Campbell's Kingdom (10 page)

‘No,' I said. ‘It's not that.'

‘What is it then? Mac said something about your planning to live up there.'

‘Yes.'

‘What the hell for? It's pretty God-damn lonely up there and in the winter—'

‘My grandfather lived up there,' I said. ‘If he could do it—'

‘Campbell didn't live there because he liked it,' he cut in sharply. ‘He lived there because he had to; because he didn't dare live down here amongst the folk he'd swindled.'

‘Are you suggesting he was a crook?' I demanded angrily. He leaned forward and stubbed his cigarette out in a big quartz ash-tray. ‘See here, Wetheral. You know Campbell's history as well as I do. He was committed to trial and sentenced by an English jury for fraud. If I remember right he got five years. To that jury it was just a Stock Exchange ramp. But out here it was the last gamble of men trying to recoup themselves for the loss of the Come Lucky mine. They believed in Campbell. Maybe I'm a bit bitter. Perhaps you'll understand my attitude better if I tell you that my father, Luke Trevedian, backed Campbell when he decided to drill up beyond the cleft of Solomon's Judgment. Most of the old-timers were with him in that venture. Well, it failed. The rock was hard, it cost more than they budgeted to get equipment up there. When they found they'd bitten off more than they could chew Campbell went to England to raise capital. My father put every last penny he possessed into the Rocky Mountain Exploration Company and when he got the news that Morton, the director brought in by your grandfather as financial adviser, had disappeared with all the capital, he got on his horse and rode out into the snow of a winter's night. We never saw him again.'

‘I'm sorry,' I said.

He laughed. ‘No need to be sorry. It was his own fault for being such a sucker. I'm telling you this so you'll understand why old Campbell lived up in the Kingdom. You don't want to take too much notice of the newspaper stories. That's just tourist stuff and I'll admit he put on a good act for them. But the truth lies here in Come Lucky. This derelict bunch of shacks is his doing. There was a lot of wealth here in this town when the big slide sealed the mine.' He lit another cigarette and snapped his lighter shut by closing his fist on it as though he meant to crush it. ‘And it isn't only the town that's derelict,' he added. ‘Take a look at the old men around here. They're all old-timers, men who put their money into Campbell's oil companies and now eke out a pittance doing a bit of farming down on the flats around Beaver Dam Lake. They just about fill their bellies and that's all.'

There was nothing I could say. He was giving me the other side of the picture and the violence in his voice emphasised that it was the truth he was telling me. It explained so much, but it didn't make my problem any easier.

‘Well,' he said, ‘what are you going to do? If you sell the Kingdom, then Henry Fergus will go ahead with the hydro-electric scheme and Come Lucky will become a flourishing little town again.'

‘And if I don't?' I asked.

He hesitated. ‘I don't know. It just depends.' He got up and walked over to the window. For a time he stood there, staring up the straggling length of Come Lucky's main street. Then he turned suddenly to me. ‘This place is what they call a ghost town. You've got a chance to bring it back to life.'

‘My grandfather's will imposed certain obligations on me,' I said. ‘You see, he still believed—'

‘Obligations, hell!' he snapped. He came and stood over me. ‘Suppose you go and think this thing over.' He was looking down at me, his eyes slightly narrowed, the nerves at the corners quivering slightly. ‘I phoned Henry Fergus this morning when I was in Keithley. I tried to get him to increase his offer to you.'

‘It's not the money,' I said.

‘Well, maybe.' He smiled sourly. ‘But money's a useful commodity all the same. He's coming up to see the progress they're making at Larsen. I suggested he came on up here and had a talk with you. He said he would.' His hand dropped to my shoulder. ‘Think it over very carefully, will you. It means a lot to the people here.'

I nodded and got to my feet. ‘Very well,' I said. ‘I'll think it over.'

‘Yes. Do that.'

When I got back to the hotel it was tea time. There was an extra place laid at the big deal table and just after we'd sat down Bladen came in. Several times in the course of the meal I noticed James McClellan looking at me out of the corners of his eyes. He didn't eat much and as soon as the meal was over he hurried out, presumably down to Trevedian to discover the result of our interview. I went over to Bladen. ‘Can I have a word with you?' I asked him.

He hesitated. ‘Sure.' His voice sounded reluctant. We drew our chairs a little apart from the others. ‘Well?' he said. ‘I suppose it's about the Kingdom?' His voice sounded nervous.

‘I believe you did some sort of a survey up there last summer?'

He nodded. ‘A seismographic survey.' His voice was very quiet, a gentle, musical sound. The scar was white across the smooth, gypsy skin. His eyes were fixed on his hands as he pressed back the cuticles of the nails. The nails were pale against the dark skin. ‘If you want the results of that survey an account was published in the
Edmonton Journal
of 3rd December.'

‘The results were unfavourable?'

‘Yes.'

‘How reliable is a seismographic survey?'

He raised his head and looked at me then. ‘It won't tell you definitely where there's oil, if that's what you mean. But it gives a fairly accurate picture of the strata and from that the geophysicists can decide whether it's a likely spot to drill.'

‘I see.' That was what Acheson had said. ‘Oil is trapped in the rock formations, isn't it?' I asked.

‘Yeh, like in an anticline where you have a dome formation and the oil is trapped under the top of the dome.'

‘So the sort of survey you did in Campbell's Kingdom last year is pretty well a hundred per cent in showing where there's no likelihood of oil?'

He nodded.

‘In your opinion did that survey make it clear that there could be no oil in the Kingdom?'

‘I think you'll find the report makes that quite clear.'

‘I'm not interested in the report. I want your opinion.'

His eyes dropped to his hands again. ‘I don't think you quite understand the way this thing works. My equipment records the time taken by a shock wave to be reflected back from the various strata to half a dozen detectors. It's the same principle as the echo-sounding device used by ships at sea. All I do is the field work. I get the figures and from these the computers map the strata under the surface.'

‘But you must have some idea how the survey is working out,' I insisted.

‘All I do is get the figures.' He got to his feet. ‘You'd better go and talk to Winnick in Calgary if you want to query the results. He charted the area.'

I caught him as he turned towards the door. ‘I'm only asking you for your opinion,' I said. ‘I haven't time to go to Calgary again.'

‘I have no opinion,' he replied, his eyes looking towards the door as though he wanted to escape from my questions.

‘All I want to know,' I said, ‘is whether there is any chance of oil existing under the surface of the Kingdom.'

‘The report says No,' he replied. ‘Why don't you write Winnick for a copy and read it?'

Something about his insistence on the report made me wonder. ‘Do you agree with the report?' I asked him.

‘Look, I'm in a hurry. I've already told you—'

‘I'm asking you a very simple question,' I said. ‘Do you or do you not agree with the report?'

He seemed to hesitate. ‘Yes,' he said, and pushed quickly by me to the door.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the still open doorway, wondering why he had been so reluctant to commit himself. I went back to the stove and sat there for a while, smoking a cigarette and thinking. I went over again my conversation with Roger Fergus. He had given me to understand that Bladen had been as enthusiastic as my grandfather. And yet now, when I had asked Bladen . . .

I looked round the room. It was quite empty, but through the door to the scullery I could see Pauline busy at the sink. I went across to her. ‘Could you tell me whether there's a girl called Jean Lucas still living here?' I asked. Her little girl clung to her apron and stared up at me with big round eyes, sucking a dirty thumb. ‘She's English and she used to go up—'

‘Yes, she's still here,' she replied. ‘She lives with Miss Garret and her sister.' She looked at me out of slanting brown eyes as she stretched up to put a plate on the rack. She had a fine, firm figure. ‘If you like I'll take you over there when I've put Kitty to bed.'

I thanked her and went back to the stove.

IT WAS ABOUT
seven-thirty when we left The Golden Calf. We went out by way of the bar. A little huddle of men were bunched around the stove. Their talk ceased abruptly as we entered and they stared at me dumbly, curiously. James McClellan and Creasy were there and the man with the fur cap and the two who had been playing cards when I first arrived. There were others I had never seen before and a little removed from them was the loutish figure of Max Trevedian staring stupidly into the red glow of the stove. At a table by himself Bladen sat over a glass of beer, the scar more noticeable than ever, his dark eyes fixed on my face.

‘I'm just taking Mr Wetheral down to see Jean,' Pauline told her husband.

I saw Bladen start and realised suddenly that this was the same Jean he had been so anxious to see when he arrived. James McClellan grunted. The others watched us in silence as we crossed to the door.

Outside it was pitch dark. Not a light showed anywhere. It was warmer than it had been during the afternoon and there was a light wind from the West. We stopped outside the door and in the stillness of the night the only sound was the gentle murmur of water seeping down to the lake. From behind the closed door I heard the murmur of conversation starting up again. ‘I suppose they're talking about me?' I said.

‘But of course.' My companion laughed. ‘What else would they talk about? We have little enough to talk about in the wintertime. They will talk of nothing else for weeks.'

‘They don't seem to have liked my grandfather very much,' I said.

‘Oh, they are bitter, that is all. All the time he was living up there in the Kingdom they had something to hope for. Now he is dead and they have nothing to stand between them and the reality of their lives here. Look at the place.' She shone her torch out across the snow to the crumbling shape of the shacks on the other side of the street. They looked forlorn and wretched in the brightness of the beam. ‘Do you wonder they are bitter? Come on.' She took my arm. ‘I will guide you because it is dangerous. This sidewalk has many boards missing. There is no money to repair them, you see. If anything becomes rotten in this town it stays rotten. If you are here till the spring you will see how dreadful this place is. The main street is axle-deep in mud and the whole mountainside seems to be slipping beneath the houses. More and more houses collapse each year when the mud comes. You will see.'

‘Tell me,' I said, ‘is Max Trevedian the brother of the man who runs the transport company?'

‘
Oui
. You would never believe to look at them, would you?' She gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘Half brothers, I think. But do not tell them so. That is just gossip, you know. Jimmy says Peter takes after his father and is a real Cornishman, while the younger one, Max, is very German like his mother.' Her hand tightened on my arm. ‘Be careful here. It is very bad.' A single rotten plank spanned a gap in the sidewalk. ‘Do you know what my children call Max?' she added as we stumbled through softening snow to the next safe stretch of the sidewalk. ‘They call him the Moose Man. Have you ever seen a moose?'

‘No,' I said. ‘Only in pictures.'

‘You will see plenty here if you go into the timber, then you will understand how very amusing the name is.' She flicked her torch towards the pale glimmer of a lighted window ahead. ‘That is where the Miss Garrets live. They are terrible gossips and very old-fashioned. But I like them.'

‘And Jean Lucas—what's she like?' I asked.

‘Oh, you will like her. She is very
intéressante
, I think.' She gave my arm a squeeze. ‘She and I are great friends. We talk in French together.'

‘She speaks French?' Somehow the idea of an English girl out here in the wilds speaking French seemed absurd.

‘But of course. She is English, but she has some French blood.'

‘What is she doing in Come Lucky?' I asked. ‘Has she relatives here?'

‘No. I also think it is queer.' I felt her shrug her shoulders. ‘I do not know. I think perhaps it is because she is not happy. She worked in France during the war. Here we are now.' She knocked and pushed open the door. ‘Miss Garret,' she called. ‘It is Pauline. May we come in?'

A door opened and the soft glow of lamplight flooded the small entrance hall. ‘Sure. Come on in.' Miss Garret was small and dainty, like a piece of Dresden china. She wore a long black velvet dress with a little lace collar and a band of velvet round her neck from which hung a large cameo. To my astonishment she quizzed me through a gold lorgnette as I entered the room. ‘Oh, how nice of you, Pauline,' she cooed. ‘You've brought Mr Wetheral to see us.'

‘You know my name?' I said.

‘Of course.' She turned to the other occupant of the room. ‘Sarah. Pauline's brought Mr Wetheral to see us.' She spoke loudly and her sister darted a rapid, bird-like glance in my direction and looked away again. ‘My sister's a little deaf. It makes her shy. Now take off your coat, Mr Wetheral, and come and tell us all about your legacy.'