CHAPTER XXXVITHE DRAGON SCORES
THEPalmyrawas once again on its siding. Marshall was at the Front again; having made another of his swift dashes from Tucson. This time he expected officially to close the gate. Claudia was with him. She never left the car, unless it were to step out to the platform to see what she could from there of the river work, immediately returning to her wool work in the shaded compartment.
Hardin and Rickard had been devoting anxious weeks. A heavy rainfall and cloudburst in the mountains of northern Arizona had swollen the feeders of the Gila River which roared down to the Colorado above Yuma. The eroding streams carried mountains in solution which settled against the gate, a scour starting above and below it. Relief had to be given on the jump. A spur-track was rushed across the by-pass above the gate, as the closing of the ill-fated gate with the flash-boards was no longer possible. A rock-fill was the only means of closure. In the distant quarries men were digging out rock to fill the call from the river.
Marshall came down to see the completed spur. Before he reached the intake, the first rock train had moved on to the spur-track. The trestle had settled, the train thrown from the rails and wrecked.
“That’s not the way I planned to dump that rock!” was Rickard’s comment. “Now, we’ll have to stop and straighten out that trestle.”
“If we’d had those rock-aprons, this’d never have happened,” stormed Hardin, who was standing on the bank when the trestle gave way.
They were already repairing that disaster when thePalmyrawas cradled on its siding. Marshall from one platform, Tony, white-capped from the rear, started out for the river. Claudia settled herself for a quiet morning.
When Innes Hardin came in later, she felt that she was interrupting a fierce orgy. But Mrs. Marshall would not let her go. “I can knit just as fast when I talk.”
The shades were all pulled down. To Innes’ protest, her hostess declared that “she could see with her fingers.” Innes had never asked the destiny of the little knitted jackets; earlier in the acquaintance she had surmised a pressing haste for some sister, or niece; a tender date. She had seen several downy sacques completed; but still those black needles clicked.
Later, Marshall came in from the damaged trestle, bringing Rickard and Crothers. The chief was in buoyant spirits, as though the accident had played to his hand, instead of against it.
“I’ve brought company to lunch, mother,” his mellow voice called through the car.
Only one caught the look of pain that twisted the severe features of Claudia Marshall. Instantly, Innes saw it disciplined into a welcoming smile. And then she herself fell to flushing, and chilling, as a lithe-muscled figure came directly to her. His eyes—where was the look she had feared, of possessive tenderness? Thequizzical gleam was gone. On guard! A solemn business, loving, when you know that it means—Life! On guard, though, toher! She pulled her fingers from his strong lingering clasp, and joined Mrs. Marshall, who was again busily knitting, until Tony’s crisp whiteness crackled into the apartment.
Rickard had his soldier look on. She was watching him covertly as he talked with his host and Crothers, as though she were not there; as though something were not waiting for him to claim! She told herself that she would have no character if she did not deny him, when he came for her. How could he be talking, oblivious of everything else in the world except that river? Was that—loving? Could she think of anything else when he was in the same room with her? Was that the difference between men and women? Woman’s whole existence! He was a soldier of the modern army. It came to her, a sort of tender divination, that he would not divide his thoughts, even with her, with Love, until his battle was won. He owed his mind clear and on duty to the work on hand. Well, couldn’t she understand that? What her accusation against Gerty? Sex honor—keep off the track! Wasn’t that her own notion? Oughtn’t she to be proud of him?
She had brought a nest of waspish thoughts tumbling about her ears. Gerty! He had loved Gerty. Her resentment was alive again. Perhaps, it was not true. Perhaps, some day he would tell her that it was not true, had never been true. He couldn’t love her, if his thoughts had ever lingered, with that same seriously solemn look on the false little face of her sister-in-law.
A slur to a chef could one talk of else but food while banqueting! Tony’s white cap danced around the tableafter he had seated them, urging their appetites. Mrs. Marshall tried to suppress him; Marshall and Rickard wickedly abetting his capering. He forced a commendation of his bouillon from dreamy Innes; the recipe, he boasted, was his own. Tod Marshall’s query as to the Spanish peppers evoked a long history. The lunch was served to a running accompaniment of his reminiscences, when he had been a restaurateur, and the great Samuel Bliss one of his patrons. He was working up a crescendo of courses. With the importance of a premier, he bore in a majestic, seasoned plank carrying a thick steak. Another trip to the kitchen returned a primrose sauce.
“Tony will be insulted if you do not all mention the Bernaise,” Marshall had suggested during the chef’s absence.
Rickard declared without straining his veracity that it was the best Bernaise he had ever tasted. Tony’s face worked with emotion.
“It is because no one knows how to mix a Bernaise—bah, the bad stuff I’ve eaten! When I go to a big city, I go to the finest hotel. Good clothes, a diamond ring,” his finger shot up to his nose. “And who would refuse to give me a table to myself? Who would believe that it is a cook? I say, ‘Your best wine, and the steak thick, and a sauce Bernaise!’ Never have I tasted it but once fit to serve to a gentleman like Mr. Marshall—or Mr. Bliss. They make it with poor vinegar. You can not make the sauce Bernaise without the best Tarra-r-rragon vinegar.” His r’s hurtled out like a burst of artillery. “Everywhere you can not get the real Tar-r-ragon vinegar. Ah!” His face grew wolfish and eager. “Tony knows. Tony always carries it with him for the great gentlemen like Mr. Bliss, Mr. Marshall—”
“Some bread, Tony,” clipped in Mrs. Marshall. “You can not teach him his place,” she complained in the interval, “if you let him talk like this!”
“Oh, but you don’t want to, mother!”
Innes saw again the look of pain. Did he think her life complete, in its guarding of his own reckless one! Innes thought pitifully of the little knitted jackets. Hadn’t he ever sensed—those?
Tony trotted back with the bread. He was eager with speech, but Rickard was beginning a river anecdote, of his introduction to Godfrey, the story of the bacon rind. Marshall was at once interested in the tenor.
“We must have him down some night to sing for us, eh, mother?”
“Oh, I wish he wouldn’t call her that!” yearned Innes. A rich salad of mayonnaise and canned shrimps was rejected, to the chef’s despair.
“Why, you’ll incapacitate us, Tony.” Marshall waved it away. “I want to get back to Tucson alive. Now, a cup of coffee, not another thing on your life—or I’ll cut your salary. I want Mr. Rickard to do some work this afternoon! Now be quick with the coffee.”
Deep gloom covered the retreat of the salad.
The coffee was brought in with ascetic simplicity. But Tony was not to be crushed. While Marshall was talking to Rickard, he insinuated a platter of cream puffs toward the ladies.
Marshall caught the sly action. He stopped. “You can have one—but only one, Rickard,” he commanded. “If Tony does not mind me, you must.”
“If you will excuse me,” Rickard was rising. “Tony, will youoweit to me? There really is other work to be done to-day. You are setting a bad example in camp,Mr. Marshall, you and Tony. We are not sybarites here.” His good-by to Innes was guarded. Why should she drop her eyes, she asked herself angrily? Nothing there that the whole world might not see! Marshall went out to the platform with his engineer. Immediately he came back, smiling, “Look here, girls!”
Claudia and Innes Hardin followed him to the platform. Under the kitchen window, a group of young engineers were eating indiscriminate “hand-outs.” MacLean, unabashed, waved a lukewarm stuffed pepper at his chief. Bodefeldt, caught red-handed, crimsoned under his desert tan when Innes’ glance isolated him, his mouth full of cream puffs, his hand greasy from fried bananas.
“He’s a prince,” cried Bangs, of the Reclamation Service.
“He can afford to be on that salary,” cried MacLean, with roguish intention. “I’d be generous on a hundred and fifty a month.”
“Mex.,” cried Bangs. “That’s only seventy-five.”
“It’s a hundred and fifty,” spluttered the white cap from the window. “I spend it in Mexico; I get twice as much for a dollar down there.”
“Don’t let them tease you, Tony,” laughed Marshall. “You’ll spend that hundred and fifty in Mexico next week.”
They were standing in the shade of thePalmyra, Claudia on the platform shading her eyes, Innes on the step below. It was a soft still afternoon. There was no wind; not a cloud blurred the sky. The burning heat of summer had passed, giving place to a warmth that was like a caress. The fierceness of the savage desert had melted to her days of lure. Beyond, the turbid watersof the Colorado bore a smiling surface. There was nothing to hint of treachery.
It was a minute of pleasant lassitude, snatched from the turmoil. Rickard had succumbed to the softness of the day and his mood. He was enjoying the thought of Innes’ nearness, though she kept her face turned from him. He knew by the persistence of those averted eyes that she was as acutely conscious of his presence as he was, restfully, of hers. Deliberately, he was prolonging the instant.
“Well?” said Marshall. The group moved. Rickard turned toward his hostess. Just then a strange thing happened. A stir on the river had caught the alert eye of Tod Marshall. He swore a string of picturesque Marshallian oaths. Rickard’s eyes jumped toward the by-pass. The placid waters had suddenly buckled. Majestically, the gate rose and went out. They watched it variously, the groups by thePalmyra; the catastrophe too big for speech. Months of work swept away! The gate drifted a hundred feet or more, then stopped as though sentience, or a planned terminal, were governing its motion. Some unseen obstruction caught it there, to mock at the labors of man.
Innes, aghast, had turned toward Rickard. His face was expressionless. There was a babel of excited voices behind them, Bodefeldt, MacLean, Tony, Crothers, Bangs, all talking at once. Her eyes demanded something of Rickard. A fierce resentment rose against his calmness. “He knew it,” she rebelled. “He’s been expecting this to happen. It’s no tragedy tohim!” There was a stab as of physical pain; she was visualizing the blow to Tom.
She heard Marshall’s voice, speaking to Rickard.“Well, you’re ready for this.” She did not hear the answer, for already Rickard was heading for the by-pass. Marshall and the young engineers followed him. The women were left staring. An odd sound came from the rear of the car.
“What is that?” demanded Claudia.
They found Coronel sitting on the ground, his knees drawn up to his chin. His mud-crusted head was turned riverward. His age-curdled eyes, fixed on the spot where the gate had been, did not see them. A moaning issued from his shut lips. His paint-striped shoulders were shaking with dry sobs. He had been watching, waiting for fifteen years. It was all over, now, to him. The Great Dragon had conquered.
Innes moved toward him. Coronel cared, Coronel and Tom! The Indian sat, wrapped in his grief. To the girl the worst, too, had happened. She had refused to believe in the possibility of failure. Her brother’s optimism had swept her along. That wreck down yonder was worse than failure; it was ruin. It involved Tom’s life. It was his life. This would be the final crushing of his superb courage—her thoughts released from their paralysis were whipped by sudden fear. She must find him, be with him. She did not see the look of sympathy on Claudia Marshall’s face. She felt alone, with Coronel. The next instant, she was speeding like a young colt toward the encampment.
Estrada met her on the run. “Have you heard?” she cried. Estrada said he had just been talking to Rickard. He looked sorry, she reflected after she left him, sorry for her; but not surprised. “No one is surprised but Coronel, Coronel and I.”
Had Gerty heard? The pity that she must know! Shewould not be tender to Tom; her pride would be wounded. She must ask her to be tender, generous. Her footsteps slackened as she came in sight of the tents.
She heard voices in the ramada, a man’s clear notes mingling with Gerty’s childish treble. “Godfrey!” Her mind jumped to other tête-à-têtes. Of course! Abundant opportunity, with herself and Tom at the break all day! So that was what was going on. And she not seeing! Just a cheap little woman! If not one man, then another! Conquests, attention! Horrid little clandestine affairs!
The meeting was awkward. Speedily, Innes got rid of the news. She caught an odd look glittering in Mrs. Hardin’s eyes. The same expression Rickard had worn when the gate went out! As though his slate had been cleared, as though her sister-in-law saw an obstacle drop from her path.
Mrs. Hardin shrugged. Her shrugs were dainty, not the hunching variety. She merely moved her shoulders, the action as elusive as a twinkle.
“I believe I’ll go out.” Plaintively, she made the announcement as though it were just evolved. “Now, the camp will be horrid. Everybody will be cross, and everybody will be working. Perspiring men are not inspiring men!”
As she left the tent beyond, Innes could hear the vibrant voice of Godfrey persuading Mrs. Hardin to stay there a few weeks longer. She could hear him say, “This will delay the turning of the river at the most but a few weeks. Rickard told me so a week ago. And think what it would be here without you!”
“They were all expecting it!” resisted Innes Hardin. She turned back toward the river. She must find Tom.