Shadow on the Land

by Wayne D. Overholser

  “Any time, fella,” Lee murmured, and moved on to the hotel.

  * * * * *

  Lee was due to go on to Bend as Stevens had ordered, and he waited until Highpockets came through with the stage.

  “How are you, son?” the tall man called jovially. “Climb up and sit on the throne.”

  “Thanks.”

  When they were rolling across the sun-washed land, dust lifting in a smothering cloud from the whirling wheels, Highpockets said: “In case you didn’t know, Quinn and that chain-lightning gal of his are in Bend.”

  “I’ve wondered.”

  “And another thing. Jepson’s been on one of his three-day toots in Shaniko.”

  “Jepson’s a drinking man?” Lee asked in surprise.

  “One of them funny ones. He goes for months and don’t touch it. Then he goes on a tear that’s a lollapalooza. Stays in his room and sleeps, and, when he wakes up, he takes another snort and passes out again. I sure hate to see a man drink thataway. A crutch is all it is, and it lets a man down in the end.”

  “Is he still in Shaniko?”

  “Nope. Went back to Bend.”

  “Where did he come from?”

  “Frisco. Came in with enough money to jingle loud.”

  “How did Deborah Haig get tied up with him?”

  “Dunno, except that she came from Frisco, too. Some claim she was his woman. Just gossip. I never believed it, but she has done a lot of work for him. You know how a good-looking woman like that can get information out of men who wouldn’t talk no other way. And I heard she had some of her own money sunk into that town site of his.”

  “You think that’s straight?”

  Highpockets spat into space. “Likely. Everybody’s trying to get rich off the other feller, especially the new ones.” He grinned. “I’ll bet she’s taking that Irishman Quinn for a ride that’s gonna pinch him before he’s done.”

  They lapsed into silence, Lee filling his pipe and smoking thoughtfully. It made sense that Deborah Haig had a bigger stake in this game than the small spying she would be able to do for Mike Quinn. If she had money invested in the Jepson City town site, the pattern was clearer and far stronger than he had guessed.

  The day cooled, and Lee, shivering, drew his coat collar together. He said: “Hell of a spring in this country.”

  Highpockets chuckled. “Son, don’t you know we don’t have no spring in this country? Two seasons, winter and August. That’s all.”

  It was Lee’s first trip south of Crooked River. They wheeled past rugged Smith Rocks, down the long, steep grade to the river at Trail Crossing, clattered across the bridge, and pulled up on the other side.

  “Don’t look like a railroad ever will cross this cañon,” Highpockets said, “but downriver a piece is a spot where the rims are so dadburned close a grasshopper can spit across. I hear that’s where the survey runs.” He shot a sideways glance at Lee. “And it’s why Hanna’s place is the key that unlocks this here whole business.”

  They rolled into Redmond and beyond, and coming to the Deschutes, crossed it, and presently came to Laidlaw. The road twisted among the junipers and past shacks set in the newly irrigated fields. It was the first time Lee had seen any of the widely advertised irrigation work—private, state-regulated projects coming under the Carey Act—and he realized that only a beginning had been made. They crossed the Deschutes again, still as cold and clear and violent in its hurry to reach the Columbia as it had been where Lee had seen it near the mouth of Trout Creek, wheeled into the picturesque town of Bend, and drew up beside the Pilot Butte Inn, a long, two-story structure set between the road and the river.

  Registering, Lee asked for his mail, and went to his room. His mail consisted of a single letter from John Stevens, sharply questioning the delay over the Racine property. There was also a detail map showing the missing parts of the Oregon Trunk right of way—a document, Lee realized, that would be extremely valuable to his opponents.

  Chapter Eight

  Lee wrote to Stevens before he went down to supper, a letter that contained more optimism about the Racine property than he actually felt. He mailed it, and went into the dining room for supper. Within a matter of minutes, Cyrus Jepson came in, saw Lee, and sat down at his table.

  “How are you?” Jepson asked amiably. “Sometimes I wonder what a railroad finds for its men to do. It seems that I run into a railroad man of one sort or another squatting behind every sagebrush clump.”

  “That would make a lot of railroad men,” Lee said dryly.

  Jepson took his cigar out of his mouth, the smoke casting a momentary shadow over his red-cheeked face. “I suppose you’re finding plenty to do.”

  “Plenty.” Again Lee felt he was being pumped. He changed the subject. “Coming in on the stage, it struck me this country was about as interesting as that around Biggs.”

  Jepson fingered the ash from his cigar. “It is. A lava country. Some of the most recent flows in continental United States are within twenty miles of Bend. Of course some of it is very old. For instance, you can find eroded hills up Crooked River that give an idea of what the Paleozoic horizons were. Around Mitchell we can find strata of the age of reptiles. As a matter of fact, the remnants of a pterodactyl have been found. Ever heard of a pterodactyl, Dawes?”

  “No.” Lee grinned as he reached for the platter of rainbow trout.

  “A pterodactyl was a flying dragon, extinct now, of course. At different times, I’d say there were half a dozen seas in central Oregon. On top of the last one we find evidence of the age of mammals. The plant life represented a semi-tropical climate.”

  “The climate’s sure changed,” Lee said, thinking how cold he’d been on the seat with Highpockets that day. “In another million years I suppose fellows like you will be talking about the dry, frigid age of sagebrush and junipers.”

  Jepson leaned forward, round eyes watching Lee’s face closely. “The climate has changed, and it will change again. It’s my opinion it will be very hot for railroad men after November, Nineteen Ten. But to get on with my story. In the strata along the John Day River we have found some very fine fossils of Cenozoic mammals . . . rhinos, oreodons, flesh-tearing cats, and great dogs. Those beds were explored by the famous John Condon. You’ve heard of him, Dawes?”

  “I’m plain ignorant alongside you.”

  “You’re smart, Dawes. Too smart to play errand boy for the Oregon Trunk.”

  “We settled that in Shaniko, Jepson,” Lee said sharply. “Remember?” Reaching again for the trout, he felt the approaching climax of Jepson’s talk. The man had not approached him merely to offer another bribe, so Lee kept on eating, lifting his eyes occasionally to Jepson’s face.

  “Those who adjust themselves to these changes survive. Those who don’t . . . die. For example, in this case we had the mid-Miocene mammals such as the three-toed horse and a giraffe camel. Later, there was the ice age. There were interglacial periods, and during one of these we had llamas and many kinds of birds, even the flamingoes.”

  Jepson paused, half smiling, his gaze steadily on Lee, and Lee, smiling back, felt an edge of disappointment in the man.

  “It’s amazing, Jepson,” Lee murmured, “and some of the people here are as amazing as the geology. For instance, you claim to be a prophet who can foretell the things that will survive and the ones that won’t.”

  “Yes,” Jepson said quickly. “I claim to be that much of a prophet, and whether or not you personally survive depends on how well you adjust yourself to the economic changes that are coming in Oregon.”

  Jepson rose, and Lee said: “Thought you were going to have supper with me.”

  “No, I’ve eaten. I just wanted to chat with you. Good night.” Jepson nodded, and left the dining room, only the stomach-churning smell of his cigar remaining as a reminder of him.

  * * * * *

  It was good to have concrete work ahead, and Lee, making the Pilot Butte Inn his base, worked north to Redmond and beyond, fill
ing in the missing pieces of Oregon Trunk right of way. Twice he saw Quinn at a distance, and one morning in Bend he saw Jepson spin past in a buggy, Deborah beside him. Lee called, but Jepson did not look at him; his only response was to lean forward and whip the team to a faster pace. If Deborah saw him, she gave no indication of it, and a sick fear was in Lee that she had not wanted to see him. Standing on a Bond Street corner, Lee watched them take the desert road, and he was remembering that Jepson City lay off somewhere in that direction.

  * * * * *

  The weeks clipped quickly past. Late in May the town buzzed with the talk that the Oregon Trunk had been given sixty days in which to show it meant business, if approval of its survey maps by the Interior Department was not to be withdrawn. Knowing the mobilizing problems facing both roads, Lee was annoyed by this and the jeering talk it caused. Late in June, Secretary Ballinger abruptly approved the entire surveys of both roads, irrespective of the conflicts between them—leaving the adjustment of such matters to the federal courts.

  In a stray copy of the Madras Pioneer he found in the hotel, Lee read an account of the railroad story that said that the Harriman line had secured the right of way for seventy percent of the one hundred and twenty miles it proposed to traverse. Lee tipped his hat to Mike Quinn and redoubled his own efforts.

  It was on the last Saturday night in June that Lee had a shave and bath in Tripplet’s barbershop. When he emerged from the bathroom, he found Mike Quinn waiting his turn.

  Quinn raised a hand in salute, and said mockingly: “I suppose the Oregon Trunk has a right of way from here to The Dalles.”

  “Not quite,” Lee said. It was the first time he had talked to Quinn since Quinn had given him the warning in Madras. He waited now, not sure how Quinn would react to his presence.

  “Let’s get a drink, Lee,” Quinn said.

  “A drink in this town?” Lee spread his hands in disgust. “Hell, alongside Bend the Sahara Desert is plumb wet.”

  “It’s not that bad. Blind pigs all over the place.”

  Five minutes later Lee had had his drink. “Looks to me like they might as well open the town as run it this way,” he said.

  “You know how the Puritans are.” Quinn shrugged. “From what I hear the town’s half and half.”

  “What do you mean . . . half and half?”

  Quinn grinned. “You can see for yourself, son. Half Bond and half Wall Street.”

  “Then Bond Street’s going to be crowded when the Oregon Trunk gets here. There’ll be ten thousand men wanting to drink every Saturday night.”

  “You think it’ll get here?” Quinn lifted a skeptical brow. “I’d say you were doing more wishing than thinking.”

  Lee smiled. “We’ll see,” he said laconically, and left the room.

  * * * * *

  Early in July the Bend Bulletin was popping with railroad news. A man returning to town said that he had seen about a hundred and fifty Italian laborers, and a considerable number of mules, in the vicinity of Grass Valley. He had been told they were to build a wagon road from Grass Valley, on the Columbia Southern, to the river, to provide supplies for the construction crew to come. This piece of concrete action was tonic to the impatient plateau.

  Harriman was to seize the strategic points along the line, it was said, without waiting for the conflicts to be decided in the courts. This meant war. Chief Engineer Boschke, of the Harriman lines, equipped and dispatched a record crew of engineers, which reached Grass Valley and left immediately for the Deschutes.

  Lee Dawes heard and watched, his own excitement being sharpened by each new piece of news. He was glad to see action breaking into the open at last. It would ease his own labors against the widespread doubt. Too, Grass Valley would be the first hot spot, and, when the action came, it would be fast and perhaps smoky. With that picture prodding his mind, the desire grew in him to be there rather than here in the south.

  It was the evening of July 9th that Lee rode into the livery stable, left his horse, and, after a bath at Tripplet’s, angled across Wall Street to the Pilot Butte Inn. As he stepped into the lobby, the clerk called—“There’s a note here for you, Mister Dawes!”—and slid an envelope across the desk.

  Lee tore it open, premonition setting up a faint disturbance along his spine. The note read: I’m at the Bend Hotel in Room 20. James F. Sampson.

  Lee headed out through the door again, knowing he was in for a hiding from Stevens, who was posing as a man named Sampson, and wanting to get it over with.

  John F. Stevens was standing before the window when Lee entered his room in response to the engineer’s invitation.

  He wheeled around as Lee came in, and his greeting was a sharp question: “Why haven’t you got our right of way through the Racine property?”

  “If you knew Hanna Racine, you’d know,” Lee answered with equal sharpness.

  Stevens waved the point aside. “She’s a woman, and there are methods for handling every woman. I thought you knew them all.”

  “I don’t know the method for this one,” Lee said.

  Stevens grunted—“Sit down.”—and began pacing the floor, a big man dominated by one compelling urge. Watching him from a chair beside the bed, Lee saw that a change had come over him since their talk on the Inland Belle. His temper was honed to a razor sharpness, a tension confirming the fact that things were about to break.

  “It’s ready to blow, Dawes. Porter Brothers are moving in. Within a few days I’ll announce my identity and the fact that Hill is behind the Oregon Trunk.” He paced to the window and back. “But that’s not the reason I called you over. When we talked on the boat, I told you that the Racine property would be a tough nut to crack.” He leveled a finger at Lee. “You’re supposed to be an ace trouble-shooter. You don’t realize the size of the stack I shoved in behind you, Dawes.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “You’ve got to. The entire success of our tactics depends on you getting that right of way. We can’t keep stalling around. We can start condemnation proceedings . . .”

  “I wouldn’t advise that, sir,” Lee cut in.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t advise it. And why?”

  “Because Hanna will fight it, and her neighbors will fight it, and we’ll kick up a hell of a lot of bitterness. With this people’s movement going on the ballot, we need all the public support we can get. This road will be here a long time, Mister Stevens. It strikes me that good will is worth waiting for.”

  Stevens stood pulling at his mustache, a half smile striking at the corners of his mouth. “There’s some horse sense in what you’re saying, all right.”

  “Time is on our side. If we let the people’s movement run under its own power, it’ll bust itself. One of these days Hanna will do business with me in her own way and her own time.”

  Stevens nodded, the anger gone out of him. “All right, Dawes. Now about the second assignment I gave you.”

  Lee pulled his pipe from his pocket and dribbled tobacco into the bowl. “I’ve done a little better on that. I’m sure it’s the people’s movement, and our third party is Cyrus P. Jepson, but so far I’ve got no proof, nor any evidence that he’s done anything criminal.”

  Lee told what had happened, and, when he was done, Stevens nodded. “I remember Jepson City. Nothing unusual about it.” He thought about it a moment, and then asked skeptically: “It would seem, the way you tell it, that Jepson is using the people’s movement for his own selfish purpose. Why?”

  “I think I’ve figured out the answer. There are no towns between Bend and Burns. Jepson undoubtedly feels that the proposed people’s east-west railroad will go through his town site. If that country becomes a wheat-growing section, as people think it will, there will be a good-size town somewhere out there in the desert. If Jepson City happens to be that town, Jepson stands to make a million dollars.”

  Stevens nodded. “That might be the story. Well, Dawes, keep your eye on this Jepson. If you’ve got it sized up right, he’ll come in
to the open with some definite action. Then do what you have to do. And about Hanna Racine. It’s something new for me to have my railroad hanging on a woman’s whim. Wind it up as soon as you can, because I want you in Grass Valley.”

  A quick, expectant grin broke across Lee’s tanned face. “I was hoping to hear that.”

  “There s a stretch below Sherars Bridge called Horseshoe Bend, with room for only one good roadbed through it. The Harriman people got the jump on us by putting in a big camp and building an access road. I wish we could throw a monkey wrench into their machinery, but I don’t see how. In any case, you’ll report to Porter Brothers, and be on hand if they need a man of your caliber. I’m guessing that Jepson will be around Shaniko or Grass Valley when the music starts. And”—Lee had paused at the door—“I’ll expect you to have the Racine right-of-way agreement in your pocket.”

  Chapter Nine

  Summer had come to central Oregon, with some of the days cloudlessly bright and warm, the nights cool and softly starred, or again with thunderheads rising, black and grim, on the Cascade skyline. At times storms struck in the mountains or foothills or in the eastward desert, sharply and without warning, with ragged flashes of lightning running through a close bombardment of thunder.

  Sometimes nearly half an inch of precipitation fell in an afternoon, first hail, and then rain, with pools forming in the ruts of Wall and Bond Streets in Bend, water stirring their surfaces with constant unease and streaming from roofs in swift, noisy streams. Always, then, the air, so high and thin and crystalline, became pungent with the heady tang of sage that was like wine taken in great drafts.

  Searching the town one Saturday afternoon for a farmer with whom he had been unable to deal, Lee was caught by the rain in front of Lara’s store. He stepped inside, bought some fishing tackle, and, seeing Hanna at the dry-goods counter, crossed to her. He said: “So you’ve come to taste the excitement of city life.”