Campbell's Kingdom

by Hammond Innes

  From the buttress Max had led his horse. Only a powdery drift of snow covered the shelving rock. It was slippery like ice. The black line of the water showed through the gap in the dam; it was the only thing that moved. To my left were the rusted remains of some machinery and part of a timbered scaffolding.

  I was very tired by the time I staggered into the concrete housing of the hoist. I went straight over to the telephone, lifted the receiver and wound the handle. There was no answer. A feeling of panic crept up from my stomach. It was entirely unreasoned for I could always return to the ranch-house. I tried again and again, and then suddenly a voice was crackling in my ears. ‘Hallo! Hallo! Is that you, Bruce?’ It was Jeff Hart. A sense of relief hit me and I leaned against the ice-cold concrete of the wall. ‘Yes,’ I said ‘Bruce here. Is the hoist working—’

  ‘Thank God you’re okay.’ His voice sounded thin and far away. ‘I was scared stiff you’d got lost. And then that fool, Max Trevedian, came down and galloped off before I could ask him whether you were all right. Were you okay up at Campbell’s place?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. And I told him how I’d found it.

  ‘You were pretty damned lucky. I’ll get them to send the hoist up for you. Johnnie’s here. He’ll come up with it. I’m just about all in. What a hell of a night. Okay. She’s on her way up now.’

  I put the phone down. The big cable wheel was clanking monotonously as it turned. I went over to the slit, watching the lip of the cliff. All the valley was white and frozen.

  Ten minutes later the cage dropped into its housing with a solid thud and Johnnie was there, gripping my hand as though I’d returned from the Arctic. ‘You goldarned crazy fool!’ That was all he said and then he went over to the phone and rang for them to take us down. He didn’t talk as we dropped through space to the slide and the concrete housing at the foot of it, I think he realised that I was just about at the end of my tether.

  As we dropped into the housing at the bottom I noticed that Jeff’s car had gone. In its place was one of the transport company’s trucks. Johnnie had to help me over the side of the cage. Now that I was out of the Kingdom my body seemed weak and limp. The engine of the hoist died away and a man came out of the housing towards us. My vision was blurred and I didn’t recognise him. And then suddenly I was looking into the angry, black eyes of Peter Trevedian. ‘Seems we got to lock our property up out here now,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘Next time, let me know when you want to play around and we’ll see you get a nursemaid.’

  ‘Cut it out, Trevedian. Can’t you see he’s dead beat?’ Johnnie’s voice sounded remote, like the surgeon’s voice in an operating theatre just before you go under.

  I don’t remember much about that drive, just the blessed heat of the engine and the trees coming at us in an endless line of white. Then we were at the bunkhouse and Jean was there and several others and they half-carried me up to the hotel. The next thing I knew I was up in my room and my body was sinking into warm oblivion, surrounded by hot-water bottles.

  It was getting dark when I woke. Johnnie was sitting by the window reading a magazine. He looked up as I stirred. ‘Feeling better?’

  I nodded and sat up. ‘I feel fine,’ I said. There was a note of surprise in my voice. I hadn’t felt so good for a long time. And I was hungry, too.

  He rolled a cigarette, lit it for me and put it in my mouth. ‘Boy got in today. Wants to see you as soon as you feel okay.’

  ‘Boy Bladen?’

  ‘Yeh. He’s got an Irishman with him—a drilling contractor, name of Garry Keogh. And your lawyer feller, Acheson, rang through. He’s coming up here to see you tomorrow. That’s about all the news, I guess. Except that Trevedian’s madder’n hell about your going up to the Kingdom.’

  ‘Because I used his hoist?’

  ‘Mebbe.’

  ‘Did McClellan object?’

  ‘Oh, Jimmy’s okay. He was just scared you’d gone and killed yourself. Oh, I nearly forgot.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. ‘Mac asked me to give you this.’ He tossed it on to the bed.

  It was a long envelope and bulky. It was sealed with wax. I turned it over and saw it was postmarked Calgary. ‘That’ll be Acheson,’ I said. ‘Another copy of the deed of sale for the Kingdom. He just doesn’t seem able to take No for an answer.’ I put it on the table beside me. ‘Johnnie.’

  ‘Yeh?’

  ‘I’m hungry. Do you think you could get them to produce something for me to eat?’

  ‘Sure. What would you like?’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a steak. A big, juicy steak.’

  He cocked his head on one side, peering at me as though he were examining a horse. ‘Seems the Kingdom agrees with you. I was only saying to Jeff just now that you looked a hell of a lot better than when we saw you at Jasper.’ He turned towards the door. ‘Okay. I’ll tell Pauline to cook you up something real big in the way of a T-bone steak. All right for Boy and Keogh to come up?’

  I nodded. ‘What’s the time?’

  ‘A little after seven.’

  I had slept for over twelve hours. I got up and had a wash. I was still towelling myself when footsteps sounded on the stairs. It was Boy Bladen and there was something about the way he erupted into the room that took me back to my school days. He was like a kid bursting with news. The man with him was big and heavy and solid with a battered face and broken teeth. His clothes, like himself, were crumpled and shapeless. And in that shapelessness as well as in the loose hang of his arms, the relaxed state of his muscles, there was something really tough. He looked like a man whom the world had tossed from one end to the other and battered all the way.

  ‘Bruce. This is Garry Keogh.’ I found my hand engulfed in the rasping grip of a fist that seemed like a chunk of rock. Garry Keogh took off his hat and tossed it on to the chair. His grizzled hair was cut short and he was partly bald. He looked like an all-in wrestler, but his eyes were those of a dreamer with a twinkle of humour in them that softened his face to something friendly. ‘I’ve almost talked him into doing the drilling for us,’ Boy added. ‘It was Garry’s rig I was wildcatting on during the winter.’

  I stared at the big rig operator. ‘You think there’s oil up there?’

  ‘Sure and there may be.’ He was Irish, but he spoke slowly, as though words were an unaccustomed commodity. It gave emphasis to everything he said. ‘Boy’s impetuous, but he’s no fool. I never met Campbell. I heard he was a crazy bird. But then the story of every strike is the story of men who were thought crazy till they were proved to have staked a mine.’ He grinned, showing the gaps in his teeth. ‘My father went to the Yukon in ’98. That’s where I was born.’

  ‘But I don’t own the mineral rights of the Kingdom,’ I said. ‘Didn’t Boy tell you? They were mortgaged to Roger Fergus by my grandfather’s company and now that he’s dead they’ll pass to his son.’

  Garry Keogh turned to Boy. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me that?’

  ‘But—’ Boy was staring at me. ‘Louis Winnick told me the old man had given you back the mineral rights. The day after you saw Roger Fergus he sent for Louis. He said he’d left him a legacy under his will. He told him about your visit and instructed him that he was to give you all the help you needed—free of any charge. He said it was a condition of the legacy. He wouldn’t have done that unless he’d known you were free to go ahead and drill in the Kingdom if you wanted to. You haven’t heard from the old man?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You’ve had no communication from him at all, or from his lawyers?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘The only mail I’ve had—’ I stopped then and turned to the table beside the bed. I picked up the envelope and split the seal. Inside was a package of documents. The letter attached to them wasn’t from Acheson. It was on Bank of Canada notepaper and it read:

  On the instructions of our client, Mr Roger Fergus, we are enclosing documents relating to certain mineral rights mortgaged to our client by the C
ampbell Oil Exploration Company. Cancellation of the mortgage is effective as from the date of this letter and we are instructed to inform you that our client wishes you to know that from henceforth neither he nor his estate will have any claim on these rights and further that any debts outstanding with the company referred to above, for which these documents were held as security, are cancelled. You are requested to sign the enclosed receipt and forward it . . .

  I opened out the documents. They were in respect of ‘The mineral rights in the territory known generally as Campbell’s Kingdom.’ There followed the necessary map references. I passed the papers across to Boy. ‘You were quite right,’ I said.

  Boy seized hold of them. ‘I knew I was. If Roger Fergus said he’d do a thing, he always did it. Louis said he was pretty taken with you. Thought you’d got a lot of guts and hoped for Stuart’s sake you’d win out.’

  I thought of the old man, half paralysed in that wheel-chair. I could remember his words—‘A fine pair we are.’ And then: ‘I’d like to have seen one more discovery well brought in before I die.’ There was a lump in my throat as I remembered those words. ‘I’m glad you came. If your doctor fellow’s right, we’ll maybe meet again soon.’ It would be nice to tell him I’d brought in a well. But I wished he were in the thing with me. It would have been so much easier. I needed somebody experienced. I looked across at Keogh and then at Boy, the two of them so dissimilar, but neither of them capable of fighting a big company backed by the solid weight of unlimited finance and with lawyers to make legal rings round our efforts. Boy didn’t understand what we were up against.

  Keogh looked up from the documents Boy had passed him. He must have seen the doubt in my face for he said, ‘What do you plan to do, Wetheral—go ahead and drill?’

  I hesitated. But my mind slid away from the difficulties. I could see only that old man sitting in the wheel-chair and behind him the more shadowy figure of my grandfather. Both of them had believed in me. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If Winnick reports favourably, I’ll go ahead—provided I can get the capital.’

  Keogh fingered his lower lip, his eyes fixed on me. They were narrowed and sharp—not cunning, but speculating. ‘You’d find it a lot easier to raise capital if you’d brought in a well,’ he murmured.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Boy mentioned something about your being willing to split fifty-fifty on all profits with those who do the development work.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s about it.’

  He nodded abstractedly, stroking his chin. His fingers made a rasping sound against the stubble of his beard. Then suddenly he looked up. ‘I’ve been in the oil business over twenty years now and I’ve never had a proposition like this made to me. It’s the sort of thing a drilling contractor dreams of.’ His broken teeth showed in a grin. ‘It’d be flying in the face of providence to refuse it.’ He turned to Boy. ‘If Winnick’s report on that recording tape is optimistic then you’ll go up to the Kingdom and do another survey. Okay?’ Boy nodded. ‘If the proposition still looks good, then I’ll come up here again and look over the ground.’ He hesitated, staring down at me. ‘I’ll be frank with you, Wetheral. This is a hell of a gamble. I’ve made a bit on the last two wildcats I drilled. Otherwise I wouldn’t be interested. But I’m still only good for about a couple of months operating on my own. To be any use to me, there’s got to be water handy and the depth mustn’t be more than a few thousand feet, dependent on the nature of the country we have to drill through. But if all that’s okay, then it’s a deal.’

  ‘Fine,’ I said.

  He was staring down at his hands. ‘I started as a roustabout,’ he said slowly. ‘I worked fifteen years as roughneck, driller and finally tool-pusher before I got together enough dough to get my own rig. I was another five years paying for it. Now I’m in the clear and making dough.’ He smiled gently to himself. ‘Funny thing about human nature. Somehow it don’t seem able to stop. You own a rig and you think that’s fine and before you know where you are you’re wanting an interest in an oil well.’ His smile spread to a deep laugh. ‘I guess when a man’s finished expanding, he’s finished living.’ He turned abruptly to the door. ‘Come on, Boy. Time we had a drink. You care to join us, Wetheral?’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But I’ve got some food coming up.’

  ‘Okay. Be seeing you before I leave.’

  He went out. Boy hesitated. ‘It was the best I could do, Bruce. Garry’s straight and he’s a fighter. Once he gets his teeth into a thing he doesn’t let up easily. But I’m sorry about Roger Fergus.’

  ‘So am I,’ I said.

  He had taken the spools containing the recording tape out of his pocket and was joggling them up and down on the palm of his hand. ‘Funny to think that these little containers may be the start of a new oilfield.’ He stared at them, lost in his own thoughts. And then he said an odd thing: ‘It’s like holding Destiny in the palm of one’s hands. If this proves Louis’s first report wrong . . .’ He slipped them into his pocket. ‘Jeff lent me his station wagon. I’ll get over to Keithley tonight so that they’ll catch the mail out first thing in the morning. We should get Louis’s report within three days.’ He had moved over to the door and he stood there for a moment, his hand on the knob. ‘You know, somehow that makes me scared.’ He seemed about to say something further, but instead he just said, ‘Goodnight,’ and went out.

  I lit a cigarette and lay back on my bed. Things were beginning to move and, like Boy, I felt scared. I wondered whether I’d have the energy to handle it all. Acheson would be arriving tomorrow. Probably he’d have Henry Fergus with him. Once they knew my intention . . .

  There was a knock at the door and Jean came in. ‘How’s the invalid?’ She had a tray of food and she put it down on the table beside me. ‘Pauline was out, so I did the best I could. Johnnie said you were hungry.’

  ‘I could eat a horse.’

  ‘Well, this isn’t horse.’ She smiled, but it was only a movement of her lips. She seemed tensed up about something. ‘Boy and that big Irishman are down in the bar drinking.’

  ‘Well?’ The steak was good. I didn’t want to talk.

  She was over by the window, standing there, staring at me. ‘It’s all over the town that you’re going to drill a well up in the Kingdom.’

  ‘That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but—’ She hesitated. ‘Bruce. You should have made your plans without anybody here knowing what you were up to.’

  I looked up from my plate. Her face was pale in the lamplight, the scars on her jaw more noticeable than usual. ‘I haven’t any capital,’ I said. ‘And when you haven’t any capital you can’t plan things in advance.’

  ‘If Henry Fergus decides to proceed with the dam you’re headed for trouble.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t, then the people here will be sore and they’ll get at you somehow. Johnnie wasn’t exactly clever in making an enemy of Peter.’

  ‘Appeasement is not in his line.’

  ‘No, but—’ She gave a quick, exasperated sigh and sat down in the chair. ‘Can I have a cigarette, please?’

  I tossed her a packet and a box of matches. ‘You don’t seem to realise what you’re up against, any of you. Boy I can understand, and Johnnie. But you’re English. You’ve fought in the war. You know what happens when people get whipped up emotionally. You’re not a fool.’ She blew out a streamer of smoke. ‘It’s as though you didn’t care—about yourself, I mean.’

  ‘You think I may get hurt?’ I was staring at her, wondering what was behind her concern.

  ‘You’re putting yourself in a position where a lot of people would be glad if an accident happened to you.’

  ‘And you think it might?’

  ‘After last night anything could happen.’ She was leaning forward. ‘What made you do such a crazy thing? You’re now branded as a fool where mountains are concerned.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?�
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  ‘That you’re going about this business so clumsily that I’m afraid . . .’ She stopped short, and then in a sudden rush of words: ‘How do you think you’re going to get a drilling rig up to the Kingdom? From now on Trevedian will have a guard on the hoist. He won’t even allow your rig to move on the new road. It’s on his property and he’s every right to stop you from trespassing. Even supposing you did get the rig up there, do you think they’d let it rest at that?’ She got to her feet with a quick movement of anger. ‘You can’t fight a man as big as Henry Fergus, and you know it.’

  ‘I can try,’ I said.

  She swung round on me. ‘This isn’t the City of London, Bruce. This is the Canadian West. A hundred years ago there was nothing here—no railways, no roads; the Fraser River was only just being opened up. This isn’t a lawless country, but it’s been opened up by big companies and they’ve bulldozed their way through small interests. They’ve had to. Now you come out here from England and start throwing down the gauntlet to a man like Henry Fergus. Henry isn’t his father. He isn’t a pioneer. There’s nothing lovable about him. He’s a financier and as cold as six inches of steel.’ She turned away to the window. ‘You’re starting something that’ll end on a mountain slope somewhere out there.’ She nodded through the black panes of the window. ‘I know this sort of business. I was two years in France with the Maquis till they got me. I know every trick. I know how to make murder look like an accident.’ She dropped her cigarette on to the floor and ground it out with the heel of her shoe. ‘You’ve made it so easy for them. You have an accident. The police come up here to investigate. Whatever I may say and perhaps others, they’ll hear about last night and they’ll shrug their shoulders and say that you were bound to get hurt sooner or later.’