Shadow on the Land (21 page)

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 stove. “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

T
hey 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?”

“It's gone for Nineteen-Oh-Nine, Lee. You were lying there and very near to death.”

“I owe you a lot, but I never thought I'd owe you for saving my life.”

“I was glad to do anything I could,” she said softly. She regarded him for a moment, her eyes thoughtful. “What do you mean by saying you owe me a lot?”

He closed his eyes and made no answer, for he could not tell her now. Thinking he had dropped off to sleep, she did not press the question, and it was moments later before he asked: “Was it Quinn who got me?”

“No, Quinn was on his way home from Trout Creek when it happened. It was a man named Shafter. Highpockets said he was the one who brought the note.”

“One of Bull's freighters.”

“Yes, and it was probably Bull who fixed up the murder trap. Shafter was waiting outside to get you if Franz missed. They're both dead.”

“Deborah was the one who wanted me killed,” he said slowly.

“No, Lee,” Hanna said quickly. “She had nothing to do with that note. She was playing cards with some friends of hers. It was a regular date she had once a week, so whoever planned to kill you knew she'd be gone all afternoon.”

He let that thought lie in his mind for a time, feeling the relief it brought him and yet not fully believing it. He asked: “How long will I have to lie here?”

“Most of the month, I think.”

He swore fiercely, and then, ashamed, he said—“I'm sorry, Hanna.”—and, wearied, he dropped off to sleep again.

When he woke, Hanna was still there. “Highpockets said Jepson was trying to get you to sell to Quinn,” he said.

“I haven't sold,” she said quickly. “I made you a promise.”

Relief washed across his face, and then pride, and Hanna smiled as she stood up and folded her sewing. “I told you, the first time you and Quinn argued with me, that I favored the Oregon Trunk. I still do.”

He saw that she was troubled. She moved to the window, and stood looking out, the afternoon sun falling across her face and making her hair brightly alive. Lee, watching her, sensed the human warmth that was so much a part of her, the faithfulness, the gallantry, and a quick warmth rose in him.

Hanna turned from the window and came to the bed, worry still in her. “I don't know why Cyrus went over to the Harriman line. It isn't like him, because all the time I've known him, he's favored the people's railroad, and I see no reason for him to change. He says it won't pass, but, whether it does or not, I don't see that it makes any reason to go over to Harriman.” She shook her head. “I don't believe in a lot of the things Jim Hill has done, but he is the one who broke the Harriman Fence. Lee, sometimes I wake up at night wondering if we'll ever get a railroad.”