Shadow on the Land (8 page)

Quinn had tensed, his craggy face granite-hard. “Hill's the power behind the Oregon Trunk, Dawes,” he said angrily. “He's trying to block us here to gain concessions on the Portland terminal question. Don't let him fool you, Miss Racine.”

Hanna smiled. “You see? You admit that your central Oregon railroad is merely another move in your chess game. I'm sorry, gentlemen, but on a ranch this size, there is a lot of work to do.”

Lee never knew whether Highpockets had been listening outside the door or not, but he stomped in now, his bearded face guileless. “I sure do hate to interrupt, Mister Quinn, and I don't know much about these gas buggies, but that there machine of yours has got four tires that look all right, mostly, but on the bottom they're flat as pancakes. Now if you just run on the tops of those tires . . .”

“Four of them?” Quinn shouted. “Judas!” He shoved Highpockets out of the way and ran across the living room and out of the house.

Highpockets winked at Lee. “Guess I'd better go give him a hand.”

“I suspect that the tires are all right.” Hanna smiled. “The best recommendation that you could have is for Highpockets to be on your side.”

“Somehow we've got off on the wrong foot, Miss Racine,” Lee said with a humility that was not characteristic of him. “I'm sorry.”

“We're looking at this thing from opposite sides,” she said a little stiffly, “so we're seeing two very different things.”

“Have you thought that your refusal to sell us this right of way might be the means of keeping the Oregon Trunk from being built?”

She stood at the desk, a proud, realistic girl, seeing this exactly as Herb Racine would have seen it, knowing what the consequences of her decision might be, but still holding to that decision. She said: “I have thought about it.”

There was no point in continuing the argument. Lee was less interested in the moral issues of the question than he was in the concrete problem of gaining the right to cross her and her neighbors' land without trouble-breeding court proceedings. He had made a significant gain in securing her admission that, of the two evils, she would choose the Oregon Trunk as the lesser. That admission had worried Quinn, and a degree of satisfaction rose in Lee. For the moment both of them were blocked, but given time and the opportunity to use the special talents Stevens had mentioned, Lee Dawes would have the right of way.

Lee nodded cheerfully. “Thanks for the breakfast.”

She relaxed, her blue eyes softening. “Willie paid for that.”

Picking up his derby, he said good bye and left the house.

Lee found Highpockets doubled over in laughter, Quinn shaking a fist at him, and swearing fiercely. Highpockets straightened up, and wiped his eyes. “You ought to have seen his face, Lee, when he found out them tires was all right.”

“Nothing but a sneaking trick to get me out of the house,” Quinn said bitterly. “I've got a notion to hit this drink of water so hard his skull will pop out through his head.” Then anger went out of Quinn, as Lee had seen happen so many times, and he grinned. “Well, I guess you didn't get anywhere with that lady.”

“About as far as you did. I'm glad to see you again, Mike. Been a long time.”

Their eyes locked, minds reaching back over their common years, and Quinn nodded. “Ditto, and I guess we'll be seeing each other quite a bit. You're still fast on your feet, son.” He motioned toward the car. “I lied about this rig breaking down so she'd put me up all night. Thought I'd talk to her some more today. Didn't figure on you showing up.”

“You never know women,” Lee taunted. “If you had, you'd have seen last night that she meant no when she said no.”

“And you're claiming you know women?”

“I make out.”

“Not with a brunette you met on the
Inland Belle
.”

“I didn't do so bad. By the way, where is she?”

“That would be none of your business. The claim's staked out, Dawes.”

Lee fished for his pipe, wondering at the quick tension that gripped Quinn. “So it's staked out, is it?” he asked.

“You bet it is, and you'd better stick to railroading.” Quinn, wheeling, strode into the barn.

Highpockets had already hitched up the livery team. He drove up now, and Lee climbed in. Settling back into the seat, Lee pulled steadily on his pipe while they followed the twin ruts to the road. He thought about the southern lift of the land, and the strategic position this central Oregon plateau held.

“I heard that if they built a railroad through here,” he said, “they could start two freight cars from a point south of Bend, give one a push north and the other a push south, and the damned cars would roll clear to Portland and San Francisco.”

“Sounds about like some of my yarns.” Highpockets chuckled.

Lee scanned the notched skyline of the Cascades running from Bachelor and Broken Top north to Mount Hood and, turning his head, stared at the rugged spread of barren hills stretching away to the east.

“Quite a country, ain't it, son?” Highpockets asked with the pardonable pride of a central Oregonian.

“It is that.” Lee pointed his pipe stem toward the mountains. “Talk about Harriman's Fence. Looks like Nature put one up herself.”

Highpockets gave him a quick glance. “That's why the Deschutes cañon is so important to your railroad outfits. There are passes through the mountains like the Santiam and McKenzie, but they'd make tough building. Feller named T. Edgenton Hogg had that notion once. Hey, lookit who's coming.”

It was cigar-smoking little Cyrus P. Jepson, riding a big black gelding, as neatly dressed as ever, his high-crowned Stetson pointed upward like a diminutive Mount Jefferson. He recognized Lee, and reined up at the edge of the road, his round eyes guarded and thoughtfully fixed on the buggy.

“Want to talk?” Highpockets asked softly.

“If he's got anything to talk about.”

Highpockets pulled the team to a stop, and Jepson said with grave courtesy: “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Howdy, Jepson,” Lee said. “Quite a way from Jepson City, aren't you?”

“Business held me up. I'm surprised to see you. You missed the stage.”

“Had an accident that gave me a bad headache.” Watching Jepson closely, Lee could not read the effect of his words upon the little man.

“That's too bad. Well, it's nice to see you again, Dawes. You'll be around Madras for a time?”

Again Lee recognized the deliberate probing. “A few days.”

Jepson nodded pleasantly. “I'll see you.” Reining his horse around the buggy, he galloped past.

Highpockets spoke to the team, and, as the buggy lurched forward, Lee twisted in the seat, remaining that way until Jepson turned into Hanna's lane. When he shifted back, Highpockets chuckled. “Went in to see Hanna, didn't he?”

“Yeah, and pounding the dirt.”

“He got worried when he saw you, and he'll keep sweating until she tells him you ain't bought no right of way through to the Crooked River.”

Lee nodded toward the mountains. “How far to the Deschutes?”

“Maybe fifteen miles.”

“Think I'll hire a horse. I'd like to see that gut I've been hearing so much about.”

“I'll drive you over. Ain't got nothing better to do.”

“Not much of a vacation for you, but I'd like it if you want to.” After a moment's thought, he added: “You know, it'd clear some things up in my head if I knew for sure Jepson was behind Boston Bull slugging me last night, and if it was Jepson, why.”

“You know dad-burned well it was Jepson. You said he was with Hanna on the train. Don't forget she's been away from the ranch. I'd say Jepson tried to make sure you was out of the way till Hanna gave her neighbors a boost.” Highpockets paused, one hand coming up to pull thoughtfully at a big ear. “Of course, it might've been that Quinn feller. He could've telephoned to somebody in Shaniko.”

“Never thought of that,” Lee admitted.

Highpockets sat in silence a moment, his forehead furrowed in thought. “There's one angle I can't figger out. Why's that black-haired Haig filly running with Quinn now? When she first showed up here, she and Jepson was close as two fingers.”

“They were?” Lee stared at him in surprise, trying to fit this new fact into the pattern of his puzzle, and failing.

Chapter Six

L
ee had dinner in Madras, and, taking a room in the Green Hotel, slept until after darkness had come. He ate supper and afterward strolled idly along the street. Returning to the hotel lobby, he filled his pipe and sat slackly and loosely in the chair, a strange unease riding him. Reaction was setting in from the head-cracking in Shaniko, the fight with Boston Bull, the sleepless night dash, and finally his disappointment at Hanna Racine's.

Highpockets came by, pausing a moment to ask: “What time do you want to go in the morning?”

“Early.”

“I'll have the horses here at six.” Highpockets nodded, and moved away in the leggy stride of a normal-sized man on stilts.

Lee knocked out his pipe, the smoke bitter and distasteful against his tongue, a sense of the sinister pervading him. This central Oregon was a battleground where men's scheming would presently break into the open, their pressures forcing the pattern of its life into the lower channels of human behavior, exactly as a spring flood would be carried by the cañon passages to the Deschutes. Others would break, but not Hanna Racine. She stood above the greed and the violence, an example of clean, young integrity. He was sure of that, and he wished he could be certain of persuading her to his will.

Lee had breakfast with Highpockets the next morning, and, with the sun pouring its first scarlet tide upon the mountains, they drove north, the cold, crisp air like a tonic. This was another day, and Lee's spirits lifted as the bays moved along the road at their mile-eating clip. They headed toward the great break in the escarpment that Highpockets had pointed out two nights earlier, turned down the deep and narrow gorge of Trout Creek, and on to the vaster rift in the great brown plateau that was the cañon of the Deschutes.

Excitement keening in his blood, Lee stared upward in openmouthed wonder. Tangible and immediate now were all the things he had tried to visualize to this moment: great cliffs lifting in staggered rises to the blue vault of the spring sky, the tremendous rent that must have come from the tortures to this land that Jepson had mentioned, the cold and turbulent stream hurrying so swiftly to reach the Columbia, the drone of its movement mingling with the myriad echoes along the unending miles.

Highpockets waved a big hand downstream. “Long ways to the Columbia, son. It's just a tunnel with the top off. Only thing is Hill and Harriman didn't dig it. The Lord done that, and I reckon He'll get a chuckle out of their dinky little steam shovels.” He motioned toward Trout Creek. “The Harriman survey takes off through there, but the Oregon Trunk goes up the Deschutes to Willow Creek and follows it to the plateau.”

The thrill of battle was in Lee again as they rode back to Madras. He could well appreciate now what John Stevens had told him about access to the cañon being one of the major problems of both roads. This would not be a railroad to inch forward in completed sections, as steel is laid in open country. The full length of the cañon would go under construction at once, being marked off into a hundred stations, with an equal number of camps, bringing the entire water level grade into existence simultaneously. Once the cañon walls were notched and chipped away to hold it, the steel would come fast. The fight would be mainly over the right to numerous points of conflict, thousands of men toiling and sweating and cursing to bring the glistening bands first into Madras, on to Bend, and perhaps to California and domination of the West Coast.

It was clear to Lee that at this point the Oregon Trunk had an edge on Harriman's Deschutes Railroad. Under the guidance of W. L. Nelson, the Oregon Trunk had in 1906 located over one hundred miles of railroad through the cañon from the Columbia southward, and had filed its location. From that time until John F. Stevens's acquisition, it had been seeking financing, although its location had roused some question in the Department of the Interior because of a federal power dam envisioned for the Deschutes in the vicinity of Sherars Bridge, and another dam, which was being promoted by private interests, near the mouth of the river.

Stronger than ever in Lee Dawes was the feeling that this thing had exploded into a major railroad battle involving the entire coast. He recalled that in March a representative of Harriman had announced that funds had been set aside to build the Deschutes road and for extension of the Shasta division of the Southern Pacific, currently nearing Klamath Falls, north to meet the Deschutes line at Bend, thus completing a new route from San Francisco to the Columbia. At the same time, Lee had heard talk of the Oregon Trunk's showing interest in a short line owned by a Medford doctor that ran east from that southern Oregon town into the Cascades, with the idea of swinging across the mountains there and heading for California.

Once more it was the life that Lee Dawes loved, and his depression of yesterday was swept away. It was late afternoon when they rode into Madras, a small frontier town set in the bottom of Willow Creek basin.

Highpockets drew up in front of the hotel. “I'll get me a bait of grub and head out, Lee,” he said. “Figger I might as well go to The Dalles and see the sights.”

Lee, knowing better than to try to pay him for the livery service, held out his hand. “Well, I'll see you, friend. Thanks for everything.”

Highpockets grinned and clattered away, and Lee, turning, moved along the street to the hotel.

Mike Quinn's six-passenger Thomas automobile was in front of the hotel. Lee's pulse skipped a beat. Where there was Quinn, there was likely to be Deborah. He went to his room, cleaned up, and was about to leave for supper when, glancing through the window, he saw Quinn throw a suitcase into his automobile, crank it, and drive away.