Lighted Windows, page 3
“How much! Quick!”
“Fifteen inches! Sudden as the crack of doom!”
“Where’s Hale?”
“Gone back to headquarters with his dog-team. Said everything was O.K. Didn’t need him; he’d take the boat out to Seattle to get Mrs. Hale. Said you’d had your leave, he’d take his.”
“Gone! Gone to Seattle! Without letting me know! Get every man out, Tubby!” Harcourt started on a run. A pier supervisor was charging toward him, his eyes like glassies too big for their sockets. The man answered his unspoken question.
“Ice-cap lifted twenty feet. Moving. False works fifteen inches out of plumb.”
“We must get it back.”
“Back!”
“We must. Otherwise the whole span, supports and all, will be carried away.”
In the prolonged nightmare which followed, Bruce Harcourt felt as though he were his own double looking at a great motion picure. Steam from every available engine was turned into every available feedpipe. Men chopped seven-foot thick ice away from the piles. A stinging needle-pointed Arctic night settled down. The river rose. The forest quiet was broken by the chop, chop of picks. The piles must be kept free. Hundreds of cross pieces were unbolted. The shifting into place began. No man relaxed his vigilance until another stood ready to go on with his job.
If he thought of anything but the bringing back of the bridge into place, Harcourt thanked God for the Samp sisters. They were indefatigable. They made the men stop for hot coffee and waffles put together sandwich fashion with succulent brown sugar. Once he glimpsed a boy hovering in the background. The new secretary? Not that he cared a picayune who he was, but the speculation served to take his thoughts for a moment off the problem of that moving bridge. Hale’s had been the master mind in construction, but he had to step in so often when the chief was incapacitated that the responsibility of the result would fall heavily upon his shoulders. The authorities whom he had seen back home had intimated that they were thoroughly informed as to the situation.
Melting. Chopping. Coaxing. Melting. Chopping. Coaxing. The hours dragged on. Harcourt couldn’t close his eyes. With every muscle, every nerve in his body, he was holding back the torrent which at any moment might be loosed in the river. Once, hurrying to his office for a plan, he saw a dim face in the purple dusk between spruce trees. He stopped short in his stride. The face of the girl who had dined with him that last night in New York? Behind the absorption in his work, since his return, like the brilliant lining of a cloud, had glowed the memory of those hours with Janice Trent. He could see her as distinctly as he saw her then, the soft waves of hair, the ardent lips, ruby eyes winking in the long, swaying earrings; he could hear the swing and fire of the Polish dance; he could feel her pulsing fingers against his lips. But of course it wasn’t Jan! Had the memory of her become an obsession? His heart stopped for a terrified instant.
“Am I going dippy under the strain?” he muttered, and plunged on through the trail.
Inch by slow inch the span settled back on its concrete bed. Haggard, exhausted, with a two days’ growth of beard on their faces the engineers watched the last bolt driven in. From the distance came a faint rumble. It increased in volume.
Grant clutched Harcourt’s arm. “It’s coming!” he whispered through stiff lips.
The rumble increased to a roar. The river had broken loose. Carrying ice and timber before it, it swept along on its mad rush to the sea.
Rigid, tense, the two men watched the wreckage and ice sweep by. The bridge stood immovable against the onslaught. Grant’s eyes were unashamedly full of tears.
“You’ve done the trick, Bruce. This day will mark a crisis in your life and Hale’s.”
“The credit belongs to him. I only came in at the end. Tell the division heads to get the men off duty as fast as possible. Put them on shifts to watch. I’ll turn in. I haven’t been off my feet for forty-eight hours. Now that the strain is eased every nerve in them is throbbing protest.”
“You’d better, ba-gosh. You’re the only one of the outfit who hasn’t caught a cat-nap, at least. The boys will be all right now. The Waffle Shop’s going at full blast. I’ll say that the Samp girls helped mightily in keeping the men fit for their job.”
“I’ll say they did. When the history of this bridge-building is written, their part ought to appear in the records.”
A great wave of heat from the Yukon stove swept out as Harcourt opened the door of his shack. Firelight glowed through the one window, tipped with flame the icicles which fringed the roof, threw eerie shadows on the cache opposite, raised on tall posts, in which supplies were stored against marauding porcupines and dogs. Smoke from the chimney ascended in a column as straight as a near-by spruce. He paused on the threshold.
“What’s the name of that secretary of yours, Tubby?”
“Jimmy Delevan.”
“Delevan? Did he help during the late excitement?”
“Sure he did. He was everywhere. Perhaps not so helpful in some spots as in others. One of the men found him freeing a snowshoe rabbit which had snared. When he explained that the rabbits were chief source of feed for the dogteams, Jimmy Delevan went quite white, walked off without answering, but with the rabbit clutched tight in his arms like a baby.”
“Delevan? I think I saw him once and thought he was—Delevan—”
He felt himself swaying. The heat from the red-hot stove was overpowering after the cold. Lord, how his feet throbbed! He must—Delevan—He must—From a great distance came Tubby Grant’s strident plea:
“Hold on, Bruce! Don’t go to sleep till I can get you over to that bunk.”
III
Three shrieks of a small steamer’s titanic siren echoed and re-echoed among the snow-tipped mountain tops.
“B-o-a-t! B-o-a-t!”
The cry set in motion Eskimos and Indians, countless uncanny echoes. Dogs responded with wolfish wails. One of a group of white men, against a background splotched with the brilliant blankets of the Yakutats, Bruce Harcourt stood on the shingle at headquarters watching a launch put-putting from the ship which had dropped anchor. Behind him the tableland, fifteen feet above the shore, was littered with piles of lumber, stacks of steel rails, tents, shacks, iron drums in which gasoline had been shipped, locomotives and steamshovels. In front of the Company store an Alaskan bear paced back and forth, back and forth, the length of the chain riveted to a post. Smoke spiraled from the chimneys of long dormitories. Men were pounding, digging, riveting. Huskies were yelping in the kennel yards behind the building labeled OFFICE. The place teemed with industry. Section heads directed the dragging of stumps, the burning of Arctic moss. Engineers, blueprints in hand, were in earnest conference. Broad roads, hacked out of the forest of alders, cottonwoods and spruces, stretched inland. Beyond the office cowered a group of storm-bleached cabins, glinting with one or more tin patches. Each roof had its copper-wire antenna, like strands of a mammoth spider-web, which picked up currents of music, thought, to hold and bind these pioneers to the world they had left behind. A crude hangar occupied the one side of a cleared field which was encircled with sheds. A little world in itself.
Harcourt looked beyond the boat with its armor-plated hull, designed for ice-bucking, out to sea. On the horizon loomed a volcano. The front of the crater had broken away, the back rose in a jagged peak. The effect was that of a cauldron with one side gone, spurting and belching gases which took on the glory of sunset coloring as they spread, till the horizon streaked with torn veils of malines, in rose and amethyst, gold and amber, crimson and purple. Far off, sportive whales sent sparkling jets of water high in air. Great bergs of green ice, surmounted by flocks of lavender and white gulls, floated oceanward. Quite near were snow-crowned mountains whose sides, striped in vivid and dull green, reminded him of the slashed sleeve of a troubadour.
“I never watch that boat come in but I wonder what turn old Fortune will give her wheel,” observed Grant at his elbow.
“Its arrival is packed with significance, Tubby. So many on this last frontier have pasts. The mail the steamer brings is sure to jolt some one of them into activity. You only have to watch the men’s eyes to know what it means. Some are feverishly bright with apprehension, some are dull with apathy, many of them are fearlessly gay, thank heaven.”
“And thanks to you I have nothing to dread. I’ll bet the wheel turns for Hale this time. He and the Mrs. are coming in on this boat. It’s six weeks since we fought to save that bridge. He went off to Seattle before he knew that it would stand the break-up. I’m mighty sorry for his wife, but—our reports went by air, must have reached the authorities weeks ago.”
“I made mine as charitable as possible, considering the fact that a flaw in construction imperils hundreds of lives and wastes thousands of dollars.”
“I’ll bet you put on the soft pedal, Bruce. In the interest of cool and impartial accuracy, Jimmy Chester—ba-gosh, how he hates Joe Hale, if he is his brother-in-law—and I didn’t. In my capacity as accountant for the outfit I reported unvarnished facts. Here come the mail-bags and Stephen Mallory. It’s good to see the Dominie again. I’m glad we’re back on the coast, even if we are hundreds of miles from civilization. I wonder how long we’ll have to stay in this raw place?”
“Until we have developed a railroad terminal. The authorities have decided not only to extend the tracks north but to connect the Alaskan system with Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. That’s what I’ve been doing these last six weeks. Even got a piece of track laid as an object lesson. Left Jimmy Chester in charge. He’s a human dynamo, in spite of the fact that he looks like a stage Romeo. Part of this outfit is to scout by plane and report bridge possibilities. That means that next winter we’ll begin pier-setting again.”
“Br-r-r! If summer comes can winter be far behind! What price railroads! There goes the mail to the office. I’ll hustle along and distribute it.”
“How’s the new secretary working out?”
“Quick and accurate as a sharpshooter.”
“Never see him round.”
“He isn’t. Sticks close to the Samp girls. I’ll bet they baby him. Women have to have something to mother.”
“Red spots still in evidence?”
“Yep. They wouldn’t admit it, but I suspect the men steer clear of him.”
“Poor boy! It’s a tough break. Curious I’ve never seen him.”
“Not so queer when you think of it. My office was moved back here the day after the break-up—the King of France and his forty thousand men—I marched the Samp girls and Delevan up and marched them down again. You only arrived a few hours ago. I’ll send your mail to the H house. Will you eat there or at the Waffle Shop?”
“The Waffle Shop. Now that I’m back in the metropolis I want to plunge into the gay night life of the cafes.”
“Feeling coltish, aren’t you? Kind of dropped the load of that bridge off your shoulders. I’ll save a seat for you.”
Logs were blazing in the roughly built stone fireplaces when Harcourt entered his cabin. The middle portion served as a living and work-room. A door at the back opened into a kitchenette. The stone chimneys at each end did double duty: they provided fireplaces for the bedrooms which corresponded in position to the uprights of the H, as well as for the living-room. The log walls were hung with blueprints and gay Indian blankets. Laden book-shelves covered one end from rafters to floor; a pair of holsters hung from pegs. A priceless Russian samovar on the shelf of a crude dresser reflected the firelight in wavering, coppery tints; a tea service of old Chinese pewter would have set a connoisseur to smashing the tenth Commandment. A drafting table across one corner was flanked by tall rolls of paper. A broad desk, a radio, a few chairs, one a fan-back of incredible fineness from the Philippines, a couch, a table with a lamp, whose juice was supplied by the company dynamo, completed the furnishings. Pelts of richness and value lay on the rough floor.
A tawny husky, stretched at length on the couch, lifted his head from the pillows and whacked a welcoming tail. His master laughed as he rubbed his wide-apart ears.
“I suspect there’s something wrong with this picture, Tong. If we had a missus you wouldn’t be allowed to sleep on that couch, old fella.” The dog concurred with a guttural rumble.
Returned from a shower and a change of clothes, Harcourt gathered up the mail heaped on the table. Newspapers, letters, magazines. He looked longingly at the big bundle of books he had ordered while browsing through bookstores in New York. Those would have to wait. He lighted his pipe, settled deep in a comfortable Morris chair and opened a long, official envelope. What had the authorities to say to him, he wondered? Dark color rose to his face as he read the letter. The authorities had to say that he had been made chief of the outfit, in place of Hale, demoted and recalled.
Tong laid his nose on his knee and closed his eyes in blissful content. One hand absentmindedly rubbing the dog’s tawny head, Harcourt stared thoughtfully into the fire. He had made good. He had come to this northern country after having been honorably discharged from the Engineers Corps of the army six years before. He had believed that Alaska, the last frontier of the United States, offered the greatest, swiftest opportunities for progress in his profession. And he meant to get to the top of it if it were humanly possible. He had no money except what he had saved and a small inheritance. This promotion meant the doubling of his salary. It meant that he could provide certain luxuries for a wife—a wife in this wilderness! Not so good. He had indulged in all sorts of wild visions since his return from the States, had pictured Janice in the fan-back chair which had been designed for a lovely woman. The next time he went he would keep away from attractive girls with eyes like bronze pansies and ardent lips. He might write to Jan about his promotion, she would be interested. Had she married Paxton, Paxton of the golden tongue and purse? With difficulty he switched his train of thought. Hale was out of it. Would he be a good sport and make things easy for his successor or would he fight?
Fight. Harcourt answered his own question as he entered the candle-lighted Waffle Shop and met the malevolent glare of the demoted chief. The rustic tables in the log cabin room were full. Each occupant, with hair carefully slicked down, was redolent of soap and water. Cigarette smoke rose in spirals, matching coins clicked. From the room behind came the sizzle of batter on hot iron, the aroma of coffee, the appetizing smell of bacon.
Tatima, the Indian waitress, moved from table to table, a savage from the tips of her beaded moccasins to the top of her superb head. Her face was darkly, tragically beautiful. Her black hair, parted in the middle, was drawn with satin smoothness over her ears, the blood flowed redly under her olive skin. An immaculate white apron partially covered her gay cotton gown, from her neck hung a string of evenly cut, sapphire-blue beads. She might have been stone deaf for all the consciousness she showed of her customers’ badinage.
Harcourt took the chair which Grant had reserved for him. He sensed the lull in talk as he entered. Did the men already know of his change of status? Opposite him sat Stephen Mallory, the coast missionary, white-haired, lean, Alaska-seasoned. There was a merry twinkle in the blue eyes which looked with sympathetic understanding upon the struggles and temptations of this northern outpost of civilization.
Mary, the mild partner of the Samp sisters, hovered about the three men. Her round face had the wrinkled effect of a quite elderly, if still plump winter apple; her short upper lip quivered like a rabbit’s; her false teeth clicked when she talked. Harcourt nodded a friendly greeting, gave his order, supplemented with the plea:
“Make sure of mine first, Miss Mary. These two men are the world’s champion eaters.”
The sense of humor had been mislaid when Mary Samp’s characteristics were assembled. Her big, innocent blue eyes widened guilelessly.
“Well now, Mr. Mallory don’t eat enough to keep a bird a-goin’. Don’t know’s I can say as much for Mr. Tubby,” she added with an unwonted tinge of badinage in her voice.
Grant protested in his best spoiled-child manner. “Oh, I say, Miss Mary. You—”
The sentence thinned into air as a blond giant, with the regular features of a Greek deity, thickened and coarsened by over-exposure to self-indulgence, loomed above the table. He dropped a hand on Harcourt’s shoulder.
“So—that was your business in the States. To turn informer! You think you’ve supplanted me in this—as in another quarter? Perhaps you stopped in Seattle on your way back to report too! Let’s see you try the Big Chief business! As the Russians used to say, ‘God and the Tsar are far away!’ ”
Harcourt shook off the heavy hand. Clean cut, well groomed, lean, virile, head high, he was the antithesis of the man glaring down upon him. His gray eyes were like black coals.
“Don’t waste theatrical clap-trap on me, Hale. You have your orders. I have mine. I’ll see that they are carried out.”
“I get you! Wait until I turn in my report, you—you home-breaker!”
Grant sprang to his feet. “Skunk!”
Hale lunged at him. The men in the room rose as in a body. Harcourt seized his erstwhile superior in a grip of steel. His voice was low.
“Cut this out, Hale. You—”
“Get out of this shop, Hale! An’ don’t you never step foot in it again! You’re not boss no longer,” twanged a woman’s voice from the door which led to the kitchen. Martha Samp stood in the opening like an avenging fury. Wisps of rusty gray hair stuck through the mesh of her mob cap like hay through the interstices of a feed box. The blaze of her print dress, a bewildering riot of color in the modern manner, was only partially eclipsed by a large white apron. Under one arm was a massive yellow bowl. She emphasized her ultimatum with a wave of a batter-coated spoon. Hale met her steady eyes. With a snarled imprecation he stalked from the shop.
A sigh of relief like the passing of a vague wraith soughed through the room as he banged out. Men resumed their seats and their attacks on the waffles heaped on their plates. As the atmosphere cleared Harcourt demanded in a low tone:
