‘Any time,’ I said. ‘And thanks for your help.’ I put the receiver back.
‘So ye’re going to drill?’ Mac said.
I nodded. ‘I suppose your son wouldn’t take the responsibility of getting the rig up there?’
‘Jamie’ll no’ do anything to help ye, I’m afraid.’ He kept his eyes on the pipe he was filling, avoiding my gaze.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose not.’ I hesitated. Trevedian will ask you what I’m up to. There’s no harm in telling him that I’ve been on to the Calgary Tribune. But I’d be glad if you’d forget that bit about my taking things into my own hands. Will you do that?’
‘Aye.’ He gave me a wintry smile. ‘I’ll no’ spoil yer game, whatever it is. But dinna do anything foolish, lad.’ He peered up at me. ‘Ye ken the advice I ought to gie ye? It’s to forget all aboot the Kingdom — sell oot and gang hame. But it’s no’ the sort o’ advice a young feller would be taking.’ He shook his head, ‘Mebbe I’m getting old.’ He held out his hand. ‘Good luck to ye. And if I should see Jeannie?’ He cocked his head to one side.
I hesitated and then I said, ‘If she should happen to ask about me, tell her there’s a vacancy for cook general up in the Kingdom — if she wants her old job back.’
He smiled and nodded his head. ‘Aye. I’ll tell her that.’
I paid for the call and we left then, riding down the hardbaked gravel of Come Lucky’s street, conscious here and there of faces peering at us from the windows of the shacks. Through the open door of his office I caught a glimpse of Trevedian. He was on the phone again, but he looked up as we rode by and stared at us, his heavy forehead puckered in a frown.
The sun was hot as we rode down to the lake-shore and there were gophers standing like sentinels on the mounds of their burrows. Their shrill squeaks of warning ran ahead of us as one by one they dropped from sight. Beaver Dam Lake was still and dark, mirroring the green and brown and white of the mountains beyond. A truck ground past us as we turned up towards Thunder Creek, a haze of white dust hovering behind it. And when it was gone and the dust had settled, everything was still again. Summer had come to the Rockies.
‘Will you wait down here for Boy?’ Bill asked.
I nodded. ‘We’ll camp down by the creek tonight.’
We found a suitable spot, well concealed in the cottonwood close to the waters of Thunder Creek, cooked ourselves a meal and slept for a couple of hours in the sun. Then we saddled the horses again and started up the road towards the camp. All I carried was my rucksack. The shadows were lengthening now and as we entered the timber the air was cool and damp. Every now and then Bill glanced at me curiously, but he didn’t say anything. He had the patience and tenacity of all geologists. He was content to wait and see what I was up to.
We reached the bend that concealed the round gate and its guard and I struck up into the timber. The timber was not very thick here and as we made the detour we caught glimpses of the guard hut. We came back on to the road about half a mile above it. The surface was much drier than it had been when Jeff and I had made that moonlight run and wherever there was water, hard core had been poured in by the truck load. Even so the surface was heavily rutted and some of the log culverts showed signs of breaking up. Every now and then I glanced up at the telephone wires that hung in shallow loops from the bare jack pine poles. There were just the two lines and at most points it would be possible to reach them from the top of a truck. At a point where the road reached down almost to the floor of the valley we saw beavers working in the black pools they’d damned and once we caught a glimpse of two coyotes slinking through the timber. But my mind was on practical things and not even the sight of a small herd of mule-deer distracted me from reconnaissance. We kept to the road all the way, only pushing into the timber when we heard the sound of a truck.
About a mile above the guard hut I found what I was looking for. The grade had been getting steadily steeper as we climbed up from the creek bed and we came face to face with a shoulder of the valley side.
The road swung away to the right and we could see it zig-zagging in wide hairpin sweeps as it gained height to by-pass the obstruction. Ahead of us a trail rose steeply up the shoulder, a short-cut that would come out on to the road again. We forced the horses up the slope and came out on to a rocky platform that looked straight up the valley to the slide and the sheer cliff of the fault. It was a most wonderful sight with the white peaks of Solomon’s Judgment crimsoned in the sunset.
About a mile further on we came out on to the road again where it swung round a big outcrop of rock. It had been blasted out of the face of the outcrop and above it the rocks towered more than a hundred feet, covered with lichen and black where the water seeped from the crevices. We waited for a truck to pass, going down the valley, and then we rode out on to the road.
I sat there for a moment looking at the overhang. This was what I had remembered. This was the place that had been in my mind when I first conceived my plan. The question was would I find what I wanted. I rode forward, a tight feeling in my throat. Everything depended upon this. The rock had been blasted. There was no question about that as I began eagerly examining the wall of it.
‘What are you looking for, Bruce?’ my companion asked.
‘I’m wondering if there are any drill holes,’ I said. I’d banked on the driller going ahead, drilling his shot holes, regardless of whether they’d blasted sufficiently.
Twice we had to canter off into the timber whilst a truck went by. Each time I came back to the same point in the face of the rock, working steadily along it. And then suddenly I had found what I had hoped for; a round hole — like the entrance to a sandmartin’s nest. There was another about ten feet from it and a third. They were about three feet from the ground and when I cut a straight branch from a tree and had whittled it down into a rod I found two of them extended about eight feet into the rock. The third was only about two feet deep. I took off my rucksack then, got out my charges and pushed them in, two to each shot hole. The wires to the detonators I cut to leave only about two inches protruding. Then we rammed wet earth in tight, sealing the holes. I marked the spot with the branch of a tree and we rode on.
About half a mile further on the road dipped again and crossed a patch of swampy ground. Road gangs had been busy here very recently. A lot of hard core had been dumped and rolled in and just beyond the swamp the trees had been cut back to allow trucks to turn. There was good standing here for a dozen or more vehicles. Over a slight rise a bridge of logs spanned a small torrent. Again I slipped my rucksack from my shoulders and got to work with the charges, fixing them to the log supports of the bridge and trailing the wires to a point easily reached from the road. I marked the spot and climbed back on to the road.
‘Okay, Bill,’ I said. ‘That’s the lot.’
We turned our horses and started back. There was still some light in the sky, but down in the valley night was closing in.
It was past nine when we rode into our camp. We built a fire and cooked a meal, sitting close by the flames, talking quietly, listening to the sound of the creek rumbling lakewards. I felt tired, but content. So far everything had gone well. But as I lay wrapped in my blankets, going over and over my plans, I wondered whether my luck would hold. I wondered, too, whether I wasn’t in danger of creating a situation I couldn’t handle. I was planning the thing as a military operation, relying on surprise and confusion to carry me through, banking on being able to present the other side with a fait accompli. I wondered chiefly about Garry Keogh. He was Irish and he was tough, but he ran his own rig and he’d got to live. His approach to the whole thing was entirely different from mine.
The following morning, Tuesday, June 3rd, broke in a grey mist. The sun came through, however, before we had finished breakfast and for three hours it shone from a clear blue sky and insects hovered round us in the heat. But shortly after midday, thunder heads began to build up to the west. Boy got in about two. He’d hitched a ride up from Quesnel in one of the cement trucks and had picked up his horse in Come Lucky on the way down to our rendezvous at the entrance to Thunder Creek. He had a copy of the Calgary Tribune with him. They had run the story of Campbell’s Kingdom as a news item on the front page and there was a long feature article inside. Boy had I