Shadow on the Land

by Wayne D. Overholser

  “Stand clear, you dad-burned coyotes!” Highpockets yelled, and fired a shot.

  The crowd fell back. Lee heard the rumble of anger break out of them, but he had no time to see what had happened. He understood men like Franz; he knew what the Austrian would have done if it had not been for the suddenness of his attack. He dropped upon Franz, hard, knees in the squat man’s ribs. He heard the snap of bone, the hiss of violently expelled air. He hit the man on the side of the head, and then on the other, and, seeing that most of the fight was out of him, crawled off and rolled the almost inert body over.

  “You ready to pick that quarter up yet?” Lee demanded.

  “No, damn you,” Franz muttered, and arched his back.

  Lee came astride the Austrian, his full weight against the small of Franz’s back, and Franz fell flat. Lee grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, shoved his face into the dirt, and twisted it in gusty violence. He jerked the squat man’s face up from the dirt, still by the hair, and asked: “You want to pack meat now?”

  Franz blew out a mouthful of dust, pulled a painful breath back into his tortured lungs, and muttered: “Ja. I’ll do it.”

  Lee stood up, still watchful, while Franz labored to his feet, and wiped a shirt sleeve across his bloody, dusty face.

  There was no movement now from the crowd. Their man had been licked, and fight had gone from them. Stooping, Franz picked up the beef and carried it into the cook shack.

  Lee followed him closely. When they came out, he asked: “Who paid you to start this trouble?”

  “Nobody,” Franz muttered.

  “You’re lying.” Lee raised a fist and took a step toward Franz.

  “Bull . . . they call him,” Franz said quickly. “Boston Bull. Three hundred dollars I got to make the meat trouble.”

  “All right, Franz. You’re done on the Oregon Trunk. Start up the hill.”

  For a moment Franz made no move. He stood with his shoulders hunched forward, blood dripping from a cut in his right cheek, one eye closed, the other gleaming in a keen wickedness. He said thickly: “I’m done on the Oregon Trunk, but not with you.” He swung away and started down the grade.

  Lee returned to the wagon. “All right, boys,” he said casually. “I guess you’ll eat fronts.” He pulled another quarter from the wagon, and handed it to a man who took it without a word and carried it inside. When the wagon was empty, Lee said: “You’ll get hinds next time, boys.” He climbed up beside Highpockets. “Let’s roll.”

  Franz had started up the road when the wagon passed him. Highpockets said with somber unease: “Those boys’ll eat fronts all right, but you just made another enemy who likes you about the same as Boston Bull does.”

  Lee said, fishing his pipe from his pocket: “Franz said Bull gave him three hundred dollars to kick this mess up. I guess that gives me something to talk about when I find Bull.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  December, and the chill, clear days of fall had given way to winter. The last of November had been entirely wicked, with an early snow in the mountains and a Chinook that had created an unprecedented disturbance in the even-flowing Deschutes. Rising ten feet in twenty-four hours, it became a mud-brown, rampaging torrent. Two of the Twohy Brothers’ camps were swept away. One of the Porter Brothers’ camps, located on higher ground, was surrounded by water and temporarily deserted because it was impossible to get supplies to it.

  The roads across Shaniko Flats and into the cañon were turned into sticky, treacherous seas of liquid gumbo, tenaciously gripping the wheels of loaded wagons, forcing teamsters to put on six horses instead of four. One heavy outfit pulled into the Oregon Trunk camp on the U’Rens’s place with thirty-two head of horses in harness. Then the rains were over, and it froze, and the gumbo roads became as hard as pavement.

  It had been a good fall until the rains came, and time had accelerated the race rather than retarded it. The Oregon Trunk relocated its line to the west side from Mile Twenty-Three to the neighborhood of Sherars Bridge. The original survey had called for a crossing to the east side at Mile Twenty-Three and back at Mile Thirty-Eight and a tunneling of Horseshoe Bend. Now, with the relocation, the tunnel was avoided, and Horseshoe Bend was no longer a point in conflict.

  John Stevens, making a quick trip into central Oregon, talked briefly with Lee in Madras. “Our difficulty,” he said, “if we have any, will be around Mile Seventy-Five where we cross below the mouth of Trout Creek. They opened the road across the Girt place with another injunction, but that isn’t important now.” He looked at Lee sharply then. “Our other trouble spot is Trail Crossing. What about the Racine girl?”

  “She’ll come to me when she’s ready to deal,” Lee said.

  “You don’t build a railroad waiting for people to come to you,” Stevens said with biting irony.

  “I’ll see her,” Lee promised. He got up and paced to the window. It had snowed a full six inches that morning, had stopped, and now, in mid-afternoon, it had started again, a few flakes circling uneasily in the air before coming to rest. Lee watched them for a moment, feeling Stevens’s eyes upon him, the impatience that was building in the man. Turning, he said soberly: “I know you think I’m playing this wrong, but I’m positive of one thing. Hanna Racine will deal with us a lot sooner if we don’t push her.”

  “I’ve let you alone because you seem to understand the situation, Dawes,” Stevens said, “but the way things are shaping up, we can’t wait much longer. We’ve started work at Trail Crossing, so the Harriman people can’t hurt us unless”—he leveled a finger at Lee—“the Racine girl sells to them and not to us.”

  Lee, thinking of Hanna’s sense of high integrity, said with complete confidence: “She won’t. You can count on it.”

  Lee sat there after Stevens had left for Bend, patiently nursing his pipe, long legs stretched in front of him, a slack-muscled, tall man from whom the love of fighting had gone. Something was missing in him, had been missing since that afternoon in Grass Valley when he’d seen Quinn drive in with Deborah beside him. It was as if a fire had gone out, the flame and warmth gone, the gray ashes left.

  Strangely, as so many times these last three months, his mind turned to Hanna, and feeling stirred in him. The admiration he had felt for her when they had talked on the Inland Belle had increased as he had come to know her better, and the thought of her never failed to bring its calm assurance. It was strange, he told himself, for he had always picked the ardent women, the turbulent ones, and Hanna was not one of them. But the past years had been mostly wasted years, and a man could not go on forever wasting them. He had sensed in Hanna depths no man had explored, capacities that even she did not know existed in her.

  Then he cursed himself for a fool, and put his thoughts on other things. Hanna Racine would never love him. They were on opposite sides of the fence; they were too different. Then his mind, circling, would come again to Hanna, and he found himself looking forward to carrying out the promise he had made Stevens to see her.

  Lee was there when Highpockets came. Stamping the snow from his feet, he saw Lee, and said warmly: “How are you, boy? I was afraid you’d be out looking after the beef business, and I’d miss you.”

  “I’ve been up and down that damned cañon ever since you pulled out for Silver Lake,” Lee said. “Plenty of trouble, but I never got my eyes on Boston Bull.”

  “He’s been in the desert. I didn’t find the horses I wanted at Silver Lake, so swung on north to Jepson City. Jepson was there, and so was Bull.”

  Interest quickened in Lee. “Reckon they are still there?”

  “Jepson ain’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  Highpockets put his back to the stove, and held his hands behind him. Then he fingered a big ear, and finally swung back to face the stove. “Jepson’s at Hanna’s place, and he’s doing his best to get her to sell a right of way to Mike Quinn.”

  Lee stared at Highpockets, unable to believe this. He got to his feet and came to the stov
e. “She wouldn’t do that.”

  “I’m worried she will,” Highpockets said gloomily. “She sets a store by what that slick-tongued coyote says. She’s smart in most things, but she ain’t smart at all when it comes to Jepson. Reckon it was because Herb liked him.”

  “She won’t sell to Quinn until she’s seen me,” Lee said stubbornly.

  “I hope you know what you’re talking about,” Highpockets said with grim doubt. “I laid over at Hanna’s place with my horses. Chris, that’s her foreman, said Jepson had been there a couple of days nagging her to death.”

  Lee filled his pipe, a new question rising in his mind that seemed to have no answer. “Why would Jepson want her to sell to Quinn when he’s been so crazy about the people’s railroad?”

  “I sure don’t know, but he puts up the argument that a railroad for central Oregon is the big thing, and it ain’t so important whether the people build it or Harriman does.”

  “Hell, why doesn’t he want her to sell to the Oregon Trunk?”

  “He says the Harriman lines are all around Oregon, so they’d operate cheaper and more efficiently. He claims we oughta think about what’s best for central Oregon. Said Hill just started in here to block Harriman.”

  Lee flamed a match and held it to his pipe. “She won’t listen to that argument. She’s too smart.”

  “Hanna’s mighty keen on being loyal to her friends.”

  “How much of a friend is Jepson?”

  “None, but that don’t make Hanna see it.”

  “You said once you had a notion about who killed Herb Racine.”

  Highpockets shifted uncomfortably and stared out of a window at the snow, which had begun to fall in earnest now. “I always allowed it was Jepson, but I never could get no reason for it, him and Herb being friends.”

  “Why do you think it was Jepson?”

  “The night Herb was shot I met Jepson coming up the grade. When I got down to the bridge, there was Herb plumb dead. The bullet came through him on about a level, so I figgered he was plugged from the rocks a little above the water. Anyhow, moonlight ain’t much good for long-range shooting, so don’t reckon he got it from the rim. Of course the killer might have gone up the north grade, but it don’t stand to reason Jepson could have crossed the bridge without seeing Herb’s body.”

  “Did Jepson know Herb was going to cross the bridge?”

  “Sure. They’d had a powwow in Redmond, and Herb was on his way home. I figure Jepson waited in the rocks a spell, thinking somebody would come along and find the body. I had some ornery horses, so I was way behind schedule. Reckon he figgered I’d gone by.”

  “You tell the sheriff you saw Jepson?”

  “Nope. Being night, Jepson would have said I couldn’t see well enough to be sure who it was. He pulled over next to the bank, and I was plumb busy easing my rig by, but I know it was him. I did tell the sheriff to ask Jepson where he’d been, and Jepson comes up with a poker game in Redmond. Had Boston Bull and some more swearing he was there till three o’clock.”

  “Guess I’d better get out to Hanna’s place. I’d like to ask him in front of Hanna where he was the night Herb was killed. Sometimes a man like Jepson schemes so long he gets pulled out kind of fine and gets boogery.”

  “Are you Dawes?” A man had come in and stood now in the doorway, cold air sweeping into the room.

  “I’m Dawes. Shut the door.”

  The man came across the lobby, leaving the door open, and handed Lee a folded sheet of paper. He wheeled, and walked out, still failing to close the door.

  “Damned fool,” Lee grunted, and, crossing the room, slammed the door shut. “Born in a barn and raised in a sawmill. Say, haven’t I seen him before?”

  “One of Bull’s freighters. He was in that tussle we had in Shaniko.”

  “Thought he looked familiar.” Lee unfolded the note, read it, and handed it to Highpockets.

  Written in a fine, Spencerian hand were the words: I’m in trouble, Lee. Will you help me? Deborah.

  Highpockets handed the note back. “Ain’t much doubt about what the trouble is.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ain’t you seen her? You allus notice it sooner on a purty, slim woman like her than the other kind. Reckon she’ll have her baby in two, three months.”

  “She’s married,” Lee said sourly. “That’s no reason for her to be in trouble.”

  “Less’n four months. A woman wouldn’t be showing in that time.”

  Lee shrugged. “Nothing I can do for her if she’s in that shape. I’m going out to Hanna’s place.”

  “You ain’t been around here much,” Highpockets said quickly, “and you ain’t run into Quinn. He’s made some talk about killing you, because you got his wife into trouble before he married her.”

  Lee pulled on his coat. “If he comes with that at me, I’ll beat it down his throat. He’s got one coming after what happened in Shaniko.”

  Lee had reached the door when Highpockets said: “You’re the boss, Lee, and I sure ain’t one to tell you what to do, but it strikes me you’re overlooking a bet.” Lee paused, his hand on the doorknob, and Highpockets hurried on: “I ain’t got no idea who the baby’s pappy is, but I do know Deborah used to be plumb chummy with Jepson. That’s probably why she got that feller to bring the note. Now she’s married to Quinn, and chances are she’s in trouble with him. She wouldn’t be calling on you if she wasn’t ready to make a deal.”

  Lee stood looking at Highpockets, a tightness in him that was close to sickness. He wanted nothing more to do with Deborah. She had been a fever in his bloodstream, and now that he had cured himself of that fever, she was sending for him.

  “What kind of a deal?” Lee asked roughly.

  “She knows plenty about Jepson. Mebbe why he’s jumped to the Harriman side of the fence.”

  “All right,” Lee growled. “I’ll go see her.”

  * * * * *

  The Quinn house was set away from the town, a small building that loomed darkly now before Lee. He passed a man plodding toward town, shoulders hunched forward, hat tilted low over his face. Lee came to the front door of the house, lifted his fist to knock, and then lowered it. He saw a woman’s footprints on the porch not yet covered by the afternoon’s snowfall. Beside them was a man’s tracks pointing in. Lee thought about this, a warning compulsion sweeping through him.

  Dropping to one knee, Lee drew his gun. He remained that way for a moment, listening. He heard nothing inside the house. There was a stillness that seemed to possess the earth, that seemed to flow around him like the passage of a silent stream and left a strange unease in him. Then it came, a man’s hollow cough. Lee, putting a hand to the knob, turned it and shoved the door open?

  There was a blossom of light as a gun burst into life within the house. The bullet bit a splinter from the door casing above Lee, a second sang through the open space above his head. Lee, catching the vague figure of a squat man against the far wall, fired once, and watched him topple, slowly at first and then, his joints giving way, falling at once, like a down-pulled tent.

  He stood in the doorway, attention drawn fiddle-string tight, eyes searching the gloom, the acrid smell of powder smoke biting into his nostrils. Then, crossing to the dead man, he swore softly. It was the Austrian, Franz.

  Lee rose, thinking of the implications of this, and then, swinging toward the door, left the room. He had made a full step beyond the porch when the bullet caught him in the chest and knocked him into the snow. There was the beat of the shot against his ears, the blur of the man in the whirling snowflakes. Lee fired, feeling the numbness in his body, and fired again, and suddenly the man wasn’t there.

  He was on his face, gun falling from lax fingers. Blood came from him, to make a pattern on the snow. Time ran on, unmeasured, and he had a vague feeling that people were around him. Then, cutting through the jumbled impressions that were in his mind, he heard Deborah’s voice, far away: “It’s Lee Dawes, and he’s still
alive.” And Lee slipped off into a deep blackness, the last thought in his numbed brain that Deborah had invited him to his death.

  Chapter Seventeen

  They were gray days, filled with strange, vague images that were disturbing to Lee Dawes. He woke in a warm, clean bed. He did not recognize the room, lighted by a single lamp upon a bureau. There was a distorted sense of unreality about all of it that assumed alarming proportions when he saw Hanna standing beside the bed. Her presence was something he could dream about, but he had no right to expect.

  Hanna smiled, when she saw that his eyes were open, and gave him a drink. She saw the puzzlement on his pale face, a face that had been so alive and hungry for life. She said reassuringly: “You’re in Doctor Coe’s hospital in Bend.”

  He dropped off to sleep. When he woke again, there was a bright sun upon the white earth, and a big man was bending over him. He had lifted the bandage and examined the wound. Now, replacing the bandage, he said: “You’ve had the luck of the Irish.”

  Lee scowled. “No Irish in me.”

  The doctor straightened his thick shoulders and winked at Hanna. “He’s got a temper, and that’s a good sign.” He frowned at Lee. “Irish luck or not, you’ve had your share. You were just about bled out when I saw you, and you had a bullet hole in your chest big enough to run a horse through. That slug bounced off a rib and plowed up some muscles, but managed to dodge the important stuff.” He waved a huge hand at Hanna. “And along with your other luck, you had a nurse who worked twenty-four hours a day.”

  A woman in the doorway said: “A call just came in from Laidlaw for you, Doctor. A man was dragged by a runaway team.”

  “All you’ve got to do is to be quiet, Dawes,” Coe said. “From what I hear of you, that’s something you don’t often do.”

  After the doctor had gone and Hanna had pulled a chair up and sat down, Lee asked: “What’s the date?”

  “The second day of January.”

  “Christmas is gone?”