Shadow on the Land (7 page)

“We're almost there,” Highpockets grunted. “Just about in time for breakfast, and, the way my tapeworm is hollering for fodder, I sure could use some.”

They left the road, turning westward toward the river, and presently, ahead, Lee saw the ranch buildings—a two-story house with a row of naked poplars along the front, a barn, corrals, and a scattering of outbuildings. Smoke lifted from the kitchen chimney, and, as Highpockets pulled the horses to a stop in front of the house, Lee was impressed with the neatness and care everywhere so evident.

The kitchen door opened, and Hanna Racine stood there, a slight, cool figure in a cotton dress. She gave no greeting, her eyes moving from Highpockets to Lee as if he stood a great distance from her.

Unabashed, Highpockets chuckled. “Back there about Madras my stomach collapsed. Does it danged near every morning. Sure hope that's biscuit flour I see on your nose, girl.”

Smiling reluctantly, Hanna came across the yard, still without greeting Lee, and he knew that the events on the
Inland Belle
had hurt her woman's pride as badly as he had feared. Then there was movement under his feet, and an awakening Willie scrambled forward and stood with his forepaws on the side of the buggy. The dog yawned elaborately, and began to wag his tail, his head cocked, one ear up.

“Why, Lee Dawes! How did you get him?”

“Stole him,” he said amiably, “and rode all night so I could keep ahead of the lynchers and deliver him to you personally. Now that you have him, they can hang me.”

The tension ebbing, Lee swung to the ground, and, after a moment of forced soberness, Hanna laughed. “Of course, I believe that. We hang dog stealers down here just like we hang horse thieves. Willie, we have trees, if you like junipers.” Willie had already made that discovery and dashed away. Hanna turned her gaze to Lee, her smile small and stiff. “You've earned your breakfast, Mister Dawes. The boys are eating, so you'll have to put your horses away, Highpockets.” She nodded at Lee. “If you'll come with me, I'll show you where to wash.”

There was a basin, a bucket of water, and a roller towel on the back porch. Hanna motioned to them, and went on into the kitchen where an Indian woman was busy at a huge range. Lee washed, and was combing his hair when Highpockets came from the barn.

“Hey, Hanna!” Highpockets called through the screen door. “Did you go and buy yourself one of them dad-burned autos?”

“No.”

“Then who owns that rig in the barn?”

The answer was drowned in a
clatter
of dishes. Highpockets led Lee through the door into the kitchen. Five men were seated at the long table, four of them members of Hanna's crew.

Lee paused just inside the door, his eyes riveted on the thick-shouldered man seated across the table from him. “Well, I'll be damned,” Lee breathed. “I suppose you'll be popping out of my beer next, Quinn.”

Chapter Five

T
he ranch hands paused in their eating, and Mike Quinn looked up with quick interest, a look of perverse satisfaction in his eyes. There was a moment of silence, in which somebody's knife
clattered
loudly as it dropped from his hand to the table. Then Hanna, as if sensing the need to break this sharp unpredictable moment, said: “So you two know each other.”

Quinn's face relaxed into a sour grin. “We'd ought to.” Looking at Lee, he added: “Looks like you tangled with a grizzly, Dawes.”

“Something like that,” Lee said.

“Sit down.” Hanna motioned toward two empty places. “I did make biscuits, Highpockets.”

Lee sank into the chair, glancing obliquely at Quinn, who had sobered, the old sense of frustration knifing through him. Across from him, Hanna was bending now to pour Highpockets's coffee, the set of her finely chiseled features telling Lee that Quinn had probably gotten nowhere with her. She filled Lee's cup, and in the steaming fragrance of the coffee was a sweeter scent that he knew was hers, and his senses stirred.

“What did you do with your stage, Highpockets?” she asked.

“Taking a week off.” Highpockets forked half a dozen sausages onto his plate. “Gonna sit right here till it's over.”

“Do you want to break the outfit?” Hanna asked with mock concern.

“Nope. Just get full. Eat up, Lee. Sure makes Hanna mad when a man just pecks at his grub like you're doing.”

“Not all men are as thoughtful as you,” Hanna said coolly.

Lee's gaze touched hers, and he felt the rebuke. He lowered his eyes to his plate, knowing that he would have to pay for his lack of gallantry on the
Inland Belle
.

“We're sure losing ground this morning,” one of the hands said. “Takes six months to raise a hog and five minutes for Highpockets to eat it. You ought to ride over to Bend and let Doc Coe look you over. If you ain't got a hollow leg, I'll miss my guess.”

“Never mind, Chris,” Hanna said.

“I ain't minding him at all.” Highpockets serenely helped himself to the rest of the sausage. “A gent with a puny appetite like his ain't much good on a ranch. Right nice of you to pension him off, Hanna.”

Mary, the Indian girl, took the platter to the kitchen and brought it back filled. Conversation lagged, largely because Highpockets was too busy eating to talk. Lee noted the pleasantness of the big room, planned for utility with big windows for winter light and summer air, the large table so well supplied, the buffet running along the brightly papered inside wall. It was, he thought, like its slight-figured mistress, fundamental and stripped of useless refinements, yet wholesome and warm and appealing.

The buckaroos left the table as soon as they had finished eating, and there were only the newcomers, with Hanna and Quinn, at the table. Quinn had pushed back his chair and was smoking. Watching him, Lee sensed the amusement that was in the man, the mockery. Irritation stretched Lee's nerves as he remembered that the big Irishman had beaten him here, had beaten him to Deborah Haig. Curiosity stirred in Lee, then, as he remembered Highpockets saying Deborah had been in the automobile with Quinn in Cow Cañon.

Regretfully Highpockets shoved back from the table. “Sure is a hard decision, Hanna, leaving all that good grub. What time's dinner?”

“You can have it now.”

“Why, I guess I'll just take me an appetizer.” He reached for another sausage, and popped it into his mouth as he went out.

Hanna looked at Lee, her eyes questioning. “Quinn's a Harriman man, so, Dawes, I suppose you belong to Hill.”

Lee had filled his pipe, and took a moment to light it. “I work for the Oregon Trunk. I don't belong to any man.”

The girl shrugged. “I've been trying to tell Quinn this since late last night when I got home, and I'll repeat it for your benefit. I'm selling no right of way through my place. Neither are my neighbors. That's why I hurried home from Shaniko. I haven't been here for several months, and, when I heard rumors that Hill and Harriman were finally moving, I knew I'd better get back and talk to my neighbors again. I did, and found that I had nothing to worry about. They haven't changed, and neither have I. So, gentlemen, unless you want to help Mary with the dishes, the meeting's over.”

“She does hold to that word no.” Quinn grinned wryly. “And her neighbors use it so much it gets monotonous. The Oregon Trunk won't buy a right of way through here, my friend. So, unless you want to help with the dishes . . .”

“I have two dishcloths, Mister Quinn.” Hanna looked at Lee sharply. “You are working for Jim Hill, aren't you?”

“The Oregon Trunk.”

Quinn snorted. “Hill isn't fooling anybody.”

“He isn't fooling me.” Hanna leaned across the table. “Mister Dawes, this talk about Jim Hill being an empire builder simply makes me sick . . . unless you mean Hill's own empire! He comes with blandishments and stays to fill his pockets. Look what he did in Spokane. Look at his terminal rate scheme. You're a railroad man, so you know that we pay more freight on goods from the East than they do on the coast. The railroads justify it by claiming they have to meet ocean rates, which the Panama Canal will make possible. Do you know anything about the finances of Hill's Great Northern?”

“Well, I . . .”

“If you did, you wouldn't want to admit it. They're so afraid of revealing their profits by declaring them in dividends that they spend millions in expansion to cover them up. That might well be the very reason James J. Hill is now interested in building a railroad up the Deschutes. If he is.”

Quinn was grinning broadly. “That's right, Miss Racine. That's exactly right.”

She whirled on him. “You have no room to talk, Quinn. Your Ed Harriman is cut from the same cloth. What about the public lands investigation now on? Land grants that went to the Oregon and California Railroad, and were never opened for settlement as was specified in the grants. When Harriman took it over, he withdrew it all from public sale. The idea behind those grants was to bring settlers into the country, but much of what was sold went to vested interests at high prices and in large tracts.” Her eyes flashed. “Don't spring the public benefactor argument on me, gentlemen.”

Lee winked at Quinn, amused that he and Quinn had been maneuvered into an alliance. Quinn winked back as he said: “Miss Racine, you talk like a wobbly.”

“It was not my intention.” She rose. “Come along. I have another barrel to fire.”

She led them through the living room to her office. There was a desk in one corner, without the litter typical of a ranch office, a bookcase set against the wall, a framed photograph of Benham Falls on the Deshutes hanging between two windows. Lee's eyes paused on a framed diploma from the University of Oregon, and he saw that it bore the name of Hanna Rose Racine. There was reason, then, for the sharp argument, the quick mind.

Hanna had stepped around the desk to a large map of the United States tacked to the wall. “Have you heard of the Harriman Fence, Quinn?”

“I've heard the term,” Quinn said sourly.

“Dawes, take a look.” Placing a finger on Portland, she brought it south along a red line that ran through Salem, Eugene, Ashland, across the state line and on to Roseville, California, a few miles east of Sacramento. “The Southern Pacific, one panel of Harriman's Fence. Seven hundred miles of it.” She ran her finger eastward across the Sierras, across Nevada, Utah, and on to Granger, Wyoming. “The second panel, Southern Pacific and Union Pacific. Eight hundred miles or more.” She traced the red line westward across Idaho, following the Oregon Short Line and then the OR&N that ran most of the length of Oregon through Baker City, The Dalles, and Hood River. “There it is, back to Portland. Harriman's twenty-five hundred mile fence that very successfully keeps other roads out. You'll notice it forms a triangle, and half of the enclosure that is without railroads is our own Oregon.”

Lee dismissed the argument with a wave of the hand. “I wouldn't argue on this point, but the fact remains that you want a railroad. What other sensible means have you got of getting one if the Oregon Trunk doesn't build it?”

Hanna smiled wearily. “I suppose you're taking a backhanded slap at the people's railroad. It's natural that you'd share the industrial giant's contempt for a people's movement, but don't forget these common people are the ones who support the roads you've built.”

“Supporting a railroad isn't building it,” Lee said, “and, if they did build it, they couldn't run it.”

“You underestimate the people, my friend. How do you suppose they did what they've already done here? Your Jim Hill never had to worry about Indians lifting his scalp. Dad did. Paulina and his renegades went through here time after time. Hill never had to join the vigilantes or hang an outlaw, so that Crook County could have law and order. I don't suppose you ever heard of the Crook County Sheep Shooters' Association, or the cattle-sheep war that keeps breaking out. The little people have had to contend with those things, Mister Dawes.”

“But building and operating a railroad . . .”

She spread her hands emphatically. “You don't really know anything about a frontier. It isn't much different here from the way it was a century ago. Who explored it? The fur traders. Men like Peter Skene Ogden and Nathaniel J. Wyeth. Who brought the first wagons and cattle over the McKenzie Pass? Felix Scott. There were miners, sheepmen, cattlemen, freighters, farmers. Little people. They built what is called the Inland Empire, yet you think they can't build and run a railroad.”

Temper was crowding Lee now, but he held a tight rein on it. “What you say about the Harriman interests is entirely correct. They've taken their own sweet time about building into the interior of this state, and it's the Oregon Trunk that's moving them now. My company will build your railroad as fast as the job can be done. Your people's line can't even get started until it's voted on a year from next November. Then there are all kinds of problems that will have to be solved . . . financial, legal, getting competent men to build and run it, and keep it in the black . . . something that state-owned roads find hard to do. The smart thing is to leave it to experts. We'll have our line built and running before the organization you hope for can turn a shovelful of dirt.”

Hanna had listened carefully, and now she said, a little reluctantly: “Your arguments are sound, Dawes. It did take your company to spur Harriman into action. I admit I lean toward you, if we must have an old line company build our road, but I also know that both companies are interested mainly in controlling Pacific Coast railroading. My section of Oregon has no real meaning to them . . . we're pawns to be moved by the giant chess players. We'll pay terminal rates that will handicap our agriculture, our towns, our settlements. Your bosses had their chance, and we can read what they'll do in the future by the record they've written into the past.”