The End of the Line (40 page)

Durrant counted again. Reaching one hundred, he scanned the dark woods for Moberly but could detect no sign of him. He continued along the path. When he reached the front of the shack, he stopped and listened. He pulled a deep breath into his lungs and then stepped to the side of the front door and knocked. He waited and knocked again, loudly.

“Blue Jesus, Tanner, is that you? You're supposed to be on lookout. Pete, get the goddamned door,” he heard Dodds bellow from within.

He waited and in a moment the door to the cabin swung open. A long yellow swath of light fell across the snow, interrupted by Pete Mahoney's massive bulk. Durrant waited for Pete to step outside.

“There ain't nobody here,” he said as he turned. He was armed with Durrant's Winchester 73.

Durrant stepped away from the shadow of the building and levelled the pistol at the man.

“Jesus,” Pete said, and began to bring the Winchester up to fire.

“I'll blow you to hell, Pete,” said Durrant as he jammed the gun into the man's face. “Throw down that rifle.” Pete hesitated and Durrant thumbed back the hammer. The young Mahoney boy tossed the rifle into the snow.

“Now step back inside.”

Mahoney did as he was told and Durrant stepped inside after him. The room was close and hot. He quickly took in the surroundings, counting four men in the tiny room. Behind Pete, Durrant could make out the man's brother Ralph and Thompson Griffin standing next to him. Durrant thought he could make out the diminutive form of Charlie in a chair behind Griffin. Dodds was sitting on a cot next to a woodstove. On the stove was a copper pot with a coiled copper worm attached that descended into a cold bath of melted snow. Three or four dozen empty bottles lined the far wall. A giant woodbox was built into that wall, adjacent to the stove.

Durrant could see that Griffin held a pistol over Charlie. He still could not see the boy's face around the men standing between him and the lad.

Dodds leapt to his feet. Durrant levelled his pistol at the man, but continued to watch Pete. “Don't reach for it, Dodds.” Dodds stood his ground.

“Well, if the law hasn't arrived. You should have taken our advice and left Holt City, Red Coat. This is no place for a cripple.”

“I'm not going anywhere, not without Charlie, and you're not either,” said Durrant. Dodds laughed. Durrant thumbed the hammer on his pistol.

Dodds stepped forward. “You shoot me and your friend here gets it right between the eyes,” he said, nodding toward Charlie who was covered by Griffin's pistol.

“Let the boy go and we'll walk out of here. You might get off easy with the magistrate,” said Durrant.

Again, Dodds laughed. It sounded more like a bark. “Boy? Boy? Step aside, lads, and let Sergeant Wallace see his
boy
.”

The three men fanned out in a row, all now facing Durrant in the closed space. Durrant focused on Charlie. Something was terribly wrong. The lad was tied to a chair, his legs bound around the ankles to the chair's legs, his arms knotted behind his back, and his head slumped forward. Where Durrant expected to see Charlie's now trademark wool hat, a tangle of brown hair stood on end.

“There's your boy,” said Dodds.

“Charlie?” Durrant asked, his pistol still pointed at Dodds. “Charlie, look at me.”

Charlie looked up. The dishevelled hair framed the familiar face with its soft complexion. The eyes were the same, but without the hat to conceal the fine features of the forehead, they were clearly the eyes of a young woman.

“Charlie?” Durrant said again.

The woman nodded.

“Got yourself fooled pretty good, didn't you?” said Dodds. “Imagine our surprise when we get him up here and found out it was a little lady. I'll tell you, it's been a long winter at Holt City. I don't mind telling you we were pretty pleased.”

Durrant looked at the young woman. Her left eye was black and she had a cut on her lip. A crust of blood had formed around her nose. “They hurt you, Charlie?” Durrant asked. The eyes bored back into him.

Durrant pulled his attention off Charlie and looked at Dodds. He drew a deep breath. “You're under arrest for kidnapping,” he said. “You
all
are.”

As he spoke, the lid on the woodbox burst open. A cold gust of air swept into the room. The men turned toward the movement, three of them scrambling for their guns. Durrant quickly shifted his aim from Dodds to Griffin and squeezed the trigger of his Enfield twice, the bullets catching Griffin in the chest. The man's body twisted and fell.

Garnet Moberly took them by surprise as he rose from the woodbox, the double-barrelled shotgun held at the ready. He fired at the nearest man. The force of the blast lifted Ralph Mahoney off his feet and flung him into the wall next to Durrant. Moberly fired a second time and Ralph's body hit the floor.

Pete Mahoney turned back into the room to fire from the hip at the Mountie. Pete's shot missed, but Durrant's quick shot didn't. The Mountie dropped his crutch and moved fast toward Charlie's exposed position amid the swirl of bullets. He fired the remaining four rounds, one bullet twisting Pete sideways, then Durrant collided with Charlie's chair and the two of them hit the ground together.

Dodds raised his weapon and fired at Moberly, hitting him in the left arm. He then spun to face Durrant, his face set with rage, and fired at the moving target, his bullets striking the wall just above Durrant's shoulder. Moberly, stumbling from the woodbox and dropping the shotgun as his injured arm gave way, pulled out his twin Webley revolvers. With one, he sent a wild shot at Dodds, and with the other he shot Pete again, spinning him into a heap on the floor.

Dodds now turned and returned fire on Moberly, the two men less than fifteen feet apart. In the spray of bullets Moberly was thrown against the back wall of the cabin, bottles of moonshine exploding from the force of his body. Durrant dropped the spent Enfield where he lay, Charlie beneath him, and reached for his second pistol. The weapon came quickly to hand. As Dodds fired at Moberly, Durrant raised the short-barrelled Bulldog and shot Dodds in one swift motion.

The din of gunfire ceased. The room was blue with the smoke from the volley of rounds. Durrant pushed himself up and went to Moberly, his pistol still aimed at Dodds, who lay prone on the bunk.

“Garnet,” he said, hunching down as best he could to see if the man was still alive.

The gentleman looked up at him. “How'd we do?” he asked.

Durrant smiled. “Looks like very well. Charlie,” he said as he walked over to untie her. “You okay?”

Durrant wasn't certain which surprised him more, that Charlie was a woman or that she answered. “I'm fine, Durrant.”

Durrant retrieved the Winchester and handed it to her. “Cover them,” he ordered. “If any of them make a move, shoot them.”

“Gladly,” she said.

“Just a couple of holes in the shoulder and arm here,” said Moberly. “Nothing serious.”

Durrant returned to Moberly and tore up a rag to tie off the two wounds. He checked on Dodds, who had been shot in the leg and stomach and was glaring at Durrant. Ralph Mahoney was alive, but conscious. Pete Mahoney and Griffin were dead.

“So,” said Durrant. “Can the two of you make it down the mountain and see about getting some help for this lot?”

Moberly looked at Charlie. “I don't see why not,” he said. He extended a hand to the young woman. “Garnet Moberly.”

She smiled. “Charlene,” she said. “Charlene Louise Mason.”

HE HAD FALLEN ASLEEP SITTING
in a chair in the corner of the cabin as he waited.

“You're going to be alright, Durrant,” a voice said. The snow fell gently down, landing on his eyelashes as he blinked up into the swirling grey sky, into the face that looked down at his. “You're going to be alright.”

He blinked again and the faces came into focus. Patrick O'Connor and Tommy Provost from Fort Walsh.

“We've got a tourniquet on your leg, Wallace,” said Provost. “We need to get you to the Doc.”

“My horse . . .” said Durrant. He tried to lift his right hand to point. It was still clutching the Enfield. He could no longer feel his fingers.

“Mack is dead, Durrant. I'm sorry.”

“From the woods. It was an ambush.”

“You were close, Durrant. Very close. We know who they are. Salinger and Merry are following their tracks.”

“They knew who
I
was. They used my name.”

“Like I said, you were in close. We'll get them.”

“My hand.”

“It's pretty badly frostbitten. We need to get you to the Doc. Let's see if we can't get him up into the saddle,” said Patrick O' Connor.

“I can't ride,” said Durrant.

“You'll be okay.”

“My leg. I can't ride.” Durrant felt hot tears rolling down his face.

“It's okay. You're alive. It's going to be okay.”

Durrant closed his eyes and felt the snow tickle his face, catch in the day's growth of beard that had speckled his chin while he lay there on the frozen earth. He felt the men lift him and he pressed his eyes closed, felt his leg go limp and his hand lose its grip on the Enfield, felt it slip from his grasp and fall to the earth.

•  •  •

“Durrant,” said a voice he didn't recognize. He opened his eyes and the pistol came up and pointed at Dodds and Pete Mahoney lying on the bunk. His eyes focused and he could see that they were as he had left them; bandaged, bleeding, and unconscious.

“Durrant,” the voice said again. He slowly took in the rest of the room. The walls were pocked with bullet holes. Broken glass from the tiny window and from the jugs of fractured moonshine was scattered across the floor; the room reeked of corn mash whiskey. He looked around and a woman he didn't know was kneeling close to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

Charlie. Charlene. “I'm okay.”

She turned and nodded to a silhouette at the door. Moberly came in. His arm was in a sling. Saul Armatage followed, his eyes immediately on Durrant. Moberly turned and looked at the two injured men on the bed and the dead on the floor. “Constable, you can come and collect these men now,” he called.

Durrant stood up. He felt very old, and very tired. His leg pulsed; the left trouser leg was soaked through with blood.

“Durrant, you're still bleeding,” said Charlie.

“It's fine,” he said through gritted teeth.

“It's not fine.”

The first constable entered the room. He wore the greatcoat and sealskin hat, but Durrant could see the red serge beneath the coat and the black riding boots that clicked on the floor. The man turned to Durrant. Durrant didn't recognize him.

“Corporal Deuer, sir,” he said, saluting Durrant. “What are your orders, sir?”

Durrant was momentarily dizzy. “These men need medical attention. They are to be transported back to Holt City, stabilized, and brought to Fort Calgary as soon as you are able to make arrangements on the eastbound freight. Can you look at their wounds, Saul?” Armatage turned and saw the two men bleeding on the bed for the first time. He hesitated. “They need attention more than I,” Durrant said. Armatage went to them.

“We've commandeered half a dozen men from the camp, sir. Mr. Pen said they are all good men,” said Corporal Deuer.

“Pen's a good man, too. Very well, get a move on, Corporal,” said Durrant.

The Mountie nodded and yelled for his colleagues to join him. Before the room became crowded with activity, Durrant pushed past Charlie and Moberly and stepped out into the morning. Dawn had broken. He walked a few paces along the path, with Moberly and Charlie behind him, and then stopped on the shore to regard the new day.

The peaks of the Great Divide were set on fire with a ragged light. The face of the farthest peak beyond the Lake of Little Fishes stood in sharp relief; its glacier clad summit bore a rosy glow. All around it, peaks jutted into the azure sky of dawn. Durrant drew a deep breath and marvelled that all of this splendour sat on the edge of the broad valley where the steel road would soon pass, bearing with it commerce and men and woman and children, all bound for places yet unknown, altogether comprising the pulse of a brand new nation. He sighed deeply.

“What is it?” asked Charlie. He looked at her. He did not know this person.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said.

She nodded.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“For what?”

“For deceiving you.”

He nodded. “I almost got
you
killed,” he said.

She shrugged. It made Durrant smile to see this stranger take on the characteristics of the boy he thought he knew.

“This is beautiful,” Charlene said.

“The Canadian Pacific brass built that little cabin back there so that big bellies on the railroad could come up here and appreciate the grandeur,” said Moberly. “I visited it once last fall, and was relegated to stocking the woodbin for some section manager. Glad I did. That's how I knew that the woodbox had two hatches.”

“Took you long enough to show your face,” smiled Durrant.

Moberly looked at him askance, but his frown soon faded to a broad grin. “Well, I had to get all the damned wood out before I could make my entrance!”

“We made a bit of a mess of the
CPR
's little cabin,” said Durrant.

“I expect they will rebuild.”

Durrant nodded. “If they're going to make a tourist attraction out of this place, they're going to need a better name. Lake of Little Fishes doesn't do it justice.”

“Don't forget, young Tom Wilson called it Emerald Lake.”

Durrant nodded. “Think that will stick?”

“I don't know.”

“I was thinking Lake Charlene,” Durrant finally said.

The girl smiled.