CHAPTER XVIIION THE LEVEE
HARDIN did not go home that night. He was feeling to the quick the irony of his position; his duty now to protect the levee he’d ridiculed; now the only hope of the towns! The integrity of the man never faltered, though his thoughts ran wild. Like the relentless hounds of Actæon, they pursued him, barking at his vanity.
He started the anxious ranchers at sacking sand. Bodefeldt ran up to tell him that there was a hill of filled sacks over in Mexicali. “Rickard had a bunch of Indians working for a week.”
The confusion of the shy fellow did not escape Hardin. Oh, he knew what Bodefeldt was thinking, what every one was saying! They were all laughing at him. The coincidence of this extraordinary flood had upheld Rickard’s wild guess, haloed his judgment. It was all a piece of his infernal luck. Sickening, that’s what it was! His orders scattered. He ran up and down the levee, giving orders; recalling them when he found he was repeating Rickard’s.
This new humiliation, coming on the heels of the dredge fiasco, put him in execrable temper. He shouted his orders over the noises of the night. He rated the men, bullied them. No one did anything right! Lord,what he had to put up with! The other men, the ranchers and engineers, saw in his excitement certainty of the valley’s doom.
The wind and the darkness contributed to the confusion. Eager shovels were tossing up earth before any one could tell where the danger point would be. The water was not yet high enough to determine the place of battle. Sacked sand was being brought over from Mexicali. Fifty pair of hands made short work of Rickard’s “Hill.” Lanterns were flashing through the darkness like restless fireflies. The wind and rushing water deadened the sound of the voices. It was a battle of giants against pygmies. In the darkness, the giants threatened to conquer.
At three in the morning, a horseman rode in from Fassett’s, one of the big ranches to the north, cut by the New River.
“The river is cutting back,” he called through the din, “cutting back toward the towns.”
A turn in the gorge, a careless dump-pit had pulled the river like a mad horse back on its haunches. It was kicking back.
“They are short-handed up there. They need help.”
“Dynamite,” cried Silent and Hardin antiphonally. They happened to be standing near.
“We must have dynamite,” bawled Hardin. “Are the wires down between here and Brawley? We must get a wire somehow to Los Angeles, to rush it down here this morning.”
“It’s here. There is a carload on the siding,” yelled Silent.
Hardin did not need to ask by whose orders it was there. An angry scowl spoiled his face.
“Put some on the machine.” He was turning away.
Silent called after him. Did Mr. Hardin think it was safe? There was no road between the towns and Fassett’s. The night, the explosive,—should they not wait till morning? The question threw his late chief into a rage.
“Did I ask you to take it?” It was the opening for his fury. “Safe! Will the towns be safe if the river cuts back here? The channel has got to be widened, and you talk of your own precious skin! Wait till I ask you to take it. Get out the machine. I’ll take it to Fassett’s myself.”
Silent left the levee, smarting. As he fumbled for the lanterns hanging in the shed where the machine was stalled, he lived over those last few years; with Hardin in the desert. When had he ever hesitated over a risk of life? When had he thought of his own safety? But this was a foolhardy thing, no matter who took the machine. Daylight would be here in a few hours. The way to Fassett’s, through the ravaged country, was scarred by other floods. There was a half-mile of levee to be covered; a ticklish thing by day to carry a machine over the narrow mound, scraping bottom all the time. By night—with dynamite in the bumping tonneau it was a gamble—and the wind blowing like this. But he wouldn’t let Hardin take it, he would show Hardin what he meant by “safe”!
By the pale flicker of the single lantern he got out the long gray car, nosed like a hound, filled the tank with oil, the canteens with water from a filter in the adjoining shop. He backed the machine out of the shed and sped through the darkness toward Mexicali, where the car of explosives was isolated.
He went over his grievance while he handled the dangerous stuff. The boss was taking chances; that was what he meant. He was not afraid of danger. Afraid!
Hardin, buttoned up to the ears, his soft hat pulled tight over his forehead, was waiting impatiently. Here was something to be done; he coveted the activity.
“I thought you were never coming,” he grumbled.
“Let me take it!” pleaded the engineer.
“Nonsense, there is no danger.” Hardin saw personal affection in the plea. He put his hand affectionately on the man’s shoulder.
“But you are needed here.”
“The trouble is not here; it won’t be either, if we blow out the channel. Here, jump out.”
“I want to go.” Silent kept a stubborn hold on the steering gear. He felt Hardin’s place was at the levee.
“You go home and catch a nap; this is my job.” He was standing on the step. “Crank her.”
There was nothing for Silent to do but to get out. Hardin pointed the long nose of the car into the darkness. She was off like the greyhound she suggested, missing a telegraph pole by half an inch.
“Just like him,” mused Silent. “The slimmest margins, the biggest chances, that’s Tom Hardin.” The touch on the shoulder had dispelled his grouch.
“Just like Hardin to insist on carrying the dynamite to Fassett’s.” Spectacular, maybe, like all of his impulses, but splendid and fearless as the man himself. “He never knows when he is beaten,” glowed the engineer. “If this valley ever comes into its own, it will be because of Tom Hardin.”
“Who is in charge here?” a woman’s voice was piercing the racket of wind and wave.
The dawn was breaking. Down the New River he could see the wind whipping the water into white-capped fury. “Vicious,” he muttered. “Those heavy waves play the Old Harry with the levee.”
“Where is my brother?”
“Miss Hardin!” cried Silent.
“Where is he?” demanded Innes. Her hair streamed away from her face. Her cheeks were blanched. Her yellow eyes, peering into the dusk, looked owlish. Her wind-spanked skirts clung to her limbs. To Silent she looked boyish, as though clipped and trousered. “Where is my brother?” she repeated.
Silent told her without reservations where he had gone and why. There was no feminine foolishness about that sister of Hardin’s. A chip of the old block. Funny, the men all thought of her as Hardin’s daughter on account of the difference of age. As to a comrade, proudly, he bragged of the taking of the dynamite over that roadless waste.
“Whom did he leave in his place?” She did not see him shake his head. “I want George Whitaker to be sent home. He is coughing his head off down the levee, he is wet to the skin; he was being doctored for pneumonia a week ago.”
Silent knew, only, that he himself was not in charge! Hardin had ordered him to bed.
“Maybe Mr. Estrada?” she hazarded.
“He is not here, he went down the road to look after the track. Hardin went off in such a hurry, I guess he told nobody,” chuckled the engineer, still glowing.
“Then I’m it!” cried Innes Hardin. “Will you take my orders, Silent?”
“Sure,” he chuckled again.
“Send George Whitaker home. And not to report till to-morrow morning. Say Hardin said so. You needn’t say which Hardin.”
She pinned up her blown hair, the wind fighting her. Her thoughts would accuse Tom! Perhaps the apparent confusion was all well ordered; perhaps this was the way men worked when the need was desperate, when homes were at stake! Yet, there was Tom racing across the country when a lieutenant would have done as well. Was he losing his grip? The earthquake episode had frightened her. She knew he lacked discipline, of school, and gentle home-training. The struggle with the wilderness had absorbed his parents. She knew he was oversanguine, careless of details, careless of the means to his ends. Perhaps it was because she was a woman, and fearful, and saw things in a womanish way. Perhaps all strong men, men who achieved great results, attacked them as Tom did. The daring chance, for Tom always. A corner to be turned, he must always take the sharpest curve. If he were as reckless with other people’s lives as he was with his own—
The voice of Silent was in her ear. “He is gone. I’ve sent him home.”
The yellow eyes gleamed prankishly in the half light. “Will you take more orders from me, Silent?”
“You’re the captain!”
“I saw Mr. Dowker down there. His wife is sick. Send him home, say Hardin said so.”
She called after him; “Parrish, too, if you can find him!”
She watched the white-capped waves break into harmless spray against the levee. A little higher, and those waves would not be harmless. If the wind kept up, ifthose waters rose—ah, these men would be needing their strength to-night!
The dawn was creeping in like a laggard culprit. The whitecaps caught the light, scattering it as foam. The flashing lanterns grew pale; Innes could discern some of the faces. She saw Coronel wrapped in a gray blanket, squatting on the newly-raised bank. His unbound hair slapped his old weathered mask. “The map of the desert furrowed on his face,” Captain Brandon had once said. She wrapped her coat around her head.
Silent came back. “Dowker’s gone, I couldn’t find Parrish.” He cut his words off with a click, for through the rush of the wind and water came the whistle of a locomotive.
“A special!” cried Silent. Hardin’s sister and his friend looked at each other, the same thought in mind: Rickard, in from the Heading!
On her face Silent saw the same spectacular impulse which had flashed over Hardin’s features a short time before.
She put her hand on his arm. “Silent, you’re his friend. Straighten this out. We can’t have him come back—spying—and find this.” She waved her hand toward the disorganized groups.
“I’d take more orders,” suggested the engineer.
“Then send a third of them home, tell them to come back to-night at six. Send away the other third, tell them to come back at noon. Keep the other shift. Say you’ll have coffee sent from the hotel, tell them Hardin says to stop wasting stuff. Tell them, oh, tell them anything you can think of, Silent, before he comes.” Her breakdown was girlish.
She could hear the signal of the locomotive; comingcloser. Then she could hear the pant of the engine as it worked up the grade. It was a steady gentle climb all the way from the Junction, two hundred feet below sea-level, to the towns resting at the level of the sea. It quickened her thought of the power of the river. Nothing between it and the tracks at Salton. Nothing to stop its flow into that spectacular new sea whose basin did not need a drop of the precious misguided flow. She could hear the bells; now the train was coming into the station; she would not wait for Silent. She did not want to meet Rickard.
No one saw her as she left the levee. She passed Silent, who was issuing orders. She heard him say, “The boss says so.”
She took the road by the railroad sheds, to avoid the dismissed shifts, moving townward. At full speed, she collided with a man, rounding the sheds’ corner. It was Rickard. Her veil had slipped to her shoulders and he saw her face.
“Miss Hardin!” he exclaimed. “Whatever are you doing here?”
“I was looking for my brother.”
“You ought not to be out at night alone here.”
“It’s morning!”
“With every Indian in the country coming in. I’ll send Parrish with you.”
She recognized Parrish behind him. She tried to tell him that she knew every Indian in Mexicali, every Mexican in the twin towns, but he would not listen to her. “I’m not going to let you go home alone.”
She blinked rebellion at the supplanter of her brother. But she found herself following Parrish. She took a deep pride in her independence, her fearlessness. Tomlet her go where she liked. She had an impulse to dismiss Parrish; every man was needed, but he would obey Rickard’s orders. MacLean had told her that! “They don’t like him, but they mind him!”
Rickard made his way down to the levee. “Where is Hardin?” he asked of every one he met. The answer came pointing in the direction where Innes had stood.
He made a swift inspection. It was not so bad as he had feared. Orders had scattered in the night; but it might have been worse.
Silent came up to explain that Hardin had gone up to Fassett’s just a few minutes ago to carry dynamite. The river was cutting back there. “Good,” cried Rickard, “that’s bully!”
“He left me in charge,” glibly lied the friend of Hardin. “Any orders, sir?”
“Things are going all right?” began the manager. He stopped. From above came a dull roar.
“Dynamite!” cried Rickard.
The friend of Hardin had nothing to say. “I thought you said he went only a few minutes ago?” demanded his chief.
There was another detonation. Down the river came the booming of the second charge.
“That’s dynamite for sure,” evaded Silent.
“Not a minute too soon!” declared Rickard, going back to his inspection.