Still Jim

by Morrow, Honore

  "I've been sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mrs. Flynn and listening to you two talk. It was very interesting."

  "Jane, you keep quiet," said Oscar.

  "Come in and sit down, Mrs. Ames," said Jim, pulling forward a chair.

  "Don't be too polite to me, Mr. Manning," said Jane. "I ain't used to it and it makes me nervous. I made up my mind while I heard you talk I'd get a few things off my chest. It may help both of you. I've often said, when Oscar was always telling me to keep quiet, that when I had something to say I'd say it."

  Oscar looked very much mortified. "Jane," he said, "what's got into you?"

  "Well, it isn't your politeness, that's sure. Funny now, that Mrs. Penelope and I both have nice manners while her husband and mine are both pigs as far as their ways to us go. There isn't a more popular man in the country than Oscar, but he keeps his popular ways all outside his own home."

  Oscar and Jim looked at each other and waited. They both realized that the eruption was inevitable.

  "Women are awful fools. Until I had running water put in against Oscar's wishes I lugged as many as thirty buckets of water a day for thirty years. I've carried water and I've chopped wood and I've had babies and I've come at your bidding, Oscar, but now, I'm going to complain. And it's not about my life either.

  "I used to feel sorry for myself until I got to know Mrs. Pen. She has real trouble, but instead of getting peevish as I have over just Oscar's selfishness, she's let it make her see the world instead of herself. She has a sort of calm outlook on life. She has told me a dozen times that she looks at life as a great game and trouble as one of the hazards. That's golf talk. She says the only real sport to be got out of the game is to play it according to rule. And she says marriage seems to be one of the rules. Think of having the courage to talk that way about marriage! She's better than a book."

  Mrs. Ames chuckled reminiscently. Then stared out at the desert and her lips moved in silence as if she found it hard to frame her next sentence.

  "We've talked a lot about the Project, she and I. At first I was like Oscar, all for being afraid our ranch wasn't going to get as much and a little more than anyone else's. Then after she kept talking about it, all of a sudden I saw that I wasn't Jane Ames at all, drudging out my life in the sand. I'm a human being, struggling along with other human beings to make a living and be happy. And then I got the feeling that I wanted to help to make this whole Project the finest place on earth not only for myself but for everyone else.

  "And then, just as I get started on something that's giving me my first chance since I was married to mix with people and do some real big work in the world, I find out that Oscar is getting all mixed up in deals that'll ruin Mr. Manning and the whole Project as far as our owning it goes."

  "Jane!" shouted Oscar.

  "Yes, Jane!" replied Mrs. Ames. "If you think I'm going to stand that kind of disgrace, if you think I'm going to keep quiet while my babies' father is a cat's paw for fellows like that Greek and Freet, you are mistaken. And I'm not going to shilly-shally about it. Oscar, you are going to begin right now fighting with Mr. Manning for the Project or I'll leave you."

  Oscar jumped to his feet. "For the Lord's sake, Jane, don't talk that way! How did I know how you felt? You never talk to me.". Ames forgot Jim. He laid a knotted hand on Jane's shoulder. "Why, Jane, I've often thought if anything happened to you, I'd kill myself. I didn't have time to run in and tell you that every fifteen minutes. But I'll do it, now, by heck, if you want me to! You don't understand about me and Mr. Sardox, though."

  Jane's burning eyes did not leave Oscar's face. "Oscar, you choose right now between the Freet crowd, and Mr. Manning and me."

  There was that in Jane's eyes which caused Oscar to pale under his tan. "All right, Jane! All right! When you put it that way there is just one thing for me to do. I'll quit them."

  Jane suddenly turned, and bowing her head against Oscar's arm she began to sob. "It would have torn my heart strings out to have left you, Oscar."

  Jim watched the two with eyes that saw none too clearly.

  Oscar smoothed Jane's hair and shook his head. "No use to tell a woman a secret. Jane, you went and told Mrs. Penelope about Freet, didn't you?"

  Mrs. Ames wiped her eyes. "You told her yourself. You talked to the wrong flower girl at the ball. She came to me about it the first thing when she saw me today."

  "Shucks!" said Oscar.

  "How did you get in touch with Freet, Oscar?" asked Jim.

  "Aw, I'll help you, Mr. Manning, but I won't tell you other people's business."

  "All right, Oscar. It may interest you to know that I had received a note this morning from Freet saying he was coming down here to see me on business."

  Oscar flushed. "Come on, Jane, let's be going. I'm much obliged to you for the cement talk. Why didn't you help me that way before, Mr. Manning?"

  Jim laughed. "I didn't know enough to, Oscar. To tell the truth, a lady has been after me, too!"

  "Mrs. Pen!" exclaimed Jane.

  Jim nodded comically and Oscar with a sudden roar of laughter shook hands with Jim. "And women think they need the vote!" he said, leading Jane out the door.

  That evening just as Jim was finishing his supper Pen walked into the living room. "Jim," she said, "did you know that Mr. Freet was coming?"

  Jim pulled out a chair for Pen but she shook her head. "Yes, I had a letter from him. He wants to see my sand-cement work and one or two other new stunts I'm trying out."

  Pen moistened her lips. "Jim, he's up at our tent now, talking with Sara. They say nothing before me, but—Still, I'm going to take Sara back to New York at once."

  "We'll see what I can do first," said Jim. "I'll go up there now." He picked up his hat, then paused. "Pen, I haven't told you how much your talk the other night has done for me, or how—how I thank you for staying on here to help me after—after Wind Ridge. It is—I——"

  "Jane told me about your talk with Oscar this afternoon. O Still, I'm so proud and so glad!"

  Jim looked at Pen's glowing cheeks and at her parted scarlet lips. "Pen," he said suddenly, "I'm going to have Henderson give more mask balls. You are years younger since having a good dance, and it looks as if a dance will be the only chance I'll ever have to hug you for all the dear things you do for me!"

  Then he fled out the door before Pen could answer. He walked in at the open door of the tent.

  "Good evening, Mr. Freet," he said.

  Arthur Freet rose nonchalantly. "Hello, Manning! Pleasure before duty. I had to get Saradokis' report on my New York deals before I came to see you."

  "Oh, come across, Mr. Freet!" said Jim quietly. "I know about what you want and you'll have to approach me sooner or later, so let's get done with it."

  Freet smiled broadly. "I always knew you'd come to your senses, Manning, if we gave you time. Well, our friend Saradokis is in touch with the New York office of the Transcontinental Water Power Company. They have a very tempting proposition to make to the farmers. They stand ready to outbid any competitor for the power you will develop on the Project."

  "We'll let 'em bid, sure," replied Jim calmly. "I shall advertise for bids as soon as I am ready."

  "That won't do," said Freet. "The only way to get away with this is to do it quietly. Hold the public off till the contract is signed."

  Jim grunted. Sara eyed him without comment. Oscar spoke suddenly. "Now look here, Mr. Manning, I ain't as sore at you as I was. I guess, after our talk this afternoon, you think you're doing what's best for the valley. But you want to be fair about this. It may not look quite right, but it's the best thing for the farmers. We want to get all the money we can out of the power. You say yourself that's what will pay for the dam. And if these folks will give us twice what anyone else will, I say close the deal with them, any way you can."

  "What's your price, Ames?" asked Jim clearly.

  Oscar jumped to his feet. "In the old days," he roared, "no man would have lived to ask me that twic
e!"

  Jim looked for a long moment into Oscar's eyes, then he drawled: "All right, Oscar, I apologize. Only you'd better leave national politics to your inferiors after this. What's your price, Mr. Freet?"

  Arthur Freet laughed. "You can't get a rise out of me, Jim! My price is to see these Projects a financial success. Methods don't bother me, nor hard names."

  Jim sat silent for a moment, then he turned suddenly on Sara. "Of course, you get a chunk of money, Sara. But there is something more in it than that for you. What are you trying to ruin me for, Sara?"

  Again Sara seemed to see scarlet. "Didn't you spoil Pen's——"

  "Keep that name out of this!" shouted Jim.

  "Then don't ask me again why I hate you," returned Sara. "I told you once. But you are too superior, too one-sided, too egotistical, to see anyone but yourself!" He rose on one elbow.

  "You were the closest friend I ever had and you turned me down without a chance to make myself right. You never sent me word in my living death. Do you suppose I enjoy this mental hell I live in? Did you ever dream you were nailed fast in your coffin? That's my life waking and sleeping. Why shouldn't I curse a God who could serve me such a trick? I would make every living thing a cripple, if I could, and I'd begin on you, you! I'll get you yet!"

  Jim glanced at Oscar. The big desert farmer was staring at Sara, horror in every line of his face.

  "Oh, come!" said Freet, "I didn't know you had anything personal in this, Mr. Saradokis. Manning and I are engineers, out for the good of the Projects."

  "Whatever your motives are, Mr. Freet," said Jim, "I don't like your methods and haven't since the Makon days. The water power will be opened to public bids and if you try to force me I'll tell what I guess."

  Freet laughed. "Don't be too sure of yourself, Jim! You are branded as my pupil. If I go, you will probably go."

  "O hell!" said Jim, starting for the door. "I'd rather go if I've got to spend my life fighting fellows like you. In this instance, though, I'm boss. I have the sale of the water power in my control."

  "Don't be too sure, Jim," said Freet, still smiling.

  Oscar followed Jim from the tent. Neither of them spoke while on the way to Jim's house where Pen and Jane were sitting with Mrs. Flynn. But in the kitchen Oscar made Jim wait while he told the three women what had occurred in the tent house.

  "Now all of you witness," he said, "that I'm through with that bunch. They played me for a sucker to influence the farmers against Mr. Manning and for the trust. When I think of the many different kinds of a fool I am I wish some good trained mule would come along and kick me."

  "That's all right, Oscar," said Jim, "you've been no bigger fool than I have. We'll get busy now, won't we?"

  Oscar flushed as Jim smiled at him. "Darn it, Mr. Manning," he said, "why haven't you looked at me that way before?" Then he laughed with the others.

  Then Pen spoke very uncertainly: "This settles it, of course. I shall go back to New York at once with Sara."

  The little group in the kitchen looked at Jim. His face was white and set.

  "Wait a day or so, Pen. I must get some sort of a plan formulated."

  "What am I to do with that man Freet hanging round?" asked Pen.

  "Come down for a day or so with me, Mrs. Pen," said Mrs. Ames.

  "That's a good idea," said Jim. "Freet won't stay after tomorrow, anyway. I can promise you that."

  "And I'll look out for the caged hyena," said Mrs. Flynn. "If God lets me live to spare my life, he'll get a tongue lashing from me that'll give him new respect for the Irish."

  Once more the group in the kitchen laughed, though tensely, and parted for the night.

  The next day Freet put in on the dam with Jim. Jim treated him with courtesy, showing him everything that he asked to see. Freet was very complimentary and told Jim he was a credit to his teacher. After a visit to the quarry Jim said suggestively:

  "You will want to take the six o'clock train, tonight, of course."

  Freet hesitated. Jim went on dryly. "Under the circumstances, it is hardly in good taste for you to remain. It might look as if you and I were having a gentleman's agreement on the price of dams."

  Freet laughed. "I had planned to take the six o'clock train. I quite finished my business with Saradokis last night. He's a brilliant business man. Too bad he has that silly whim about you."

  Jim did not answer. He called to Henderson and asked him to have the automobile sent to the quarter house. He himself took Freet to the train. They talked construction work all the way and parted amiably. Then Jim returned to his belated office work.

  The last letter that he opened was from the Director of the Service. It explained to Jim that while the Director had complete faith in Jim's engineering ability and integrity, Jim's unpopularity not only with the public but with the investigating committee made his resignation seem expedient for the good of the Service. It was with extreme regret and with full appreciation of what Jim had done for the Service that the Director asked for Jim's resignation, three months from date.

  Jim folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he stared out of the door at the Elephant. The great beast was silent in the after-glow. A to-hee cheeped sleepily in a nearby cholla:

  "O yahee! O yahai!

  Sweet as arrow weed in spring!"

  Then Jim went slowly up the trail to his house, and, refusing his supper, went into his room and closed the door.

  * * *

  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 wrath accumulating until it finally focused itself, not on the Director or on Sara or on the farmers, but on himself! He reviewed the years mercilessly. He saw how he had refused again and again to shoulder the responsibilities that belonged to him—belonged, because of his fitness to carry them. Charlie Tuck and Iron Skull both had done what they could to make him see, but wrapped in his futile dreams he had refused to look, and, he told himself, long before he had left Exham, his father had tried to set him on the right path but he always had put off the quest on which his father had sent him, always thrust it over into tomorrow when today was waiting for his start.

  The very peak of his anger was reached when it suddenly came home to Jim that he had failed his father, had proved renegade to old Exham.

  Three months! A cool dismissal after over eight years of his heart's blood 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 to Congress and the open fight for repudiation will be on!"

  Jim groaned again. Then abruptly he jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and looked at the little picture of Pen on the wall.

  "Pen," he said, "Fleckenstein shan't be elected! I'm going out of this Project, fighting like a hound. I've been a quitter all my life, I'll admit, but I'm going to put up my fists at the end. I'll rush the work here and I'll keep Fleckenstein out of Congress. I'll spend no time belly-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 cold plunge. The sun was just rimming the mountains when he began to tune up his automobile. He filled the tank with gasoline and cranked the engine and 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 in and ride to the bridge with me, Suma-theek."

  The chief clambered into the seat by Jim. "Suma-theek, the Big Boss at Washington 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 the dams 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 know you love you in their hearts. It hurt your heart because you have leave dam?"

  Jim nodded. The old Indian eyed him keenly. Then his lean, bronze face turned 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 to you, then no let you have your love? Maybe, Boss Still, all those things you 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 gave us our dreams. I want to fix my tribe's dream so firmly it can never be forgotten. 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 of lost illusions. "Dreams are always before or behind. They are never here. You are young. Yours are before. Suma-theek is old. His are behind. Boss Still, you no sabez one thing. All great dreams of any tribe they built by man for love of woman."

  Jim stared for a moment at the purple shadow of the Elephant. Then he stopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment the machine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.

  Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down into the valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousand feet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had not prevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid green of alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town, the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that stand like deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed to Jim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordless brooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had been uttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering them to countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desert sand.