A BIT OF ORATORY
MARSHALL threw his hat on a chair, the morning paper on his desk. He
aimed his burned-out cigar at the nearest cuspidor, but it fell foul,
the ashes scattering over Sam’s lately scoured linoleum. Instantly
there was appearance of settled disorder. Marshall emptied his pockets
of loose papers, spreading them out on his flat-top desk.
“Sit down!”
Rickard took the chair at the other side of the desk.
Marshall rang a bell. Instantly the shirt-sleeved clerk entered.
“I shall not see any one,” the chief announced. “I don’t want to be
interrupted. Take these to Smythe.”
His eyes followed the shutting of the door, then turned square upon
Rickard. “I need you. It’s a hell of a mess!”
The engineer wanted to know what kind of a “mess” it was.
“That river. It’s running away from them. It’s always going to run away
from them. I’m going to send you down to stop it.”
“The Colorado!” exclaimed Rickard. It was no hose to be turned, simply,
off from a garden bed!
“Of course you’ve been following it? It’s one of the biggest things
that’s happened in this part of the world. Too big for the men who
have been trying to swing it. You’ve followed it?”
“Yes.” Queer coincidence, reading that report just now! “I’ve not been
there. But the engineering papers used to get to me in Mexico. I’ve
read all the reports.”
His superior’s question was uncharacteristically superfluous. Who had
not read with thrilled nerves of that wild river which men had been
trying to put under work-harness? Who, even among the stay-at-homes,
had not followed the newspaper stories of the failure to make a meek
servant and water-carrier of the Colorado, that wild steed of mountain
and desert? What engineer, no matter how remote, would not “follow”
that spectacular struggle between men and Titans?
“Going to send me to Salton?” he inquired. The railroad had been kept
jumping to keep its feet dry. His job to be by that inland sea which
last year had been desert!
“No. Brainerd is there. He can manage the tracks. I am going to send
you down to the break.”
Rickard did not answer. He felt the questioning eyes of his chief.
“Down to the break,” repeated Tod Marshall, his bright black eyes
taking in every detail of the engineer’s get-up, resting, finally, on
his sunburned face. “Have one?” He offered Rickard his choice of two
small black cigars.
“Thanks, no,” said Rickard.
“Not smoking yet?”
“Not yet.” Rickard was amused at the solicitude. It was as though he
had asked: “Your mother is dying?”
“When will the penance be over?” Marshall lighted his cigar, watching
the blue blaze of the sulphur-tipped match, the slow igniting of the
tobacco--obviously an exquisite sensuous rite.
“It isn’t a penance! It’s an experiment. I never had to do anything
I really hated to do. I’ve never had to deny myself anything. Some
fellows have to give up studying the profession they love, go to
some hard digging or other, to support somebody. I’ve been lucky.
I discovered I did not know the meaning of the word ‘sacrifice.’ I
buckled down, and gave up the thing I liked best. That’s all that
amounts to.”
His words had a solemn effect. Marshall had stopped smoking. Rickard
discovered that his confidence had been tactless. Few men had had to
sacrifice so much as the one now somberly facing him. His home, first,
because a civil war had crushed it; his refuge, then, after years in
attics, and struggle with post-bellum prejudices, just as success met
him there; the fulness of life as men want it--those eyes knew what
sacrifice meant!
“When are you going to quit?” Marshall’s face was still sober.
“When am I going to quit quitting?” laughed his subordinate. “I haven’t
thought it out, sir. When it comes to me, the inclination, I suppose.
I’ve lost the taste for tobacco.” The break--where those Hardins
were--how in thunder was he going to get out of that, and save his
skin? Marshall liked his own way--
Marshall had resumed his cigar. “We’ll consider it settled, then.” His
minute of introspection was over. He had picked up his thread.
“Who’s in charge there?” Rickard was only gaining time. He thought he
knew the name he would hear. Marshall’s first word surprised him.
“No one. Up to a few months ago, it was Hardin, Tom Hardin. He was
general manager of the company. He was allowed to resign, to save his
face, as the Chinese say. I may tell you that it was a case of firing.
He’d made a terrible fluke down there.”
“I know,” murmured Rickard. It was growing more difficult, more
distasteful. If Marshall wanted him to supplant Hardin! It had been
incredible, that man’s folly! Reckless gambling, nothing else. Make
a cut in the banks of a wild river, without putting in head-gates to
control it; a child would guess better! It was a problem now, all
right; the writer of the report he’d just read wasn’t the only one who
was prophesying failure. Let the river cut back, and the government
works at Laguna would be useless; a nice pickle Hardin had made.
Still to gain time, he suggested that Marshall tell him the situation.
“I’ve followed only the engineering side of it. I don’t know the
relationship of the two companies.”
“Where the railroad came in? The inside of that story? I’m
responsible--I guaranteed to Faraday the closing of that break. There
was a big district to save, a district that the railroad tapped--but
I’ll tell you that later.” He was leisurely puffing blue, perfectly
formed rings into the air, his eyes admiring them.
“Perhaps you’ve heard how Estrada, the general, took a party of men
into the desert to sell a mine he owned. After the deal was made, he
decided to let it slip. He’d found something bigger to do, more to his
liking than the sale of a mine. Estrada was a big man, a great man. He
had the idea Powell and others had, of turning the river, of saving the
desert. He dreamed himself of doing it. If sickness hadn’t come to him,
the Colorado would be meekly carrying water now, instead of flooding a
country. Pity Eduardo, the son, is not like him. He’s like his mother,
you never know what they are dreaming about. Not at all alike, my wife
and Estrada’s.”
Then it came to Rickard that he had heard somewhere that Marshall and
General Estrada had married sisters, famous beauties of Guadalajara. He
began to piece together the personal background of the story.
“It was a long time before Estrada could get it started, and it’s a
long story. As soon as he began, he was knocked down. Other men took
hold. You’ll hear it all in the valley. Hardin took a day to tell it to
me! He sees himself as a martyr. Promoters got in; the thing swelled
into a swindle, a spectacular swindle. They showed oranges on Broadway
before a drop of water was brought in. Hardin has lots of grievances!
He’d made the original survey. So when he sued for his back wages, he
took the papers of the bankrupt company in settlement. He’s a grim sort
of ineffectual bulldog. He’s clung with his teeth to the Estrada idea.
And he’s not big enough for it. He uses the optimistic method--gives
you only half of a case, half of the problem, gets started on a false
premise. Well, he got up another company on that method, the Desert
Reclamation Company, tried to whitewash the desert project; it was in
bad odor then, and he managed to bring a few drops of water to the
desert.”
“It _was_ Hardin who did that?”
“But he couldn’t deliver enough. The cut silted up. He cut again, the
same story. He was in a pretty bad hole. He’d brought colonists in
already, he’d used their money, the money they’d paid for land with
water, to make the cuts. No wonder he was desperate.”
It recalled the man Rickard had disliked, the rough-shod, loud-voiced
student of his first class in engineering. That was the man who had
made the flamboyant carpets of the Holmes’ boarding-house impossible
any longer to him. He had a sudden disconcerting vision of a large
unfinished face peering through the honeysuckles at a man and a girl
drawing apart in confusion from their first, and last, kiss. He wanted
to tell Marshall he was wasting his time.
“Overwhelmed with lawsuits,” Marshall was saying. “Hardin had to
deliver water to those colonists. It was then that he ran over into
Mexico, so as to get a better gradient for his canal, and made his cut
there. You know the rest. It ran away from him. It made the Salton Sea.”
“Did he ever give you any reason,” frowned Rickard reminiscently, “any
_reasonable_ reason why he made that cut without any head-gate?”
“No money!” shrugged Marshall, getting out another cigar. “I told you
he’s a raw dancer, always starts off too quick, begins on the wrong
foot. Oh, yes, he has reasons, lots of them, that fellow, but as you
say, they’re not reasonable. He never waits to get ready.”
Why was it that the face of the half-sister came to Rickard then, with
that look of sensitive high-breeding and guarded reserve? And she, a
Hardin! Sister to that loud-spilling mouth! Queer cards nature deals!
And pretty cards Marshall was trying to deal out to him. Go down there,
and finish Hardin’s job, show him up to be the fumbler he was, give him
orders, give the husband of Gerty Holmes orders--!
“It was Hardin who came to me, but not until he’d tried everything
else. They’d worked for months trying to dam the river with a few lace
handkerchiefs, and perhaps a chiffon veil!” Marshall was twinkling over
his own humor. “Hardin did put up a good talk. It was true, as he said;
we’d had to move our tracks three, no, four times, at Salton. It was
true that it ought to be one of the richest districts tapped by the O.
P. But he clenched me by a clever bait--to put out a spur in Mexico
which would keep any other railroad off by a fifty-mile parallel, and
there the sand-hills make a railroad impossible.
“The government must eventually come to the rescue. Their works at
Laguna hang on the control of the river down at the Heading. Once, he
told me--I don’t know how much truth there was in it--the Service,
Reclamation Service, did try to buy up their plant for a paltry sum. He
wouldn’t sell. The short is, I recommended long-sighted assistance to
Faraday. I promised to turn that river, save the district. We expected
before the year was out to have the government take the responsibility
off our hands.”
Rickard made an impatient shrug. A nice problem Marshall had taken unto
himself. He wanted none of it. Hardin--the thing was impossible.
He met laggardly Marshall’s story. He heard him say: “Agreed with
Faraday. The Desert Reclamation Company was as helpless as a swaddled
infant. We made the condition that we reorganize the company. I was
put in Hardin’s place as president of the corporation, and he was made
general manager. Of course, we had to control the stock. We put up two
hundred thousand dollars--Hardin had estimated it would cost us less
than half that! It’s cost us already a million. Things haven’t been
going right. Faraday’s temper burst out, and Hardin, a while back was
asked to resign.”
“And it is Hardin’s position that you want me to fill?” His voice
sounded queer to himself, dry, mocking, as if any one should know what
an absurd thing he was being asked to do. He felt Marshall’s sharp
Indian eyes on him, as if detecting a pettiness. Well, he didn’t care
how Marshall interpreted it. That place wasn’t for him.
“I want you in control down there.” Rickard knew he was being
appraised, balanced all over again. It made no difference--
“I’m sorry,” he was beginning, when Marshall cut in.
“Good lord, you are not going to turn it down?”
He met Marshall’s incredulous stare. “It’s a job I’d jump at under most
circumstances. But I can’t go, sir.”
Tod Marshall leaned back the full swing of his swivel chair, blankly
astounded. His eyes told Rickard that he had been found wanting, he had
white blood in his veins.
“It is good of you to think of me--pshaw, it is absurd to say these
things. You know that I know it is an honor to be picked out by you for
such a piece of work. I’d like to,--but I can’t.”
The president of railroads, who knew men, had been watching the play
of feature. “Take your time,” he said. “Don’t answer too hastily. Take
your time.”
He was playing the fool, or worse, before Marshall, whom he respected,
whose partisanship meant so much. But he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t
tell that story--he knew that Marshall would brush it aside as a
child’s episode. He couldn’t make it clear to the man whose stare was
balancing him why he could not oust Tom Hardin.
“Is it a personal reason?” Marshall’s gaze had returned to his
ring-making.
Rickard admitted it was personal.
“Then I don’t accept it. I wouldn’t be your friend if I didn’t advise
you to disregard the little thing, to take the big thing. Maybe, you
are going to be married.” He did not wait for Rickard’s vigorous
negative. “That can wait. The river won’t. Maybe it’s some quixotic
idea, like your smoking; for God’s sake, Rickard, don’t be quixotic.
It’s fine to be quixotic, magnificent, when you’re young. Oh, you
are young to me. But when you’re no longer young? When you see the
opportunity you did not take wasted, or made splendid, even, by some
other man? Look at me! I could have foresworn the South, taken a
different name after the war, said I was from England, or from New
England. I could have made a decent living. What did I do? It seemed
glorious to the youngster who had been fighting for his idea of justice
to fight against such a handicap--a beaten southerner. And I did fight.
I fought poverty, cold--I had a mother back there--I was hungry, often.
Sick, and couldn’t go to a doctor who might have warned me, because I
hadn’t a cent in my pocket. And so, when I was where I wanted to be,
where I’d struggled up to be, had my hand on the life I loved, in the
city I loved, with the woman I loved, I was knocked down, banished to
this desert if I wanted to live a few more years! Where if I eat gruel,
sleep a child’s night sleep, give up all the things a man of red blood
likes to do, I may live! If you’d call it that! Just because I’d had
no one to talk to me, as I’m talking to you, to tell me I was a young
fool.”
Rickard was looking intently at a slit in the colored awning. He did
not answer.
Marshall looked at the stiff figure facing him. “Your reason may be
sounder than mine, less highfalutin. But look at it. Balance the other
side. Drop yourself out of it. There’s a river running away down
yonder, ruining the valley, ruining the homes of families men have
carried in with them. I’ve asked you to save them. There’s a debt of
honor to be paid. My promise. I have asked you to pay it. There’s
history being written in that desert. I’ve asked you to write it. And
you say ‘No--’”
“No! I say yes!” clipped Rickard. The Marshall oratory had swept him to
his feet.
The dramatic moment was chilled by their Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness.
An awkward silence hung. Then:
“When can you go?” Marshall’s voice dropped from the declamatory. He
had already taken up a pencil and was vaguely scribbling over a writing
pad.
“To-day, to-morrow, the first train out.” Rickard wondered if the
scrawls had anything to do with him.
“Good!” Marshall’s tone was hearty, but it had the finality of
“good-by.” He was tracing nebulous figures, letters. The word,
“Oaxaca,” ran out of the blur. Instantly his mind was diverted.
He had made his appeal, won his point. An hour later, perhaps, he would
be honest in denying the paternity of some of his flowery phrases
were he to be confronted by the children of his brain. His word of
honor--he had used as his climax. He had never thought of his business
talk with Faraday in that light before, and never would again. It was a
tool, picked up for his need and thrown away.
Already, he was revolving a spur he was planning for Oaxaca, in
Southern Mexico. An inspiration had come to him on his walk from The
Rosales that morning. His pencil made some rapid calculations.
A few minutes later he glanced up at the clock, and saw Rickard
standing, as at attention.
“Ah!” He allowed his absorption to betray him.
“I should be off,” discovered Rickard.
“Oh, no,” replied the president of several railroads, looking at the
clock again.
“Any instructions?”
“Just stop that river!”
Rickard again had a humorous vision of himself, asked to take away a
bursting hose from a garden bed. “How am I limited?” he persisted. He
stooped for his straw hat.
Marshall, still intrigued by his figures, looked up patiently,
inquiringly, nibbling the end of his pencil.
“The expense?” demanded the engineer. “How far can I go?”
“Damn the expense!” cried Tod Marshall. “Just go ahead.”
He had begun a swift pencil map of the province of Oaxaca before
Rickard was out of the room.