Campbell's Kingdom (33 page)

‘Oil isn't much in your line, is it, Johnnie?' Jean said.

He grinned. ‘I guess not. But I'll need to know what we're to put on old Campbell's tombstone.'

‘Just quote him as saying “There's oil in the Rocky Mountains”,' Garry said. ‘That'll be enough.'

Everybody laughed. It was a thin, feverish sound against the racket of the drill and I thought of the grave I had found behind the ranch-house and how they were all up here because of him. They were pretty keyed up now, and their optimism had a feverish undercurrent that wasn't healthy.

As the days went by the suspense became almost unbearable. At first there were anxious inquiries as each shift came off duty, but as we approached the end of July the mood changed and we'd just glance at the shift coming off, unwilling to voice our interest, one look at their faces being sufficient to tell us that there were no new developments. The waiting was intolerable and a mood of depression gradually settled on the camp. We were drilling through quartzite and making slower progress than we had hoped. Time was against us. With each day's drilling our fuel reserves were dwindling. And meanwhile the dam was moving steadily towards completion. Sometimes of an evening Jean and I would ride up to the rock buttress and look at the work. Already by the first week in August there was only a small section to be completed and engineers were working on the installation of the sluices and pens. From higher up the mountainside we could see that work on the power station beside the slide had also started. Some of the drilling crew were in touch with men working on the dam from whom they were able to purchase cigarettes at an inflated price, and from them they learned that the completion date was fixed for August 20th. Worse still, the Larsen Company planned to begin flooding immediately in order to build up a sufficient head of water to run a pilot plant during the winter.

At the beginning of August we were approaching five thousand five hundred and Garry was getting restive. So were his crew. They had been up in the Kingdom for almost two months. The cuttings, screened from the mud as it flowed back into the sump pit, showed us still in the metamorphic rock. No jokes were cracked on the site now. Nobody spoke much. Four of the boys had started a poker school. I tried to break it up, but there was nothing else for them to do. They'd no liquor and no women and they were fed up.

The inevitable happened. There was a fight and one of them, a fellow called Weary Dodds, got a finger smashed in the draw works. He was lucky not to have had his arm ripped off for he was flung right against the steel hawser that was lifting the travelling block. Jean patched it up as best she could, but she couldn't patch up the atmosphere of the camp—it was very tense.

Just after nine on the morning of August 5th they pulled pipe for what they all hoped might be the last time. The depth was five thousand four hundred and ninety feet. They were all down on the rig, waiting. They waited there all morning, watching the grief stem inching down through the turntable and I stood there with them feeling sick with apprehension. They pulled pipe again at two-fifteen. Another sixty-foot length of pipe was run on and down went the drill again, section by section. The depth was now five thousand five hundred and fifty feet. Those not on shift drifted back to the ranch-house. We had some food and a tense silence brooded over the meal.

At length I could stand the suspense no longer. I drew Garry on one side. ‘Suppose we don't strike the anticline exactly where we expect to,' I said. ‘What depth are you willing to drill to?'

‘I don't know,' he said. ‘The boys are getting restive.'

‘Will you give it a margin of two thousand feet?'

‘Two thousand!' He stared at me as though I were crazy. ‘That's nearly a fortnight's drilling. It'd take us right up to the date of completion of the dam. Anyway, we haven't the fuel.'

‘I can pack some more up.'

He looked at me, his eyes narrowed. ‘There's something on your mind. What is it?'

‘I just want to know the margin of error you're willing to give it.'

He hesitated and then said, ‘All right, I'll tell you. I'll drill till we've exhausted the fuel that's already up here. That's four days more. That'll take us over six thousand.'

‘You've got to give a bigger margin than that,' I said.

He caught hold of my arm then. ‘See here, Bruce. The boys wouldn't stand for it.'

‘For God's sake,' I said. ‘You've been drilling up here now for two months. Are you going to throw all that effort away for the sake of another fortnight?'

‘And risk losing my rig when they flood the place? Good Christ, man, you don't seem to realise that we've all had about as much as we can take. I've lost two trucks; neither the rig nor any of the boys are earning their keep. If we don't bring in a well—'

He stopped then for the door burst open and Clif Lindy the driller on shift, came in. There was a wild look in his eyes. ‘What is it, Clif?' Garry asked.

‘We're in new country,' he said.

‘The anticline?'

But I knew it wasn't the anticline. His face, his whole manner told me that this was the moment I had dreaded. They had reached the sill.

‘We're down to rock as hard as granite and we've worn a bit out in an hour's drilling.' He caught hold of Garry's arm. ‘For God's sake,' he said, ‘let's get the hell out of here before we're all of us broke.'

‘How much have you made in the last hour?' Garry asked.

‘Two feet. The boys want to know shall we stop drilling?'

Garry didn't say anything. He just stood there, looking at me, waiting to see what I was going to say.

‘You're just throwing away good bits and wearing out your rig for nothing,' Clif said excitedly.

‘What do you say, Bruce?' Garry asked.

‘It's the same formation that stopped Campbell's cable-tool rig. If you get through this—'

‘At two feet an hour,' Clif said with a laugh that trembled slightly. ‘We could be a month drilling through this.' He turned to Garry. ‘The boys won't stand for it, not any more. Nor will I, Garry. I don't mind risking a couple of months for the chance of making big dough. But we know damn well now that we're not going to bring in a—'

‘How do you know?' I cut in.

He laughed. ‘You go and ask Boy. You ask him what he thinks about it. Only you won't find him, not around camp here. He's away into the mountains to brood over Campbell's folly—and his own. He thought when the country changed we'd be down to the anticline. He didn't expect to get into igneous country this deep.' His fingers dug into my flesh as he gripped my arm. ‘If you want my opinion Boy Bladen doesn't know enough about geophysics to plot a gopher hole. As for Winnick, well damn it, isn't it obvious? His office is right next door to Henry Fergus. He's put it across you.' He looked across at Garry and his tone was suddenly quieter as he said, ‘The boys want to haul out.'

Garry didn't say anything for a moment. He stood there rasping his fingers along the line of his jaw. ‘I wonder how thick through this sill is,' he murmured. ‘Most of them around here are not more than a hundred, two hundred feet—those that are exposed on the mountain slopes, that is.'

‘That's four days' drilling,' Clif said. ‘And what's below the sill, when we get through it? I ain't a geologist, but I'm not such a fool as to expect oil bearing country directly below a volcanic intrusion.'

Garry nodded slowly. ‘I guess you're right, Clif.' He turned towards the door. ‘I'll come down and have a look at what's going on. Coming, Bruce?'

I shook my head. I stood there, watching them disappear through the doorway, a mood of anger and bitterness struggling with the wretchedness of failure.

‘I'm sorry, Bruce.' A hand touched my arm and I turned to find Jean beside me.

‘You heard?'

‘No, Boy told me. I went down to see to the horses and found him in there, saddling up. I came back to—' She hesitated and then finished on a note of tenderness: ‘To break it to you.'

‘Why the hell didn't Boy have the guts to come and tell me himself,' I exploded.

‘Boy's sensitive,' she murmured.

‘Sensitive?' I cried, giving rein to my feelings. ‘You mean he's a moral coward. Instead of supporting me and trying to lick some enthusiasm into this miserable bunch of defeatists, he immediately concludes his survey is inaccurate and goes crawling off into the mountains like a wounded cur. I suppose that's the Indian in him.'

‘That's a rotten thing to say.' Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright with sudden anger.

‘If you think so much of the little half-breed,' I said, ‘why don't you go with him to nurse his wounded pride?'

She opened her mouth to speak, and then slowly closed it. ‘I'll get you some coffee,' she said quietly and went through into the kitchen.

I flung myself into the one armchair. Probably Stuart Campbell had flung himself into the self-same chair when he got the news that drilling was no longer possible on Campbell Number One. It wasn't Boy's fault any more than it was Garry's. They'd both of them taken a chance on the property. They couldn't be expected to go on when they'd lost all hope of bringing in a well. The anger and bitterness I had felt had subsided by the time Jean returned with the coffee. ‘I'm sorry,' I said. ‘I shouldn't have let fly like that.'

She put the tray down and came and stood near me. Her hand reached out and touched my hair. Without thinking I took hold of it, grasping it tightly like a drowning man clutching at a straw. The next moment she was in my arms, holding my head down against her breast. The feel of her body comforted me. The promise of happiness whatever happened to the Kingdom filled me with a sudden feeling that life was good. I kissed her lips and her hair, holding her close, not caring any longer about anything but the fact that she was there in my arms. And then very gently I pulled myself clear of her and got to my feet. ‘I must go down to the rig,' I said.

‘I'll come with you.'

‘No. I'd rather go alone. I want to talk to them.'

But when I got there I knew by the expression on their faces that this wasn't the moment. They were sitting around in the hut and the rig was silent. They were as angry and bitter as I had been, but with them it was the bitterness of defeat.

The decision to quit was taken the following morning. And as though he'd been given a cue Trevedian arrived whilst we were still sitting round the breakfast table. We all sat and stared at him, wondering what the hell he wanted. I saw Garry's big hand clench into a fist and Clif half rose to his feet. I think Trevedian sensed the violence of the hostility for he kept the door open behind him and he didn't come more than a step into the room. His black eyes took in the bitterness and the anger and then fastened on me. ‘I've brought a telegram for you, Wetheral. Thought it might be urgent.'

I got slowly to my feet, wondering why he should have bothered to come all the way up with it. But as soon as I'd read it I knew why. It was from my lawyers.

HENRY FERGUS INSTITUTING PROCEEDINGS AGAINST YOU IN CIVIL COURTS FOR FRAUDULENTLY GAINING POSSESSION MINERAL RIGHTS CAMPBELL'S KINGDOM MORTGAGED TO ROGER FERGUS. ESSENTIAL YOU RETURN CALGARY SOONEST. WILLING TO ACT FOR YOU PROVIDED ASSURED YOUR FINANCIAL POSITION. PLEASE ADVISE US IMMEDIATELY. GRANGE AND LETOUR, SOLICITORS.

I looked up at Trevedian. ‘You know the contents, of course?'

He hesitated, but there was no point in his denying it. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘If you care to let me have your reply I'll see that it's sent off.' There was a note of satisfaction in his voice, though he tried to conceal it. I wondered which of the boys kept him informed about what was happening on the rig. The timing was too good for it to be coincidence.

‘What is it?' Jean asked.

I handed her the wire. It was passed from hand to hand. And as I watched them reading it I knew that this was the end of any hope I might have had of getting them to drill deeper. With the mineral rights themselves in doubt the ground was cut away from under my feet. And yet . . . I was thinking of Sarah Garret and what she had said there in my room that night.

‘So they're starting to work on you,' Garry said.

‘I've ample proof of what happened,' I said.

‘Sure, you have—that is till you see what the witnesses themself are willing to say in the box. I'm sorry, Bruce,' he added. ‘But looks like they're going to put you through the mincer now.'

‘Fergus told me to give you a message,' Trevedian said. ‘Settle the whole business out of court, sell the Kingdom and he'll give you the $50,000 he originally offered.'

I didn't say anything. I was still thinking about Sarah Garret. Had she meant it? But I knew she had. She'd not only meant it, but she wanted to help. I went over to the desk and scribbled a reply.

As I finished it Garry's voice suddenly broke the tense silence of the room: ‘Two thousand dollars a vehicle! You must be crazy.'

I turned and saw that he'd taken Trevedian on one side. Trevedian was smiling. ‘If you want to get your trucks down, that's what it's going to cost you.'

Garry stared at him. The muscles of his arms tightened. ‘You know damn well I couldn't pay it. I'm broke. We're all of us broke.' He took a step towards Trevedian. ‘Now then, suppose you quote me a proper price for the use of the hoist.'

Trevedian was back at the open door now. Through the window I saw he hadn't come alone. Three of his men were waiting for him out there. Garry had seen them too and his voice was under control as he said, ‘For God's sake be reasonable, Trevedian.'

‘Reasonable! By God I'm only getting back what it cost us to repair the road after you'd been through.'