Shadow on the Land (9 page)

It was only a hunch, but there was a powerful compulsion in him to act upon it. Descending to the lobby, he asked at the desk: “Has Miss Haig registered yet?”

“Yeah. Room Twenty-Four.”

“Thanks.” Lee spun and climbed the stairs two at a time.

Number 24 was only two doors from his own. Lee knocked, his heart hammering against his throat, a tightness clinging there. He heard the sound of movement, then the door opened.

“Why, it's Lee Dawes.”

Lee went in without invitation. “A little past Shaniko and a little late, but here I am.”

Deborah closed the door and stood with her back to it, brown eyes on him questioningly, pleasure mingled with uncertainty in her half smile. “You shouldn't be here, Lee.”

“Because of Quinn?”

She looked annoyed. “There is a thing called propriety.”

“Has Quinn heard about it?”

She studied him a moment in cool silence. “There may have been some gossip about us, but I wouldn't take you for a man who would listen to it.”

Lee's smile was light and friendly. “That's right. I never listen to gossip. Where was Quinn heading?”

“Horseshoe Bend. I mean . . . well, I'm not sure. Up north. He's all over the country. I probably won't see him for several days.”

“Now that's fine.” Lee stepped toward her and took her hands. “We might as well make use of those days, since we both have nothing but time on our hands. We'll start by having supper. Seems like I remember having a supper date with you.”

The small stiffness left her and she smiled. “You move at a fast pace, Mister Dawes.”

“You like it?”

“
Hmm
. Maybe.”

“I knew I'd find you again. It had to be that way.”

“That sounds a little crazy, as if it was destiny.”

“Why not? We're the same kind of people. I want you. You want me. Simple. Why make a problem out of it?”

“It does sound simple,” she murmured. Her eyes were pinned on Lee, dark eyes that never lacked the fire of lusty and tempestuous living.

He was suddenly serious now, excitement racing through him with the violence of a heavy wind carrying a crown fire through the timber. “You knew that as well as I did when I kissed you on the boat. You'll never forget that kiss, and neither will I.”

“I never will,” she said almost breathlessly.

It was, he saw, her subtle way of giving an invitation. “Supper?” he asked.

“Well . . . all right.”

Lee hurried to his room, changed to his best clothes, put on bay rum, and combed his hair carefully. The sun had gone down when he left his room again.

Lee, moving hurriedly between his room and Deborah's, saw a man turning down the stairs. He frowned, thinking that from the back it looked like Cyrus P. Jepson. But now his mind was on other things, and he knocked lightly on her door.

Opening it, she asked: “How do you like me?”

She had changed to a white gown that, with the string of pearls at her throat, set off in striking contrast the deep darkness of her hair and eyes, the tanned vitality of her clear skin. Slender and tall, she held her shoulders straight, her lips a strong, scarlet line across her heart-like face.

Lee murmured. “And they've never put you on the cover of a magazine.”

It was a good meal in the hotel dining room, and there was pride in Lee's eyes as other men turned to look at Deborah. She seemed unduly quiet, yet he sensed that she was finding in this hour the same keen pleasure he was finding.

He had struck fire in her in that long kiss and embrace on the
Inland Belle
, had aroused an urge that would not subside until it had been answered. There had always been a certain detachment in himself, an amused study of the conduct he could inspire. This was new, and he wanted it so, and he wanted her to know that. So he gave her his utmost in gallantry and tenderness, and, when they rose and crossed the dining room, she said: “I'll go up alone.”

He looked at her closely, sensing that she did not mean it as dismissal. “All right,” he said.

* * * * *

She was standing by the window when he closed the door softly behind him. Turning, she looked at him, the ageless half smile of a woman at destiny's touch breaking on her lips.

“I knew you'd come,” she said, and her voice held both regret and exultation. “I'm warning you that I'm bad for you. You'd better pull out before it's too late.”

“And I'll be bad for you, so it's a fair trade.” He closed the door and stood looking at her, feeling the full depth of the satisfaction this moment held.

“A fair trade,” she murmured. “You haven't been able to do business with Hanna Racine, have you? You never will, Lee. She isn't your kind. Why don't you get out of central Oregon, and let people play the game who made the rules?”

He said nothing for a moment, watching her, seeing the sheen of her hair in the lamplight. Drunk as he was with that moment, he didn't understand the full meaning of her words. It was silly, he thought, for her to mention Hanna and business. “I'm the boy who made the first set of rules,” he said, and, crossing the worn carpeting, he took her in his arms. Her lips were lifted for his kiss, and he held her hard against him.

Both heard the door open, but, lost in the swirling warmth that enfolded them, Lee paid no attention. It was Deborah who broke away and stepped back swiftly. Lee, turning in the same instant, heard Mike Quinn say: “A pretty picture you make.”

Quinn's rugged face wore a smile, but his eyes were deadly cold. Deborah had colored guiltily, but Lee felt only the acute sense of frustration that whetted a razor edge for his temper.

Deborah smiled, and, tossing her head, said: “You never came into my room before without knocking.”

“I heard voices. So sweet and low I forgot my manners. My car broke down on this side of Hay Creek.” He turned frigid eyes on Lee. “Maybe you'd like to help fix it.”

It was the old challenge, just as they had always fought after one of them had been caught poaching on the other. Yet there was a deadly thing between them now that had never been there before. And measuring Quinn, Lee saw something else. Mike Quinn was a man in agony, and it was not like him to feel or look that way about a woman.

“Glad to, Mike,” Lee said, and followed Quinn out of the room and into the street.

“We've never decided anything by fighting,” Quinn said, “and we can decide this now without it. I'm warning you to stay away from my woman.”

“Your woman? That isn't the way she tells it.”

“It's the way I tell it. I love her and I've respected her, which is something I know damned well you'd never do.” He paused then, his eyes on Lee in the thin light washing through the hotel window, and added, in a voice that was entirely cold: “It's because I love her and because I know what you can do to her that I'm telling you this. Stay away from her, or I'll kill you.”

“All right, Mike,” Lee said. “That's a little strong, but I feel the same way about Deborah. If you stop me, it'll be the way you threaten.”

Chapter Seven

Q
uinn and Deborah Haig had checked out of the hotel when Lee came down the next morning, and for a turbulent moment the temptation to follow them was strong in him. But he put down his wild impulse; Stevens had told him to stay here in Madras a few days—and he had no choice.

In the talk on the
Inland Belle
, Stevens had promised detailed instructions regarding the countless right-of-way agreements that Lee would soon be negotiating. Meanwhile, there were two all important assignments: securing the right of way through Hanna's property, and identifying the mysterious third party Stevens had mentioned.

Lee felt he had made some headway. He was certain he had an edge on Mike Quinn in their dealings with Hanna Racine, and there was little doubt in his mind that Cyrus Jepson either was the third party or was associated with him. Remaining in and around Madras for a week, Lee was surprised at the local support of the people's movement in the northern part of Crook County. Privately he conceded that central Oregon had considerable cause for complaint against the big railroad corporations. It was served now only by the tiny Columbia Southern, and the real wealth of the state's interior lay far south of Shaniko, dependent even now in the twentieth century on stages and freight wagons that belonged to the 1800s. The continually delayed promise of an adequate railroad had become a joke no longer holding humor for these Westerners.

Few thought that either the Oregon Trunk or Harriman's new Deschutes Railroad would actually lay a single rail. “The proposed constitutional amendment is a whiplash to get Harriman to move,” a Madras businessman told Lee. “Now, I've got an idea Harriman is kicking up all this smoke just to beat that amendment.”

“The Oregon Trunk is something else,” Lee said.

The man waved it aside. “Just a two-bit, locally owned outfit aiming to take a bite out of Harriman's pocketbook.” He looked at Lee sharply. “Of course, if you're saying the Oregon Trunk is Hill's line, I'd think differently.”

“I can't say that,” Lee admitted.

“All right.” The man smiled sourly. “I guess we'd better have the State of Oregon build some railroad.”

It had been announcement piled upon announcement, promise upon promise, and the skepticism of the central Oregon people had grown. Yet Lee was glad to report to Stevens that there was considerable admiration for James J. Hill as a railroad builder, and, if future developments showed that he was behind the Oregon Trunk, public opinion would undoubtedly swing to him in the impending race up the cañon.

Late in April, a development had somewhat crystallized the situation. The
Madras Pioneer
had carried an announcement that Secretary Ballinger of the Interior Department had approved the maps the Harriman people had filed for the first forty miles of their right of way, provided that construction be started immediately. That put it up to the Oregon Trunk. Action would come now, or the whole thing would blow up as it had before.

Lee chose Sunday for another visit to Hanna Racine's place, riding out from Madras on a saddle horse hired from the local livery. It was full spring now, the season's warmth bringing a brightness to the green-floored valleys, a more somber gray-green hue to the sweeping roll of the plateaus. And in the ride Lee found escape from the pressures and irritations that had plagued him almost from the moment he had first seen Deborah Haig coming aboard the
Inland Belle
.

Lee found Hanna in the yard in front of the ranch house, wearing Levi's and spading a flower bed with lithe young energy. Dismounting at the gate, Lee was sure of the pleasure he saw in her eyes.

Smiling, she called: “How are you, Lee?”

“Fine as silk.” He moved in quick, long strides to stand beside her. “Got another spade?”

“I guess I could find another one.” She looked younger than he had remembered her, almost too young to be a graduate of the University of Oregon, the outdoor air putting a pretty freshness in her face and eyes. “Does it get you, too? This time of year I could swell up and burst.”

“Don't do that. It would spoil a mighty pretty arrangement.”

She motioned to the Levi's. “I hope this outfit doesn't shock you. I'm one of these modern women, you know. I even refuse to ride a side-saddle.”

“I'm shock proof,” Lee said lightly.

“Sometimes I go into Bend and play basketball with the girls.” She shook her head in mock concern. “I guess we're not considered very proper by the fuddy-duddies. They say we're daring.”

“You're just ahead of the times.”

She sobered, her eyes on him for a moment before she said: “Yes, I guess that's right.”

She was alone, he found, the crew not yet returned from Saturday's towning, and the Indian girl Mary having gone back to Warm Springs for the day. When Hanna saw that he meant to stay a while, she showed him where to put his horse.

Lee carefully avoided mention of the right of way, and Hanna told him about the ranch with enthusiasm kindling in her eyes. Herb Racine had raised cattle and horses in the days when everything between Shaniko Flats and Crooked River was his range, but those days were gone.

“Fences all around us,” Hanna said, “and settlers pouring in. What we call progress is coming, and it changes the stock business. The trick now is to breed for quality rather than quantity, and feed to put a little more meat between an animal's hide and bones.”

Later in the afternoon, after she had fried a chicken and baked a cake for him, she said: “Thanks for not putting the pressure on me, Lee.”

“There doesn't always have to be a railroad between us,” Lee said, “although I'll admit I was designing. I'd like to be friends, and I'll promise never to put on the pressure, if you'll make me one promise. Don't close a deal with Mike Quinn without warning me first.”

“I can make that promise, because I don't propose to deal with either of you.”

He said gravely: “There is one question that's been in my head ever since I saw you on the train with Cyrus Jepson. What do you see in him?”

Hanna laughed. “He's no competition, if that's what you mean. For one thing, he's completely gone on Deborah Haig.”

Lee took a sharp breath. “I didn't know that,” he said.

Apparently she didn't notice the astonishment in his voice. “I sort of inherited him. He and Dad saw the railroad question alike. Now, he and I see alike. That's all.”

They moved across the barnyard to the corral, Lee wondering how a man such as Herb Racine could have been so close to Cyrus Jepson. Unless, and he pondered this, Jepson was entirely different from the way he was visualizing him.

“Highpockets told me your father was killed from ambush. Do you have any idea who did it?” he said.