The Land God Gave to Cain (18 page)

At first I thought I must have been mistaken. North and south the track was empty, the black lines running out into the nothingness of Labrador. Then it came again, a sad sound carried by the wind, and far down the track to the south my eyes became focused on a small blob that didn't seem to move, but yet grew steadily larger.

I jumped down and stood beside the track, watching it grow until I could see the yellow of the diesel's paintwork against the drab white background of melting snow. It passed the points into the double track and as it came thundering down on me, I could feel the weight of it beating at the ground under my feet.

The track in front of me was leaping under the vibration, and then it was on me with a rush of air, pressing me back against the dining coach. There was a smell of hot oil, a glimpse of huge driving wheels, and behind it clattered a long line of steel transporters, their specially-constructed bogies beating a rapid tattoo. Wagons full of sleepers followed and, behind them, two coaches, and finally the caboose.

I clambered back into the diner and sat down again at the table. “Was that the supply train?” I asked the man next to me.

He nodded, his mouth full, and I finished my steak, wondering whether Laroche had been in one of the coaches.

The men were beginning to drift back to work and I went with them. Their transport, parked at the tail-end of the bunkhouse train, consisted of small rail cars, hitched together in trains of three. With their upright coachwork, they looked like the rolling stock of an old-fashioned mountain railway. “Are you going up towards Head of Steel?” I asked the foreman. But he shook his head. He had a small, open speeder with a Perspex windshield and I stood and watched him as he put it in gear, eased forward the belt drive clutch and went trundling down the track behind his gang. He paused just clear of the points to switch them back to the through-track position and then ran on down the line, the fussy putter of the engine dwindling rapidly.

The brief interlude of sun was over. The world was cold and grey and I went back to the warmth of the diner, wishing now that I'd come up on the supply train. The tables had been cleared, the benches pushed back against the sides of the coach. It was nearly one-thirty. Farrow would be headed for home now. But it was difficult to believe in England up here in this wild country. I sat down by one of the windows, staring out across the empty main track to the solid wall of jackpine beyond. I'd give it until three. If I didn't get a lift by three I'd start walking. Ten miles … say, four hours. I'd be at Head of Steel about dusk. Nobody would see me then and I could slip past the supply train and head north.

Time passed slowly and nobody came up the line. And then, when it was almost three and I was getting ready to leave, voices sounded below the window, and a moment later the door at the end slid back with a crash, and two men entered, shouting for Georges and demanding coffee and doughnuts. “Mr. Lands been through here yet?” the elder of the two asked.

“Sorry, Mr. Steel, I don't see him for two weeks or more,” Georges answered. Steel came on into the diner, pulling off his fur-lined gloves and throwing them on to the table. He was dressed entirely in olive green with a peaked ski cap, and his thin, lined face looked pinched with cold. “You here about this esker that's been located?” he asked, looking straight at me.

“No,” I said. I didn't know what an esker was and all I wanted was to get out of there before Lands arrived. I picked up my gloves and fur cap.

But his companion stood between me and the door, a big, broad-shouldered youngster in a fur cap and scarlet-lined hunting parka. “What's your job?” he demanded. He had an Irish accent.

“Engineer,” I answered without thinking. And then I checked, for I knew I'd made a mistake. These men were engineers themselves.

“Then you can probably tell us something about it,” Steel said. “All we've heard is that there's talk of pushing a spur line in and starting a new ballast pit.”

“I'm new here,” I said quickly. “I don't know anything about it.”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on my face. “Thought I hadn't seen you before. Straight up from Base, are you?”

“Yes.” I didn't know quite what to do. I felt that if I left now he'd be suspicious. And then Georges came in with the coffee and a heaped plate of doughnuts. “You like coffee, too?” he asked me, and I saw that there were three mugs on the tray.

“You staying here or going on up the line?” Steel asked me, his mouth already full of doughnut.

“Going on,” I said, gulping the coffee though it was scalding hot. I had to get out of here somehow before Lands arrived.

“We can probably give you a lift as far as Head of Steel. Where are you bound for?”

I hesitated. But it didn't seem to matter. “Two-six-three,” I said.

“Crazy Darcy, eh?” His companion gave a loud guffaw. “Jesus Christ! So they haven't rumbled him yet, the old devil.”

“What Paddy means,” Steel said, dunking his doughnut, “is that Ray is one of the old-timers on this railroad.”

“What I mean is that he's an old rogue and you'll do all the work for him whilst he takes the credit—if you're a hardworking, sober, God-fearing engineer, which is what we all are seeing this is the Wilderness and no Garden of Eden running with the milk of human kindness that comes from my native land.”

“There's no liquor allowed up here,” Steel said. “That's what he means. It's a subject of conversation that gets kind of boring after you've been up here a while.” He was looking at me curiously. “Your name wouldn't be Ferguson, would it?”

I nodded, my body suddenly tense, wondering what was coming.

But all he said was, “Somebody was inquiring for you just as we left Head of Steel.”

“Laroche?” The question seemed dragged out of me.

“That's the guy, yes. The pilot of that plane that crashed. You know him?”

I nodded, thinking that now he was between me and Two-six-three.

“Bad business, that crash,” Steel said. “Did he ever talk to you about it?”

But all I could think of was the fact that Laroche had been on the supply train. “What did he want?” I asked. “Did he tell you what he wanted?”

“No. Just asked if we'd seen you. But it seemed urgent.” And then he went back to the subject of the crash. “I guess it must've been a hell of a shock to him, both his passengers dead and then struggling out alone like that. Makes you realise what this country's like soon as you get away from the grade.” And he added, “I heard he was engaged to Briffe's daughter. Is that true?”

The sound of a speeder came from the track outside and the Irishman jumped to his feet and went to the window. “Here's Bill now.”

Laroche at Head of Steel and now Lands. I felt suddenly trapped. The speeder had stopped outside the diner, the engine ticking over with a gentle putter that was muffled by the thick glass of the windows. Boots sounded on the iron grating at the end of the coach and then the door slammed back. I only just had time to turn away towards the window before Bill Lands was there.

“You got my message then, Al.” His voice was right behind me as he came down the coach. “And you brought Paddy with you. That's swell.”

He was down by the stove now and I glanced at him quickly. He looked even bigger in his parka and the fur cap made his face look tougher, a part of the North. “You want some cawfee, Bill?” Steel was standing to make room for him.

“Sure,” Lands said, his hands held out to the hot casing of the stove. “And some doughnuts. You know why I asked you and Paddy to meet me here?”

“There was some talk about an esker—”

“That's it. Williams found it.” His voice was muffled by the doughnut he was wolfing down. “Thought it might solve our problem. That ballast coming up from One-three-four is starting to get froze. But if we could open up a ballast pit here, right behind Head of Steel …” He checked suddenly and said, “Hell! My speeder's still on the track. Hey, you!”

I knew he'd turned and was staring at my back. I couldn't ignore him and at the same time I didn't dare turn to face him. “Can you drive a speeder?” he demanded.

It was the opportunity I'd been wanting, the excuse to get out without raising their suspicions. But I hesitated because the door seemed a long way off and I was afraid my voice might give me away.

“I asked you whether you could drive a speeder.” His voice was impatient.

“Sure,” I said, and started for the door.

Maybe it was my voice or maybe I moved too quickly. I heard him say, “Who is that guy? “But he didn't wait for an answer. He was already coming down the coach after me. “Just a minute!”

I had almost reached the door where my suitcase stood and I might have made a dash for it then, but I hadn't had time to think what the use of a speeder could mean to me. I just felt it was hopeless to try and get away from him, and so I turned and faced him.

He had almost caught up with me, but when I turned and he saw my face, he stopped abruptly. “Ferguson!” There was a look of blank astonishment in his eyes as though he couldn't believe it. “How the hell …” And then his big hands clenched and the muscles of his jaw tightened.

It was the knowledge that he was going to hit me that made my brain seize on the one thing that might stop him. “Briffe is alive,” I said.

He checked then. “Alive?”

“At least he was when Laroche left him. I'm certain of that now.”

“And what makes you so damned certain?” His voice was dangerously calm.

“Laroche,” I said. “He came to my room last night and he virtually admitted—”

“What room? Where?”

“At One-three-four.”

“One-three-four. That's a lie. Bert's at Seven Islands.”

“No,” I said. “He's at Head of Steel right now. Ask them.” And I nodded at the two engineers.

That seemed to shake him for he said, “He followed you, did he?”

“Yes,” I said. “He's scared and—”

“So would I be scared. I'd be scared as hell if I knew some crazy fool—”

“It's not me that's crazy,” I cried.

He stared at me. “What do you mean by that?” His voice had suddenly gone quiet again.

“It's Laroche,” I said quickly. “For some reason he can't get the Ferguson Expedition out of his mind. He crashed at Lake of the Lion and something happened there that's driving him” He had taken a step forward and my voice trailed away, away.

“Go on,” he said ominously. “You think something happened there? What do you think happened?”

“I don't know,” I murmured. “But it's preying on his mind.”

“What is?”

“I don't know,” I repeated. “That's what I've got to find out. But he asked me whether I thought he'd killed them and then he said he was sure Baird was dead. He didn't say—”

“You damned little liar!” He had suddenly lost his temper. “First you say he left Briffe alive. Now you try to suggest he killed Baird. My God!” he cried, and I backed away from him into the open doorway. I was out on the steel platform then and below me was the track with the speeder standing there, its engine ticking over. “You slip up the line,” he was saying, “and try to make people believe a lot of wild, lying accusations. Well, you're not going any farther. Goddammit!” he added. “If you weren't just a kid—”

That was when I slammed the door in his face and leapt down on to the track and straight on to the speeder. I let go the brake and thrust it into gear, revving the engine, the way I'd seen the gang foreman do it, and I was just easing the belt on to its drive when he hit the ground beside me. He reached out and grabbed at the hand rail just as I got the speeder moving. He missed it and I heard him swear, and then his feet were pounding after me. But by then I was gathering speed, and after that I couldn't hear anything but the sound of the engine and the beat of the wheels on the rail joints.

I was clear of him. That was what the wind sang in my ears. Clear of him, and I had transport. I glanced back over my shoulder as I ran clear of the bunkhouse train. He was standing in the middle of the track shouting something and waving his arms. I didn't know he was trying to warn me and I waved back out of sheer bravado, and then I pushed the throttle wide open, crouched low and riding the speeder like a motor-bike.

The switch to the double track clattered under the wheels and beyond there was nothing but the twin rails streaming out ahead of me to a long curve where the speeder bucked and swayed. When I looked back again the double track and the bunkhouse train had vanished. I was riding alone, with nothing behind or in front but the track with the snow-spattered jackpine crowding it on either side.

III

For the first mile or two I was swept forward on a tide of exhilaration—the sense of speed, the illusion of power. I felt that nothing could stop me from reaching Lake of the Lion and finding Briffe still alive, and I drove the speeder full out, the wheel flanges screaming on the curves and the virgin country streaming past on either side.

But the mood didn't last. My fingers stiffened with cold where the gloves were worn, my feet became deadened lumps inside the chill casing of my boots and the wind on my face was a biting blast. I hit a bad patch, where the track had recently been ballasted and the steel was half buried in gravel, and I had to throttle down. I became conscious of the country then, the difficulties that faced me; Lands would phone Head of Steel and the whole organisation would be against me.

I must have passed dozens of telegraph poles lying beside the track before it dawned on me that the linesmen hadn't yet reached this section of the track. Lands couldn't phone them. He'd have to get another speeder and come after me. I opened the throttle wide again, and as I did so there came the crack of a rifle and I ducked my head. But when I looked back over my shoulder, the track behind me was empty.