“Understand you bin asking for me, Bruce?” He smiled and perched himself on a chair with the light ease of a man who sits on a horse most of his time. He turned to me. “What is it you’re wanting — horses?” He had a soft, lazy smile that crinkled the corners of his mouth and eyes.
“I’m not here on business,” I said. “I just wanted to meet you.”
“That’s real nice of you.” He smiled and waited.
“You knew an old man called Stuart Campbell, didn’t you?”
“King Campbell? Sure. But he’s dead now.”
“I know. You were one of the party that found his body.”
“That’s so, I guess.”
“Would you tell me about it?”
“Sure.” His eyes narrowed slightly and he frowned. “You a newspaper guy or somethin’?”
“No,” I said. “I’m Campbell’s grandson.”
His eyes opened wide. “His grandson!” He suddenly smiled. He had the softest, gentlest smile I’ve ever seen on a man’s face. “Well, well, King Campbell’s grandson.” He leaned across the table and gripped my hand.
And Jeff Hart clapped me on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you say who you were? I’d never have let you stop off at the hotel if I’d known.”
Johnny Carstairs said, “What’s brought you up here? You his heir or somethin’?”
I nodded.
He smiled that lazy smile of his. “Reckon he didn’t leave you much. What happens to the Kingdom? Do you own that now?”
“Yes.”
“Well, well.” The smile broadened into a puckish grin. “You got all the oil in the Rocky Mountains, Bruce.”
“You were going to tell me how you found his body,” I reminded him.
“Yeah.” He sat back, sprinkled salt into one of his glasses of beer and drank it. “Queer thing, that,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “He was fine and dandy when we got up there. An’ a week later he was dead.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well, it was this-away: I’d bin totin’ a couple of Americans round for the best part of two months. They were climbers and they did stuff for magazines, back in the States. When the snows started, they wanted to get some material on ghost towns, and I took them over to Barkerville and then on to Come Lucky. Well, by then of course they’d bin bitten by the bug to meet King Campbell and do a story on him, so I hired some ponies off Trevedian and we went up.”
He produced a little white cotton bag of tobacco and rolled himself a cigarette. “Well, there was the old man as chirpy as a gopher in the sunshine. Let ’em take his pitcher an’ stayed up half the night tellin’ ’em tall stories and drinking their rye.
“Next day they decide they’ll climb The Gillie. I stabled the horses with the old man-all except two which we took along to pack our gear. Well, a bit of a storm caught us on The Gillie; by the time we got to the ranch I guess we’d bin away the best part of a week. I figured somethin’ was wrong as soon as I saw there weren’t no smoke coming from any of the chimneys and no tracks in the snow outside either. We went into the house. The fire was dead and the place was deathly cold. The old man was lying face down on the floor just inside the door, like as though he was struggling to get outside and bring in some logs.”
“What do you think caused his death?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Old age, I guess. Or maybe he had a stroke and died of cold. I hope, when it comes to my turn, I’ll go like that. No fuss, no illness — and no regrets. Right to the end he believed there was oil up there.” He relit the stub of his cigarette and leaned back, his eyes half closed. “Ever hear him playin’ the pipes, Bruce?”
I shook my head. “I met him only once. That was in England and he’d just come out of prison.”
His sandy eyebrows lifted slightly. “So the prison stuff was true, eh? That was the only story I ever heard him tell more than once — that and about the oil. Mebbe they’re both true and you’re the richest man this side of the Canadian border.” He laughed. “ ‘There’s oil in the Rocky Mountains.’ Be a joke, Jeff, if it were true, wouldn’t it now?” He laughed and shook his head. “But he could play the pipes. A grand man.” He leaned forward and picked up his glass. “Your health!”
I raised my glass, thinking of the picture he was giving me of my grandfather and the Kingdom. “How do I get there?” I asked.
“Up to the Kingdom?” Johnny shook his head. “You won’t get up there yet for a month or more — not until the snow melts.”
“I can’t wait that long,” I said.
Johnny’s eyes narrowed as he peered across sat me. “You seem in a gol-darned hurry.”
“I am,” I said.
“Well, Max Trevedian might take you up from Come Lucky. He acts as packer and guide around there. But it’d be a tough trip, an’ he’s an ornery sort of critter anyway. Me, I wouldn’t look at it, not till the snows melt.”
I brought a dog-eared map out of my pocket and spread it on the table. “Well, how do I get to Come Lucky anyway?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, all I can suggest is you take the Continental out of here at one-thirty and go down to Kamloops. Stop off the night there and make inquiries. Or you can go on to Ashcroft. Either way you’ve got to get across that stretch of road from Ashcroft to Clinton. From Clinton you can take the Great Eastern up to Williams Lake or Quesnel. From either of those places you get into Come Lucky as best you can. My guess is that if the road is open between Ashcroft and Clinton, then you’ll probably be able to get all the way up to Hundred-and-Fifty-Mile House by road.”
I thanked him and folded the map up.
He looked across at me and his hand closed over my arm. “You’re a sick man, Bruce. Take my advice. Wait a month. It’s too early for traveling through the mountains except by rail.”
“I can’t wait that long,” I murmured. “I must get up there.”
“Well, then, wait a month.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” I stopped then. I couldn’t just tell them I hadn’t much time.
“Let him find out for himself, Jeff.” Johnny’s voice was gruff with anger. “Some people are just cussed. They got to learn the hard way.”
“It’s not that,” I said quickly.
“All right, then. What is it? What’s the gol-darned hurry?”
“It isn’t any of your business.” I hesitated, and then added, “I’ve got only a few months to live.”
They stared at me. Johnny’s eyes searched my face and then dropped awkwardly. He brought out his tobacco and concentrated on rolling a cigarette.
“I’m sorry, Bruce,” he said gently. Accustomed to dealing with animals, I think he’d read the truth of Maclean-Hervey’s opinion in my features.
But Jeff was a mechanic. “How do you know?” he asked. “You can’t know a thing like that.”
“You can if you’ve had the best man in London.” My voice sounded harsh. “He gave me six months at the outside,” I added. I got to my feet. My lips were trembling uncontrollably. “Good night,” I said. “And thanks for your help.” I didn’t want them to see that I was scared.
I had a chance to make $50,000 by selling some land I had never seen, but I turned the offer down. Although I was not wealthy, the money had little meaning for me. The land, on the other hand, aroused my curiosity.
A few weeks earlier, after I had assured a lawyer that I was Bruce Campbell Wetheral, I was told that I was sole legatee to the will of my grandfather, Stuart Campbell. My inheritance was a large tract of land in the Canadian Rockies known as Campbell’s Kingdom, and all the shares of the Campbell Oil Exploration Company. My grandfather had spent most of his life trying to prove there was oil in the Rockies. Although he had been sent to jail for fraud in connection with his oil project, he died convinced he was right about the oil.