The End of the Line

by Stephen Legault

  Durrant looked around the room. He felt his face begin to flush. He had to find Christianson. He walked the length of the station and left through the wide doors, strode across the platform, and found his way around the back of the station to where Christianson had a tiny room. When he arrived he found the door locked from the outside, as if Christianson had left and secured his quarters.

  Durrant knocked on the door and pressed his ear to the planks. He could hear no sound. He knocked again and still heard nothing. He looked down at the snow at his feet. The new snow had been disturbed sometime in the night. He looked around him and then knelt awkwardly, putting his left hand against the cabin for support. The top-most layer of the remaining snow was almost as fine as baking flour; he leaned forward and carefully blew on the powdery snow. It swirled up in his face and settled down away from the door. He blew again, gently. More snow swirled up. He studied the impressions there; he could see only one set of tracks going in and then coming out of the cabin, but he could not tell if they belonged to the deceptive Christianson or another man. He blew one more time; now much of the top layer of snow had dissipated. Durrant studied the ground, his face just a foot from the snow’s crust. There Durrant found what he was searching for—tiny dark red droplets. Blood.

  The Mountie pushed himself to standing and drew the Enfield from its holster. Standing back, he took careful aim at the Yale lock on the door and fired. The shot rang out across the tent city. The lock shattered. Durrant pulled it off its clasp and pushed the door open with his shoulder.

  The room was dark and cold. A narrow band of watery light from the open door fell across the bare wood floor. Durrant stepped inside, his pistol up. Christianson lay face down on his bunk, a blanket covering his shoulders and head. His left arm, stiff with cold and rigor mortis, was extended at an awkward angle. His right arm, likewise taut, seemed to be clutching at the rough-hewn log wall where the cabin abutted the main station. Across that wall was a wide swatch of blood.

  Before taking another step Durrant looked at the floor. There were a few droplets of dried—or possibly frozen—blood there, leading out the door and into the snow.

  Durrant heard voices behind him. He turned to see several men there, drawn by the sound of the pistol shot. The postal clerk was among them.

  “You men,” he demanded, “stay far back. This is a crime scene.” The men pushed forward to get a better look and Durrant turned on them, his pistol still smoking from the discharge of the cartridge. “Don’t make me tell you again,” he waved the pistol across the door to indicate the demarcation.

  The men stepped back. “You,” he said, the pistol pointing at a man bundled in a heavy woollen sweater that was flecked with ash and sawdust. The man looked at the barrel of his pistol. “Run and fetch Saul Armatage.” The man was still staring at the smoking barrel of the gun. “Be quick!” Durrant yelled, and the man snapped out of his trance and bolted toward the doctor’s quarters.

  Drawing a deep breath, Durrant turned back to the small room. He advanced on the body knotted there, taking note that the air in the cabin was chilled. He stopped and checked the tiny stove: it too was stone cold. He took two more steps, careful not to disturb the blood on the floor, and reached down and took hold of the blanket. He pulled it back. The face and skull once belonging to Christianson was all but gone. In its stead, a pulpy mass of bone fragments and brain and congealed blood remained. The bunk and blankets were heavy with blood, and Durrant could see that many of the blows had been delivered while the man was lying face down on the tick. A broad spatter of blood, bone, and brains had painted the wall. Whoever had killed Christianson had also likely been coated in the mess.

  Just then there was a loud knock at the door. Durrant wheeled, his balance awkward, and brought the Enfield up towards the portal.

  “It’s me, for Christ’s sake!” said Armatage. He had his black satchel in his right hand. Durrant didn’t say a word, but turned back to the gore. “Blue Jesus, would you look at this . . .” said Armatage.

  “He’s certainly beyond worldly cares,” muttered Durrant. He looked around the darkened room. Faces peered at him from the open doorway.

  “Give me a moment, Saul,” said Durrant. He let his eyes further adjust to the dimness, scanning the room’s shadowed corners. He soon found what he was looking for. On the wall opposite the bed, behind the door, another cord of blood decorated the wall. He drew an imaginary line in the air between the blood on the wall and the mutilated body on the bed.

  Armatage saw it too. “He was first attacked there,” he said, pointing to the spatter of blood behind the door. “And then he stumbled back onto the bed?” asked Saul.

  “Or was pushed,” said Durrant. “Can you tell if he was still alive then?”

  “Let me have a look.” Armatage stepped into the close room.

  “Close the door, Saul. Shut out the goddamned gawkers.” Armatage did as he was asked. The room was dark, the only light from the thinly transparent window, now crowded with the faces of several men trying to see the carnage. “Watch the blood,” said Durrant, pointing his pistol at the floor.

  Armatage carefully stepped around it. He bent to examine the body. “He was likely alive,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Well, his heart was still beating when he was hit here. You can see this spray of blood here,” he said, tracing a line that ran halfway up the wall. “A lot of force involved. The heart was still pumping out blood when he was hit there. That blow likely killed him.”

  “How long ago?” asked Durrant.

  “Need to take his temperature to tell you for sure. In this cold it wouldn’t tell us much anyway.”

  “Can you guess?”

  Armatage pulled a glove off and touched the man’s face with the tip of his finger. The blood was cold and tacky to the touch.

  “I’ve no way to tell,” said the doctor. “He could have been here for hours.”

  “Blue Jesus,” grumbled Durrant. It had been just past midnight when he had seen Christianson return to his bunk. Now he wondered if the assailant had been waiting for John in the room, or if he had come shortly after he himself had returned to his bed.

  Durrant scanned the room, and his eyes fell upon the stove. He thought to check it to determine if a fire had been lit that night. He opened it and waved his hand inside, then stooped to sniff for the scent of a fresh fire. There was nothing to indicate the stove had been lit the night before, a few grey coals but no heat whatsoever. Durrant put his pistol on top of the stove and picked up the crooked iron poker resting on the wall beside it. He pushed the ashes around in the hob, peering into its tiny darkened opening, then pulled out a few soot-coated pieces of wood and a balled-up piece of paper. It was the kind that Durrant had seen Christianson using to jot down telegraph messages the night before. He held it up to the faint light from the doorway.

  It was a transcription of a telegram. It read:

  The deal is off.

  There was nothing to indicate who had sent it, or for whom it was intended, but Durrant didn’t need that to be written down to understand the message’s meaning. This was what had caused Christianson to fly into his rage the night before. This was, in all likelihood, what got him killed just minutes, or hours, thereafter.

  Armatage was examining the body. “He’s been hit half a dozen times. The assailant used something akin to a pry bar, Durrant. Maybe one of those used to open crates, you know. Like what Tom Holt has for uncrating supplies. You can see here,” —Armatage was pointing to the destroyed face of Christianson— “where there is a reasonably neat incision that perforates the skull and goes clear on through into the brain cavity. When the killer struck John here,” he concluded, his finger indicating the spot, “and then drew back for another blow, he pulled out some of this mess,” said Saul, indicating the bone and grey matter on the wall.

  Durrant stood up and handed Armatage the note.

  “I don’t understand.” said the doctor.
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  “I don’t have all the pieces, but here’s what I think,” he said, turning towards the door. “Mr. Christianson here,” said Durrant, nodding towards the bed . . .

  “What’s left of him,” said Armatage without humour.

  “Mr. Christianson,” continued the Mountie, “received that wire correspondence sometime late last evening. There was likely more to it, of course. That’s just the transcription. I think it may have been from the Northumberland Glycerol Company and sent to either Mr. O’Brian or the general manager, Hep Wilcox. I think that the Glycerol company was still hoping to win the contract for some of the lower Kicking Horse work, and that O’Brian, Wilcox, and our man Christianson had promised them that they would deliver that contract. For a price. Christianson here was the bearer of bad news to the others. My bet would be that the Northumberland company got cold feet. The news of Deek Penner’s murder has likely reached their ears and they have cut their losses.

  “I saw this man around the time the wire came in, Saul. He was in the station when I went to alert Sam Steele of my conviction that John here killed Deek Penner. I saw him through the window in the door, and watched him destroy the wire machine in his fury. I later went into the room and he had returned to his belittled state of being. It was then that I noticed that his glasses had blood upon them. It was old and dry, but to my mind there is no doubt that it was Deek Penner’s. This man, after all, claims to have discovered the body. It stands to reason, doesn’t it?

  “I left him then, hoping that he might lead me to Hep Wilcox. Instead, he just milled about at the station, and then came back here without searching for his boss. It is possible that I missed something, because somehow he got word to Wilcox, or possibly Mr. O’Brian.”

  Armatage continued to ponder the corpse of John Christianson.

  Durrant continued. “Somehow John delivered the news, and reported to his colleagues that I was on to him. My guess is that Mr. Wilcox didn’t take that news too well. I guess that he sent John back to these very quarters and then followed him here, taking him by surprise when he answered the door. When he left, he took his dripping murder weapon with him, likely for safe disposal elsewhere. The blood on the door stoop had been left just before the snow had stopped, before first light this morning.”

  Saul listened to the Mountie’s explanation, nodding. “You said, on to him. Don’t you believe Hep Wilcox killed Deek Penner too?”

  “No. I’m certain that John Christianson did. The blood on his spectacles is the proof.”

  “How? He’s just a runt of a man, and Penner was a strapping lad.”

  “True, Deek Penner was a big man, and strong, but surprise is a powerful weapon and John wouldn’t have aroused any suspicion. He’s a diminutive man, but he’s stronger than he looks. I had him lift something for me the other day that I deliberately underestimated for him and he proved himself able-bodied enough.”

  “That’s not evidence of his culpability, Durrant.”

  “Of course it isn’t, Saul,” said Durrant. “The killer’s fist blow to Deek Penner’s face came at such an angle as to suggest a man of lesser height. How much lesser, we’ll never be able to say for certain, but at least four inches, and likely more. Some of that could be accounted for by the deep snow next to the trail where he was killed. Some would also likely be explained by the killer being a fair bit shorter than the victim. John here is four inches shorter than Deek Penner.”

  “But still, Durrant . . .”

  “There is the blood spatter. The blood is simply an infallible piece of evidence, Saul. You’ll recall that when you and I first examined Deek Penner’s corpse, we discussed how the killer must have gotten some blood on himself. In all my efforts to ascertain the killer’s identity I’d not been able to find a single piece of clothing that had blood spattered on it. I checked with the laundry and the men that work there assure me that none of my suspects had been in with clothing requiring the laundering of blood. I’ve even gone so far as to search the rubbish piles and fire pits.”

  “I believe that was a job you assigned your lad Charlie . . .”

  “Yes, Charlie did the physical search, but I stood by . . .”

  “Not the same when you’re rummaging through a pile of stinking trash, is it?”

  “All he found was a belt buckle. There was no way to tell if it was from a greatcoat,” Durrant continued. “Last night we got a message from a man who claims to have seen the murder.”

  “Good lord, man, why didn’t you say so?”

  “As you have said yourself, you’re a doctor, not an investigator.” Armatage looked wounded by the remark. “The boy and I handled it. We went to see this witness and gained useful, though not incriminating, evidence from him. He’s frightened, and rightly so. I already had my suspicions. I don’t know if there is a theory about this sort of thing, but if there is not yet, I shall have to propose one: the man who finds the body should be the prime suspect.”

  “John.”

  “Yes, John. Had he burned his own coat, he could easily have requisitioned one from Mr. Holt’s stores without arousing suspicions. I went to the station last night to follow up on my notion. I meant to check his spectacles. It was just a hunch, and it proved correct.” Armatage watched him. “Have you ever noticed that when John thought he wasn’t being observed, he was much more . . .” Durrant searched for the right word, “. . . steady? When you were watching him at the wire, or talking with him, he’d seem as if he was always a little nervous. Dropping papers, stammering, that sort of thing, but catch him unawares, and he was a different man altogether. Well, I saw both men last night.”

  “I’ve heard of such men, Durrant,” said the doctor. “It’s a new field of study, and I really don’t follow it as closely as I should. Some are calling this sort of fellow ‘insane without delirium.’ These men can be a normal part of our social order and hide a tendency for violence, even homicidal violence, in plain view of the entire world.

  “I don’t particularly care for any such classification,” snorted Durrant. “But I know a madman when I see one.”

  “Mind you, the spectacles won’t be much good to you now.” Armatage said, and looked at the glasses lying on the floor where Durrant had found them. They were shattered and covered in fresh blood.

  “Unless you’ve got a way to tell one man’s blood from another?” asked Durrant.

  “There is no way to do that, Durrant,” said the doctor. “I’m afraid the eyeglasses won’t help you make your case against John with his own blood on them now.”

  Durrant was shaking his head. “If I’d simply apprehended him right then and there, the man would likely be alive right now and I could bring him to trial.”

  Armatage was shook his head. “You think that Hep Wilcox would have let you come between him and a man who could drag him down?”

  “I would have come between them.”

  Saul looked down and nodded his head. “Yes, I believe you would have.”

  “I had to let John lead me to Hep, and anybody else who was involved. John might have been mad, or at the very least, greedy, but he wasn’t in this alone. I didn’t believe that. So I needed him to run to Wilcox and O’Brian and anybody else who was involved. That cost him his life.”

  “I wouldn’t spend too much time mourning the death of this man,” said Armatage. “He was a killer and he would have hanged.” He was silent again, and then asked, “So, now what?”

  “Now I have to find Hep Wilcox.”

  “Durrant, if John told him that you were on to him, won’t he have tried to run?”

  “He may have. I’ve got Dewalt watching the station in Fort Calgary, and there really is only one more direction to go.”

  “The Kicking Horse.”

  “That’s right.”

  Armatage watched Durrant considering the remains of John Christianson. “You’re taking responsibility for this man’s death, Durrant. I can see it on your face. I know you too well for you to hide it from me.”


  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re thinking that you keep making mistakes and they cost people their lives.”

  “Saul, I don’t want to get into that now,” growled Durrant, his face down, his eyes suddenly boring into Armatage. “You can put your head games on the shelf, doctor.”

  Armatage recognized the look. He drew a quiet breath and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need to watch over Patrick Carriere. He’s my prisoner, but I can’t keep an eye on him and apprehend Wilcox. Can you do that?”

  “Of course, Durrant.”

  “I need you to send word to Steele of what’s transpired and ask him to send me a couple of men to help with the transport of these prisoners. Please ask Bob Pen if there was another wire machine here at Holt City. They may have one from a boxcar station from last summer’s construction season. Failing that, the next train that comes in must be dispatched forthwith to Fort Calgary with my request.”

  “Prisoners? Plural?” asked Armatage.

  “Yes, I’m going to find Hep Wilcox. He’s to face justice for this murder, and his part in Deek Penner’s demise.”

  • • •

  Durrant burst from John Christianson’s tiny room and turned on the men that crowded the door. “You sir,” he said, pointing with the Enfield at the postal clerk. “You will get me a lock to secure this room!” The man disappeared towards Holt’s store. “The rest of you lot,” he said, waving the weapon back and forth before the amazed group of men, “Get back to your work. Now!” he commanded. The men started grumbling and cursing, and then began to disperse. The postal clerk returned with a brand new heart lock and handed it to Durrant. There were two keys. “Anybody else got a key for this?”

  “No, sir.”

  “If someone gets into this room, I’m holding you responsible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Armatage had pulled the bloody blanket back over Christianson’s head and left the room. Durrant affixed the new lock to the door.