Ridgerunner by Gil Adamson

Author:Gil Adamson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Anansi Press Inc
Published: 2020-04-17T16:00:10+00:00

 Thirty

* * *

The cabin was empty of food, and Jack had eaten everything Sampson had on hand. He’d cleared them both out of food, so the old man badgered him onto his horse and they rode out together to Laggan, some seventeen miles away in the opposite direction of Banff. The dog tore out of the cabin and joined them. Sampson knew about the prisoners doing road work, so he led the boy the long way round and once they were clear of it the highway degraded into a soft footpath, and they walked in single file until they saw in the distance the first building in Laggan. It was the little train station.

Three years earlier, the long wooden sign that said in painted white letters LAGGAN had been pried from the side of this building and set on the ground beneath the new, even longer sign that read LAKE LOUISE. The lake itself had always been so named. But a debate had sprung up, and now the town too had been officially renamed in honour of some foreign princess whom few people really knew much about. Jack remembered the hoopla in the newspaper, photos of the celebrations, portraits of the old gal in question. There had been more than a few peevish letters to the editor decrying the imposition of a new name when the old one was perfectly good, and equally peevish responses from the editor, who by necessity got the last word, saying that the town had had several name changes already, and opining, rather randomly, that those who are against progress are unpatriotic and ungrateful to those valiant men fighting in Europe. So this town was now Lake Louise, but locals are often slow to adopt a new name, especially one imposed by the government, and recluses like those riding past that sign were very much inclined to ignore officialdom. To Jack, this had always been Laggan and it still was.

As yet, it was still not a town, not even a village, but rather a congregation of log buildings, barely livable plank houses, a gaggle of tents for itinerant workers, two small uncharming hotels that catered to tourists arriving too late to take the wagon uphill to the famous lake and stay in the grand chalet there. There were grocery stores, a dinky post office, and a stable or two, all of it fetching up in a mess near the rail station and roundhouse. The area had been so cleared of trees for use in the rail business and the forging of a line through Kicking Horse Pass that the town seemed to be nothing more than a desolate sea of tree stumps.

Jack and Sampson arrived at Carr’s, the bigger of the two grocers in town, the other being Fines’.

When they entered the establishment the boy cannoned into Wilson, who was roaming the shelves. “Jesus, watch yer step,” the man said, placing a controlling hand on the crown of Jack’s hat. “Well, look who it is.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.