The End of the Line (33 page)

“Who, man?”

“I don't know. I didn't see him.”

“Do you have your suspicions?”

Christianson looked at Durrant, his face shifting back and forth between rage and fear. “I can't say for certain. My guess is that the murderer has come to destroy our only way of communicating with Fort Calgary. What with the storm, we're cut off!”

Indeed
, thought Durrant. He stayed silent.

“I had best report this to Mr. Wilcox, if I can find him, sir. He'll need to know.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Christianson was silent a moment. “I don't. I'll have to undertake a search.”

Durrant considered this. Finally, he said, “Do that, sir, and report back to me at once. Avoid Frank Dodds and his men at all cost, Mr. Christianson.” Durrant paused and watched the man begin to stand. “Where are your spectacles, Mr. Christianson? I can't imagine you'll get far without them.”

John looked around him on the desk. “They were here just a minute ago. I must have dropped them.”

Durrant stepped around the counter. The fragments of the wire machine were everywhere. Christianson was scanning the floor for his specs. The Mountie joined the search and abruptly stooped and picked up the wire-rim glasses from amid the rubbish.

Christianson looked up at him at the same moment. Durrant leaned his crutch on the counter. Christianson straightened up in his chair. Durrant could see the man calculating, but he needed to see something for himself before he returned the eyeglasses to their owner.

“Let me tidy these up for you, Mr. Christianson,” said Durrant. “I have a clean handkerchief right here in my pocket.” Durrant reached inside his great coat, remnants of snow falling from the cape, and pulled a cloth from the breast pocket of his waist coat. He held the glasses up to the lantern light to examine them, as he had seen his father do a thousand times.

“My goodness, John,” he said, “I don't know how you could see with these things on.” Christianson's face was blank as he watched the Mountie examine the spectacles. Durrant looked through them. And as he did, he found the final piece of the puzzle that he could use to convict John Christianson of Deek Penner's murder. There, amid the fingerprints and smudges on the lenses of the spectacles, was a fine spray of now brown droplets, clustered around the edges of the specs where the man's careless fingers hadn't cleaned them away. The mist of blood spatter was hard and dried and had faded from bright red to nearly black, but it was unmistakable.

In that instant Durrant made another choice: instead of arresting the man on the spot, he would allow Christianson to lead him to his conspirators. He pretended to clean the man's glasses with his cloth and then tucked it back in his pocket. He could see the man watching him as he fumbled a moment and then extended his game right hand, the spectacles gripped loosely. Christianson stammered out his thanks.

“Now, sir,” Durrant said. “I am for bed. I'm sorry that I cannot send my wire as I intended. I shall have to wait for the next eastbound train to send news to Fort Calgary. In the meantime, sir, I suggest that you get yourself indoors as well. If this killer shattered our only means of communications with the outside world, then who knows what he might be willing to do next?”

Christianson was watching Durrant very carefully. For a moment their eyes locked and Durrant saw the man as he really was. He felt a wave of revulsion pass through him, and then that too ebbed and the hex was broken.

“I will make one effort first to find Mr. Wilcox, and then I will be for bed myself.”

“Lock your door, John,” Durrant cautioned the man.

“I will, Sergeant. I will.”

•  •  •

Durrant waited for John Christianson for half an hour. He stood near the corner of the munitions warehouse, where he could see the station through the snow, and watched. He was cold and his leg and hand were searing with pain, but he had to try and see if Christianson would lead him to Wilcox. The man could not have left the camp, and he had not returned to his posh quarters in the well-appointed caboose.

When Christianson finally did leave the station after nearly an hour, he circled around behind Holt's store and went immediately to his bunk. Puzzled, Durrant watched for another ten minutes, the snow biting his face, catching in his eyes, and accumulating on his beard. He could not wait all night. He stood for another ten minutes and when finally he saw that the light was out in John Christianson's room behind the station, he too made his way slowly home.

If Durrant had known that he could probably have saved not just one life but two by waiting just a few minutes more, he would have suffered all the frozen fury of hell to do so. He could not have known what fate held in store that night, nor that he could have changed the course of events with timely intervention.

DURRANT AWOKE WISHING THAT GARNET
Moberly had remained in Holt City—The Summit, as he called the lonely place at the end of steel—rather than vanishing down to the Columbia River Valley. What Durrant needed most right now was a partner, someone to help puzzle through what he had learned the pervious evening. Young Charlie was bright and had been helpful in all manner of ways since signing on for Holt City, but what Durrant needed was a conversation with someone who was smarter than he was. Someone to help him sort through some of the myriad of mysteries that remained surrounding the death of Penner.

What Durrant did know for certain was that Christianson had killed Penner. The blood spatter on his glasses clearly testified to that. But why? Who had conspired with him? Durrant was certain that some combination of Hep Wilcox, the general manager for winter operations at Holt City, Blake O'Brian, the Member of Parliament for Northumberland, and Frank Dodds, the foreman in charge of the logging, were entangled in this affair. Today he would have to find out which of these men were involved and how, and what their connection was to Christianson.

It was possible that Christianson was part of the ring of men who were involved with the brewing of illegal whiskey led by Dodds. Dodds could use a man like Christianson as a way of procuring supplies and evading detection by the
CPR
brass. Christianson could be cut in on the profits from the sale of the perfumes. Durrant didn't think that Dodds was sophisticated enough, though, to have a man like Christianson on his crew, regardless of how helpful it might be. No, Durrant believed that Wilcox or O'Brian or both were entangled with Christianson somehow. All he needed to do was complete his theory about the triad's motivation and he could arrest all three.

There also was the matter of Devon Paine. When he had left Paine the night before the man was clearly frightened. He'd locked himself in the barn, his Remington double-barrelled shotgun near at hand. He wasn't going to run from a fight; he just wanted to see it coming. Durrant had left a clear message with the man: do not tell another soul of his suspicions. There were too many unanswered questions yet to make an arrest, and talking about it would only flush the suspects from their holes and possibly beyond the reach of the law.

When Durrant woke, Charlie had prepared breakfast on the small stove in their cabin. As he ate and dressed, he made his plans for the day. He would first go to the station and try to question Christianson one last time, in an effort to force him to reveal who his co-conspirators were, and what role they had played in Penner's death. Right now, the thin mountain air was filled with lies, and he wanted to see if he could trip up the duplicitous Christianson with one last inquest. He would try to locate the errant Wilcox. And finally, he would check to see if Dodds had resurfaced. If he had, he and the moonshiner would have a heart-to-heart about his undertakings at Holt City. If Durrant played his cards right, he could return to Fort Calgary with three if not four men in his custody to await the magistrate.

Durrant strapped on his pistol, pulled on his greatcoat and told Charlie his plans. “Stay put today, alright lad?” Charlie nodded. “This thing's going to come to a head today one way or another. Keep the Winchester. If anybody comes through that door other than me, you let them have it.” The boy's expression was pallid. “You might want to wait and see that it's
not
me before you unload . . .” Durrant winked at the lad. He was having fun, and this day would mark what he hoped to be a triumphant return to his role as an officer of the law.

Durrant checked the action on the Winchester and made certain that the rifle was loaded. Then he checked his own armament, pulled on his gauntlets and sealskin hat, and headed for the door.

The morning was still grey and oppressive but the snow of the last twenty-four hours had come to a temporary halt. Nearly two feet had fallen, thick and heavy like a quilt across the frozen earth. It made the going tough for most people around the camp, but at least the routines of the operation were returning to normal after the blizzard. The crews that worked the slopes below the white-horned mountain would be icing the haul road used to skid the sleepers down to the railway. Durrant knew that Dodds and young Mahoney wouldn't be on the job site that day. He was also pretty sure that Hep Wilcox, whose job it was to oversee such matters as when a foreman had skipped out on his contract, would not be looking in on Dodds that day.

As he pushed his way through the snow, Durrant considered how he would handle Christianson's key role in this whole affair. Though Durrant believed that Christianson was to be the least of his troubles that day, he had to approach the man carefully. If Moberly were here at that moment, he might remind Durrant that there was more than just a man's immortal soul at stake. A country was at stake as well.

By the time Durrant had pushed his way through the snow to the station, he had worked out a plan to get Christianson to tell him exactly what he needed to know.

He found the station as busy as ever. Men were clearing the fresh snow from the rickety platform. Later that day, if the tracks could be cleared around Castle Mountain—the halfway point between Banff Station and Holt City, where even heavier snows had fallen—another freight loaded with supplies for Holt's store would arrive and would need sorting before being sent on to the Kicking Horse camp. A dozen men milled about there, using push shovels and brooms to clear the way. Bob Pen nodded at Durrant as he walked past. Inside the station the postal clerk was sorting the outgoing mail.

“Is John Christianson about?” Durrant asked the man. He noticed that the remnants of the Phelps 1880 had been cleared from the floor.

Pen looked up from his task, his face quizzical. “I ain't seen John all morning,” the man said.

Durrant looked around the room. He felt his face begin to flush. He had to find Christianson. He walked the length of the station and left through the wide doors, strode across the platform, and found his way around the back of the station to where Christianson had a tiny room. When he arrived he found the door locked from the outside, as if Christianson had left and secured his quarters.

Durrant knocked on the door and pressed his ear to the planks. He could hear no sound. He knocked again and still heard nothing. He looked down at the snow at his feet. The new snow had been disturbed sometime in the night. He looked around him and then knelt awkwardly, putting his left hand against the cabin for support. The top-most layer of the remaining snow was almost as fine as baking flour; he leaned forward and carefully blew on the powdery snow. It swirled up in his face and settled down away from the door. He blew again, gently. More snow swirled up. He studied the impressions there; he could see only one set of tracks going in and then coming out of the cabin, but he could not tell if they belonged to the deceptive Christianson or another man. He blew one more time; now much of the top layer of snow had dissipated. Durrant studied the ground, his face just a foot from the snow's crust. There Durrant found what he was searching for—tiny dark red droplets. Blood.

The Mountie pushed himself to standing and drew the Enfield from its holster. Standing back, he took careful aim at the Yale lock on the door and fired. The shot rang out across the tent city. The lock shattered. Durrant pulled it off its clasp and pushed the door open with his shoulder.

The room was dark and cold. A narrow band of watery light from the open door fell across the bare wood floor. Durrant stepped inside, his pistol up. Christianson lay face down on his bunk, a blanket covering his shoulders and head. His left arm, stiff with cold and rigor mortis, was extended at an awkward angle. His right arm, likewise taut, seemed to be clutching at the rough-hewn log wall where the cabin abutted the main station. Across that wall was a wide swatch of blood.

Before taking another step Durrant looked at the floor. There were a few droplets of dried—or possibly frozen—blood there, leading out the door and into the snow.

Durrant heard voices behind him. He turned to see several men there, drawn by the sound of the pistol shot. The postal clerk was among them.

“You men,” he demanded, “stay far back. This is a crime scene.” The men pushed forward to get a better look and Durrant turned on them, his pistol still smoking from the discharge of the cartridge. “Don't make me tell you again,” he waved the pistol across the door to indicate the demarcation.

The men stepped back. “You,” he said, the pistol pointing at a man bundled in a heavy woollen sweater that was flecked with ash and sawdust. The man looked at the barrel of his pistol. “Run and fetch Saul Armatage.” The man was still staring at the smoking barrel of the gun. “Be quick!” Durrant yelled, and the man snapped out of his trance and bolted toward the doctor's quarters.

Drawing a deep breath, Durrant turned back to the small room. He advanced on the body knotted there, taking note that the air in the cabin was chilled. He stopped and checked the tiny stove: it too was stone cold. He took two more steps, careful not to disturb the blood on the floor, and reached down and took hold of the blanket. He pulled it back. The face and skull once belonging to Christianson was all but gone. In its stead, a pulpy mass of bone fragments and brain and congealed blood remained. The bunk and blankets were heavy with blood, and Durrant could see that many of the blows had been delivered while the man was lying face down on the tick. A broad spatter of blood, bone, and brains had painted the wall. Whoever had killed Christianson had also likely been coated in the mess.