The End of the Line (27 page)

Durrant stepped around the cabin on the side where his bunk lay. His eyes scanned the silent woods. There was nothing; no one was there. Again, he inched his way forward, aware that Charlie was behind him now, the butt of the rifle held pressed into his shoulder. Silently the two reached the corner of the cabin and paused. Durrant drew a quiet breath, then pistol first, peered around the edge of the little house.

There was nobody there. The woods were dark and calm. He stepped forward. Charlie came around the corner too, his eyes searching the trees. The boy stepped up to Durrant and pointed at the snow. It had been recently disturbed, the deep tracks disappearing into the pines that bordered the railway and fringed the banks of the Bow River.

Charlie made to follow them, but Durrant reached out and barred his progress with his left hand, the pistol still clutched tightly in it. The boy stopped. They both looked down. Six inches from Charlie's foot sat a pail of dark, dense liquid. A long cord was tangled around the handle of the pail and extended into the snow. Charlie looked up at Durrant, his eyes filled with terror. Durrant cracked a grin.

“Guess we're onto something,” he said, pulling the boy back from the bucket of nitroglycerine.

•  •  •

They crouched in the snow, Durrant instructing Charlie on how to dismantle the bomb that had been placed a few inches from their cabin. The boy gingerly unwound the fuse that had been wrapped around the handle of the bucket of highly volatile explosives. He then carefully removed the cord from the pail and placed it in the snow. He pointed and then held something up for Durrant to see—two matches that had refused to light. Durrant had once again been very lucky.

The Mountie turned and looked into the darkness. Unless a heavy snow came that night, he could follow the trail at sunup. His blood was boiling. He would not simply sit back while someone in this camp tried to take his life, and the life of this innocent young lad! Trying to kill a Mounted Police officer could land a man in the gallows. The act of placing the pail of explosives there was an offence punishable by hanging, but assailant would have to be caught first, and then guilt might be difficult to prove beyond a doubt.

“Come on, Charlie, we're going for a walk.”

•  •  •

It was nearly sunup when the two men arrived at the whiskey cabin for the second time in just a few hours. With Durrant walking out front, the Winchester held by the stock in his left hand, Charlie brought up the rear, toting the bucket of explosives. It was a delicate undertaking. The path, narrow and slippery when walking unencumbered, was made perilous by carrying pure nitroglycerine. What had taken them half an hour to traverse earlier in the evening—and would have taken Pete Mahoney just fifteen minutes to cover—took them nearly an hour. The lad dared not stop or ease the ache in his arms by resting the load in the snow, lest the jostle blow both men to pieces.

When they made the cabin, Durrant motioned for Charlie to wait back in the trees. He then walked straight up to the door and stepped to the side, then placed the muzzle of the Winchester on the heavy heart lock and fired. The lock, with a neat .44 calibre hole in it, held the door fast. The Mountie flipped the rifle forward, his left hand inside the finger lever, the weight of the weapon chambering the next round. Durrant fired again and the lock dropped from its clasp. He pushed the door open with its barrel and peered into the cabin. He hoped that he would find Dodds roused from sleep and grabbing for his own arms so Durrant would have the excuse to cut the man down. Instead, the cabin was devoid of life.

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.