The Land God Gave to Cain (10 page)

The mood was still with me more than an hour later when we began to descend. I felt the check as the flaps went down and then the engines were throttled back and a moment later we touched down. We taxied for a while, bumping heavily over rough ground, and then we stopped, the engines quietly ticking over.

Farrow himself came back down the fuselage and opened the doors for me. “Good luck,” he said. “And see they look after you. We'll be in Montreal until midday to-morrow if you want a ride back.”

“Of course I want to go back with you,” I shouted. I was appalled at the thought that he might return to England without me.

He clapped me on the shoulder and I jumped out into the backwash of air from the slowly turning props.

“I'll be there,” I shouted up to him.

The door slammed shut and I hurried clear, to stand a little way off, watching, with my suitcase gripped in my hand. Farrow was back at the controls. He waved to me through the windshield. The engines roared, kicking up a great swirl of dust, and then the machine that had brought me across the Atlantic went lumbering away over the hard-baked dirt of the airfield, out to the runway-end.

I watched it take off—watched it until it was a speck in the sky. I hated to see Farrow go. I was alone now, and there was nobody here I knew. I stood there for a moment, waiting and turning the loose change over in my pocket. I'd a few pounds in my wallet, but that was all. Nobody came out to meet me.

PART TWO

THE LABRADOR RAILWAY

I

When I could no longer see the plane I walked slowly towards the line of pre-fabricated huts that were the airport buildings. I felt abandoned, almost lost now, for there was nothing about Seven Islands to give me a sense of ease.

The bull-dozed road, the dust, the maple leaf in the last flush of autumn, and the distant glimpse of new construction and heaped-up stores and equipment; it had a barbaric newness, an alien quality like the supply point for a battlefield. There were open hangar-like sheds piled with crates and sacks of foodstuffs, pieces of machinery, tyres, and a fork lift trundling the stuff out to a battered Dakota where a group of men stood smoking. They were a wild, mixed lot in strange headgear and gaily coloured bush shirts, and their kit stacked about them included bed rolls and thick, quilted jackets.

The place had an edge-of-the-wilds smell about it, and in the despatch office they knew nothing about me. There was nobody to meet me, not even a message, and when I asked for the offices of the McGovern Mining & Exploration Company, they had never heard of it. “You a geologist?” the despatcher asked.

“No.” I didn't want to start explaining myself here.

“Well, what's your job then?”

“I'm an engineer,” I said. “But that's got nothing to do—”

“You better report to Q.N.S. & L. then.” He went to the door and shouted to a truck driver who was just moving off. “He'll take you down. Okay?” He was back at his desk, checking a despatch list, and because there seemed nothing else to do I went out to the truck and got in. An office would know where I ought to go or at least I could phone. “What's Q.N.S. & L. stand for?” I asked the driver as we lurched out through the wire on to a dirt road. I was thinking of the pencilled line my father had drawn in on his map.

“Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway.” He looked at me, his battered, sun-reddened face softened by a smile. “You from the Old Country?” He wore a scarlet-patterned woollen bush shirt and the open neck of it showed the hair of his chest grey with road dust. He asked about England. He'd been there with the Canadian Army. And then we crossed the track and he talked about the railway. “I worked on the Tote Road when we started two years back. Boy, that was real tough. Now the Americans are in and they got all the equipment they need to build the grade. You going up the line?”

I shook my head. I was looking at the skyline ahead, staggered by the mushroom growth of buildings. And all to the left of us were acres of piled-up railway equipment—great stacks of rails and sleepers, and store sheds as big as hangars, and in between were the solid, powerful shapes of big diesel electric locomotives, their paintwork factory-new.

“Guess I wouldn't mind going back up the line again,” he said. “Drive, drive, drive; but it's good to see a thing take shape and be a part of it. You oughter go up there, just to tell 'em back in the Old Country how we built a railroad slap into the middle of nowhere.” And he went on: “Gee, you oughter see it now the heat's on. Not more'n a month to go before the big freeze-up and Head of Steel pushing forward near on two miles a day.” He shook his big bullet head. “You oughter see it.” He jammed his foot on the brake pedal and the truck stopped with a jerk. “Okay, fellow. There's the office.” He jerked his head at a group of wooden buildings and there was a board with Q.N.S. & L. R. on it.

The airport despatcher must have phoned them, for the man in the office took me for a newly-arrived engineer. And when I told him I had just stopped off to see the president of the McGovern Mining & Exploration Company, he said, “Hell! I thought it was too good to be true.”

“If you could direct me to the Company's offices,” I suggested.

He scratched his head. “There's no company of that name here. There's just ourselves and the Iron Ore Company and the construction combine.” He tipped his chair back, looking at me. “What's this fellow's name?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I was just told to meet him here in Seven Islands.”

“There was a guy called McGovern at breakfast this morning. Came in last night from Montreal—big man with a voice like a nutmeg grater. That him?”

“Couldn't you ring somebody and find out for me?” I asked. “The plane landed me here specially. There must be a message for me somewhere.”

He sighed and reached for the phone. “Maybe the Iron Ore Company will know something about you. They handle all the mining and exploration side. We're just the railroad here.” He got through to somebody and told him my name and who I'd come to see, and after listening for a bit, he put the receiver down. “Well, McGovern's your man all right. But he's busy right now. A conference.” His chair was tilted back again and he was looking at me with renewed interest. “That was Bill Lands I was on to. He keeps tabs on Burnt Creek and all the geological parties. He'll be right over. I'm Staffen, by the way. Alex Staffen.” He held out his hand to me. “I'm the personnel manager. Bill said something about your being here in connection with this survey party that crashed?”

I nodded.

“Bad business.” He shook his head, sucking in air between his teeth. “Briffe was a nice guy. Did you ever meet him?”

“No,” I said.

“French-Canadian, but a fine guy. A throw-back to the
voyageurs
.” He stared at his desk. “It's tough on his daughter.” He looked up at me suddenly. “You reckon there's hope?” he asked. And when I didn't answer, he said, “There's talk about a transmission having been picked up in England.” His eyes were fixed on mine. “You know anything about that?”

“That's why I'm here,” I said.

I suppose he sensed that I didn't want to talk about it, for he just nodded and looked away towards the window which gave on to a drab view of sand and gravel and huts. “Well, Paule's lucky, I guess, to have one of them come out alive.”

He meant the pilot presumably and I asked him if he knew where Laroche was now.

“Why, here of course.” He seemed surprised.

“You mean he's here in Seven Islands?”

“Sure. He and Paule Briffe …” The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up. “Harry West? Oh, for God's sake!” he exclaimed. “A gas car, you say? Hell!” He made a note on his pad. “Okay, I'll have Ken Burke take over at Two-two-four. No, I'll arrange for him to be flown up.” He slammed the receiver down. “The damn' fool got his foot crushed by a gas car. You'd think after six months up the line he'd know how to handle a speeder.”

The door swung open and a big hustling man came in. He had a tanned face and his calf-length boots were all caked with mud. “Here's Bill now.” My hand was gripped in a hard fist as Staffen introduced us. “I was telling him how Briffe was a real
voyageur
type.”

“Sure was. Knew the North like city folk know their own backyard.” Bill Lands was looking at me, mild blue eyes in a dust-streaked face summing me up. “Okay,” he said abruptly. “Let's go across to my office, shall we? Mr. McGovern should be about through now, I guess.” He gave an off-hand nod to Staffen, and as we went out through the door, he said, “I've sent for Bert Laroche, by the way.”

“For Laroche—why?”

He gave me a flat, hard look. “If a man's going to be called a liar, it better be to his face.” He left it at that and led me down a concrete path to another hut. “Ever meet McGovern?” He tossed the question at me over his shoulder.

“No,” I said. “I'm from England.”

He laughed. “You don't have to tell me that.” At the door of the hut he paused and faced me. “I think, maybe, I'd better warn you. Mac's tough. Spent most of his life in the North-West Territories. He reckons this about the damnedest thing he ever struck.” He strode ahead of me into his office and waved me to a seat across the desk from him. “So do I, if it comes to that. Smoke?” He tossed a pack of American cigarettes into my lap. “Bert's flown me thousands of miles. We've been in on this thing from the start, since back in forty-seven when they decided to establish a permanent survey base at Burnt Creek and really go to work on this iron ore project.” He took the pack from me and lit himself a cigarette. “Bert's a fine guy.”

I didn't say anything. It was McGovern I'd come to see.

“And there's Paule, too,” he added. “That's Briffe's daughter. How do you think she's going to feel when she learns why you're here?” He was leaning back, looking at me through eyes half-closed against the smoke of the cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth, and I could feel him holding himself in. “Did Alex tell you about Bert and Paule?”

He didn't wait for me to answer. “They were planning to be married this fall.” He stared at me and I knew he was hating me and wishing I were dead. But whether for the sake of his friend or because of the girl I didn't know. And then he said, “Paule works right here in this office—has done ever since her father took this job with McGovern and they moved down from Burnt Creek.” He took the cigarette out of his mouth and leaned forward. “What happens when she hears about this? Her father was all the world to her. She grew up in the North, camping and trekking and canoeing with him through the bush like a boy. He was her hero. And now he's dead. Why raise false hopes?”

“But supposing he isn't dead?”

“Bert was there. He says he's dead.” He was jabbing the cigarette at me. “Leave it at that, why can't you?”

He was against me. And I knew then that they'd all be against me. I was an outsider and they'd close their ranks.… “Anyway, I just don't believe it,” he was saying, leaning back and stubbing out his cigarette. “If Bert says they're dead, then they're dead and that's all there is to it. It's not his fault he was the only one got out. It happens that way sometimes.” And he added, “He's one of the finest bush fliers in the North. I remember one time, back in forty-nine: we were flying out of Fort Chimo and the weather clamped right down …”

He was interrupted by the slam of a door in the corridor outside and a harsh voice saying, “I agree. No point in hanging on to those concessions.”

“That's Mac now.” Lands rose from his chair and went to the door. “We're in here, Mac.”

“Fine, Bill. I'll be right with you.” And then the voice added, “Well, there it is. Sorry it didn't work out.”

Bill Lands turded away from the door and he came across to where I was sitting. “I've read the reports,” he said. “I know what they say about your father.” His hand gripped my shoulder. “But he's dead and nobody can hurt him. These others, they're alive.” He was staring at me hard, and then he added, “Don't crucify Paule just to try and prove a point.”

It was said very quietly, but grim-faced, so that I caught my breath, staring up at him. And then McGovern's harsh voice came from beyond the door again: “But don't expect too much from us on the northern concessions. There's a bare month before freeze-up—maybe less.” And another voice said, “Okay. Do the best you can, Mac. But we've got to know what we hang on to and what we give up.” The outer door slammed, and then McGovern was in the room.

He was a broad, chunky man, hard-jawed and tight-lipped, and the battered face was weathered with a thousand wrinkles. Eyes clear as grey stone pebbles looked me over. “You a ham operator, too?” The voice grated on my nerves, the tone hostile. Or was that my imagination?

“No,” I said. I had risen to my feet, but he didn't come across to greet me. Instead he went over to the desk, slammed a bulging briefcase on top of it and sat down in Bill Lands' chair. The briefcase didn't seem to fit the man any more than his city suit. There was something untamed about him—an impression that was enhanced by the mane of white hair that swept back from his low, broad forehead. It was as though a piece of northern wild had moved into the office, and I think I was scared of him before ever he started to question me.

Bill Lands gave a little cough. “Well, I'll leave you two to—”

“No, no. You stay here, Bill. I'd like you to' hear what this young man has to tell us. Has Bert arrived yet?”

“No, but he should be here any minute.”

“Well, pull up a chair. Now then.” McGovern fastened his eyes on me. “I take it you've got some new information for us … something that proves Briffe's still alive?” He phrased it as a question, his shaggy eyebrows lifted and his flinty eyes boring into me. “Well?”