Shadow on the Land (22 page)

“You'll see steel before the end of the year,” Lee said, “and you can help get it to Bend.”

She regarded him soberly. “There's that old saying about a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush. When you feel like making out the forms, I'll sign. You can have your right of way, Lee.”

He reached for her hand. “Soon as I see Highpockets, I'll have him get the forms and the checkbook.” She was smiling down at him. Now, that the decision had been made, it seemed that a weight had been rolled away from her. There was a sweetness about her, a light and lovely quality he had never seen in her before. “I guess thanks just isn't a big enough word,” he said.

“You don't have to thank me, Lee. Just see that the railroad is built. If there are any thanks to be given, I guess I should give them to you, because you haven't hurried me or started legal proceedings. Maybe I'm kind of silly that way, but I don't like being forced.”

Her hand was still in his, vibrant and vital and alive. Without thought and with great urgency, he asked: “Will you marry me, Hanna?”

It was almost as if he had struck her. She drew her hand away and stepped back, her face utterly sober. “You don't have to repay me that way, Lee,” she said gravely. “I wouldn't marry a man who asked me upon impulse because he thought he owed me something. Or when another woman is in his heart. I'm not big enough to share the man I love.” Hanna whirled, and walked quickly out of the room.

He called—“Hanna, it wasn't that way!”—but she did not turn back. Presently he saw her walk past his window, heard the
crunch
of snow under her feet. He stared at the ceiling a long time. For the first time in his life, he had asked a woman to marry him, and she had said no.

There was a hurt pride in Lee Dawes, and then that passed, and he felt the deeper hurt. The full knowledge of how much he loved Hanna Racine came to him. It was not the feverish madness that had been in him when he had first seen Deborah on the
Inland Belle
. It was something else, something that had grown with the months and would continue to grow with the years, a comfortable love that made him miss her presence as he would miss a light taken from a room, leaving it in darkness.

Highpockets went to Madras for the right-of-way forms. Lee made them out, wrote Hanna a check, and Highpockets took them to her place. She had gone home the day he had asked her to marry him. Lee, hating the loneliness and the bed and the idleness, wondered about Hanna, and could not understand why she had left.

* * * * *

The signed right-of-way agreement was mailed to John Stevens, and a few days later Johnson Porter, on one of his quick trips through the country, stopped to visit Lee.

“Stevens doesn't know about the right of way yet, but he'll be tickled when he does,” Porter said. “He's in Washington working on the Ellis Bill, which will give us the right to bridge the Columbia and Celilo Canal.” He grinned. “The Union Pacific may kick up some trouble for us, but I wouldn't be surprised if we got around it with a little horse trading.” Porter sobered. “Have you heard about the Smith homestead?”

“I just know it's down the river about Mile Seventy-Five.”

Porter nodded. “A little above where we cross over to the east side. I told you they might come up with a high trump we didn't expect, and this is it. We thought we had that right of way sewed up, and our maps were approved at Washington before Smith got title to his homestead, but the point is he had filed while the approval of our maps was pending.” Porter threw up his hands. “So there we sit, and we won't be able to do any grading through the Smith place till it's settled. He had prior rights, and he's commuted his homestead and sold to the Deschutes Railway Company.”

“Then we'll relocate on the west side?”

“Not this late we won't. We've got the upper hand at the Crooked River crossing, especially now since you've got the Racine right of way. How did you finally manage it?”

“I guess Jepson did it for us when he started arguing with her about selling to Quinn.” Lee reached for tobacco and pipe. “Say, can't you find anything for Highpockets to do? He just sits around keeping the seat of his pants warm.”

“That's what he's supposed to do, along with keeping an eye on you. What if Boston Bull walked in and tried to finish the job they started in Madras?”

“I guess maybe he'd get it finished.”

“That's right,” Porter agreed. “As long as you're on your back, Highpockets's job is to keep you alive.”

“I'd like to stay alive long enough to finish the other half of the job Stevens gave me,” Lee said.

“I aim to see that you do. I took this Jepson fellow rather lightly until the Madras business, but I don't now. I'd like to know why he changed sides and began talking Harriman to the Racine girl. That doesn't make any sense to me.” Porter rose. “The doc says you'll be able to ride before long. When you can, you and Magoon are going to Burns. Stop at Jepson City, and talk to Jepson if he's there.”

“Maybe I'd better shoot him,” Lee growled. “I don't take much to the idea of being a clay pigeon for his trigger boys.”

“I don't blame you, but don't kick up a ruckus unless you have to. Sometimes, just in talking to a man, you'll turn up something you don't expect. Go on over to the Malheur River. There are some survey crews working along it for Bill Hanley and Colonel C. E. S. Wood. If we build a line from here to Vale, it'll go down the Malheur, and it's possible Jepson may be playing an ace or two over there. Find out if they're having any trouble.” Porter laid an envelope on the stand beside the bed. “This trip will take you three weeks. Maybe more. Stevens wants to know some things about the country that he didn't have time to get last summer. Mail the information to him in Portland as soon as you get it.”

Highpockets came in after Porter left and sat down, long legs folded at the side of his chair, knees coming up almost to his head. He grinned when Lee said: “So you've been playing bodyguard.”

“You're an important man,” Highpockets said. “You know, I've been kicking myself for sending you into that, but Deborah . . . I mean . . .” Highpockets floundered helplessly and stopped.

“Get it off your chest.”

“She saw me coming into town that day after I'd delivered those horses. She stopped me, said she had to see you, but she allowed you wouldn't talk to her. Said she was in trouble with Quinn, and you could get her out. That's why I figgered the note was on the level.”

“Maybe she did write it,” Lee said somberly.

Highpockets shook his head. “Nope. Don't think so. But Jepson probably knew she wanted to see you, and he'd know when she played cards.”

* * * * *

A week of warm weather in early February softened the snow to slush and took it off a little each day. Lee and Highpockets left town the last of that week, riding east through the junipers and past Millican's place beyond Horse Ridge, and came to Jepson City after dark.

“Fool notion,” Highpockets growled. “They'll gut-shoot us before we get into the store.”

“They won't know who we are till we get inside,” Lee said, and swung down in front of the store.

Lee stepped into the building, one hand in his pocket, eyes raking the gloom of the store's interior. Jepson was not in sight. There was one man behind the counter, bald and bulging with fat, his long, yellow eyes glowering sullenly at Lee, who had come to a stop inside the door. The fat man began slowly to drift along the counter. “Stand pat, fatty!” Lee called. “Where's Jepson?”

“Ain't here.”

“Where is he?”

“Bend.”

“You're lying.” Lee studied the fat man intently, saw the yellow eyes flick toward the rear of the store and come again to Lee. “Watch him, Highpockets. I'm going to find Jepson.”

Lee stepped into the storeroom, and closed the door into the front of the building. It was entirely black here, but on beyond a rectangular outline of light showed the location of a second door. Lee caught the animal smell of lard and bacon, the sharper odor of coal oil, the spicy scent of recently ground coffee, but through it all ran the stink of Cyrus Jepson's cigar.

Moving along an open aisle to Jepson's room, Lee put a hand on the knob, turned it quickly, and shoved. Jepson was at the desk, the cigar in his mouth a frayed stub, and, if he was surprised at Lee's appearance, he kept it from showing on his high-boned, red-cheeked face. He said: “How are you, Dawes? Come in.”

“Surprised?”

“I learned some months ago not to be surprised at anything you do.”

“I have a right of way through the Racine place.”

“I know.” Jepson tossed his cigar butt into a spittoon. “You've changed Hanna, Dawes, and it's too bad. She used to be a fine girl.”

“You mean she was a girl who listened to your advice. She hasn't changed. It was just too thick for her to swallow when you jumped to the Harriman people. What made you do that, Jepson?”

The little man fingered a new cigar he had taken from the box in front of him. “You wouldn't believe a lie, Dawes, and I'm not fool enough to tell the truth.”

There was, Lee noted, a strained quality about Jepson's face, a quick, nervous movement of the fingers holding the cigar. Lee prodded: “Things been going your way, Jepson?”

“No, and the credit is largely yours.” Jepson shrugged. “But the game is not lost and the stakes are still high. You'll remember we talked in Biggs about the cosmic principle of conflict, Dawes. You and I illustrate perfectly that principle.” He smiled, apparently without guile. “We will continue to illustrate it until one of us is dead.”

“Then let's stop illustrating. You have a gun, haven't you?”

Jepson built a steeple of his slender fingers, elbows on the desk, the smile still fixed on his lips. “I don't play that way, Dawes. I know people. I know that before we're finished, you'll walk into our guns. It would be very simple for you to kill me now, but you won't. On the other hand, I know the sort of bait a man like you can't turn down. When the time is right, I'll use that bait.”

Lee, standing there at the door, his eyes locked with Jepson's round ones, felt the futility of this talk. Without a word, he stepped out of Jepson's office, pulled the door shut, and walked rapidly back to the front of the building. “Let's move,” he said, and went on out.

Highpockets followed, eyes watchfully on the fat man until he had cleared the door. He ran to his horse, mounted, and cracked steel to him. It was not until the lights of Jepson's store had faded behind them that Highpockets took a good breath. He asked: “Learn anything?”

“Not much, except that Jepson is still a smart-talking
hombre
.”

“You knew that,” Highpockets said gloomily. “I still say it was a fool notion.”

* * * * *

The trip along the Malheur took six weeks instead of the three Lee had expected, and, although he obtained the information Stevens wanted, he returned to Madras with the feeling that the time had been largely wasted. He had learned nothing more about Jepson's activities, and the driving compulsion to get this job done grew in him by the hour.

With his pipe loaded and drawing, Lee cruised along the street until it was dark, the cold March wind lifting dust and driving it with ceaseless, irritating energy. There was nothing here to hold him except an unfinished job, and discontent grew in him when he thought that Jepson might never make a fatal mistake or at least might not be prodded into it until steel reached Bend, and that was more than a year ahead.

Thinking of Hanna, Lee considered how different the world would be at this moment if she had said yes when he had asked her to marry him. He thought about the time she had told him life to him was a matter of rushing madly from one room to another, that he would never change, that he needed a room of his own. He would have made that room here in central Oregon if she had been willing to share it with him, but she had not, and her refusal laid a blight upon the future.

Lee swung back into the wind and returned to the hotel and to his room. The door was unlocked. He paused in the hall, wondering at this, right hand dipping into coat pocket for his gun. He drew it, and pushed the door open.

Deborah Quinn was standing by the window. She turned, smiling, and said gently: “Shut the door. I remember a few times when you came into my room without being invited. I'm returning the favor.”

Chapter Eighteen

T
here was the same dark allure about Deborah's face there had always been, the exotic beauty, the red, full-lipped mouth, but as she came toward Lee, he saw that the slim grace that had characterized her was gone, that she moved with the slow awkwardness of a pregnant woman who had come close to the fulfillment of her destiny.

“Will you close the door, Lee?”

He did not want her here, did not want to talk to her, but he did close the door. He asked stiffly: “What about Mike?”

“He won't like it, but I won't be here long. You've got to help me, Lee.”

“How did you know I was in town?”

“I paid a man here in the hotel to get word to me as soon as you got in, Lee. I was afraid you wouldn't come to see me, so I came to see you. Will you help me?”

There was a humility about her that was unlike her. Worry lines had appeared around her eyes and across her forehead. It had been almost a year since Lee had made that trip on the
Inland Belle
, hectic months that had brought more change to Deborah than to him. Studying her now, Lee could see little resemblance to the shapely Deborah Haig who had carried herself with so much regal pride.

“I'm remembering a promise you made me,” Lee said. “When I got back to Shaniko, I found a note making another promise, but you married Mike the day you were to meet me in the Moro Hotel.”