Campbell's Kingdom (12 page)

‘Gossip.' She laughed a trifle nervously. ‘You can't keep anything secret in this place.' She turned and faced me squarely. ‘Why have you changed your mind?'

‘I haven't yet,' I told her.

‘No, but you're going to.' She waited for a moment and when I didn't say anything she said, ‘I suppose Peter has been getting at you. And the old men . . .' There was anger and contempt in her voice. ‘I suppose they've tried to tell you that you're under an obligation to make good some of their losses?'

She seemed to expect some sort of a reply so I said, ‘Well, I suppose from their point of view I am being a little unreasonable.'

‘Unreasonable! Was it Stuart's fault they went oil-crazy and bought up half the mountain peaks around here regardless of the geological possibilities just because he reported a big oil seep at the head of Thunder Creek.' She leaned suddenly forward. ‘Do you think they helped him when things went wrong? When he was on trial in England for fraud they swore affidavits that he was a liar and a cheat. And when he came back here they hounded him up into the Kingdom so that all the last years of his life were spent in solitude and hardship. When Luke Trevedian died Stuart hadn't a friend in Come Lucky. You owe the people here nothing. Nothing.' She paused for breath. The fierceness of her tone had had something personal in it and I found myself unconsciously toying with the idea that she might after all be the old man's natural child. ‘Now you're here,' she added in a quieter tone, ‘don't believe everything people tell you. Please. Check everything for yourself.'

She spoke as though I had all the time in the world. I passed my hand wearily across my eyes. ‘Am I to take it that you believe my grandfather was right?'

She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. It was impossible to live with him for any length of time and not believe him. He had tremendous faith—in himself and in other people, and in God. He couldn't understand that some people—' She stopped, her mouth suddenly a tight, hard line. ‘I met many fine men—during the war. But he was one of the finest . . .' Her voice died and she stared into the flames. ‘I want him to be proved right.' Her hand had tightened on her jaw. ‘I want desperately for the world to know that he wasn't a crank, that he believed everything he said and that it was the truth.'

‘But what about this survey?' I said. ‘I understand it proved conclusively that there was no oil in the Kingdom.'

‘Of course it did. Do you think Henry Fergus would have agreed to postpone his plans for a whole season without ensuring that the results proved what he wanted them to prove? I tried to warn Stuart. But he was getting old. He couldn't believe he wouldn't get a straight deal from his old friend Roger Fergus. He couldn't understand that Roger Fergus was an old man, too—that it was his son, Henry, who really controlled his affairs. And Henry has all the meanness of a man who has taken over wealth that someone else has made for him.' She looked across at me. ‘Before you do anything, go and talk to Boy Bladen. He's here in Come Lucky now. Ask him what he thinks of that report.'

‘But—' I stared at her. ‘I've already spoken to Bladen. He agrees with it.'

‘He does not.' Her eyes were wide. ‘Ever since he saw the results of the first charge he's been as enthusiastic as your grandfather. It just isn't true that he agrees with the report.'

‘Well, that's what he told me, and scarcely two hours ago.'

‘I'll talk to him,' she said. ‘He's coming to see me this evening. There's something behind this. I'll send him straight over to see you when he leaves here.'

I was suddenly remembering the expression of violent anger on Bladen's face as he had pushed past me on the steps of Trevedian's office. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Perhaps if you have a talk with him—'

There was a knock at the door and Miss Ruth Garret entered with a tray. ‘I've brought you some tea, dear.' Her sharp, inquisitive eyes seemed to miss nothing.

‘That's very kind of you.' Jean Lucas got up and took the tray. ‘Is Pauline still here?'

‘Yes, she's waiting for Mr Wetheral.'

‘We won't be long.'

Miss Garret stood there uncertainly for a moment, her eyes fixed on the box on the table beside me. Then she turned reluctantly and left us. ‘Poor old thing,' Jean said. ‘She just loves to know everything. Once they went as far as Prince George and saw the river steamers and the trains. That was thirty years ago and I don't think they've been out of Come Lucky since.' She glanced at the box beside me. ‘You'd better have a look at the things I brought down for you. It may help you to learn something about your grandfather.'

I took the box on my knees, slipped the ribbon off and lifted the lid. Inside everything had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper. There were faded photographs and medals from the first war. A little silver tobacco jar carried the outline of an oil rig on the lid and inside the inscription:

To Stuart Campbell from the Management of the Excelsior Oil Company of Turner Valley on his leaving to form his own company—April 8, 1912. Good luck, Stuart!

The first of the signatures was Roger Fergus. There were several other personal oddments, including a mining diploma.

As I laid them out on the table beside me, I said, ‘When did he give you these?' I was thinking he must have known he was going to die.

‘He didn't give them to me. I brought them down myself. I knew what he wanted you to have. I suppose I should have sent them on to you, but I didn't know your address and somehow I was convinced you'd come here yourself.'

‘You went up after his death?' I asked.

‘Yes.'

‘By the hoist?'

‘No, the hoist wasn't working then.'

‘But—' I was trying to reconcile this quiet, rather tense girl with the journey up those mountain slopes to the cleft of Solomon's Judgment. ‘Do you mean to say you went up there on your own?'

‘Of course.' She smiled. ‘There's an old Indian trail. It's only a day's journey each way. I just wanted to be sure that everything was all right.'

‘But when I saw Johnnie Carstairs in Jasper he said the snows had started and he had great difficulty in getting his party down.'

‘Yes, I know. But afterwards the chinook started blowing and when the snows had gone I decided to go up. I'm afraid I could only bring some of the lighter things. But you'll find a lot of rock specimens at the bottom. He was very anxious always that you should have those. They were evidence in support of his case.'

‘Is his Bible here by any chance?' I asked, starting to remove the rock specimens which were also wrapped in tissue paper.

‘Yes. Why do you ask?'

‘He said there would be some papers with it.' I pulled it out and removed the tissue paper. It was about a quarter the size of an old-fashioned family Bible, bound in leather and held by a leather tab and a gilt hasp. ‘Have you got the key?' I asked her.

‘No. He carried it on a little silver chain round his neck.' She was staring into the fire again. ‘There was a signet ring and a gold watch and chain you should have had, too. But they buried him just as he was.' She got up slowly and brought me a pair of scissors. ‘You'll have to cut it.'

I slit the leather above the hasp and opened the book. It seemed in a way sacrilegious, for I was opening it to find papers whereas the owner had always been opening it in order to read. But there were no papers. I riffled through the pages. A single sheet of notepaper fell out. I stared at it, wondering where the progress report had got to. And then the contents of the note riveted my attention:

The Kingdom, 20th November,

Dear Bruce,

When you read this the Kingdom will be yours. I shall not last the winter. And I have no longer the energy or the will to fight for my beliefs.

This day I have received the results of Bladen's survey. The chart shows a quite unbelievable jumble of rock strata below the surface. I have it before me as I write together with the consultant's report . . .

I stared at the paragraph and read it through again. Then I looked across at Jean.

‘What is it?' she asked.

‘I thought he died without knowing the results of that survey?' I said.

She nodded. ‘Yes. I was so glad. I don't think he understood what a seismographic survey was exactly, but he knew the oil companies could be convinced if the survey were successful and in view of Boy's reaction he was very optimistic that at last—'

‘He knew the result,' I said.

‘But that's impossible. Johnnie was the last person up there—except for me.'

‘Well, listen to this,' I said. ‘“
This day I have received the results of Bladen's survey.
'”

‘But—' She was staring at me, her eyes wide. ‘When was it written?' She held out her hand. ‘Let me see.'

‘It was written on the 20th November,' I said. ‘Johnnie Carstairs found him on the 22nd.' I passed her the sheet of paper.

She stared at it unbelievingly. ‘It is clear, therefore—' her voice trembled as she read—‘that in the upheaval which raised these mountains, as might be expected, such disturbance of the rock strata occurred as to make the possibility of oil traps, either stratigraphical or in the form of anticlines, quite out of the question.' Her voice died away and she stared at the paper which trembled violently in her hands. ‘Oh, my God!' she breathed. Her hands clenched suddenly. ‘How could they be so cruel?' She turned on me, her face suddenly older and stronger in the violence of her feeling. ‘What an incredible, beastly way to kill a man—to kill him through his hopes. If they'd stuck a knife into him—' She turned away struggling to get control of herself. ‘Here.' She thrust the letter out to me. ‘Read the rest of it, will you. I can't.'

I took the crumpled sheet and spread it out:

. . . so finally I have to face the fact that I can do no more. You may regard this as the obstinacy of a cranky old man set in his beliefs. I only ask you to remember that I have been studying rock strata all my life and I absolutely refuse to believe that the very broken nature of the strata below the Kingdom as shown by this survey can be correct. You have only to look at the fault at the head of Thunder Creek to know this to be true. Further, though I cannot vouch for there being oil, I do know there was oil here in 1911 when the big slide occurred. The trap that held that oil must have shown on the chart if this survey were accurate. I fear there are things moving that I do not understand living alone here in my kingdom.

My final and urgent request to you is that you somehow find the money to test my beliefs by drilling, which is the only sure method. Do this before they complete the dam and drown the Kingdom for ever.

I pray God you will accept the mantle of my beliefs and wear it to the damnation of my enemies. God keep you, and if I am wrong know that I shall be suffering the torments of the Damned for I shall have wasted half of the life God gave me.

Affectionately and with Great Hopes of You

Stuart Campbell

My hands dropped to my knees and I sat staring at the fire, seeing in my mind the old man writing that last pitiful plea, knowing that there were people down in the valley who hated him enough to climb through a snow storm to give him the bad news before winter closed in on him. ‘I'd like to get my hands on the man that took that report up to him.' My voice grated harshly on the silence of the room.

‘If they'd killed him with their own hands,' Jean whispered, ‘they couldn't have done it more cruelly.'

‘Who hated him that much?'

‘Oh, George Riley, the Trevedians, the McClellans, Daniel Smith, the Hutterite, Ed Schieffer—everybody who'd lost money.' She turned to me suddenly. ‘You've got to prove him right. He had such faith in you.'

I leaned back and stared at the fire. That was all very well, but it meant drilling. It meant time and money, and I hadn't much of either. ‘I'll see what Bladen has to say.'

She nodded and then rose slowly to her feet. ‘You must go now. He'll be here shortly and I don't want him to meet you before I've talked to him. Besides—' She hesitated. ‘He has fits of moodiness that I don't think you'd understand, and I want you to like him.'

I had also got to my feet and I wondered what was coming. She was staring down at her nails, her fingers interlocked. Suddenly she raised her head. ‘I think perhaps I'd better tell you something about him, just in case other people start talking to you first. Boy is the only son of the Canadian actor, Basil Bladen. His mother was a full-blooded Iroquois. The Iroquois, by the way, are one of the few Indian tribes that have been absorbed into the white man's world without ill effects. But it still didn't work out. This was some time ago, mind you. I think it would be different now. They were idyllically happy, but Basil Bladen began to find parts difficult to get, particularly in the States where he had been very well known. It was the usual story: he took to drink. He became a dipsomaniac. His resting periods became longer and longer and eventually he couldn't even get parts in Canada. When they were flat broke he shot his wife and then himself.' She paused. ‘Boy was thirteen at the time.'

‘Who brought him up?' I asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Life, I guess. He's been everything—gold prospector, trapper, Hudson's Bay Company trader. Then he took to flying. He became one of the best bush fliers in the North Western Territories. Maybe that was the Indian in him. He could find his way anywhere. Then the war came and he was shot down in flames over Germany. That's where he got the scar and the burned hands. He had a year in a prison camp and when he came back to Canada he found he couldn't fly any more. His eyesight was bad and he'd lost his nerve.' She looked up at me and added, ‘I wanted you to know about him so that—' She shrugged her shoulders. ‘He's a queer mixture of daring, poetry and utter, wretched silence. He's full of childish enthusiasm one minute and then suddenly it's gone and he's silent and moody and goes off on his own.' She gave a quick laugh. ‘I'm afraid I've made him sound very odd indeed. But he's one of the nicest men . . .' She turned towards the door. ‘Pauline will be getting tired of waiting.'