Shadow on the Land (14 page)

Below the road the Harriman camp stirred into action. Lights sprang to life. Men called and hurried from tents to stare upward. One shouted: “There's a million of them!”

“There's only a handful!” the engineer yelled. “They won't do anything except start digging so they can tie us up in the courts.”

An American pushed his way through the crowd of Italian laborers. “Want us to set 'em off, boss?” he asked.

“No. There aren't enough to hurt us. Marstoni, get your men dressed and start 'em to shoveling. If they take us into court, we'll show them we meant to dig a tunnel.”

But the Hill men did not have their minds on tunnel digging that night. They rolled onto the flat beside the river, the stooped man stepping down and with a lantern signaling the wagons into an arc between the Deschutes and the cañon wall.

Helping with the tents, Lee heard the
swash
of the water and the
clatter
of camp-making, saw the pinpoints of lantern light by which the Harriman men worked with picks and shovels. A sudden slackness had entered into him as if he had stepped out of a cross-whipping gale into a pool of quiet. He felt admiration for this crew that, having come through the shadow of death, now went about its work with the nonchalance of men going through the routine of an average day.

* * * * *

In the morning six men were detailed to start digging in the tongue of land about seventy-five feet from the Harriman crew. Lee strolled through the camp and on to where the Harriman men were working at the north portal of the tunnel. One of the Porter teamsters was ahead of him, a Winchester cradled over his arm. Three Italians straightened and, seeing the rifleman, dropped their shovels and ran toward the camp.

“Come back here!” a man yelled.

“We wanna da mon!” one of the Italians shouted. “Don't want no lead in da belly.”

The man who had yelled wheeled toward the rifleman. “What in hell's your idea of packing that Winchester around here?”

The teamster grinned insolently. “You know how it is when a camp's being set up. Things get lost plumb easy. I wasn't figgering on giving your men any lead in the belly.”

“You scared 'em enough to think so.” The man's stubbly face grew ugly. “Just one more funny move out of you and your bunch, and the Deschutes is gonna make you damned wet.”

“Get back to camp,” Lee told the teamster curtly. When the man had gone, Lee added: “Sorry. That fellow had no orders.”

“Orders or not, we've lost three of our men. But if you think that kind of business will keep us from building a tunnel, you're crazy.”

“That's not our kind of business,” Lee murmured, and returned to camp.

“We're taking the wagons back to Grass Valley,” the wagon master told Lee.

“I'll go back with you. Doesn't look like there'll be any trouble here for a while.”

They pulled out of the cañon and came into the unshaded sun's brightness atop the plateau. Lee laughed at the look of relief he saw on Baldy's face. He said: “You aren't seeing ghosts, Baldy.”

“I wasn't worried none. I didn't hear no blasts go off, so I knew you'd get back if you hadn't fallen off or if they didn't toss you into the river.”

“Our trouble will come here,” Lee said, “and maybe right away.”

It was well after noon when two Twohy wagons pulled up at the gate, a teamster calling: “Open up!”

“You can read the sign, can't you?” Lee said sharply.

“No spikka da English,” the teamster grunted. “We want through.”

“No savvy da lingo,” Lee said. “Stay on that side of the fence.”

But the wagons remained where they were, and Lee moved back to the tent where Baldy stood behind down-thrown flaps. Lee said softly: “Something coming up, but don't know what it is yet. Keep your eyes peeled.”

Lee saw, a moment later. A car rocked over the rough road, and ground to a stop beside the gate. A short, fat man stepped down and moved toward the fence.

“Judge Twohy,” Baldy said. “I've seen him in Grass Valley. The men in the car are the construction engineer, Brandon, and their lawyer, Bowerman.”

Mike Quinn was not in the party. Lee, probing his mind for some explanation of the Irishman's absence, could find none. “I'll see what Twohy's got on his mind,” he murmured.

Judge Twohy was angry, thoroughly and completely angry, but he spoke courteously when Lee came up. “This is our road, and you have no legal right to lock this gate.”

“It's locked,” Lee said laconically. “Let the courts decide our legal right.”

“The problem is immediate,” Twohy said. “It is not our intention to haul materials down. At the present time we have enough of an outfit in the cañon to complete ten miles of work.” He motioned toward the wagons. “They're loaded with food. Whatever motives may have inspired this move, it surely was not to starve three hundred men to death.”

Lee reached for his pipe and automatically began filling it, his eyes on Twohy's face. “As far as your wagons are concerned, my orders are clear. I'm not to let them through. On the other hand, I wouldn't try to stop them if you cut the wires.”

“We will not do that.”

“Or I couldn't stop you if you overpower me and take the key to the padlock.”

“Neither will we do that.” Twohy wheeled back to one of the wagons. “Toss a quarter of beef over the fence. They can come up from below and get it.” He stamped back to the car and got in.

Lee watched in silence while the quarter of beef was thrown across the fence onto the Girt property. Then, as the driver of the automobile got out to crank it, Lee said loudly: “I forgot to lock that lower gate when we came through. Baldy, run down and lock it.”

Lee saw Twohy turn. And just before the motor roared to life, he asked: “Bowerman, how long do you suppose it would take us to get a road condemned through this property?”

Lee lost the answer in the
clatter
of the engine. The car rolled away, the wagons following. When Baldy returned, Lee motioned toward the quarter of beef. “Looks like we'll have fresh meat tonight.”

Baldy winked. “Right nice of the Twohys giving it to us.”

In late afternoon another Porter wagon train came through, a large group of Italian laborers with it.

“We'll need these men,” Lee said to the boss, “if the Twohys try to bust through.”

“I'll send them back in the morning,” the man said. “We'd better get camp set up on the river before night.”

Near evening Highpockets rode in, a great hand waving in jovial greeting when he saw Lee. “Unlock that gate and let me in before I starve to death. I'm so dad-burned hungry . . .”

“I know. Your hollow leg.”

“Sure glad to get that call,” Highpockets said as he pulled gear off his horse. “I told the stage company to go jump into the Deschutes, and hightailed it out of Shaniko. Got news,” he added. “I hooked onto some newspapers in Grass Valley.
The Dalles Chronicle
says Johnson Porter claims the Harriman outfit wanted to buy them out, but he says they wouldn't sell for five million dollars.”

“Sounds pretty big.” Lee reached for the papers.

“That there
Bend Bulletin
says something about Johnson Porter claiming the Oregon Trunk's right of way came before anything the Harriman people have got, and the Harriman bunch is just doing a dog-in-the-manger stunt. He says Harriman never intended to build up the Deschutes, and allows they figgered on coming in from the south and throwing all our traffic toward San Francisco.”

“I hope Hanna reads this,” Lee said dryly.

“She will. And another thing. Quinn set out for Condon in his auto.”

“What for?”

“Judge Butler is there, so you can guess.”

“An injunction?”

Highpockets nodded. “That's the way I'd call it. Oh, yes, Jepson is in Shaniko.”

“Deborah?”

“She's there, too.”

Lee swore softly. “What would they be doing there?”

“I wouldn't try guessing on that, son.”

After Highpockets had gone to bed, Lee sat beside the fire, smoking and thinking, and arriving at no conclusion. He thought about the bushwhack attempt, and about Cyrus Jepson, and finally his thoughts came to Deborah Haig. His pulse quickened, and he let his dreams build.

Suddenly the
rattle
of a wagon broke across Lee's thoughts. Instinctively he kicked out the fire, and fell back into the darkness toward the tent. He could see no reason for a Porter wagon coming through at this time of night, nor was it likely the Twohys would try again. He called softly: “We've got company.”

He heard a stirring in the tent, and Baldy cursed. The wagon was close to the gate now. Lee could make out the black outline of it and the horses. A dark-garbed man moved down from the seat, and called: “Open up! This is a Twohy wagon going through.”

You're not going through.” Lee stepped to the front of the tent. He whispered: “Get around to the other side, Baldy. Give Highpockets a Winchester.”

“You're asking for trouble!” the man at the gate shouted. “Us Twohys ain't gonna stand for no more monkey business.”

Baldy had slipped out of the tent and on around it to the opposite side of the wagon. Highpockets followed him for fifty feet and stopped. Lee held his silence, keeping his position by the tent.

“You unlock that gate, or we'll cut some wire,” the man snarled.

“Don't try that.” Lee's cocked gun was in his hand.

Silence, then, a silence that ran on like an endless ribbon. Lee caught the motion of another man behind the wagon, a vagrant gleam of starlight glistening on a rifle barrel.

There was the
snip
of wire cutters, the lash of a taut strand as the tension was released, and Lee laid his first shot above the man's head. Both men at the wagon fired, bullets droning past Lee and slapping through the canvas of the tent.

Highpockets and Baldy opened up, foot-long tongues of flame stabbing the darkness. The man with the wire cutter cried out, and climbed into the wagon seat. Lee drove another bullet into the body of the wagon directly back of the seat, and dropped flat on his face as lead from the second man's gun screamed over him.

The wagon turned, and Highpockets raised a great cry: “Get down and fight, you sons of Satan!”

The horses were running. The man who had been behind the wagon had climbed into the back, and he emptied his gun now, wild bullets that sang distantly into the night. Then darkness and distance swallowed them, and there was no sight or sound of the wagon.

“What do you reckon the game was?” Highpockets asked as he came up.

“I don't know.” Lee kicked up the fire and, when a small flame was building around the juniper, rose, and, ejecting the empties, thumbed new loads into his gun. He said thoughtfully: “I'm just damned sure of one thing. That wasn't a Twohy wagon.”

Early the next morning the Italian laborers came up the road from the cañon and spread out across the field back of the tent.

“Any guns in your outfit?” Lee asked the boss.

“No.” The man's white teeth flashed in a wide grin. “Pick handles, but no guns.”

“That's good,” Lee said. “We'll need some pick handles today if I don't miss my guess.”

Lee was standing at the gate when the Twohy wagons came into sight, Mike Quinn riding in front, the sheriff and a deputy with him. Lee had sent Baldy back to Grass Valley to report to the Porters' office. Stationing Highpockets in the tent with a Winchester, Lee lined the Italian laborers up inside the fence, and waited.

The look on Mike Quinn's face was one of malicious triumph. “We're back, Dawes, and this time the law's on our side.”

“That so?” Lee asked indifferently.

“I've got an injunction signed by Judge Butler,” the sheriff said. “It says you've got to allow free use of this wagon grade leading from Grass Valley to the Deschutes. Now I'm hoping you'll unlock that gate and not kick up a lot of trouble by defying the law.”

Lee's grin was a quick, wide flash across his dark face. He turned the key in the padlock, and pulled the gate clear of the road. “The minute you bring your wagons through this gate, you're trespassing, injunction or no injunction. Remember that, Mike.”

Quinn reined his horse out of the road, suspicion setting up a sharp brightness in his gray eyes. Lee stood at the end post, sensing the suspicion in Quinn, and enjoying it. Then Quinn, shifting in his saddle, motioned for the wagons to roll through the gate.

Lee held his silence until the last wagon had cleared the gate. Then he said sharply: “You're on the Girt place now, Quinn, and not with Porter Brothers' permission.” Lee signaled to the Italians.

With military precision they broke into bands, each taking a wagon. Moving unexpectedly and swiftly, they overpowered the teamsters by sheer force of numbers, pulled them off the wagon seats and propelled them through the gate. Others unhitched the horses and drove them after the teamsters. The remainder pushed the wagons down the road toward the lower gate.

“You can't do this!” the sheriff cried. “You . . . !” He licked his lips, looked at Quinn, and subsided into speechless agony.

“I should have expected this when I saw your army,” Quinn said in ill-suppressed fury. “I suppose you're stealing our supplies.”

“We don't steal,” Lee said mockingly.

“
Aw
, hell, a man who'd steal a road would steal supplies. If this job takes an army, we'll get an army.” Quinn whirled his animal, and rode off, the sheriff and deputy with him, the teamsters mounting and following with the horses.

“They'll be back,” Highpockets said gloomily. “You ain't won this ruckus.”

“No, but we've worried them and we've kept them out another day. Every day's important in this kind of a race, Highpockets. While we're tussling over this, Porter Brothers is running materials and men into other spots where our surveys conflict. One day here might mean we'll win somewhere else.”