The End of the Line

by Stephen Legault

  It was not empty, however. “Jee-sus,” said the Mountie, stepping into the room. “Would you look at this?” He let the rifle fall to his side and looked around. Along one wall was the still, a cauldron perched on a low potbellied stove, the room thick with its heat. Beside it the worm descended into its cooling tank, a rain barrel. The water in it was cool but not frozen, packed with ice from the river. Next to it were sacks of corn and heavy bags of sugar.

  Along all the walls, stacked three and four deep, were kegs of what Durrant assumed was corn whiskey. He stepped to the wall and put the muzzle of the Winchester against one barrel at breast height and fired. The cartridge blew a hole in the first barrel and the four barrels behind it, then embedded itself in the cabin wall. A coarse stream of brownish liquid spilled out onto the cabin. Durrant could smell the pungent aroma of the whiskey; he pulled the glove from his right hand and put a finger in the stream and tasted it. It was 75 per cent ethyl alcohol; pure corn mash. It was all the proof he needed.

  “Charlie!” he called out the door. “Come on in here, and try not to blow us up as you do!” The boy appeared at the door, eyes wild, arms extended with the pail in front him. “Put that down here,” said Durrant, motioning to one of the larger forty-gallon drums in the centre of the room. “That’s it, so I have a clear view of it from out there by the woods. Good, now let’s get out of here,” said Durrant. The man and the boy beat a hasty retreat, leaving the cabin door wide open, as far into the woods as they could while still having a clear view of the pail of nitroglycerine resting atop the keg of moonshine.

  “You want to do the honours?” Durrant looked at him. Charlie shook his head. “It’s going to make a hell of a racket. Might want to get behind that big tree there,” said Durrant. As the boy took cover Durrant bent down on one knee and using his crutch to stabilize his aim, levelled the rifle at the target. “Cover your ears, lad,” said Durrant, and he pulled the trigger.

  The cabin exploded. The concussion from the blast knocked Durrant backwards into the snow, the crutch hitting him in the face and the rifle flying from his hand. The boards and copper cauldron from the cabin rocketed into the woods, the angry projectiles striking trees and rocks with a deafening thunder. A wall of fire pressed out into the dawn and up toward the heavens and then a thick column of smoke arose from where the shack and its contraband had once stood. Far in the distance Durrant could hear an avalanche rumble down the frosted slopes of Dodds Peak.

  When Charlie bent to help Durrant to his feet, the Mountie was laughing. “Well, that solves that, doesn’t it!” he yelled. “Did you see that, son?” Charlie was grinning but looked worried. “Oh hell, I’m alright. Lord Almighty, I bet they heard that all the way clear to Fort Calgary!”

  Charlie looked at the smoking embers of the cabin. The copper cauldron lay in several pieces twenty-five feet out on the snow-covered surface of the Pipestone River. Fragments of barrels and boards and the potbellied stove were scattered through the trees, having fallen just short of where Durrant and Charlie sat in the snow.

  “Suppose we’ll have a few folks from the camp coming to see what the trouble is. Who do you reckon will be the first?”

  • • •

  There was a faint light above the eastern mountains when the first men from the camp could be heard traversing the narrow gorge of the Pipestone River. Durrant and Charlie had started a small fire from pine limbs and boards and stood beside it warming their feet and hands. Durrant cradled the Winchester 73 his lap. He watched through the tangled smoke as the party advanced up the trail. He grinned when he saw who was in the lead.

  “Dodds,” he said. He shifted the rifle in his left hand and cradled it across his chest.

  The group stopped when they saw Durrant and Charlie and the ruined cabin smoking behind them. There were half a dozen men standing with Dodds, including the Mahoney brothers, and Thompson Griffin, Dodds’ right hand man at his cutting operation. Dodds’ face was pulled into twisted question as he stood in the faint light of morning regarding the scene.

  It was Ralph Mahoney who finally spoke. “What the hell happened here, Wallace?”

  “I was hoping you might be able to tell me,” said the Sergeant.

  “Well, you’re standing there warming your hands on the boards of that ruined cabin,” said the elder Mahoney.

  “It looks like someone’s still blew up, Mr. Mahoney,” Durrant mused.

  “Jesus Murphy.” Mahoney looked at Dodds.

  “There are bits of whiskey keg scattered all through the brush here, and I think the kettle is out yonder on the river.” Durrant gestured with a nod of his head.

  “You did this,” said the younger Mahoney brother, and he made a step towards Durrant. His older brother grabbed him by his shoulder.

  “You seem troubled,” said Durrant, looking the man in the eye through the wisps of smoke. His voice was low and flat.

  Pete opened his mouth as if to say something, but no words would come out. Frank Dodds walked past Durrant to the ruins of the cabin. He kicked a few boards still hot with flames into the snow. He used the toe of his boot to move a piece of copper coil from the worm out of a pile of embers. Durrant watched him from the corner of his eye. The man’s fists were balled up at his sides, his shoulders tight and pressed forward. Charlie too watched the man.

  “Anybody care to file a grievance?” asked Durrant.

  “Someone might have been killed!” barked Pete Mahoney.

  “Someone indeed,” said Durrant.

  “You might have killed someone!” Pete barked again, incredulously, pointing an angry finger at the Mountie.

  “Who is it that might have been killed?” Durrant asked.

  “Shut your mouth,” said Ralph to his younger brother. “Just shut up! Don’t you see what he’s trying to do?”

  Durrant nodded. “Someone might have been killed this night,” said Durrant, “but it wouldn’t have been any of the lot of you. No, sir. The cabin was empty when we found it, wasn’t it Charlie?” Charlie looked up and nodded.

  “This here cabin was full of nothing but illegal whiskey, bound for sale to the men who are already arriving here by the trainload. Whiskey sold within ten miles of the CPR is illegal, and the only reason for having such a still is to sell whiskey. Unless someone here can make the claim that they was giving it away free for medicinal purposes.”

  Dodds walked around the smouldering still house.

  “I didn’t think so. Now, mind you, the pail of nitroglycerine that was the untimely end of these premises, that’s a curious story if I’ve ever heard one,” said Durrant. As he spoke those words he could hear more voices coming up the ice track that followed the Pipestone River.

  “That’ll be Hep Wilcox. There’s going to be hell to pay,” said Ralph Mahoney.

  “Indeed, hell shall be paid,” remarked Durrant.

  Hep Wilcox came into view, accompanied by several other labourers from the camp, with Blake O’Brian drawing up the rear, his beaver felt hat perched atop his white hair, his long black coat and silver cane seeming comically out of place in such wild country. Saul Armatage followed the procession, his black bag in his hands.

  “What in the name of God is going on!” demanded Hep Wilcox. He pushed the first cluster of men aside and strode straight for the ruined cabin. He saw Durrant and Charlie by their little fire.

  “You,” he said, drawing the word out in an ominous tone.

  “Good morning, Mr. Wilcox,” said Durrant, sounding almost chipper.

  “I would like an explanation for this,” said Wilcox.

  “So would I. It seems that someone was brewing whiskey at Holt City, sir. Someone was brewing a great deal of whiskey. This of course is an offence against the Dominion of Canada, and it was occurring in your camp.”

  “I had no idea of these goings on.”

  “Is that correct, sir?”

  “I had . . . Are you suggesting, Sergeant, that I was somehow aware of these illegal activities?”


  “Sir, you were either aware of and failed to put a stop to them, or you were wilfully ignorant. Which will it be now?”

  O’Brian pushed forward, pointing his cane at Durrant. “Now listen here, Sergeant. I don’t think there is any cause for such accusations. That is simply out of line. Mr. Wilcox could not possibly know of the entire goings on in the wilds surrounding Holt City. Nor could he be expected, in the absence of any presence of the Red Coats, to enforce all the laws. It’s simply not his job.”

  “The law has been in Fort Calgary throughout the winter, sir. A wire sent would have brought Dewalt and his men inside of a few days.”

  “What good would that have done?” demanded Wilcox. “Had I known of this trouble, and had I seen fit to call for reinforcements, what good would that have done? We have had a man murdered at the end of steel this fortnight, and what does Sam Steele do? Sends a man with one leg and a mere boy to discover the perpetrator and bring him to justice.”

  Durrant looked down at the fire. The men in the woods were suddenly quiet. Charlie looked from Durrant to Wilcox and then at all the cold faces looking at the Mountie.

  “This still has been dealt with now,” Durrant finally said. “I am certain there is another, and I aim to discover its location and deal with it accordingly. I also aim to uncover the identity of Deek Penner’s killer, and that shall be done soon enough.”

  “Sir, your presence here at Holt City has done far more harm than good,” said the MP for Northumberland. “Far more harm. This type of interruption into the work of these men is pure nuisance. I aim to tell Steele that and to report back to Parliament on my findings. If this is what the North West Mounted Police call an investigation, then I imagine this country’s Parliament will have something to say about it.”

  Durrant laughed. “Sir, I am operating on direct orders from Steele himself. If you wish to see them I would be happy to oblige.”

  “Blowing up stills, putting men’s lives at risk? Meanwhile the killer is likely halfway to Fort Benton by now.”

  “The killer is still in this camp.”

  “How do you know?” demanded O’Brian. Frost had formed on his wide beard.

  “He left a message for young Charlie and me last night.”

  “What did it say?”

  “There were no words,” said Durrant, scanning the group of men.

  “Speak plainly, man,” said O’Brian.

  “It was a message just the same. A bucket of nitro whose detonation I interrupted. It’s a message I’ll return in kind, in due course,” said Durrant. “That time is coming upon us shortly.”

  Dodds kicked a board of the smouldering shack and it toppled down, sending a shower of sparks into the crisp morning air. He turned around, his gaze lingering on Durrant, before it moved to the crowd milling about in the woods. He spoke not a word, but walked past Durrant, his face hard and menacing, and proceeded down the path towards Holt City. The knot of men who had accompanied him followed suit, among them Wilcox and O’Brian. Only Armatage remained behind.

  In a few moments Durrant, Charlie, and Armatage were alone in the dawn woods, the ruins of the shack still smouldering behind them, a difficult road laid out ahead. Armatage looked down at his friend, who remained sitting.

  “Anybody injured?” the doctor finally asked.

  “Hell, no,” said Durrant.

  “So you’re okay?”

  “Of course I’m okay. I haven’t felt this good in years!”

  Armatage shook his head and grinned. “That’s what worries me, Durrant,” he said. Both men were smiling.

  FIFTEEN

  CROSSED WIRES

  AFTER EATING A QUICK BREAKFAST in his bunk, Durrant was determined to follow the tracks that led away from the site of the deadly bucket of nitro behind his cabin. Charlie insisted on helping and Durrant relented. It was mid-morning and the light was grey and flat so that the snow lost all definition, and the path where it wove through the trees could only be determined by close inspection. With Charlie acting as a crutch, the two men pushed their way through the low pines growing along the railway bed and close to the river bank of the Bow River. The path was winding and difficult, and Durrant wondered how the night-time intruder had managed to follow such a course without blowing himself to smithereens.

  One word dawned on him: practice. The path they followed proceeded like this for more than two hundred yards, winding like a frozen snake through the pines, and finally terminating near the station itself. The two companions found themselves on the Tote Road, looking at the north side of the train platform. As the station was the centre of the tiny encampment, and pathways led to every other part of the settlement from this point, their tracking had led them nowhere. Durrant and Charlie looked at one another and then walked toward the station itself and the storage yards beyond.

  “You stay here,” Durrant said to Charlie, indicating the station. He then walked to the munitions warehouse, where loaded crates were being corralled, along with kegs of powder and sacks of material for manufacturing explosives.

  “Grant McPherson about?” asked Durrant as he stopped one of the men carrying the heavy crates.

  The man nodded to the back of the warehouse. There Durrant found McPherson talking with another man. Durrant stood quietly while they finished.

  “A word, sir?” Durrant asked, and Grant nodded and motioned for the Mountie to step away from the men at their task.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked.

  “Been out on any moonlight strolls of late?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Been out late in the evening wandering through the woods? Last night, perchance?”

  “Last night I was in my bunk shortly after dinner. It’s been busy days and it’s getting busier. I’ve got near fifty men working under my charge, with supplies arriving daily to be shipped to Kicking Horse Lake.”

  “You got those who seen you in your bunk?”

  “I’ve got three bunkmates who did. Mind, several of them were out till late playing cards and the fiddle.”

  “I’ll want a word with them.”

  “You can have it. As usual, Sergeant, I don’t know what you’re getting on to.”

  “Last night someone left young Charlie and me a message: a pail of nitroglycerine and a fuse, tamped and ready for the match. It’s only providence that I’m here to speak with you about it. I interrupted the man at his task of lighting the cord.”

  “Nitro, you say?”

  “Pure stuff, I imagine. Powerful. Whoever set it carried it though the woods. I expect they were well practiced or we’d be finding bits of them scattered through the forest by the Bow this morning. That’s why I come to you. Do I need to tell you that the attempted murder of a law officer is a hanging offence in this country?”

  “I imagine it would be, Sergeant, but you’re not going to hang me today. I was in my bunk, and there are those that can attest to that.”

  “Who else has access to nitro?”

  “Anybody who has keys to this warehouse, I suppose,” said McPherson.“A few more than I’d like. Deek Penner gave a few of the foremen access. The fellas who are working on the Tote Road and your friend Dodds.”

  “What does Dodds need explosives for?”

  “Time to time he finds a Douglas fir that’s suitable for bridge work, and uses a stick of dynamite to help bring it down. I haven’t heard of him using nitro, through; much too strong for his purposes.”

  “What of Hep Wilcox?”

  “Well, this is Wilcox’s outfit. He’s got the key to all the buildings in the camp.”

  “Hep know how to set a fuse?”

  “I imagine he would. Before he come to Holt City and the railway work, he manufactured explosives back east.”

  The words hit Durrant as if a train had barrelled him over.

  • • •

  After Durrant left the munitions storeroom, he went to the station, arriving just as another freight was steaming
in from Fort Calgary. He sent Charlie back to their cabin, asking that he spend some time working on the coded wire transmission from the man named Kauffman. Durrant stayed at the station. He needed to update Sam Steele, and he wanted to dig further into Wilcox’s past. As the freight exhaled a final blast from its brakes, another troop of young men looking to be a part of the excitement building at the end of track began to disembark. Bob Pen stood on a soapbox to address the men as they milled about.

  “Alright, listen up, lads. The lot of you are for the Tote Road. Throw your bags on the sled there and those who can fit, hop aboard; those who can’t, you’ll be well and familiar with the Tote before you reach the Kicking Horse.” With that, the men moved en mass for the sled that awaited them at the far end of the station. Pen watched them go and nodded at Durrant as he stumped past, making for the station.

  The heat of the place felt good once he’d secured the door behind him. John Christianson was seated behind the counter, sorting the post. “Anything for me, Mr. Christianson?”

  He looked up with a start. “No, sir, just a bunch for the fellas out at Kicking Horse, and for those around the camp.”

  “Nothing from my ol’ Dad to get me through a cold mountain winter?”

  Christianson shook his head. “No, sir.”

  “Lighten up, John. I’m only funning.”

  Christianson forced a smile. “Actually, Sergeant, I do have something for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Christianson put down his bag of mail and went to the telegraph machine. He picked up the log book. “I managed to get this sorted out for you. I’ve got a record of everybody who’s sent a wire over the last four months, pretty well since we’ve been holed up here. That is, them that have asked me to send it, or maybe Mr. Holt when I’ve been off.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Nothing that stands out, Sergeant.”

  “Really, nothing strikes you as unusual?”