“That banty rooster?” Quinn laughed sourly. “You’re getting hard up for goats to lay it onto, Dawes. I can’t hold my men back much longer.” He paused, his one good eye bright with anger. “And I’m not sure I want to.”
Quinn stomped away and went on into the Twohy Brothers’ office. Lee waited until he disappeared, and then turned into the Porters’ office. Johnson Porter was there.
He whistled shortly when he saw Lee’s face. “Grizzly bear?”
“Quinn bear.”
Porter smiled. “You boys going to fight all your lives?”
“Looks like it.” Lee told Porter about the rattlesnakes, and added: “One of these days this thing’s going to explode, and we’ve got enough trouble without having a general war on our hands. I didn’t find out much in Shaniko, and neither did Highpockets, but I thought I’d spend a few days between the Girt place and Shaniko. I might be able to follow those wagon tracks for a ways. Or there might be a camp those fellows made. Maybe I’ll pick up something.
“I was going to send you back to Crooked River,” Porter said. “We’ve got to buy up all the hay and grain we’ll need through the winter, and we might as well be doing it now. I thought I’d put you to buying horses, too.” He nodded at Highpockets. “You know horses, don’t you, Magoon?”
“I know ’em backwards and forwards,” Highpockets said. “I’d be pleased to buy for you.”
“He’s spent most of his life at the back end of ’em,” Lee said dryly. He reached for his pipe and moved toward the window, not wanting to go to Crooked River now, because he wouldn’t get back for his date with Deborah. And in this moment his date with Deborah seemed the most important thing in the world.
“Magoon can work alone,” Porter said. “You go on south as soon as you get done here, Lee. I don’t look for any more trouble at Horseshoe Bend.”
“Not unless it’s stirred up,” Lee said. “Did you hear anything about the horses and wagon that had the dynamite?”
“The outfit was stolen several days ago from one of our men who was freighting out of Shaniko.”
Lee threw up his hands. “Aw, hell, I guess we’re up against somebody who’s pretty damned smart.”
* * * * *
The days Lee spent searching the rim of the cañon south of the Girt place were wasted. He traced the wagon tracks to a road, and from there they could have gone anywhere. Moving south toward Shaniko, he rode back and forth across the road in constantly widening arcs, and returned to Grass Valley with mingled elation and depression; elated because this was the night he was to meet Deborah again, depressed because the long-sought evidence was as far from him as ever.
Lee had a shave and bath, and returned to his room in the Vinton Hotel. He dressed quickly, knowing that Deborah would be in Moro now. Even by hiring a rig, he would be late getting there. He hurried across the lobby and into the street, and stopped, not wanting to believe what he saw.
Mike Quinn’s automobile had rolled to a stop in front of the Twohy Brothers’ office. Quinn was behind the wheel, and Deborah, wearing a linen duster, sat beside him, a veil keeping her hat in place.
A crowd had gathered around the car, and, as Lee came into the street, someone yelled: “Where’s the cigars, Quinn?”
“A box of ’em in the office!” Quinn yelled back.
“What’s the fuss about?” Lee asked a man in front of the hotel.
“Ain’t you heard? Why, Quinn just got married to the best-looking woman in the state. Drove in from Moro just now. We’re fixing to give ’em the damnedest shivaree in the history of Sherman County. You’ll be around, won’t you, Dawes?”
“No,” Lee said hoarsely. “I don’t guess I will.”
Chapter Fifteen
By early September the battle was joined, not only at Horseshoe Bend, but along the entire length of the Deschutes cañon. It was a strange race, not mile by mile and rail by rail across the continent, as was the historic Union Pacific-Central Pacific contest, but rather an explosion of energy on both sides of the Deschutes.
Always there was the problem of supply. The Great Southern ran to Dufur on the west side of the Deschutes; the Columbia Southern reached Shaniko on the east side of the river. Here in central Oregon, where the last remnant of the old frontier was being shoved aside by the encroaching forces of civilization, these short feeder lines were used to their utmost capacity, but aside from them, the weapons of transportation were those of a former century.
The rivalry between men of the two lines was keen and constant. When the Deschutes was between the competitive crews, nothing more dangerous than words was hurled by one side at the other, these to be lost in the growl of the river. At other times, grading crews worked side-by-side, and often the battle of words turned into a long-range rock-throwing contest. Or fists and pick handles became weapons, and the fight was close and bitter and bloody.
It was like a calling of the nations, these men who fought and transported supplies and hewed a place for the rails from solid rock and laid the steel: Swedish powder men, Austrians, Slavic muck stickers, Italian track layers, Greeks, American muleskinners. Behind them were the men who planned and dreamed and drove: John F. Stevens, Porter Brothers, Engineer George Kyle for the Oregon Trunk; George W. Boschke, who topped the Harriman organization, and the staff of engineers headed by H. A. Brandon. Over and above these two armies, marshaled for the invasion of central Oregon, were the great captains of the rails, James J. Hill and Edward H. Harriman.
It was a restless land, this central Oregon in the late summer of 1909, stirred as if it were a great ocean whipped into movement by a gigantic paddle wielded in some mysterious hand. Regardless of the subtle and far-reaching plans that were hidden in the minds of James J. Hill and Edward Harriman as they reached for empire, the people were on the move.
Moro, Grass Valley, Shaniko, Madras—tiny farming or frontier communities yesterday—were having their moment of glory today. Overnight, they had burst into throbbing boom towns, sprawling over the land in strange, unplanned fashion. Tents were pitched; old shacks long deserted were repaired and mopped and pressed into use; new houses were built, unpainted lumber bright in the summer sun.
Always it was this way as a flood of people followed a battle of the giants, all looking for their own small profit, for their share of the cream to be skimmed from this pool of human restlessness.
Then, on September 9th, word came that Edward Harriman had died at his country home, and Oregon was shocked, as was all the nation and the entire railroad world. He had not been in good health for some time, yet his going was unexpected, and it left a vacant place and brought its doubts to those who looked for the Harriman system to lay steel the length and width of eastern Oregon.
On September 14th, the Portland Oregonian carried a story stating that ex-Judge Robert S. Lovett, chief counsel for the Union Pacific, had been elected chairman of the executive committee of the company, thereby becoming the successor of Edward Harriman in the control of the vast railroad and steamship systems that the financier had built up. This, the Oregonian contended, proved that the Harriman organization was to be perpetuated in just the form in which it had been created.
Lee Dawes had left Grass Valley the day of Quinn’s and Deborah’s marriage, and had joined Highpockets on Crooked River. He was in Prineville when the news of Harriman’s death reached him.
“Funny thing,” Lee said thoughtfully. “We’ve been fighting Harriman’s outfit like hell and we’ll keep on fighting, but I don’t think there’s a man with the Oregon Trunk who isn’t sorry to hear of his death.”
“Even Jim Hill,” Highpockets added.
“That’s right. For all their scrapping, they held a lot of respect for each other.”
* * * * *
Leaving Prineville the next morning, Lee and Highpockets swung up Crooked River to buy horses, and it was late September before they drove their band into Madras. Lee had welcomed the long hours in the saddle, the dreamless sleep under the sta
rs. He tried to put Deborah out of his mind, tried to cut her out of the grip of his memory as completely as a surgeon would cut away an offending member of the body. He told himself over and over that he had not really loved her. She was just another woman that had been his for a moment, and was gone from his life. He should hate her for what she’d done to him, for the promise she had broken. Yet he knew he did not hate her. But when the frozen numbness in his heart began to thaw, he found his thoughts turning more and more to Hanna Racine.
Lee met Deborah on the street the day after he and Highpockets had delivered the horses to a Porter Brothers’ camp. Highpockets had remained in the stable to take care of the saddle horses, the liveryman having told Lee that Johnson Porter was at the hotel and waiting to see him. Hurrying toward the hotel, Lee found himself face to face with Deborah as she stepped out of a store.
“It’s nice to see you again, Lee,” she said gravely.
Lee lifted his hat, hungry eyes sweeping her tall, slender figure, her dark eyes alive and inviting, and anger stirred in him. He said quite casually: “Good evening, Missus Quinn.”
For a moment her eyes were fixed on his lean face, utterly sober as if she was stirred by the same memories that were in Lee. Then she said: “We’re living in that little white house at the edge of town.” She nodded toward it. “I hope you’ll visit us sometime.”
“I don’t think your husband would welcome my visit,” Lee said, and, moving around her, went on to the hotel.
Johnson Porter was eating in the hotel dining room when Lee came in. He waved Lee into a vacant chair. “How did you make out?”
“Highpockets says they’re good horses.”
“No sign of Jepson or Boston Bull?”
“No, but there will be. Any news I’ve missed?”
“You know about Harriman’s death?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t make any difference as far as our railroading goes. They’ll battle us just as hard as they have been, but I think we hold a bigger edge than we did. Secretary Ballinger rejected their application for a right of way from Madras down to Sherars Bridge, so we’re sitting in the driver’s seat as far as the contested ground is concerned. Ballinger held that the Interior Department didn’t have jurisdiction to grant their application because it had already approved ours.” Porter whittled on his steak. “Of course, there’s always that chance of them coming up with a trick we haven’t seen. I won’t breathe easy until we lay steel into Madras. It’s like waiting for lightning to strike. You just can’t outguess it.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of John Stevens’s lightning struck me,” Lee said ruefully.
“He didn’t get anywhere trying to hurry you, so he’s decided to give you the time you need. But if you’ve judged the girl wrong, he’ll have your scalp. Right now he’s gone East, and I don’t look for him back for a month or so. Meanwhile, I’ve got a job for you.”
“More horse buying?”
“No. This fits into one of the original assignments Stevens gave you. That’s why I asked if you’d picked up any sign of Jepson or Boston Bull. I think it’s more of their work, but if they’re as slick as they were on the dynamite job, they won’t leave any loose ends for you to pry up.” Porter put down his fork, and sat back. “There is this difference, Lee, and it’s why I want you to get started in the morning. They’re in the middle of their cussedness, and I think you’ll move in just in time to split it down the back. We’ve got our camps set up now, our wagon roads built, our commissary depots established, and we’re ready to build railroad. To do that, we’ve got to furnish meat to a lot of men. We’re driving the cattle we’ve bought to our butchering stations along the rim, and hauling the fresh meat down to the camps. We’ve been handling about eight thousand pounds of dressed beef a day.” He gestured angrily. “That gives our enemies a chance to make plenty of trouble, which they’re doing. Two days ago we had a herd scattered all over Shaniko Flat.”
“Any clues?”
Porter shook his head. “None. The boys were holding the cattle just above Cow Cañon when a bunch rode in, shooting and yelling, and the next thing they knew those cows took off for the John Day River. Now your job, Lee, is with our camp on the U’Rens’s place. The men are Austrians, and they’re eating a lot of meat. Lately they’ve got finicky. They won’t eat front quarters. We trade the fronts and hinds back and forth between the camps, so all of them get a fair division, but these Austrians think a cow is made up of all hinds.”
“Austrians don’t have much meat in the old country,” Lee said thoughtfully. “It might be just a prejudice they’ve worked up.”
“I don’t think so. There’s a man named Franz, who seems to be the ringleader of the agitation. He doesn’t get any better wages than the rest, but several times he’s sat in on poker games with some American teamsters and he’s had a pocketful of money. He’s one of the few who talk good English, and he likes to show off before the Americans. You find out where he gets his money. I want you and Magoon to take a load of beef down tomorrow. It will be all fronts, because they rejected a load yesterday and got pretty nasty about it. Before you’re back on the rim, you’ll see why I think there’s something more to it than just a prejudice.”
Lee’s grin was quick and wide, and an acceptance of the challenge. “We’ll take the beef down,” he said.
Lee and Highpockets left Madras that evening, rode north through Lyle Gap and up Cow Cañon, and reined into the butchering station before dawn.
“You’re just looking for a chance to grab trouble by the tail,” the teamster growled who usually delivered the meat. “Franz is a tough one . . . the kind that’s born mean. Nobody down there can lick him, and he’s got the rest of the Austrians scared to hell ’n’ back.”
“We’ll make out,” Lee said. “Ready to roll?”
“All set.” The butcher patted a canvas-covered quarter of beef. “Lots of good meat here. Dunno why them Austrians are so damned particular.”
Highpockets climbed into the seat, and Lee stepped up beside him, a Winchester between his knees. They followed the rim around Big Cove, the early morning air cold and still and touched with the promise of fall, the cañon slowly emerging from purple shadow as the sun rose.
Here, the cañon of the Deschutes was wider, the walls less precipitous. Here and there, rimrock stood sheer and steep above the cañon, but in most places the rim broke off in rounded complacency, evidence of Nature’s erosive power where a soft earth gave in to its urgings. The wagon reached the bottom, and rolled on across the nearly level cañon floor. The new grade lay along the river, the earth raw and fresh where men and horses and scrapers had ruthlessly moved it from its centuries-old resting place.
Turning left, Highpockets drove along the grade, the camp within sight of them. Men were idling along the river, and Lee, missing no detail of the scene before them, said: “Nobody’s working. They’re waiting for this meat wagon, and they’re cocked for trouble.”
“What’s our play?”
“You stay in the seat. Keep the Winchester handy. If Johnson Porter called it right, I’ll have to lick hell out of this Franz, and I don’t want to get slugged from the back while I’m doing it.”
The Austrians had seen the wagon, and were gathering in a solid crowd in front of the cook shack. Highpockets turned off the grade, and pulled up in front of the crowd. “’Morning, gents,” Lee said, and climbed down.
Forty or fifty men were in the bunch, and at the moment Lee couldn’t get his eyes on Franz. None of them spoke and none of them moved. Lee had years before developed the ability to size up a crowd like this, and he caught its mood before he reached the rear of the wagon. Anger had built to a man-eating height. If it once broke loose into full violence, Lee and Highpockets would not get out of camp alive. The trick was to single Franz out and settle this individually—a good trick, Lee thought, if he could do it.
Stepping to the rear of the wagon, Lee threw the canvas away from the meat. �
��You boys waiting to get fed before you start to work?” he asked cheerfully.
No one answered. Lee spotted a man he took for Franz, a squat, great-shouldered figure in the front row. A drooping, yellow mustache covered much of his mouth; his eyes were small and black and without humor. Judging by the way the others covertly watched him, he was their accepted leader, and they were waiting for his orders.
Pulling one of the beef quarters from the wagon, Lee said: “Here’s meat, boys. Get your bellies full and go to work.” He gripped the quarter and swung it directly at the squat man. “Take it in, feller.”
Franz jumped back, letting the beef fall into the dirt. Anger brought a nervous twitch to the right side of his mouth. He said sourly: “I’m Franz. I talk for these men. We won’t work unless we get hinds.”
“Every cow has two hind quarters and two front quarters,” Lee said patiently, as if he were explaining a simple problem to a child. “It wouldn’t be right to give one camp all the hinds and make the other boys eat all the fronts.”
“To hell with the other camps. We’re eating hinds.” Franz said something in his native tongue to the other men, and they nodded eagerly. “You see?” Franz brought his little eyes back to Lee. “You give us hinds.”
Lee stepped around the wagon until he was within a pace of Franz. He said with cool firmness: “You had hinds last time. Pick up that quarter and pack it inside.”
“You try making me pack that meat in,” Franz said, the nervous twitch in his mouth twisting the right side of his face into an ugly wickedness, “and I’ll kick your guts to pieces.”
Swiftly and without warning, Lee was on the man, fists sledging his head on one side and then the other, and Franz went back into the knot of graders behind him. They fell away, surprised at this unexpected audacity. Lee kept on Franz, fists sinking into the hard muscles of his stomach and driving wind from him. He brought his attack back to the Austrian’s head and knocked him off his feet with a piledriving right that caught Franz flushly on the point of his wide chin.
Shadow on the Land Page 15
