The End of the Line by Stephen Legault Read Free Book Online Page A

Then to Pen, “I understand the NWMP barracks from last summer are still in good effect?”
    â€œI haven’t looked in on the cabin, but I assume it is. Let me show you. Come on, boy, you take one end of that trunk and I’ll grab the other. It’s not far.”
    Charlie and Pen hauled the trunk along the station platform to where a deep path was beaten into the banks of snow. Once off the platform Durrant’s crutch sunk into the snow so that he had to move along hunched over, making an effort to keep upright. The simple covering on the prosthetic’s base slipped on the hard-packed snow, and Durrant had to struggle to keep up with Pen and Charlie. After only a few minutes they came to the NWMP cabin that had been built from squared-off timbers the summer before.
    Charlie and Pen put the trunk down. “It isn’t much to look at. The two lads who was here last summer spent most of the time up and down the line. There’s a stove and a couple of bunks and lots of blankets. You should be fine.”
    â€œWe’ll manage,” said Durrant. “This isn’t a tourist vacation.”
    â€œNo, it isn’t,” said Pen, opening the door and pushing it in. There was a thin film of snow on the floor. He held his lantern up and stepped inside. Charlie and Durrant followed. Pen stood next to the wall, the lantern casting its pale light into the coal-black room. On the floor between the two cots, laid out on a burlap tarp, was the body of Deek Penner.

FOUR
HOLT CITY
    DURRANT WOKE TO A COLD so piercing that he felt as though he was entombed in ice. His face was under the blankets, and even so, it felt as if there was ice hanging from his nose. He drew a breath and the musty scent of old wool permeated his senses. And something else: wood smoke.
    He pushed the blankets back with his game right hand. His left cradled the sturdy heft of the British Bulldog. The cold bit at his face. He blinked open his eyes; he felt as though his eyelashes had frozen shut in the numbing cold. He heard the stove door creak open with an audible protest.
    He had slept the night with his gloved right hand tucked in his left armpit, but even so, it felt as though it was on fire, burning with the reawakened frostbite that had almost claimed it three years earlier. He pushed himself upright under the heavy weight of the blankets and watched as the lad Charlie dropped a heavy load of lodgepole pine on the floor of the cabin. The tiny square-board shack shook.
    â€œMight not be of the most solid construction,” Durrant mumbled.
    Charlie shook his head in response, and after wedging the door shut behind him, knelt before the stove and piled thin strips of wood into its belly, blowing on them to ignite the tinder.
    â€œFire go out in the night?” Durant asked. Charlie nodded. “But you got some embers going?”
    Again, the boy nodded, blowing. Durrant could see a glow emerge from the door of the small stove and light up the lad’s soft features.
    â€œWe’re going to need to work shifts,” Durrant said from beneath the blankets. “Keep that fire going all the time. If we don’t want to end up a frozen slab like Mr. Deek Penner, we’re going to need to get into a routine. I can get the wood into the stove alright, so long as it’s split. That’s going to be your job, Charlie.”
    Durrant manoeuvred himself onto the side of the bed, finally placing the Bulldog on the small table next beside him where the Enfield service revolver rested. The locket that he prized above all else in the material world rested at the base of the oil lamp. He reached for his prosthetic, buried under the blankets with him to keep it warm, and affixed it, with a grimace, to the stub on this left leg. He sat a moment and contemplated his new surroundings.
    The NWMP barracks had been hastily constructed the previous summer as the CPR mainline advanced toward Holt City and Kicking Horse Pass.