The Land God Gave to Cain (12 page)

McGovern told him to pull up a chair and as he sat down he darted a quick glance at me. His eyes were brown and deep-sunk in sockets darkened by strain. It was obvious that he'd been under tension for a long time and there was a pallor beneath the dark skin that suggested exhaustion. And then he smiled at me, pulling a pipe from his pocket and relaxing. His teeth were very white and the smile somehow altered the balance of his face so that it suddenly had a boyish, almost debonair look; the same sort of look that I'd seen on the faces of Farrow and his friends—careless and yet concentrated. He seemed younger then, though his dark hair was turning grey at the temples.

Lands had shut the door and he pulled a chair up and sat down. McGovern leaned forward across the desk. “Now then, let's get this over with,” he said to me. “I gather you still think your father may have picked up some sort of message from Briffe?”

I nodded, my mind concentrated on Laroche. I was trying to be honest with myself, to see him as he really was—an experienced bush flier. It didn't seem possible that he could have made a mistake, not over a thing like that, and not when he was engaged to Briffe's daughter.

McGovern had been saying something and he suddenly hit the desk in front of him. “Don't just sit there, man,” he shouted at me. “Tell us why you're still convinced.” And then in a quieter tone, he added,” You don't seem to realise that we knew Paul Briffe. He was a friend of mine, of Bill's, too. Bert was going to be his son-in-law. We've all of us every reason in the world to wish him alive.” He leaned back in his chair with a little sigh. “But we don't think he is.” And he went on: “When I had the first report of this alleged transmission, I thought for a moment Bert had made a mistake. Sometimes in the bush it's difficult to be sure.…” He let it go at that. “But then we got the full report, and when it was clear that nobody else had picked up the transmission, I knew it was no good calling for the search to be resumed. Now you come here and after reading those reports, you say you're still convinced your father did pick up a transmission. Why?”

I stared at him, sitting squat like a rock behind the desk. How could I explain to him how I felt about my father? The sense of helplessness came back to me, stronger than ever. “I'd like to hear what Laroche has to say,” I said obstinately.

“Sure. But first, you tell us what makes you so damned sure.”

“Because I know the sort of man my father was,” I answered.

“You read the psychiatrists' report?”

“Do you expect me to agree with it?” I stared at him, anger flaring up inside me. “He wasn't unbalanced. And he didn't suffer from delusions.”

“Did you live in the same house with him?”

“No.”

“Then how can you be sure about his mental state?”

“Because I'm his son.” McGovern's attitude was that of a brick wall. I could feel myself battering against it. “A son should know if his father's mad or not. And Dad wasn't mad. He knew it was Lake of the Lion and he knew it was Briffe. Why else do you think—”

“What's that you said?” The question was slammed at me by Laroche and there was a sudden stillness in the room. He was staring at me, and then he glanced across at McGovern who said quickly, “We'll leave the matter of your father for the moment.” He leaned forward, holding my attention with his eyes. “Right now I want you to hear what actually happened. When you've heard it, I think you'll agree with us that there can be no room for doubt.” He turned to Laroche. “Go ahead, Bert. Tell him what happened.”

Laroche hesitated, glancing at me and running his tongue along the line of his lips. “Okay,” he said. “I guess that's best. Then he can sort it out for himself.” He shifted his gaze, staring down at his hands. I thought—he's nervous. But then he began to talk and I wasn't sure. He had a slight accent, and, though he was hesitant at times, it was mostly because he was searching for the word he wanted. His voice was flat and without emotion; he had been through it all many times before.

They had taken off at approximately six-thirty on the evening of September 14. They had abandoned part of the stores and one tent and one canoe and cleared out of Disappointment in a hell of a hurry, for the storm was already upon them and the waters of the lake were being kicked up by a twenty-knot wind. Area C2 was about half an hour's flying time away, but before they had covered half the distance, the cloud base had come down very low with driving sleet and poor visibility.

“I should have landed whilst I had the chance,” Laroche said. He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't looking at anybody He just sat there, telling what happened in that flat, slightly foreign voice.

He had been forced down until the floats were skimming the tops of the jackpine and he was lake hopping from one expanse of water to the next. “At that level things come up very fast. And the lakes take on a different shape. It was only the small ones that I could see as a whole. The rest were just scraps of water, blurred in the sleet and the poor light.” He thought he might have underestimated the wind strength. Coming up with the advance party the fog and his forced landing had made it impossible for him to memorise the ground. Anyway, it wouldn't have helped with dusk falling and poor visibility. He flew a compass course, and when he'd flown the estimated time distance, he began to search, flying in widening circles, still held down to tree-top level. He flew like that for almost fifteen minutes with the light fading all the time and no sign of the Attikonak River or any feature that would give him his bearings.

And then the snow came. It came suddenly in a blinding squall that blotted out everything. “I had no choice,” he said. “I had been crossing a lake and I did a tight turn and put the nose down.” He had ripped the floats as he crashed through the trees at the water's edge and had hit the surface of the lake hard, bounced twice and then smashed into a rock that had suddenly loomed up in front of him. He had hit it with the starboard wing so that the plane had swung round, crashing into it broadside and shattering the fuselage. The impact had flung him head-first against the windshield and he had blacked out.

When he came to, the plane was half in, half out of the water with the rock towering above it. Dazed, he crawled back into the fuselage to find Baird unconscious, pinned there by a piece of metal that had injured his right hand and opened up all one side of his face. “Paul was injured, too.” Laroche's eyes were half-closed as he talked and I couldn't doubt that this was how it had happened. His voice and the details carried conviction.

He had done what he could for them, which wasn't much for there was no wood on the rock with which to make a fire. He was there two days until the storm had passed, and then he hacked one of the floats clear, patched it and ferried the two injured men ashore. He had got a fire going and had rigged up a shelter of branches, and had brought some supplies from the plane. Two days later another storm had come up. The wind had been north-westerly and the following morning the plane had vanished. It had killed the fire, too, and he hadn't been able to light another because all the matches were soaked and he had lost his lighter, which was the only one they possessed. Baird had died that night; Briffe the following night. After that he had started trekking westward. “I knew that as long as I kept going west I must arrive at the line of the railway sooner or later.…” He had kept going for five days and nights with almost no food, and on the afternoon of the twenty-fifth he had reached Mile 273 where a construction gang with a grab crane were working on the grade. “I guess that's all,” he said, looking at me for the first time. “I was lucky to get out alive.”

“Well, there you are,” McGovern said, and the finality of his tone made it clear he considered I ought to be satisfied.

“That trip you made out to the plane,” I said. “Did you bring the radio ashore?”

“No,” he said. “It went down with the aircraft.”

“And you're sure Briffe was dead when you left him?”

Laroche looked at me, his eyes wide in his tanned face. And then he glanced quickly at McGovern. It was as though he had turned to him for help. But it was Lands who said, “He's just told you so, hasn't he?” His tone was angry. “What more do you want?”

And then McGovern said, “You'd like to see the bodies, I suppose?” He was glaring at me.

“Did you bury them?” I asked Laroche. I thought if I dug hard enough …

“For God's sake!” Lands said.

“No,” Laroche answered me. “I didn't bury them. I guess I didn't have the energy.” His voice was flat. And then he added quickly,” I tried to locate them afterwards. I flew twice with a pilot out of Menihek. But there are thousands of lakes—literally thousands.” His voice trailed away.

“Thousands, yes,” I said. “But only one Lake of the Lion.” And again I was conscious of a tension in the room. It wasn't only Laroche, who was staring at me with a shocked expression on his face. It was McGovern, too. “What the hell's the name of the lake matter if he couldn't locate it again?” he said angrily.

But I was looking at Laroche. “You knew it was Lake of the Lion, didn't you?” I was so sure it was important that I pressed the point. “That rock in the middle—”

“It was snowing,” he muttered.

“When you crashed. But later … Didn't you see the rock later? It was shaped like a lion, wasn't it?”

“I don't know,” he said. “I didn't notice.”

“But you've read those reports? You know the message my father picked up?”

He nodded.

“That transmission of Briffe's—it was from Lake of the Lion.”

“You don't know that,” McGovern cut in.

“Then why did he say—
Search for narrow lake with a rock shaped like
…?” I demanded. “There's only those two words—
a lion
—missing.”

“You're just guessing,” McGovern said. “And, anyway, your father was simply inventing on the basis of what he knew of the Ferguson Expedition.”

“Do you really believe that?” I cried. “Those were the last words he wrote before he died.”

“That doesn't make them true. He couldn't have known he was going to die.”

I stared at him, appalled. “I tell you, he struggled to his feet to look at that map. Lake of the Lion was marked on that map; his log books, too—they were littered with drawings of lions.…”

“All right,” McGovern said heavily. “Suppose Briffe did send and those were the exact words he transmitted. Do you know where this lake is?”

“It's in the Attikonak area,” I replied. “East of the river.”

“Hell! We know that already. We know to within thirty miles or so where it was Bert crashed, but we still haven't located the lake. But of course if you know the exact location of this lake you keep talking about … But your father didn't pin-point it, did he?”

“No,” I was still looking at Laroche. He was busy filling his pipe, his head bent.

“Then it doesn't help us very much.” Was there a note of relief in McGovern's voice? I glanced at him quickly, but the grey, stony eyes told me nothing. “As Bert says, there are thousands of lakes out there.”

“But only one with a rock shaped like a lion,” I said obstinately.

And then Laroche said quietly, “You don't know what it was like out there.” It was as though he had been following some train of thought of his own. “It was snowing, and later there was fog. And there was so much to do.…” His voice tailed off again as though he didn't want to think about it.

“This isn't getting us anywhere.” McGovern's voice was suddenly brisk and business-like. “Lake of the Lion is mentioned in Dumaine's book and in the newspaper reports of—the survivor.” He had glanced quickly at Laroche. And then he was looking at me again. “Your father would have read the name they gave to that lake—their last camp. That was the place where your grandfather died; and as far as I'm concerned it only proves that your father was living in the past.”

I stared at him, unbelievingly. “Won't you even try to understand?” I said. “My father was a radio operator. The ether was his whole world. He'd never have invented a transmission that didn't take place—never.” And I went on to explain what it must have cost him in effort to force himself to his feet. But, even as I was telling it to him, I knew it was no good. The hard lines of his face didn't soften, the eyes held no sympathy.

He heard me out, and when I'd finished, he glanced at his watch. “I'm sorry,” he said. “But all this doesn't really help us. If you'd been able to tell us something new—give us something positive to work on …” He got to his feet. “I've got to go now.” He came round the desk and stood over me. “Don't think I don't appreciate it that you've come a long way to tell us this. I do. But you must understand that yours is a personal point of view—a very personal one.”

“Then you're not going to do anything?” I asked.

“What can I do? Call for a resumption of the search? I'd have to convince the authorities first.” He shook his head.

I jumped to my feet then. “But before you were searching blind,” I told him. “Now you'd have something to go on. If you searched for this lake.…” I turned to Laroche. “For God's sake try to make him see it,” I cried. And when he didn't answer, but remained staring down at his pipe, I burst out wildly, “Don't you want them to be found?” And at that his head came up with a jerk and he stared at me with a sort of horror.

“Bert flew in twice,” McGovern reminded me quietly. “Twice when he should have been in hospital. And he couldn't find the lake.” He paused and then added, “I understand your disappointment. It's natural after coming so far. And I may say I'm disappointed, too. We all are. When I got Ledder's message I had hoped …” He turned away with a little shrug that was a gesture of finality. “I gather your aircraft has gone on to Montreal. That correct?” he asked me.