THE BATTLE IN THE NIGHT
GATHERING on the bank were the camp groups to watch the last stand of
the river against the rock bombardment. The reporters from the outside,
pads and pencils in hand, were there, and Brandon; Molly Silent, with
little Jim in her arms, who had crept down from the Crossing, full
of fears. Out there, somewhere on the trestles, on one of those rock
cars was her Jim. She sat on the bank by Innes and Mrs. Marshall,
who at last had laid aside her knitting. Tony, his white cap askew,
danced from group to group, finding poor audiences. Later, he forced a
heartier reception when he returned, bearing sandwiches and hard-boiled
eggs, his Indian “help” carrying a pot of steaming coffee.
“That’s a capital idea, Tony,” commended Rickard, stopping for a snatch
of lunch. “Tell Ling to do the same; here, MacLean, you tell him. We’ll
keep coffee and bread and beans going all day. A lunch-counter on the
bank.” He was off, his hands full of sandwiches.
A great wave broke into an obliterating eruption of spray. A cry burst
from Molly Silent. “Oh, I thought it was gone. There’s Jim. He’s on the
car that’s pulling in!”
“Give me the boy,” Mrs. Marshall reached out her unpractised arms.
“Run down and speak to your husband.” She shook her head ominously at
Innes as the mother stumbled heavily down the bank. “This excitement is
bad for her. Before Christmas, she tells me.” She held the little body
close to hers. Innes, watching her rapt look, felt her eyes warm up
with tears.
Molly toddled back, radiant.
“I saw him!” she glowed.
“I got him asleep!” whispered Mrs. Marshall. “Don’t take him; you’ll
awaken him. Isn’t he looking a little pale?”
There was a fear in the face which leaned over the sleeping child.
“He’s not right. I don’t know what’s the matter with him. I’d take
him out, but I can’t leave Jim--so soon. It isn’t until Christmas.
I’ll have to go then. Do you think he looks sickly?” Her anxious eyes
questioned the two women.
Heartily, Innes said she thought he was looking stronger.
“Let me take him out,” suggested Mrs. Marshall. “We’ll be going this
week. I’ll take the best of care of him; there’s a splendid children’s
doctor in Tucson.”
“Oh, do!” cried Innes. And what a charity for Mrs. Marshall, her empty
arms aching for what they that moment held!
“Oh!” cried Molly, pain and relief in her tone.
“Think about it,” whispered Mrs. Marshall. “You don’t have to tell me
now.”
Molly lifted her head from a scrutiny of the pallid baby face to see
Mrs. Hardin, floating by in her crisp muslins. A few feet behind
stalked Godfrey, his eyes on the pretty figure by his side. Innes,
watching too, turned from his look, abashed as though she had been
peering through a locked door.
Gaily, with a fluttering of ruffles, Gerty established herself on the
bank, a trifle out of hearing distance. Innes saw her raise an inviting
smile to the Englishman who stood looking uncertainly from her to the
river. He dropped beside her on the sand. As Innes pulled her eyes away
from them, she met those of Molly Silent, who had also been staring at
Tom Hardin’s wife.
A hard little smile played on the lips accented with Parisian rouge.
The blue eyes were following the two men who were directing the
bombardment; the childish expression was gone; her look accused life of
having trifled with her. But they would see--
“Don’t look so unhappy, dearest,” whispered the man at her side. “I’m
going to make you happy, dear!” She flushed a brilliant, finished
smile at him. Yes, she was proud of him. His success buoyed her faith
in her destiny. Everybody knew Godfrey; his voice had subdued whole
continents. He satisfied her sense of romance, or would, later,
when she was away from here, a dull pain pricking at her deliberate
planning. She was tired, tired of scheming, planning; unfair it
seemed to her that some women have all that she had had to struggle
for tossed into their careless laps. She was proud. She could not be
a nobody, crushed by humiliations and adversity. She had not brought
any of his trouble on Tom Hardin. It was he, he and Rickard who had
ruined her life. Not quite ruined! She was stepping out before it was
too late. Godfrey found her young, young and distracting. His life
had been hungry, too; the wife, up there in Canada somewhere, had
never understood him. Godfrey was ambitious, ambitious as she was. She
would be his wife; she would see the cities of the world with him, the
welcomed wife of Godfrey; she would share the plaudits his wonderful
voice won.
His eyes were on her now, she knew, questioning, not quite sure of her.
She had worried him yesterday because she would not pledge herself
to marry him if he sued for his divorce. Her intuition told her that
something was uncertain, his affection for her, or that other woman’s
tie, if he hinged his divorce on her promise. “I’m not sure of you!
Will you give me your word? When I am free, you, too, will be free,
waiting for me?”
She had shivered away from his question. Terrible that life put that
obstacle, that dreadful process in her way. Always life blocked her.
His doubt gave her doubts of him. Would he be faithful, a silver-voiced
Godfrey; absent, other, younger women hanging on his voice? It did not
hurt to keep a man guessing. She had told him to ask her that after the
courts had set him free. She could not have him sure of her. Men tire
when they are sure; Rickard had been too sure of her.
An exclamation from him recalled her. She found that he was no longer
staring at her; his eyes were fixed on the trembling structure over
which a “battle-ship,” laden with rock, was creeping.
“Jove!” he cried. “Those men are heroes.”
Everything irritated her to-day. She felt out of sorts, though she
was going to be happy! She was going to grasp, and keep what was
within reach of her hand. But this river, this dirty sordid work, was
getting on her nerves. Even Godfrey now was staring at the trestles
as though they were circus rings! Rickard crossed her vision, on the
run, his face grotesque with soot and perspiration. She saw him stoop
to speak to the group of women; he stood for a minute by Innes. The
grime shielded his expression, but she had seen the girl’s face! Her
own eyes darkened with anger. But she was going to be happy. Her teeth
clicked over that slogan. No one should stand in the way, Hardin, or
that other. Rickard would see that she had never cared for him--hateful
that it must be long before she could show him. She wanted him to know
it right away, before those two flung their secret in her face, before
Innes secretly triumphed over her.
Rickard, she could see, was turning in her direction. She sent another
brilliant, dazzling smile at Godfrey, who remembered to smile back at
her. She wanted to have Rickard see them together, absorbed in each
other. It would pique his vanity, perhaps, to see how little she cared.
He would see that he had been only one of many to her. She sent a
tender little whisper after the smile.
But Godfrey had been growing restless. It began to irk him, to tease
his superb muscle to be the only man without work--“sitting on the
bank like Cor’nel down yonder!” He answered Gerty, turning away to her
annoyance to hail Rickard.
“Going all right?”
“Bully,” cried Rickard, not stopping.
“Haven’t you something for me to do? Can’t I help?”
“We can use everybody,” Rickard called back over his shoulder.
Uncomfortable to find that that voice still had power to make her
tremble. Even when she loved Godfrey. For she did love him. She
intended to love him. Else what did life mean? Those broken beginnings,
those false starts? It was hate, she told herself, hate that shook
her, when Rickard came near. With all her soul she hated him.
Godfrey was itching to be off, but he would not offend Mrs. Hardin.
After a deliberate interval, she got up, shaking out her ruffles. “One
gets stiff sitting so long. Don’t let me keep you.”
He saw he had hurt her. “I want to stay with you, you know that,
dearest. But it doesn’t feel right to see them all working like niggers
and me loafing here. You don’t mind?”
Oh, no, Gerty did not mind! She was tired, anyway! She was going back
to her tent!
“Won’t you wait for the closure?”
Her laugh was airy and detached. “Oh, they are always closing that
river. They will always be closing it. It’s no novelty. You can tell me
all about it.”
He thrust a yellow paper into her hands. “I sent that off to-day.
Perhaps you will be glad?”
She flung another of her inscrutable smiles at him, and went up the
bank, the paper unread in her hands. Godfrey’s uncertain glance
followed her. He had vexed her, some way. He should follow her, see her
to her tent. She expected those little attentions. He loved to please
her, but his eyes went back, yearning, to the river. Those men working
like tigers--! He was down the bank in a trice.
“Give me something to do!”
The long afternoon wore away. On a giant rock on a flat car, Silent
stretched his muscles, and looked at his watch. Mortally tired he
was. He thought of his bed, and a cup of steaming coffee. An hour
more! They were now dynamiting the largest rocks on the cars before
unloading them. The heavy loads could not be emptied quickly enough.
Not dribbled, the rock, but dumped simultaneously, else the gravel and
rock might be washed down-stream faster than they could be put on. The
job called for an alert eye and hand working together. Many cars must
be unloaded at once; the din on Silent’s train was terrific. His crew
looked like devils, drenched from the spray which rose from the river
each time the rock-pour began; blackened by the smoke from the belching
engine. The river was ugly in its wrath. It was humping itself for its
final stand against the absurdity of human intention; its yellow tail
swished through the bents of the trestle.
“It isn’t what I’d call pretty,” yelled Wooster to Bodefeldt, as they
passed in a flat car. The noise of the rock-pouring began again.
“Not a picnic,” cried Bodefeldt.
But there was a thrill in it. They were working against the most
formidable force in nature, against time, and moreover without
precedent. Not one of them would risk a hazard as to the next move of
the wily Dragon. A swift rise, and swift rises of the Gila were always
to be feared, and their barrier would be flung down the channel as a
useless toy. Haste was their only chance. The breath of the workers
came quick and short. The order came for more speed. Rickard moved from
bank to raft; knee deep in water, screaming orders through the din;
directing the gangs; speeding the rock trains; helping Wooster, who
was driving large gangs of Mexicans and Indians. The river must not be
allowed to creep around the bulwark, to catch them unawares; the work
must not halt for an instant; the force of the thwarted river growing
fiercer with each pour of rock. Haste against strength, or the victory
the river’s! Hardin oscillated between the levee and dams, taking
orders, giving orders. His energy was superb. His heavy run was like a
bulldog’s, full of ferocious purpose. Marshall halted him as he thumped
past, straight from the levees.
“It’s going all right,” he assured the man who had humiliated him. His
sense of wrong was sleeping; the battle developed the real soldier.
“The levee will stand if we can work quick enough.”
“Good!” cried Marshall. “We’ll win yet, old man!”
It had grown dark, but no one yet had thought of the lights, the great
Wells’ burners stretched across the channel. To Marshall’s war-trained
ear, the glut of raining rock sounded like cannonading. It was a queer
scene, the dark pocket of battle-ground, the clouds of smoke, the
dashing mountains of spray; men rushing to and fro like masked dwarfs,
trains thundering on to the trestles. Suddenly, the lights flared out.
Marshall found himself standing by Captain Brandon, who had his
note-book in his hand. The dark had stolen on him; but he kept on
scribbling his report to the _Sun_. He did not hear Marshall’s inquiry.
Behind them, coming closer, broke a rhythmic beat. Molly Silent’s
waiting ear heard it, too--it was the night shift coming on! She
hastened clumsily to the rock filled end of the trestle, and waited for
Silent to leave his train.
As he let himself down from the cab, she could hear him say that it
was about time. “I’m all in.” Just then, the Dragon lashed its mighty
foaming tail; the trestle shook as though it were a mouse in the sharp
teeth of a terrier.
The engineer who was taking Silent’s place, drew back.
“That’s your train,” said Silent, who did not yet see his wife.
There was another lash of the angry tail. The engineer shook his head.
“It don’t look good to me.” A whistle blew. The trestle was still
shuddering as though in the grip of an earthquake.
“I’ve been an engineer for twenty years, but God Almighty Himself’d not
take me out on that bridge to-night. I’d give up my job first.”
“It’s up to me, then,” said Silent. And then two arms were thrown
around his neck.
“Why, lassie,” he cried. “Why, little mother.”
She clung to him. The whistle blew again.
“Why, lassie!” He put her away from him, and she saw him, though
mistily, climb back into the cab, the man-work swallowing him again.
Not one of those who labored or watched would ever forget that night.
The spirit of recklessness entered even into the stolid native. The men
of the Reclamation forgot this was not their enterprise; the Hardin
faction jumped to Rickard’s orders; there was a whip of haste in the
air. Brandon’s old style came back to him as he wrote, standing now
under the great swinging light, his report for the _Sun_. “Bertha
will be reading it to-morrow!” He despatched one bulletin, and began
another. His periods rolled off, sonorously syllabled. Down by the
trestle, humped up like a camel, the mud washed from his hair which
fell like stiff wires from his head, watched Cor’nel. He had not eaten,
had not stirred from his place that day.
The rain of rocks, by midnight, had settled into a steady storm. The
momentum was gigantic. The watchers on the bank sat tense, thrilled out
of recognition of aching muscles, or the midnight creeping chill. No
one would go home. Mrs. Marshall and Molly Silent carried the sleeping
boy into the _Palmyra_, where he was laid in Mrs. Marshall’s bed.
“He’ll lie till morning, once he’s asleep,” whispered his mother, and
they crept down to the bank again. The swinging lights had turned the
darkness into a pale twilight. Each searched through the uncertain
light for a familiar figure, for the soldier she had lent. Wistfully,
Claudia was wondering if Tod’s flannels were wet. Once, he came within
reach of her hand, but she dared not ask him. He was on the run. “Hell!
what’s the matter with that train?”
To Innes, the struggle was vested in two men, Rickard running down
yonder with that light foot of his as swift as though Ling’s mustard
had not been needed a few days before; and Hardin with the fighting
mouth tense. And somewhere, she remembered, working with the rest,
was Estrada. Those three were fighting for the justification of a
vision--an idea was at stake, a hope for the future. There was no
fear, only a wild exultation, when she once saw Rickard jump on to an
outgoing train of “battle-ships,” heavily laden with rock. It was a
battle of giants, to her; drastic and dramatic.
Rickard passed and repassed her, running, or again walking slowly,
talking eagerly to Marshall. And had not seen her! Not during those
hours would he think of her, not until the idea failed, or was
triumphant, would he turn to look for her. Knowing, the thought
unfolded slowly, knowing he would find her there!
The real work of the world is man-work; no matter how she or other
women might yearn, theirs not the endurance. All they can do is
negative; not to get on the track! Neither with pretty ruffles, nor
tender fears!
Knowing he would find her _there_. Suppose she were not there, she were
off building a house when he came home to find her, craving her comfort
or her laurels? Suppose she had promised to deliver a plan, and that
pledge involved her absence, or her attention when the world work,
the man-work released him--his story on his eager lips, her ears deaf
to hear? She saw Brandon under the swinging light, and his loneliness
came knocking at her door. Was it still necessary for that wife to help
with the bread-getting? On some women, that problem is thrust, but her
college study, her later reading, had taught her that all women should
seek it. An economic waste, half of the world spending more than the
other half can earn! To the woman who has been spared the problem,
comes the problem of choice. Has any one, born a woman, the daring to
say--“I will not choose. I will take both! I will be man and woman,
too!” Suppose she were not at home when he stumbled back to her! As
soon leave that corner of the bank!
Her muscles grew stiff. Once in a while, the watching women stirred,
or shifted their positions, but they did not get up. They would stay
where their man, Marshall, or Silent, Rickard, Hardin, could find them.
Only one woman symbolized that thought, and she followed it until it
curved, bringing her back to that twilight of clamor, the fight between
disorder and plan, waste and conservation, herself sitting on the bank
waiting.
Visibly, the drama moved toward its climax. Before many hours
passed, something would happen, the river would be captured, or
the idea forever mocked. Each time a belching engine pulled across
that hazardous track, it flung a credit to the man-side. Each time
the waters, slowly rising, hurled their weight against the creaking
trestles where the rock was thin, a point was gained by the militant
river. Its roar sounded like the last cry of a wounded animal to Innes’
ear; the Dragon was a reality that night as it spent its rage against
the shackles of puny men.
Down in the shadow of a lamp-pole, the light flaring riverward,
crouched Coronel. His eyes were fixed on those approaching walls of
rock. Motionless, he watched the final tussle, a grunt following each
glut of rock. Somewhere, his muscles ached, but his brain did not
receive their message. It was off duty. His mind was sending that car
across the trestle; it was hastening the charge, that quick clattering
downfall of shattered rock.
Molly Silent had seen her husband’s train pull in. She watched for it
to go out again. The whistle blew twice. Something was wrong. She left
her place in time to see Silent, his face shining ghastly pale under
the soot, pull himself up from the “battle-ship” where he had been
leaning. Estrada, sent by Rickard to find out why the train did not
pull out, saw him the same instant as did Molly. Silent swayed, waving
them back unseeingly, like a man who is drunk.
“God, man, you can’t go like that!” cried Estrada.
“Who’s going?” demanded Silent, his tongue thick with thirst and
exhaustion. The whistle blew again.
“_I_ will!” The train moved out on the trestle, as the whistle blew
angrily twice. Only Molly and Silent saw Estrada go. Silent staggered
unseeingly up the bank, toward the camp, Molly heavily following.
Workers and watchers felt a queer light playing on their faces, but no
one stopped to look at the lamps swinging across the channel, or they
would have seen that they were growing dim. The test of strength was
coming; no time to brush the damp hair from their eyes. The river was
humping out yonder; the rolling mass came roaring, flank-on, against
the dam.
“Quick, for God’s sake, quick,” yelled Rickard. His signals sounded
short and sharp. “Dump it on, throw the cars in!” Marshall was dancing,
his mouth full of oaths, on the bank edge. Breathlessly, all watched
the rushing water fling itself over the dam. For several hushed
seconds, the structure could not be seen. When the foam fell, a cheer
went up. The dam was standing. Silent, it was supposed, was bringing in
his train.
Above the distant jagged line of mountains, rose a red ball. A new day
began. The light fell on the facet of the fighting men; Indians and
Caucasians alike black with river mud and soot. The work went on. And
again the Dragon rose; a mountain of water came rolling damward.
“Hump yourselves,” screamed Marshall. The signals sounded like hoarse
cries.
Three trains ran steaming on the rails.
“We’ll get those rocks over before the river kicks,” cried Rickard. “Be
ready, Irish, to run in when they come back. Don’t stop now to blast
the big ones. Pour ’em on!”
There was a long wait before any rock fell. Marshall and Rickard
waited for the pour. The whistles blew again.
“Why in Hades,” began Marshall, and then they saw what was wrong. The
morning light showed a rock weighing several tons which was resisting
the efforts of the pressing crew. Out of the gloom sprang other figures
with crowbars.
“Why don’t they try to use mountains?” swore Marshall, and the rock
tottered, fell. The river tossed it as though it were a tennis ball,
sent it hurtling down the lower face of the dam. The river’s strength
was never more terrible.
“Damn those almighty fools!” screamed Tod Marshall.
“A fluke,” yelled Rickard.
Things began to go wild. The men were growing reckless. They were
sagging toward exhaustion; mistakes were made. Another rock, as heavy
as the last, was worked toward the edge. No one listened to the frantic
signals to dynamite that rock, break it on the car. Men were thick
about it with crowbars. There was another wait, the whistles confusing
the men on the train. They hurried. One concerted effort, drawing back
as the rock toppled over the edge. One man was too slow, or too tired.
He slipped. The watchers on the bank saw a flash of waving arms, heard
a cry; they had a glimpse of a blackened face as the foam caught it.
The waters closed over him.
There was a hush of horror; a halt.
“God Himself couldn’t save that poor devil,” cried Marshall. “Have the
work go on!”
Pour rocks on that wretch down there? Pin him down? Never had it seemed
more like war! “A man down? Ride over him! to victory!” Soberly,
Rickard signaled for the work to go on.
The rock-pour stuttered as if in horror. The women turned sick with
fear. No one knew who it was. Some poor Mexican, probably.
Some one standing near Rickard said that it was Arnica Jack; he said he
had seen his face. He had gone out on that train. Rickard thought of
the saved salary.
“Why doesn’t that train come in? What is the matter with Silent?” His
signals brought in the battle-ships, moving as though they were funeral
carriages.
“Where is Silent?” demanded Rickard, running down to the track. A
blackened figure was letting himself down from the car. The smell of
something pungent struck sharply against Rickard’s nostrils. Arnica!
“Where’s Silent?” he demanded.
“’E didn’t take hout this ’ere train.” The hobo’s eyes looked owlish.
“Then who?” the engineer was beginning, when it came to him. He himself
had sent Estrada to question Silent! He knew what the tramp was going
to tell him!
“The young Mexican, Hestrada. ’E tried to ’elp. ’E wasn’t fit.”
“Who was it?” Marshall had run down to see why the work paused.
Rickard turned shocked eyes on his chief. “Estrada!” The beautiful
mournful eyes of Eduardo were on him, not Marshall’s, horrified.
“But it came again; it kept coming. I had it while you were all
talking, just now!”
If that terrible smell didn’t take itself off! He hated the stupid
wretch standing, open-jawed before him, because it was Estrada’s and
not those owlish eyes that were lying in those waters yonder.
“Rickard!” The engineer did not recognize the quenched voice. “The work
has got to go on.”
It came to Rickard as he gave the orders for the trains to run “and be
quick about it,” that Eduardo was closer to Marshall than to him. “As
near a son as he’ll ever have.”
He turned a minute later to see his chief standing bareheaded. His own
cap came off.
“We’re burying the lad,” said Marshall. A rain of rock struck the
nerves of all of them, though less than six people knew who it was who
had paid the tribute of life to the river. Rickard kept the smell of
arnica in his nostrils. It nauseated him. Never would its sharp breath
blow on him but that scene would shake him in all its horror,--the sad
beautiful face under those malignant waters, the rocks nailing it down.
“It kept coming. I had it while you were all talking--just now!”
The minute of funeral had to be pushed aside. The river would not wait.
Train after train was rushed on to the trestles; wave after wave hit
them. But perceptibly, the dam was steadying. The rapid fire of rock
was telling.
Another ridge of yellow waters rose. Every eye was on that watery
mountain; it appeared to wait, as if summoning its strength for a
final onslaught. The river’s stillness was ominous to the sweating men
who watched as they labored that bulge of yellow water. Car after car
ran on to the track; load after load of clattering rock was dumped.
The roll of water came slowly, dwindling as it came; it broke against
the trestle weakly. For the first time, the trestle never shuddered.
Workers and watchers breathed as a unit the first deep breath that
night. There was a change.
Hardin came rushing down to the track where the rock cars ran on to the
trestles.
“It’s stopped rising!” he bellowed.
“Then work like hell!” bawled Rickard.
There followed some minutes of intensity when the rock-pour was almost
continuous. Was not that another bulge of yellow waters, swelling there
to the east? Every eye was on the river where it touched the rim of the
dam. Suddenly, a chorused cry rose. The river had stopped rising!
“Don’t stop! She may hump yet!” Rickard was splitting his voice against
the cheers. The whistles screamed themselves hoarse.
“We’ve got her!” screamed Hardin. “She’s going down!”
And then a girl, sitting on the bank, saw two men grab each other by
the hand. She was too far away to hear their voices, but the sun,
rising red through the banks of smoke, fell on the blackened faces of
her brother and Rickard. She did not care who saw her crying.
A small sound started down the river. It grew into a swelling cheer,
the pæan of victory. It demoralized into wild yells. Suddenly, the
noise stopped. Simultaneously, Marshall and Rickard had held up their
hands. The whistles had blown.
“What was that for?” demanded Mrs. Marshall.
“I suppose they can’t afford to waste any time.” Innes’ reply was
uncertain. She, too, was wondering.
Rickard, they could hear, again, screaming directions. The battle was
won; but it must be kept won. But no cheering! The men didn’t know who
it was who was buried out yonder.
When things were well under way, Rickard discovered that his head was
hot, his skin chilly. He would lay off for an hour. He would put Hardin
in his place, Hardin or Irish.
He found Hardin, who was having his minute of reaction. This was not
his triumph. Sullenly, he accepted Rickard’s place. Rickard turned
back. “Had you heard? That was Estrada out there.”
Hardin’s expression followed him, the gloom of sullen egotism passing
slowly from the face of unwilling horror. He had not spoken, but his
look said: “Not Estrada! Any one but Estrada!”
“Any one but Estrada! He’s about the only man in this camp without
enmities,” thought Rickard, and then he wondered if any one had told
Innes Hardin. He went in search of her, passing Coronel, whose head
rested on his chest. His snores could be heard above the noise of the
rock bombardment.
Mrs. Marshall, weeping, was being led back to the car by her husband.
Innes, he could see, had heard! Her eyes, fixed on the conquered
waters, were seeing Estrada, buried out there.
Rickard turned away without being seen. The minute he had been waiting
for was not his. It belonged to Estrada.