The Land God Gave to Cain

by Innes, Hammond;

  At the time I started north from Head of Steel the overall plan was to push the steel as far as Menihek Dam, at Mile 329, before winter brought work to a virtual standstill. This dam was a shallow one constructed almost entirely from air-lifted supplies where the waters of the ninety-mile Ashuanipi Lake ran into the great Hamilton River. All it needed now was the generators to make it operational, and the whole weight of the contractors’ organisation, backed by some hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment, was concentrated on this stretch of the grade.

  The effect, so far as I was concerned, was bewildering. A section of completed grade, scraped smooth as a road, would suddenly end in piled heaps of gravel or drop away into the quagmire of an uncompleted fill. The half-finished cuts were full of rock from the day’s blasting, and the whole line of the grade was littered with heavy machines that were a death trap in the dark.

  Somewhere around midnight the wind died away and everything was preternaturally still—a stillness that had a quality of hostility about it. And then it began to snow, a gentle floating down of large flakes that were wet and clinging. The darkness around me slowly changed to a ghostly white, and once again a completed section of grade petered out and I was stumbling through ridged heaps of sand, keeping by instinct rather than sight to the open swathe that had been bulldozed through the jackpine.

  It was shortly after this that the ground abruptly dropped away from me, and I slithered down into the mud of a gulley, where the corrugated metal sheets of a half-completed conduit stood like the whitened bones of a huge whale. It was muskeg here and I knew it was hopeless to try and cross it in the dark. Weary and cold, I paused for a spell, and then I retraced my steps to an opening I had seen in the white wall of the jackpine, and when I found it, I abandoned the grade, dully conscious that I was on some sort of a track.

  But the track was little better than the grade. The ground became soft under my feet as I descended into the same shallow depression that had called for a conduit in the grade construction. Patches of water showed dark against the snow, and as I splashed through them, I could hear the soft crunch of the paper-thin layer of ice that had already formed on the surface. And then it was mud, thick and heavy and black, with deep ruts in it where bulldozers had wallowed through.

  But the ground under the mud was frozen hard, and when I was through the worst of it and the ruts still continued, I knew I had found a section of the old Tote Road. Gradually the surface hardened as the ground rose again, the ruts disappeared and the country became more open, the trees stunted. I had difficulty in keeping to the track then and twice within a matter of minutes I found myself blundering through thick scrub, and the snow shaken from the branches of the trees soaked me to the skin. I was very tired by then, my senses dulled. The handle of my suitcase was like the cold edge of a piece of steel cutting into my stiffened fingers, and the boots that were too big for me had raised blisters that burned with the pain of frostbite.

  When I lost the track again, I gave it up and made a bed of pine branches and lay down to wait for dawn. I would go on then, I told myself—when I was rested and could see. The sweat was cold on my body, but I didn’t care because of the relief I felt at just lying there, making no effort.

  The snow fell softly, but it didn’t seem cold any more and the stillness was overwhelming. In all the world there was no sound, so that I thought I could hear the flakes falling.

  I hadn’t intended to sleep, but once I had relaxed I suppose there was nothing to keep me awake. The snow whispered, and I lay drifting in a white, dark world until consciousness began to slide away from my numbed brain.

  Maybe I heard the car and that’s what woke me. Or perhaps it was the gleam of the headlights. I opened my eyes suddenly to find myself staring up at a jackpine floodlit like a Christmas tree, and a voice said, “I guess you must be Ferguson.”

  I sat up then, still dazed with cold and sleep, not quite sure where I was. But then I saw the track and the trees all covered with snow and the man standing over me, black against the lights. He was short and broad, with a gnome-like body, swollen by the padding of his parka, and my first thought was that this wasn’t either Lands or Laroche. This was a man I’d never seen before. His face was square and craggy, the colour of mahogany, and the snow clung white to tufted eyebrows as he leaned forward, peering down at me through rimless glasses.

  “A fine dance you’ve led me,” he growled, and he reached down and dragged me to my feet. “I bin all along the grade as far as Head of Steel searching for you. Came back by the Tote Road, just in case.”

  I mumbled my thanks. My limbs were so stiff with cold I could hardly stand. Numbness deadened the pain of my blistered feet. “Come on,” he said, grabbing hold of my suitcase. “There’s a heater in the jeep. It’ll hurt like hell, but you’ll soon thaw out.”

  It was a jeep station wagon, a battered wreck of a car with one mudguard torn off and the bodywork all plastered with mud and snow. He helped me in and a moment later we were bumping and slithering between the trees that lined the track, and the heater was roaring a hot blast that was agony to my frozen limbs. His face showed square and leathery in the reflected glare of the headlights. He wasn’t a young man and the peaked khaki cap was strangely decorated with a cluster of gaudy flies. “You were searching for me, were you?” I asked. And when he nodded, I knew that Lands must have contacted him. “You’re Mr. Darcy then,” I said.

  “Ray Darcy,” he grunted, not taking his eyes off the road. He was driving fast, the car slithering on the bends that rushed towards us in a blaze of white. “Bill reckoned I’d find you around Mile Two-fifty.”

  “You saw him then?” I asked.

  “Sure I did.”

  “And Laroche? Was he there?”

  “Laroche?” He glanced at me quickly. “No, I didn’t see Laroche.”

  “But he was up there, wasn’t he? He was at Head of Steel?”

  “So they told me.” And he added,” You just relax now and get some sleep. Guess you’re pretty near all in.”

  But this was the man I’d trekked through the night to see. Circumstances had brought us together, and wasn’t going to waste the opportunity, tired though I was. “Did Lands tell you why I was here?” I asked him. “Did he tell you about the transmission my father picked up?”

  “Yeah. He told me.”

  “And I suppose he told you I was crazy to think Briffe might be still alive.”

  “No. He didn’t exactly say that.”

  “Then what did he say?” I asked.

  Again that quick sidelong glance. “He said you were James Finlay Ferguson’s grandson, for one thing.” He dragged the car through the mud of a long S bend. “And that to my way of thinking,” he added, “is about as strange as the idea that Briffe should have been able to transmit a message.”

  “What’s so strange about it?” I asked. Why did it always come back to the Ferguson Expedition? “It’s just a coincidence.” The warmth of the heater was making me drowsy.

  “Damned queer coincidence.” He said it almost savagely.

  “It explains my father’s interest in Briffe’s party.”

  “Sure. But it doesn’t explain you.”

  I didn’t know what he meant by that, and I was too sleepy to ask. I could hardly keep my eyes open. My mind groped back to the Ferguson Expedition. If I could just find out what had happened. “Perkins said you knew more about Labrador than anybody else on the line.” My voice sounded thick and blurred. “That’s why I came north … to find you and ask …”

  “You go to sleep,” he said. “We’ll talk later.”

  My eyes were closed, waves of tiredness engulfing me. But then we went into a skid and I was jerked back to consciousness as he pulled the car out of it. “You do know what happened, don’t you?” I said thickly. “I must know what happened to my grandfather.”

  “I’ve read it up, if that’s what you mean.” He turned his head and looked at me. “You mean to say you really don’t know the sto
ry of that expedition?”

  “No,” I replied. “That’s the reason I wanted to contact you—that and the fact that you brought Laroche out.”

  He stared at me. “Goddammit!” he said. “If that isn’t the queerest thing about the whole business.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You not knowing.” He was still staring at me and we hit the edge of the road so that snow-laden branches slashed against the cracked windscreen. He pulled the car back on to the track and said, “Now you just relax. Plenty of time to talk later.”

  “But what did happen?” I asked.

  “I said relax. We’ll talk about it later.” And then he added, “I got to think.” It was said to himself, not to me. And when I tried to question him further, he turned on me angrily and said, “You’re not in a fit state to talk now. And nor am I. I been up all night chasing after you and I’m tired. Now go to sleep.”

  “But—”

  “Go to sleep,” he almost shouted at me. “Goddammit! How do you expect me to drive with you asking questions all the time?” And then in a gentler voice, “Take my advice and sleep whilst you can. I’ll talk when I’m ready to—not before. Okay?”

  I nodded, not sure what he meant. I was too tired to argue anyway. I’d come a long way and I’d found the man I thought could help me. My eyes closed of their own accord and consciousness slid away from me. I was adrift then in a sea of ruts, rocking and swaying to the steady roar of the engine. And when I opened my eyes again, dawn was breaking and we were running down into a hutted camp.

  “Two-sixty-three,” Darcy said, seeing that I was awake.

  The place looked raw and desolate in the cold morning light, the wooden buildings standing bleak and black against the snow. It was a new camp built on a slope above the grade, the site only recently bulldozed out of the bush. Great piles of sawn logs stood outside every hut and all round the edge of the camp was a slash of lopped branches and uprooted trees.

  We bumped over rough ground and drew up outside a hut that was set a little apart. “I’m usually better organised than this,” Darcy said as he scooped up an armful of logs and pushed open the door. “But I only been here a few weeks.” He went over to the iron stove at the back and fed logs into it.

  He only had part of the hut, a small bare room with two iron beds, some shelves full of books, several lockers and a cupboard built of three-ply. It reminded me of an army hut and the mud on the floor showed what the ground outside would be like when the snow melted. A big refrigerator, gleaming new, stood incongruously against one wall. The room looked drab and cheerless in the dim light that filtered through the dirty windows, but it was warm and the flames that licked out of the top of the stove as he opened the ash door flickered on the bare wood walls to give it an illusion of cosiness. There were several pictures, too; oil paintings of Labrador—a river scene, all black and greys, a study of jackpines in the snow, and one of a little group of men round a camp fire that looked so lonely and desolate that it reminded me of Briffe. “Yours?” I asked. He turned and saw I was looking at the picture of the camp fire. “Yeah. All my own work.” And he added, “Just daubs.” But I knew he didn’t mean that, for he was staring at the picture with a self-critical intenseness. He was serious about this and he said slowly, “I guess that’s the best I ever did. Like it?”

  “I don’t know much about it,” I murmured awkwardly. “It looks cold and lost—”

  “It’s meant to.” He said it almost harshly. And then he replaced the lid of the stove with a clang. “Okay, now you get your wet clothes off and hit the sack. You can have that bed.” He nodded to the one that wasn’t made up. “Sorry I can’t give you a shot of liquor, but liquor ain’t allowed up the line. Too many alcoholics up here. Anyway, you’ll be okay. All you need is warmth and sleep.”

  Steam was rising from my clothes. I sat down on the bed. I felt suddenly very tired—too tired to take off my clothes or do anything but just sit there. “I’ve got to talk to you,” I said and my voice sounded blurred.

  “Later,” he answered.

  “No, now,” I said with an effort. “Laroche will be here later. Lands, too. If I don’t talk to you now, it’ll be too late.”

  “I’ve told you before, and now I’m telling you again—I’ll talk to you when I’m ready, and not before. Okay?” And he turned abruptly away from me and went to the corner beyond the stove. “You don’t have to worry about Laroche or anybody else,” he said over his shoulder. “Not for several hours yet. There’s no airstrip here; they’ll have to come by jeep, and they won’t start till after breakfast.” He came back with a pair of long rubber boots. “You just get your clothes off and turn in. You’re dead beat.” He reached across me to the shelf above the bed and took down a green tin box. “Go on, get some sleep, I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  He was moving towards the door and I jumped to my feet. “Where are you going?” I cried.

  “Fishing.” He had turned and was staring at me curiously.

  It didn’t seem possible he could be going fishing, not after being up all night. I don’t know why, but I’d come so far to see him I’d somehow taken it for granted he was on my side, and now I suddenly wasn’t sure. There was a radio somewhere in the camp. He could talk to Lands at Head of Steel, probably Staffen down at Base. “What instructions did they give you about me?” I asked him.

  He reached out to a rack on the wall and took down a fishing-rod swaddled in a green canvas case, and then he came back across the room towards me. “See here, young fellow,” he said. “If I say I’m going fishing, I’m going fishing. Understand?” His voice shook and his eyes glared at me from behind the rimless glasses. “Don’t ever try doubting my word. I don’t like it.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured. “It was just that I thought …”

  “You thought I was going to report to Lands, is that it?” He was still glaring at me. “Well, I’m not,” he said. “I’m going fishing. Okay?”

  I nodded and subsided on to the bed. “It seemed so odd,” I murmured.

  “Odd?” His tone was still belligerent. “What’s odd about going fishing?”

  “I don’t know,” I muttered, trying to think of something that would pacify him. “I should have thought you’d need some sleep, too.”

  “I’m not a kid,” he snapped. “I don’t need a lot of sleep. And fishing helps me to think,” he added. He smiled then and the gust of anger that had shaken him seemed suddenly swept aside. “You’re not a fisherman, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then you wouldn’t know. It’s like painting—it helps. You need things like that up here.” He stared at me for a moment. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know yet,” he said gently. “About the way life is in a Godforsaken country like Labrador. I been two years up here.” He shook his head, as though at some folly of his own. “I came up here for a month’s fishing, a sort of convalescence, and I ain’t been outside since—not even down to Seven Islands. That’s a long time.” He turned away. “Christ! It’s a long time.” He was staring out of the window, at the camp and the country beyond it. “It does things to you.” And then, after a moment, he looked at me again, smiling. “Such as making you quick to take offence when a young fool doubts your word.” And he added brusquely, “Now you get some sleep. And don’t worry about what I’m up to. I’m just going down the grade as far as the river, and with any luck I’ll come back with a ouananish, maybe some lake trout. Okay?”

  I nodded. “I just wanted you to hear what I had to say before you did anything.”

  “Sure. I understand. But there’s plenty of time.” He went to the door and pulled it open. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours or so.” And then he was gone, the door shut behind him. But though he was no longer there, something of his personality still lingered in the bare room.

  I sat there for a long time, wondering about him. But gradually weariness overcame me, and I stripped off my clothes and climbed into the bed. Th
e blankets were rough and warm against my skin. I didn’t care that they were musty with the smell of dirt. I didn’t care about anything then. I was satisfied that I’d found somebody who felt about Labrador the way my father had, and though he was strange and I was a little scared of him, I knew he would help me—and I closed my eyes and went to sleep with a picture in my mind of a tough little man, knee-deep in a cold river, fishing with long, practised casts.

  I woke to find him standing over me, and the sun was shining in through the window. “Do you like salmon?” he said.

  I sat up. “Salmon?”

  “Sure. I brought you some salmon. Land-locked salmon. The Montagnais call them ouananish.” He pulled up a chair and set a big dish down on it and a knife and fork and a hunk of bread. “Caught two. The boys and I had one. You got most of the other. Strictly against camp rules. No fish to be cooked. Give you tape worm if they’re not properly cooked. You ever had tape worm?”

  “No.”

  “You’re lucky. You feed like a horse, but it’s the worm feeding, not you, so you just go on getting thinner.” He was searching in a desk in the corner and he came up with a sheet of graph paper. There was the sound of voices and the scrape of boots in the other half of the hut beyond the partition. “Lucy!” he shouted. “You boys ready yet?”

  “Oui, oui. All okay, Ray.”

  “I got to get the boys started on levelling up a new section of the grade,” he said, turning to me. “I’ll be about an hour. After that we’ll go north as far as the trestle. Maybe I’ll fish a bit whilst you tell me your story.” The eyes glinted at me from behind their glasses. “Then we’ll see. Maybe we’ll go and have a word with Mackenzie.”

  And with that he turned and went out. The door closed and after a moment I began to eat my first ouananish. It was close-fleshed and pink, and there was a lot of it. And whilst I ate I was thinking about Darcy again—about his painting and his mania for fishing. Crazy Darcy that young engineer had called him. Two years without a break was certainly a long time, long enough to drive a man round the bend. I remembered something Lands had said and wondered whether Darcy was what they called “bushed.”