He advanced into the room like a heavy-stepping jailer, odiously confident, treading ground which became his own as soon as he set foot on it. Everything about him – the gun holster, the badged fur cap, the ruddy face and beefy torso – was immediately intolerable. He burst with crude life into a room already given over to death. I found it unbearable that he should trouble this pool at such a moment. Behind him was Mrs Cross, backing up the invasion with her own brand of obscene interference.
Labelle took his time, looking at each one of us with a steady glare which might have been laid down in some secret-police manual. Only the glance he turned on the old man was brief, as if he knew enough about him already. Then he gave a hitch to his belt, and said: ‘What’s going on?’
I was very ready to be the spokesman. ‘You can see, can’t you?’ I said. I had never yet spoken to a policeman in such a way, nor ever wanted to; in the circumstances, it was a duty and a pleasure. ‘He’s ill, and he doesn’t want any visitors.’
‘Never mind what he wants,’ said Labelle, reacting predictably to my tone. ‘There’s been a complaint.’ He jerked his head backwards towards Mrs Cross. ‘He may be sick, but he doesn’t have to be sick here. It disturbs the other tenants.’
I pictured, swiftly enough, the other tenants, whom I had never seen. They did nothing to alter my resolve.
‘He’s not disturbing anyone,’ I answered, as roughly as I could. ‘You are disturbing him.’
‘Now just hold it there!’ said Labelle, with equal roughness. ‘There’s been a complaint, I’ve got to investigate it. If he’s sick, he should be in hospital.’
‘He can’t be moved.’
‘Why not?’
I did not answer immediately, but nodded towards the bed, compelling Labelle to follow my look. The old man’s eyes were still closed, and his breathing was feather-light; it was the breathing which is the same for a baby or a dying man, the same for all humans at their beginning or their end. Then I said: ‘You can see why not.’
But Labelle was not tied to the protocol of the sickroom. ‘You mean he’s dying?’
I said, as quietly as I could: ‘Yes, he’s dying.’
Mrs Cross now joined the enemy advance. ‘That’s what I told you,’ she said, with a kind of venomous satisfaction. ‘The hospital is the place for him! I want the room!’
‘He can’t be moved.’
‘He can be moved any time I say so. I know my rights!’
Amazingly the old man stirred, and opened his eyes. ‘We have no rights,’ he whispered. ‘Only responsibilities.’ But he was not answering Mrs Cross; he was speaking to me, continuing what had gone before. ‘You saw it?’ he went on anxiously. He was begging me to remember all that he had said and shown. ‘The seaweed concentrate?’
‘Yes, I saw it.’
‘What’s he talking about now?’ said Labelle impatiently.
Mrs Cross came nearer to the bed. ‘Oh, he’s always that way. I’ve had more trouble with this one … Don’t pay him any mind.’
It was as if the old man were being forced out of life by its cruel pressures, its most sordid inhabitants. ‘For God’s sake stop it!’ I said, in a furious whisper. ‘Can’t you see …’
I pushed her away from the bed, and sat down on it, opposite Mary. I was in agony lest Shepherd should die before he had said all that he could; now I wanted and willed him to stay alive. I knew that the wish was questionable, perhaps base; if the brutal people were killing him off, then I was not less brutal in delaying his death, at no cost to myself. But who could have resisted trying to keep him talking? What man would not have kept Nelson talking in Victory’s shadowy cockpit, Lincoln mumbling amid bloodstained sheets, Christ alive on the cross?
My weight upon the bed had recalled the old man to the world. He opened his eyes wide, and looked directly at me. Though his voice was a deathly croak, it was clear enough for the living.
‘Blessed are the meek,’ he whispered. ‘You know how that ends?’
‘For they shall inherit the earth.’ It was incredibly moving to be able to make this response.
‘The earth!’ he repeated. ‘Not heaven. The meek will take over the earth … Remember that … Make it happen in time.’
His voice was so low that I had to bend to catch it. Mary was weeping; behind us Labelle and Mrs Cross had fallen silent, subdued by the plainest fact on earth. The animals attendant on this wretched crib were docile at last.
Shepherd said, very slowly and painfully: ‘Don’t forget that the last man left alive … He was not angry … He was not really afraid … He was – astonished.’
After another long gasping pause, he said: ‘Tell them the story.’ Then his head fell aside on the pillow, and Death bandaged his eyes.
Neither of us could bear to stay in the room, which for us was already empty. As we went slowly down the stairs, I found that in my terrible hunger for life and hope I was holding Mary’s hand. The death of one derelict had made, for a moment, two more.
From above us came vague footfalls, diminishing voices.
First, Labelle’s: ‘Didn’t have much, did he? … I could use that blanket.’
And Mrs Cross, indignant: ‘What about my rent?’
And Labelle: ‘What about my trouble? … Tell you what – I’ll toss you for it.’
Then we were clear of all this, and outside, in the crisp snow and bitter cold of what seemed more than ever God’s fresh air.
That was three days ago. The poor burial is over, the mourners have fallen back from the graveside. Now it is necessary to believe, or not to believe.
Often I know that his story is true, and that the old man was left at Bone Lake to tell it to me. For a believer, there were clues all over the place. Yet I cannot always believe. So I must find out for myself.
It is still possible that I am the most gullible of young men, even for a newspaper reporter, and that this is just another northland legend, to be set alongside the Lost Valley and the vanished El Dorado. It is possible that Shepherd was just a crazed old drunkard who had only this fantasy to live on, and a tin of green dust to back it up. It is possible that the Mad Trapper had snared me, of all people (how easily one says and thinks that), and that, in believing, I am simply taking over from him, as a second generation crackpot.
Perhaps that is not important. Perhaps the actuality does not matter, either. For, true or false, the idea beneath the story is valid. If it was hallucination, or myth, it is still a good one, the best I ever heard.
So, during the sad confusion of the last few days, I have believed most of it, and I want to believe all. This burning need is what Shepherd somehow bequeathed to me.
The ‘somehow’ is still obscure, still a puzzle. They say that one can be stabbed to death without feeling the stroke. Perhaps one can be stabbed to life in the same way. Maybe I will find that out as I go along. But if not, it is no great matter.
For everyone should have his quest, and I am lucky to have been given mine so early. If I can think of it as not less than a Holy Grail somewhere beneath the ice-cap, I may be luckiest of all.
In any case, I am off tomorrow, or the next day – as soon as Ed the pilot gets back, and can be talked into taking a very long trip. If he will not, then someone else will. They must. For I have to find the great ice box, and the small dark scaly man. I must put my hand into that – wound in the ice, and believe completely.
I will try to bring back some proof, so that others may believe too. Then we can spread news of it to all the world, to everyone – and that is you and I – who may be growing too proud or too greedy for the world’s good.
Before it is too late, for all us brothers.