I nodded. For some reason I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
‘Now you must hurry. If they hear you are in Come Lucky-’ She hustled me to the door. ‘Put the boxes under your coat. Yes, that’s right. Ruth mustn’t see them. I think she suspects, but-’ Her frail fingers squeezed my arm. ‘It’s our secret, eh? She wouldn’t understand.’
Ruth Garret was waiting for us in the living-room. ‘What have you two been up to?’ The playfulness of the remark was lost in the sharpness of her eyes.’
‘We were just talking,’ her sister said quickly. She put her hand on my arm and led me out. She paused at the front door. ‘Are you going to marry Jean?’
The suddenness of the question took me by surprise.
‘You’re an extraordinary person,’ I said.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
I looked down at her and then slowly shook my head. ‘No.’
‘Why not? She’s in love with you.’ I didn’t answer. ‘Did you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you? Are you in love with her?’
Slowly I nodded my head. ‘But I can’t marry her,’ I said. And then briefly I told her why. ‘That’s also a secret between us,’ I said when I had finished.
‘Doesn’t it occur to you she might want to look after you?’
‘She’s been hurt once,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want to be hurt again. I can’t do that to her. I must go now.’
‘Yes, you must go now.’ She opened the door for me. As I stepped out into the night I turned. She looked very frail and lonely, standing there in the lamplight. And yet beneath the patina of age I thought I saw the girl who’d known my grandfather. She must have been very lovely. I bent and kissed her. Then I got on my horse and rode quickly out of Come Lucky.
PART THREE
CHAPTER ONE
I flew into Calgary from Edmonton on the morning of August 7th to be met by Calgary Tribune placards announcing: Larsen Company’s Dam Nearing Completion. There was a news story on the front page and inside they had devoted a full feature article to it. There was no mention of our drilling operations in the article, only a brief paragraph in the news story. It gave me a sense of impotence at the outset. I felt as though I were banging my head against a brick wall. It was in this mood that I reached the bank. In an English bank the arrival of a man with a box of gold dust and another containing gold bars would have caused a sensation and necessitated the completion of innumerable forms and declarations. In Calgary they just took it in their stride. I arranged for the necessary funds to be mailed to Boy at Wessels Farm and then went on to my lawyers. There I learned that the case I had come to fight had been dropped. I asked Letour whether this was a result of my threat to seek an injunction restraining Fergus from flooding the Kingdom, but he shook his head. No application for an injunction had been made and he explained to me at some length the legal difficulties of making such an application. The Act authorising the construction of the dam had been passed by the Provincial Parliament of British Columbia. It could only be repealed by a further Act. This would be a lengthy process. He advised me that my only hope was to bring in a well before the flooding of the Kingdom. The scale of compensation likely to be granted by the courts would then be so great as to make it impracticable for the Larsen Company to proceed with the project.
I went back to my hotel feeling that my trip to Calgary had been wasted. Not only that, but Fergus was apparently so sure of himself that he hadn’t even bothered to proceed with his charges in connection with the mineral rights. It left me with the impression that he didn’t consider me worth bothering about. And since Trevedian was undoubtedly keeping a watch on the rig I could well understand this. He must know by now that we were in bad country and drilling only two feet per hour.
I would have pulled out of Calgary the next morning only something happened that evening which radically altered my plans. I hadn’t been near the Calgary Tribune, feeling it would be a waste of time and that they had now lost interest in our drilling operations. However, I had phoned Winnick and I suppose he must have let them know I was in town for the editor himself rang me up in the afternoon and asked me to have dinner with him. And when I got to his club I found he had a CBC man with him and the whole picture suddenly brightened, for the CBC man wanted me to broadcast. The reason for his interest was in the copy of a big American magazine he had with him which contained an article headed: OIL VERSUS ELECTRICITY — Will the dream of an old-timer come true? Will his grandson strike oil up in his Rocky Mountain kingdom or will the men building the dam flood the place first? The author went up there and saw the start of this fantastic race. The author was Steve Strachan, the Calgary Tribune reporter who had first visited us.
This sudden interest in what we were doing gave me fresh heart. I stayed on and did the broadcast, for now that I was down in a town and forced to face the situation with realism I found I could not sustain the forced optimism that had been engendered by the tense atmosphere of the Kingdom. I was already subconsciously working towards obtaining the best compensation I could from the courts. Upon what they awarded me depended the extent to which I could repay those who had helped me. I made it clear, therefore, both in the broadcast and in the article I wrote for the Calgary Tribune, that we were into the igneous country that had stopped Campbell Number One and that given a few more weeks we should undoubtedly bring in a well.
This false optimism produced immediate dividends for on the morning after the broadcast Acheson came to see me. He looked pale and angry, which was not surprising since Fergus had sent him with an offer of $100,000. I was very tempted to accept. And then Acheson said, ‘Of course, in view of the publicity you have been getting, we shall require a statement that you are now of the opinion that Campbell was wrong and there is no oil in that area of the Rockies.’ ‘And if I don’t make the statement?’ ‘Then I’m instructed to withdraw the offer.’ I went over to the window and stood looking out across the railway tracks. To make that statement meant finally branding my grandfather as a liar and a cheat. It meant reversing all I’d aimed at in the last few months. It would be a final act of cowardice. ‘Would Fergus agree to free transportation of all vehicles and personnel down by the hoist and over the Thunder Valley road?’ ‘Yes.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll think about it.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’ll have to think fast then. This offer is open till midday.’ ‘What’s the hurry?’
‘Fergus wants to get shot of the whole business.’ He left me then and for an hour I paced up and down the room, trying to balance my unwillingness to accept defeat against the need to repay the men who had helped me. And then the bell-hop came and I knew why they had been in such a hurry to get a decision out of me. It was a telegram from Boy, dispatched from Keithley: Through sill at fifty-eight hundred. Drilling ten per hour. Everyone optimistic. Second consignment fuel on way. Boy. I stared at it, excitement mounting inside me, reviving my hopes, bursting like a flood over my mood of pessimism. I seized hold of the phone and rang Acheson. ‘I just wanted to let you know that half a million dollars wouldn’t buy the Kingdom now,’ I told him. ‘We’re in the clear and drilling ten feet an hour. You knew that damn well, didn’t you? Well, you can tell Fergus it’s going to cost him a fortune to flood the Kingdom.’ I slammed down the receiver without waiting for him to reply. The damned crooks! They’d known we were through the sill. They’d known it by the speed at which the travelling block moved down the rig. That’s why they’d increased their offer. I was laughing aloud in my excitement as I picked up the phone and rang the editor of the Calgary Tribune. I told him the whole thing, how they’d offered me $100,000 and they’d known all the time we were in the clear. ‘If they’ll only give us long enough,’ I said, ‘we’ll bring in that well.’