The End of the Line

by Stephen Legault

  “I would have imagined that the Canadian Pacific controlled contracts out of Montreal.”

  Wilcox laughed. “You have a lot to learn about John A. Macdonald’s national dream, Sergeant Wallace. Parliament has been playing its hand in this all along, but with costs threatening to quadruple before we complete this railway, the Members of Parliament have taken a much more active interest in overseeing routine matters such as the letting of contracts. That interest is not just for egalitarian reasons.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I tend to speak out of turn on this sort of matter, but I find it very frustrating.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “While these men debate cutting costs from the comfort of their offices in Parliament, you can see we’re not living in the lap of luxury here along the railway. Some of these men, while saying that we have to build more miles with less, are lining their own pockets. Surely this doesn’t come as a surprise to you, Sergeant.”

  “It doesn’t. Surely there must be some oversight?”

  “Of course. There is a committee of members of both the governing Conservatives of John A. and the Liberals under Mr. Edward Blake. Supposedly, they keep tabs on the spending.”

  “Where do you fit in that spectrum?”

  “I could honestly care less, so long as they keep paying their bills and sending me what I need to do my job.”

  Durrant pondered his next line of questioning. “The munitions contract is one of the biggest, as I understand it.”

  “It is that. It could be worth a million dollars or more just for the work between here and the Columbia River. The Parliamentary Committee that oversees the budget for the railway decided that this was a good place to trim costs and so they went with the cheapest bidder for the job. That’s how the Canada Explosives Company got the work. There are others with a higher quality product, and with a better supply chain, in my opinion.”

  “So you’re not happy with the contractor?”

  “That remains to be seen, but they wouldn’t have been my first choice . . .”

  “Why is that?” asked Durrant.

  “Problems with the product, mostly. It’s unstable stuff to begin with. The Canada Explosives Company has had more than a few accidents with their nitro. Nothing that could be called gross negligence, but still, I have my concerns.”

  “Who would you have selected for the contract?”

  “Well, that’s irrelevant now, isn’t it?”

  “I’m just interested in who you think would have provided a better product?”

  Wilcox thought a moment. “A better and safer product, Sergeant Wallace.”

  Durrant watched him, aware that he had dodged the answer. “Are you saying that Parliament, by interfering with this, is putting lives at risk?”

  Wilcox shook his head. “You’re putting words in my mouth, Sergeant. No, what I’m saying is that there are some places on this undertaking you can afford to cut corners. There are others you can’t. Explosives is one of the places you can’t.”

  “Don’t you stand to profit with the Canada Explosives Company holding this contract?”

  “Not under the Mount Saint-Hilaire company. Not direct. With Deek out of the picture, I’ve been asked to find a replacement, but I don’t have any direct affiliation with that company.”

  Durrant thought about that a moment and said, “Tell me, sir, how much nitroglycerine are we talking about?

  Wilcox grinned. “As much as we need. It’s a lot, Sergeant. We won’t know for certain till we get things underway, but the engineers tell us that there will be seven tunnels on the upper section of the Kicking Horse alone. It’s more than two thousand linear feet! Plus more rock cuts and steep grades than you can number. We expect to move about thirty thousand cubic yards of rock and earth for every mile of track we lay. That’s going to take upwards of two hundred thousand pounds of nitroglycerine.”

  Durrant let that number settle in. “You figure upwards of a million dollars is at stake?”

  Wilcox looked down at his hands. “Well,” he finally said, “that depends also on the final numbers and on the type of material blasted. The contractor gets more for the harder rock found up along the ridge of the Kicking Horse; less for the soft sediment in the valley bottom. And there’s always the wild card . . .”

  Durrant was beginning to feel like he was being played. He drew a deep breath and waited for Wilcox to dole out his information. “What is the wild card?”

  “Whether or not the Canada Explosives Company keeps the contract. There’s at least one other Canadian firm interested in completing the work, but it will cost more. Their bid was more expensive, but in my opinion they have a better product; safer, more stable.”

  “How much more would it cost?”

  “Ten, twenty percent.”

  “What did Penner think?”

  It was Wilcox’s turn to consider the question. “I think Deek would have wanted the more reliable product. Remember, Deek was going to be there when the men were doing the blasting. If the nitroglycerine was substandard, then he was going to be standing next to the men who blew themselves up.”

  Durrant realized how serious a business this was. “The contract has already been won, hasn’t it?”

  “It has.”

  “So it’s a done deal.”

  “Sergeant Wallace, you’re going to find that in the business of the railroad, nothing is a done deal.”

  “Why would the CPR revoke a contract that was less expensive, even if the firm was questionable?”

  Wilcox interrupted. “The answer is, they likely won’t. Not unless there is some trouble with the munitions or if the plant can’t produce what they promised.”

  “Nothing is a done deal.”

  Wilcox smiled. “Nothing is ever a done deal until the last spike is driven home. We’re a long, long way from that day yet.”

  • • •

  “Let’s talk about this spy.” Durrant leaned his left elbow on his good leg, taking the pressure off the stump that was already aching this early in the day.

  Durrant and Wilcox now sat in the manager’s office, the heat from the woodstove close, the window that faced the railway dense with moisture. They had just spent twenty minutes discussing the comings and goings in the camp. Durrant wanted assurance that a complete list of any man who had left camp since Penner had been killed would be furnished in short order.

  “Who has been talking about this so-called spy?” he asked, stalling.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Well, it does to me. It matters a great deal to me. This is one of the things that happens in a place like this, Sergeant Wallace,” said Wilcox, looking around him and gesturing with his arms wide open. The action seemed contrived to Durrant given that they were in Wilcox’s tiny office. “You shut a bunch of men up in a place like Holt City and they start to talk. It’s like cards; it’s entertainment. Nobody else in Holt City knows for certain that there is a spy here. As it is, I am doing everything I can to find this secret agent and drive him out.”

  “Or have him arrested,” said Durrant.

  “Yes, or that.”

  “Are you telling me that you are the only person in Holt City who knows for certain about this alleged Grand Trunk spy?”

  Wilcox sat back and laced his fingers together across his trim stomach and let his head fall forward so his chin touched his chest. “I’ve been trying to keep this under wraps, as it were.” He seemed to think better of saying anything more.

  “Why?”

  “For obvious reasons, Sergeant. What do you think would happen if word got out that somewhere among these five hundred souls there was a traitor?”

  Wilcox pressed on. “You may not take this enterprise seriously, Sergeant, but many of these men do. They take it very seriously. Some signed on three years ago or more. Some of them started laying track above Lake Superior, and aim to see it through to Rogers Pass if they are able. If you ask why keep secret t
hat there is a spy among them, let me tell you: so that they don’t turn on one another. It’s been hard enough keeping peace at the end of steel through this God-forsaken winter. Your presence here may well be a testament to my own failure. I’ll be damned if I’m going to have these men at each other’s throats accusing one another of being a spy.” Wilcox looked at his fingers, his face flushed. He seemed to be contemplating what to say next. Finally he exhaled loudly and without looking up said, “I believe Deek Penner was onto the man.

  “Shortly after we stopped work for the fall, around the 8th of December last year, Montreal sent word that the Grand Trunk was making noise that they were going to extend their operations west. They’d been making those sounds for the last two decades! But nothing ever came from it. That’s why Macdonald had to do this himself, you see. If the Grand Trunk could have been relied upon to push their Ontario line west to British Columbia, Macdonald would have been able to fulfill his promise to the province without it costing the Dominion a hundred million dollars. But they couldn’t. Now that we’re actually within a year, maybe eighteen months of finishing this magnificent undertaking, the Grand Trunk is making sounds like they will push their lines west through the Americas and on to the Pacific at the Port of Seattle. That’s just a hundred miles from Burrard Inlet where our terminus is. I didn’t take it too seriously,” Wilcox said, looking out the window. “Montreal did. They came to believe that the Grand Trunk had spies working in our camps.”

  “What makes them think that?”

  Wilcox turned and looked at Durrant. “We have spies in theirs. It just makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  It was Durrant’s turn to smile.

  “Word come down straight from CPR General Manager Van Horne himself to be on the lookout.”

  “For what?” Durrant sat back in his chair and rubbed his leg.

  “Suspicious behaviour. I didn’t make too much of it, but early in the New Year, things started happening: we had a few accidents that couldn’t be explained. Devon Paine lost some of his horses when someone left the stables open and they ran off. A whole siding of our sleepers caught fire. There was an incident with some nitro . . . Nobody was killed, but several men got burned badly.

  “I asked Deek to look into it. He did, and the last I talked with him about it, just a few days before he was killed, he told me he had a man in mind and was going to deal with it directly. He wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

  “Wouldn’t tell you?”

  “Said he didn’t want to wrongly accuse the fellow.”

  Durrant looked down to hide his frustration. “Did Penner talk with anybody else about this?” Durrant was remembering the contents of Deek’s pockets, and the coded correspondence with the man named Kauffman. Its importance seemed to take on new light.

  “You mean direct with Montreal?” Wilcox shook his head. “I don’t think so. No, he was reporting to me on this matter. I think he was going to confront the man.” Wilcox was still looking at the window

  The Mountie looked up. “Do you have any suspicions about who this might be?”

  “I do not. I mean, there are a few men around that are more than a little odd, but nobody walking around advertising that they’re on the Grand Trunk payroll or anything.”

  Durrant pushed himself up. He arranged his crutch and pulled on his coat. “Mr. Wilcox,” he said, and Hep turned from the window to face him in the small space. “Thank you for the information.”

  Wilcox said, “Do you think that this spy might have known his cover was blown and that Deek was the one who had a finger on him? Do you think he might have done poor Deek in?”

  Durrant regarded the man’s face and noticed an eagerness there that hadn’t been present before. “As you said yourself not an hour ago, Mr. Wilcox, nothing is a done deal as it pertains to this railway until the last spike is driven.”

  • • •

  When Durrant left Wilcox’s office, he nearly knocked over Christianson. The man was standing near the door to Wilcox’s office, a stack of wire correspondence in his slender hands.

  “Good morning, Mr. Christianson,” the Mountie said.

  “Good morning, Sergeant Wallace. How are you faring with our sudden fine weather?” the small man asked, his eyes roving everywhere but on Durrant’s face.

  Durrant regarded the man. Hard to imagine him wintering in a place like this, but here he was.

  “Tell me, John, what kind of records do you keep for the operation of this here wire?”

  “Well, sir, any wire that gets sent is supposed to be entered in the journal there,” said the man, pointing to his thick book of records next to the operator’s station. “Any I send are entered there for certain. I imagine most others do the same.”

  “Who has authority to send a wire?”

  Christianson put a finger to the side of his face and looked up, his face curling into thoughtful consideration. “Well, me of course,” he said helpfully. “Mr. Wilcox. All the foremen can send and receive wires, but I don’t expect most of them know how, to be honest.”

  “Deek did?”

  “Oh yes, Mr. Penner certainly did.”

  “Who else?”

  “Well, other than that, the wire’s supposed to come and go through me. Some do take advantage of the situation. I can’t be here every moment, and if someone comes in and decides to send a wire, then not much can be done to stop them.”

  “What about incoming?”

  “Well, those that aren’t collected right away end up over here,” said Christianson. He showed Durrant the bottom of a crate that served as his inbox. “Every so often I walk them around to the men who are expecting them if they haven’t been collected. Most fellas who are expecting a wire come right quick for it. It’s better than getting the post in a place like Holt City.”

  “John, would there be any way for you to provide me a list of everybody who has sent or received wires?”

  Christianson put his finger to his cheek again in exaggerated concentration. “You mean, besides them that I’ve got recorded in the log?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t believe so, Sergeant. Not unless the tape from the wire is left lying about, and that’s not often.”

  Durrant looked around the spare room. “Alright then, I’ll start with the log. I’ll need to take it for several days.”

  “I can do without,” said the clerk. “I’ve been meaning to petition Mr. Holt for a new one anyhow. Let me put some order to it, and then I’ll give it over to you.”

  Durrant looked at the man. There was no guile in his voice. “Thank you,” he finally said. “Now, I need to use your wire for police business, please,” Durrant said, indicating that Christianson should return to his other duties.

  Again Christianson agreed. He adjusted his spectacles, pulled on his coat, hat, and gloves, and took the journal. “You need anything else from me Sergeant?”

  “I’ll be just fine,” said Durrant, taking a seat behind the counter where the telegraph machine rested.

  When Christianson had left, he tapped in the code for the NWMP headquarters in Regina and signalled his intent to transmit. When the ready response came, he tapped out his message.

  To S. Steele.

  From Durrant Wallace.

  Update on progress at Holt City. Many suspects in murder of Deek Penner. Am narrowing search. Significant presence of whiskey production at end of track. Please advise.

  Ask Winnipeg to question contract holders with CPR about relationship to Penner.

  Check with other forces on known persons named Kauffman. Possibly with CPR or GTR.

  Please advise on possible presence of GTR espionage and/or sabotage of CPR mainline.

  He sat back. It seemed hard to believe that the entirety of his undertakings in Holt City could be summed up in five lines of coded text. As he sat waiting for a reply, he heard Wilcox’s door open behind him and felt the man’s eyes on the back of his neck, then heard the door close. Only after a long minute
did Durrant turn around to see that the door was indeed shut.

  A few more minutes passed before the telegraph machine buzzed with an incoming wire. Durrant put the headset on and tapped out the ready to receive message. The wire was from the NWMP:

  To Wallace.

  From NWMP.

  Steele observing Métis near Fort Pitt. Will forward transmission.

  That didn’t bode well, thought Durrant. For Steele to be distracted from the railway work by the Métis meant trouble was brewing. Durrant bunched the piece of paper he had scribbled the message on, opened the lid to the stove, and threw the message into the flames. He stood, adjusted his coat, pulled on his hat and gloves, and stepped out into the afternoon light.

  Durrant made his way to the mess tent where he ate his first meal of the day alone, and when he was done, stood at the door of the tent and looked up at the western mountains. There were too many loose ends. He had to start tying some of them off, or he’d never find the man who killed Deek Penner. In time he would have to brace all the men from the card game again, but it was too soon for that. He needed to give them all a day or two to reflect on the consequences of their falsehoods, and to develop a sense of security that maybe they had sidestepped his inquiry. Then, he could go back and see if he might catch them in their duplicity.

  The first thing to do was to track down answers to several outstanding problems. Who is the mysterious man named Kauffman that Penner had been corresponding with before he was killed, and what does his coded message say? And next, who is the Grand Trunk spy, if even there is one, and what might have transpired between Penner and this rogue element in the camp?

  As the afternoon began to wane, Durrant set off toward his bunk. By now Christianson would have delivered the log book of wires sent and received from the camp. He’d look through this to see if there was anything suspicious. It seemed unlikely that if the Grand Trunk had in fact dispatched a spy to Holt City, he would not be able to transmit his own wire correspondence.