Slowly I climbed down and back into the cab. “Okay,” I murmured as I sank back into the seat. “Let’s go and join the others.”
The driver was staring at me. His face looked white and scared in the dashboard tights. The heavy Diesel coughed and roared, the tanker ground forward around the curve of the hill, down the straight, run to the swamp ground, and then Garry was there, guiding the driver as he backed the tanker alongside the other trucks.
“What was that noise?” Garry naked as the driver cut his engine. His face, too, looked scared in the faint light from the cab.
“There’s been a bit of a fall,” I said wearily.
“A fall?” Then he saw the dynamiting equipment lying beside me on the seat. “Do you mean you’ve blown the road?”
“That’s about it,” I said.
“But, hell, man, that’s a criminal offense!”
“We’ll see,” I said. “It won’t be easy to prove.”
“I should have insisted on your telling me your plan before—”
“There wasn’t time,” I said. And then suddenly I lost my temper.
“Damn it, how did you think we were going to get a rig up there? Ask Trevedian to be kind enough to bring it up for us? Well, I did that. I warned him this was a public highway, built with government money. He laughed in my face.”
Boy had come up beside him. “What do we do next, Bruce?” His voice was steady, quite natural, as though this were the most ordinary thing in the world. I liked Boy for that. He understood. For him a thing that was done was done.
“I’ve phoned the camp,” I said. “We wait here until they’re all down at the fall.”
“And then we blow up the camp, I suppose?” Garry said sarcastically.
“No,” I replied. “Just a bridge. Better get some rest, both of you,” I added. “We’ve got a long night’s work.”
Boy turned away, but Garry hesitated, and then he nodded slowly, “Guess you’re right,” he said, and went back to his truck.
Half an hour later headlights pierced the snow for a moment and ft truck rumbled past. Another truck followed a few minutes afterward, and then another. We waited and watched. There were still two more trucks. Five minutes... ten. Nothing came. At length I got out of the cab and walked up the line to Garry’s truck.
“I think we’ll risk it,” I said. “Go one mile and then stop. As soon as I’ve blown the bridge, I’ll change places with Boy and ride up with you. Okay?”
Garry opened his mouth to soy something, but then closed it again. “Okay,” he said.
One by one, the trucks pulled out and swung onto the road. I followed in the last truck. Our headlights nosed the red taillight of the truck ahead. The hill was short and steep. For an awful moment I thought we were going to get stuck. But a moment later we were lipping the top of the hill and running down to the torrent.
A hundred yards beyond the bridge I had my driver stop and I ran back to fit my battery wires. The explosion was much sharper this time. When I went forward to look at the bridge, it was a tumbled mass of logs. The drop to the torrent bed was only a few feet. Nobody would get hurt if a truck failed to pull up in time.
I got back into the cab, and half a mile farther on we caught up with the taillight of the truck ahead. They had pulled up, engines panting softly in the darkness. I ran up to the leading truck and sent Boy back to bring up the rear. Garry looked at me once out of the comer of his eye, but he said nothing and we started forward up the long drag to the camp.
It was twelve-forty when we saw the lights of a hut. More lights appeared as we slowly followed the road across the camp area.
“Do you reckon they’ve all gone down in those trucks?” Garry asked. It was the first time he had spoken.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hope so.”
We were almost clear of the camp when a man suddenly ran out into the middle of the road, flagging us down with his arm.
I could feel myself trembling, and my feet and hands felt deathly cold. Something had gone wrong. Another man appeared beside the first; another and another — a whole bunch of them. As we pulled up, they crowded round us. “Switch the dashboard light off,” I said to the driver. And then, leaning out of the darkness of the cab, I flashed the beam of my torch on them, blinding them.
“What are you boys doing up here?” I rasped. “Didn’t you get Trevedian’s orders? Every man is wanted down the trail! There’s been a bad fall! One of our trucks is buried!”
A man stepped forward, a big gangling fellow with a battered nose. “We only got here yesterday. They must have forgotten about us, I guess. We didn’t know what was going on.”
I said, “Well, you’d better get going as fast as you can. Trevedian wants everybody down there.”
“Why didn’t you boys stay there?”
“We had to clear the road,” I said quickly. “Besides, this stuff has to be up on top and operating tomorrow. Anybody on the hoist?”
“I don’t know,” the big fellow answered. “We’re new here.”
“Well, if you’re new here you’d better look lively and get down the road. Trevedian’s a bad man to fall out with.”
“Tough, eh? Well, nobody ain’t going to get tough with me.” His voice was drowned in a bobble of talk. Then the men began to drift away to their hut. I signaled the driver to go on, and we rumbled into the trees and down the slope to the edge of the slide. There a whole circle of lights blazed on the dazzling white of the snow, lighting up the concrete box of the cable housing. A figure appeared, armed with a rifle. “Hell!” I breathed. That fool Butler had failed to collect the guard.
I clambered down from the cab and started to explain. But as he on as I told him we’d got to get our trucks up the hoist, he began asking me for my pass. “Don’t be a fool, man!” I shouted. “Trevedian’s down at the fall, trying to clear it! How would he issue passes? Can you work the motor?”
He shook his head. “Nobody’s allowed to touch the engine except the hoist men.”
“This isn’t routine!” I yelled at him. “This is an emergency! Don’t you know what’s happened?” He shook his head. I leaned closer. “Better keep this under your hat. There’s a bad crack developed in the foundations of the dam. They think the cliff face may be moving. We’ve got to drill and find out what the layer underneath is formed of. And we’ve got to do it damned quick.” I caught hold of his arm. “Hell, man, what do you think we’re doing up here when one of our own trucks is buried under a fall? But Trevedian wouldn’t let us stay. He said it was more important to get our trucks up on schedule.”
The man hesitated, conviction struggling against, caution. “You wait here,” he said, and hurried back to the housing, Garry joined me. Through the doorway I could see him winding and winding at the telephone.
“What’s going to happen?” Garry asked.
“It’ll work out,” I said.
“Well, no rough stuff,” he growled. “We’ve done about ten thousand dollars’ worth of damage already tonight.”
The guard came out of the housing. “I can’t get any reply.” His voice was hesitant. He was unsure of himself.
“What did you expect?” I snarled at him. “There’s a million tons of rock down on the road and the line’s under it!” I turned as figures emerged into the glare of the lights, led by the man with the battered nose. “What’s the trouble?” I said.
“No keys in the trucks,” he said. “What do we do now?” Some carried picks and shovels. “If we could have one of your trucks—” he said.
I hesitated. Much as I wanted to get rid of them, I didn’t dare risk one of the trucks. “Are you just laborers or have any of you been taken on as engineers on the draw works of the hoist here?”