Десмонд Бэгли - Landslide

So it would go, I hoped; and the ripples would go wider and wider, especially if I dropped some more rocks into this stagnant pool. Sooner or later the ripples would reach the ferocious old pike who ruled the pool, and I hoped he would take action.

I pulled up in front of the Forestry Service office and went inside. The Forestry Officer was called Tanner and he was cordial if not hopeful. I told him I was passing through and that I was interested in tree-farm licences.

‘Not a chance, Mr Boyd,’ he said. ‘The Matterson Corporation has licensed nearly all the Crown lands round here. There are one or two pockets left but they’re so small you could spit across them.’

I scratched my jaw. ‘Perhaps if I could see a map?’ I suggested.

‘Sure,’ he said promptly, and quickly produced a largescale map of the area which he spread on his desk. ‘There you have it in a nutshell.’ His finger traced a wide sweep. ‘All this is the holding of the Matterson Corporation — privately owned. And this here...’ a much larger sweep this time... ‘is Crown land franchised to the Matterson Corporation under tree-farm licences.’

I looked closely at the map, which made very interesting viewing. To divert Tanner from what I was really after, I said, ‘What about public sustained-yield units?’ Those were areas where the Forestry Service did all the work but let the felling franchises out on short-term contracts.

‘None of those round here, Mr Boyd. We’re too far off the beaten track for the Forestry Service to run tree farms. Most of the sustained-yield units are down south.’

‘It certainly looks like a closed shop,’ I commented. ‘Any truth in what I hear that the Matterson Corporation got into trouble for over-felling?’

Tanner looked at me warily. Over-felling is the most heinous crime in the Forestry Service book. ‘I couldn’t say about that,’ he said stiffly.

I wondered if he had been bought by Matterson, but on second thoughts I didn’t think so. Buying a forestry officer in British Columbia would be like buying a Cardinal of the Church — just about impossible. Fifty per cent of the province’s revenue comes from timber and conservation is the great god. To come out against conservation is like coming out against motherhood.

I checked the map again. ‘Thanks for your trouble, Mr Tanner,’ I said. ‘You’ve been very obliging, but there seems precious little for me here. Any of these tree-farm licences likely to fall vacant?’

‘Not for a long time, Mr Boyd. The Matterson Corporation has put in a lot of capital in sawmills and pulp mills; they insisted on long-term licences.’

I nodded. ‘Very wise; I’d want the same. Well, thanks again, Mr Tanner.’

I left him without satisfying the wondering look in his eye and drove down to the depot where I picked up a lot of geological gear that I had sent in advance. The fat depot superintendent helped me load the Land-Rover, and said, ‘You figuring on staying?’

‘For a while,’ I said. ‘Just for a while. You can call me Trinavant’s last hope.’

A salacious leer spread over his face. ‘Clare Trinavant? You want to watch out for Howard Matterson.’

I suppressed the desire to push his face in. ‘Not Clare Trinavant,’ I said gently. ‘John Trinavant. And I can take care of Howard Matterson, too, if he interferes. Have you got a phone anywhere?’

He still wore the surprised look as he said abstractedly, ‘In the hall.’

I strode past him and he came pattering after me. ‘Hey, mister, John Trinavant is dead — he’s been dead for over ten years.’

I stopped. ‘I know he’s dead. That’s the point. Don’t you get it? Now beat it. This is a private telephone call.’

He turned away with a baffled shrug and a muttered, ‘Aw, nuts!’ I smiled because another rock had been thrown into the pool and another set of ripples started to affright the hungry pike.

Did you hear about that crazy man that just blew into town? Said he was Trinavant’s last hope. I thought he meant Clare; you know, Clare Trinavant, but he said he meant John. Can you beat that, with old John been dead for ten — no, twelve — years! This guy was here a couple of years back and had words with Howard Matterson about Clare Trinavant. How do I know? Because Maggie Hope told me — she was Howard’s secretary then. I warned her not to shoot her mouth off but it was no good. Howard fired her. But this guy is crazy, for sure. I mean, John Trinavant — he’s dead.

I phoned the Recorder office and got hold of Mac. ‘Do you know of a good lawyer?’ I asked.

‘I might,’ he said cautiously. ‘What do you want a lawyer for?’

‘I want a lawyer who isn’t afraid of bucking Matterson. I know the land laws but I want a lawyer who can give legal punch to what I know — dress the stuff up in that scary legal language.’

‘There’s old Fraser — he’s retired now but he’s a friend of mine and he doesn’t like Matterson one little bit. Would he do?’

‘He’ll do,’ I said. ‘As long as he’s not too old to go into court if necessary.’

‘Oh, Fraser can go into court. What are you up to, Bob?’

I grinned. ‘I’m going prospecting on Matterson land. My guess is that Matterson isn’t going to like it.’

There was a muffled noise in the receiver and I put the phone down gently.

They had driven a new road up to the Kinoxi Valley to take care of the stream of construction trucks carrying materials for the dam and the logging trucks bringing the lumber from the valley. It was a rough road, not too well graded and being chewed to pieces by the heavy traffic. Where there was mud they had corduroyed it with ten-inch logs which made your teeth rattle, and in places they had cut through the soil down to bedrock to provide a firmer footing.

No one took any notice of me; I was merely another man driving a battered truck which looked as though it had a right to be there. The road led to the bottom of the low escarpment where they were building the generator house, a squat structure rafted on a sea of churned-up mud in which a gang of construction workers sweated and swore. Up the escarpment, by the side of the brown-running stream, ran the flume, a 36-inch pipe to bring the water to the powerhouse. The road took off on the other side of the stream and clung to a hillside, zig-zagging its way to the top and towards the dam.

I was surprised to see how far they had got with the construction. McDougall was right: the Kinoxi Valley would be under water in three months. I pulled off the road and watched them pour concrete for a few minutes and noted the smooth way in which the sand and gravel trucks were handled. This was an efficient operation.

A big logging truck passed, going downhill like a juggernaut, and the Land-Rover rocked on its springs in the wind of its passing. There was not likely to be another close behind it so I pressed on up the road, past the dam and into the valley where I ran the Land-Rover off the road and behind trees where it was not likely to be seen. Then I went on foot away from the road, taking a slanting, climbing course across the hillside until I was high enough to get a good view of the valley.

It was a scene of desolation. The quiet valley I had known, where the fish jumped in the stream and the deer browsed in the woodlands, had been destroyed. In its place was a wilderness of jagged stumps and a tangle of felled brushwood on a ground of mud criss-crossed by the track marks of the trucks. Away up the valley, near the little lake, there was still the green of trees, but I could hear, even at that distance, the harsh scream of the power saws biting into living wood.