OPPOSITION
THE second night of the flood, the women of the towns dragged brush
and filled sacks for the men to carry. It was past midnight when Innes
Hardin left the levee. While her feet and fingers had toiled, her mind
had been fretting over Tom. Two nights, and no rest! It was told by men
who came down the river how Hardin was heroically laboring. She yearned
to go to him; perhaps he would stop for a few hours to her entreaty.
But an uncertain trail across country, with the dust-laden wind in her
face? She decided to wait for the dawn. A snatched sleep first, but
who would call her? She would sleep for hours, so weary every muscle.
Her mind fixed on Sam as the only man in town who had time to saddle a
horse for a woman.
She went in search of him. She found that the long adobe office
building had already taken on the look of defeat, of ruin. The
casements had been torn from the partitions; the doors and windows were
out. The furniture had been hauled up to the White Refuge for safety.
She went hunting through the ghoulish gloom for the darky, turning her
lantern in every dark corner. She knew that she would find him sleeping.
Then she heard steps on the veranda. She ran toward them, expecting
to see Sam. She swung her lantern full on two figures mounting the
shallow steps. Rickard was with her sister-in-law.
“Oh, excuse me!” she blurted blunderingly. Of course Gerty would take a
wrong intention from the stupid words!
The blue eyes met those of Innes with defiance. It was as though she
had spoken: “Well, think what you will of it, you Hardins! I don’t care
what you think of me!”
What indeed did she think of it? Why should she feel like the culprit
before these two, her words deserting her? It was Gerty’s look that
made her feel guilty, as though she had been spying. To meet them
together, here at midnight, why should not _they_ feel ashamed? She had
done nothing wrong. And Tom down yonder fighting--and they make his
absence a cover for their rendezvous--
“I’m looking for Sam!” The effort behind the words turned them into an
oratorical challenge.
“So are we. I want to send him home with Mrs. Hardin. She’s worn out.”
“She can go home with me. I am going directly. As soon as I give a
message to Sam.” She instantly regretted her words, abruptly halting.
It came to her that Rickard would insist upon delivering her message.
Of course, he would oppose her going. Some petty reason or other. She
knew from the men that he was oppositional, that he liked to show his
power. Not safe, he would say, or the horse was needed, or Sam too busy
to wait on her!
“You can not go home alone, you two. The town is full of strange
Indians. Give me your lantern, Miss Hardin; I’ll rout out that darky.”
Rebelliously she gave him the lantern. The light turned full on her
averted angry eyes.
A haughty Thusnelda followed him.
Sam was discovered asleep in the only room where the windows had not
yet been attacked. His head rested on a bundle of sacked trees which
the ladies of the Improvement Club had planned to plant the next day.
Deep snores betrayed his refuge.
“Here, Sam! I want you to take these ladies home. Chase yourself.
They’ve been working while you’ve slept. I thought you’d have all these
windows out by now.”
Gerty had to supply the courtesy for two. She told Mr. Rickard in her
appealing way that he had been very kind; that she “would have been
frightened to death to go home alone.”
Innes had to say something! “Good night!” The words had an insulting
ring.
The wind covered a passionate silence, as the two women, followed by
Sam, yawning and stretching, made their way down the shrieking street.
“It was true,” Innes was thinking. She had at last stumbled on the
rout, but it was not a matter of personal, but moral untidiness; not a
carelessness of pins or plates, of tapes or dishes. It was far worse; a
slackness of ethics. It meant more unhappiness for Tom.
As she put her foot on the step leading to her tent, it discovered
something, bulky, resistant.
“Sam,” she cried. “Come back!”
Both Sam and Mrs. Hardin came running from different directions. An
Indian, dead-drunk, lay sprawling across her steps.
“Oh, suppose we had come alone?” moaned Gerty.
“Well, we didn’t,” retorted her sister with intentional rudeness. “What
can you do with him, Sam?”
It was a half-hour before Sam could get the reeling Cocopah started
toward Mexicali.
“Don’t forget to call me at five!” cried Innes after him.
Her aching muscles told her that she could not have slept four hours
when the darky was back, knocking at her door.
“All right,” she pulled herself together. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
“I’ll have to hold him, Miss Innes,” came the negro voice through the
screen door. “He’ll get all tangled up in the rope. The winds got him
all skittish.”
She came out, rubbing her eyes; her khaki suit creased where she had
lain in it. She asked him if he had seen her brother.
Sam, whom sleep had been occupying, answered evasively. “I’m not
looking for him yet-a-way, Miss Innes! The river’s cuttin’ back, mighty
fas’, they say. A third of a mile in twenty-fo’ hours. If it keeps up
that-away, it’ll be on us right soon. Mr. Hardin he’s not a-comin’ back
so long’s he’s got that there river to fight.”
“I’m going after him. He’s got to stop for me. Don’t tell any one, Sam,
where I’ve gone.”
“You oughtn’t to be goin’ alone, Miss Innes,” he called after her
loping horse. “The new boss wouldn’t like it. He’s mighty careful about
womenfolk!”
She sent a mocking grimace over her shoulder. “Pff!”
Sam grinned. “If she ain’t jes’ the spit of her brother!” His pace
lagged. It had been a hard night’s work!
Innes’ horse loped through the silent streets.
“I’ll run past the levee; perhaps Tom has come back.” It occurred to
her that there might be a message at the hotel. She pulled on her left
rein, and swept past the deserted adobe.
The gorge of the New River was but a rod or so now from the west side.
Sam was right. If the scouring out of the channel could not be kept to
the farther bank, the towns must go. The levee wouldn’t help them then.
She knew the danger; she had heard the engineers talk with Tom. The
gradient from Yuma to the Basin was four feet to the mile, in land
which corroded like sugar. The very thing which had helped them in
their initial labor of canal building would militate against the safety
of the valley now, with the marauding Dragon at large.
As she reined in her horse, Rickard stepped out on the sidewalk. He,
too, was heavy-eyed from a snatched nap.
“Were you looking for me?”
The scorn in the girl’s face told him that his question was stupid. For
_him_!
“Has my brother come back?”
He said he did not know. “You can see, I have been dreaming!” She would
not smile back at him, but rode off toward the levee. Rickard stood
watching her.
Down the street, Fred Eggers was opening his store. She could see two
Indians peering in through the open door.
Was this the river? West of the levee, a sea of muddy water spread
over the land. There was yet a chance to save the towns, the _town_,
she corrected herself, as her eye fell on the Mexican village across
the ditch. For Mexicali was doomed. Some of the mud-huts had already
fallen; the water was running close to the station-house.
She saw Wooster standing near, calculating the distance, the time,
perhaps, before the new station would go. Over the door, in freshly
painted letters, were the words--“Ferro Carril de Baja California.” To
the east, a few feet only away, was one of the monuments of the series
placed by the engineers of the Gadsen survey. They marched from Yuma to
the sea in the path of the old Santa Fe trail, marking on the way the
grave of many a gold-seeker.
She hailed Wooster. Ruin was presaged in the lines of his forehead.
“Pretty bad?” she cried.
He shook his head.
“Is Tom back?”
“He’s over there, now. Fighting like all possessed. He’ll work till he
drops.” Wooster was proud of that method.
“We all know Tom!” Her pride sprang up. “But he’s got to stop for a
while. I’m going up after him.”
“Not if my name’s Wooster. I’ll go. He’ll mind me.” What if he were
dropping, himself, with sleep and fatigue? It was a chance to serve
Hardin; to bring a smile of gratitude to the eyes of this little
comrade of the desert, whom the engineers adored in their several
fashions. Wooster’s worship was louder than the others; the younger men
shyer, but more fervent. Wooster found her calm boyish eyes beautiful,
but not disturbing. But she was a Hardin; and a pretty one. Wooster
would serve a Hardin, or a pretty woman, were his last hour come.
“Can you?” she cried; meaning--“Would you be so good?”
“Can I? He’ll mind me,” bragged Wooster. His small bright eyes snapped
over some recollections. “I’ve made him rest before when he didn’t want
to. I can do it again.”
“It’s terribly good of you, but I mean, can you get away?”
“I’m through here.” He omitted to say that he was to report at six in
the evening. “I’ll send him back to you, Miss Hardin.”
“You’re terribly good,” she repeated.
She watched the flowing river, swollen with wreckage. She saw, with
comprehension, a section of a fence; somebody’s crop gone. There was a
railway tie, another! The river was eating up Estrada’s new road-bed?
A cry broke from her as a mesquit on the coffee-colored tide caught on
a buried snag. The current swirled dangerously around it. Instantly,
the water rose toward the top of the levee. Men came running to pry
away the tree. A minute later, it was dancing down the stream. They
raised the bank against the pressing lapping waves. There, the tree
had stuck again. They ran down the levee with their long poles. Each
time that happened, unless the obstruction were swiftly dislodged, she
knew it meant an artificial fall somewhere, a quick scouring out of
the channel. The men were working like silent parts of a big machine;
the confusion of the first night was gone. From their faces one would
not guess that their fortunes, their homes, hung on the subduing of
that indomitable force which had not yet known defeat, which had turned
back explorer and conquistador. Ah, there was the lurking fear of it!
Victory still lay to its credit; the other column was blank.
“Mr. Parrish,” she called.
A man on the bank paused, shovel in hand.
She spurred her horse abreast of him.
“How is your wife?”
“Pretty bad. I had to leave her at midnight. I couldn’t get no one to
stay with her. The women have to mind the ranches these days. She had a
spell of her neuralgia. She couldn’t have come with me any way.” He was
torn between his duty and his fears.
“When do you go back?”
“I don’t know. We are all needed here. Mexicali’s going. I’ll be lucky
if I get sent back to-night.”
“It’s going down the Wistaria?”
“Enough to scare her. The ranch’s as good as gone already. What good’s
the land if we can’t get water up to it?”
“I know,” murmured Innes.
“I’m not blaming any one, Miss Hardin. Unless it’s myself. I ought
never to have brought her here. Not until the river’s settled. The
wind’s the worst to her; she’s that scared of the wind.”
“I’ll go and bring her home with me. You’ll feel better to have her
near town,” she suggested.
“That’s first-class.” His relief was pathetic. His dull fidelity,
his love for that nervous wreck of a woman, rose that instant to the
dignity of a romance. She thought of the purple flannel waist, the
untidy home, the smell of burning rice, of scorched codfish, the loving
struggle of the woman who dared life in the desert beside her mate,
lacking the strength to make it tolerable to either.
“I’ll bring her home with me,” she repeated.
She did not wait for his gratitude. Her horse was turned back to town.
She saw Wooster coming toward her. His snapping black eyes shot out
sparks of anger.
“He won’t let me go.”
“Who won’t let you?” But she knew.
“Casey. Says he’ll send some one else. I said as nobody else’d make
Hardin stop. He said as that was up to Hardin.”
Of course, he wouldn’t let Wooster go! Her offer to Parrish suddenly
shackled her.
“Orders me to bed,” spat Wooster. “Wonder why he didn’t order gruel,
too. It’s spite, antagonism to Hardin, that’s what it is!” She believed
that, too. Tom was right. Rickard did take advantage of his authority.
She did not see Rickard until he stood by her side.
“I’m sorry not to spare Wooster, Miss Hardin. But there’s stiff work
ahead. He’s got to be ready for a call. If Hardin insists on spoiling
one good soldier, that’s his affair. I can’t let him spoil two.”
Wooster shrugged, and left them. “Spoiling good soldiers!”
“I’ve taken Bodefeldt off duty. I told him to relieve Hardin.”
Bodefeldt who blushed when any one looked at him! He would be about as
persuasive to Tom as a veil to a desert wind! She turned away, but not
before Rickard saw again that transforming anger. Her eyes shone like
topazes in sunlight. She would not trust herself to speak. Wooster was
waiting for her. Rickard could hear the man repeat. “I’m sorry, Miss
Hardin. It’s an outrage. That’s what it is.”
Queer, they couldn’t see that it was Hardin’s fault; Hardin, who
was up the river fighting like a melodramatic hero; fighting without
caution or reserve, demoralizing discipline; he couldn’t help admiring
the bulldog energy, himself. That was what all these men adored. He’d
clenched the girl’s antagonism, now, for sure! How her eyes had flashed
at him!
Hello! There was a tree floating down toward the station-house....
“Bring your poles!” he yelled.