Union Pacific
Page 6
“Red, you always are slow, except with a horse or gun. And lately you’ve been . . . well, you don’t move out of your tracks.”
Neale often exaggerated out of a desire to tease his friend. Nobody else dared to banter King.
“Wal, I didn’t sign up with this heah outfit to run uphill all day,” replied King.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll get Casey to be my lineman . . . no . . . I’ve a better idea . . . Casey is slow, too. I’ll use one of the niggers.”
King gave a hitch to his belt and a cold gleam chased away the lazy blue warmth from his eyes. “Go ahaid,” he drawled, “an’ they’ll bury the nigger tomorrow night.”
Neale laughed. He knew Red hated darkies—he suspected the Texan had thrown a gun on more than a few—and he knew there surely would be a funeral in camp if he changed his lineman.
“All right, Red, I don’t want blood spilled,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll be a martyr and put up with you . . . What do you say to a day off? Let’s ride over to Slingerland’s.”
The cowboy’s red face slowly wrinkled into a smile. “Wal, I shore was wonderin’ what in the hell made you rustle so lately. I reckon nothin’ would suit me better. I’ve been wonderin’, too, about our little girl.”
“Red, let’s wade through camp and see what we can get to take over.”
“Man, you mean jest steal?” queried King in mild surprise.
“No. We’ll ask for things. But if we can’t get what we want that way, why . . .” replied Neale thoughtfully. “Slingerland did not have even a towel over there. Think of that girl. She’s been used to comfort, if not luxury. I could tell . . . Let’s see, I’ve a mirror and an extra brush. Red, come on.”
Eagerly they went over their scant belongings, generously approximating whatever might be made of possible use to an unfortunate girl in a wild and barren country. Then they fared forth into the camp. Everyone in the corps contributed something. The chief studied Neale’s heated face and a smile momentarily changed his stern features—a wise smile, a little sad, and full of light.
“I suppose you’ll marry her,” he said.
Neale blushed like a girl. “It . . . that hadn’t occurred . . . to me, sir,” he stammered.
Henney laughed, but his glance, too, was kind. “Sure you’ll marry her,” he said. “You saved her life. And, boy, you’ll be a big man of the U.P. someday. Chief engineer or some big job. What could be finer? Romance, boy! The little waif of the caravan . . . you’ll send her back to Omaha to school . . . she’ll grow into a beautiful woman! She’ll have a host of admirers, but you’ll be the . . .”
Neale got out of that tent with tingling ears. He was used to the badinage of the men and had always retaliated with a sharp and ready tongue. But here this half kind and half humorous talk encroached upon what he felt to be the secret side of his nature—the romantic and the dreamful side—to which just such fancies as he had heard were unconsciously dear. He could have had them without ever a conscious realization of any sense or seriousness in them.
* * * * *
Early the next morning Neale and King rode out on the way to Slingerland’s.
The sun was warm when they reached the valley through which ran the stream that led up to the cabin. Spring was in the air. The leaves of cottonwood and willow added their fresh green to the darker green of pine. Bluebells showed in the grass along the trail; there were lavender and yellow flowers unfamiliar to Neale; trout rose and splashed on the surface of the pools, and the way was melodious with the humming of bees and the singing of birds.
Slingerland saw their coming and strode out to meet them with hearty greeting.
“Is she all right?” queried Neale abruptly.
“No, she ain’t,” replied Slingerland, shaking his shaggy head. “She won’t eat or move or talk. She’s wastin’ away. She just sits or lays with thet awful look in her eyes.”
“Can’t you make her talk?”
“Wal, she’ll say no to most anythin’. There was three times she asked when you was comin’ back. Then she quit askin’. I reckon she’s forgot you. But she’s never forgot that bloody massacre. It’s there in her eyes.”
Neale dismounted, and, untying the pack from his saddle, he laid it down, removed saddle and bridle, and turned the horse loose. He did this automatically, while his mind was busy.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Over thar under the pines whar the brook spills out of the spring. Thet’s the only place she’ll walk to. I believe she likes to listen to the water. An’ she’s always afraid.”
“I’ve fetched a pack of things for her,” said Neale. “Come on, Red.”
“Shore you go alone,” replied the cowboy, hanging back. “Girls is not my job.”
So Neale approached alone. The spot was green, fragrant, shady, bright with flowers, musical with murmuring water. Presently he spied her—a drooping forlorn little figure. The instant he saw her, he felt glad and sad at once. She started quickly at his step and turned. He remembered the eyes, but hardly the face. It had grown thinner and whiter than the one he had in mind.
My Lord, she’s going to die, thought Neale. What can I do . . . what can I say? He walked directly, but slowly up to her, aware of her staring eyes, and confused by them. “Hello, little girl, I’ve brought you some things,” he said, and tried to speak cheerfully.
“Oh . . . is . . . it you?” she said.
“Yes, it’s Neale. I hope you’ve not forgotten me.”
There came a fleeting change over her, but not in her face, he thought, because not a muscle moved and the white stayed white. It must have been in her eyes, although he could not tell. He bent over to untie the pack.
“I’ve brought you a lot of things,” he said. “I hope you’ll find them useful. Here . . .”
She did not look at the open pack or pay any attention to him. The drooping posture had been resumed and the somber staring at the brook. Neale watched her in despair, and, watching, he divined that only the most infinite patience and magnetism and power could bring her out of her brooding long enough to give Nature a chance. He recognized how unequal he was to the task. But the impossible or the unattainable had always roused Neale’s spirit. Defeat angered him. This girl was alive—she was not hurt physically—he believed she could be made to forget that tragic night of blood and death. He set his teeth, and swore he would find the tact of a woman, the patience of a saint, the skill of a physician, the love of a father—anything to hold back this girl from the grave into which she was fading.
Reaching out, he touched her. “Can you understand me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she murmured. Her voice was thin, faraway, an effort.
“I saved your life.”
“I wish you had let me die.”
Her reply was quick with feeling, and it thrilled Neale because it was proof that he could stimulate or aggravate her mind.
“But I did save you. Now you owe me something.”
“What?”
“Why, gratitude . . . enough to want to live, to try to help yourself.”
“No . . . no,” she whispered, and faded back into the somber apathy.
Neale could scarcely elicit another word from her, and by way of change he held out different articles he had brought—scarves, a shawl, a mirror—and made her look at them. Her own face in the mirror did not interest her. He tried to appeal to a girl’s vanity. She had none.
“Your hair is all tangled,” he said, bringing forth comb and brush. “Here, smooth it out.”
“No . . . no . . . no,” she moaned.
“All right. I’ll do it for you,” he stated. Surprised at finding her passive when he had expected resistance, he began to comb out the tangled tresses. In his earnestness he did not perceive how singular or ludicrous his action might be. And she had a mass of hair that began to smooth out and brighten under his hand. He became absorbed in his task, and failed to see King approach.
The cowboy was utterly amazed, and
presently he grinned his delight. Silently he took this to be an indication that the girl was all right and no longer to be feared.
“Wal, shore thet’s fine,” he drawled. “Neale, I always knowed you was a lady’s man.” And King sat down beside them. The girl’s face was half hidden under the mass of hair and her head was lowered. Neale gave King a warning glance, meant to convey that he was not to be funny.
“This is my cowboy friend, Larry Red King,” said Neale. “He was with me when I . . . I found you.”
“Larry . . . Red . . . King,” murmured the girl. “My name is . . . Allie.”
Again Neale had penetrated into her somber locked mind. What she said astounded him so that he dropped the brush and stared at King. As for King—his name spoken that way seemed to affect him strangely. He lost his grin. He caught a glimpse of her face, and then his own grew troubled.
“Allie . . . I shore . . . am glad to meet you,” he said, and there was more feeling in his voice than Neale had ever heard. King was not slow of comprehension. He began to talk in his drawling way. Neale heard that talk with a smile he tried to hide, but he liked King the better for his simplicity. This gun-throwing cowboy had a big heart.
King, however, did not linger for long. His attempts to get the girl to talk grew weaker and ended, and, after another glance at the tragic wan face, he got up and thoughtfully slouched away with his cowboy’s gait.
“So your name is Allie,” said Neale. “Well, Allie what?”
She did not respond to one in a hundred questions and this was one that found no lodgment in her mind.
“Will you braid your hair now?” he asked.
The answer was the low and monotonous negative, but, nevertheless, her hands sought her hair and parted it and braided it mechanically. This encouraged Neale more than anything else and taught him that there were habits of mind into which he could turn her. In this way he got her to walk along the brook and likewise made her eat and drink.
At the end of that day he was more exhausted than he would have been after a hard climb. It had developed that he could now and then draw her out of her strange clamped state—and that he could get some kind of passive unconscious obedience from her.
“Reckon you’d better stay over tomorrer,” suggested Slingerland. His concern for the girl could not have been greater had she been his own daughter. “Allie . . . thet was her name, you said. Wal, it’s pretty an’ easy to say.”
* * * * *
Next day Allie showed an almost imperceptible improvement. It might have been Neale’s imagination making him believe what he hoped. He was sure of one thing, however, and that was that, although the trapper and the cowboy could not get any response from her, there was proof that he could. It affected him in a way new to him. There was a stir of emotion deep within him—a feeling that seemed old, but had never before been called up.
An hour before sunset Neale decided to depart, and told King to get the horses. Then he went to Allie, undecided what to say, feeling that he must have tortured her this day with his ceaseless importunities. How small the chance that he might strike interest from her once more. Yet the desire was strong within him to try.
“Allie!” He repeated her name before she heard him. Then she looked up. The depths—the tragic lonesomeness of her eyes haunted Neale. “I’m going back. I’ll come again soon.”
She made a quick movement—seized his arm. He remembered the close tight grip of her hands. “Don’t go!” she implored. Black fear stared out of her eyes.
Neale was thunderstruck at the suddenness of her speech—at its intensity. Also, he felt an unfamiliar kind of joy that seemed selfish—not concerned with this new and surprising sign of her sanity. He began to explain that he must return to work, that he would soon come to see her again, and, even as he talked, she faded back into that dull and somber apathy.
Neale rode away with only one conviction gained from the developments of the two days, and it was that he would be restless and haunted until he could go to her again. Something big and moving—something equal to his ambition for his work on the great railroad—had risen in him.
Chapter Seven
Neale rode to Slingerland’s cabin twice during the ensuing fortnight, and did not note any improvement in Allie’s condition or demeanor. The trapper, however, assured Neale that she was gradually gaining a little, taking slight interest in things, and he said that, if Neale could only spend enough time there, the girl might recover. This made Neale thoughtful.
General Lodge and his staff had decided to station several engineers in camp along the line of the railroad for the purpose of studying the drift of snow in winter. It was important that all information possible should be obtained during the next several winters. There would be severe hardship attached to this work, but Neale volunteered to serve, and the chief complimented him warmly. He was to study the action of snow drift along Sherman Pass.
Upon his next visit to Slingerland he had the project soberly in mind and meant to broach it upon the first opportunity.
This morning when Neale and King rode up to the cabin Allie did not appear as she had on the last occasion of their arrival. Neale missed her.
Slingerland came out with his usual welcome.
“Where’s Allie?” asked Neale.
“Wal, she went in jest now. She saw you comin’ an’ then run in to hide, I reckon. Girls is queer critters.”
“She watched for me . . . for us . . . and then ran?” queried Neale curiously.
“Wal, she ain’t done nuthin’ but watch fer you since you went away last. An’ son, thet’s a new wrinkle fer Allie. An’ run? Wal, like a skeered deer.”
“Wonder what that means,” pondered Neale. Whatever it meant it sent a little tingle of pleasure along his pulses. “Red, I want to have a serious talk with Slingerland,” he announced thoughtfully.
“Shore, go ahaid an’ talk,” drawled the Southerner as he slipped his saddle and turned his horse loose with a slap on the flank. “I reckon I’ll take a gun an’ stroll off fer a while.”
Neale led the trapper aside to a shady spot under the pines and there unburdened himself of his plan for the winter.
“Son, you’ll freeze to death!” ejaculated the trapper.
“But I must build a cabin, of course, and prepare for severe weather,” replied Neale.
Slingerland shook his shaggy head. “I reckon you ain’t knowin’ these winters hyar as I know them. But thet long ridge you call Sherman Pass . . . it ain’t so far we couldn’t get thar on snowshoes except in the wurst weather. I reckon you can stay with me hyar.”
“Good!” exclaimed Neale. “And now about Allie.”
“Wal, what about her?”
“Shall I leave her here or send her back to Omaha with the first caravan or send her back to Fort Fetterman with the troops?”
“Son, she’s your charge, but I say leave her hyar, ’specially now you can be with us. She’d die or go crazy if you sent her. Why, she won’t even say if she’s got a livin’ relation. I reckon she hasn’t. She’d be better hyar. I’ve come to be fond of Allie. She’s strange. She’s like a spirit. But she’s more human lately.”
“I’m glad you say that, Slingerland,” replied Neale. “What to do about her has worried me. I’ll decide right now. I’ll leave here with you and I hope to heaven I’m doing best by her.”
“Wal, she ain’t strong enough to travel far. We didn’t think of that.”
“That settles it, then,” said Neale, in relief. “Time enough to decide when she is well again . . . Tell me about her.”
“Son, thar’s nuthin’ to tell. She’s done jest the same, except fer thet takin’ to watchin’ fer you. Reckon thet means a good deal.”
“What?”
“Wal, I don’t figger girls as well as I do other critters,” answered Slingerland reflectively. “But I’d say Allie shows interest in you.”
“Slingerland! You don’t mean she . . . she cares for me?” demanded Neale.
“Then it’ll be a fight between me and that memory?”
“So I take it, son. But recollect I ain’t no . . . no mind doctor. I jest feel you could make her fergit thet hell if you tried hard enough.”
“I’ll try . . . hard as I can,” replied Neale resolutely, yet with a certain softness. “I’m sorry for her. I saved her. Why shouldn’t I do everything possible?”
“Wal, she’s alone.”
“No, Allie has friends. You and Red and me. That’s three.”
“Son, I reckon you don’t figger me. Listen. You’re a fine strappin’ young feller an’ good-lookin’. More’n thet, you’ve got some . . . some quality like an Injun’s . . . thet you can feel but can’t tell about. You needn’t be insulted fer I know Injuns thet beat white men holler fer all thet’s noble. Anyway, you attract. An’ now if you keep on with all thet . . . thet . . . wal, usin’ yourself to make Allie fergit the bloody murder of all she loved . . . to make her mind clear again, why sooner or later she’s a-goin’ to breathe an’ live through you. Jest as a flower lives offen the sun. Thet’s all, I reckon.”
Neale’s bronze cheek had paled a little. “Well, if that’s all, that’s easy,” he replied with a cool bright smile that showed the latent spirit in him. “If it’s only that . . . why she can have me . . . Slingerland, I’ve no ties now. The last one was broken when my mother died . . . not long ago. I’m alone, too . . . I’d do more for any innocent girl . . . and for this poor child Allie . . . whose life I saved . . . I’d do anything.”
Slingerland shoved out a horny hand and made a giant grip express what evidently just then he could not express in speech.
Upon returning to the cabin they found Allie had left her room. From appearances Neale concluded that she had made little use of the things he had brought her. He was conscious of something akin to impatience. He was not sure what he did feel. The situation had subtly changed and grown, all in that brief talk with Slingerland. Neale slowly walked out toward the brook where he expected to find her. It struck him suddenly that, if she had watched for him all week and had run when he came, then she must have wanted to see him but was afraid or shy or perverse. How like any girl! Possibly in the week past she had unconsciously grown a little away from her grief and if so . . . what might not have come into her head?