Still Jim

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER IX

  THE MAKON ROAD

  "Always the strongest coyote makes the new trail. The pack is content to continue in the old."

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  The building of the road from the valley to the crevice edge was not adifficult task, although the country was rough. The material for makingthe road was at hand, for the most part, and by the end of the summerthere was a broad oiled macadam road, grade carefully proportioned tograde, leading to the canyon's brim. It was a road built to withstandthe wear of thousands of tons of freight that must be hauled over it.

  But the throwing of the road three thousand feet down into the canyonwas a more difficult matter. Here must be built through solid granite aroad down which mule teams could haul all the machinery for the makingof the dam and the tunnel and all the necessities for building theworkingmen's camp in the canyon bottom.

  It must be wide enough to safeguard life. It must be as steep as themules could manage in order to save distance and cost. It must be strongenough to carry enormous weights. Its curves must accommodate teams oftwenty mules, hauling the great length of beam and pipe needed in thework below. And it must be a road that would endure with little expenseof up-keep as long as the dam below would endure.

  It was not a complicated engineering feat. But it was Jim's firstresponsible job. It was his first experience in handling men and a camp.Moses, showing the children of Israel the way across the desert, couldhave felt no more pride or responsibility than did Jim breaking thetrail to the Makon.

  The crevice road was blasted from the granite. It was widened to hanglike a shelf over sickening depths or built up with concrete towithstand the wash from some menacing gorge, or tilted to clingdesperately to a blank wall that offered not even claw hold for theeagles. And always it must drop with a grade that took no account ofreturn freightage.

  "We'll wear the machinery out and leave it at the bottom," Freet hadsaid. "Even a 25 per cent. grade will do when necessary. Hustle italong, Manning. I'll be ready to leave the Green Mountain by the timeyou are ready for me at the Makon."

  And Jim hustled. But labor was hard to get. The country was inaccessibleand extraordinarily lonely. There was no place for women or childrenuntil the camp in the canyon should be built, so it was a crowd ofwandering "rough-necks" who built the road. A few were friends of IronSkull, who followed him from job to job. The rest were tramp workmen,men who had toiled all over the world. They were not hoboes. They werejourneyman laborers. They were world workers who had lent willing andcalloused hands to a thousand great labors in a thousand places.

  They came and went like shifting sands. Jim never knew whether he wouldwake to find ten or a hundred men in the camp. He tried for a long timeto solve the problem. Iron Skull considered it unsolvable. He had a lowopinion of the rough-neck. At last he disappeared for a couple of weeksand returned with twenty-five Indians. They were Apaches and Mohavesunder the leadership of a fine austere old Indian whom Iron Skullintroduced to Jim as "Suma-theek."

  "His name means 'I don't know,'" explained Williams. "It's the extent ofhis conversation with the average white who considers an Injun sort of across between a cigar sign and a nigger. Him and I did scout servicetogether for ten years in Geronimo's time. He's my 'blood' brother,which means we've saved each other's lives. He knows more than any twowhites. Color don't make no difference in wisdom, Boss Still, and Iguess the Big Boss up above must have some quiet laughs at the airs thewhites give themselves."

  This was Jim's introduction to another friendship, though it was slow ingrowth. But before the Makon was finished Jim, in the long evening pipeshe smoked under the stars with Suma-theek, learned the truth of IronSkull's statements as to the Indian's wisdom.

  The evening of the day the Indians arrived, a short, heavy man came toJim's tent. He was a foreman and a good one. Jim liked his voice, whichhad a peculiar, tender quality, astonishing in so rough a man.

  "Hello, Henderson," said Jim. "What can I do for you?"

  "Us boys is going out tomorrow. We ain't going to live like Injuns!"

  Jim's heart sank. He already was behind on the work. "What's the matterwith the way we live?" he asked.

  "Young fella," said the man pityingly, "I've worked all over the world,including New York. And I'm telling you that when you try to mix colorsin camp, you've got to grade their ways of living. Now I went to Mr.Williams, but he's one of these queer nuts who thinks what's good enoughfor an Injun is good enough for anyone."

  Jim knew that this was in truth Iron Skull's attitude. He had had noidea, however, that it might breed trouble. He thought rapidly, thenspoke slowly.

  "Look here, Henderson, what would you do in my place? The Director ofthe Service sends out word he'll be here to look the dam site over nextmonth. I want to get the road ready for him to get down there. For sixmonths I've tried to keep a hundred white men on the job and I can't doit. I'll give the Indians a camp of their own. But will that keep youmen here?"

  Henderson looked at Jim keenly to see whether or not Jim was sincerelyasking his advice. Jim suddenly smiled at his evident perplexity andthat flashing wistful look got under the red-faced man's skin.

  "Well," he said, "if I was trying to keep men on a job I'd make thingspleasant for 'em."

  "You have everything I have," said Jim. "I eat with you."

  "No, we ain't got all you have. We ain't got your job and your chance.You get homesick yourself even on your pay and your chance. What do youthink of us boys, with nothing but wages and a kickout? Let me tellyou, boss, it's the man that takes care of his men's idle hours thatgets the work out of 'em."

  Jim looked at the camp. It was merely a straggling line of tents setalong the crevice edge. The day's work was ended and the men loungedlistlessly about the tents or hung over the corral fence where the mulesmunched and brayed. At that moment Jim made an important stride in hiseducation in handling men. He saw the job for the first time through theworkmen's eyes. Why should they care for the job?

  "Look here," said Jim, "if I send to Seattle and get a good phonographand a couple of billiard tables and some reading matter and set them upin a good big club tent, will you agree to keep a hundred men on the jobuntil I finish the road?"

  "Government won't pay for them," said Henderson.

  "I'll pay for them myself," returned Jim. "I tell you, Henderson, thisroad means a lot to me. It's my--my first important job and the rest ofmy work on the Makon depends on it. And--and a friend of mine lost hislife finding the dam site and he wanted to build this road. I feel as ifI'm kind of doing his work for him. If doing something to give you boysamusement will keep you here, I'll do it gladly. I haven't anything tosave my money for."

  Henderson cleared his throat and looked down into the awful depths ofthe Makon Canyon. "I heard about that trip," he said. "If--if you feelthat way about it, Mr. Manning, I guess us boys'll stand by you. Andmuch obliged to you."

  "I'm grateful to you," exclaimed Jim. "Tell the boys the stuff will behere in less than a month."

  There was a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the camp after thisepisode. The Indians, in their own camp, were perfectly contented withtheir quarters and their hoop game and "kin-kan" for recreation. Thephonograph and billiard tables arrived on time and were set up in theclub tent and Jim and his camp began to do team work. The trouble withshifting labor disappeared except for the liquor trafficking that alwayshounds every camp. From dawn until dark, the canyon rang periodicallywith the thunder of blasts. Scoops shrieked. Mules brayed. Driversyelled. Pick and shovel rang on granite.

  Jim grew to know every inch of that granite wall. He lived on the roadwith the men. No detail of the job was too trivial for his attention. Amore experienced man would have left more to his foremen. But Jim wasnew to responsibility and his nervousness drove him into an intimatecontact with his workmen that was to stand him in good stead all hislife. It was in building this road on the Makon that Jim learned thehea
rts of those who work with their hands.

  When a fearful slide cost him the lives of two men and half a dozenmules, it was Jim who, in his boyish contrition and fear lest thecatastrophe might have been due to his lack of foresight, insisted onfirst testing the wall for further danger and risked his life in doingso. When a cloudburst sent to the bottom in a half hour a concreteviaduct that had taken a month to build, it was Jim who led the way andheld the place at the head of the line of men, piling up sacks of sandlest the water take out a full half mile of the road. He dreamed of theroad at night, waking again and again at the thought of some weak spothe had left unprotected.

  The rough-necks felt Jim's anxiety and it proved contagious. It may havebeen due to many things, to Jim's youth and his simple sincerity, to hisexample of indefatigable energy and his willingness to work with hishands; it may have been that the men felt always the note of dominationin his character and that that forced some of the cohesion. But whateverthe causes, by the time the road lay a coiling thread from the top ofthe crevice to the spot where poor Charlie Tuck went down, Jim had builtup a working machine of which many an older engineer would have beenproud.

  The day before the Director and Mr. Freet were expected, Jim and IronSkull left for the railway station, twenty-five miles away, to meettheir two superiors. As he mounted his horse, Jim said to Iron Skull:

  "I'm a little worried about the wall at the High Point curve."

  "So am I," answered Iron Skull. "Shall I blast back? I don't need to goin with you."

  "No," replied Jim. "We couldn't clear out in a week. Wait till the BigBosses go."

  "Better tend to it now," warned Iron Skull.

  "I'll risk it," said Jim. And he rode away, Iron Skull following.

  The two were held at the little desert station for a day, waiting forthe two visitors who were delayed at Green Mountain. They returned inthe stage with the Director and Freet, the two saddle horses leadingbehind. Just about a mile outside the camp they were met by Henderson,mounted on one of the huge mules, that shone with much grooming.

  The stage pulled up and Henderson dismounted and bowed.

  "I come out to meet you gents," he said, in his tender voice,"representing the Charles Tuck Club of Makon, to tell you we hope you'dnot try to go down the Canyon this afternoon, as us citizens of Makonhad got up a few speeches and such for you."

  Jim and Iron Skull were even more amazed than the two visitors, and satstaring stupidly, but the Director rose nobly to the occasion.

  "Thank you," he said. "What is the Charles Tuck Club?"

  Henderson mounted his mule and rode on the Director's side of the stage.

  "It's the club we formed for using the phonograph and billiard tablesthe Boss give us. If you gents don't care, I'll ride ahead and tell 'emyou're coming."

  "Gee!" exclaimed Jim, as the mule disappeared up the broad ribbon ofroad. "What do you suppose they are up to?"

  "This is going some for a small camp!" said the Director. "The menusually don't care whether I come or go."

  Jim shook his head. They reached the camp shortly after Henderson andwere led by that gentleman to the club tent, where fully half the campwas gathered. The phonograph was set to going as they came in andfollowing this, Baxter, the orator of the camp, got up and made a speechof welcome that consumed fifteen minutes of time and his entirevocabulary. It was concerned mostly with praises of Jim and his workwith the men. When he had finished, the phonograph gave them "America"by a very determined male quartet. The perspiring Henderson then ledthem to the mess tent, where a late dinner or an early supper was setforth that had taxed the resources of the desert camp to its utmost.

  It was dusk when the meal was finished, and then and then only didHenderson allow Iron Skull to lead the visitors to their tents while hetook Jim by the arm and drew him to the crevice edge.

  "Boss," he said, "not half an hour after you left, the whole dod dingedwall on the High Point curve slid out. Well, sir, we all know'd there'dbe hell to pay for you if the two Big Bosses come and see that. Wecouldn't stand for it after all you'd worried over it. We fixed up threeshifts. It's moonlight and, say, if we didn't push the face off thatslide! Old Suma-theek, why he never let his Injuns sleep! They workedthree shifts. Even at that you'd a beat us to it if we hadn't thought ofthis here committee of welcome deal. If I do say it, I've mixed withgood people in my time. We kept the big mitts in there and one of theInjuns just brought me word the road was clear."

  Jim stared at his rough-neck friend for a minute, too moved to speak.Then he held out his hand.

  "Henderson, you've saved me a big mortification. I knew that wall shouldhave been blasted back. Gee! Henderson! I'll remember this!"

  "You're welcome," replied Henderson gently. "Don't let on to anyone butWilliams and us fellows is mum."

  And so the Director made his trip down and up the Makon Road and praisedmuch the forethought and care that Jim had expended on it. And Jim,because the secret meant so much to his men, did not tell of theirdevotion until the Director had gone and Arthur Freet was established onthe job. And after he had heard the story Freet said, looking at Jimkeenly:

  "You know what that kind of carelessness deserves, Manning?"

  Jim nodded and Freet laughed at his serious face. "Pshaw, boy! Yourhaving gotten together an organization with that sort of motive powerwould offset worse carelessness than that. Get ready to shove them intothe tunnel."

  So Jim's rough-necks began to open the tunnel.

  The Makon Project was a six years' job. Freet gave Jim a chance at everyangle of the work. Jim admired his chief ardently and yet the two nevergrew confidential. Freet, in fact, had no confidants among thegovernment employees, but he seemed to know a great many of thepoliticians of the valley and of the state. And when he was not toodeeply immersed in the work at hand Jim felt vaguely troubled by this.

  And the problems of actual construction were so many that the dam andtunnel were completed and Jim had begun work on the ditches before herealized that there was a whole group of questions he must face that hadnothing to do with technical engineering.

  For the first mile the tunnel had to be driven through solid granite.Then the way led through adobe hills, so soft that the sagging wallswere a constant menace. Not until six workmen had died at the job wasthe adobe finally sealed with concrete. After the adobe came sand,spring riddled. More rough-necks gave up their lives fighting thegushing floods and falling walls, until at last the tunnel emerged intothe open foothills of the valley.

  During all this time, the men for whom Jim had spent his first savingsstayed solidly by him, save those whom death called out. After the campin the canyon was built, many of them, including Henderson, developedunsuspected families and Jim became godfather to several namesakes.After the road was finished, however, old Suma-theek had to take hisbraves back to the Apache country. They did not like the work in thetunnel, and it was several years before Jim saw his old friend again.

  Uncle Denny and Jim's mother came out to visit him, his second summer onthe dam, and they enjoyed their visit so much that it became a yearlycustom.

  Jim's mother, with a mother's wisdom, never spoke of Pen to Jim exceptcasually, of her health or of Sara's effort to carry on real estatebusiness through Pen and his father. On the first visit Uncle Dennyundertook to tell Jim of how the accident had developed all the latentugliness of Sara's character and of his heavy demands on Penelope'sstrength and time. And he told Jim how Pen's girlishness haddisappeared, leaving behind a woman so sweet, so patient, so sadly wise,that Uncle Denny could not speak of her without his voice breaking.

  But Uncle Denny never repeated this recital, for before he had finished,Jim, white-lipped, had said hoarsely, "Uncle Denny, I can't stand it! Ican't!" and had rushed off into the desert night.

  Even Uncle Denny could not know, as Iron Skull who had lived with himfor the past years knew, of Jim's silent anguish in the loss ofPenelope. There was a little picture of Pen in tennis clothes at sixteenthat always was pinn
ed to Jim's tent wall. Once in a while when IronSkull found him looking at it, Jim would tell him of Pen's beauty. Butother than this he never mentioned her name to anyone.

  Under the excitement of what Uncle Denny told him, Jim wrote a note toPen:

  "DEAR LITTLE PEN: This desert country claims one's soul as well as one's body. It is as big as the hand of God. If life gets too much for you in New York, come to me here, and I will show you and the desert to each other.

  JIM."

  And though Pen did not answer the note she carried it next her heart formany a day.

  After the tunnel was delivering water to the valley, Jim moved into thevalley with his henchmen and took charge of the canal building. Notuntil he undertook this work did he realize that there were economicfeatures connected with the work on the Projects that were baffling andirritating.

  The conditions in the valley were complex. A small portion of it hadbeen farmed for many years. These farmers felt that the canals ought tocome to them first. As soon as it had become known that the ReclamationService was to undertake the Makon project, real estate sharks hadgotten control of much land and by misinforming advertisements hadinduced eastern people to buy farms in the valley.

  Other people, sometimes farmers, oftener folk who had failed in everyother line of business, took up land long before even the road to thedam was finished. These people waited in a pitiful state of hardshipfive years for water. They blamed the Service and they fought for firstwater.

  There were Land Hogs in the valley; men who by illegal means hadacquired thousands of acres of land, although the law allowed them butone hundred and sixty acres. After the Project was nearing completionthese Land Hogs sold parcels of their land at inflated prices. The LandHogs were wealthy and had influence in the community. They threatenedtrouble if canals were not built first to them.

  Jim turned a deaf ear to all the contending forces. His reply was thesame to each:

  "There is just one way to build a canal and that is where, influencedonly by the lie of the land, it will do the greatest good to thegreatest number. I'm an engineer, not a politician. Get out and let mework."

  Yet for all his deaf ear, there percolated to Jim's inner mind facts andinsinuations that disturbed him. Day after day there poured into hisoffice not only complaints about the actual work, but accusations ofgraft. "The Service was working for the rich men of the valley." "TheService had its hand behind its back." "The Service was extravagant andwasteful of the people's money." "Every cent that the Project cost mustbe paid back by the farmers. What right had the Service to makemistakes?"

  In all the cloud of complaints, Jim maintained a persistent silence andplaced his canals without fear or favor. One morning in March, it wasJim's fifth year on the Makon, Mr. Freet sent for him.

  "Manning," he said, as Jim dropped off his horse and stood in thedoorway, "how about the canal through Mellin's place?"

  Jim tossed his hair back from his face and lighted a cigarette. "Mellin,the Land Hog?" he asked. "Well, his canal's like the apple core. Thereain't going to be one!"

  Freet's small black eyes met Jim's clear gaze levelly. "Why?" he asked.

  Jim looked surprised. "Why, you know, Mr. Freet, that to run it throughMellin's place will cost $5,000 more and will force half a dozen farmersto double the length of their ditches. The lie of the canal in relationto grade, too, is a half mile east of Mellin's place."

  Arthur Freet raised his eyebrows. "I think that the canal had better gothrough Mellin's place."

  Jim drew a quick breath. There was silence in the little sheet ironoffice for a moment and then Jim said, "I can't do it, Mr. Freet."

  "This is not a matter for you to decide, Manning," replied Freet. "A manin my position has more to consider in building a dam than the mereengineering 'best.' I must think of the tactful thing, the thing thatwill save the Service trouble. Mellin has pull with Congress, enough tostart an investigation."

  "Let them investigate!" cried Jim. "I'd like them to see what I callsome darn good engineering! I do think you got soaked on some of thecontract work, though. Those permanent caretakers' houses could havebeen built for half the price."

  Freet raised his eyebrows. "Put the canal through Mellin's place,Manning."

  Jim flushed. "I can't do it! The west canal had to go through that LandHog Howard's place, I'm sorry to say. It was the cheapest and best site.Every farmer in the valley dressed me down about it, in person and bymail. But I haven't cared! It was the right thing. But nothing doing onMellin's place."

  Freet smiled a little. "Do you want me to go over your head?"

  Jim gave him a clear look. "You can have my resignation whenever youwant it, Mr. Freet."

  And Jim mounted and rode heavily back to his office.