The Land God Gave to Cain (37 page)

However, we coupled it up, re-rigged the aerial, and after cleaning the rust from the terminal, I slipped the headphones on, switched the set to receive and, with Darcy cranking, went slowly round the dial. But I could hear nothing, not even a crackle or the slightest murmur of any static. I checked carefully over the set, trying to remember everything that fool of an operator at Camp 263 had told me. But as far as I could see I'd done everything I should. But when we tried again there was still nothing.

“It could be the jack of the earphones,” Darcy suggested. “Suppose we give it a clean.”

But I shook my head. “We could clean the jack, but we'd never clean the socket. Once we disturb the phone-jack we're done.” I switched over to send then. It was long past the time I'd agreed with Perkins, but there was no harm in trying. The transmission might work, even if the reception didn't. “Crank her up again,” I said. And then I put the mouthpiece to my lips. “CQ-CQ-CQ,” I called, with the tuning dial set at the net frequency. “This is Ferguson calling from Lake of the Lion. Any 75-metre phone station. Come in, please. Come in Over.” I flicked the switch to receive. But there wasn't a sound.

I tried again and went on trying. And when Darcy was tired of cranking, he tried, whilst I operated the generator. But we got no response, and when we were both exhausted, we gave it up. “I told you the Godammed thing wouldn't work,” Darcy said.

“Okay,” I said wearily. “If you knew, why did you bother to go on cranking.” I was tired and angry.

“You'd got the generator going. I thought you might get the set going, too.”

“Well, I haven't.” And because I thought this was probably our only hope, I added, “We'll try again in the morning.”

“There'll be no time in the morning. We're leaving at first light.”

“You can leave if you want to,” I said. “I'm not going till after seven-thirty.”

“That'll lose us an hour and a half, and we can't afford—”

“I tell you I'm not leaving until seven-thirty,” I said obstinately. “I told Perkins seven to seven-thirty. He'll be listening in for us then. Ledder, too, probably.”

“Oh, for God's sake!” he said angrily. “You know there isn't a hope in hell of your raising them. The set's out of action, and that's all there is to it. Briffe only managed to make it work once.”

“Briffe started with a set that was waterlogged. He had to crank the thing himself, and he was exhausted and his hand was injured. If he could get it to work, then so can we.”

“I think Ian is right,” Paule said suddenly. “Per'aps my father only get the transmission side of it to work. But I think you should try, even if it means delaying your departure.”

“That hour and a half could make all the difference,” Darcy growled. And then he was looking at me, and the firelight on his glasses gave his eyes a baleful look. “Try, if you must. I don't know anything about radio, but I'd say the set was useless after being out in the weather all this time.”

So it was agreed and we heaped more wood on the fire and went to sleep. And every few hours during the night one of us would get up and replenish the fire, so that the hours of sleep alternated between intense heat and intense cold, and all through that endless night I seemed to hear Laroche's voice as in a nightmare.

At last daylight crept back into the sombre cleft of the lake. The Lion Rock lifted its black profile from the mist that lay like a white smoke over the water, and I went stiffly back to the radio set, checking and rechecking it in the forlorn hope that, by the mere fact of fussing over it, the damned thing would work.

We had our coffee and just before seven o'clock I squatted down in front of that malignant, rusted box, put the earphones on and switched the set to send. And as Darcy cranked I began my fruitless monologue: “CQ-CQ-CQ. Ferguson calling Perkins. Calling Ledder. Camp 134—Can you hear me? Goose Bay? Any 75-metre phone station. Come in, please. Anybody, come in. Over.” Sometimes I called “Mayday!” which I knew to be a distress call. Sometimes just Perkins, or Camp 134. But whenever I said “Over” and switched across to receive, there was absolute silence, Nothing. An infinity of nothing, so that I knew the thread was broken, the contact non-existent. And yet I kept on trying. And when Darcy was tired, I handed over to him and he tried with the same result. And at seven twenty-five, in desperation, I began describing our position—the river, the falls, the bearing and distance from the place where we'd crossed.

And then it was seven-thirty and I put the mouthpiece back in its place. “Well, we tried anyway,” I said. Darcy nodded. He made no comment, but began quietly collecting his things together. Paule had disappeared into the timber. Laroche was asleep, no longer delirious. “What chance do you think we've got?” I said.

“Of getting back?” Darcy asked.

“Of getting back in time,” I said.

He hesitated, staring down at Laroche. “We're in God's hands,” he muttered. “But he'll be dead for sure.” And he turned to me and said abruptly, “You afraid of death?”

“I don't know,” I said.

He nodded. “No, I guess none of us knows that till we're faced with it. I only faced it once before, like this. I was scared all right then. Maybe not this time. I'm getting old.” He reached down for his pack, which was barely half full. “All set?” And then he looked up as Paule came hurrying back to us. Her face had a white, frozen look of horror on it and her eyes were wide as though she'd seen a ghost. “What is it?” Darcy asked.

“Up there by that outcrop.” She pointed a trembling hand towards a huddle of rocks that stood amongst the trees. And she sat down suddenly as though her knees had given way beneath her. “Where did you bury him?” she asked.

“I told you, down there where we found Baird's grave,” Darcy said.

“Of course. It was silly of me, but I thought for a moment—” A shudder ran through her. And then she was staring at me with her eyes wide, and almost involuntarily, as though she had willed it, I started up over the rocks.

I don't think I was surprised at what I found under that rock outcrop. I think I had known the instant she looked at me that I was being sent to pay my respects to the mortal remains of my grandfather. He lay close under the largest of the rocks, in a sort of gulley—a skeleton, nothing more. No vestige of clothing remained; just a pile of bones, grey with age and weather. Only the cage of the ribs was still intact. The head lay beside it, quite detached from it, smiling a bare-boned, tooth-filled smile at the Labrador sky, and the bone of the forehead was all shattered and broken open as Laroche had said. I turned it over, and there at the base of the skull was the neat-drilled hole where the bullet had entered, and I thought of the pistol that hung in my father's room. Had my grandmother found that pistol at one of Pierre Laroche's camp sites—was it the very pistol that had fired the bullet into this poor, bare skull? I stooped and stared in fascination, and then I heard Darcy behind me. “Funny thing,” he murmured, peering down at it over my shoulder, “I'd almost forgotten about that earlier expedition.”

“I suppose it is my grandfather?” I said.

“Well, it isn't an Indian, that's for sure. You only got to look at the shape of the skull. No,” he added, “it's James Finlay Ferguson all right, and there's not much doubt what happened.”

“No.” I was thinking of the man we'd buried the previous day, and I looked at Darcy and then past him, down to the sombre lake and the black rock standing crouched in the middle of it. “No wonder the Indian was scared of the place.”

He nodded. “It's a bad place all right. And this isn't going to make it any easier for Paule.”

“Well, we can cover it up,” I said. “And she needn't come up here.”

“Sure. But how would you like to be left here alone with the body of the man you love dead by your own hand and those two graves by the shore there and this lying up here? Nothing but tragedy in this place. And she's part Indian remember.”

“Laroche may not die,” I murmured. But I wasn't any happier about it than he was.

“He may not die to-day or to-morrow. But he'll be dead before we get out, and she'll be alone then. There won't be much incentive for her to go on living after that.” And then he said almost angrily, “Well, come on, we got to get going.”

We covered the bones with handfuls of wet earth and then went back down to the fire. “We're going now, Paule,” Darcy said.

She was crouched over Laroche and she didn't look up. “He's conscious now,” she said gently. And when I went nearer, I saw that his eyes were open. A flicker of recognition showed in them as I came into his line of vision, and his throat moved convulsively, as though he were trying to say something, but no words came. “Don't try to talk,” she whispered urgently. “You must save your strength.” And then she got suddenly to her feet and stood facing us. “You've—covered it up?”

Darcy nodded. “Yeah. There's nothing for you to see there now.”

She was staring at me. “It must be terrible for you—to have discovered what happened. For both of us,” she murmured. And then, pulling herself together, her voice suddenly clear and practical: “You'll go fast, won't you—as fast as you can.” It wasn't a question, but a statement. And when Darcy nodded, too affected to speak, she went to him and gripped hold of his hand. “God bless you, Ray,” she said. “I'll pray that you get through in time.”

“We'll do our best, Paule. You know that.”

“Yes. I know that.” She stared at him a moment, and I knew what was in her mind; she was thinking she'd never see him again. And then she leaned suddenly forward and kissed him. “God help us!” she whispered.

“He will,” he assured her.

She turned to me then and held out her hand. And when I gripped it, I couldn't help myself—I said, “I'm sorry, Paule. It would have been better for you if I'd never come to Canada.”

But she shook her head. “It wasn't your fault,” she said softly. “We both wanted the same thing—the truth; and that cannot be hidden for ever.” She kissed me then. “Good-bye, Ian. I'm glad I met you.” And then she turned back to Laroche, who all the time had been staring at us with his eyes wide open. And as we picked up our things and turned to go, he struggled up on to one elbow. “Good luck!” I didn't hear the words, but only read them through the movement of his lips. And then he fell back and Paule was bending over him.

“Okay,” Darcy said thickly. “Let's get going.”

We left them then, going straight along the narrow beach, past the two graves and the half-submerged aircraft, and up through the timber, the way we'd come. The knife with which Paule had attacked Laroche still lay where she'd thrown it, and I picked it up and slipped it into my pack. Why, I don't know, unless it was that I didn't want her to find it lying there to remind her of what had happened.

Neither of us looked back, and in a little while we'd climbed the slope above the lake and the wretched place was gone, hidden from view by the timber. It was a bright, clear day, but by the time we'd crossed the river at the lake expansion, the wind had risen and was blowing half a gale, with ragged wisps of cloud tearing across the cold blue of the sky.

We were travelling light and we didn't spare ourselves, for our need of food was urgent.

An hour before nightfall we were back at the lake where Laroche and I had left them, and there was the canoe and the tent and my pack and all the things they'd abandoned to make that final dash to Lake of the Lion. It all looked just as I had left it, except that everything was covered with snow and only the two of us now.

Darcy collapsed as soon as we reached the camp. He had let me set the pace, and it had been too much for him. And as I cut the wood and got the fire going, I wondered how we'd make out from there on, with the canoe to carry, as well as the food and the tent and all our gear. But he revived as soon as he'd got some hot coffee inside him, and by the time he'd fed, he seemed as full of life as ever, even managing to crack a few jokes.

As soon as we had fed, we turned in. It was the last night of any comfort, for in the morning we decided to abandon the tent; in fact, everything except food to last the two of us three days, one cooking utensil, our down sleeping-bags and a change of socks and underwear. We ate a huge breakfast, shovelling all the food we could into ourselves, and then we started up through the jackpine with the canoe and our packs on our shoulders.

It took us six hours to get clear of the timber and back down into the open country of gravel and water, and by then Darcy was stumbling with exhaustion. But he refused to stop, and we went on until we reached the first of the lakes and could launch the canoe. His face was the colour of putty and his breath wheezed in his throat. And still we went on without a pause, heading well to the south of west in the hopes of avoiding the worst of the muskeg. The wind dropped and it began to snow. Night caught us still in the open and we lay in our sleeping-bags on a gravel ridge with the canoe on top of us.

It was a grey-white world in the morning—grey skies, grey water, white ridges. And on the lake ahead of us a dozen or more geese sat and called to each other in a little patch of open water they'd made in the new-formed ice. But we'd left the gun behind. We'd nothing but the fishing-rod, and we'd no time to fish.

There is no point in my describing that terrible journey in detail. I doubt, in any case, whether I could, for as we struggled on my mind as well as my body became frozen into numbness, dazed with exhaustion. How Darcy kept going, I don't know. It was sheer will-power, for his body gave out before mine did, and as my own energy diminished, my admiration for him increased. He never complained, never gave up hope. He just kept going doggedly on to the limit of endurance and beyond. It was this more than anything else that enabled me to keep going, for the cold was frightful and we ran out of food long before we reached the Tote Road and the line of the grade.