Shadow on the Land (2 page)

“Why, nothing . . .” Then a quick grin broke across his lean face. “Artificial palm trees.” He shook his head. “No good. The purser would come charging out of his office with a horse pistol.”

“I can handle him.” Assurance gleamed in Hanna's eyes. “Give me three minutes.”

It took three minutes for Lee to screw up his courage. He made a turn around the fantail and came back to the Oregon side of the boat. With Willie on short leash and his overcoat spread, Lee turned quickly into the main cabin. Briefly he noted that Hanna was at the purser's wicket across the way, and there was little doubt that at the moment the boat officer was wishing himself twenty years younger. Willie made no sound, and no eyes turned curiously to Lee. Nor was anyone at the piano. They cut from sight. When they emerged again, turning quickly into the deck, man and dog walked easier.

They met Hanna before the door of the stateroom that was Willie's prison. Lee opened the door and pushed the dog in, closing his ears to the protesting whimpers.

“That was a nice thing to do, Mister Dawes.”

A warm feeling washed through Lee. For a moment he almost wished there was no dark-eyed distraction aboard the packet. This was a nice girl, a warm and sympathetic girl—and a pretty one.

They stood together for a time, eyes on the Washington hills, feeling the mutual bond that comes to people when they have done a good job together. Lee's mind turned back over the past few years, and for the moment he forgot Hanna and the dog. To him the Columbia Gorge represented a battleground, reminding him of the days when he had fought down it as a special agent for James Jerome Hill, mentor of the Great Northern. It was a reminder of a triumph, for it was a fight they had won as decisively as they would win the struggle now shaping.

The Columbia had no duplicate. Originating in the wilds of Canada, it twisted down through the bare, brown flats of Eastern Washington, turning westward through Wallula Gap, carving a deep course through the basalt here in the gorge, and rolling on in massive power to the Pacific. It was wild terrain, over which many had puzzled and fought, from the time the Indians had first told stories of a great river in the West, stories that drifted across the continent to restless men ever dreaming of an empire—and a channel of empire it had become.

He saw it again in a swift flow of pageantry. Lewis and Clark. The mountain men, buckskinned and bearded, fortitude and long rifles their weapons, beaver plews and adventure their prize. Hudson's Bay Company and the
voyageurs
, beribboned and singing, as their paddles cut the river. Missionaries preaching of peace, and unwittingly bringing a racial war. Ox trains plodding to the vast Oregon country, driven by stout men who cried for elbow room. The 'Forty-Niners crossing a continent in their lust for gold. These were the beats of empire that the river had known and pondered without change as it rolled westward!

Then the steel bands, and the empire was endowed with speed. No longer would land-seekers pile up east of the Big Muddy, or raise dust plumes on the plains, or leave in that vast emptiness the whitened bones and steel and hickory skeletons of wrecked Conestogas.

The wheel ruts dimmed. Steel glistened with use. Bright, this land to the westward, and giants were reaching to claim it. Struggle had come here in the gorge, and it was coming again along the Deschutes. The North Bank fight had been bitter and ruthless. For reasons clear only to the industrial giants of Wall Street, the thriving city of Portland had been slow to come under serious consideration as a major Western rail terminal. Only belatedly had it been linked with San Francisco by a coastwise section of the Southern Pacific. Henry Villard had built a line westward through the Columbia Gorge, and later the Union Pacific had extended its system from Ogden to Baker, and the long-sought link was fitted into place. Thus, by 1909, Portland and the state of Oregon were dominated by the Harriman enterprises.

It was at a Lewis and Clark Exposition banquet in Portland, in 1905, that James J. Hill had first declared his intention of entering and developing the state that had so long remained largely an island of transportation enclosed by rails. Hill's first move was to propose a branch line of his Great Northern, swinging down from Spokane and reaching Portland by the north bank of the Columbia. Harriman rose to beat off the challenger. Mile by mile, foot by foot, these giants of the twin rails had fought for possession of the North Bank. The federal courts became a battleground. They carried the fight into the gorge and at times into the water, laborers resorting to pick handles, crowbars, and lusty profanity as the conflict was fought out to its bitter end. Hill had triumphed and built his line, and now the rivalry between the two was keen and constant.

Lee felt a stab of pain as he remembered the personal cost of this fight. Somewhere in that sound and fury his warmest friend had become a bitter enemy. Mike Quinn was a better man to fight beside than against, a man to travel with, yet a man whose brittle temper and instinctive rivalry, so far as Lee Dawes was concerned, had made that impossible.

Wondering where Quinn was now, Lee visualized the rugged face, thought briefly about their years together. He had not heard of Quinn for nearly two years, and he thought grimly that this battle about to break out along a hundred-mile stretch of cañon would seem strange without Quinn on one side or the other.

“It's beautiful here,” Hanna said, her voice breaking into Lee's abstraction. “Man destroys a lot of things, but he will never destroy this.”

“It's strange that this country was overlooked so long,” Lee murmured.

“People have different ideas about that. Some of us think we're living in a world that has grown old and crowded, and are glad that it still has a few places like this for the hungry to go to. Others think there is nothing here except another field for them to exploit.”

He stared at the seriousness that was in her. There was a personal inflection to her words, a bitterness that he did not understand. He said: “Sounds like you had a grudge against somebody.”

She shook her head. “No. Let's call it a matter of principle. I want this country to belong to the people.”

Lee had never heard a woman talk that way before. To him a woman was to be pursued, to be caught and kissed and forgotten when the loving was done. Life was a matter of greeting a new day, a new fight, a new woman. It was an exciting and eternal game, was this business of Lee Dawes's living. And here beside him was a woman well graced for his kind of life, yet talking in terms that both interested and puzzled him.

“There is no peace here in the Northwest,” Hanna went on. “In Crook County, where I live, sheepmen and cattlemen still fight, and settlers try to make a living on new irrigation projects, while they keep their hopes for a railroad.” She shook her head. “It's a land bright with promise, but it has the shadow of selfish men across it.”

“Maybe we should cut those men down to size,” Lee said lightly. “Then their shadow wouldn't be so long.”

Lee stood smiling at her, thinking how different this girl's attitude was from anyone else's he had heard talk, and so utterly different from his own. He had never ducked a fight, and had at times gone out of his way to find one. He drew a deep breath into his great lungs. Six feet one, one hundred and eighty pounds of hard bone and muscle, Lee Dawes was built for conflict, to seek it, to thrive upon it. He was lithe and rugged and swift moving, and yet this slim, assured girl frightened him a little.

“It's not so easy to cut them down,” Hanna said.

Lee was aware that she was irritated by the lightness of his manner, and he was aware, too, that the
Inland Belle
had kept traveling, that his personal problem was as big as ever. Examining his watch, he said: “It has been a pleasure, Miss Racine.” He lifted his derby, and smiled. “I hope we meet again.” Nodding, he replaced his hat, and walked swiftly away.

Lee turned forward and rounded the deckhouse, coming back on the port side. Then abruptly he was hurrying his steps, for Deborah Haig had come out of a stateroom down deck, had glanced at him impersonally, and turned away. Lee came up to her, and succeeded in maneuvering her against the rail.

“I've been looking for you,” he said.

“I have to see the purser, Mister Dawes.”

“He'll wait. It's more important that you tell me where you live and where I can find you.”

“Why is that important?”

Her smile was quick and tantalizing, her dark eyes reflective, and Lee felt that she was measuring him. He had a naked sense, then, as if she had gained an insight into the secret places of his mind. He said a little roughly: “You know what we could mean to each other.”

“I wouldn't give you the satisfaction of . . .”

The steward who had come from the main cabin paused. “Mister Dawes,” he said.

Lee frowned, knowing that opportunity had slipped away again, and that he still had gained nothing. “Yes?”

“The gentleman in S-Eight wants to see you at once, sir. He said to make it clear that he means right now.”

Lee nodded, but before the steward had left, Deborah Haig had slipped away, her lips holding a soft, triumphant smile. Lee turned down the deck, and then it was that he saw Hanna Racine. She had crossed to this side of the boat, and had watched, smiling in dry amusement.

Chapter Two

T
he gentleman in S-8 was an average-sized man, perhaps sixty, his mustache more gray than black, and the rugged quality of his face did not conceal a sense of force and quick, keen intelligence. It was a practical intelligence, but there was also a sensitiveness about him, of one whose vision ranges beyond habitual horizons. He was a man who could not only plan but accomplish—abilities that had prompted James J. Hill to call him the greatest location engineer in the world.

John F. Stevens had helped Jim Hill throw the steel bands of the Great Northern across the vast Northwest to Puget Sound. His discovery of Marias Pass, north of Butte, had lopped off seventy miles of the distance traveled by the rival Northern Pacific. And he had been chief engineer of the Panama Canal.

Stevens waved Lee to a chair, and studied him thoughtfully. Lee, looking at Stevens, felt the excitement that was in the engineer. Again the warning suspicion rose in Lee's mind that the new enterprise was far bigger than he had been led to believe.

“I'm afraid I was delayed by the beauties of the gorge,” Lee said guiltily.

“The one I noticed you with was a real beauty. I saw you helping her walk a dog.” Stevens jerked a thumb toward the slatted cabin window through which the outer light painted bars of gold and black shadow across the deck and up onto the bunk. “When I was watching you, Dawes, I wished I was thirty years younger and as handsome.” He paused, and added with thin irony: “But, in case you've forgotten, we're here to build a railroad.”

Lee shifted uncomfortably and waited. His one previous talk with Stevens had gone only into the matter of Lee's availability and his acceptance of this job. Now the details would come.

“The North Bank was no Sunday school picnic,” Stevens went on, “but this one will be tougher. Absolute secrecy is essential at the moment. You're working for the Oregon Trunk. Beyond that you know nothing.”

Lee grinned. “I savvy, but there's plenty of talk about Hill backing the Oregon Trunk.”

“There'd have been more if we'd come by train. We stole a march on the Harriman sleuths by coming this way. The point is we jumped the gun too soon on the North Bank. Let folks know ahead of time you want a right of way, and you have tripled the cost.” Stevens shrugged. “However, the cost of our right of way is the smallest of our problems. Right now I'd like to keep the Harriman people guessing. At the moment we admit we're building to Madras, but the folks on south will continue to hope.”

Stevens smiled. “The stakes are high. For that reason, I won't know you, or you me, after you leave this cabin. You'll go to Shaniko by way of Harriman's Columbia Southern. Take the southbound stage to Madras. Stay there a few days, and then go on to Bend.” Stevens leaned forward. “You don't need to make a secret of the fact that you're working for the Oregon Trunk. Encourage others to talk. Your part is to listen. Probably you'll have some Harriman sleuths on your trail. I've had some on mine.”

“Sounds like fun.” Lee's face was that of a small boy reaching ahead in his mind to a circus coming to town. “I like to fight.”

“We'll have one, Dawes, but this business of your liking a fight is both a weakness and a strength in you. See that your fighting is limited to matters concerning the Oregon Trunk. A dead man won't help us.”

“It can't be that serious.”

“It can be exactly that.” Stevens began pacing the floor. “Some things have happened that don't look like Harriman's tricks. Let's say there's a clouded element somewhere, perhaps a third party who wants us and the Harriman people to cut each other's throats.”

Lee canted his chair back against the wall, long legs bent, heels hooking a chair rung. “A three-cornered fight,” he murmured.

“It looks that way.” Stevens drew a map of Oregon from his pocket, and spread it out on the berth. “Before we talk about that, I want you to get a picture of the battleground in your mind.”

Lee rose and watched over Stevens's shoulder while the engineer ran his finger along the Deschutes River, from its head in the high Cascades to where it emptied into the Columbia a dozen miles from The Dalles.

“The Deschutes drains a number of lakes and runs an even stream all year. The Metolius River and the Crooked River come in here. From there on down, the Deschutes twists through one of the most fantastic cañons in the world.” Stevens slid his finger upstream to Bend. “Here the altitude is thirty-six hundred feet. It's nearly sea level where it comes into the Columbia. Now you can see why this cañon is the one good entry into central Oregon. Our control of this water grade is vital, and the outfit that controls it will be the one that establishes the principle of ‘first construction and use' at the narrow places where there is room for only one railroad.”