Shadow on the Land (6 page)

Lee stepped back, and with his weight released, the freighter bounced forward, bloody chin exposed. There was a sharp, wicked
crack
that ran the length of the room as Lee's fist met that chin, and there was a new champion in Shaniko. Boston Bull sprawled full out, a great, motionless bulk, his face a patchwork of mottled bruises.

Lee ran a sleeve across his forehead, heard the barman say: “You boys have had your fun. Go on now. Drift.”

Boston Bull's three companions were on their feet again, not quite believing what they saw, the desire for revenge a bright wickedness in their eyes. Lee pulled into his coat and moved toward the door. Following, Highpockets stopped him on the sidewalk and offered his hand.

“I'm Highpockets Magoon. Sure glad to know you, and thanks.”

“Lee Dawes.” He gave the tall man's hand a hard grip, their eyes locking. “You're long as a wash line, friend, but you don't fight like one.”

Highpockets grinned with the compliment. “You're sure a fighting man from a way back yourself.” He sobered. “That Boston Bull is a bad one, Mister Dawes. He won't forget this. Don't never turn your back to him or his outfit if you meet up with them again.”

“What was the ruckus over?”

Highpockets thrust bony hands into his pants pockets, and chuckled. “Nothing. That is, nothing to speak of. They wanted some fun, and I'm a good one to hooraw. I don't smoke. I don't chew. I don't gamble. I don't drink nothing but soda pop.”

“You're a stage driver?”

Highpockets nodded. “Yeah, but I'm getting a week off, starting today.”

There was a full moon in the black sky, webbed over with a tattered cloud. Its thin light spilled into the streets, glinting on the puddled water standing in the wheel ruts, building deeper recesses of shadow in the darkness. It was characteristic of Shaniko that the racket of the saloon fight had failed to draw a crowd of the curious. Save for the lighted windows and a man's drunken singing farther along the block, the town seemed empty.

“Is there any way to get to Madras tonight?” Lee asked.

“Well, now, they got some of them automobiles around, but they're all off somewhere. Hanna Racine got one soon as she hopped off the train, and went foggin' home. Reckon there's no way of getting to Madras in a hurry, but there is slow. You wait here.” Highpockets wheeled away and went down the street in long strides.

Lee stared after the tall man. So Hanna had been in a big enough hurry to hire an automobile to get home. Cyrus Jepson had been determined to keep Lee off the stage. And Boston Bull had a hand in it. There was some satisfaction in knowing that Bull had paid for his part. It would be a long day before he would get whiskey past that mutilated tongue, and even a longer one before his foul-mouthed cursing would return to its former efficiency. Standing here on the boardwalk, Lee thought swiftly of this night's happenings. He still could not see the design of its strange pattern, but one thing was clear. Hanna had been in a tremendous hurry, and the realization of that fact raised a new sense of urgency in Lee.

A small dog raced across an intersection down the street, and in response to Lee's sharp whistle Willie bounded up. Lee crossed to the hotel to get his grips, and a few minutes later Highpockets pulled up with a team of bays hitched to a buggy. He called: “Climb in, mister, and hang on!”

The light, spirited team left Shaniko on the run, the buggy swaying and
rattling
over the rough road. The lights of the town dropped quickly behind, and they raced on into the pit-black night.

“I'm putting you to a lot of trouble, Highpockets,” Lee said. “You can name your own price when we get to Madras.”

“No price, mister, after what you done for me. Now don't get the notion I'm nosey, but you've got railroad written all over you. Hill or Harriman?”

“Oregon Trunk. Beyond that your guess is as good as mine.” Lee paused, and then asked: “You know a big Irishman named Mike Quinn?”

“You bet. Saw him just this morning when I brought the stage in. Him and that dark-haired filly he's been running with was in one of them steam autos, stuck in Cow Cañon. I pulled 'em out. The crazy galoot said they'd drove all night getting here from The Dalles. Crossed the river on Free Bridge, and I'll bet they got a dad-burned good shaking up. Him and the girl ride the stage a lot, together and separate, which is how come I give him a hand.”

Again Lee had the feeling of being the end man in a game of crack-the-whip. He clenched his big fists, recalling the subtle way Deborah Haig had felt him out about John Stevens. It was likely, he thought sourly, that she had reported what little she had learned to Quinn, and it had been enough to start him on a wild night chase across rough, broken country. They were hours ahead of him, and so was Hanna Racine, and Lee was looking more and more like a blundering fool.

They were still running swiftly across the seemingly endless rolling Shaniko Flats. Periodically the moon crawled out from behind ragged black clouds, lighting the lonely sweeps of bunchgrass and sage that somehow seemed timeless, and frightening. Now and then a strident howl sounded from some distant rock point.

“Coyotes,” Highpockets said. “That one could sure stand tuning. Ever been in Bend?”

“No.”

“Great town and great people. Farewell Bend they used to call it when the pioneer wagons left the river there. Gonna be a big town if it gets a railroad. Got a right lively Commercial Club down there already. The way they're boosting it, they'll make it the met- . . . metrop- . . . the dad-burnedest, biggest town in eastern Oregon. Take fellers like Doc Coe and Clyde McKay . . . they want a real town, and my money's on 'em getting one.”

“Any other towns that might grow?”

“Lot of 'em think they will. Prineville, that's the county seat of Crook County, and Redmond, on this side of Bend. There's Laidlaw. Madras. Shucks, to hear them tell it, they'll all be big towns.”

“Jepson City?”

“Way out in the desert east of Bend. A few buildings and tents, and a couple miles of stakes. Jepson bet on a road coming east across the mountains, and, if he don't get it, he'll be sitting in the sagebrush with the jack rabbits. You've met up with Jepson?”

“Met him in Biggs.”

“He's a funny critter. He can talk your leg right off about the way this country got made. Kind of sings about it, but he ain't the kind of man it takes to build a town in this country. Leastwise, I don't think so. Now that go-getting Bend bunch is different. Say, they put a party on in the Pilot Butte Inn one night that was a party. One of 'em was getting married, and it called for enough likker to wash Pilot Butte right off the map.

“Had bottles arranged on the table so you could grab 'em from any position, including a prone one. One feller stepped outside, picked up a hose, and started wetting everybody down. Another gent crawled under the table, and every time he poked his head out he got sprayed with seltzer water. Had a big cake iced with gooey stuff an inch thick. Before the party wound up, one feller picks the cake up, and spreads it all over his neighbor's face.”

Highpockets chuckled. “Yep, they're live wires. A couple of 'em got about halfway down Wall Street when they found a young wildcat asleep in front of a store. Reckon he'd just et . . . to be sleeping along so peaceful. Anyhow, they picked him up and fetched him a piece, and, when they got tired toting him, they packed him into a friend's house and put him into bed with the friend. Well, when the cat woke up along about dawn, he was hungry again, and there was a nice hunk of back meat waiting for him, so he helped himself.” Highpockets laughed and slapped a leg. “Well, sir, next day them fellers had to come back and shingle the roof where their friend went through it.”

They rode in silence for a time, the horses keeping an even fast pace, the blackness unscarred by light until a campfire gleamed ahead of them. “Somebody live there?” Lee asked.

“Nope. Just a freighter's sagebrush fire. Somebody about like Bull, except he wouldn't be so dad-burned ornery.”

“Bull goes to Bend?”

“Goes to Jepson City part of the time. Fact is, he's freighted for Jepson ever since Jepson staked out the town site. Jepson's got a store that takes care of what few homesteaders settled out there.”

“This country around here isn't worth much, is it?”

“Just for stock. Gumbo mud that'd mire a snipe in winter, and dust in summers that'd choke a mole. Don't get much rain. When it does, the bottom falls out of the road. The wind she blows and blows. Feller back there a piece dug himself a well once, and I'll be dad-burned if the wind didn't come up and blow the land away. Yes, sir, left that well sticking up in the air. Sure was a funny sight.”

Lee grinned. “I'll bet it was.”

“It's a fact. It was hard water, but it wasn't hard enough to stay there. Over in Antelope they'd been toughing out a dry spell. One windy night they snuck over and blasted it. Got themselves a dandy little rain.” He spat over the wheel. “Good thing it was winding, or they'd 'a' drowned sure.”

It seemed hours later to Lee when they started down the wicked steepness of Cow Cañon. They emerged from the narrow, winding passage, and passed Haight's Station. Coming now onto the floor of the narrow valley, the buggy picked up speed.

“Look over there to the right. That big gap is where Trout Creek cuts down to the river. Harriman's Deschutes Railroad will pull out of the cañon about there.”

Lee straightened, fully awake and interested. “How far to the Columbia?”

“Seventy miles. Eighty maybe. If you're going to have anything to do with building that railroad, you'll have to practice bending your bones. About the only way you can look is up. The river's so crooked in some places that the trout they pull out are shaped like corkscrews.”

“I won't be doing any of the building,” Lee said dryly, “so that won't worry me.”

Under the seat, Willie stirred in his slumber, and laid his muzzle across Lee's foot. Remembering the distance he had traveled since he had passed the mouth of the Deschutes, Lee had a more stirring impression of the magnitude of the job ahead of the Oregon Trunk. Seventy or eighty miles of vast cañon that was to be disputed foot by foot, in addition to the natural problems inherent in such terrain.

“Where's the Racine Ranch?”

“That where you're heading? It's past Madras. Part way to Trail Crossing on Crooked River. I'll get another team in Madras and take you on.”

“I've put you out enough.”

“Nope,” Highpockets said emphatically. “You stuck with me to the end, and, if you hadn't, them ornery devils would have made mincemeat out of my handsome mug. Never would have looked the same again. Besides, I'm hungry for some of Hanna's cooking. She's been gone for quite a spell. I used to go out there and chat with her every week or so.”

“Gone? Where to?”

“Oh, Portland. Salem some of the time. She was down there when the legislature was meeting, and I guess she did a lot of good getting that people's railroad thing passed.”

This, then, might be the reason for Mike Quinn's hurry. If Hanna had been away, Quinn would have had no opportunity to see her, and, hearing that she was on her way home, he'd hurried south from The Dalles. But it still gave Lee no explanation of Hanna's haste.

“Is Hanna pretty friendly with Jepson?” he asked.

“Not what you'd call thick, but they see this people's railroad the same way, so they work together on that. Hanna fell heir to a lot of notions from her daddy, but she's got her heart in it, too. Herb Racine was an old friend of mine. Someday they'll get the man that bushwacked him, and I'll sure dance at his hanging.”

“Got any notion who did it?”

Highpockets didn't say anything for a time. Then he cleared his throat. “I got a notion, but I ain't for hanging a man on a notion. Herb had a way of making enemies. He'd speak his piece, hell or high water, and he'd tromp on the toes of his best friend if he figured it was the right thing to do. He was coming home from Redmond one night, and somebody drilled him from the rocks when he was coming across Crooked River. They found his body right in the middle of the bridge.”

“I heard he was pretty set in his ideas about the railroads.”

“Well, I think he had a good idea. He wanted the state to build the railroads, seeing as Harriman wasn't doing it. He figured there should be one crossing the Cascades, maybe come up the Santiam and go on through Bend and Jepson City. It'd hook up with the spur that comes into Vale, so our freight would go right on east over the Union Pacific. Anyhow, that's how come Jepson and Hanna got tied up with it. They're against a north-south road, and Hanna's got a fistful of aces. If your outfit . . . or Harriman's either . . . is gonna cross Crooked River, you're gonna buy a right of way through Hanna's place.”

“We can condemn a right of way,” Lee said dryly.

“Yeah.” Highpockets chuckled. “But can two railroads do it? Maybe you're a little worried about which one is gonna get that right of way. Another thing is the ranchers around her place look to her to call the turn. She's a smart girl, and her neighbors know it. Start condemning, and you might kick up a piece of real trouble.”

“You say she's got a lot of influence?” Lee asked with quick interest.

“Plenty. Her neighbors will sell right of way if she does, and, if she won't, they won't.”

A knot tied itself around Lee's stomach. Gone was his neat plan for buying up the property around her, boxing her in, and forcing her to come to his terms. He cursed softly to himself. The only thing left was to argue with a head-strong girl, and Lee had a feeling Hanna Racine could take care of herself in any kind of argument.

Sometime close to dawn they wheeled into Madras. Highpockets rattled the door of a livery stable until a sleepy-eyed hostler came to open it. With the bays stabled and grained, and a fresh team hitched to the buggy, they rolled on. They were in a more heavily settled country now, and, as they spun on south, the first light of dawn spread across the earth, lighting it with alternate patches of red and purple shadow.