Still Jim Part 42

They played me for a sucker to influence the farmers against Mr. Manning and for the trust. When I think of the many different kinds of a fool I am I wish some good trained mule would come along and kick me."

"That's all right, Oscar," said Jim, "you've been no bigger fool than I have. We'll get busy now, won't we?"

Oscar flushed as Jim smiled at him. "Darn it, Mr. Manning," he said, "why haven't you looked at me that way before?" Then he laughed with the others.

Then Pen spoke very uncertainly: "This settles it, of course. I shall go back to New York at once with Sara."

The little group in the kitchen looked at Jim. His face was white and set.

"Wait a day or so, Pen. I must get some sort of a plan formulated."

"What am I to do with that man Freet hanging round?" asked Pen.

"Come down for a day or so with me, Mrs. Pen," said Mrs. Ames.

"That's a good idea," said Jim. "Freet won't stay after tomorrow, anyway. I can promise you that."

"And I'll look out for the caged hyena," said Mrs. Flynn. "If G.o.d lets me live to spare my life, he'll get a tongue las.h.i.+ng from me that'll give him new respect for the Irish."

Once more the group in the kitchen laughed, though tensely, and parted for the night.

The next day Freet put in on the dam with Jim. Jim treated him with courtesy, showing him everything that he asked to see. Freet was very complimentary and told Jim he was a credit to his teacher. After a visit to the quarry Jim said suggestively:

"You will want to take the six o'clock train, tonight, of course."

Freet hesitated. Jim went on dryly. "Under the circ.u.mstances, it is hardly in good taste for you to remain. It might look as if you and I were having a gentleman's agreement on the price of dams."

Freet laughed. "I had planned to take the six o'clock train. I quite finished my business with Saradokis last night. He's a brilliant business man. Too bad he has that silly whim about you."

Jim did not answer. He called to Henderson and asked him to have the automobile sent to the quarter house. He himself took Freet to the train. They talked construction work all the way and parted amiably.

Then Jim returned to his belated office work.

The last letter that he opened was from the Director of the Service. It explained to Jim that while the Director had complete faith in Jim's engineering ability and integrity, Jim's unpopularity not only with the public but with the investigating committee made his resignation seem expedient for the good of the Service. It was with extreme regret and with full appreciation of what Jim had done for the Service that the Director asked for Jim's resignation, three months from date.

Jim folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he stared out of the door at the Elephant. The great beast was silent in the after-glow.

A to-hee cheeped sleepily in a nearby cholla:

"O yahee! O yahai!

Sweet as arrow weed in spring!"

Then Jim went slowly up the trail to his house, and, refusing his supper, went into his room and closed the door.

CHAPTER XXII

JIM PLANS A LAST FIGHT

"The coyotes are going leaving behind them bleaching bones.

The Indians are going leaving a few arrow heads and water vessels. What will the whites leave?"

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Jim was angry. All night he lay staring into the dark with his wrath acc.u.mulating until it finally focused itself, not on the Director or on Sara or on the farmers, but on himself! He reviewed the years mercilessly. He saw how he had refused again and again to shoulder the responsibilities that belonged to him--belonged, because of his fitness to carry them. Charlie Tuck and Iron Skull both had done what they could to make him see, but wrapped in his futile dreams he had refused to look, and, he told himself, long before he had left Exham, his father had tried to set him on the right path but he always had put off the quest on which his father had sent him, always thrust it over into tomorrow when today was waiting for his start.

The very peak of his anger was reached when it suddenly came home to Jim that he had failed his father, had proved renegade to old Exham.

Three months! A cool dismissal after over eight years of his heart's blood had been given to the Service! Jim groaned, then sat erect.

"Serves you right, you dreaming fool! n.o.body to blame but yourself!

Three months! And in that time the farmers will elect Fleckenstein to Congress and the open fight for repudiation will be on!"

Jim groaned again. Then abruptly he jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and looked at the little picture of Pen on the wall.

"Pen," he said, "Fleckenstein shan't be elected! I'm going out of this Project, fighting like a hound. I've been a quitter all my life, I'll admit, but I'm going to put up my fists at the end. I'll rush the work here and I'll keep Fleckenstein out of Congress. I'll spend no time belly-aching but I'll stand up to this like a man. Honestly, I will, Penelope."

Dawn was coming in at the window. Jim filled the bathtub and took a cold plunge. The sun was just r.i.m.m.i.n.g the mountains when he began to tune up his automobile. He filled the tank with gasoline and cranked the engine and was starting out the door when old Suma-theek appeared. Jim stopped.

"Where you go, Boss?" asked the Indian.

A sudden desire to talk to Iron Skull's old friend made Jim say, "Get in and ride to the bridge with me, Suma-theek."

The chief clambered into the seat by Jim. "Suma-theek, the Big Boss at Was.h.i.+ngton has given me three months before I must leave the dam."

"Why?" asked Suma-theek.

"Because I darn well deserve it. I've got everybody here sore at me.

Everybody on this Project hates me, so he's afraid it will hurt all the dams the Big Sheriff at Was.h.i.+ngton wants to build for all the whites."

"He's a heap fool, that Big Boss at Was.h.i.+ngton. All the people that know you love you in their hearts. It hurt your heart because you have leave dam?"

Jim nodded. The old Indian eyed him keenly. Then his lean, bronze face turned sad. "Why you suppose Great Spirit no care how much heart aches?

Why you suppose he let that little To-hee bird all time sing love to you, then no let you have your love? Maybe, Boss Still, all those things you believe, all those things you work for, Great Spirit think no use.

Huh?"

"The Great Spirit didn't explain anything to us, Suma-theek, but he gave us our dreams. I want to fix my tribe's dream so firmly it can never be forgotten. As for my own little dream of love, what does it matter?"

Suma-theek responded to Jim's wistful smile with an old man's smile of lost illusions. "Dreams are always before or behind. They are never here. You are young. Yours are before. Suma-theek is old. His are behind. Boss Still, you no sabez one thing. All great dreams of any tribe they built by man for love of woman."

Jim stared for a moment at the purple shadow of the Elephant. Then he stopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment the machine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.

Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down into the valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousand feet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had not prevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid green of alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town, the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that stand like deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed to Jim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordless brooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had been uttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering them to countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desert sand.

In Cabillo Jim went, after a hasty breakfast, to see John Haskins.

Haskins was a banker and a Harvard man who had come to Cabillo thirty years before with bad lungs. He was, Jim thought, an impartial, though keen, observer of events in the valley. He was in the banker's office but a few minutes.

"Mr. Haskins," he said, "do you consider fifty dollars an acre too heavy a debt for the farmers to carry on their farms?"