I must have passed out, for when I next remembered anything I was lying on the sodden earth, still clutching the branch with my right hand, my left hand twined in Max’s jacket. He was lying face down beside me, his left ear almost torn off by a jagged cut that had opened to show the white of his jaw bone. And just beyond Max, only a few yards below us, a colossal flood of brown water went ripping and roaring down Thunder Creek. The valley was a cataract a thousand yards across, and the face of the slide was a monstrous series of falls and rapids. And in the center of this violent rush of water great rocks were on the move, grinding slowly down through a welter of foam. And on the fringes the scene was one of mad devastation, timber and earth and brush swept clean down to the bare rock by the first rush of the waters. I stared at it all through a blur of pain, saw the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment and the lake spilling through the cleft, felt the sun blazing down on me and passed out again.
I think it was pain that brought me round. I heard a voice say, “It’s his leg all right.” I opened my eyes to see two faces bending over me. And then they began to move me, and I was screaming as the pain ran up my right side, splintering like sparks of electricity in my brain.
For hours it seemed I alternated between periods of blessed unconsciousness and periods of searing pain. I remember the noise and jolting of a truck, the sound of voices, the feel of a spoon against my teeth and the smell of brandy. I think I must have asked at some time about Max. At any rate, I knew somehow that he was alive. And then there were starched uniforms and the smell of ether and the jab of a needle.
I woke at last, to full consciousness in a little room where the blinds were drawn against, the sunlight. There was a movement beside me and a hand closed over mine. I turned then and saw Jean bending over me. Her face was pale and drawn, but her eyes smiled at me. “Better?”
I nodded, trying to accustom myself to the surroundings, to her presence. It was so quiet after the roar of the waters. My right leg was wooden and solid, my chest stiff and painful. It hurt to breathe and I had to force myself to speak.
“I’m in a hospital, aren’t I?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Don’t talk. And don’t worry. You’re all right. You’ve broken a leg, a collarbone and three ribs. The doctor says you’ll be fine in a week or two.”
“And Max?”
“Fractured skull and his left arm’s broken. But he’ll be all right. There’s a bullet wound in his leg, but it’s not serious.” Her hand reached out, touched my forehead, and then her fingers were sliding through my hair in a caress. “Don’t worry, darling. Everything’s going to be all right.”
I lay back and closed my eyes. I felt very sleepy. Her voice seemed a long way away. My mind was drugged. Her voice got fainter and fainter. She was saying something about the rig, about newspapermen, about them knowing now that we’d struck oil. It didn’t seem important any more and her voice faded entirely as I slid into sleep again.
When next I woke the room was dark. I lay there for a long time, my eyes open, seeing nothing in the darkness. I was thinking what a waste of effort this was, this struggle back to life. Why couldn’t I have died there, quickly and easily in the flood of the burst dam? And then I remembered Max and how I had held him against the tearing grasp of the flood, and I was glad. God had been good to me. He had given me time to get the men away from the slide, and we’d brought in a well. And suddenly words were forming on my lips and I was thanking God that I had been able to achieve so much.
Slowly light filtered into the room and day dawned, gray and thick with cloud mist. A nurse brought breakfast in to me. “Well, how’s the great oil man this morning?”
I stared at her and she laughed. “You don’t imagine anybody’s discussing the international situation, with you here in town, do you?” She put the tray down on a bed table and swung it across me. “Now, you stay quiet and eat that egg. It’s time you got some food inside you. And I brought you the papers, so that you can read all about yourself. Doctor Graham said he reckoned that was about the best tonic for you he had in the hospital. And here’s a letter for you.”
I took the envelope and slit it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper, most of which was filled with signatures. The letter was very brief and as I read my eyes blurred.
The Golden Calf,
Come Lucky, B.C.
Dear Mr. Wetheraclass="underline" This letter, signed by all of us who were working on the site of the power station, is to tell you how grateful we all are to you. If you had not risked your life and come down the hoist to warn us, not one of us would be alive today. We sure are sorry that you are in hospital because of this and wish you a speedy recovery. We will do what we can to express our gratitude and in the meantime we would like you to know that you can count on the undersigned at any time to do anything to assist you.
There followed three columns of signatures, spreading over on to the back — names that were of Polish, French, Italian and Chinese origin as well as English.
I looked up at the nurse. “What day is it?” I asked her.
“Friday.”
And the Kingdom had been flooded on Tuesday. “I’ve been out a long time,” I murmured.
“Not as long as you will be if you don’t get some food inside you,” she said as she went out.
As I ate my breakfast I read through the papers. They were full of the disaster. But there was the story of the well we had brought in too — interviews with Garry and Johnny, and in one of them a long feature article headed: There’s Oil in the Rocky Mountains. The writer was Steve Strachan, and in it he acknowledged the quotation as belonging to Stuart Campbell, and made it clear that the old man was now completely vindicated. I put the paper down and lay back, suddenly completely happy.
The doctor came in then. He gave my broken bones only a cursory examination and then started to go over me thoroughly, listening to my breathing, taking my blood pressure, feeling my pulse, listening to my heart beat, and all the time asking me questions.
“What’s the trouble, doc?” I asked him.
“Oh, just a routine checkup.”
But I knew this wasn’t routine for a man with a broken leg and a few broken ribs. And when they wheeled in the X-ray apparatus, I knew he was on to the real trouble.
“You’re wasting your time,” I said, and I told him what Maclean-Hervey’s verdict had been.
He shrugged his shoulders and I bit my lip as they shifted me to get the screen and X-ray tube in position. “How did you know?” I asked him.
“Jean Lucas told me,” he answered.
“Jean!” I stared at him, wondering how Jean knew.
They were some time taking the photographs and when they had finished they made me comfortable and trundled the equipment out. The doctor was not in the room, but he returned a few minutes later. “All right, Mr. Wetheral? I hope they didn’t cause you too much pain moving you.”
“No,” I said. “It just seemed pointless, that’s all.”
He nodded and drew up a chair beside me. “Does it occur to you that for a man who was given two to six months to live way back in the spring you’ve been remarkably active lately?”
“There seemed no point in conserving energy,” I murmured.
“No, no, of course not.” He hesitated, and then said quietly, “There have been cures, you know.”