V. The Man Who Owned The Cold (excerpt)
By three o'clock the storm had chosen its side. It came first as fine powder sweeping low along the street, then as a white thickness that erased corners and softened men into moving shadows. Wagons stood with blankets over the horses. Smoke was beaten flat from chimneys. The road to Barkerville disappeared behind a wall of weather, and the road up toward the workings seemed to climb into the inside of a flour sack.
The electrical men had been up at the line since morning, swearing at connections and weather. The small plant and distribution gear had been coaxed, tested, insulted, and blessed. A broken insulator had delayed them. A teamster had gone for a replacement. Somewhere between the supply shed and the last pole above town, the replacement had not arrived.
By four, Paddy's face had gone from red to the colour of tallow.
"No insulator, no current to the lower string," one of the electricians said in the lobby, his cap in his hand. "We can light part of the mine office, maybe. Not the hotel. Not safely."
"The whole town is coming here," Paddy said.
"Then give them candles."
"They've come to see the place finished," Paddy said. "I can't put them all round a lamp."
Mrs. MacDonell stood behind him, silent, which was worse than any speech she might have made.
"Where is the teamster?" Amos asked.
The electrician looked at him. "Who are you?"
"Rudd. I've hauled freight on that road."
"He went toward the upper shed by the old corduroy, then down. He should've been back by now."
"Could have broken a runner," a carpenter said.
"Could have found whisky," another said.
"Could have found the ditch," the electrician snapped. "You men think current runs on jokes."
Amos looked toward the kitchen. Elsie stood there with a tray in both hands. Beyond her, Li Ming was taking off his patched coat, the freighter's message answered at last. Oram leaned against the desk with a glass he had not paid for. His eyes moved from the electrician to Amos to the old man, and Amos wished he had noticed that movement sooner.
"I'll go," Amos said.
Paddy turned. "You know the line?"
"No."
"Then why would you go?"
"I've found broken sleds before. Barker can follow a track when I can't see it. We might find him before he freezes."
"I'll send a man with you."
"I'll need somebody who knows where he was going."
The electrician stepped forward. "I know the poles. Tate. Give me a minute to fetch my wire."
"Bring a lantern too," Amos said.
Paddy opened the cash box, took out a five-dollar bill, then hesitated and added another. "Bring that part down or bring word."
Amos took only one bill. "One now. One if the lights burn."
"You'd better take both."
"I might come back without it. Keep that one till we know."
Elsie met him at the kitchen door with two wrapped bannocks and a flask of coffee. "This is foolish."
"He may still be alive up there."
"Oram watched you volunteer."
"I saw him."
"He could follow you. Don't forget he's there."
Amos leaned close. "Where is the tin?"
"Safe."
"Where?"
She reached into the flour barrel beside the stove and brought up a small cloth parcel packed white. The tin was inside. She shook it clean and looked past Amos at Li Ming, who was warming his hands. "After supper you can have a look. I've not a minute now." Then she lowered it into the flour again and replaced the lid.
"He could take it now."
"He can wait until I'm free to sit with him. So can you, when you come back."
"If I don't come back," he said, "give it to Li Ming."
"Don't say that."
"All right," he said.
She put the bannocks into his coat pocket. Her hand remained there one moment too long. Then she withdrew it and called Barker. The dog came at once, proving betrayal was cheaply purchased with kitchen grease.
For that little second Amos forgot the storm, the paper, and Oram. Then a spoon clattered behind them and Elsie drew back as if caught stealing from her own kitchen.
Outside, Tate waited with a coil of wire, a lantern, and the brittle anger of a man whose trade had been insulted by weather. He was young, freckled, and frightened in a way he resented.
They went up through town past men carrying chairs, women with scarves over their heads, children shrieking because snow was a festival to those not responsible for it. The hotel lamps behind them glowed with kerosene. Above, the electric bulbs hung dull and blind.
The first poles were easy. Tate counted them under his breath and pointed out the lighter signal wires below the lighting line. The men at the plant were keeping this branch disconnected until he reported the repair. Barker moved in and out of the blown track, nose down. Once he stopped at a drift and pawed. They found a glove. Farther on, a smear of blood on snow.
"Teamster," Tate said.
"Or horse."
"The horse was shod. Look for the marks."
The road steepened. Trees closed in. The storm lost the town's noise and found its own. Wind spoke in the spruce tops with a long sawing note. The lantern flame fluttered and smoked. Amos drew his scarf over his mouth and shortened his steps to keep pace with the dog. The taste of stew had gone, and each breath brought the cold farther into his chest.
Where the road crossed a shallow runnel, they found a dark wet place in the snow. The horse had broken through. Tate wanted to go straight across, following the marks, but Amos sent Barker ahead and tested the edge with his boot. The water was no wider than a doorway. In daylight, on a summer road, nobody would have thought of it as an obstacle.
"Go above it," he said.
"The sled went here."
"And took the crust with it."
Tate held the lantern out. The light showed water running under a shelf of snow and very little else. He moved upstream, angry at the detour, then stopped when the bank crumbled beneath his heel. Amos took his elbow and waited until he had his feet again.
"I've crossed this fifty times," Tate said.
Amos let go. He remembered the wet sock on Saturday and the humiliation of putting it back on. "It's changed since breakfast."
They crossed on a pair of fallen poles twenty yards farther up. Tate went first, keeping the lantern low enough for Amos to see his footing. On the far side he stood with the light while Amos followed.
Beyond the crossing, a strip of leather hung from a branch. Amos freed it. One end had been cut clean and the other torn. He could not tell whether it had come off the sled or the harness, and he put it in his pocket because leather was likely to be useful before they reached the town again. Tate watched him do it, then turned the lantern toward the trees.
At the old corduroy, Barker stopped. His hackles rose.
Amos crouched. "What?"
The dog looked left, off the line track, toward a hollow where willow and alder made a black tangle under snow.
Tate lifted the lantern. "The pole line goes right."
"There's scent down there. He won't go back to the road."
"We can't spend all afternoon in the brush."
Amos pushed between the alders, following Barker. Tate came after him with the lantern held above his head.
Twenty yards in, they found the sled tipped on its side, one runner broken against a stump. The horse was gone or had been led off. The teamster lay under the sled, alive by the small fact that he groaned when Amos touched him.
"Leg broke," Amos said.
"Insulator," Tate said.
"Man first."
"If that part is smashed, the town stays dark."
Amos looked at him. "Get this weight off him. You can look for the sack after."
Tate flushed and bent to help. Together they levered the sled off. Nels cursed them weakly for not being his mother, then fainted. They splinted his leg with willow and harness strap. Barker found the canvas sack thrown under brush. In it, wrapped in straw, lay three porcelain insulators. Two were broken. One was whole.
Tate held it as if it were a chalice.
From behind them came the click of a rifle being cocked.
"Set it down," Lew Oram said.