Hammond Innes - Campbell's Kingdom

I got my things together and then went out to the stables. I was saddling up when Jean came in with a package of food. ‘Shall I come with you?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I said. This is something I have to do alone.’

She hesitated then said, ‘You’re going to see Sarah, aren’t you?’ I didn’t say anything and she added, ‘She’s your backer, isn’t she?’

‘How did you know?’

She smiled a trifle sadly. ‘I lived there for three years, you know.’ She pushed the food into my pack. ‘Does she have enough?’ I was tightening my cinch. She caught hold of my arm. ‘It’ll cost a lot to fight a legal battle.’

‘A delaying action, that’s all,’ I said. ‘If we don’t bring in a well…’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Then I don’t care very much.’

‘We’ll bring in a well.’ She reached up and kissed me. For a second I felt the warmth of her lips on mine and then she was gone.

As I rode up the trail to the Saddle I could hear the draw works of the rig sounding their challenge across the Kingdom. It was like music to hear it working again, to know that the whole crowd were solidly behind me. ‘Pray God it comes out right,’ I murmured aloud. But I felt tired and depressed. Calgary scared me and I wasn’t sure of myself.

I waited till nightfall before entering Come Lucky, riding in from above it and wending my way through the huddle of shacks. There was a glow of lamplight in the windows of the Garret home. Ruth Garret answered my knock. She stared at me coldly through her lorgnette. ‘Have you brought Jean back, Mr Wetheral?’

‘Jean? No.’

‘Oh, dear. What a pity. There’s so much talk in the town. It was bad enough when she insisted on living up there with that queer old man. But keeping house for a lot of-’ She hesitated. ‘Roughnecks is what they call them.’

‘That’s only the name for men who work a rig,’ I said. ‘They’re a good crowd. May I come in? I want to see your sister.’

‘My sister? Yes, of course. Come in.’

Sarah Garret rose as I entered. She seemed to know what I had come for. ‘You’re in a hurry, I expect,’ she said.

‘I have to go to Calgary.’

She nodded. ‘There’s a rumour you’re going to get the courts to stop the work on the dam. That’s why you’ve come, isn’t it?’

I nodded.

Her eyes were bright and there was a little spot of colour in each of the waxen cheeks. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. She took me through into her room, talking all the time, a little breathless, a little excited. She wanted to know all my plans, everything that had happened that morning. And whilst I talked she unlocked the tin trunk and took out the clothes. When I had lifted out the false bottom, she picked out two of the little tin boxes and put them into my hands. There,’ she said. ‘I do hope it will be enough, but I must keep sufficient for my sister and me to live on.’ One of the boxes contained gold dust, the other two small bars of gold.

‘You do realise,’ I said, ‘that I may not be able to repay you. We may fail.’

She smiled. ‘You foolish man. It isn’t a loan. It’s a gift.’ She let the lid of the trunk fall. ‘I think my father would have been glad to think that I have saved it for something that was important to someone.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ I murmured.

‘Nonsense. I haven’t had so much excitement since-’ She looked at me and I swear she blushed. ‘Well, not for a very long time.’ Her eyes twinkled up at me. ‘Will you promise me something? When all this is over, will you take me up to the Kingdom? I haven’t been out of Come Lucky for so long and I would like to see it again, and the log houses and the tiger lilies. Are there tiger lilies there still?’

I nodded. For some reason I couldn’t trust myself to speak.

‘Now you must hurry. If they hear you are in Come Lucky-’ She hustled me to the door. ‘Put the boxes under your coat. Yes, that’s right. Ruth mustn’t see them. I think she suspects, but-’ Her frail fingers squeezed my arm. ‘It’s our secret, eh? She wouldn’t understand.’

Ruth Garret was waiting for us in the living-room. ‘What have you two been up to?’ The playfulness of the remark was lost in the sharpness of her eyes.’

‘We were just talking,’ her sister said quickly. She put her hand on my arm and led me out. She paused at the front door. ‘Are you going to marry Jean?’

The suddenness of the question took me by surprise.

‘You’re an extraordinary person,’ I said.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

I looked down at her and then slowly shook my head. ‘No.’

‘Why not? She’s in love with you.’ I didn’t answer. ‘Did you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you? Are you in love with her?’

Slowly I nodded my head. ‘But I can’t marry her,’ I said. And then briefly I told her why. ‘That’s also a secret between us,’ I said when I had finished.

‘Doesn’t it occur to you she might want to look after you?’

‘She’s been hurt once,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t want to be hurt again. I can’t do that to her. I must go now.’

‘Yes, you must go now.’ She opened the door for me. As I stepped out into the night I turned. She looked very frail and lonely, standing there in the lamplight. And yet beneath the patina of age I thought I saw the girl who’d known my grandfather. She must have been very lovely. I bent and kissed her. Then I got on my horse and rode quickly out of Come Lucky.

I flew into Calgary from Edmonton on the morning of August 7th to be met by Calgary Tribune placards announcing: Larsen Company’s Dam Nearing Completion. There was a news story on the front page and inside they had devoted a full feature article to it. There was no mention of our drilling operations in the article, only a brief paragraph in the news story. It gave me a sense of impotence at the outset. I felt as though I were banging my head against a brick wall. It was in this mood that I reached the bank. In an English bank the arrival of a man with a box of gold dust and another containing gold bars would have caused a sensation and necessitated the completion of innumerable forms and declarations. In Calgary they just took it in their stride. I arranged for the necessary funds to be mailed to Boy at Wessels Farm and then went on to my lawyers. There I learned that the case I had come to fight had been dropped. I asked Letour whether this was a result of my threat to seek an injunction restraining Fergus from flooding the Kingdom, but he shook his head. No application for an injunction had been made and he explained to me at some length the legal difficulties of making such an application. The Act authorising the construction of the dam had been passed by the Provincial Parliament of British Columbia. It could only be repealed by a further Act. This would be a lengthy process. He advised me that my only hope was to bring in a well before the flooding of the Kingdom. The scale of compensation likely to be granted by the courts would then be so great as to make it impracticable for the Larsen Company to proceed with the project.

I went back to my hotel feeling that my trip to Calgary had been wasted. Not only that, but Fergus was apparently so sure of himself that he hadn’t even bothered to proceed with his charges in connection with the mineral rights. It left me with the impression that he didn’t consider me worth bothering about. And since Trevedian was undoubtedly keeping a watch on the rig I could well understand this. He must know by now that we were in bad country and drilling only two feet per hour.

I would have pulled out of Calgary the next morning only something happened that evening which radically altered my plans. I hadn’t been near the Calgary Tribune, feeling it would be a waste of time and that they had now lost interest in our drilling operations. However, I had phoned Winnick and I suppose he must have let them know I was in town for the editor himself rang me up in the afternoon and asked me to have dinner with him. And when I got to his club I found he had a CBC man with him and the whole picture suddenly brightened, for the CBC man wanted me to broadcast. The reason for his interest was in the copy of a big American magazine he had with him which contained an article headed: OIL VERSUS ELECTRICITY — Will the dream of an old-timer come true? Will his grandson strike oil up in his Rocky Mountain kingdom or will the men building the dam flood the place first? The author went up there and saw the start of this fantastic race. The author was Steve Strachan, the Calgary Tribune reporter who had first visited us.