The End of the Line (21 page)

“Did Mr. Wilcox tell you I was harassing someone in the camp?”

“No, he did not.”

“Then who did?”

“All I will say is that the Dominion Government would do well to take this investigation more seriously. Why is it that they sent a single man, and one who obviously needs assistance here in the wilds, to undertake such an important investigation?”

Durrant was dumbfounded, and his face must have showed it.

“Don't get me wrong, Sergeant. I'm certain you're a capable Mountie. It's just that a murder investigation is such an important undertaking . . .”

“You would know because you've conducted so many, Mr. O'Brian?” The
MP
made as if to open his mouth, but Durrant stopped him. “I don't suppose to understand the parry and thrust of national politics, Mr. O'Brian. Do you come here to educate me on the undertaking of a murder investigation?”

O'Brian looked as if he'd been slapped. “Mr. Wallace . . .”

“It's
Sergeant
Wallace,” said the Mountie, taking up his crutch and pushing himself to standing. “I am a veteran of the March West, sir, and have served Her Majesty for the last eleven years. My service has earned me the rank of non-commissioned officer and sergeant of the force. That service cost me my leg and the use of my right hand. I've suffered the jeers of drunkards and layabouts but I will suffer
no
such indignation from the likes of
you
. I report to Samuel Steele, Commanding, North West Mounted Police. I answer to no one else, and certainly not to you. You, of course, are free to contest that, but I should warn you: nobody in Holt City is above the law, and as yet, nobody is above investigation for this crime, and I should say that your appearance here so close on the heels of this grave wrongdoing is curious, to say the least.”

The Member of Parliament rose shakily to his feet. “Sir,” he stammered, “I demand . . .”

“You shall not have it,” Durrant cut him off. “I will not apologize to you. Not if it was with my very last breath. Drunks and navvies might not, but you, sir, should know better. I dare say
you
do. Someone has been educating you as to my undertakings here, and I find that very curious indeed. Now, if you'll excuse me . . .” Durrant stepped past the Vice-Chair and out of the cramped office, and into the station's main room. He turned back and looked at the
MP
. “Welcome to the North West Territories,” he said, and walked from the station.

•  •  •

Durrant did as he had done for the last five days and counting. He unlocked the shed in which the frozen cadaver of Deek Penner lay and stepped inside. With his left hand, he trimmed and lit the wick of a tiny lantern. He bent to where the body was laid out on the cordwood that doubled as a morgue table. Durrant pulled back the oilcloth that covered the body, whose face was ringed in frost.

The day after the star drill had been recovered, Durrant had managed to shave the side and back of Penner's head in order to better match the suspected murder weapon with the dead man's wounds. They were a perfect fit. With the young Charlie acting as assistant, Durrant had laid the corpse on its side and fitted the eight-sided bit from the two-and-a-half-foot long length of drill steel neatly into place.

He held the drill and stepped back as far as he could and examined it. Penner was roughly six feet three inches tall. He was a big man. The drill angled down and to the right of Penner's skull. It was obvious that whoever murdered Penner was somewhat shorter. It was likely that the killer had struck from the left.

•  •  •

From the shack that served as a morgue, Durrant headed along the pathway to the
NWMP
cabin, expecting to find Charlie waiting for him there when he arrived, but the room was empty. He stood a moment in the cabin wondering how to proceed when he saw the writing tablet propped on his own bunk. He stepped to the bed and picked it up with his left hand.

“Gone to have tea with Mrs. Armatage. Join us.”

“Blue Jesus,” muttered Durrant. He tossed the slate back onto the bed and made for the door.

Saul Armatage and his family had been afforded the most spacious accommodation in Holt City. Though temporary in nature, their cabin was well situated on the bank of the Pipestone River, set apart from the shacks of the men so that their carousing and tireless fiddle music wouldn't arouse the young family in the night. There was even a hand-carved shingle set on the wall next to the crudely fashioned door: Saul Armatage,
MD.

Durrant paused a moment at the door. Through its thin frame he could hear the sound of a child crying inside, and the din of another banging on a tin pot. He could hear Evelyn Armatage's familiar laugh, a sound that spirited him away for a moment to the hospital in Regina where he had first met the light-hearted woman. He drew a breath and knocked. He heard Evelyn say something and in a moment the door open and his lad Charlie was standing before him, his face cracked with a broad smile, his blue eyes beaming.

“You had me worried a moment, lad,” Durrant said sternly, and Charlie's grin faded perceptively. “You ought not to run off like that and leave me to think that our prey has struck again.”

Charlie looked down a moment. From behind him he heard Evelyn Armatage call, “Come in, Durrant, you're letting the cold air at the place. And leave the boy alone. He's helping set out the tea!”

Charlie looked up and stepped to the side as Durrant entered the cabin. It was warm and smelled of fresh-baked bread. Durrant shouldered the door shut and turned to peruse the room. There was a table set in the middle of the square space, and along the far wall was a cook stove where two loaves of bread sat on the warming rack. The stove doubled as the source of heat for the room and filled the chamber with delicious warmth. Sitting on the floor by the stove was Oliver, now four years old, playing with a wooden train set. On a daybed on the adjacent wall, Evelyn sat holding the baby Ben to her breast. “Hello, Durrant,” she said, beaming up at him. “Lovely to see you again!”

They sat at the table and took their tea. Armatage joined them from the adjacent room, which served as his clinic. It had been a light morning, he explained. One man badly bruised, but not broken, a hand caught when a log rolled on it at the mill site; another with a wound on his leg from an axe that ricocheted off a frozen stump and caught him in the shin.

Durrant sat stiffly at the table as Evelyn fed Oliver his tea, and Armatage held the baby, slowly bouncing the child on his knee. The doctor talked about the various maladies that might afflict a man while working in the mountains, prattling off a dizzying list of ailments that could strike a man down in his prime, seemingly overnight. Meanwhile, Charlie sat silently taking in the entire scene, a smile on his young face.

“This young man is quite the help,” said Evelyn with a wink at Durrant. “I think he got the knack of baking bread on his first go.”

Durrant looked at Charlie who only smiled back.

“If you're not careful, Durrant, I might steal him away from you to help here with the children.” Evelyn was in her late twenties; she wore a long, heavy skirt and a sweater pulled tight around her slender frame.

“I'll have to keep a closer eye on the lad,” Durrant said, forcing a smile.

Charlie moved the plate holding slices of the fresh bread and tinned meat towards Durrant, and when he awkwardly tried the cut the loaf with his left hand, Charlie deftly stood and took the knife from the Mountie and did it himself. He then poured tea for the family and for Durrant.

“Tell us, Durrant,” said Evelyn, spooning porridge into Oliver's mouth as he fidgeted at the table, “how are you progressing with the capture of the killer?”

“Well,” said Durrant awkwardly, “I suppose we've got several suspects at this time,” looking at Charlie, in part to reclaim him.

“That awful brute Frank Dodds must be chief among them,” said Evelyn.

“He is,” said Durrant.

“And who else?”

“Evi, darling, Durrant might not wish to tip his hand. Recall,” said the doctor with a sly smile, “that he's already inquired after
my
own whereabouts on the night of the murder.”

“Well,” said Evelyn with a wink, “if you must know,
I
was here in bed with my Oliver and little Ben. Though I'm not sure their word will stand up in a court of law as an alibi.”

Durrant regarded the children. “No, I doubt it will, but if you're not careful, I'll have you all in leg irons before the day is out.”

“That's the spirit,” said Evelyn. “Now Charlie,” she said, “be a good lad and see about that pie that we put in the oven.” Charlie obediently rose to fetch the dessert.

“The truth is, Evelyn,” said Durrant, looking down at his hands, the reddened right hand resting atop the left in his lap, “that I'm not certain which direction to take this investigation next. I have a long list of suspects, all of whom may have wanted Mr. Penner dead for one reason or another, and all of whom had access to the murder weapon. As yet, I haven't been able to determine who was most motivated to dispatch Mr. Penner. My list of suspects keeps growing longer and longer,” he said, thinking of the arrival of the Honorable Member for Northumberland.

When they had finished their dessert, Charlie cleared the dishes and Durrant rose stiffly from his chair, leaning heavily on his crutch. “
We
must be off,” he said, “as I have a fair number of men to question this afternoon. No doubt,” he sighed wearily, “many of them will tell a familiar tale of virtuousness, but it must be done. Sooner or later I'm bound to find someone who will simply confess to this heinous crime in order to be rid of me and my maddening questions.” Evelyn and Saul Armatage laughed and rose to their feet, the doctor shaking Durrant's left hand and Evelyn embracing Durrant and kissing his grizzled cheek.

“It's good to see you crack wise, Durrant,” she said. “Don't be a stranger. Bring that lad of yours about for a proper meal sometime. He and I have so much we could chat about, if he only decided to speak.”

•  •  •

Darkness had settled over the broad girth of the Bow Valley. That evening Durrant sat in his cabin at the tiny desk, a candle burning in a cup set out next to a pad of writing paper. The woodstove crackled, warming him. The temperature outside had settled around ten degrees; the sky overhead was clear.

Deek Penner had been struck in the face by someone swinging a star drill from his left. That didn't mean, necessarily, that the assailant had been left-handed, Durrant mused. In fact, because the woods were denser on the eastern side of the track, it seemed reasonable to assume that this was where the killer had approached Penner. Durrant considered the angle of the weapon's mark on the murdered man's face and skull. That the blow appeared to come at a slightly oblique angle made him think that the killer was shorter than Penner, maybe somewhat less than six feet tall, and possibly a good deal shorter.

Next Durrant turned his thoughts to Penner's motivation that night: What mission was he on that could not wait until the morning, he wondered? His assailant must have known he would be coming and had lain in wait for his prey. Or maybe the meeting was pure chance. Maybe the killer simply seized an opportunity. But why would any man be out at night with a length of drill steel in his hands? No, mused Durrant, the murder had been clearly premeditated.

Durrant pressed his eyes shut. Two days before he'd been in the very snows where the murder took place. He opened his eyes with a start: step off the path and you might sink up to your knees, or waist, in the sugary snow there. The foot-wide pathways were packed hard, but the snow next to them was soft, and the attacker, unless he was a giant, would
have
to have swung from below. Unless he was on the path with Penner himself, in which case the attack could not have been made by surprise. Unless Penner was being accompanied by someone he had no fear of.

There were too many variables, thought Durrant, frustrated, and no way to verify any of them, unless the dead could speak. Durrant's rumination was interrupted as the door to his cabin flew open, a blast of cold air hitting him, a swirl of snow preceding a body wrapped in a heavy coat and a thick wool hat pulled close over the eyes. Durrant's hand leapt for the British Bulldog and in less than a heartbeat the hammer was cocked and the snub-nosed pistol levelled not a foot from the night visitor.

Durrant lowered his pistol. “You trying to get your face blown off, boy?” Durrant barked.

Charlie shook his head once and grabbed for the quill and paper on the desk. He scribbled something quickly. “Follow you. Quick?” Charlie nodded. “Why?”

“O'Brian,” Charlie wrote. Durrant grabbed his bison coat and sealskin hat, and stuffed the Bulldog into his coat pocket. He snubbed out the candle with his fingers and followed Charlie into the darkening night.

•  •  •

It took them five minutes to reach the munitions warehouse through the inky blackness; Charlie practically dragged Durrant along the icy pathways. The trails were now frozen hard and slippery. Many of the main pathways had been darkened with sawdust and the ash from the camps' stoves, making them easier to navigate, but the little-used path to the
NWMP
barracks had gone unimproved.

Durrant felt his leg aching by the time they reached the munitions warehouse, but when Charlie led him through the darkness to a place behind the building, out of sight of the broad front doors, Durrant forgot about his discomfort. He could see the boy's eyes were wide in the gloom. The lad took him by the hand as if he were a child, pulling him alongside the building as he cocked an ear towards the open boards that permitted daylight inside.

Durrant looked at Charlie and was about to speak when the boy held a finger to his lips and shook his head vigorously. They waited a moment like that in the darkness, the night around them cold and deep and still. Then Durrant heard a voice.