Campbell's Kingdom (20 page)

I opened out the documents. They were in respect of ‘The mineral rights in the territory known generally as Campbell's Kingdom.' There followed the necessary map references. I passed the papers across to Boy. ‘You were quite right,' I said.

Boy seized hold of them. ‘I knew I was. If Roger Fergus said he'd do a thing, he always did it. Louis said he was pretty taken with you. Thought you'd got a lot of guts and hoped for Stuart's sake you'd win out.'

I thought of the old man, half paralysed in that wheel-chair. I could remember his words—‘A fine pair we are.' And then: ‘I'd like to have seen one more discovery well brought in before I die.' There was a lump in my throat as I remembered those words. ‘I'm glad you came. If your doctor fellow's right, we'll maybe meet again soon.' It would be nice to tell him I'd brought in a well. But I wished he were in the thing with me. It would have been so much easier. I needed somebody experienced. I looked across at Keogh and then at Boy, the two of them so dissimilar, but neither of them capable of fighting a big company backed by the solid weight of unlimited finance and with lawyers to make legal rings round our efforts. Boy didn't understand what we were up against.

Keogh looked up from the documents Boy had passed him. He must have seen the doubt in my face for he said, ‘What do you plan to do, Wetheral—go ahead and drill?'

I hesitated. But my mind slid away from the difficulties. I could see only that old man sitting in the wheel-chair and behind him the more shadowy figure of my grandfather. Both of them had believed in me. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘If Winnick reports favourably, I'll go ahead—provided I can get the capital.'

Keogh fingered his lower lip, his eyes fixed on me. They were narrowed and sharp—not cunning, but speculating. ‘You'd find it a lot easier to raise capital if you'd brought in a well,' he murmured.

‘I know that.'

‘Boy mentioned something about your being willing to split fifty-fifty on all profits with those who do the development work.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘That's about it.'

He nodded abstractedly, stroking his chin. His fingers made a rasping sound against the stubble of his beard. Then suddenly he looked up. ‘I've been in the oil business over twenty years now and I've never had a proposition like this made to me. It's the sort of thing a drilling contractor dreams of.' His broken teeth showed in a grin. ‘It'd be flying in the face of providence to refuse it.' He turned to Boy. ‘If Winnick's report on that recording tape is optimistic then you'll go up to the Kingdom and do another survey. Okay?' Boy nodded. ‘If the proposition still looks good, then I'll come up here again and look over the ground.' He hesitated, staring down at me. ‘I'll be frank with you, Wetheral. This is a hell of a gamble. I've made a bit on the last two wildcats I drilled. Otherwise I wouldn't be interested. But I'm still only good for about a couple of months operating on my own. To be any use to me, there's got to be water handy and the depth mustn't be more than a few thousand feet, dependent on the nature of the country we have to drill through. But if all that's okay, then it's a deal.'

‘Fine,' I said.

He was staring down at his hands. ‘I started as a roustabout,' he said slowly. ‘I worked fifteen years as roughneck, driller and finally tool-pusher before I got together enough dough to get my own rig. I was another five years paying for it. Now I'm in the clear and making dough.' He smiled gently to himself. ‘Funny thing about human nature. Somehow it don't seem able to stop. You own a rig and you think that's fine and before you know where you are you're wanting an interest in an oil well.' His smile spread to a deep laugh. ‘I guess when a man's finished expanding, he's finished living.' He turned abruptly to the door. ‘Come on, Boy. Time we had a drink. You care to join us, Wetheral?'

‘Thank you,' I said. ‘But I've got some food coming up.'

‘Okay. Be seeing you before I leave.'

He went out. Boy hesitated. ‘It was the best I could do, Bruce. Garry's straight and he's a fighter. Once he gets his teeth into a thing he doesn't let up easily. But I'm sorry about Roger Fergus.'

‘So am I,' I said.

He had taken the spools containing the recording tape out of his pocket and was joggling them up and down on the palm of his hand. ‘Funny to think that these little containers may be the start of a new oilfield.' He stared at them, lost in his own thoughts. And then he said an odd thing: ‘It's like holding Destiny in the palm of one's hands. If this proves Louis's first report wrong . . .' He slipped them into his pocket. ‘Jeff lent me his station wagon. I'll get over to Keithley tonight so that they'll catch the mail out first thing in the morning. We should get Louis's report within three days.' He had moved over to the door and he stood there for a moment, his hand on the knob. ‘You know, somehow that makes me scared.' He seemed about to say something further, but instead he just said, ‘Goodnight,' and went out.

I lit a cigarette and lay back on my bed. Things were beginning to move and, like Boy, I felt scared. I wondered whether I'd have the energy to handle it all. Acheson would be arriving tomorrow. Probably he'd have Henry Fergus with him. Once they knew my intention . . .

There was a knock at the door and Jean came in. ‘How's the invalid?' She had a tray of food and she put it down on the table beside me. ‘Pauline was out, so I did the best I could. Johnnie said you were hungry.'

‘I could eat a horse.'

‘Well, this isn't horse.' She smiled, but it was only a movement of her lips. She seemed tensed up about something. ‘Boy and that big Irishman are down in the bar drinking.'

‘Well?' The steak was good. I didn't want to talk.

She was over by the window, standing there, staring at me. ‘It's all over the town that you're going to drill a well up in the Kingdom.'

‘That's what you wanted, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, but—' She hesitated. ‘Bruce. You should have made your plans without anybody here knowing what you were up to.'

I looked up from my plate. Her face was pale in the lamplight, the scars on her jaw more noticeable than usual. ‘I haven't any capital,' I said. ‘And when you haven't any capital you can't plan things in advance.'

‘If Henry Fergus decides to proceed with the dam you're headed for trouble.'

‘I know that.'

‘And if he doesn't, then the people here will be sore and they'll get at you somehow. Johnnie wasn't exactly clever in making an enemy of Peter.'

‘Appeasement is not in his line.'

‘No, but—' She gave a quick, exasperated sigh and sat down in the chair. ‘Can I have a cigarette, please?'

I tossed her a packet and a box of matches. ‘You don't seem to realise what you're up against, any of you. Boy I can understand, and Johnnie. But you're English. You've fought in the war. You know what happens when people get whipped up emotionally. You're not a fool.' She blew out a streamer of smoke. ‘It's as though you didn't care—about yourself, I mean.'

‘You think I may get hurt?' I was staring at her, wondering what was behind her concern.

‘You're putting yourself in a position where a lot of people would be glad if an accident happened to you.'

‘And you think it might?'

‘After last night anything could happen.' She was leaning forward. ‘What made you do such a crazy thing? You're now branded as a fool where mountains are concerned.'

‘What are you trying to tell me?'

‘That you're going about this business so clumsily that I'm afraid . . .' She stopped short, and then in a sudden rush of words: ‘How do you think you're going to get a drilling rig up to the Kingdom? From now on Trevedian will have a guard on the hoist. He won't even allow your rig to move on the new road. It's on his property and he's every right to stop you from trespassing. Even supposing you did get the rig up there, do you think they'd let it rest at that?' She got to her feet with a quick movement of anger. ‘You can't fight a man as big as Henry Fergus, and you know it.'

‘I can try,' I said.

She swung round on me. ‘This isn't the City of London, Bruce. This is the Canadian West. A hundred years ago there was nothing here—no railways, no roads; the Fraser River was only just being opened up. This isn't a lawless country, but it's been opened up by big companies and they've bulldozed their way through small interests. They've had to. Now you come out here from England and start throwing down the gauntlet to a man like Henry Fergus. Henry isn't his father. He isn't a pioneer. There's nothing lovable about him. He's a financier and as cold as six inches of steel.' She turned away to the window. ‘You're starting something that'll end on a mountain slope somewhere out there.' She nodded through the black panes of the window. ‘I know this sort of business. I was two years in France with the Maquis till they got me. I know every trick. I know how to make murder look like an accident.' She dropped her cigarette on to the floor and ground it out with the heel of her shoe. ‘You've made it so easy for them. You have an accident. The police come up here to investigate. Whatever I may say and perhaps others, they'll hear about last night and they'll shrug their shoulders and say that you were bound to get hurt sooner or later.'

I had finished my steak and I lit a cigarette. ‘What do you suggest I do then?'

She pushed her hand through her hair. ‘Sell out and go back home.' Her voice had dropped suddenly to little more than a whisper.

‘That wasn't what you wanted me to do when I first came to see you. You wanted me to fight.'

‘You were a stranger then.'

‘What difference does that make?'

‘Oh, I don't know.' She came and stood over me. Her face had a peculiar sadness. ‘This happened to me once before,' she said in a tired voice. ‘I don't want it to happen again.' She suddenly held out her hand. ‘Good-bye, Bruce.' She had control of her voice now and it was natural, impersonal. ‘I'll be gone in the morning. I'm taking a trip down to the coast. It's time I had a change. I've been in Come Lucky too long.'

I looked up at her face. It was suddenly older and there was a withdrawn set to her mouth. ‘You're running out on me,' I said.

‘No.' The word came out with a violence that was unexpected. ‘I never ran out on anybody in my life—or anything.' Her voice trembled. ‘It's just that I'm tired. I can't—' She stopped there and shrugged her shoulders. ‘If you come out to Vancouver—' She hesitated and then said, ‘I'll leave my address with the Garrets.'

‘Would you really like me more if I threw in my hand because the going looked tough?'

Her hands fluttered uncertainly. ‘It isn't a question of liking. It's just that I can't stand—' She got hold of herself with a quick intake of breath. ‘Good-bye, Bruce.' Her fingers touched mine. She half-bent towards me, a sudden tenderness in her eyes. But then she straightened up and turned quickly to the door. She didn't look round as she went out and I was left with the remains of my meal and a feeling of emptiness.

I went round to see her in the morning, but she had already left, travelling to Keithley with Max Trevedian and Garry Keogh in the supply truck. ‘Did she leave any message?' I asked Miss Garret.

‘No. Only her address.' She handed me a sheet of paper and her sharp, beady eyes quizzed me through her lorgnette. ‘Do you know why she left so suddenly, Mr Wetheral?'

‘No,' I said. ‘I don't.'

‘Most extraordinary. So unlike her to do anything suddenly like that. My sister and I are very worried.'

‘Didn't she give you any explanation?' I asked.

‘No. She just said she needed a change and was leaving.'

‘Did she say when she'd be coming back?'

‘No. She hardly spoke at all. She seemed upset.'

‘Ruth,' her sister's voice called from the other side of the room. ‘Don't forget the little box she left for Mr Wetheral.'

‘Of course not,' Ruth Garret answered a trifle sharply. ‘It's in my room. I'll get it for you.'

As she went through the door her sister scurried across the room to me. Her thin, transparent hand caught hold of my arm. ‘You silly boy,' she said. ‘Why did you let her go?'

‘Why?' I was a little taken aback. ‘What could I do to stop her?'

‘I wouldn't know what men do to stop a girl running away from them. I'm an old maid.' The blue eyes twinkled up at me. And then suddenly they were full of tears. ‘It's so quiet here without her. I wish she hadn't gone. She was so warm and—comforting to have around.' She dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. ‘When you have lived shut away for so long, it is nice to have somebody young in the house. It was so restful.'

‘You're fond of her, aren't you?' I asked.

‘Yes, very. It was—like having a daughter here. And now she's gone and I don't know when she'll be coming back.' She began to sob. ‘Youth is very cruel—to old people.'

I took hold of her by the shoulders, feeling the thin frailty of her bones. ‘Stop crying, Miss Sarah. Please. Tell me why she went away. You know why she went, don't you?' I shook her gently.

‘She ran away,' she sobbed. ‘She was afraid of life—like Ruth and me. She didn't want to be hurt any more.'

‘Do you know anything about her, before she came to Come Lucky?'

‘A little—not much. She was in France, a British agent working with the Resistance. She operated a radio for them. She was with her father and then when he was killed she worked with another man and—' She hesitated and then said, ‘I think she fell in love—' Her voice trailed off on a note of sadness.