I suppose I was about halfway to the timber when I paused and glanced up once again at the cleft between the two peaks that towered high above us. The cage was halfway up the face of the fault, a small box swaying gently on the spider’s silk of the cable. And then my eyes lifted to the pylon at the top and suddenly all my body froze. A solid wave of water and rock burst from the lip of the cliff. The pylon vanished, smothered and swept away by it. And as the water spouted outwards over the cliff edge a distant rumbling reached my ears. It went on and on, sifting down from above, echoing from slope to slope and from the face of the cliff. I remember seeing the cage sway violently and watching the brown flood fall with slow deliberation down the fault, frothing and spouting great gouts of white as it thundered against ledges and outcrops, smashing away great sections of the rock face with its force, flinging them outwards and down. And I stood there, rigid, unable to move, fascinated and appalled by the spectacle.
A shattering roar filled the whole valley as that monstrous fall of rock and water hit the base of the fault and came thundering on in a mighty, surging wall down the slide. I saw the pylon at the top of the slide smashed to rubble and I remember how the cable suddenly broke and the cage began to swing slowly in towards the cliff. And then I was suddenly running, climbing desperately towards the timber. I heard the angry thunder of those pent-up waters crash down the valley behind me and then the swirling fringe of it reached out to me, sent a line of trees crashing as though cut by a great scythe, caught at my legs and buried me in a frothing flood of water.
I struck out madly, reaching up towards the surface, gasping for breath. Then I was flung against something and all the breath was knocked out of my body. Pain ran like a knife up my right leg. Something swirled against me and I clutched at it, felt the soft texture of clothing and hung on. Then the water sank, my feet touched ground and as pain shot through me again, almost blacking me out, the branch of a tree curled over me and I clutched at it, holding on with the grip of desperate fear.
I must have passed out, for when I next remember anything I was lying on the sodden earth, still clutching the branch with my right hand, my left hand twined in Max’s jacket. He was lying face down beside me, his left ear almost torn off by a jagged cut that had opened to show the white of his jaw bone. And just beyond Max, only a few yards below us, a colossal flood of brown water went ripping and roaring down Thunder Creek. The valley was a cataract a thousand yards across and the face of the slide was a monstrous series of falls and rapids. And in the centre of this violent rush of water great rocks were on the move, grinding slowly down through a welter of foam. And on the fringes the scene was one of mad devastation, timber and earth and brush swept clean down to the bare rock by the first rush of the waters. I stared at it all through a blurr of pain, saw the peaks of Solomon’s Judgment and the lake spilling through the cleft, felt the sun blazing down on me and passed out again.
I think it was pain that brought me round. I heard a voice say, ‘It’s his leg all right.’ The words were remote and faintly unreal. I opened my eyes to see two faces bending over me. And then they began to move me and I was screaming as the pain ran up my right side, splintering like sparks of electricity in my brain. For hours it seemed I alternated between periods of blessed unconsciousness and periods of searing pain. I remember the noise and jolting of a truck, the sound of voices, the feel of a spoon against my teeth and the smell of brandy. I think I must have asked at some time about Max. At any rate, I knew somehow that he was alive. And then there were starched uniforms and the smell of ether and the jab of a needle.
I woke at last to full consciousness in a little room where the blinds were drawn against the sunlight. There was a movement beside me and a hand closed over mine. I turned then and saw Jean bending over me. Her face was pale and drawn, but her eyes smiled at me. ‘Better?’
I nodded, trying to accustom myself to the surroundings, to her presence. It was so quiet after the roar of the waters. I tried to move my body, but I seemed weighed down. My right leg was wooden and solid, my chest stiff and painful. It hurt to breath and I had to force myself to speak. ‘I’m in hospital, aren’t I?’ I asked her.
She nodded. ‘Don’t talk. And don’t worry. You’re all right. You’ve broken a leg, a collar bone and three ribs. The doctor says you’ll be fine in a week or two.’
‘And Max?’
‘Fractured skull and his left arm’s broken. But he’ll be all right. There’s a bullet wound in his leg, but it’s not serious.’ Her hand reached out, touched my forehead and then her fingers were sliding through my hair in a caress. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Everything’s going to be all right.’
I lay back and closed my eyes. I felt very sleepy. Her voice seemed a long way away. My mind was drugged. Her voice got fainter and fainter. She was saying something about the rig, about newspaper men, about them knowing now that we’d struck oil. It didn’t seem important any more and her voice faded entirely as I slid into sleep again.
When next I woke the room was dark. I tried to raise myself, but the pain in my chest brought on a cold sweat. I lay there for a long time, my eyes open, seeing nothing in the darkness. Somewhere out in the night a train hooted and I heard the rattle of its wheels on the points. I was thinking what a waste of effort this was, this struggle back to life. Why couldn’t I have died there, quickly and easily in the flood of the burst dam? And then I remembered Max and how I had held him against the tearing grasp of the flood and I was glad. God had been good to me. He had given me time to get the men away from the slide, and we’d brought in a well. For some reason I found myself remembering how I had knelt on the floor of my digs in London and prayed for God’s guidance and for his help in doing what my grandfather had asked of me. And suddenly words were forming on my lips and I was thanking God that I had been able to achieve so much.
Slowly light filtered into the room and day dawned, grey and thick with cloud mist. Dozing gently I was conscious of the beginnings of movement in the hospital and in no time, it seemed, a nurse was bringing breakfast in to me. ‘Well, how’s the great oil man this morning?’
I stared at her and she laughed. ‘You don’t imagine anybody’s discussing the international situation with you here in town, do you?’ She put the tray down on a bed table and swung it across me. ‘Now, you stay quiet and eat that egg. It’s time you got some food inside you. And I brought you the papers so that you can read all about yourself. There’s pictures of Campbell’s Kingdom and of the discovery well with the rig all broken and twisted. Dr Graham said he reckoned the papers were about the best tonic for you he had in the hospital. And here’s a letter for you.’
I took the envelope and slit it open. Inside was a single sheet of paper, most of which was filled with signatures. The letter was very brief and as I read my eyes blurred.
The Golden Calf, Come Lucky, B.C.
Dear Mr Wetheral.
This letter, signed by all of us who were working on the site of the power station, is to tell you how grateful we all are to you. If you had not risked your life and come down the hoist to warn us, not one of us would be alive today. We sure are sorry that you are in hospital because of this and wish you a speedy recovery. We will do what we can to express our gratitude and in the meantime we would like you to know that you can count on the undersigned at any time to do anything to assist you.
There followed three columns of signatures, spreading over on to the back—names that were of Polish, French, Italian and Chinese origin as well as English. I looked up at the nurse. ‘What day is it?’ I asked her.
‘Friday.’
And the Kingdom had been flooded on Tuesday. ‘I’ve been out a long time,’ I murmured.
‘Not as long as you will be if you don’t get some food inside you,’ she said as she went out.
As I ate my breakfast I read through the papers. They were full of the disaster. But there was the story of the well we had brought in, too—interviews with Garry and Johnnie, and in one
of them a long feature article headed ‘There’s Oil in the Rocky Mountains.’ The writer was Steve Strachan and in it he acknowledged the quotation as belonging to Stuart Campbell and made it clear that the old man was now completely vindicated. I put the paper down and lay back, suddenly completely happy.
The doctor came in then. He gave my broken bones only a cursory examination and then started to go over me thoroughly, listening to my breathing, taking my blood pressure, feeling my pulse, listening to my heart beats, and all the time asking me questions. ‘What’s the trouble, doc?’ I asked him.
‘Oh, just a routine check-up.’
But I knew this wasn’t routine for a man with a broken leg and a few broken ribs. And when they wheeled in the X-ray apparatus I knew he was on to the real trouble. ‘You’re wasting your time,’ I said, and I told him what Maclean-Hervey’s verdict had been.
He shrugged his shoulders and I bit my lip as they shifted me to get the screen and X-ray tube in position. ‘How did you know I’d got cancer?’ I asked him.
‘Jean Lucas told me,’ he answered.
‘Jean!’ I tried to turn, but a hand gripped my shoulder, steadying me. All I could see was the nurse’s white uniform. I stared at a bone button, wondering how Jean knew.
They were some time taking the photographs and when they had finished they made me comfortable and trundled the equipment out. The doctor was not in the room, but he returned a few minutes later. ‘All right, Mr Wetheral? I hope they didn’t cause you too much pain moving you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It just seemed pointless, that’s all.’
He nodded and drew up a chair beside me. ‘Does it occur to you that for a man who was given two to six months to live way back in the spring you’ve been remarkably active lately?’
‘There seemed no point in conserving energy,’ I murmured.
‘No, no, of course not.’ He hesitated and then said quietly, ‘There have been cures, you know.’
‘Have there?’ I looked at him, seeing his broad, rather serious features through a blur of pain as I shifted my position. ‘I thought cancer was incurable.’
‘Aye.’ He nodded. ‘It’s incurable as far as the medical profession is concerned. But there are such things as spontaneous cures. We don’t know the cause of them. I wish we did. Some change in the chemistry of the patient, maybe—or a psychological readjustment. Anyway, once in a while it happens.’ He leaned forward, his large grey eyes peering down at me from behind the thick-lensed glasses. ‘Listen, Wetheral. I don’t want to raise any false hopes. We’ll know soon enough when they’ve developed those X-ray plates. There’s just a chance, that’s all.’ There was a glint of excitement in his eyes now. It showed in his manner, in the way he spoke. ‘I can’t believe a case as desperate as yours must have been when Dr Maclean-Hervey gave you that verdict could have gone on for five months, living the way you have been, unless the condition had improved. There’s no internal haemorrhage and no trace now of secondary anaemia. You’ve been eating well and instead of getting weaker, you’ve got stronger.’ He suddenly sat back, taking his glasses off and polishing them. ‘I shouldn’t really have spoken to you about it. I should have waited till I had the X-ray results. But—’ He hesitated and got to his feet. ‘It’s a most interesting case, you see. I didn’t want you to feel that I was just taking the opportunity to examine a cancer growth.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘You must be about as obstinate a man as your grandfather, I guess. Anyway, I’ll be back just as soon as I’ve got a picture of what’s going on inside you.’
He left me then and for a while I lay there, thinking over what he had said. I felt suddenly restless. The mood of excitement I had seen reflected in the doctor’s eyes had communicated itself to me. For the first time in months there was no immediate problem ahead of me and I was free to consider the future. Almost unconsciously I reached for the papers and began reading Steve’s article again. I was still reading it when the nurse showed Jean in. She was followed by Johnnie and Garry.
‘We just looked in to say good-bye,’ Johnnie said. ‘Garry’s off to Edmonton to see about a new rig and I’m going up to the Kingdom.’ He came and stood over me, his eyes narrowed as though he were looking straight into the sun, a lazy smile on his lined face. ‘You look pretty damn comfortable lying there, Bruce.’
‘What are you going up to the Kingdom for?’ I asked him.
‘Well, that’s what I come to see you about, I guess.’ He rubbed his chin awkwardly. ‘You see, the boys who were working on the power station have got together and put up some dough. A few of them are coming up to the Kingdom with me and my two Americans to clear up Campbell’s place and make it snug for the winter. The rest—’ He hesitated. ‘Well, it’s like this, Bruce, they came to me and asked what they could do about it. They’re a decent bunch and they felt sort of bad about you lying here in hospital and all of them fit and well. I didn’t know quite what to say, but I hinted you were figuring on settling down around this neighbourhood so they’ve decided to buckle to and build you a house down by the ford at the entrance to Thunder Valley. You know, the place we camped.’
‘But I couldn’t possibly allow them to do that,’ I said. ‘They’ve got their living to—’
‘Now, listen, Bruce,’ he cut in. ‘They feel bad about this. It’s their way of showing they’re grateful to you. You just got to accept it. It’s a sort of—’ He glanced at Jean, and then said, ‘Well, anyway, they want to do it and nothing’ll stop them, I guess.’ He moved awkwardly to the door. ‘I must be going now. You coming, Garry?’
The big drilling contractor nodded. ‘I just wanted to say I’m glad you’re okay.’ He gripped my left hand. ‘And I’m proud to be associated with you.’ He coughed in embarrassment and added quickly, ‘I’ll go down to Calgary and see Winnick. Things will begin to hum now. I’ll tell him you’ll be in to see him as soon as you can. I’ll see you then and find out whether you want to sell out to one of the big companies or whether you plan to develop the area yourself.’
He turned quickly and went out, leaving me alone with Jean. She hadn’t moved all the time they had been talking. I glanced at her face. It was very pale and she seemed nervous. ‘You look much better,’ she murmured, her eyes sliding away from mine. ‘Dr Graham’s very pleased with you.’
‘What’s Boy doing?’ I asked, shying away from the direct question that was in my mind.
‘He stayed on up in the Kingdom.’ She hesitated. ‘I think he’ll settle in this area now. He’s always loved it here.’
An awkward silence fell between us. She moved towards the window. ‘Did Dr Graham say anything to you?’ She had turned to face me.
I closed my eyes. She looked so cool and fresh and—radiant. ‘How did you know I had cancer of the stomach?’ I asked.
‘I don’t believe you have.’ Her voice was sharp as though mere words could kill the parasitical growth. ‘Nobody could do the things you’ve done—’
‘How did you know I had it?’ I interrupted her.
‘Sarah Garret told me.’
‘She shouldn’t have. I told her because—’ What was the use of talking about it? I felt tired now. ‘I want to sleep,’ I murmured. Anything to get her out of the room, to avoid having to look at her and have her eyes and face and body reproaching me for the future that might have been. ‘Please, Jean,’ I whispered. ‘Leave me. Let me go to sleep now.’
There was no sound in the room, only a tense silence. Then I heard her move. ‘Not until I’ve said something,’ she said gently. I opened my eyes to see her bending over me. A shaft of sunlight touched her hair, rimming her face in gold. Her hand touched my face, smoothing my forehead. ‘I’m not leaving you, Bruce. Whether you marry me or not doesn’t matter, but you’ll just have to get used to having me around.’
I stared up at her for a moment and then closed my eyes. I think I wanted to hold the memory of her face, that little smile that spread up into the eyes. ‘The doctor may be wrong,’ I murmured.
‘If you weren’t injured I’d slap you for that.’ Her voice trembled slightly. Then she bent over me and her lips touched mine. ‘I seem fated to fall in love with men who are under sentence of death.’ Her fingers touched my temple and then I heard her footsteps cross the room, the door closed and I was alone. I lay there, feeling relaxed and happy. I wasn’t afraid of anything now. I wasn’t alone. Even the pain seemed dull as I sank slowly into a deep sleep.
It is winter now and the mountains lie under a white mantle of snow. I am writing this, sitting at the desk my grandfather made. Johnnie brought it down from the Kingdom with him. Through the window I look across a clearing in the cottonwoods to the ford where the waters of Thunder Creek glide swift and black to the lake. Some day that clearing will be a garden. Already Jean has a library of gardening books sent out from England and is planning the layout. We are full of plans—plans for the house, plans for the development of the Kingdom, plans for a family. It is just wonderful to sit back and plan. To plan something is to have a future. And to have a future is to have the whole of life.
As you’ve probably guessed already, the miracle did happen. Dr Graham was right. The X-ray pictures showed no trace of a cancer growth. How it happened nobody seems to know. I can only quote the letter I received from Dr Maclean-Hervey:
Dear Mr Wetheral,
Dr Graham has sent me full details of your case as at 27th August, together with the X-ray photographs he has had taken. I can only say that I entirely agree with his view that there is now no trace of cancer and that you are completely cured and have no need to worry for the future.
You must be wondering now whether I was correct in my original diagnosis. For your benefit I am sending Dr Graham copies of the X-rays taken at the London Hospital on 17th April together with a copy of the case notes I made at the time. You might like to frame one of the pictures side-by-side with Graham’s X-ray as a reminder that you have confounded the experts! I need hardly add that I am delighted that you have.
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