Union Pacific

by Zane Grey

  “Wal, it’s beyond my calculatin’,” the trapper said, out by the spring, where Neale followed him. “She jest changed, thet’s all. Not so much at first, though she sparked up after I give her your ring. I reckon it came little by little . . . An’ one day, why the cabin was full of sunshine! Since then, I’ve seen how she’s growed an’ brightened. Workin’, runnin’ after me . . . an’ always watchin’ fer you, Allie’s changed to what she is now. Oncet, far back, I recollect she said she had you to live for. Mebbe thet’s the secret. Anyhow she loves you as I never seen any man loved . . . An’, son, I reckon you oughter be somewhar’s near the kingdom of heaven!”

  Neale stole off by himself and walked in the twilight. The air was warm and sultry, full of fragrance, and the low chirp of crickets. Within his breast was a full uneasy sensation of imminent catastrophe. It was as if he must prepare to feel his heart burst presently. Something was rising in him—great—terrible—precious. It bewildered him to try to think of himself, of his strange emotions, when his mind seemed to hold only Allie.

  What then had happened? After a long absence up in the mountains he had returned to Slingerland’s valley home and to the little girl he had rescued and left there. He had left her frail, sick-minded, silent, somber, a pale victim to a horrible memory. He had found her an exceedingly amazing contrast to all she had been. She had grown strong, active, swift. She was as lovely as a wild rose. No dream of his idle fancy, but a fact! Then last—stirring him even as he tried intelligently to clarify and arrange this magic, this mystery—came the unbelievable and momentous and dazzling fact that she loved him. It was so plain that it seemed unreal. While near her he saw it, yet could not believe his eyes, felt it, but doubted his sensibilities. Still, now away from the distraction of her presence, with Slingerland’s eloquent words ringing in his ears, he realized the truth. Love of him had saved the girl’s mind and had made her beautiful and wonderful. He had heard of the infinite transforming power of love; here in Allie Lee was its manifestation. Whether or not he deserved such a blessing was not the question. It was his and he felt unutterably grateful and swore he would be worthy.

  Neale shirked the resurging thrilling intimation of what was happening within himself. It made him tremble. It seemed great and uplifting and terrible like the spirit that was driving him and his engineer comrades to build the railroad.

  * * * * *

  Darkness had set in when Neale returned to the cabin, the interior of which was lighted by blazing sticks in the huge stone fireplace.

  Slingerland was in the shadow, busy as usual, but laughing at some sally of King’s. The cowboy and Allie, however, were in plain sight. Neale needed only one look at King to divine what had come over that young man. Allie appeared perplexed.

  “He objects to my calling him Mister King . . . and even Larry,” she said.

  King suddenly looked sheepish.

  “Allie, this cowboy is a bad fellow with guns, ropes, horses . . . and, I suspect, with girls,” replied Neale severely.

  “Neale, he doesn’t look bad,” she rejoined. “You’re fooling me . . . He wants me to call him Reddy!”

  “Ahuh,” grunted Neale. He had a grim laugh on himself, for again he had felt a pang of jealousy. He knew what to expect from King or any other young man who ever had the wonderful good luck to get near Allie Lee. “All right, call him Reddy. I guess I can allow my future wife so much familiarity with my pard.”

  This confused Allie out of her sweet gravity and she blushed.

  “Shore you’re mighty kind,” drawled King, recovering. “More’n I reckoned on, from a fellar who’s shore lost his haid.”

  “I’ve lost more than that,” retorted Neale, “and I’m afraid a certain wild young cowboy I know has lost as much.”

  “Wal, I reckon somethin’ aboot this heah place of Slingerland’s draws on a fellar,” admitted King resignedly.

  Allie did not long stay confused by their sallies.

  “Neale, tell me . . .”

  “See heah, Allie, if you call me Reddy an’ him only Neale . . . why he’s a-goin’ to pitch into me,” interrupted King, with twinkling eyes. “An’ he’s shore a bad customer when he’s riled.”

  “Only Neale? What does he mean?” inquired Allie.

  “Beyond human conjecture,” replied Neale, laughing.

  “Wal, don’t you know his front name?” asked King.

  “Neale. I called him that,” she replied.

  “Haw! Haw! But it ain’t thet.”

  “Allie, my name is Warren,” said Neale. “You’ve forgotten.”

  “Oh? Well, it’s always been Neale . . . and always will be.”

  King rose and stretched his long arm for the pipe on the rude stone chimney. “Slingerland,” he drawled, “these heah young people need to find out who they are. An’ I reckon we’d do wal to go out an’ smoke an’ talk.”

  The trapper came forth from the shadows, and, as he filled his pipe, his keen bright gaze shifted from the task to his friends. “It’s good to see you an’ hyar you,” he said. “I was a youngster oncet. I missed . . . but thet’s no matter . . . Live while you may. Red, come with me. I’ve got a trap to set yit.”

  Allie flashed a glance at them. “It’s not so. You never set traps after dark.”

  “Wal, child, any excuse is better’n none. Neale wouldn’t never git to hyar you say all thet sweet talk as is comin’ to him . . . if two old fools hung ’round.”

  “Slingerland, I’ve throwed a gun fer less’n thet,” drawled King. “Aboot the fool part I ain’t shore, but I was twenty-five yesterday . . . an’ I’m sixteen today.”

  They lit their pipes with red embers scraped from the fire and, with wise nods at Neale and Allie, passed out into the dark.

  Allie’s eyes were on Neale, with shy eloquent intent, and directly the others had departed she changed her seat to one close to Neale, and nestled against his shoulder, her face to the fire.

  “They thought we wanted to make love, didn’t they?” she said dreamily.

  “I guess they did,” replied Neale. He was intensely fascinated. Did she want him to make love to her? A look at her face was enough to rebuke him for the thought. The shadows from the flickering fire played over her.

  “Tell me all about yourself,” she said. “Then about your work.”

  Neale told all that he thought would interest her about his youth in the East with a widowed mother, and the home that was broken up after she died, and his working his way through a course at civil engineering.

  “I was twenty when I first read about this U.P. railroad project,” he went on. “That was more than three years ago. It decided me on my career. I determined to be an engineer and be in the building of the road. No one had any faith in the railroad. I used to be laughed at. But I stuck. And . . . well, I had to steal some rides to get as far west as Omaha.

  “That was more than a year ago. I stayed there . . . waiting. Nothing was sure, except that the town grew like a mushroom. It filled with soldiers . . . and the worst crowd I ever saw. You can bet I was shaky when I finally got an audience with General Lodge and his staff. They had an office in a big storehouse. The place was full of men . . . soldiers . . . tramps. It struck me right off what a grim and discouraged bunch those engineers looked. I didn’t understand then, but I do now . . . Well, I asked for a job. Nobody appeared to hear me. It was hard to make yourself heard. I tried again . . . louder. An old engineer, who I know now . . . Henney . . . waved me aside. Just as if a job was unheard of.”

  Neale quickened and warmed as he progressed, aware now of a little hand tight on his, of an interest that would have made any story-telling a pleasure.

  “Well, I felt sick. Then mad. When I get mad, I do things. I yelled at that bunch . . . ‘Here, you men. I’ve walked and stole rides to get here. I’m no surveyor. You’re going to build a railroad. I want a job and I’m going to get it.’

  “My voice quieted the hubbub. The old engineer Henney looked queerly at me
.

  “‘Young man, there’s not going to be any railroad.’

  “Then I blurted out that there was going to be a railroad. Someone spoke up . . . ‘Who said that? Fetch him here.’ Pretty soon I was looking at Major-General Lodge. He was just from the war and he looked it . . . stern and dark, with hard lines and keen eyes. He glanced me over.

  “‘There is going to be a railroad?’ he questioned sharply.

  “‘Of course there is,’ I replied. I felt foolish, disappointed.

  “‘You’re right,’ he said, and I’ll never forget his eyes. ‘I can use a few more young fellows like you.’ And that’s how I got on the staff.

  “Well, we ran a quick survey west to the badlands . . . for it was out here that we must find success or failure. And, Allie, it’s all been like . . . like an adventure. The troops and horses and camps and trails . . . the Indian country with its threats from out of the air, it seemed . . . the wild places out here, deer, buffalo, panthers, trappers like Slingerland, scouts, and desperadoes . . . all began to get such a hold on me that I was wild. That might have been bad for me but for my work. I did well. Allie, I ran lines for the U.P. that no other engineer could run!”

  Neale paused, as much from the squeeze Allie suddenly gave him as for an instant’s rest.

  “I mean I had the nerve to tackle cliffs and dangerous slopes,” he went on. Then he told how Larry Red King had saved his life, and that recollection brought back his service to the cowboy, and then naturally followed the two dominating incidents of the summer.

  Allie lifted a blanched face and darkening eyes. “Neale! You were in danger!”

  “Oh, not much, I guess. But Red thought so.”

  “He saved you again! I . . . I’ll never forget that.”

  “Anyway, we’re square, for he’d have got shot sure the day the Indian sneaked up on him.” Allie shuddered here and shrank back to Neale, and he hastily resumed his story: “We’re great pards now, Red and me. He doesn’t say much, but his acts tell. He will not let me alone. He follows me everywhere. It’s a joke among the men. Well, Allie, it seems unbelievable that we have crossed the mountains and the desert . . . grade ninety feet to the mile. The railroad can . . . and will be built. I wish I could tell you how tremendously all this has worked upon me . . . upon all the engineers. But somehow I can’t. It chokes me. The idea is big. But the work . . . what shall I call that? Allie, if you can, imagine some spirit seizing hold of you and making you see difficulties as joys . . . impossible tasks as only things to strike fire from genius, perils of death as merely incidents of daring adventure to treasure in memory. The idea of the U.P. has got me. I believe in it. I shall see it accomplished . . . I’ll live it all.”

  Allie moved her head on his shoulder, and, looking up at him with eyes that made him ashamed of his egotism, she said: “Then, when it’s done, you’ll be chief of engineers?” She had remembered his very words.

  “Allie, I hope so,” he replied, thrilling at her faith. “I’ll work . . . I’ll get some big position.”

  * * * * *

  Next day ushered in for Neale a well-earned rest that was a delight to spend any way he chose. The fall had always been Neale’s favorite season. Here as elsewhere the aspect of it was flaming and golden, but different from what he had known. Dreaming silence of autumn here held the wildness and loneliness of the Black Hills. The sage showed gray and purple, the ridges yellow and gold, the valleys green and amber and red. No dust, no heat, no wind—a clear blue cloudless sky—sweet odors in the still air—it was a beautiful time.

  Days passed and nights passed, as if on wings. Every waking hour drew him closer to this incomparable girl who had arisen upon his horizon like a star. He knew that hour was imminent when he must read his heart. He fought it off; he played with his bliss. Allie was now his shadow instead of the faithful King, although he was often with them, adapting himself to the changed condition, too big and splendid to be envious or jealous. They fished down the brook, and always at that never to be forgotten ford he would cross first and turn to see her follow. She could never understand why Neale would delight in carrying her across at other points, yet made her ford this one herself.

  “It’s such a bother to take off moccasins and leggings,” she would say.

  They rode horseback up and down the trails that Slingerland assured them were safe. And it was the cowboy who lent his horse and taught her a flying mount and said she would make a rider.

  In the afternoon they would climb the high ridge and on the summit sit in the long whitening grass and gaze out over the dim and purple vastness of the plains. In the twilight they walked under the pines. When night set in and the air grew cold, they would watch the ruddy fire on the hearth and see pictures of the future there and feel a warmth on hand and cheek that was not all from the cheerful blaze.

  Strange to Neale was it to realize one day how his attachment for King had changed to love. All Neale’s spiritual being was undergoing a great and vital change, but this was not the reason he loved King. It was because of Allie. The cowboy was a Texan and he had inherited the Southerner’s fine and chivalrous regard for women. Neale never knew whether King had ever had a sister or a sweetheart or a girl friend. But at sight King had become Allie’s own; not a brother or friend or a lover—something bigger and higher. The man expanded under her smiles, her teasing, her playfulness, her affection. Neale had no pang in divining the unconscious love King bore Allie. The cowboy grew. Drifter, gun-thrower, man-killer, whatever he had been, the light of this girl’s beautiful eyes, her voice, her touch had worked the last marvel in man—forgetfulness of self. And so Neale loved him.

  It made Neale quake inwardly to think of the havoc being wrought—perhaps already wrought in himself. It made him thoughtful of many things. There was much in life utterly new to him. He had listened to a moan in his keen ear—he had felt a call of something helpless—he had found a gleam of chestnut hair—he had stirred two other men to help him befriend a poor broken-hearted half-crazed orphan girl—and, lo, the world had changed, his friends had grown happier in their unloved lives, a strange strength had come to him, and sweetest, most wonderful of all, in the place of the helpless and miserable waif appeared a woman, lovely of face and form, with only a ghost of sadness haunting her eyes, a woman adorable and bright, with the magic of love on her lips.

  * * * * *

  October came. In the early morning and late afternoon a keen cold breath hung in the air. Slingerland talked of a good prospect for fur. He chopped great stores of wood. King climbed the hills with his rifle. Neale walked the trails hand in hand with Allie.

  He had never sought to induce her to speak of her past, although at times the evidence of refinement and education and mystery around her made strong appeal to him. She could tell her story whenever she liked or never—it did not greatly matter.

  Then, one day, quite naturally, but with a shame she did not try to conceal, she told him part of the story her mother had told her that dark night when the Sioux were creeping upon the caravan.

  Neale was astounded, agitated, intensely concerned.

  “Allie! Your father lives!” he exclaimed.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I must find him . . . take you to him!”

  “Do what you think best,” she replied sadly. “But I never saw him. I’ve no love for him. And he never knew I was born.”

  “Is it possible? How strange . . . If any man could see you now . . . Allie, do you resemble your mother?”

  “Yes, we were alike.”

  “Where is your father?” Neale went on curiously.

  “How should I know? It was in New Orleans Mother ran off from him. I . . . I never blamed her . . . since she said what she said . . . Do you? Will this . . . make any difference to you?”

  “My God, no! But I’m so . . . so thunderstruck . . . This man . . . this Durade . . . tell me more of him.”

  “He was a Spaniard of high degree . . . An adventurer . . . a gamble
r. He was mad to gamble. He forced my mother to use her beauty to lure men to his gambling . . . hell . . . ! Oh, it’s terrible to remember . . . She said he meant to use me for that purpose. That’s why she left him. But in a way he was good to me. I can see so many things now to prove he was wicked . . . And Mother said he would follow her . . . track her to the end of the world.”

  “Allie! If he should find you someday!” exclaimed Neale hoarsely.

  She put her arms up around his neck. And that, following a terrible pang of dread in Neale’s breast, was too much for him. The tide burst. Love had long claimed him, but its utterance had been withheld. He had been happy in her happiness. He had trained himself to spare her.

  “But someday . . . I’ll be . . . your wife,” she whispered.

  “Soon? Soon?” he returned, trembling.

  The scarlet fired her temples, her brow, darkening the skin under her bright hair.

  “That’s for you to say.”

  She held up her lips, tremulous and sweet.

  Neale realized the moment had come. There had never been but the one kiss between them—that of the meeting upon his return in September. If there were to be another now—nay—when that other happened it must be followed by hundreds, thousands, millions of kisses, it seemed to him, in his utter surrender, and he was afraid.

  “Allie, I love you.”

  “I love you,” she replied quickly.

  “This news you’ve told . . . this man Durade,” he went on hoarsely. “I’m suddenly alive . . . stinging . . . wild! If I lost you.”

  “Dear, you will never lose me . . . never in this world or any other,” she replied tenderly.

  “My work, my hope, my life . . . all get spirit now from you . . . Allie! You’re sweet . . . Oh, so sweet . . . You’re glorious!” he rang out passionately.

  Surprise momentarily checked the rising response of her feeling. “Neale! You’ve never before said . . . such . . . such things . . . and the way you look!”