It was the opportunity I’d been wanting, the excuse to get out without raising their suspicions. But I hesitated because the door seemed a long way off and I was afraid my voice might give me away.
‘I asked you whether you could drive a speeder.’ His voice was impatient.
‘Sure,’ I said, and started for the door.
Maybe it was my voice or maybe I moved too quickly. I heard him say, ‘Who is that guy?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer. He was already coming down the coach after me. ‘Just a minute!’
I had almost reached the door where my suitcase stood and I might have made a dash for it then, but I hadn’t had time to think what the use of a speeder could mean to me. I just felt it was hopeless to try and get away from him, and so I turned and faced him.
He had almost caught up with me, but when I turned and he saw my face, he stopped abruptly. ‘Ferguson!’ There was a look of blank astonishment in his eyes as though he couldn’t believe it. ‘How the hell…’ And then his big hands clenched and the muscles of his jaw tightened.
It was the knowledge that he was going to hit me that made my brain seize on the one thing that might stop him. ‘Briffe is alive,’ I said.
He checked then. ‘Alive?’
‘At least he was when Laroche left him. I’m certain of that now.’
‘And what makes you so damned certain?’ His voice was dangerously calm.
‘Laroche,’ I said. ‘He came to my room last night and he virtually admitted — ‘
‘What room? Where?’
‘At One-three-four.’
‘One-three-four. That’s a lie. Bert’s at Seven Islands.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s at Head of Steel right now. Ask them.’ And I nodded at the two engineers.
That seemed to shake him for he said, ‘He followed you, did he?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He’s scared and — ‘
‘So would I be scared. I’d be scared as hell if I knew some crazy fool — ‘
‘It’s not me that’s crazy,’ I cried.
He stared at me. ‘What do you mean by that?’ His voice had suddenly gone quiet again.
‘It’s Laroche,’ I said quickly. ‘For some reason he can’t get the Ferguson Expedition out of his mind. He crashed at Lake of the Lion and something happened there that’s driving him…’ He had taken a step forward and my voice trailed away.
‘Go on,’ he said ominously. ‘You think something happened there? What do you think happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ I murmured. ‘But it’s preying on his mind.’
‘What is?’
‘I don’t know,’ I repeated. That’s what I’ve got to find out. But he asked me whether I thought he’d killed them and then he said he was sure Baird was dead. He didn’t say-‘
‘You damned little liar!’ He had suddenly lost his temper. ‘First you say he left Briffe alive. Now you try to suggest he killed Baird. My God!’ he cried, and I backed away from him into the open doorway. I was out on the steel platform then and below me was the track with the speeder standing there, its engine ticking over. ‘You slip up the line,’ he was saying, ‘and try to make people believe a lot of wild, lying accusations. Well, you’re not going any farther. Goddammit!’ he added. ‘If you weren’t just a kid — ‘
That was when I slammed the door in his face and leapt down on to the track and straight on to the speeder. I let go the brake and thrust it into gear, revving the engine, the way I’d seen the gang foreman do it, and I was just easing the belt on to its drive when he hit the ground beside me. He reached out and grabbed at the hand rail just as I got the speeder moving. He missed it and I heard him swear, and then his feet were pounding after me. But by then I was gathering speed, and after that I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of the engine and the beat of the wheels on the rail joints.
I was clear of him. That was what the wind sang in my ears. Clear of him, and I had transport. I glanced back over my shoulder as I ran clear of the bunkhouse train. He was standing in the middle of the track shouting something and waving his arms. I didn’t know he was trying to warn me and I waved back out of sheer bravado, and then I pushed the throttle wide open, crouched low and riding the speeder like a motor-bike.
The switch to the double track clattered under the wheels and beyond there was nothing but the twin rails streaming out ahead of me to a long curve where the speeder bucked and swayed. When I looked back again the double track and the bunkhouse train had vanished. I was riding alone, with nothing behind or in front but the track with the snow-spattered jackpine crowding it on either side.
CHAPTER THREE
For the first mile or two I was swept forward on a tide of exhilaration — the sense of speed, the illusion of power. I felt that nothing could stop me from reaching Lake of the Lion and finding Briffe still alive, and I drove the speeder full out, the wheel flanges screaming on the curves and the virgin country streaming past on either side.
But the mood didn’t last. My fingers stiffened with cold where the gloves were worn, my feet became deadened lumps inside the chill casing of my boots and the wind on my face was a biting blast. I hit a bad patch, where the track had recently been ballasted and the steel was half buried in gravel, and I had to throttle down. I became conscious of the country then, the difficulties that faced me; Lands would phone Head of Steel and the whole organization would be against me.
I must have passed dozens of telegraph poles lying beside the track before it dawned on me that the linesmen hadn’t yet reached this section of the track. Lands couldn’t phone them. He’d have to get another speeder and come after me. I opened the throttle wide again, and as I did so there came the crack of a rifle and I ducked my head. But when I looked back over my shoulder, the track behind me was empty.
I thought maybe it was a stone then, thrown up from the track. But the rifle cracked again, unmistakable this time, and suddenly I could hear wild human cries above the noise of the engine. They came from away to my left where a lake glimmered like pewter through a screen of trees. There was a canoe there and an Indian stood in the bows, a rifle to his shoulder, and close inshore a head and antlers thrust towards the shallows. There was a crashing in the undergrowth and the caribou broke cover a hundred yards ahead of me. It hesitated a moment, pawing at the steel of the track, and then with a quick terrified leap it was across and had vanished into the bush on the other side.
I didn’t catch sight of the Indians again, for the track went into a long bend. There were levelling stakes beside the track here and in the stretch beyond I found the engineers who had put them there. They stood in a little group round their speeder, which had been lifted clear of the track, and as I rattled past them one of them shouted what sounded like ‘Attention?
He was a French Canadian with a round fur cap like a Russian and before I had worked out that it was a shout of warning I was into the next bend. It was ballast again and the speeder bucked violently as the gravel flew, and through the rattle of the stones came the lost hoot of an owl. And then I was round the bend, clear of the gravel, and there was something on the line ahead. I slammed on the brake as the weird owl-hoot sounded again, louder and clearer, suddenly unmistakable.
Before the speeder had jerked to a halt I could see the yellow paintwork of the locomotive, could feel the rails trembling under me. There was no hope of getting the speeder off the track in time, not by myself. I did the only thing I could and flung the gear lever into reverse, opening the throttle wide and tearing back down the track, round the bend to where the little knot of engineers stood waiting.
The instant I stopped they crowded round, the lifting bars were pulled out and then they dragged it clear just as the train came rumbling round the curve. The hooter wailed again, loud as a trumpet note between the enclosing walls of the jackpine, and then the heavy locomotive was on top of us, sliding by at walking pace with a smell of hot engine oil and a slow piston-beat of power. The driver leaned out and shouted down: ‘You want to commit suicide, just jump in the muskeg. Don’t pick on me.’ He spat into the slush at my feet and went back to the controls. The beat increased with a roar like a power station and the diesel gathered way again, clanking a long line of empty rail flats. And behind the flats came two wooden coaches with men looking down at us incuriously from the windows.