“Fine.” He peered at me. “Any financial propositions up your sleeve?”
“No,” I said. “It never occurred to me.”
“That’s okay.” He gave me a twisted smile. “When you’re old and rich, you get kinda suspicious about people’s motives. Now then, tell me about yourself.”
I started to tell him about Fothergill’s visit to my digs in London, and then suddenly I was telling him the whole story — about Maclean-Hervey’s verdict and my decision to emigrate. When I had finished, his eyes, which had been closed, flicked open. “Fine pair we are,” he said, and he managed a contorted grin that somehow made me realize that he was still something of a boy at heart. “So now they’re going to drown the Kingdom and you’re here to act as midwife. Well, maybe it’s for the best. It brought Stuart nothing but trouble.” He gave a little sigh and closed his eyes.
I liked him and because of that I felt I had to get the financial obligations settled. “I’ve seen Acheson,” I said. “He’ll settle up with you for the amount you advanced to the company. But I’m afraid the purchase price they’re prepared to pay won’t cover the survey.”
He fixed his gray eyes on me. “I thought this wasn’t a business visit!” he barked. “To hell with the money! You don’t have to worry about that. You’re under no obligation as far as I’m concerned. Do you understand? If you want to throw good money after bad and drill a well, you can go ahead.”
I laughed, “I’m not in a position to drill a well,” I said. “In any case, you’re the only per on who could do that. You own the mineral rights.”
“Yes, I’d forgotten that.” He took my glass and returned it with the bottle and his own glass to the cupboard. Then he leaned back and closed his eyes. “The mineral rights.” His voice was a barely audible murmur. “I wonder why Bladen was so keen; as keen as Stuart.” His left shoulder twitched in the slightest of shrugs. “I’d like to have been able to thumb my nose just once more at all the know-alls in the big companies. There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.” He gave a tired laugh. “Well, there it is. Winnick is a straight guy. He wouldn’t pull anything on me. You’d best go home, young feller. You want friends around you when you die. It’s a lonely business anyway.”
The nurse came in and said my time was up. I got to my feet. He held out his left hand to me. “Good luck,” he said. “I’m glad you came. If your doctor feller’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon. We’ll have a good chat then with all eternity ahead of us.” His eyes were smiling; his lips were tired and twisted.
I went out to my taxi and drove back to the hotel, the memory of that fine old shell of a man lingering with me.
I went up to my room and sat staring at Winnick’s report and thinking of the old man who had been my grandfather’s friend. I could understand his wanting that one final justification of his existence, wanting to prove the experts wrong. I needed the same thing. I needed it desperately. I pushed the papers into my suitcase and went down to get some lunch. At the desk was a short, stockily built man in an airman’s jacket, with a friendly face under a sweat-stained sombrero. He was checking out, and as I stood behind him, waiting, he said to the clerk, “If a feller by the name of Jack Harbin asks for me, tell him I’ve gone back to Jasper.”
“Okay, Jeff,” the clerk said. “I’ll tell him.”
Jasper! Jasper was in the Yellowhead Pass, the Canadian National’s gateway into the Rockies and the Fraser River valley. The Kingdom was barely fifty miles from Jasper as the crow flies. “Excuse me. Are you going by car?” The words were out before I had time to think it over.
“Yeah.” He looked me over and then his face crinkled into a friendly smile, “Want a ride?”
“Have you got room for me?”
“Sure. You’re from the Old Country, I guess.” He held out his hand. “I’m Jeff Hart.”
“My name’s Wetheral,” I said as I gripped his hand. “Bruce Wetheral.”
“Okay, Bruce. Make it snappy then. I got to be in Edmonton by tea time. I’ll he going on to Jasper the next day. I’ll be glad to have some company.”
It was all done on the spur of the moment. I didn’t have time to think of Acheson until I was in the big station wagon trundling north out of Calgary, and then I didn’t care. I was moving one step nearer the Kingdom and I was content to let it go at that. I lay back and relaxed in the warmth of the heater and the steady drone of the engine, listening to Jeff Hart’s gentle lazy voice giving me an oral introduction to the province of Alberta.
We reached Edmonton just before six and got a room at The Macdonald. I had moved into another world. This was the jumping-off place for the Arctic, the first outpost of civilization on the Alaska Highway. It had atmosphere, the atmosphere of a frontier town on which an oil boom had been superimposed.
I was dead beat by the time I crawled into my bed, and I was thankful when Jeff said he wouldn’t be leaving until after lunch. I stayed in bed all the morning, feeling weak and a little sick. The reaction from the strain of too much traveling had set in.
It was late that afternoon when we topped a rise and I got my first glimpse of Jasper.
“Do you know a man called Johnny Carstairs?” I asked my companion.
“The packer? Sure.”
“Where will I find him?”
“Oh, most anywheres around town. He wrangles a bunch of horses and acts as packer for the visitors in the summer.” The big car skidded on a patch of ice. “Better wait till the evening. You’ll find him in one of the beer parlors around seven.”
Jeff Hart dropped me at the hotel, saying he’d pick me up at seven and introduce me to Carstairs. I couldn’t face any food and went straight up to my room. I felt tired and short of breath. Looking in the mirror, I was shocked to see how gaunt my face was, the skin white and transparent so that the veins showed through it, and the stubble of my beard by contrast appeared a metallic blue. I lay down on the bed, lit a cigarette, and lying there, feeling the utter exhaustion of my body, I wondered whether I should ever get to Campbell’s Kingdom.
I must have dropped off into a sort of coma, for I woke up to find Jeff Hart bending over me, shaking me by the shoulders. “You gave me a turn,” he said. “Thought you’d never come around. You all right?”
“Yes,” I murmured, and forced myself to swing my feet off the bed. I sat there for a minute, panting and feeling the blood hammering in my ears.
“Would you like me to fetch a doctor?”
“No,” I said. “I’m all right.”
“Well, you don’t look it. You look like death. Better let the doctor look at you.”
I got to my feet then and caught him by the arm. “No. There’s nothing he can do about it.”
“But goldarn it, man, you’re ill.”
“I know.” I crossed to the window and stared at the peak of Edith Cavell, now a white marble monument against the darkening shadows of night. “There’s something wrong with my blood.”
“Then you’d better go to sleep again, I guess.”
“No, I’ll be all right,” I said. “Just wait while I wash, and then we’ll go down to the bar.”
As we went down, a party of skiers came in. They were Americans and their gaily colored wind-cheaters made a bright splash of color in the drab entrance to the hotel. We went through into the saloon.
“I sent word for Johnny to meet us here,” Jeff Hart said. He glanced at his watch. “He’ll be here any minute now.” The bartender came in. “Four beers.” His gaze swung to the door. “Here’s Johnny now... Make it six beers, will you, George?... Johnny, this is Bruce Wetheral.”
I found myself looking at a slim-hipped man in a sheepskin jacket and a battered hat. He had a kindly face, tanned by wind and sun, and his eyes had a faraway look, as though they were constantly searching for a distant peak.