Landslide

DESMOND BAGLEY

ONE

I was tired when I got off the bus at Fort Farrell. No matter how soft the suspension of the bus and how comfortable the seat you still feel as though you’ve been sitting on a sack of rocks for a few hours, so I was tired and not very impressed by my first view of Fort Farrell – The Biggest Little City in the North-Eastern Interior – or so the sign said at the city limits. Someone must have forgotten Dawson Creek.

This was the end of the line for the bus and it didn’t stay long. I got off, nobody got on, and it turned and wheeled away back towards the Peace River and Fort St John, back towards civilization. The population of Fort Farrell had been increased by one – temporarily.

It was mid-afternoon and I had time to do the one bit of business that would decide if I stayed in this backwoods metropolis, so instead of looking for a hotel I checked my bag at the depot and asked where I could find the Matterson Building. The little fat guy who appeared to be the factotum around the depot looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and tittered. ‘You must be a stranger round here.’

‘Seeing I just got off the bus it may be possible,’ I conceded. I wanted to get information, not to give it.

He grunted and the twinkle disappeared. ‘It’s on King Street; you can’t miss it unless you’re blind,’ he said curtly. He was another of those cracker-barrel characters who think they’ve got the franchise on wisecracks – small towns are full of them. To hell with him! I was in no mood for making friends, although I would have to try to influence people pretty soon.

High Street was the main drag, running as straight as though it had been drawn by a rule. Not only was it the main street but it was practically the only street of Fort Farrell – pop. 1,806 plus one. There was the usual line of false-fronted buildings trying to look bigger than they were and holding the commercial enterprises by which the locals tried to make an honest dollar – the gas stations and auto dealers, a grocery that called itself a supermarket, a barber’s shop, ‘Paris Modes’ selling women’s fripperies, a store selling fishing tackle and hunting gear. I noticed that the name of Matterson came up with monotonous regularity and concluded that Matterson was a big pumpkin in Fort Farrell.

Ahead was surely the only real, honest-to-God building in the town: an eight-storeyed giant which, I was sure, must be the Matterson Building. Feeling hopeful for the first time, I quickened my pace, but slowed again as High Street widened into a small square, green with cropped lawns and shady with trees. In the middle of the square was a bronze statue of a man in uniform, which at first I thought was the war memorial; but it turned out to be the founding father of the city – one William J. Farrell, a lieutenant of the Royal Corps of Engineers. Pioneers, O Pioneers – the guy was long since dead and the sightless eyes of his effigy stared blindly down false-fronted High Street while the irreverent birds made messes in his uniform cap.

Then I stared unbelievingly at the name of the square while an icy shudder crawled down my spine. Trinavant Park stood on the intersection of High Street and Farrell Street and the name, dredged out from a forgotten past, hit me like a blow in the belly. I was still shaken when I reached the Matterson Building.

Howard Matterson was a hard man to see. I smoked three cigarettes in his outer office while I studied the pneumatic charms of his secretary and thought about the name of Trinavant. It was not so common a name that it cropped up in my life with any regularity; in fact, I had come across it only once before and in circumstances I preferred not to remember. You might say that a Trinavant had changed my life, but whether he had changed it for better or worse there was no means of knowing. Once again I debated the advisability of staying in Fort Farrell, but a thin wallet and an empty belly can put up a powerful argument so I decided to stick around and see what Matterson had to offer.

Suddenly and without warning Matterson’s secretary said, ‘Mr Matterson will see you now.’ There had been no telephone call or ring of bell and I smiled sourly. So he was one of those, was he? One of the guys who exercised his power by saying, ‘Keep Boyd waiting for half an hour, Miss So-and-so, then send him in,’ with the private thought – ’That’ll show the guy who is boss around here.’ But maybe I was misjudging him – maybe he really was busy.

He was a big, fleshy man with a florid face and, to my surprise, not any older than me – say, about thirty-three. Going by the extensive use of his name in Fort Farrell, I had expected an older man; a young man doesn’t usually have time to build an empire, even a small one. He was broad and beefy but tending to run to fat, judging by the heaviness of his jowls and the folds about his neck, yet big as he was I topped him by a couple of inches. I’m not exactly a midget.

He stood up behind his desk and extended his hand. ‘Glad to meet you, Mr Boyd. Don Halsbach has said a lot of nice things about you.’

So he ought, I thought; considering I found him a fortune. Then I was busy coping with Matterson’s knuckle-cracking grip. I mashed his fingers together hard to prove I was as big a he-man as he was and he grinned at me. ‘Okay, take a seat,’ he said, releasing my hand. ‘I’ll fill you in on the deal. It’s pretty routine.’

I sat down and accepted a cigarette from the box he pushed across the desk. ‘There’s just one thing,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want to fool you, Mr Matterson. This hasn’t got to be a long job. I want to get clear of it by the spring thaw.’

He nodded. ‘I know. Don told me about that – he said you want to get back to the North-West Territories for the summer. Do you think you’ll make any money at that kind of geology?’

‘Other people have,’ I said. ‘There have been lots of good strikes made. I think there’s more metal in the ground up there than we dream of and all we have to do is to find it.’

He grinned at me. ‘We meaning you.’ Then he shook his head. ‘You’re in advance of your time, Boyd. The North-West isn’t ready for development yet. What’s the use of making a big strike in the middle of a wilderness when it would cost millions in development?’

I shrugged. ‘If the strike is big enough the money will be there.’

‘Maybe,’ Matterson said noncommittally. ‘Anyway, from what Don told me, you want a short-term job so you can get a grubstake together in order to go back. Is that it?’

‘Just about.’

‘All right, we’re your boys. This is the situation. The Matterson Corporation has a lot of faith in the potentialities of this section of British Columbia and we’re in development up to our necks. We run a lot of interlinked operations – logging-centred mostly – like pulp for paper, plywood, manufactured lumber and so on. We’re going to build a newsprint plant and we’re making extensions to our plywood plants. But there’s one thing we’re short of and that’s power – specifically electrical power.’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘Now we could run a pipeline to the natural gas fields around Dawson Creek, pipe in the gas and use it to fuel a power station, but it would cost a lot of money and we’d be paying for the gas for evermore. If we did that the gas suppliers would have a hammerlock on us and would want to muscle in with their surplus money to buy a slice of what we’ve got – and they’d be able to do it, too, because they’d control our power.’ He stared at me. ‘We don’t want to give away slices – we want the whole goddam pie – and this is how we do it.’

He waved at a map on the wall. ‘British Columbia is rich in water power but for the most part it’s undeveloped – we get 1,500,000 kilowatts out of a possible 22,000,000. Up here in the North-East there are a possible 5,000,000 kilowatts without a single generating set to make the juice. That’s a hell of a lot of power going to waste.’

I said, ‘They’re building the Portage Mountain Dam on the Peace River.’

Matterson snorted. ‘That’ll take years and we can’t wait for the Government to build a billion-dollar dam – we need the power now. So that is what we do. We’re going to build our own dam – not a big one but big enough for us and for any likely expansion in the foreseeable future. We have a site staked out and we have Government blessing. What we want you to do is to see we don’t make one of those mistakes for which we’ll kick ourselves afterwards. We don’t want to flood twenty square miles of valley only to find we’ve buried the richest copper strike in Canada under a hundred feet of water. This area has never been really checked over by a geologist and we want you to give it a thorough going-over before we build the dam. Can you do it?’

‘Seems easy enough from where I’m sitting,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see it on a map.’

Matterson gave a satisfied nod and picked up the telephone. ‘Bring in the maps of the Kinoxi area, Fred.’ He turned to me. ‘We’re not in the mining business but we’d hate to pass up a chance.’ He rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘I’ve been thinking for some time we ought to do a geological survey of our holdings – it could pay off. If you do a good job here you might be in line for the contract.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ I said coolly. I never liked to be tied down.

A man came in carrying a roll of maps. He looked more like a banker than J. P. Morgan – correctly dressed and natty in a conservative business suit. His face was thin and expressionless and his eyes were a cold, pale blue. Matterson said, ‘Thanks, Fred,’ as he took the maps. ‘This is Mr Boyd, the geologist we’re thinking of hiring. Fred Donner, one of our executives.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said. Donner nodded curtly and turned to Matterson who was unrolling the maps. ‘National Concrete want to talk turkey about a contract.’

‘Stall them,’ said Matterson. ‘We don’t sign a thing until Boyd has done his job.’ He looked up at me. ‘Here it is. The Kinoxi is a tributary of the Kwadacha which flows into the Finlay and so into the Peace River. Here, there’s an escarpment and the Kinoxi goes over in a series of rapids and riffles, and just behind the escarpment is a valley.’ His hand chopped down on the map. ‘We put the dam here to flood the valley and get a good and permanent head of water and we put the powerhouse at the bottom of the escarpment – that gives us a good fall. The survey teams tells us that the water will back up the valley for about ten miles, with an average width of two miles. That’ll be a new lake – Lake Matterson.’

‘That’s a lot of water,’ I observed.

‘It won’t be very deep,’ said Matterson. ‘So we figure we can get away with a low cost dam.’ He stabbed his finger down. ‘It’s up to you to tell us if we’re losing out on anything in those twenty square miles.’

I examined the map for a while, then said, ‘I can do that. Where exactly is this valley?’

‘About forty miles from here. We’ll be driving a road in when we begin to build the dam, but that won’t help you. It’s pretty isolated.’

‘Not so much as the North-West Territories,’ I said. ‘I’ll make out.’

‘I guess you will at that,’ said Matterson with a grin. ‘But it won’t be as bad as all that. We’ll fly you in and out in the Corporation helicopter.’

I was pleased about that; it would save me a bit of shoe-leather. I said, ‘I might want to sink some trial boreholes – depending on what I find. You can hire a drilling rig and I might want two of your men to do the donkey work.’

Donner said, ‘That’s going to an extreme length, isn’t it? I doubt if it’s justified. And I think your contract should specify that you do any necessary work yourself.’

I said evenly, ‘Mr Donner, I don’t get paid for drilling holes in the ground. I’m paid for using my brains in interpreting the cores that come out of those holes. Now, if you want me to do the whole job single-handed that’s all right with me, but it will take six times as long and you’ll be charged my rate for the job – and I don’t come cheap. I’m just trying to save you money.’

Matterson waved his hand. ‘Cut it out, Fred; it may never happen. You’ll only want to drill if you come across anything definite – isn’t that right, Boyd?’

‘That’s it.’

Donner looked down at Matterson with his cold eyes. ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘You’d better not have Boyd survey the northern end. It’s not …’

‘I know what it’s not, Fred,’ cut in Matterson irritably. ‘I’ll get Clare straightened out on that.’

‘You’d better,’ said Donner. ‘Or the whole scheme might collapse.’

That exchange meant nothing to me but it was enough to give me the definite idea that these two were having a private fight and I’d better not get in the way. That wanted clearing up, so I butted in and said, ‘I’d like to know who my boss is on this survey. Who do I take my orders from – you, Mr Matterson? Or Mr Donner here?’

Matterson stared at me. ‘You take them from me,’ he said flatly. ‘My name is Matterson and this is the Matterson Corporation.’ He flicked his gaze up at Donner as though defying him to make an issue of it, but Donner backed down after a long moment by giving a sharp nod.

‘Just as long as I know,’ I said easily.

Afterwards we got down to dickering about the terms of my contract. Donner was a penny-pincher and, as he had made me mad by trying to skinflint on the possible boring operations, I set my price higher than I would have done normally. Although it seemed to be a straightforward job and I did need the money, there were undercurrents that I didn’t like. There was also the name of Trinavant that had come up, although that seemed to have no particular relevance. But the terms I finally screwed out of Donner were so good that I knew I would have to take the job – the money would set me up in business for a year in the North-West.

Matterson was no help to Donner. He just sat on the sidelines and grinned while I gouged him. It was certainly a hell of a way to run a corporation! After the business details had been settled Matterson said, ‘I’ll reserve a room for you at the Matterson House. It doesn’t compare with the Hilton, but I think you’ll be comfortable enough. When can you start on the job?’

‘As soon as I get my equipment from Edmonton.’

‘Fly it in,’ said Matterson. ‘We’ll pay the freight.’

Donner snorted and walked out of the room like a man who knows when he isn’t wanted.

II

The Matterson House Hotel proved to be incorporated into the Matterson Building so I hadn’t far to go when I left Matterson’s office. I also noticed a string of company offices all bearing the name of Matterson and there was the Matterson Bank on the corner of the block. It seemed that Fort Farrell was a real old-fashioned company town, and when Matterson built his dam there would be the Matterson Power Company to add to his list. He was getting a real stranglehold on this neck of the woods.

I arranged with the desk clerk to have my bag brought up from the bus depot, then said, ‘Do you have a newspaper here?’

‘Comes out Friday.’

‘Where’s the office?’

‘Trinavant Park – north side.’

I walked out into the fading afternoon light and back down High Street until I came to the square. Lieutenant Farrell was staring sightlessly into the low sun which illuminated his verdigris-green face blotched with white where the birds had made free with him. I wondered what he would have thought if he knew how his settlement had turned out. Judging by the expression on his face he did know – and he didn’t think much of it.

The office of the Fort Farrell Recorder seemed to be more concerned with jobbing printing than with the production of a newspaper, but my first question was answered satisfactorily by the young girl who was the whole of the staff – at least, all of it that was in sight.

‘Sure we keep back copies. How far do you want to go back?’

‘About ten years.’

She grimaced. ‘You’ll want the bound copies, then. You’ll have to come into the back office.’ I followed her into a dusty room. ‘What was the exact date?’

I had no trouble in remembering that – everyone knows his own birthday. ‘Tuesday, September 4th, 1956.’

She looked up at a shelf and said helplessly, ‘That’s the one up there. I don’t think I can reach it.’

‘Allow me,’ I said, and reached for it. It was a volume the size and weight of a dozen Bibles and it gave me a lot less trouble than it would have given her! I supposed it weighed pretty near as much as she did.

She said, ‘You’ll have to read it in here; and you mustn’t cut the pages – that’s our record copy.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised, and put it on a deal table. ‘Can I have a light, please?’

‘Sure.’ She switched on the light as she went out.

I pulled up a chair and opened the heavy cover of the book. It contained two years’ issues of the Fort Farrell Recorder – one hundred and four reports on the health and sickness of a community; a record of births and deaths, joys and sorrows, much crime and yet not a lot, all things considered, and a little goodness – there should have been more but goodness doesn’t make the headlines. A typical country newspaper.

I turned to the issue of September 7th – the week-end after the accident – half afraid of what I would find, half afraid I wouldn’t find anything. But it was there and it had made the front page headlines, too. It screamed at me in heavy black letters splashed across the yellowing sheet: JOHN TRINAVANT DIES IN AUTO SMASH.

Although I knew the story by heart, I read the newspaper account with care and it did tell me a couple of things I hadn’t known before. It was a simple story, regrettably not uncommon, but one which did not normally make headlines as it had done here. As I remembered, it rated a quarter-column at the bottom of the second page of the Vancouver Sun and a paragraph filler in Toronto.

The difference was that John Trinavant had been a power in Fort Farrell as being senior partner in the firm of Trinavant and Matterson. God the Father had suddenly died and Fort Farrell had mourned. Mourned publicly and profusely in black print on white paper.

John Trinavant (aged 56) had been travelling from Dawson Creek to Edmonton with his wife, Anne (no age given), and his son, Frank (aged 22). They had been travelling in Mr Trinavant’s new car, a Cadillac, but the shiny new toy had never reached Edmonton. Instead, it had been found at the bottom of a two-hundred-foot cliff not far off the road. Skid marks and slashes in the bark of trees had shown how the accident happened. ‘Perhaps,’ said the coroner, ‘it may be that the car was moving too fast for the driver to be in proper control. That, however, is something no one will know for certain.’

The Cadillac was a burnt-out hulk, smashed beyond repair. Smashed beyond repair were also the three Trinavants, all found dead. A curious aspect of the accident, however, was the presence of a fourth passenger, a young man now identified as Robert Grant, who had been found alive, but only just so, and who was now in the City Hospital suffering from third-degree burns, a badly fractured skull and several other assorted broken bones. Mr Grant, it was tentatively agreed, must have been a hitchhiker whom Mr Trinavant, in his benevolence, had picked up somewhere on the way between Dawson Creek and the scene of the accident. Mr Grant was not expected to live. Too bad for Mr Grant.

All Fort Farrell and, indeed, all Canada (said the leader writer) should mourn the era which had ended with the passing of John Trinavant. The Trinavants had been connected with the city since the heroic days of Lieutenant Farrell and it was a grief (to the leader writer personally) that the name of Trinavant was now extinguished in the male line. There was, however, a niece, Miss C. T. Trinavant, at present at school in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was to be hoped that this tragedy, the death of her beloved uncle, would not be permitted to interrupt the education he had so earnestly desired to give her.

I sat back and looked at the paper before me. So Trinavant had been a partner of Matterson – but not the Matterson I had met that day because he was too young. At the time of the smash he would have been in his early twenties – say about the age of young Frank Trinavant who was killed, or about my age at that time. So there must be another Matterson – Howard Matterson’s father, presumably – which made Howard the Crown Prince of the Matterson empire. Unless, of course, he had already succeeded.

I sighed as I wondered what devil of coincidence had brought me to Fort Farrell; then I turned to the next issue and found – nothing! There was no follow on to the story in that issue or the next. I searched further and found that for the next year the name of Trinavant was not mentioned once – no follow-up, no obituary, no reminiscences from readers – nothing at all. As far as the Fort Farrell Recorder was concerned, it was as though John Trinavant had never existed – he had been unpersonned.

I checked again. It was very odd that in Trinavant’s home town – the town where he was virtually king – the local newspaper had not coined a few extra cents out of his death. That was a hell of a way to run a newspaper!

I paused. That was the second time in one day that I had made the same observation – the first time in relation to Howard Matterson and the way he ran the Matterson Corporation. I wondered about that and that led me to something else – who owned the Fort Farrell Recorder?