Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 417
That surprised and thrilled Neale into eagerness.
“Who are the engineers?”
“Blake and Coffee. I don’t know them. Henney sent them out from Omaha. They’re well recommended. But that’s no matter. Something is wrong. You’re to have full charge of engineers, bosses, masons. In fact, I’ve sent word out to that effect.”
“Who’s the contractor?” asked Neale.
“I don’t know. But whoever he is he has made a pile of money out of this job. And the job’s not done. That’s what galls me.”
“Well, chief, it will be done,” said Neale, sharp with determination.
“Good! Neale, I’ll start east with another load off my shoulders.... And, son, if you throw up a bridge so there’ll be no delay, something temporary for the rails and the work-train, and then plan piers right for Number Ten — well — you’ll hear from it, that’s all.” They shook hands.
“I may be gone a week or a month — I can’t tell,” went on the chief. “But when I do come I’ll probably have a trainload of directors, commissioners, stockholders.”
“Bring them on,” said Neale. “Maybe if they saw more of what we’re up against they wouldn’t holler so.”
“Right.... Remember, you’ve full charge and that I trust you implicitly. Good-by and good luck!”
The chief boarded his train as it began to move. Neale watched it leave the station, and with a swelling heart he realized that he had been placed high, that his premonition of advancement had not been without warrant.
The work-train was backing into the station and would depart westward in short order. Neale hurried to his lodgings to pack his few belongings. Larry was lying on his cot, fully dressed and asleep. Neale shook him.
“Wake up, you lazy son-of-a-gun!” shouted Neale.
Larry opened his eyes. “Wal, what’s wrong? Is it last night or to-morrow?”
“Larry, I’m off. Got charge of a big job.”
“Is thet all?” drawled Larry, sleepily. “Why, shore I always knowed you’d be chief engineer some day.”
“Pard — sit up,” said Neale, unsteadily. “Will you stay sober — and watch — and listen for some news of Allie?... Till I come back to Benton?”
“Neale, air you still dreamin’?” asked Larry, incredulously.
“Will you do that much for me?”
“Shore.”
“Thank you, old friend. Good-by now. I’ve got to rustle.” He left Larry sitting on his cot, staring at nothing. On the way to the station Neale encountered the gambler, Place Hough, who, despite his nocturnal habits, was an early riser. In the excitement of the hour Neale gave way to an impulse. Briefly he told Hough about Allie — her disappearance and probable hidden presence in Benton, and he asked the gambler to keep his eyes and ears open. Hough seemed both surprised and pleased with the confidence, and he said he would go out of his way to help Neale.
Neale had to run to catch the train. A brawny Irishman extended a red-sleeved arm to help him up.
“Up wid yez. Thor!”
Neale found himself with bag and rifle and blanket sprawling on the gravel-covered floor of a flat car. Casey, the old lineman, grinned at him over the familiar short, black pipe.
“B’gorra, it’s me ould fri’nd Neale.”
“It sure is. How’re you Casey?”
“Pritty good fur an ould soldier.... An’ it’s news I hear of yez, me boy.”
“What news?”
“Shure yez hed a boost. Gineral Lodge hisself wor tellin’ Grady, the boss, that yez had been given charge of Number Ten.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“I’m dom’ glad to hear ut,” declared the Irishman. “But yez hev a hell of a job in thot Number Ten.”
“So I’ve been told. What do you know about it, Casey?”
“Shure ut ain’t much. A fri’nd of mine was muxin’ mortor over there. An’ he sez whin the crick was dry ut hed a bottom, but whin wet ut shure hed none.”
“Then I have got a job on my hands,” replied Neale, grimly.
Those days it took the work-train several hours to reach the end of the rails. Neale rode by some places with a profound satisfaction in the certainty that but for him the track would not yet have been spiked there. Construction was climbing fast into the hills. He wondered when and where would be the long-looked-for meeting of the rails connecting East with West. Word had drifted over the mountains that the Pacific division of the construction was already in Utah.
At the camp Colonel Dillon offered Neale an escort of troopers out to Number Ten, but Neale decided he could make better time alone. There had been no late sign of the Indians in that locality and he knew both the road and the trail.
Early next morning, mounted on a fast horse, he set out. It was a melancholy ride. Several times he had been over that ground, once traveling west with Larry, full of ardor and joy at the prospect of soon seeing Allie Lee, and again on the return, in despair at the loss of her.
He rode the twenty miles in three hours. The camp of dirty tents was clustered in a hot valley surrounded by hills sparsely fringed with trees. Neale noted the timber as a lucky augury to his enterprise. It was an idle camp full of lolling laborers.
As Neale dismounted a Mexican came forward.
“Look after the horse,” said Neale, and, taking his luggage, he made for a big tent with a fly extended in front. Several men sat on camp-chairs round a table. One of them got up and stepped out.
“Where’s Blake and Coffee?” inquired Neale.
“I’m Blake,” was the reply, “and there’s Coffee. Are you Mr. Neale?”
“Yes.”
“Coffee, here’s our new boss,” called Blake as he took part of Neale’s baggage.
Coffee appeared to be a sunburnt, middle-aged man, rather bluff and hearty in his greeting. The younger engineer, Blake, was a tanned, thin-faced individual, with a shifty gaze and constrained manner. The third fellow they introduced as a lineman named Somers. Neale had not anticipated a cordial reception and felt disposed to be generous.
“Have you got quarters for me here?” he inquired.
“Sure. There’s lots of room and a cot,” replied Coffee.
They carried Neale’s effects inside the tent. It was large and spare, containing table and lamp, boxes for seats, several cots, and bags.
“It’s hot. Got any drinking-water?” asked Neale, taking off his coat. Next he opened his bag to take things out, then drank thirstily of the water offered him. He did not care much for this part of his new task. These engineers might be sincere and competent, but he had been sent on to judge their work, and the situation was not pleasant. Neale had observed many engineers come and go during his experience on the road; and that fact, together with the authority given him and his loyalty to, the chief, gave him cause for worry. He hoped, and he was ready to believe, that these engineers had done their best on an extremely knotty problem.
“We got Lodge’s telegram last night,” said Coffee. “Kinda sudden. It jarred us.”
“No doubt. I’m sorry. What was the message?”
“Lodge never wastes words,” replied the engineer, shortly. But he did not vouchsafe the information for which Neale had asked.
Neale threw his note-book upon the dusty table and, sitting down on the box, he looked up at the men. Both engineers were studying him intently, almost eagerly, Neale imagined.
“Number Ten’s a tough nut to crack, eh?” he inquired.
“We’ve been here three months,” replied Blake.
“Wait till you see that quicksand hole,” added Coffee.
“Quicksand! It was a dry, solid stream-bed when I ran the line through here and drew the plans for Number Ten,” declared Neale.
Coffee and Blake stared blandly at him. So did the lineman Somers.
“You? Did YOU draw the plans we — we’ve been working on?” asked Coffee.
“Yes, I did,” answered Neale, slowly. It struck him that Blake had paled slightly. Neale sustained a slight shock of surprise and antagonism. He bent over his note-book, opening it to a clean page. Fighting his first impressions, he decided they had arisen from the manifest dismay of the engineers and their consciousness of a blunder.
“Let’s get down to notes,” Neale went on, taking up his pencil. “You’ve been here three months?”
“Yes.”
“With what force?”
“Two hundred men on and off.”
“Who’s the gang boss?”
“Colohan. He’s had some of the biggest contracts along the line.”
Neale was about to inquire the name of the contractor, but he refrained, governed by one of his peculiar impulses.
“Anybody working when you got here?” he went on.
“Yes. Masons had been cutting stone for six weeks.”
“What’s been done?”
Coffee laughed harshly. “We got the three piers in — good and solid on dry bottom. Then along comes the rain — and our work melts into the quicksand. Since then we’ve been trying to do it over.”
“But why did this happen in the first place?”
Coffee spread wide his arms. “Ask me something easy. Why was the bottom dry and solid? Why did it rain? Why did solid earth turn into quicksand?”
Neale slapped the note-book shut and rose to his feet. “Gentlemen, that is not the talk of engineers,” he said, deliberately.
“The hell you say! What is it, then?” burst out Coffee, his face flushing redder.
“I’ll inform you later,” replied Neale, turning to the lineman. “Somers, tell this gang boss, Colohan, I want him.”
Neale left the tent. He had started to walk away when he heard Blake speak up in a fierce undertone.
“Didn’t I tell you? We’re up against it!”
And Coffee growled a reply Neale could not understand. But the tone of it was conclusive. These men had made a serious blunder and were blaming each other, hating each other for it. Neale was conscious of anger. This section of line came under his survey, and he had been proud to be given such important and difficult work. Incompetent or careless engineers had bungled Number Ten. Neale strode on among the idle and sleeping laborers, between the tents, and then past the blacksmith’s shop and the feed corrals down to the river.
A shallow stream of muddy water came murmuring down from the hills. It covered the wide bed that Neale remembered had been a dry, sand-and-gravel waste. On each side the abutment piers had been undermined and washed out. Not a stone remained in sight. The banks were hollowed inward and shafts of heavy boards were sliding down. In the middle of the stream stood a coffer-dam in course of building, and near it another that had collapsed. These frameworks almost hid the tip of the middle pier, which had evidently slid over and was sinking on its side. There was no telling what had been sunk in that hole. All the surroundings — the tons of stone, cut and uncut, the piles of muddy lumber, the platforms and rafts, the crevices in the worn shores up and down both sides — all attested to the long weeks of fruitless labor and to the engulfing mystery of that shallow, murmuring stream.
Neale returned thoughtfully to camp. Blake and Coffee were sitting under the fly in company with a stalwart Irishman.
“Fine sink-hole you picked out for Number Ten, don’t you think?” queried Blake.
Neale eyed his interrogator with somewhat of a penetrating glance. Blake did not meet that gaze frankly.
“Yes, it’s a sink-hole, all right, and — no mistake,” replied Neale. “It’s just what I calculated when I ran the plans.... Did you follow those plans?”
Blake appeared about to reply when Coffee cut him short “Certainly we did,” he snapped.
“Then where are the breakwaters?” asked Neale, sharply.
“Breakwaters?” ejaculated Coffee. His surprise was sincere.
“Yes, breakwaters,” retorted Neale. “I drew plans for breakwaters to be built up-stream so that in high water the rapid current would be directed equally between the piers, and not against them.”
“Oh yes! Why — we must have got — it mixed,” replied Coffee. “Thought they were to be built last. Wasn’t that it, Blake?”
“Sure,” replied his colleague, but his tone lacked something.
“Ah — I see,” said Neale, slowly.
Then the big Irishman got up to extend a huge hand. “I’m Colohan,” he boomed.
Neale liked the bronzed, rough face, good-natured and intelligent. And he was aware of a shrewd pair of gray eyes taking his measure. Why these men seemed to want to look through Neale might have been natural enough, but somehow it struck him strangely. He had come there to help them, not to discharge them. Colohan, however, did not rouse Neale’s antagonism as the others had done.
“Colohan, are you sick of this job?” queried Neale, after greeting the boss.
“Yes — an’ no,” replied Colohan.
“You want to quit, then?” went on Neale, bluntly. The Irishman evidently took this curt query as a foreword of the coming dismissal. He looked shamed, crestfallen, at a loss to reply.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” continued Neale. “I’m not going to fire you. But if you are sick of the job you can quit. I’ll boss the gang myself... The rails will be here in ten days, and I’m going to have a trestle over that hole so the rails can cross. No holding up the work at this stage of the game... There’s near five thousand men in the gangs back along the line — coming fast. They’ve all got just one idea — success. The U. P. R. is going through. Soon out here the rails will meet.... Colohan, make it a matter of your preference. Will you stick?”
“You bet!” he replied, heartily. A ruddy glow emanated from his face. Neale was quick to sense that this Irishman, like Casey, had an honest love for the railroad, whatever he might feel for the labor.
“Get on the job, then,” ordered Neale, cheerily. “We’ll hustle while there’s daylight. We’ll have that trestle ready when the rails get here.”
Coffee laughed scornfully. “Neale, that sounds fine, but it’s impossible until the trains get here with piles and timbers, iron, and other stuff. We meant to run up a trestle then.”
“I dare say,” replied Neale. “But the U. P. R. did not start that way, and never would finish that way.”
“Well, you’ll have your troubles,” declared Coffee. “Troubles!... Do you imagine I’m going to think of MYSELF?” retorted Neale. These fellows were beginning to get on his nerves. Coffee grew sullen, Blake shifted uneasily from foot to foot, Colohan beamed upon Neale. “Come on with them orders,” he said.
“Right!... Send men up on the hills to cut and trim trees for piles and beams.... Find a way or make one for horses to snake down these timbers. Haul that pile-driver down to the river and set it up.... Have the engineer start up steam and try out.... Look the blacksmith shop over to see if there’s iron enough. If not, telegraph Benton for more — for whatever you want — and send wagons back to the end of the rails.... That’s all for this time, Colohan.”
“All right, chief,” replied the boss, and he saluted. Then he turned sneeringly to Blake and Coffee. “Did you hear them orders? I’m not takin’ none from you again. They’re from the chief.”
Colohan’s manner or tone or the word chief amazed Coffee. He looked nasty.
“Go on and work, then, you big Irish Paddy,” he said, violently. “Your chief-blarney doesn’t fool us. You’re only working to get on the right side of your new boss.... Let me tell you — you’re in this Number Ten deal as deep — as deep as we are.”
It had developed that there was hatred between these men. Colohan’s face turned fiery red, and, looming over Coffee, he looked the quick-tempered and dangerous nature of his class. “Coffee, I’m sayin’ this to your face right now. I ain’t deep in this Number Ten deal.... I obeyed orders — an’ damn strange ones, some of them.”
Neale intervened and perhaps prevented a clash. “Don’t quarrel, men. Sure there’s bound to be a little friction for a day or so. But we’ll soon get to working.”
Colohan strode away without another word. His brawny shoulders were expressive of a doubt.
“Get me my plans for Number Ten construction,” said Neale, pleasantly, for he meant to do his share at making the best of it.
Blake brought the plans and spread them out on the table.
“Will you both go over them with me?” inquired Neale.
“What’s the use?” returned Coffee, disgustedly. “Neale, you’re thick-headed.”
“Yes, I guess so,” rejoined Neale, constrainedly. “That’s why General Lodge sent me up here — over your clear heads.”
No retort was forthcoming from the two disgruntled engineers. Neale went into the tent and drew a seat up to the table. He wanted to be alone — to study his plans — to think about the whole matter. He found his old figures and drawings as absorbing as a good story; still, there came breaks in his attention. Blake walked into the tent several times, as if to speak, and each time he retired silently. Again, some messenger brought a telegram to one of the engineers outside, and it must have caused the whispered colloquy that followed. Finally they went away, and Neale, getting to work in earnest, was not disturbed until called for supper.
Neale ate at a mess-table with the laborers, and enjoyed his meal. The Paddies always took to him. One thing he gathered early was the fact that Number Ten bridge was a joke with the men. This sobered Neale and he left the cheery, bantering company for a quiet walk alone.
It was twilight down in the valley, while still daylight up on the hilltops. A faint glow remained from the sunset, but it faded as Neale looked. He walked a goodly distance from camp, so as to be out of earshot. The cool night air was pleasant after the hot day. It fanned his face. And the silence, the darkness, the stars calmed him. A lonely wolf mourned from the heights, and the long wail brought to mind Slingerland’s cabin. Then it was only a quick step to memory of Allie Lee; and Neale drifted from the perplexities and problems of his new responsibility to haunting memories, hopes, doubts, fears.
When he returned to the tent he espied a folded paper on the table in the yellow lamplight. It was a telegram addressed to him. It said that back salaries and retention of engineers were at his discretion, and was signed Lodge. This message nonplussed Neale. The chief must mean that Blake and Coffee would not be paid for past work nor kept for future work unless Neale decided otherwise. While he was puzzling over this message the engineers came in.
