Still Jim

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER XVII

  TOO LATE FOR LOVE

  "Honor is the thing that makes humans different from dogs--some dogs! When women have it, it is mingled always with tenderness."

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  Jim jumped to his feet and took a stride toward Sara's couch, thenchecked himself.

  "Oh, I'm not accusing you of planning the thing!" sneered Sara. "I'dhave more respect for you if you had. Pen doesn't know that I know. If Ihadn't got hurt I'd probably never dreamed of it. Pen and I would haveraised a family and I'd have had no time to think of you. But it didn'ttake more than a year of lying on my back and watching her to see thatit was more than my crippled condition that was changing Pen. Damn you!Why should you have it all, health and success and Pen's love? I'll getyou yet, Jim Manning!"

  Jim stood with his arms folded fighting desperately to keep his handsoff Sara. Deep in his heart Jim realized, there was none of the pity forSara's physical condition that civilized man is supposed to feel for thecripple. Far within him was the loathing of the savage for somethingabnormal; the loathing that once left the physically unfit to die. Yetsuperimposed on this loathing was the veneer of civilization, thatforces kindness and gentleness and self-denial toward the fit that theunfit may be kept alive.

  So Jim gripped his biceps and ground his teeth and the crippled man inthe chair stared with bitter black eyes into Jim's angry gray ones. Jimfought with himself until the sweat came out on his lips, then without aword he left the tent, mounted his horse and rode back to the dam site.

  He wanted time to think. It was very evident that Sara meant mischief,but just how great was his capacity for doing him harm Jim could onlyguess. The idea of his extremely friendly relations with Arthur Freetbothered Jim now. If Freet were really trying to influence the sale ofthe water power through Sara, the wise thing to do would be to send Saraback to New York. And yet, if Sara went, Pen would go, too! Jim's heartsank. He could not bear to think of the dam now without Pen. He squaredhis shoulders suddenly. He would not send Sara away until he had somereal proof that his threats were more than idle. At any rate, it was nothis business to worry over the sale of the water power. If he producedthe power he was doing his share. And when he had fallen back on his oldexcuse Jim gave a sigh of relief and went home to supper.

  Henderson was in the office the next morning when Jim opened a letterfrom the Director of the Service. He was sorry, said the director, thatthere had been so much loss of time and property in the flood. Herealized, of course, that Jim had done his best, but people who did notknow him so well would not have the same confidence. The CongressionalCommittee on Investigation of the Projects, on receipt of numerouscomplaints regarding the flood, had decided to proceed at once to Jim'sproject and there begin its work.

  Jim tossed the Director's letter to Henderson and laid aside theSecretary's letter, which he had planned to answer that morning.

  "More time wasted!" grumbled Jim. "There will be a hearing andtalky-talk and I must listen respectfully while the abutments crumble.Why in thunder don't they send a good engineer or two along with theCongressmen? A report from such a committee would have value. How wouldCongress enjoy having a committee of engineers passing on the legalityof the work it does?"

  Henderson laid the letter down, rumpling his hair. "Hell's fire!" hesaid gently. "My past won't stand investigating. You ask the Missis ifit will! I'm safe if they stick to Government projects and stay awayfrom the mining camps and the ladies."

  Jim's eyes twinkled. "Perhaps your past is black enough to whiten minein contrast. I'll ask Mrs. Henderson."

  Henderson suddenly brightened. "I've got a dying favor to ask of you.Let me take the fattest of 'em to ride in Bill Evans' auto?"

  Jim looked serious. "Your past must have been black, all right, Jack!You show a naturally vicious disposition. Really, I haven't anythingpersonal against these men. It's just that they take so much time andinsist on treating us fellows as if we were pickpockets."

  "I ain't as ladylike as you," said Henderson, in his tender way. "I justnaturally hate to be investigated. My Missis does all that I can stand.I won't do anything vicious, though. I'll just show a friendly interestin them. I might lasso 'em and hitch 'em behind the machine, but thatmight hurt it and, anyhow, that wouldn't be subtle enough. These hereEasterners like delicate methods. I do myself. At least, I appreciatethem. The delicatest attention I ever had that might come under the headof an investigation was by an Eastern lady. It was years ago on an oldirrigation ditch. Her husband was starting a ranch and I caught himstealing water. I was pounding him up when she landed on me with asteel-pronged garden rake. She raked me till I had to borrow clothesfrom her to go home with. That sure was some delicate investigation."

  "The world lost a great lyric soloist in you, Jack," commented Jim."Jokes aside, it's fair enough for them to investigate us. If themembers of the committee are straight, it ought to do a lot towardstopping this everlasting kicking of the farmers. We've nothing to fearbut the delay they cause."

  Jack sighed regretfully. "Well, I'll be good, if you insist. Let's give'em a masquerade ball while they're here."

  "Good," said Jim. "Will you take charge?"

  "Bet your life!" replied Henderson, whose enthusiasm for social affairshad never flagged since the day of the reception to the Director, up onthe Makon.

  Jim spent a heavy morning on the dam, climbing about, testing andcalculating. Already the forms were back in place ready to restore theconcrete swept away by the flood. Excavation for the next section ofthe foundation was proceeding rapidly. At mid-afternoon, Jim wassquatting on a rock overlooking the excavation when Oscar Ames appeared.

  "Mr. Manning," he said angrily, "that main ditch isn't being run as nearmy house as I want it. You'd better move it now, before I make you moveit."

  "Go to my irrigation engineer, Mr. Ames," replied Jim shortly. "He hasmy full confidence."

  "Well, he hasn't mine nor nobody's else's in the valley, with his darneddude pants! I am one of the oldest farmers in this community. I had asmuch influence as anybody at getting the Service in here and I proposeto have my place irrigated the way I want it."

  "By the way," said Jim, "you folks use too much water for your own good,since the diversion dam was finished. Why do you use three times whatyou ought to just because you can get it from the government free? Don'tyou know you'll ruin your land with alkali?"

  Ames looked at Jim in utter disgust. "Did you ever run an irrigatedfarm? Did you ever see a ditch till eight years ago? Didn't you get youreducation at a darned East college where they wouldn't know a ditch fromthe Atlantic Ocean?"

  "Look here, Ames," said Jim, "do you know that you are the twelfthfarmer who has been up here and told me he'd get me dismissed if wedidn't put the ditch closer to his ranch? I tell you as I've told themthat we've placed the canal where we had to for the lie of the land andwhere it would do the greatest good to the greatest number when theproject was all under cultivation. Some of you will have to dig longerand some shorter ditches. I can't help that. Isn't that reasonable?"

  "It would be," sniffed Ames, "if you knew enough to know where the bestplace was. That's where you fall down. You won't take advice. Justbecause I don't wear short pants and leather shin guards is no reasonI'm a fool."

  Jim's drawl was very pronounced. "The shin guards would help you whenyou clear cactus. And if you'd adopt a leather headguard, it wouldprotect you in your favorite job of butting in."

  "I'll get you yet!" exclaimed Ames, starting off rapidly toward thetrail. "I've got pull that'll surprise you."

  Jim swore a little under his breath and began again on his interruptedcalculations. When the four o'clock whistle blew and the shifts changed,some one sat down silently near Jim. Jim worked on for a few moments,finishing his problem. Then he looked up. Suma-theek was sitting on arock, smoking and watching Jim.

  "Boss," he began, "you sabez that story old Suma-theek tell you?"
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br />   Jim nodded. "Why don't you do it, then?" the old Indian went on.

  Jim looked puzzled. Suma-theek jerked his thumb toward the distant tenthouse. "She much beautiful, much lonely, much young, much good. Why youno marry her?"

  "She is married, Suma-theek," replied Jim gently.

  "Married? No! That no man up there. She no his wife. Let him go. He badin heart like in body. You marry her."

  Jim continued to shake his head. "She belongs to him. The law says so."

  Suma-theek snorted. "Law! You whites make no law except to break it.Love it have no law except to make tribe live. Great Spirit, he mustthink she bad when she might have good babies for her tribe, she staywith that bad cripple. Huh?"

  "You don't understand, Suma-theek. There is always the matter of honorfor a white man."

  Suma-theek smoked his cigarette thoughtfully for a moment and then hesaid, wonderingly: "A white man's honor! He will steal a nigger woman oran Injun woman. He will steal Injun money or Injun lands. He will stealwhite man's money. He will lie. He will cheat. Where he not afraid,white man no have honor. But when talk about steal white man's wife, heafraid. Then he find he have honor! Honor! Boss, white honor is likerain on hot sand, like rotten arrow string, like leaking olla. I am old,old Injun. I heap know white honor!"

  Old Suma-theek flipped his cigarette into the excavation and strodeaway. Jim rose slowly and looked over at the Elephant with his gray eyesnarrowed, his broad shoulders set.

  "On your head be it!" he murmured. "I am going to try!"

  He climbed the trail to his house, washed and brushed himself and wentover to the tent house. Pen was sitting on the doorstep. Oscar Ames wastalking to Sara.

  "Hello, Sara!" said Jim coolly. "Pen, I've got a free hour. Will youcome up back of the camp with me and let me show you the view from WindRidge? It's finer than what you get from the Elephant."

  Sara's face was inscrutable. Oscar said nothing. Pen laid aside her bookand picked up her hat.

  "I knew there was something the matter with me," she said gaily. "It wasWind Ridge I was missing though I never heard of it before! I won't belong, Sara."

  "Don't hurry on my account," said Sara, with a sardonic glance at Jim.

  The trail led up the mountain slope with a steady twist toward a ridgeat the top that showed a sawtooth edge. Almost to the top the mountainwas dotted with little green cedars, dwarfed and wind-tortured. Up atthe saw edge they stopped. Here the wind caught them, wind floodingacross desert and mountain, clean, sweet, with a marvelous tang to it,despite the desert heat.

  "Why, it's a world of lavenders!" cried Pen.

  Jim nodded and steadied her against the great warm rush of the wind. Farto the east beyond the purple Elephant the San Juan mountains lay on thehorizon. They were the faintest, clearest blue lavender, with iridescentpeaks merging into the iridescent sky. The desert that swept toward theElephant was a yellow lavender. The mountain that bore the ridge was agray lavender. To the west, three great ranges vied with each other inmelting tints of purple, that now were blue, now were lavender. The twomight have been sitting at the top of the world, the sweep of the viewand the sense of exaltation in it were so great.

  Mighty white clouds rushed across the sky, sweeping their blue shadowsover the desert, like ripples in the wake of huge sailing ships.

  When Pen had looked her fill, Jim led her to a clump of cedars thatbroke the wind and made a seat for her from branches. Then he tossed hishat down and stood before her. Pen looked up into his face.

  "Why so serious, Still Jim?" she asked.

  "Penelope," asked Jim, "do you remember that twice I held you in my armsand kissed you on the lips and told you that you belonged to me?"

  Pen whitened. If he could only dream how the pain and sweetness of thoseembraces never had left her!

  "I remember! But let's not talk of that. We settled it all on the dayyou got back from Washington. We must forget it all, Jim."

  "We can never forget it, Pen. We're not that kind." Jim stood strugglingfor words with which to express his emotion. It always had been thisway, he told himself. The great moments of his life always found himdumb. Even old Suma-theek could tell his thoughts more clearly than he.Jim summoned all his resources.

  "Pen, it never occurred to me you wouldn't wait. There has never beenany other woman in my life and I suppose I just couldn't picture anyother man having a hold on you. But it all goes in with my generalincompetence to grasp opportunity. I felt that I had no right to go anyfarther until I had more than hopes to offer you. I planned to make areputation as an engineer. I knew money didn't interest you. I wanted tooffer myself to you as a man of real achievement. You see how I failed.I have made a reputation as a grafting, inefficient engineer with thepublic. You are another man's wife. But, Penelope, I am not going togive you up!

  "One gets a new view of life out here. You are wrong in staying withSaradokis. Why should three lives be ruined by his tragedy? Pen! Pen! IfI could make you understand the torture of knowing you are married toSara! You are mine! From the first day I came upon you in the oldlibrary, we belonged to each other. Pen, I've tramped the desert nightafter night on the Makon and here, sweating it out with the stars and Ihave determined that you shall belong to me."

  Pen, white and trembling, did not move her gaze from Jim's face. All hertired, yearning youth stood in her eyes.

  Jim spoke very slowly and clearly. "Penelope, I love you. Will you leaveSaradokis and marry me?"

  Pen did not answer for a long moment. A to-hee trilled from the cedar:

  "O yahee! O yahai! Sweet as arrow weed in spring!"

  The Elephant lay motionless. The flag rippled and fluttered, a faint redspot far below on the mountainside. Pen's youth was fighting with herbitterly won philosophy. Then she summoned all her fortitude.

  "Jim, dear, it would be a cowardly thing for me to leave Sara."

  "It would be greater cowardice to stay. Pen, shall you and I die as IronSkull did? I can marry no other woman feeling as I do about you. Sara'slife is useless. Let the world say what it will. Marry me, Penelope."

  "Jim, I can't."

  "Why not, Penelope?"

  "I love you very dearly, but I've had enough of marriage. I've done myduty. I don't see how I could keep on loving a man after I married him,even if he weren't a cripple. The process of adjustment is simplyfrightful. Marriage is just a contract binding one to do theimpossible!"

  Jim scowled. More and more he was realizing how Sara had hurt Pen.

  "You don't care a rap about me, Pen. Why don't you admit it?"

  Pen gave a sudden tearful smile. "You know better, Jim. But just toprove to you what a silly goose I am, I'll show you something. Girls inreal life do this even more than they do it in novels!"

  Pen opened a flat locket she always wore. A folded bit of paper and atiny photograph fluttered into her lap. She gave both to Jim. Thepicture was a snapshot of Jim in his football togs. The bit of paper,unfolded, showed in Pen's handwriting a verse from Christina Rossetti:

  "Too late for love, too late for joy; Too late! Too late! You loitered on the road too long, You trifled at the gate: The enchanted dove upon her branch Died without a mate: The enchanted princess in her tower Slept, died, behind the grate: Her heart was starving all this time You made it wait."

  Jim put the bit of paper into his pocket and gave Pen the picture. Hiseyes were full of tears.

  "Pen! Pen!" he cried. "Let me make it up to you! We care so much!Suppose we aren't always happy. Oh, my love, a month of life with youwould make me willing to bear all the spiritual drudgery of marriage!"

  White to the lips, Pen answered once more: "Jim, I will never leaveSara. There is such a thing as honor. It's the last foundation that thewhole social fabric rests on. I promised to stay with Sara, in themarriage service. He's kept his word. It's my business to keep mine,until he breaks his."

  Jim stood with set face. "Is this final, Penelope?"

  "It's final, Still
."

  "Do you mind if I go on alone, Pen?"

  Pen shook her head and Jim turned down the mountainside. And Pen, beinga woman, put her head down on her knees and cried her heart out. Thenshe went back to Sara.

  That night Jim answered the Secretary's letter:

  "My work has always been technical. I know that the Projects are not thesuccess their sponsors in Congress hoped they would be, but I feel thatyou ask too much of your engineers when you ask them not only to makethe dam but to administer it. I have about concluded that an engineer isa futile beast of triangles and _n_-th powers, unfitted by his verytalents for associating with other human beings. I suppose that thisletter must be interpreted as my admission of inefficiency."

  It was late when Jim had finished this letter. He was, he thought, alonein the house. He laid down his pen. A sudden overpowering desire cameupon him for Exham, for the old haunts of his childhood. There itseemed to him that some of his old confidence in life might return tohim. He dropped his arm along the back of his chair and with hisforehead on his wrist he gave a groan of utter desolation.

  Mrs. Flynn, coming in at the open door, heard the groan and saw thebeautiful brown head bowed as if in despair. She stopped aghast.

  "Oh, my Lord!" she gasped under her breath. "Him, too! Mrs. Penelopeain't the only one that's broken up, then! Ain't it fierce! I wonderwhat's happened to the poor young ones! I'd like to go to Mr. Sara'swake. I would that! Oh, my Lord! Let's see. He's had two baths today. Ican't get him into another. I'll make him some tea. You have to cheer upeither to eat or take a bath."

  She slipped into the kitchen and there began to bang the range andrattle teacups. When she came in, Jim was sitting erect and stern-faced,sorting papers. Mrs. Flynn set the tray down on the desk with a thud.She was going to take no refusal.

  "Drink that tea, Boss Still Jim, and eat them toasted crackers. Youdidn't eat any supper to speak of and you're as pindlin' as a knittingneedle. Don't slop on your clean suit. That khaki is hard to iron."

  She stood close beside him and made an imaginary thread an excuse forlaying her hand caressingly on Jim's shoulder. "You're a fine lad," shesaid, uncertainly. "I wish I'd been your mother."

  The touch was too much for Jim. He dropped the teacup and, turning, laidhis face against Mrs. Flynn's shoulder.

  "I could pretend you were tonight, very easily," he said brokenly, "ifyou'd smooth my hair for me."

  Mrs. Flynn hugged the broad shoulders to her and smoothed back Jim'shair.

  "I've been wanting to get my hands on it ever since I first saw it, lad.God knows it's as soft as silk and just the color of oak leaves inwinter. There, now, hold tight a bit, my boy. We can weather any stormif we have a friend to lean on, and I'm that, God knows. It's a fearfulcold I've caught, God knows. You'll have to excuse my snuffing. Therenow! There! God knows that in my waist I've got a letter for you fromMrs. Penelope. She seemed used up tonight. Her jewel of a husband tookdope tonight, so she and I sat in peace while she wrote this. I'll leaveit on your tray. Good-night to you, Boss. Don't slop on your suit."