the U P Trail (1940)

by Grey, Zane

  "Lass, he's dyin' fer you; an' I never spoke a truer word."

  Allie shuddered close to him, blinded, stormed by an exquisite bitter-sweet fury of love. She seemed rising, uplifted, filled with rich, strong joy.

  "I forgave him," she murmured, dreamily low to herself.

  "War, mebbe you'll be right glad you did; presently," said Slingerland, with animation. "'Specially when thar wasn't nothin' much to forgive."

  Allie became mute. She could not lift her eyes.

  "Lass, listen!" began Slingerland. "After you left Roarin' City Neale went at hard work. Began by heavin' ties an' rails, an' now he's slingin' a sledge....

  This was amazin' to me. I seen him only onct since, an' thet was the other day.

  But I heerd about him. I rode over to Roarin' City several times. An' I made it my bizness to find out about Neale.... He never came into the town at all. They said he worked like a slave the first day, bleedin' hard. But he couldn't be stopped. An' the work didn't kill him, though thar was some as swore it would.

  They said he changed, an' when he toughened up thar was never but one man as could equal him, an' thet was an Irish feller named Casey. I heerd it was somethin' worth while to see him sling a sledge.... Wal, I never seen him do it, but mebbe I will yet.

  "A few days back I met him gettin' off a train at Roarin' City. Lord! I hardly knowed him! He stood like an Injun, with the big muscles bulgin', an' his face was clean an' dark, his eye like fire.... He nearly shook the daylights out of me. 'Slingerland, I want you!' he kept yellin' at me. An' I said, 'So it 'pears, but what fer?' Then he told me he was goin' after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail. Wal, I took my outfit, an' we rode back into the hills. You remember them. Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an' we packed it back to Roarin' City. Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to you. An' hyar I I am an' thar's the gold."

  Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland's story, Suddenly she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

  "Gold! Horn's gold! But it's not mine! Did Neale send it to me?"

  "Every ounce," replied the trapper, soberly. "I reckon it's yours. Thar was no one else left; an' you recollect what Horn said. Lass, it's yours; an' I'm goin' to make you keep it."

  "How much is there?" queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity. How well she remembered Horn! He had told her he had no relatives. Indeed, the gold was hers.

  "Wal, Neale an' me couldn't calkilate how much, hevin' nothin' to weigh the gold. But it's a fortune."

  Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper. There had been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense, the fullness, the inevitableness of this.

  "Did Neale send anything else?" she flashed.

  "Wal, yes, an' I was comin' to thet," replied Slingerland, as he unlaced the front of his hunting-frock. Presently he drew forth a little leather note-book, which he handed to Allie. She took it while looking up at him. Never had she seen his face radiate such strange emotion. She divined it to be the supreme happiness inherent in the power to give happiness.

  Allie trembled. She opened the little book. Surely it would contain a message that would be as sweet as life to dying eyes. She read a name, written in ink, in a clear script: "Beauty Stanton."

  Her pulses ceased to beat, her blood to flow, her heart to throb. All seemed to freeze within her except her mind. And that leaped fearfully over the first lines of a letter; then feverishly on to the close; only to fly back and read again. Then she dropped the book. She hid her face on Slingerland's breast. She clutched him with frantic hands. She clung there, her body all held rigid, as if some extraordinary strength or inspiration or joy had suddenly inhibited weakness.

  "Wal, lass, hyar you're takin' it powerful hard; an' I made sure; "

  "Hush!" whispered Allie, raising her face. She kissed him. Then she sprang up like a bent sapling released. She met Slingerland's keen gaze; saw him start; then rise as if the better to meet a shock.

  "I am going back West with you," she said, coolly.

  "Wal, I knowed you'd go."

  "Divide that gold. I'll leave half for my father." Slingerland's great hands began to pull at the pack.

  "Thar's a train soon. I calkilated to stay over a day. But the sooner the better.... Lass, will you run off or tell him?"

  "I'll tell him. He can't stop me, even if he would.... The gold will save him from ruin.... He will let me go."

  She stooped to pick up the little leather note-book and placed it in her bosom.

  Her heart seemed to surge against it. The great river rolled on; rolled on; magnified in her sight. A thick, rich, beautiful light shone under the trees.

  What was this dance of her blood while she seemed so calm, so cool, so sure?

  "Does he have any idea; that I might return to him?" she asked.

  "None, lass, none! Thet I'll swear," declared Slingerland. "When I left him at

  Roarin' City the other day he was; wal, like he used to be. The boy come out in him again, not jest the same, but brave. Sendin' thet gold an' thet little book made him happy.... I reckon Neale found his soul then. An' he never expects to see you again in this hyar world."

  Chapter

  Building a railroad grew to be an exact and wonderful science with the men of the Union Pacific, from engineers down to the laborers who ballasted and smoothed the road-bed.

  Wherever the work-trains stopped there began a hum like a bee-hive. Gangs loaded rails on a flat-car, and the horses or mules were driven at a gallop to the front. There two men grasped the end of a rail and began to slide it off. In couples, other laborers of that particular gang laid hold, and when they had it off the car they ran away with it to drop it in place. While they were doing this other gangs followed with more rails. Four rails laid to the minute! When one of the cars was empty it was tipped off the track to make room for the next one. And as that next one passed the first was levered back again on the rails to return for another load.

  Four rails down to the minute! It was Herculean toil. The men who fitted the rails were cursed the most frequently, because they took time, a few seconds, when there was no time.

  Then the spikers! These brawny, half-naked, sweaty giants; what a grand spanging music of labor rang from under their hammers! Three strokes to a spike for most spikers! Only two strokes for such as Casey or Neale! Ten spikes to a rail; four hundred rails to a mile! ... How many million times had brawny arms swung and sledges clanged!

  Forward every day the work-trains crept westward, closer and closer to that great hour when they would meet the work-trains coming east.

  The momentum now of the road-laying was tremendous. The spirit that nothing could stop had become embodied in a scientific army of toilers, a mass, a machine, ponderous, irresistible, moving on to the meeting of the rails.

  Every day the criss-cross of ties lengthened out along the winding road-bed, and the lines of glistening rails kept pace with them. The sun beat down hot; the dust flew in sheets and puffs; the smoky veils floated up from the desert.

  Red-shirted toilers, blue-shirted toilers, half-naked toilers, sweat and bled, and laughed grimly, and sucked at their pipes, and bent their broad backs. The pace had quickened to the limit of human endurance. Fury of sound filled the air. Its rhythmical pace was the mighty gathering impetus of a last heave, a last swing.

  Promontory Point was the place destined to be famous as the meeting of the rails.

  On that summer day in 1869, which was to complete the work, special trains arrived from west and east. The Governor of California, who was also president of the western end of the line, met the Vice- President of the United States and the directors of the Union Pacific. Mormons from Utah were there in force. The

  Government was represented by officers and soldiers in uniform; and these, with their military band, lent the familiar martial air to the last scene of the great enterprise. Here mingled the Irish and Negro laborers from the ea
st with the Chinese and Mexican from the west. Then the eastern paddies laid the last rails on one end, while the western coolies laid those on the other. The rails joined. Spikes were driven, until the last one remained.

  The Territory of Arizona had presented a spike of gold, silver, and iron; Nevada had given one of silver, and a railroad tie of laurel wood; and the last spike of all; of solid gold; was presented by California.

  The driving of the last spike was to be heard all over the United States. Omaha was the telegraphic center. The operator here had informed all inquirers, "When the last spike is driven at Promontory Point we will say, 'Done!'"

  The magic of the wire was to carry that single message abroad over the face of the land.

  The President of the United States was to be congratulated, as were the officers of the army, and the engineers of the work. San Francisco had arranged a monster celebration marked by the booming of cannon and enthusiastic parades. Free railroad tickets into Sacramento were to fill that city with jubilant crowds. At

  Omaha cannons were to be fired, business abandoned, and the whole city given over to festivity. Chicago was to see a great parade and decoration. In New York a hundred guns were to boom out the tidings. Trinity Church was to have special services, and the famous chimes were to play "Old Hundred." In Philadelphia a ringing of the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall would initiate a celebration.

  And so it would be in all prominent cities of the Union.

  Neale was at Promontory Point that summer day. He stood aloof from the crowd, on a little bank, watching with shining eyes.

  To him the scene was great, beautiful, final.

  Only a few hundreds of that vast army of laborers were present at the meeting of the rails, but enough were there to represent the whole. Neale's glances were swift and gathering. His comrades, Pat and McDermott, sat near, exchanging lights for their pipes. They seemed reposeful, and for them the matter was ended. Broken hulks of toilers of the rails! Neither would labor any more. A burly Negro, with crinkly, bullet-shaped head, leaned against a post; a brawny spiker, naked to the waist, his wonderful shoulders and arms brown, shiny, knotted, scarred, stood near, sledge in hand; a group of Irishmen, red-and blue-shirted, puffed their black pipes and argued; swarthy, sloe-eyed Mexicans, with huge sombreros on their knees, lolled in the shade of a tree, talking low in their mellow tones and fingering cigarettes; Chinamen, with long pig-tails and foreign dress, added strangeness and colorful contrast.

  Neale heard the low murmur of voices of the crowd, and the slow puffing of the two engines, head on, only a few yards apart, so strikingly different in shape.

  Then followed the pounding of hoofs and tread of many feet, the clang of iron as the last rail went down. How clear, sweet, spanging the hammer blows! And there was the old sighing sweep of the wind. Then came a gun-shot, the snort of a horse, a loud laugh.

  Neale heard all with sensitive, recording ears.

  "Mac, yez are so dom' smart; now tell me who built the U. P.?" demanded Pat.

  "Thot's asy. Me fri'nd Casey did, b'gorra," retorted McDermott.

  "Loike hell he did! It was the Irish."

  "Shure, thot's phwat I said," McDermott replied.

  "Wal, thin, phwat built the U. P.? Tell me thot. Yez knows so much."

  McDermott scratched his sun-blistered, stubble-field of a face, and grinned.

  "Whisky built the eastern half, an' cold tay built the western half."

  Pat regarded his comrade with considerable respect. "Mac, shure yez is intilligint," he granted. "The Irish lived on whisky an' the Chinamons on tay.... Wal, yez is so dom' orful smart, mebbe yez can tell me who got the money for thot worrk."

  "B'gorra, I know where ivery dollar wint," replied McDermott.

  And so they argued on, oblivious to the impressive last stage.

  Neale sensed the rest, the repose in the attitude of all the laborers present.

  Their hour was done. And they accepted that with the equanimity with which they had met the toil, the heat and thirst, the Sioux. A splendid, rugged, loquacious, crude, elemental body of men, unconscious of heroism. Those who had survived the five long years of toil and snow and sun, and the bloody Sioux, and the roaring camps, bore the scars, the furrows, the gray hairs of great and wild times.

  A lane opened up in the crowd to the spot where the rails had met.

  Neale got a glimpse of his associates, the engineers, as they stood near the frock-coated group of dignitaries and directors. Then Neale felt the stir and lift of emotion, as if he were on a rising wave. His blood began to flow fast and happily. He was to share their triumphs. The moment had come. Some one led him back to his post of honor as the head of the engineer corps.

  A silence fell then over that larger, denser multitude. It grew impressive, charged, waiting.

  Then a man of God offered up a prayer. His voice floated dreamily to Neale. When he had ceased there were slow, dignified movements of frock-coated men as they placed in position the last spike.

  The silver sledge flashed in the sunlight and fell. The sound of the driving-stroke did not come to Neale with the familiar spang of iron; it was soft, mellow, golden.

  A last stroke! The silence vibrated to a deep, hoarse acclaim from hundreds of men; a triumphant, united hurrah, simultaneously sent out with that final message, "Done!"

  A great flood of sound, of color seemed to wave over Neale. His eyes dimmed with salt tears, blurring the splendid scene. The last moment had passed; that for which he had stood with all faith, all spirit; and the victory was his. The darkness passed out of his soul.

  Then, as he stood there, bareheaded, at the height of this all- satisfying moment, when the last echoing melody of the sledge had blended in the roar of the crowd, a strange feeling of a presence struck Neale. Was it spiritual; was it divine; was it God? Or was it only baneful, fateful; the specter of his accomplished work; a reminder of the long, gray future?

  A hand slipped into his; small, soft, trembling, exquisitely thrilling. Neale became still as a stone; transfixed. He knew that touch. No dream, no fancy, no morbid visitation! He felt warm flesh; tender, clinging fingers; and then the pulse of blood that beat of hope; love; life; Allie Lee!

  Chapter 36

  Slingerland saw Allie Lee married to Neale by that minister of God whose prayer had followed the joining of the rails.

  And to the old trapper had fallen the joy and the honor of giving the bride away and of receiving her kiss, as though he had been her father. Then the happy congratulations from General Lodge and his staff; the merry dinner given the couple, and its toasts warm with praise of the bride's beauty and the groom's luck and success; Neale's strange, rapt happiness and Allie's soul shining through her dark-blue eyes; this hour was to become memorable for Slingerland's future dreams.

  Slingerland's sight was not clear when, as the train pulled away, he waved a last good-bye to his young friends. Now he had no hope, no prayer left unanswered, except to be again in his beloved hills.

  Abruptly he hurried away to the corrals where his pack-train was all in readiness to start. He did not speak to a man. He had packed a dozen burros; the largest and completest pack-train he had ever driven. The abundance of carefully selected supplies, tools, and traps should last him many years; surely all the years that he would live.

  Slingerland did not intend to return to civilization, and he never even looked back at that blotch on the face of the bluff; that hideous Roaring City.

  He drove the burros at a good trot, his mind at once busy and absent, happy with the pictures of that last hour, gloomy with the undefined, unsatisfied cravings of his heart. Friendship with Neale, affection for Allie, acquainted him with the fact that he had missed something in life; not friendship, for he had had hunter friends, but love, perhaps of a sweetheart, surely love of a daughter.

  For the rest the old trapper was glad to see the last of habitations, and of men, and of the railroad. Slingerland hated that great, shining steel band of progress conne
cting East and West. Every ringing sledge-hammer blow had sung out the death-knell of the trapper's calling. This railroad spelled the end of the wilderness. What one group of greedy men had accomplished others would imitate; and the grass of the plains would be burned, the forests blackened, the fountains dried up in the valleys, and the wild creatures of the mountains driven and hunted and exterminated. The end of the buffalo had come; the end of the Indian was in sight; and that of the fur- bearing animal and his hunter must follow soon with the hurrying years.

  Slingerland hated the railroad, and he could not see as Neale did, or any of the engineers or builders. This old trapper had the vision of the Indian; that far-seeing eye cleared by distance and silence, and the force of the great, lonely hills. Progress was great, but nature undespoiled was greater. If a race could not breed all stronger men, through its great movements, it might better not breed any, for the bad over-multiplied the good, and so their needs magnified into greed. Slingerland saw many shining bands of steel across the plains and mountains, many stations and hamlets and cities, a growing and marvelous prosperity from timber, mines, farms, and in the distant end; a gutted

  West.

  He made his first camp on a stream watering a valley twenty miles from the railroad. There were Indian tracks on the trails. But he had nothing to fear from Indians. That night, though all was starry and silent around him as he lay, he still held the insupportable feeling.

  Next day he penetrated deeper into the foothills, and soon he had gained the fastnesses of the mountains. No longer did he meet trails except those of deer and wildcat and bear. And so day after day he drove his burros, climbing and descending the rocky ways, until he had penetrated to the very heart of the great wild range.

  In all his roaming over untrodden lands he had never come into such a wild place. No foot, not; even an Indian's, had ever desecrated this green valley with its clear, singing stream, its herds of tame deer, its curious beaver, its pine-covered slopes, its looming, gray, protective peaks. And at last he was satisfied to halt there; to build his cabin and his corral.