I turned away toward the window. Johnny Carstairs and Jeff Hart. It was the best news I had had in a week.
It was around teatime that Johnny and Jeff rolled into Come Lucky in a station wagon plastered with mud. And it wasn’t long before I knew what had brought them. Jeff had met Boy Bladen down at Edmonton.
“He said something about that survey being phony,” Johnny said. “He said Trevedian fixed it and then sent his brother up to the Kingdom with the report.” His eyes were hard and narrow under their puffy lids. “He said you could give us the whole story. The road’s just open, so we came over. I was kinda fond of the old man,” he added. He turned abruptly, facing me. “Where’s Trevedian?”
“Up at the hoist,” I said. And then, because I was shocked by the tenseness of his features, I added, “There’s nothing you can do about it, Johnny.”
“No?” He suddenly smiled gently. “I’m madder’n hell. And when I’m that way the meanest critter on four legs won’t get the better of Johnny Carstairs — nor on two legs neither.” He turned abruptly to the door. “C’mon. Let’s go an’ feed.”
Johnny was one of those men whose values are real. I watched him as he sat eating, quiet and easy and friendly, exchanging banter with old Mac. Only his eyes reflected the mood that was still boiling inside him.
McClellan and Creasy were late getting back and we had nearly finished our meal by the time they arrived. “Was it all right. Jamie?” Mac asked.
“Of course it was.” For the first time since I had known him, James McClellan was smiling. “The motor was all right and so was the cable.” He nodded perfunctorily to Johnny as he sat down and got straight on with his meal. “What brings you here?” he asked. “Bit early in the season for visitors, isn’t it?”
“This is Jeff Hart, from Jasper,” Johnny said. “We came over to see friend Bruce here. Understand you wouldn’t take him up to the Kingdom this morning.”
“Peter Trevedian runs the transport here,” McClellan replied sullenly.
“Sure, sure. Peter Trevedian runs you and the whole goldarned town, from what I hear. Did you know about him sending his brother up to old Campbell with the report on that survey?”
Nobody said anything. The table had become suddenly silent. Anger underlay the mildness of Johnny’s tone, and it showed in his eyes.
“You’d better go and talk to Peter Trevedian,” McClellan said awkwardly.
Johnny 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 cornea to substituting phony survey figures and driving an old man to his death.”
McClellan pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “What are you getting at?”
“Nothing that you can’t figure out for yourself. 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.”
“Okay. Thanks.” Johnny 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 thirsty 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 bock, 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.
“Well?” Jeff asked as Johnny slid into the vacant choir 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. “Leastways you got yourself one friend in Come Lucky. She’s a real dandy, that girl. If I were a few years younger—” 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.
“Why, if it isn’t Johnny Carstairs.” He crossed the room, his hand outstretched. “What brings you up here this early in the year?”
Johnny 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 what I’m talking about! I’m talking about Stuart Campbell! You killed him!” Johnny’s voice vibrated through the silence of the room, “Why did you have to do it like that, striking at him through his—”
“Oh, atop 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 dawn to my office. We can talk there.” He turned toward the door.
“There’s nothing private in what I got to say.” Johnny 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 Tool. 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 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 has nothing to do with me — never has had. I just pack the materials in.” Trevedian’s voice had risen slightly. He moved a step nearer. It was like seeing a hull about to charge a matador.
Johnny laughed softly. It reacted on Trevedian like a slap in the face. His head came dawn and his fists clenched. A tingle of expectation ran through the room. “Think I don’t know what packing rates are?” Johnny 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 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.
Johnny came back to our table and knocked back the rest of his beer.