his arms and held her close while he kissed her. It was so good to see her
again, to feel her nearness. But after one rapturous minute, she put away his
arms and faced him calmly, though her breath was not quite even and her eyes
would not meet his with the old frankness.
“Your one eighth of Indian blood should have given you more reserve, Cousin
Rawley,” she reproved him mockingly. “The Spanish of us must be watched. Well,
I needn’t ask about your health; you haven’t been pining during your absence,
that one could notice.”
Rawley barely escaped forswearing both his Indian and his Spanish blood, but
remembered his promise just in time. He did not believe that Nevada regretted
his impulsiveness,--for you simply can’t fool a man under thirty when he
kisses a girl. Nevada’s lips, he joyously remembered, had not been
unresponsive.
“Here’s your pipe,” she said lamely, when he only stood and looked at her. “I
was just wondering whether it’s worth saving, or whether I’d better heave it
into the river and see how far it would float.”
Rawley did not believe that she intended to heave it anywhere, but he passed
the point.
“If cousins fell in love, they--would you consider the relationship any bar--”
Nevada went white around the mouth.
“I certainly should! You ought to be ashamed to ask a question like that. No
man with any decency could think of such a thing.”
“I’m decent,” Rawley contended, “and I thought of it.” But he did not pursue
the subject further. Nevada had turned and was walking on toward the camp of
Cramer, and Rawley could do nothing but follow. The path was too narrow to
permit him to walk beside her, and a man feels a fool making love to a woman’s
back.
“Have you done anything further about the dam?” he asked, after a silence.
“I believe the work is going ahead,” Nevada replied, keeping straight on.
“You must have received my letter about it; or didn’t you?”
“Yes, I received a letter about something of the sort.”
“You didn’t answer it, did you? I never received any reply.”
“I did not think,” said Nevada, “that the letter required any answer. You
wrote and told us to stop all work on the dam, and give up the idea, because
some one else wanted to build a dam. Or was considering the building of a dam.
I read that letter to Grandfather and Uncle Jess and Uncle Peter, as you
requested. They swore rather fluently and went to work the next morning as
usual.” Then, as if it had just occurred to her, “Did you come to see about
that, Cousin Rawley?”
“Oh, I wish you’d omit the ‘cousin’,” Rawley blurted irrelevantly. “I don’t
like having it rubbed in.”
Nevada said nothing for a time. Then she laughed, a hard little laugh that
sounded strange, coming from her.
“Certainly, if you wish. I’m very sorry I seem to have ‘rubbed it in’, as you
put it. And I quite understand how you feel. Out among men--and women--as you
have been, all your life, the--er--mixed relationship would prove rather a
handicap. Poor old Grandfather and Grandmother should have thought of their
children’s children, before they fell in love. And Uncle Peter should either
have brought you here and raised you with the rest of the tribe, or never told
you the truth. I’m not blaming him; I’m merely sorry for the mistake. I know
what it means. I’ve been out in the world, too.”
Rawley stared at the proud lift of her head and wondered just how much of that
she meant. She must be quite aware of his reason for disliking to be called
her cousin, but he would not argue with her. Except about the handicap.
“You’re mistaken, if you think the mixed blood is an objectionable feature,”
he said firmly. “Indian and Spanish have the same essential characteristics of
race that the straight white blood owns. Besides, there are mighty few
Americans who couldn’t trace back to something of the sort. Character, culture
and environment sweep a few drops of red blood into the background, Nevada.
You wouldn’t feel bitter over it, if you didn’t live right here and see the
Indian predominate in Young Jess and Gladys--and your grandmother.”
“_Your_ grandmother, as well as mine,” she flashed over her shoulder with a
very human spitefulness. “Don’t deny it--to me.”
Rawley did not deny anything at all; wherefore, conversation languished
between the two. Since first he had known her, Nevada had frequently withdrawn
into an unapproachable aloofness discouraging to any lasting intimacy, but she
had never before betrayed resentment against her blood.
He had hoped that she would be glad to see him and would let him see that she
was glad. He had hoped to win her complete confidence in his devotion to their
interests and welfare. He needed to have both Nevada and Peter on his side, if
he were going to be successful in his mission to the Cramers. But he was
extremely doubtful now of ever winning Nevada’s confidence. It began to look
as though he may as well count her an opponent and be done with doubt.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ANITA
Life seemed to have moved sluggishly in the basin, save in the increase of the
tribe. Six young Cramers now walked upright, though the smallest walked
insecurely and frequently fell down and lay squalling with its eyes shut and
its nose wrinkled until one of the older children picked it up and dusted it
off, remonstrating the while in Pahute. The seventh was not yet old enough to
ride the well-upholstered hip of Gladys, but wailed in a cradle which some one
must be incessantly rocking.
Gladys was more slatternly than ever she had been, and her vacuous grin had
lost a tooth. Anita had aged terribly, Rawley thought. She moved slowly, with
a long stick for a staff, and her eyes held a dumb misery he could not face.
Nevada informed him that Grandmother had not been very well, lately, although
there was nothing wrong, particularly.
“She doesn’t sleep at all, it seems to me,” Nevada detailed. “Often she’s up
and prowling along the river bank in the middle of the night, and I have to go
and lead her back. I think she’s getting childish. She will sit and watch me
by the hour, when I’m working, but she doesn’t seem to want me to talk to her.
She just sits and looks, the way she’s been looking at you.”
Nevada went away then to some work which she said was important, and Rawley
wandered down to the river bank. In a few minutes he heard a sound behind him
and turned, hoping that Nevada had yielded to his unspoken desire and was
coming to join him.
But it was Anita, walking slowly down the uneven pathway, planting her crude
staff ahead of her in the trail and pulling herself to it with a weary,
laborious movement. Her gray bangs hung straight down to her eyelids. Her
wrinkled old face was impassive, her eyes dumb. Rawley bit his lip suddenly,
thinking of his Grandfather King sitting, “a hunk of meat in the wheel chair.”
Life, it seemed to him, had dealt very harshly with these two. He was no
longer swayed by the stern prejudice of Johnny Buffalo. He did not believe
that Anita, in her lovely youth, had been merely a whimsy of love. His
grandfather had loved her, had meant to return to her. He did not believe that
King, of the Mounted, would have loved one who loved many. The King pride
would not have permitted that.
Anita came up to him and leaned hard upon her stick, her eyes turned dully
upon the river. Never before had she sought him out; rather had she avoided
him, staring at him with a look he interpreted as resentment. She looked so
old, so infinitely tired with life, and her eyes went to the river as if it
alone could know the things she had buried in her heart, long ago when she was
a slim young thing, all fire and life.
With a sudden impulse of tenderness he put his arm around her, leading her to
the flat rock and seating her there as gallantly as if she were Nevada, whom
he loved. It was what his grandfather would have done. Rawley felt suddenly
convicted of a fault, almost of a sin; the sin of omission. Here was the love
of his grandfather’s youth, the mother of his grandfather’s first-born. And
because she was old and fat, because the primitive blood had triumphed and she
had yielded to environment and slipped back into Indian ways, he had
snobbishly held himself aloof. He had ignored her claim upon his kindness. Had
her beauty remained with her, he told himself harshly, his attitude had been
altogether different. Now he wanted to make up to her, somehow, for his
selfish oversight. He sat down beside her and patted her hand,--for the Anita
who had been beautiful, the Anita whom King, of the Mounted, had loved.
“You love--my girl--Nevada?” The old squaw spoke abruptly, though her voice
held to a dead level of impassivity.
“How did you know?” Rawley took away his hand.
“I know. I have seen love--in eyes--blue. Eyes like your eyes.”
“Nevada doesn’t care anything about me, Anita.”
At the word, the old squaw turned her head and stared at him fixedly. “You
call that name. Where you know that name? Jess, he call me Annie.”
Rawley flushed, but there was no help for it now--or, yes, there was Johnny--
“Johnny Buffalo called you Anita,” he parried.
Anita shook her head slowly. “Jawge--your gran’fadder--he call me Anita too,”
she said wistfully. “You ver’ much--like Jawge. I firs’ think--you are ghos’
of Jawge, when you come.”
“Grandfather was crazy about you,” slipped off Rawley’s tongue. “He spoke of
you in his diary--a book where he wrote down things he did--things he
thought.”
Anita stared down at the river.
“You tell me,” she commanded tersely. “All those things--Jawge
think--about--Anita.”
Rawley’s hand went out and closed again over her wrinkled, work-hardened
knuckles.
“The first was when he came up to El Dorado on the _Esmeralda_ in ’66. He was
leaning over the rail, watching the miners crowd down to the landing. He
wrote, ‘I saw a young girl--I think she is Spanish. She has the velvet eyes
and the rose blooming in her cheeks. She’s beautiful. Not more than sixteen
and graceful as a fairy.’ What more he wrote of you I don’t know. He cut the
pages from the book so no one could read it.”
Anita raised a knotted, brown hand and smoothed her bangs, tucking them neatly
under her red kerchief.
“I was little,” she said complacently. “Ver’ beautiful. Every-body
was--crazy--about--me.” She halted, choosing the best English words she knew.
“I was--good girl. I love--nobody. I jus’ laugh all time--when them so’jers
make the love. Then I see--Jawge--my Sah-geant King. He is king to me.
Tall--big--strong--all time laughing--making love with blue eyes--like
you--all time make love--with eyes--to Nevada. I know them eyes--I have
lived--to look--in them eyes.”
“I don’t do anything of the kind,” Rawley protested, confusion crimsoning his
face. “I’ve always tried--”
“Eyes like them eyes--no tell lies. Woman eyes see--things they tell.
Jawge--he write more?”
“Most of it was cut from the book. He called you ‘_el gusto de mi corazon_,’
and his ‘_dulce corazon_.’ Do you know--?”
Beneath his palm Anita’s hand was trembling. She pulled it free and lifted it
to her face, her withered fingers wiping the tears that were slipping down her
wrinkled cheeks. Rawley could have bitten his tongue in two. Awkwardly he
patted her on one huge, rounded shoulder.
Like a lonesome dog, the old woman whimpered behind her brown palm, from
beneath which a tear sometimes escaped and splashed upon her calico wrapper.
Rawley sat silent, abashed before this forlorn grief over a romance fifty
years dead.
“Now I love Nevada, Peter.” She mastered her tears and became again impassive.
“You leave me--Nevada? Lil time--I want Nevada. I die--then you can love--many
years. You do that?”
“Of course. I promised Peter, a long time ago. But it doesn’t matter, anyway.
Nevada doesn’t care a rap about me.”
The old woman looked at him stolidly.
“You not tell Nevada--you not Peter’s boy,” she said. “Nevada think that. You
not tell Nevada--that’s a lie. You tell Nevada, I kill myself.”
“I’ve no intention of telling Nevada,” Rawley said, chilled by her manner. “It
doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“You not come--for Nevada? You not think, marry Nevada--take Nevada ’way off,
I no see any more?” Anita peered into his face.
“No. I came to see Peter. About the dam.”
Anita took some time over this statement. Then she rose stiffly and hobbled
away, leaving Rawley to stare morosely into the river.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE EAGLE AND THE VULTURE
“You may as well listen to me,” said Rawley in the incisive tone which big
responsibilities had taught him. “I am your friend. My only object in coming
here is to be of service to you. If you do not listen to what I have to say,
you will have to listen to the Federal Reclamation Service, acting under the
Secretary of the Interior. That may be more convincing to you--but believe me,
it will be less pleasant!”
“You were keen for the dam, last time you were here,” Peter reminded him
drily. “You called it a big idea. You’ve had a change of heart, son.”
“I have. I have come to tell you that there are other ideas bigger than yours,
and a power behind them that will make yours look like building a toy dam in
the sand, like kids. You must have read of it in the papers. There’s been all
kinds of publicity given to the project.”
“You’re right. There’s been a heap of talk,” Peter retorted. “The papers have
done the talking, and we’ve been sawing wood and keeping our mouths shut.
While they’re still talking and arguing and speechifying, we’ll put ’er in.
There’s nothing the matter with that, is there? Take the wind out of their
sails, maybe, especially the fellows that have their speeches all written out,
ready for the next banquet. But,--_the dam will be in_! They’ll have some
work, trying to get around that point.
“You ask if we’ve read the papers. I have. They’ve been talking about spending
a hundred million dollars. We’ve spent one. They’ve been fiddling along the
river, looking to see if it’s feasible. We’ve kept right on digging. They
thought we were _mining_--the only party that discovered our diggings. They
were very patronizing, very polite, and they talked about the wonderful things
a dam would do for us. Is that what you came to tell us, son?”
Rawley leaned back against the wall and laid one foot across the other knee,
tapping his boot with his finger tips. He was facing them all. He must
convince them, somehow, and he must batter down the dream of a lifetime to do
it.
“No, you’ve read most of the talk,” he told Peter. “I admit the thing has
almost been talked to death. It begins to look as though the general public is
tired of reading about damming the Colorado. If that were all there is to it,
Peter, I’d never say a word. But there are some facts we can’t get around with
talk, or defiance. I came here to show them to you--just plain, hard
facts--and let you see for yourself what they mean.
“In the first place--and this is probably the hardest fact you have to
face--the Colorado is an international stream. It flows through a part of
Mexico. The Constitution of the United States has decreed that such rivers
must at all times and in every particular be under the control of the Federal
Government. There are seven States bordering this river, yet not one of them
dare build a dam without the consent and supervision of the government. Get
that firmly planted in your minds, folks.”
Young Jess turned his head an inch and slanted a look at Old Jess. Old Jess
crossed his legs, folded his arms and trotted one rusty boot, waggling his
beard while he chewed tobacco complacently. No one could fail to read his
mind, just then. He was thinking that what seven States were afraid to do, he,
Jess Cramer, had dared. The joke was on the seven States, according to Old
Jess’s viewpoint.
“Arizona,” Rawley went on, after a minute of contemplating the complete
satisfaction of Old Jess, “Arizona wants water for irrigation. One hundred and
fifty thousand acres of desert land can be made fertile with the water of the
Colorado, properly diverted into a system of canals.”
“They kin have the water,” the Vulture conceded benificently. “We don’t want
it. Glad to git rid of it. You kin tell ’em I said so.”
Young Jess laughed hoarsely.
“Sure. Glad to git it off’n our hands!”
“The State of Nevada wants power for her mines. The copper interests are after
a dam up the river here, so that they can resume the output of copper. They
want a smelter, operated by power from the Colorado. Two million brake
horse-power of electric energy is slipping past your door, worse than wasted.
“California wants more power for her industries--”
“She’s welcome,” Old Jess stated smugly. “We ain’t hoggin’ no electric energy
’t I know of.”
“You are, if you interfere with the building of a dam of sufficient size and
strength to conserve that power.”
Young Jess leaned forward, grinning impudently into Rawley’s face.
“Hell! There’s thousands uh miles up river that we ain’t doin’ a thing to.
They kin build dams from here to Denver, fer all we care! That’s all
poppycock, our interferin’. Everybody with ten cents in his pocket is talkin’
about buildin’ a dam in the Colorado. Why the hell don’t they go ahead and
_do_ it? We ain’t stoppin’ nobody!”
“You may be, without knowing it,” Rawley explained patiently, determined to
educate them beyond their single-track idea, if possible. “I see how it looks
to you, of course. But I’ll explain how it looks to the greatest engineers in
the country, Jess. You remember I was rather keen for it, myself. It was out
of my line, and I didn’t know.
“Now the fact is, you are attempting, with a certain amount of rock blown into
the river from the sides, to dam a river second only to the Mississippi.
“I know, the Missouri is wider, but I am speaking now of the volume of water
that passes through this canyon right here. It is a swift river, and it is a
deep river. You don’t realize, any of you, just how deep and how swift it is,
though you have lived beside it all your lives.
“Peter has spoken of the amount of money they are talking of spending to build
a dam at Boulder Canyon, up here. The canyon there is as narrow as this;
perhaps narrower. And to hold back the tremendous volume of water that flows
past your door, engineers have said that they must go down one hundred and
fifty feet, to bed rock, and start there to build their dam. They say that the
dam will--must--to hold back the terrific pressure of water, rise something
like six hundred feet above low-water mark. It will keep several thousand men
working for eight or ten years to complete the dam, its spillways and main
canals. It will cost around one hundred million dollars, and it will bring
both protection and prosperity to thousands and thousands of people. That,” he
declared, leaning forward, “is what it means to dam the Colorado.”
“It don’t mean that to us,” Old Jess stated, turning his quid to the other
cheek. “We aim to show ’em something about buildin’ dams.” He grinned and
showed yellow snags of teeth.
“Yeah. Wait till they see how _we_ aim to do it,” snickered Young Jess. “We’ll
be rakin’ in the gold whilst they’re still standin’ around with their mouths
open.”
Peter had fallen into a taciturn, grim mood, staring somber-eyed at the river.
Beside him, Nevada leaned chin upon her cupped palm and stared also. Several
thousand men, working for eight years! That was as long as the years back to
her first sight of the convent where Peter took her to be educated. Thousands
of men working all that time--thousands! Was it, then, so deceptively vast,
that river? Would the cliffs they had undermined fall in and be swept
disdainfully away? Did it really belong to the government, that river, so that
no man living all his life on its bank might say what should be done with it?
Had Uncle Peter, and Young Jess and her grandfather been children, playing all
these years beside a stream they must not touch or tamper with?
“It sounds as big as the stars,” she observed vaguely. “As if we had been
waving a handkerchief at Mars, down here by the river, and then some one comes
along and pushes us back and says, ‘Here, here, you must stand back. You are
obstructing the view. The President wants to wave his handkerchief. You annoy
him.’ Do you think,” she flashed at Rawley, “it is going to make any
difference to the river--who dams it first?”
“You don’t get the point,” Rawley protested. “I am not responsible because the
undertaking is so stupendous that it is beyond any private enterprise. You
_can’t_ shoot a lot of rock into the river and call that a dam. And if you
could, you must not. Don’t you see? The welfare of too many thousands of
people are involved. It’s a job for the government. You can’t take it for
granted that, just because you have lived beside it all your lives, and
because it doesn’t seem to belong to anybody, any more than the clouds belong,
that you can claim it, or even claim the right to do as you please with it.
There’s a right that goes away beyond the individual--”
“The gold down there is ours,” Old Jess cried fiercely. “We own placer claims
on both sides of the river, and the lines run across. We’ve got a right to
placer the gold in the river bed. It’s _ours_. We got a right to git it any
way we kin! The gov’ment can’t stop us, neither.”
“Oh, yes, it can!” Rawley rashly contradicted. “When you come down to fine
points, the government owns this river. It owns the river bed and whatever
gold is there. By ‘right of eminent domain’, if you ever heard of that.”
“Right of eminent hell!” Young Jess got up and stood over Rawley
threateningly. “Tell _me_ a bunch uh swell-heads back in Wash’n’ton, that
never _seen_ this river, can set and tell us what we can do an’ what we can’t
do? We own claims both sides the river, and we got a right to what’s _in_ the
river. You can’t come here and tell us, this late day, ’t we got to quit, and
lose our time an’ money, because the gov’ment or somebody wants to build a
dam. Hell, _we_ ain’t stoppin’ nobody! They better nobody try an’ stop us,
neither!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“TAKE THIS FIGHTING SQUAW AWAY!”
Never before had Rawley seen Young Jess in a rage. A surly, ignorant fellow he
knew him to be, and not too intelligent. A dangerous fellow, Rawley believed
him; quite capable of killing any man who thwarted him or roused his fury. But
Rawley did not move or attempt to placate him. He had learned that some
natures must blow up a great storm before they can yield. He hoped that this
was the case with Young Jess.
The old vulture craned his neck forward, his eyes piercingly malevolent.
“Think I’ve waited fifty year fer that gold, t’ be robbed of it now? They
ain’t no gov’ment on earth can step in an’ take what’s mine! I’ll blow ’em to
hell first! I’ll--”
As once before, when he thought his gold was threatened, Old Jess ran the full
gamut of anathema. Nevada fled from the sound of his cracked voice shrieking
maniacal threats and maledictions. He shook his fist under Rawley’s nose and
stamped his feet and raved. Young Jess was over-ridden, silenced by the old
man’s insane outburst.
As once before, Peter said absolutely nothing until Old Jess had reached the
zenith of his rage. Then he rose deliberately and without excitement, took the
old man by the collar and headed him toward the door.
“Go and cool off,” he advised dispassionately. “You old vulture, you can’t
scream any louder than the Eagle. You, too, Jess,” he added, turning harshly
upon his half-brother. “You’re a pretty good man when it comes to swinging a
single-jack, but you’re a damn poor hand at thinking! This thing is away
beyond your depth. You can’t holler the government down. Get out!”
Young Jess blustered and threatened still, flailing his fists and mouthing
oaths.
“That’s about all from you,” grated Rawley, stung to action by some vile
threat against the government.
“Is, hey?” Young Jess advanced upon him.
Then Rawley went for him, the blue eyes of the Kings gone black with fury. The
fight, if it could be called that, was short and undramatic. No tables were
overturned, no glass was shattered. Young Jess aimed a sledge blow at Rawley,
got one on the jaw that spun him so that he faced the other way, and Rawley
forthwith kicked him off the porch. Young Jess rooted gravel, looked over his
shoulder and saw Rawley coming at him again, and started off on all fours.
When he regained his feet he went away, blathering blasphemy. He was going for
his gun,--so he said.