The End of the Line Page 7

  During his work in the unheated room, Durrant had grown increasingly cold, and so it was with some relief that he stepped back out into the midday sun, faint as it was. Durrant leaned back against the door of the shed and let his eyes adjust to the blinding glare on the mountains of snow all around.

  Durrant could hear men’s voices raised somewhere in discussion, and then a staccato burst of laughter. He could hear the sound of wood being chopped and a fiddle being played. The Mountie made his way along the path back to the station, and entering the building, knocked on Wilcox’s door.

  “Come,” he heard the man say.

  Durrant opened the door. The heat of the room was quite welcome after nearly two hours in the cold shack.

  “Sergeant, you’re done?” Wilcox stood up from his desk. Durrant could see a ledger open on the table, and next to it a plate of food left uneaten. Wilcox held a quill in his hand.

  “Just getting started, Mr. Wilcox.”

  “Of course. I meant with the body.”

  Durrant stepped into the man’s office. “I have a couple of things I need from you, Mr. Wilcox. First off, keys. I need a key to the various storerooms and warehouses. I don’t want to trouble you or any of the foremen for a key when I want to look around.”

  “It really won’t be any trouble . . .”

  “Just the same, I’d like my own keys, sir, and the key for Mr. Penner’s bunk. I’ll need to look around there, on my own.”

  “That’s no trouble,” said Wilcox, his fingers drumming on the table.

  “Good. Next, tell me this. If a man or men went missing from the camp, if they didn’t show up for work one morning, would you be told?”

  “I imagine. The foreman in charge would likely bring it to my attention. After he tried to locate the man, I suppose.”

  “You mean, check his bunk to see if the man was sleeping off a drunk?”

  Wilcox drew a sharp breath. “More likely down with the flu, but yes, after he’d checked his bunk, or the mess . . . What are you asking?”

  “Has anybody been reported missing since the death of Deek Penner?”

  “You’re wondering if the killer has left the camp already. I can check with my men. I haven’t heard of anybody leaving.”

  “How often do the trains come and go?”

  “Once every day or two, but with all the snow, we’ve had just a few in the last week. One went as far as Padmore a couple of days ago.”

  “Doctor Armatage mentioned an injury at Banff Station?”

  “Yes, I believe he was on that one. We needed to do a supply run. Stocks were running low. But that train left the day Mr. Penner was killed. Your murderer could not have used it to escape this camp. We were starting to make arrangements to haul provisions in from Banff with horse and sled, but the weather let up and we were able to . . .”

  Durrant interrupted him. “Could a man leave on foot?”

  Wilcox’s face betrayed his dislike of being interrogated. “He could. But if your killer did, we wouldn’t need to have this discussion. The only road we keep clear is the one to the Kicking Horse Pass, which is getting more and more traffic with the coming of the spring construction season. It would take a hardy soul to set off on foot for Banff Station right now. The mainline would see a man through, but it’s a long walk.”

  “You’ll let me know what your foremen say about men gone missing?” Durrant asked. He was looking out the window. “I suppose I should head up to the Kicking Horse Pass in the coming days to talk with anyone who is there now but was here on the day and night that Mr. Penner was killed. Will you be able to provide me with a list of such men?

  “I don’t think there will be many. Deek didn’t have much to do with the men up at the Pass as yet. We haven’t started to muster any explosives there, but I will prepare a list.”

  Durrant leaned against the door, looking at Wilcox. “Can you tell me if Deek was into anything else here at Holt City that might have had him cross a man?”

  Wilcox looked down in thought. “Let me give that some attention and I shall let you know.”

  Durrant nodded, then said, “One more thing, Mr. Wilcox . . . I don’t want anybody leaving this camp or the Kicking Horse unless I have given my permission. Nobody is to board a train for east of Holt City unless I have spoken with them first.”

  “Does that include me, sir?”

  Durrant looked at him in the pale light from the window. “Yes, sir, it does.”

  “Very well.”

  “Now, I’m going to see what your man Christianson has to tell me about finding Mr. Penner with his face bludgeoned.”

  • • •

  John Christianson sat behind a desk that housed the telegraph machine. He was tapping out code, his spectacles resting on the tip of his nose. The man was so intent on this task of sending wires that he didn’t look up when Durrant entered the main station room from Wilcox’s office. Durrant watched the man awhile. He moved with confident ease while at the telegraph machine. He sat erect and composed, though he leaned over from time to time to read the code on some of the cables he had received. It was because of that composure that Durrant was surprised by what happened next.

  “Mr. Christianson,” Durrant said from behind him. The man jumped, and the sheath of papers he was reading cascaded from the wooden table to the bare plank floor. “I’m sorry,” Durrant stepped forward, his crutch making a hollow sound on the floor. “No, no, it’s okay, it’s okay,” John Christianson stammered, dropping to one knee from his stool to sweep up the papers.

  “Let me help,” Durrant said, putting a hand on the desk to steady himself as he reached for an errant paper.

  “It’s really okay,” Christianson explained. The man sat back down on his stool and tapped the loose papers into a semblance of order. “What can I do for you? Do you need me to dispatch a wire?” Christianson looked up at Durrant, who was still leaning on the table that held the telegraph. It was a smaller version of the model that Durrant had been using in Fort Calgary for the last year, and he regarded it with some interest.

  “What model are you using here at Holt City?” Durrant asked.

  Christianson straightened his papers again and looked down at the machine as if seeing it for the first time. “It’s a Phelps model 1880.”

  “I’m familiar with the Phelps ’76. It’s what we’ve got at Fort Calgary.”

  “Yes, sir. I know that. I saw that unit when I come through Fort Calgary a year ago. Do you want to send a cable?” asked Christianson again.

  Durrant looked over the orderly space. The neat pigeonholes above the desk were filled with the papers and documents that were part and parcel of the telegraph trade. There were spools of telegraph cable script that Christianson would feed into the Phelps and that would be imprinted with the Morse code as it came over the wire. That code would then be translated by hand onto telegraph forms for delivery to their intended recipient. Durrant looked up from his consideration of the telegraph.

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m Sergeant Durrant Wallace of the North West Mounted Police. I’m investigating the murder of Deek Penner.”

  “Everybody at Holt City knows who you are and why you’re here,” Christianson said sheepishly.

  “I understand you found the body of Mr. Penner,” asked Durrant

  “I did,” he said, looking for a pocket to tuck his hands into as he stood up.

  “I need to speak to you about that.”

  “I have these cables to send,” said Christianson, turning around and pointing to the stack of papers on the table.

  “This is important. Time is of the essence. The killer may have already fled Holt City. If not, he may be the man you sit next to at breakfast tomorrow.”

  “Goodness,” said Christianson, looking down at the floor. He pulled the coat he wore closer around his chest. “Do you want to sit, Mr. Wallace?”

  “It’s Sergeant Wallace,” Durrant said. “Tell me how you found Deek Penner.”

  Christianson bl
ew a stream of air through pursed lips. He closed his eyes and his face twisted into a sour expression. “It was after midnight,” he finally said. “We’d been at Frank Dodds’ cabin playing cards, as we were apt to do. There ain’t nothing to do in Holt City but play cards in the night. Nothing at all. So we’d been to Dodds’ cabin, and things broke up, and we all went back to our places. I got a place just here behind the General Store. Tom Holt lets me bunk there. It’s pretty good. So I had come back to my place, and before turning in I came in to check the wires. See if there was anything urgent. I usually do. If there is, Mr. Wilcox likes me to deal with it right away, see? And so there was a wire waiting for transcription. I set to receive, and it was in code. It was for Deek. All his wires are in code. I just took it down. When I was done, I went off to find him at this bunk, figuring he’d still be awake.”

  “Did Mr. Penner receive a lot of wires?”

  “Some, he got some.”

  “How many?”

  “Well, I’d have to check the log book, but maybe two or three a week.”

  “He send a lot?”

  “I sent some for him, yes.”

  “Did he know how to send a wire on his own?”

  “I should think so. It ain’t that hard once you know the language and the machine.”

  Durrant wanted to follow this line further, but didn’t want to interrupt the man’s recollection. “So you went to find Mr. Penner?”

  “Yes sir, I did.” He seemed to get lost in thought a moment, his eyes momentarily searching the room.

  “Did you find him to deliver the cable?”

  Christianson seemed to jump at the sound of Durrant’s voice.

  “He was dead when I come across him.”

  “Where was this?”

  “Between here and his bunk, down along the Bow River.” Christianson seemed to shudder and close his eyes again. “Well, sir, I was just coming along the path. I had the cable in my pocket. It was mighty cold, and there was some snow. I was coming along the path, and I had my lamp as a man could get pretty lost in the dark here and freeze to death if he weren’t careful. I walked down the path, just where it cuts close to the river there, and I thought I saw someone else walking, but when I shone the lamp, it was someone running away. I called out, ‘That you Deek?’ I don’t know why I did, but I guess ’cause I was looking for him, I had him in mind. The man just kept running. I went on a little ways, and there was blood on the trail. I near stepped in it. I shone the lamp around and saw that someone had gone off the beaten track. You don’t do that much, you know. The snow can be near ten feet deep in places. Down by the river the snow isn’t quite so deep, and I could see where someone had trampled it all down.”

  “You followed the tracks?”

  “I did, but not far. There was blood, and I got this terrible feeling. I followed just ten feet, that’s all I had to, ’cause there he was.” Christianson drew a deep breath in and let it out again.

  “That’s where you found Mr. Penner.”

  “Yes sir, face down in the snow. I thought maybe he was still alive, you know, like unconscious? So I rolled him over and that’s when I knew he was gone.”

  “What condition was he in?”

  “It was horrible, just horrible.”

  “How did you know it was Mr. Penner?”

  “Well, I’d just seen him within the hour. I knew his coat. And there was enough . . .” The man stopped and closed his eyes. “There was enough of his face left to know it was him.”

  “Can you tell me anything about the man you saw running away?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said quickly.

  “Clothing?”

  “It was too dark and he was too far away. He must have seen me coming—seen my lamp, and run off.”

  “Which way was he running?”

  “Away from me, off towards Deek’s cabin.”

  “Is there anything else down that way? Besides Deek’s place?”

  “A few other cabins. There’s a trail that crossed the right-of-way there, and circles back to your place, the Mountie place, and then to the Tote Road. A man familiar with the area could run that way and slip on back here without much trouble.”

  Durrant made note of that. “When you found Mr. Penner, was there any question if he was dead or not?”

  “Not once I rolled him over.”

  Durrant regarded the man. He still had his eyes closed, his hands tucked awkwardly into the pockets of his coat. “Tell me, Mr. Christianson, did you happen to look around in the snow at all?”

  “No sir. It must have been minus thirty out. I wasn’t about to go digging.”

  “So you didn’t notice if the man who fled had maybe discarded the murder weapon as he did?”

  “I didn’t see nothing.”

  “Did you have an impression, sir, when you first saw Mr. Penner, of what might have been used to kill him?”

  “Well, it was something heavy. You seen him?”

  “I just finished examining the body.”

  “Then you know.”

  “I suppose what I’m driving at is, you know the camp, and you know what happens here, what tools these men use. When you saw him, did you think, he’s been bludgeoned with a . . .”

  Christianson’s eyes opened and he looked around the room. “I suppose I thought that someone used a sledge on the man’s face.”

  • • •

  “Right over here. This is where I found him,” said Christianson. He was walking hurriedly through the cold. “You can see where he was dragged off the path. You can still make out some of the blood through the snow, you see,” said Christianson, pointing.

  Durrant reached him, breathing plumes of mist into the frigid air. He looked closely and could see a pinkish stain in the snow.

  “And this is where I found the body,” and Christianson pointed again.

  Indeed, a deep depression led from the path toward the flat open area that marked where the Bow River lay sleeping beneath the ice and snow. The mounds of snow that formed deep trenches had been breached by Penner’s assailant. It appeared as if the killer had lugged the body into the heavy drifts of snow, as was evidenced by the furrows that stretched several yards in the general direction of the Bow River.

  “When you saw this man running from the scene, Mr. Christianson, had he already left the body?”

  Christianson seemed to think about this for some time. “I believe so, Sergeant Wallace.”

  “Did you actually see him in the deep snow?”

  Again, the man ruminated on the question. “No, sir. I believe he was on the path when I first saw him.”

  “You believe?”

  “It was night. It was dark. I could only see so much.”

  “Fine,” said Durrant, awkwardly bending down to brush at the fresh ice crystals forming where the frigid air met the dry, cold snow. He pushed snow away with his gloved left hand, his other pressing on his crutch for balance. “Mr. Christianson, would you please point out exactly where you were standing when you first saw the man running.”

  Christianson nodded and walked back along the path. When he was about fifty feet back, he stopped and turned. “I was about here.”

  “And,” said Durrant, pushing himself upright, “where was the man you saw running when you first laid eyes on him?”

  Christianson waved with his arms. “Walk a ways towards that bunk yonder.” Durrant did so.

  “Keep going. Okay, okay, now stop.”

  “Right here?”

  “Well, like I said, it’s hard to tell. Everything looks so different at night, but right around there.”

  “Some eighty feet. Maybe twenty-five yards.”

  “I reckon. Thereabouts.”

  Durrant turned and surveyed the surroundings. It was a desolate stretch of low forest through which the pathway crossed between the main station, and a cluster of squat cabins and shacks built along the banks of the Bow River. The woods were tight except right in the vicinity of where Deek P
enner had been killed. There the close forest opened onto the banks of the river itself. Durrant stood there a long minute examining where the body had been recovered. Of course, the scene had been greatly disturbed by the recovery itself, but he wanted to freeze the scene in his mind as he first found it.

  “Mr. Christianson,” he said, turning back, “would you please walk back towards where you found the corpse, and then show me how far off the trail you had to go in order to discover Mr. Penner’s body.”

  “The snow is mighty deep,” the man protested.

  “You can return to your quarters afterwards, sir.”

  “Very well,” he sighed, a plume of vapour gathering around his face. He trudged back to the depression in the snow, and then, hesitating, took two or three steps off the path. He sank up to his hips in the snow. “It’s deeper than I recall,” he said.

  “Was Penner buried?”

  “No, he was face down. I suppose ’cause he was laid out as he was, he didn’t sink into the snow.”

  Durrant made his way back to where Christianson was chest deep in the banks of snow. “Did you move the body other than to turn it over?”

  “No. I couldn’t get no grip on him. I tried, but the snow was so deep, it took four of us just to get him moved ten feet.”

  “Mr. Christianson, once you’d discovered the body, and determined that is was Deek Penner and that he was dead, what did you do?”

  “Well, I ran back to see if Mr. Holt was awake, but forgot that he was down at Banff Station securing provisions, so I went to wake up Mr. Wilcox.”

  “Was he awake when you got to his bunk?”

  “No sir, he was asleep.”

  “How do you know?”

  Christianson closed his eyes in thought. “I had to knock pretty loudly on his door. I could hear him snoring.”

  “And then what happened?”

  Christianson seemed to be growing impatient with the questions. “I brought ’im back here. He then sent for some men to recover the body. As the Doc was down in Banff too, we couldn’t call on him, though it wouldn’t have done any good anyway . . . We got some men together and carried the body yonder to the Mountie’s cabin. I suppose where you’re staying now with your boy.”