, his gaze fixed over my shoulder.

I turned in my chair. Peter Trevedian was standing in the doorway, looking round the bar. He went over to Creasy and asked him a question. Creasy shook his head. ‘No. Ain’t seen him.’ Trevedian straightened up, facing the room. ‘Just a minute, boys.’ His solid, throaty voice silenced the murmur of conversation. ‘Anybody here seen my brother today?’

‘Wasn’t he loading a truck outside the bunkhouse when we left this morning?’ a voice said.

‘Sure he was… I seen him myself.’ There was a chorus of assent all round the room.

‘I know that,’ Trevedian answered. ‘We left him at the bunkhouse when we went up to the hoist. I want to know what’s happened to him since then.’

‘Maybe he went out for a walk and lost hisself.’ It was the driver of one of the bulldozers.

‘Max doesn’t lose himself,’ Trevedian said harshly.

‘Maybe he lose his memory, eh?’

There was a laugh and somebody added, ‘Per’aps he forgot where he is going.’

Trevedian’s eyes narrowed. ‘Another crack like that and I’ll send the man who makes it back where he came from. Just confine yourselves to statements of fact. Has anybody seen Max since this morning?’

‘Yeah. I seen him.’ It was one of the old men, the one they called Ed Schieffer. ‘I seen him right after you left. Saddled his horse an’ rode off. I seen him from the window of me shack.’

‘Where was he headed for?’

‘He followed you. Up Thunder Creek.’

Trevedian growled a curse and turned towards the door. It was then that Johnnie slid to his feet. I grabbed hold of him by the arm. But he threw me off. ‘Just a minute, Trevedian.’

Something in the quietness of his voice silenced the murmur of talk that had started in the bar. Trevedian turned, his hand on the door. ‘Why, if it isn’t Johnnie Carstairs.’ He crossed the room, his hand outstretched. ‘What brings you up here this early in the year?’ His tone was affable, but his head was sunk into his shoulders and his eyes were watchful under the shaggy eyebrows.

Johnnie was in the middle of the room now. He ignored the other’s hand. He was rocking gently on his high-heeled boots, anger building up inside him like steam in a boiler. ‘I came on account of what I heard from Bladen.’

‘Well?’ Trevedian had stopped. His hand had fallen to his side … ‘What did you hear from Bladen?’

‘Did you have to play a dirty trick like that on an old man who never did you-’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You know damn well what I’m talking about. I’m talking about Stuart Campbell. You killed him.’ Johnnie’s voice vibrated through the silence of the room. ‘Why the hell did you have to do it like that, striking him through his-’

‘Oh, stop talking nonsense. I didn’t touch the old man and you know it.’ Trevedian’s eyes glanced round the room, seeing it silent and listening. ‘We’d better go down to my office. We can talk there.’ He turned towards the door.

‘There’s nothing private in what I got to say.’

Johnnie had not moved, but his hands had shifted to the leather belt round his waist. ‘What were you afraid of — that he’d talk to some newspaper feller, that he’d tell them what he knew about the dam?’

‘What do you mean?’ The other had swung round.

‘Campbell wasn’t a fool. Why do you think he let them go on with the construction of the dam at the start of the war without making any demand for compensation?’

‘He’d have put in a claim only Pearl Harbor brought the Yanks into the-’

‘It wasn’t Pearl Harbor. It was because he knew the dam wouldn’t stand the weight of the water.’

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking-’

‘Sure you do. I’m talking about the Marie Bell and her cargo of cement. I took a Vancouver shipowner up to the Kingdom in 1940 and he told us the whole thing.’

‘The construction of the dam is nothing to do with me — never has been. I just pack the materials in.’ Trevedian’s voice had risen slightly. He moved a step nearer. It was like seeing a bull about to charge a matador.

Johnnie laughed softly. It reacted on Trevedian like a slap in the face. His head came down and his fists clenched. A tingle of expectation ran through the room. ‘Think I don’t know what packing rates are?’ Johnnie said. ‘You didn’t make enough out of transporting the stuff to start a transport and construction company in Alaska.’

‘The Government was responsible for building the dam,’ Trevedian snapped. ‘They had inspectors.’

‘Sure they had inspectors. But how were they to know you were packing in cement that had lain for a year on the rocks of the Queen Charlotte Islands.’

‘That’s a lie.’ Trevedian’s face was livid. ‘All the cement I delivered was from an American company down in Seattle.’

‘Sure. They were shipping cement up to Alaska for military installations. One of their ships-’

Trevedian suddenly straightened up. He had got control of himself and his big laugh boomed through the room. ‘So I’m supposed to have killed Campbell because he knew I’d supplied dud cement for the dam.’ He slapped his thigh with amusement. ‘That’s damn funny. In the first place I didn’t kill Campbell, and every God-damned person in this room knows it. In the second place, that dud cement you talk about seems to be standing up to it pretty well since the dam’s still there and there isn’t a crack in the whole structure. You want to get your facts right before you come storming up here making a lot of wild accusations.’ And still laughing he turned on his heel and went out into the night, leaving Johnnie standing there in the middle of the floor.