The End of the Line (14 page)

“Of course, Mr. Nobel discovered the hard way that it's pretty touchy. His own brother blew himself up figuring it out. The liquid looks like thick water; no smell. It's heavy and it's oily,” he said, his hands clutching the rag, “and if you drop a bucket of it, they'll be picking up pieces of you for a hundred yards. If what we're trying to do is blast a tunnel through some rock, a crew will work at the site with a star drill and hammers, making a hole big enough that a pail of the explosives could be lowered into it. It's then detonated using a long cable fuse and a blasting cap. It's the most dangerous job on this railway. I know that Wilcox and other contractors have to sometimes bribe the men to take on that task. It's amazing what a few extra pennies will do for a man's motivation.”

“How many men have been lost?”

“I don't know that anybody is keeping count.”

“It's a fair number?”

“Yes sir. The section of track through the lakehead region above Lake Superior required a great deal of blasting. I wasn't working on that section, but to hear Deek put it, there's a body buried for every mile of track. And that section was easy compared to what we face this spring.”

“What about the Chinese?”

“Andrew Onderdonk is the man to talk to about that. He's in charge of the rail coming out of Port Moody. He's making good use of them on his contract. I think there must have been several thousand of them working on the line up the Fraser Canyon from the Port of Vancouver. All we got here are the Irish, Polish, Slovaks, and Italians to do the job.”

Durrant was quiet a moment. He flexed his game right hand. “And so you're putting up stores here for use on the mainline down the Kicking Horse?”

“That's right. We're massing the materials here, but soon we'll start shipping stuff on up to the Kicking Horse Pass. It's going to be brewed up once we get the plant in place on the height of land itself. The closer to the operation we can make the stuff, the safer it'll be for everyone. Deek was going to manage the contract to do the blasting down the Kicking Horse Pass; it's what we're all calling the Big Hill. It's a hell of a drop, and to do it we've got to bore right into the side of the mountains in places. Before we can even do that, we need to build the Tote Road along the same course. That's what most of this lot is for, the Tote Road.” McPherson motioned to the nitro.

He took a deep breath. “The first tunnel will be about seven miles in, but before that, it's a ramp carved into the side of the mountain all the way down, for miles and miles. This, Sergeant Wallace, is just the first month's worth of explosives.

“I overheard Hep talking with Deek and saying that there was some discussion about which company might supply the remainder of the nitro. And once we get down the Big Hill, we still have to push on down the Lower Canyon of the Kicking Horse, which as I understand is worse still. That's where all the tunnels will be.”

“What makes a man want to do this work?” asked Durrant.

McPherson looked thoughtful a moment. “It pays pretty good,” he said. “Working with this stuff comes with a premium in pay.”

“Not much good if you're scattered to Kingdom Come.”

“You ever met a man who was aiming to get himself blown up, Sergeant?”

Durrant shook his head. “What about qualifications?”

McPherson smiled, shook his head, and looked around. “Well, that fella there used some dynamite to blow up a beaver dam on his daddy's place back in Wisconsin a few years back. I think that makes him the most qualified of the lot.”

“What about
you
, Mr. McPherson?”

“I come by this honestly. Before the
CPR
hired me I was working for the Canada Explosives Company. They currently have the contract for the explosives. I was packing this stuff for them out of their Montreal operation.”

“Is that where you're from?”

“Do I sound French? No, I'm from Nova Scotia. Cape Breton to be precise, sir. It's been some time. I've mostly had factory jobs in Toronto; did a spell in Buffalo. I was riding along with the last shipments of the year up through the mountains last fall. Deek's number two man had enough, and so I stayed on for the winter. Like I said, I mostly worked for Dodds, but Deek promised me good work come the spring. Now I guess I'll be on for the summer season too.”

“How much money is in this room right now, Mr. McPherson?”

McPherson rubbed his hands on his rag and looked around as if totalling up the inventory. “I'd say one hundred thousand dollars' worth.”

Durrant stared at the man. “Yes, that's about right,” McPherson said nervously.

“You said the Canada Explosives Company currently holds the contract?”

“That's right. They're headquartered in Mount Saint-Hilaire, but they've got operations all over the place.”

“You said
current
supplier?”

“There's a lot of competition.”

“Is the contract set?”

“I believe for the Big Hill. I don't know about the Lower Canyon.”

“Who would know?”

“Deek would have, and the men he worked for, but they are all in Winnipeg. Hep somehow got himself in on that business too, so he likely would be able to say.”

“I can have someone speak with them there. The
NWMP
have a sizeable detachment in that city.”

Durrant switched tracks. “Deek Penner was pretty well liked, wasn't he?”

“He was a fair man to work for. Never raised his voice or his hand to a man, despite being one of the biggest fellas in the camp. I'd say he was well liked.”

“Did you like him?”

“We were friends. He was my boss, but we was friends, yes.”

“His was a plum job, wasn't it?”

“I don't take your meaning.”

“His was a good job, well paid.”

“We never spoke of it.”

“Next to Mr. Wilcox, and maybe Mr. Holt, I'd guess that Mr. Penner was the best paid man in the camp, wouldn't you?”

“I don't rightly know.”

“With Mr. Penner dead, who will run the blasting operation down the Big Hill come the spring?”

“I don't know. I suppose the contractor will have to hire a foreman to replace Deek.”

“But with less than two months to go before the spring work is to start, and with the logistical preparations already underway, it doesn't leave much time.”

“We've just begun to haul material over the sled road up to the Kicking Horse Summit. I understand construction on the munitions plant there will get underway as soon as Bob Pen allocates some labour. The lumber is already cut for the job.”

“The Canadian Pacific men and Parliament are putting a great deal of pressure on this operation to complete the railway, and soon.”

“I don't know about the politics of things, Sergeant.”

“Mr. McPherson, I
think
you
do
. I think you know enough. Enough to know that with Deek Penner dead, the company men will need to fill his position fast, and with someone who knows the operation; someone who can get the job done without an interruption in the construction schedule. One more question,” said Durrant. McPherson seemed worn thin. “Where is your coat?”

“Come again, sir?”

“Your coat? Where is it?”

McPherson looked down as if he'd never seen the garment before. “It's back yonder . . .”

“Let's go and fetch it, shall we?”

“What's this got to do with . . .”

Durrant pushed himself to standing. “I get to decide, Mr. McPherson, what's relevant here.”

“Fine,” McPherson said, standing up. They walked to the back of the warehouse.

“You don't have another one?” McPherson shook his head no. “Have you had this one to the laundry in the last four days?”

Again he looked at it. “No, why?”

Durrant took the coat from him and looked it over carefully. He could find no sign of blood on the coat. He held it to his nose. It smelled
fresh
. “Mr. McPherson, I believe that excepting Frank Dodds, you are the man in Holt City who stands to gain the most with Deek Penner out of the way.”

DURRANT TOOK HIS NOON MEAL
in the mess tent, where it wasn't difficult to find a place to sit with a good deal of elbow room. Word had spread through the camp that the one-legged Mountie was on the warpath, and men were giving him a wider berth than they had just the day before. Nobody, it seemed, wanted to be seen talking with the Red Coat for fear that word would get back to Dodds, or so he imagined.

Durrant ate hash, canned peaches, and hard biscuits. A mangy dog made its way up and down the rows of tables begging for scraps, and Durrant gave it one of his biscuits, which the mutt chewed on for a full five minutes, breaking it into manageable nuggets that he could then swallow. Durrant patted the cur's bony head before it skulked off to the next table. Durrant noticed two men at the next table watching him as he scratched the mutt behind its frostbitten ears. One of the men touched his cap when he stood and nodded at Durrant. He nodded back.

It was early afternoon when Durrant slowly made his way from the small camp that was huddled at the confluence of the Bow and the Pipestone Rivers. The crews were cutting timber on the low flank of a summit capped with a white horn that the navvies called Dodds Peak. Though the distance was just over a mile, the going was slow for the one-legged man. The road that wound through the lodgepole pines up the grade to where the cutting was taking place was well established through heavy use and daily icing. Despite the hard-packed road, Durrant found the walk to the timber operation to be considerable work. He was twenty minutes into his climb when he heard a noise behind him, and putting his hand on the worn grip of his British Bulldog nestled in his coat pocket, turned to see a team of horses pulling a sled used for hauling cordwood slowly approaching from the camp. When the driver saw him he called to his team to stop and the sled came to rest alongside Durrant.

“Ah, it's you, Sergeant,” the teamster said by way of greeting.

“It is,” replied Durrant curtly.

“Where are you heading?”

“Just out for a walk,” Durrant said, his voice clipped.

“You making your way up to the cutting site?”

“I was thinking I might stop in.”

The man driving the team looked up the road towards the logging operation. Durrant could read his weathered face, half hidden by a long, grey tattered scarf that bunched up beneath the man's red nose. He's wondering what kind of hell he'll catch from Dodds if he offers me a ride, thought Durrant. The man studied the dark pine forest on either side of the road, calculating.

“Don't suppose you'd care for a lift, would you?”

“You going to get yacked if you give one?”

“Maybe I'll drop you just this side of the site . . .”

Durrant grinned. “Fine then,” he said, stepping forward on the road and grabbed the rail of the buck board and hauled his bulk up onto the seat. The two men rode the remainder of the way to the logging operation in silence. True to his word, when the operation came into view, the teamster slowed the horses.

“Hope you don't mind . . .” He said apologetically.

“Don't want there to be any unnecessary trouble,” Durrant grinned, easing himself down from the seat, extending his crutch for balance.

The driver seemed to smile beneath his threadbare scarf, for Durrant saw the lines at the corners of the man's eyes tighten. “Little late for that, wouldn't you say, Sergeant?”

Durrant laughed and shook his head, “Well, yes, a little late . . .”

The man said a word to the horses and the team started down the road again, leaving Durrant standing in the sweet-smelling pine forest. Though the trees around him were yet standing, their boughs made heavy with pillows of snow, he could see not far off where the woods had been felled, and the clearings running up the steep slopes of Dodds Peak. The syrupy fragrance of the pines was tempered with the not unpleasant odour of wood smoke from fires built to burn slash and limbs too small to be used as fuel or cross-ties.

Across the clearing Durrant could see that the mill was a simple steam-powered operation that was designed for speed and efficiency at cutting the squared-off timbers for the cross-ties. A group of men used pike poles to angle logs onto the skid of the mill and someone hitched a heavy hook onto the trunk of the timber, which then was set in motion by the mill operator. The outcome of the day's work was laid out next to the mill: hundreds of sleepers neatly stacked along side the steaming building waiting to be transported back down to the staging area next to the railway along the Bow.

Durrant started across the clearing and soon honed in on a place adjacent to the mill where a large fire burned. The smoke from this fire rose up thirty feet and then seemed to flatten out as if it had hit some invisible ceiling that forced it to dissipate like water flowing across a flat rock. He could see a dozen or more men huddled there, warming their hands, smoking pipes or hand rolled tobacco, and drinking from tin cups. When Durrant stepped into the circle of men standing around the fire, their hands stuffed deep into pockets of worn overcoats, the conversation stopped as if a snake had slid amongst a knot of frogs. One man threw the contents of his cup into the fire.

“Good afternoon,” Durrant said, making his way carefully around the fire to a place out of the drifting smoke. He could see that none of those he sought was among them.

“Frank Dodds ain't here,” said one man.

“Ain't looking for Frank right now,” Durrant said. “I'm looking for the Mahoney boys.”

The men mumbled among themselves.

“What do you want with them?” asked the same man.

“It's none of your damned business,” said Durrant.