Shadow on the Land (4 page)

The train crossed the bridge over the Deschutes so swiftly that Lee caught only a glimpse of the water tumbling out of the great defile and broadening quietly into the fork of the Columbia drifting south of Miller's Island. It was this cañon that was to become a railroad battleground, and Lee stared at it until the train had sped on eastward through a brown, barren land.

A boiling tumult was in Lee's mind when he stepped down from the train at wind-swept Biggs and waited for the Shaniko train to come in on the Columbia Southern line. He took a quick turn around the big depot, the eternal sand shifting against his ankles and making a strange,
hissing
sound as it moved with ceaseless energy. Across the street from the depot were some weathered shacks, one of them with a tall false front bearing the words Wolfard's Lunchroom. A man in an apron came out and began beating a steel triangle to attract the attention of the travelers. Lee moved toward the lunchroom, impelled less by hunger than restlessness.

He bought a ham sandwich and a cup of coffee and, since the room was filled, stepped outside to eat. He considered the twenty-odd people waiting around the depot. Here were the uneasy ones always to be found on the cutting edge of the frontier, 20th century counterparts of the covered wagon settlers who had first seen the Columbia from the ridge south of the river. Beyond that ridge lay America's last great empire, the high plateau with its sheepmen, cattle ranchers, and farmers returning to their homes. Here, too, were the newcomers: timber cruisers, drummers, speculators, real estate dealers, town site promoters, homestead locators, and the nondescript vagrants drawn by railroad talk and the promise of easy gain.

Lee returned the empty cup, noting that Hanna Racine was in the crowd. It was the first time he had seen her since they had left the
Inland Belle
, and still she ignored him. Prodded by Stevens's inference that he had been picked for this job because of his way with women, he stepped up to Hanna, and asked: “Can I get you something to eat?”

Her “No” was quick and hung with icicles. Turning from the lunchroom, she crossed the street quickly and disappeared into the depot. A flush of defeat washed over Lee's face. He thought of following her, and immediately knew it would be the wrong move. He had the one trick that he hoped would thaw the chill from her, and he was too old a hand at the game to play his ace too early. His thoughts turned to Deborah Haig, and anger ran through him. Neither Deborah nor Quinn was in sight, and, knowing Mike Quinn, Lee could make a good guess what had happened.

A small man had come from the lunchroom with a mug of coffee. He removed a half-chewed cigar from his lips, took one drink, and immediately spewed it from his mouth. Emptying the cup into the sand, he glanced at Lee and grimaced. “Did you drink the stuff?”

Lee nodded. “It's wet.”

“So's the Columbia.” The little man returned the mug and came back. Taking a fresh grip on his cigar with worn molars, he nodded westward. “You came to The Dalles on the
Inland Belle
, didn't you?”

“Yes.” Lee drew pipe and tobacco from his pocket and, studying the man as he packed the bowl, found that he could not remember him. He was well dressed, and Lee noted that the heels of his expensive boots were built up to increase his height, and that he wore a light-colored Stetson with an extremely high crown. It was a vanity Lee had seen expressed in small men before. He asked: “Were you on the boat?”

“In the main cabin most of the time. Interesting trip through the gorge.”

Lee sauntered off, the little man falling into step beside him. They moved slowly to the track side of the depot. Lee felt interest stirring, for he sensed that the other was purposely seeking conversation.

“I've always wondered about this gorge,” Lee said, “and some of those marks on the rock. Looks like water had made them, but the Columbia was never that high.”

“Perhaps it was. This is an old battleground, my friend. There was a time when the Pacific washed against the Idaho mountains and most of Oregon was nothing more than sludge on its bottom.”

Lee looked at him in quick interest. “That's hard to believe.”

“Scientists are slowly putting the story together. Probably there were two island masses where we now find the Siskiyous and Blue Mountains. The Cascades and Sierras rose and tore a segment from the sea and pinned it inland. The land kept rising, leaving lakes, but sending most of the water pouring through this gorge.” He nodded at the far shore. “There's the evidence you mentioned.”

Lee shook his head. “I don't see how anybody, scientist or not, can tell that.”

“It's taken a long time to put it together.” The little man's cigar had gone out. Now he took a moment to relight it. “Erosions like these, and shells and impresses of plants and animals. They all tell the story to men, like Doctor Condon, who can read it.”

“What happened to the lakes?”

“The land had just started its part of the war. Lava poured out of the mountains, filling the lakes and soggy valleys, and the land continued to swell until it shoved the coast line twenty or thirty miles west of where it is now.”

“So the sea lost the fight?”

“No. The land couldn't keep up its offensive. It became cold. Ice came down from the north. Mount Mazama collapsed and made Crater Lake. The land sank and the sea rolled in again, back up the Columbia and over the interior. Things were just about the same as when this started.”

Lee, knocking his pipe against his heel, thought of Mike Quinn, of their friendship and then a fight, again friendship and a fight. The age-old pattern. Now Quinn was here on the Columbia, and a railroad fight was in the making. He said somberly: “A lot of fights end up that way.”

The little man nodded. “That's right. Nothing but bitterness. That's the way it was here. The land made one more try, and threw up the Coast Range. It forced the water out, and held it. The fight was over.” He gestured toward the Washington cliffs. “It's all gone now but the traces that tell the story. We have a bright land of golden sunshine left to us with only one shadow falling across it.”

“I've heard that somewhere,” Lee said thoughtfully. “It must be a party slogan.”

“It could well be,” the little man said.

“Do you know Hanna Racine?”

“I know her very well. I saw you talking with her on the boat, and she may have said something like that. It's a favorite expression of mine. What I was trying to show you, my friend, was the cosmic principle of conflict. It's inherent here, the same as everywhere else on the face of the earth.” He made an all-inclusive motion. “We quarreled with Britain. The whites fought the Indians. White men fight each other.”

“I take it you don't believe in this cosmic principle.”

The little man smiled. “That's beside the point. I have to accept conflict whether I like it or not, and I have to fight to gain my ends the same as you or anyone else does.” He tossed the frayed cigar butt away. “Violence is brewing again. But, of course, you know that. A railroad man thrives on violence.”

It was a shrewd guess. Lee, glancing obliquely at him, wondered whether it was entirely a guess. He said: “I don't know about railroad men thriving on violence. The Oregon Trunk wants to build a railroad, and I want to buy right of way. We are not asking for violence of any kind.”

“But you will have it. Harriman's Deschutes Railroad wants to build, too, and there are places in the cañon where you won't be sitting side-by-side and cheering the other on.” He nodded toward the incoming train. “I believe this is ours. Perhaps we'll meet again.” He moved away.

The Columbia Southern two-car train backed slowly up the spur. Lee waited while the crate imprisoning Willie was brought from the baggage room and put aboard. Then, climbing into the coach, he saw Hanna seated at the other end, the little man standing in the aisle and talking to her. Hanna sat half turned in her seat, and, when she saw Lee, she broke into the little man's words. He nodded, and sat down beside her. Lee, taking a seat in the opposite end of the coach, fancied that she had been afraid he was going to sit with her and that she preferred the little man's company to Lee Dawes's.

Stretching his long legs in front of him, Lee leaned back, his thoughts on the little man and the deliberate way he had struck up a conversation. Whatever the man's object was, Lee at least had discovered he was a close friend of Hanna Racine's, and Hanna believed in the people's railroad.

It took most of the afternoon to reach Shaniko. Lee stared through the window while the little train toiled up the steep grade of Spanish Hollow and wound along the cañon until it reached the plateau. There it rolled with increased speed through the wheat fields, on through Wasco, Moro, Grass Valley, and Kent, and up the steeper climb to Shaniko. There was the sharpness of the sun upon the earth, upon the young grain bulging now with the growth-urge of spring, and then the occasional flow of shadow as a cloud crossed the sun. The long run of the Cascades lay westward—blue in the distance except for white, sharp-peaked Hood and Jefferson. As the train approached Shaniko, grain fields gave way to the forlorn emptiness of the sagebrush desert.

Lee saw now that he had ridden the length of the Columbia Southern, that Stevens had been right when he had said that this was not a feasible route into the interior. The grade was too steep. And he saw more clearly than before how important was the Deschutes cañon—twisting a dozen miles to the west—as an avenue for draining the great pool of wealth held in central Oregon.

Lee, closing his eyes, let his mind drift, the
click
of wheels on rails a steady rhythm distantly heard. There had been his boyhood in St. Paul when, as the oldest of ten children, he had sometimes wondered why he had grown so big when there had been so little to eat. Those were the lean, hard years when his schooling had been spotty, when his father's sawmill check had never been quite enough, and when his own boyhood years had gone mostly into adding a few extra dollars to the family income.

It had been no more possible for Lee to remain there and fall into the prevailing rut of life than it would have been for Jim Hill to surrender the Deschutes cañon without a fight. Hill had been an important figure in St. Paul, and, to Lee Dawes, a hero. Born with fiddle feet and a rebellious heart, Lee had resented his father's stern rule and heartless beatings, and had finally run away.

In his late teens Lee had made a swing through the logging camps of northern Minnesota, on into the wheat belt, and finally, in his early twenties, he had met Mike Quinn. It had been a strange blend of friendship and rivalry that had kept the pair together. Quinn's background had been much like Lee's. There was the same urgency in him to see over the next hill, the same passion for excitement, good liquor, and ardent women, and at times it had taken surprisingly little to make them fight for or against each other.

They had drifted south together, across the Gulf and the Caribbean, and then to Nicaragua, where there was talk of a canal to be constructed by the United States. There had been fun shared, hopes and miseries pooled, and there had been differences. Quinn had taken a curvaceous
señorita
from Lee in Nicaragua, and then had not wanted her. In Panama, Lee had smashed a loud brag down Quinn's throat, wrecked a
cantina
, and ended up in jail.

Returning to the States, Quinn had landed a job as a troubleshooting special agent with the Union Pacific, and had taken Lee on as his assistant. But it was not in Lee to serve well under Mike Quinn. And, too, Jim Hill had always been something of an idol to him. So, when the opportunity came, Lee had gone over to the Hill interests in time to participate in the North Bank fight.

Quinn accused Lee of treason, of quitting the Harriman line when his loyalty was needed. Then the final break had come over a waitress in Vancouver. The police had stopped the fight, but there had been no handshake after it was over. Lee had not seen Quinn from that moment until the
Inland Belle
was pulling into The Dalles, and, remembering the way Deborah Haig had gone into Quinn's arms, Lee swore and felt a feral hatred travel along his spine. She was the first woman he had ever seriously wanted, and again it was Mike Quinn who had appeared to challenge him.

While Lee waited at the Shaniko depot for Willie to be taken out of the baggage car, he recalled vaguely that this was the end of steel for a rich hinterland. Stage lines radiated into the interior. Freighters laboriously brought the means of life over two hundred miles of desert to Silver Lake.

Shaniko, the biggest wool-shipping point in the United States, was little more than a scattering of business buildings and shacks. Warehouses and shipping corrals were strung along the track, and a block or so away was the heart of the town—stores, hotels, and eating places. All around lay Shaniko Flat, a far-stretching sweep of sagebrush plateau, and, looking beyond the town, Lee could see no sign of habitation.

Lee let Willie loose from the crate that held him prisoner on the long ride from The Dalles. Willie pawed at Lee's leg, made a darting run after an imaginary rabbit, yipping enthusiastically in his freedom, and racing back to Lee, sat down and yawned loudly.

Laughing, Lee scratched a floppy ear, and said with some regret: “Tomorrow you'll have a pretty girl for a mistress. Your luck is changing, Willie.”

Finding a butcher shop, Lee bought some meat, and tied Willie in the area behind the L-shaped Columbia Southern Hotel. Then he carried his luggage into the lobby, which was large and attractive, a staircase rising to the second floor, warmth from the huge stove filling the room.

“When does the next stage leave for Madras?” Lee asked at the desk.

“You'll take the Bend stage. It pulls out about eight.”

Glancing at the register, Lee saw that neither Quinn nor Deborah Haig was here. They might be at the Shaniko Hotel, but the Columbia Southern was the larger and more desirable. If he'd judged Deborah right, she'd be here if she were in town. Likely, he thought, they would come on the next afternoon's train.