CHAPTER XXII
JIM PLANS A LAST FIGHT
"The coyotes are going leaving behind them bleaching bones. The Indians are going leaving a few arrow heads and water vessels. What will the whites leave?"
MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.
Jim was angry. All night he lay staring into the dark with his wrathaccumulating until it finally focused itself, not on the Director or onSara or on the farmers, but on himself! He reviewed the yearsmercilessly. He saw how he had refused again and again to shoulder theresponsibilities that belonged to him--belonged, because of his fitnessto carry them. Charlie Tuck and Iron Skull both had done what they couldto make him see, but wrapped in his futile dreams he had refused tolook, and, he told himself, long before he had left Exham, his fatherhad tried to set him on the right path but he always had put off thequest on which his father had sent him, always thrust it over intotomorrow when today was waiting for his start.
The very peak of his anger was reached when it suddenly came home to Jimthat he had failed his father, had proved renegade to old Exham.
Three months! A cool dismissal after over eight years of his heart'sblood had been given to the Service! Jim groaned, then sat erect.
"Serves you right, you dreaming fool! Nobody to blame but yourself!Three months! And in that time the farmers will elect Fleckenstein toCongress and the open fight for repudiation will be on!"
Jim groaned again. Then abruptly he jumped out of bed, turned on thelight, and looked at the little picture of Pen on the wall.
"Pen," he said, "Fleckenstein shan't be elected! I'm going out of thisProject, fighting like a hound. I've been a quitter all my life, I'lladmit, but I'm going to put up my fists at the end. I'll rush the workhere and I'll keep Fleckenstein out of Congress. I'll spend no timebelly-aching but I'll stand up to this like a man. Honestly, I will,Penelope."
Dawn was coming in at the window. Jim filled the bathtub and took a coldplunge. The sun was just rimming the mountains when he began to tune uphis automobile. He filled the tank with gasoline and cranked the engineand was starting out the door when old Suma-theek appeared. Jim stopped.
"Where you go, Boss?" asked the Indian.
A sudden desire to talk to Iron Skull's old friend made Jim say, "Get inand ride to the bridge with me, Suma-theek."
The chief clambered into the seat by Jim. "Suma-theek, the Big Boss atWashington has given me three months before I must leave the dam."
"Why?" asked Suma-theek.
"Because I darn well deserve it. I've got everybody here sore at me.Everybody on this Project hates me, so he's afraid it will hurt all thedams the Big Sheriff at Washington wants to build for all the whites."
"He's a heap fool, that Big Boss at Washington. All the people that knowyou love you in their hearts. It hurt your heart because you have leavedam?"
Jim nodded. The old Indian eyed him keenly. Then his lean, bronze faceturned sad. "Why you suppose Great Spirit no care how much heart aches?Why you suppose he let that little To-hee bird all time sing love toyou, then no let you have your love? Maybe, Boss Still, all those thingsyou believe, all those things you work for, Great Spirit think no use.Huh?"
"The Great Spirit didn't explain anything to us, Suma-theek, but he gaveus our dreams. I want to fix my tribe's dream so firmly it can never beforgotten. As for my own little dream of love, what does it matter?"
Suma-theek responded to Jim's wistful smile with an old man's smile oflost illusions. "Dreams are always before or behind. They are neverhere. You are young. Yours are before. Suma-theek is old. His arebehind. Boss Still, you no sabez one thing. All great dreams of anytribe they built by man for love of woman."
Jim stared for a moment at the purple shadow of the Elephant. Then hestopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment themachine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.
Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down intothe valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousandfeet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had notprevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid greenof alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town,the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that standlike deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed toJim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordlessbrooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had beenuttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering themto countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desertsand.
In Cabillo Jim went, after a hasty breakfast, to see John Haskins.Haskins was a banker and a Harvard man who had come to Cabillo thirtyyears before with bad lungs. He was, Jim thought, an impartial, thoughkeen, observer of events in the valley. He was in the banker's officebut a few minutes.
"Mr. Haskins," he said, "do you consider fifty dollars an acre too heavya debt for the farmers to carry on their farms?"
"Not for the experienced irrigation farmer," replied Haskins.
Jim paused thoughtfully. "Experienced! And not twenty per cent. of themwill be experienced." He made an entry in his notebook, then asked, "Isten years too short a time to give the farmers to pay for the dam?"
"Not with wise cropping."
"Is it possible to find sufficient water power market to practically payfor the dam, without reference to the crops?" Jim went on.
"Yes," answered Haskins.
"If a group of farmers and business men will assume a debt,voluntarily, then repudiate it, are they sufficiently responsiblepersons to assume for all time the handling of the irrigation system andwater power the government is developing for them?" Jim's voice was slowand biting.
Haskins answered clearly, "No!"
Jim's last question made Haskins smile. "Is this an intelligent group ofmen, these farmers and business men?"
"Unusually so, especially the men who have been long in the desert andhave struggled with its vicissitudes. Some of the Mexican farmers aredifficult to handle, though, because they don't understand what thegovernment is trying to do. For heaven's sake, Manning, why thiscatechism?"
Jim laughed. "Oh, I want your opinion to quote. I'm about to put up afight against Fleckenstein."
"But that will be hardly proper, will it, considering your job? Not butwhat I think Fleckenstein ought to be fought!"
"Oh, I'm not going on the stump. I'm merely going to fight him byattending to certain portions of my job that I've always neglected."
Jim rose and Haskins shook his head ruefully. "More power to your elbow,old man. But nothing can beat Fleckenstein now, I'm afraid."
"I'm going to mighty well try it," said Jim as he hurried out the door.
His next visit was along the irrigation canal to a point where hisirrigation engineer was watching the work on a small power station.
"Hello, Marlow, how is Murphy doing?"
Marlow laughed. "I made him timekeeper. He's assumed the duties ofpoliceman, ward boss and of advertising agent for you."
"Where is he?" asked Jim.
"Coming right along the road there now."
Jim started the machine on to meet the stocky figure that Marlow pointedout.
Murphy grinned broadly as Jim invited him into the machine. "I want totalk to you, Murphy? How does the job go?"
"Aw, it's no job! It's a joy ride. I thought I knew every farmer in thecounty but I didn't. A new one turns up every day to tell the LittleBoss how to irrigate."
"Murphy," said Jim, "how do you size up Fleckenstein?"
Murphy looked at Jim curiously. "Just like everyone else does, as acrook."
"How much pull has he with the farmers?"
Murphy shrugged his shoulders. "How much pull would the devil himselfhave if he promised repudiation? Tell me that, Boss!"
"Is the chap who is running against him any good?"
"Who, Ives? Is a bag of jelly an implement of war? What have you
got onyour mind, Boss?"
"Well, to tell the truth, Murphy, I've just come to! The election isjust three months off, isn't it? I am going to try to lick Fleckensteinin that time."
"Can't be done, Boss, unless you'll take the stump yourself."
"Of course, that's out of the question," replied Jim. "But this is whatI'm going to do. I'm going to see every farmer in the valley and have agood talk with him. I'm going to make him see this Project as I do. AndI'm going to send for half a dozen of the best men in the Department ofAgriculture to come out here and get the newcomers interested inscientific farming. I'm not going to mention Fleckenstein's name."
Murphy looked at Jim, then out at the irrigating ditch along which themachine was moving slowly. "Boss," he said, "go ahead if it'll ease youup any, but you might as well try to fight a hydrophobia skunk with aperfume atomizer as to try them high-brow methods on Fleckenstein."
Jim laughed. "Well, do you know of a better method, Murphy?"
"Yes, the good, old-fashioned way of putting up more whisky, more moneyand more free rides than the other fellow does."
Jim turned the machine back toward the power station. "Of course, youknow that that is out of the question, Murphy."
"Well, what do you want me to do, Boss?" asked Murphy.
"Tomorrow is Sunday," said Jim. "I want you to come up to my house anddiscuss with me the characteristics of every man in the valley. I don'tknow anyone better qualified to know them."
"I'll be there," said Murphy, climbing from the machine. He watched Jimdrive away. "There's something about him that gets under my skin," saidthe ex-saloonkeeper. "I'll be holding his hand, next. Poor snoozer!Think of him trying to fight mud like Fleckenstein. But I'll back him ifit'll relieve his mind any."
Jim was back at the dam by mid-afternoon. He found Pen with Mrs. Flynnin the shining little kitchen of his adobe.
"Penelope," he said, "is there any way we can rob Sara of his poisonfangs? Certainly sending him away will do little good. I have beenthinking of giving him his choice of being under espionage or of beingturned over to the government. I've played with him, Pen, a little toolong. Now that it's too late, I'm going to lock the door."
Mrs. Flynn looked frightened. She never had seen this expression onJim's face before. The scowl between his eyes was deep, his jaw wastense and his eyes were too large and too bright. But Pen's face flushedeagerly.
"You are angry at last, Jimmy! Thank heaven for that! We can watch Sara,easily, if you will use your authority. And oh, I do so want to stay andhelp! Your temper is touched at last, Jim. I am thankful to Freet forthat."
Jim nodded grimly. "Will you go over to the tent with me? Or had Ibetter have it out with Sara alone?"
"Neither," said Pen. "I'll settle him myself. I feel like having a scrapwith someone. What else are you going to do, Still? Shall you reportFreet?"
"That's out of the question. Freet is the least of my troubles, anyhow.I'll tell you all my plans." He looked from Mrs. Flynn, whose anxiouseyes did not leave his face, to Pen, with her cheeks showing the scarletof excitement. Something in their tense interest in him was suddenlyvery comforting to Jim and he smiled at them. And though it was alittle strained it was the old flashing, sweet smile that those whoknew him loved.
"I don't know how I'm to get through the next few weeks," he said,"unless you two are very kind and polite to me."
Mrs. Flynn suddenly threw her apron over her head. "God knows," shesobbed, "I've waited for you to smile this weary time! I've washed andmended all your clothes and cleaned your room and cooked everything Iever heard of and not a smile could I get. I thought you had somethingincurable!"
Jim made a long stride across the room and hugged Mrs. Flynn, boyishly."Didn't you tell me you felt like my mother? Don't you know mothers haveto see through their boy's stupidity and selfishness down to the realtrouble that lies underneath? No one will do it but a mother!"
Mrs. Flynn wiped her eyes on her apron. "God knows I'm an old fool," shesaid. "Change that dirty khaki suit so's I can wash it."
Jim chuckled and turned to Pen. She was watching the little tableau withall her hungry heart in her eyes.
"Pen! Oh, my dearest!" breathed Jim. Then he paused with a glance at hisnear-mother, who immediately began to rattle the stove lids.
"Get out and take a walk, the two of you. God knows I'm a good Catholic,but there's some things--get out, the two of you! Let your nerves easeup a bit. Sure we all pound and twang like a wet tent in the wind."
Out on the trail Jim spoke a little breathlessly: "Pen! If you wouldjust let me put my head down on your shoulder, if you'd put your dearcheek on mine and smooth my hair, the heaven of it would carry methrough the next few weeks. Just that much, Pen, is all I'd ask for!"
Tears were in Pen's eyes as she looked up into the fine, pleading face."Jim, I can't!"
"You wouldn't be taking it from Sara."
"Sara! Poor Sara! He wants no embraces from anyone! I'm no more marriedto Sara than a nurse to her patient. But I mean that as long as thingsare as they are, the honest thing, the safe thing, is for me notto--to--Oh, Jim, it's not square to any of us. We must keep on thestraight, clear basis of friendship!"
But Jim had seen Pen's heart in her eyes and the call of it was almostmore than his lonely heart could bear.
"Great heavens, Pen!" he cried. "Life is so short! We need each otherso! What does it profit us or the world that all your wealth oftenderness should go untouched and all my hunger for it unsatisfied? Ifyour touch on my hair will brace me for the fight of my life, why shouldyou deny it to me?"
Pen tried to laugh. "Still, what's happened to your morals?"
Jim replied indignantly: "You can't apply a system of ethics to yourcheek against mine except to say it's all wrong that I can't have younow, in my great need. And I warn you, Pen, I shall come to you thirstyuntil at last you give me what is mine. Only your cheek to mine is all Iask for, Penny."
Pen looked up at the pleading beauty of Jim's eyes. "Don't plead withme, Jim," she half whispered, "or I think my heart will break."
The two looked away from each other to the Elephant. The great beastseemed to sleep in the afternoon sun.
"Tell me about your plans, Still," said Pen, her voice not altogethersteady.
"Murphy thinks I'm a fool," said Jim. "Perhaps I am. But Oscar Ames hasbeen a good deal of a surprise to me: Just as soon as I took the troubleto explain the concrete matter to him, he got it instantly. And in a wayhe got my talk about the new social obligations you showed me."
Pen interrupted eagerly: "You don't know how much you did in that talk,Jim. Oscar has discovered you and he's as proud as Columbus. He has mademe tell him everything I know about you. You see you have that rarecapacity for making anyone you will take the trouble to talk to feel asif he was your only friend and confidant. Oscar has discovered that youare misunderstood, that he is the only person that really understandsyou and he's out now explaining to his neighbors how little they reallyknow about concrete."
Jim looked surprised. "I don't know what I did, except to follow yourinstructions, but if it worked on Ames, it ought to work on the rest. Ibelieve that after a few more talks with Ames, he will work againstFleckenstein, Pen, and that I will accomplish it by just talking the damto him until he understands the technical side of it and the ideal Ihave about it. And if it will influence him, why not the others?"
Pen looked at him thoughtfully. "I believe you can do it, Jim. A sort ofsilent campaign, eh? And then what?"
"Well, if I can keep Fleckenstein out of Congress by those means, Ibelieve that this project will never repudiate its debt! I am going toget the Department of Agriculture to send a group of experts out here atonce. They will help not only the old farmers who over-irrigate but thenew farmers who can't farm. And I'm going to get the farmers who havebeen successful to co-operate with the farmers who have failed. If Ionly had more time!
"You have three months before election," said Pen. "A lot can be done inthree months.
"
Jim shrugged his shoulders. "I can only do my limit. Among other thingsI'm going to try to get the bankers and business men in Cabillo to fightthe inflation of land values here on the Project. Incidentally, I'mgoing to keep on building my dam."
"How can I help?" asked Pen.
"I've told you how," said Jim, quietly.
"Oh, Still, that's not fair!" exclaimed Pen.
"Why not?" asked Jim, coolly. Pen flushed and looked away. They werenearing the tent house and she spoke hastily:
"I'll go in and talk with Sara."
"Better let me," said Jim.
"No," said Pen, "every woman has an inalienable right to bully andintimidate her own husband."
Jim laughed and left her, reluctantly. Pen went into the tent. Sara waslooking flushed and tired. The look had been growing on him of late. Hehad been unusually tractable for a day or so and Pen's heart smote heras she greeted him. No matter how he tried her, Sara never ceased to bea pitiful and a tragic figure to her in his wrecked and aborted youth.
"Sara," she said, her voice very gentle and her touch very tender asshe held a glass of water for him, "Jim wanted to come in and talk toyou but I wouldn't let him."
Sara pushed the glass away. "Why not?"
"Because you and he quarrel so. Sara, it's a fair fight. You warned Jimthat you would ruin him. He says you may have your choice of beingwatched or turned over to the authorities."
"He is a mutton head!" said Sara. "I suppose he thinks the crux of thematter is that seance with Freet. As if I'd do as coarse work as that!That's what I'd like, to be turned over to the authorities. Couldn't Itell a pretty story about the meeting with Freet up here? Freet actuallythought Jim would come across with the contract! But that wasn't what Iwas after."
"Sara, when you talk like that, I despise you," said Pen.
"You despise me because I'm a cripple," returned Sara. "Why can't you behonest about it?"
"Don't you know me yet, Sara?" asked Pen, sitting down on the foot ofhis couch and looking at him entreatingly. "Don't you know that if youhad taken your injury like a man, you'd have gotten a hold on mytenderness and respect that nothing could have destroyed? Sara, I'vewatched you degenerate for eight years, but I never realized to what adepth you had sunk until you came to the Project."
"What do you see in the Project," said Sara. "What does it really matterwhether private or public interests control it? Who really cares?"
"Lots of people care. Jim cares."
"Pshaw!" sneered Sara. "All Jim Manning really cares about is his ownpigheaded sense of race and nationality."
"Jim needs that sense for his propelling power," said Pen. "I believethat just as soon as a man loses his sense of nationality, he loses alot of his social force. Love of country--a man that hasn't it lackssomething very fine, like family pride and honor. Jim's sense of race isthe keynote to his character. And just as much as the New Englandershave lost that sense, have they lost their grip on the trend of thenation. They are the type that can't do without it."
Sara eyed Pen curiously. She had turned to look out over the desertdistances so that Sara saw her profile clean cut against the sky. Shewas only a girl and yet she had lived through much. Sara looked at hernoble head, high arched above her ears; at her short nose and full softmouth, at her straight brow, all blending in an outline that was that ofthe thinker, infinitely sad in its intelligence.
"That was a very highbrow statement of yours, Pen," he said, lessharshly than usual. "How did you come to think about these things?"
Pen turned to look at him. "Marrying you made me," she said. "I had touse my mind. I had no family. I had no talents. I had to teach myself asense of proportion that would keep you from wrecking me. I wanted toget to look at myself as one human living with millions of other humansand not as Pen, the center of her own universe." Pen laughed a littlewistfully. "Since I couldn't mother children of my own, naturally, I hadto mother the world."
Sara grunted. "Huh! Who can say my life has been altogether a failure?"
Sudden tears sprang to Pen's eyes. "Why, Sara, what a dear thing to say!And I thought you would remove my hair because of Jim's message."
The sneer returned to Sara's voice. "You ask Jim if he ever heard oflocking the barn too late? Tell him to bring on his 'armed guards.'"
Pen was startled. "Sara, what have you done?"
Sara laughed. "If you and Jim don't know, I'm not the proper one to tellyou! One of your gentleman friends is outside, evidently waiting foryou."
Pen looked out. Old Suma-theek was standing on the trail, arms folded,watching the tent patiently. He had had one interview with Sara soonafter the crippled man had appeared at the dam. The talk had beendesultory and in Pen's presence, but never after could the old Indian beinduced to come into the tent.
"He like a broken backed snake, your buck," he had said calmly to Pen,whom he had obviously adored from the first.
Pen came down the trail to see what Suma-theek wanted. She knew therewas no hurrying him, so she sat down on a stone and waited. Suma-theekseated himself beside her and rolled a cigarette. After he had smokedhalf of it, he said:
"Boss Still Jim, he heap sad in his heart."
Pen nodded.
"You love him, Pen Squaw?" asked Suma-theek, earnestly.
"We all do," replied Pen. "He and I have known each other many, manyyears."
"Don't talky-talk!" cried Suma-theek impatiently. "I mean you love himwith a big love?"
Pen looked into Suma-theek's face. She had grown very close to the oldIndian. And then, as if the flood in her heart was beyond her control,she said:
"You will never tell, Suma-theek?" and as the Apache shook his head shewent on eagerly, "I love him so much that after a while I must go away,old friend, or my heart will break!"
The old Indian shook his head wonderingly. "Whites are crazy fools," hegroaned. "You sabez he be here only three months more?"
Pen started. "What do you mean, Suma-theek?"
"You no tell 'em!" warned the old chief. "He tell Suma-theek thismorning. Big Boss in Washington tell 'em he only stay three months, thenbe on any Projects no more."
Pen sat appalled. "Oh, Suma-theek, that can't be true! You couldn't haveheard right. I'll go and ask him now."
Suma-theek laid a hand on her arm. "You no talk to him about it! Youlast one he want to know. I tell you so you go love him, then he no carewhat happen."
"Oh, Suma-theek, you don't understand! He loves the dam. It will breakhis heart to leave it. Even I couldn't comfort him for that. Are yousure you are right?"
Yet even as she repeated the question, Pen's own sick heart answered.This was what had put the new strain into Jim's face, the new pleadinginto his voice.
"How shall I help him," she moaned.
"You no tell him, you sabez," repeated Suma-theek. "He want you think heBoss here long as he can. All men's like that with their squaw."
"I won't tell him," promised Pen. "But what shall I do?" She claspedand unclasped her fingers, then she sprang to her feet. "I know! I know!It will be like a strong arm under his poor overburdened shoulders!"
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