by Zane Grey
This time the train gained more headway and evidently had passed the point where the Indians could find obstructions to place on the track. Neale saw through a porthole that the Sioux were dropping back from the front of the train and were no longer circling. Their firing had become desultory. Medicine Bow was in sight. The engine gathered headway.
“We’ll get the rest of the day off,” remarked Casey complacently. “Shane, yez are domn’ quiet betoimes. An’, Mac, I shure showed yez up today.”
“Ye did not,” retorted McDermott. “I kilt jist twenty-nine Sooz!”
Casey grinned. “Jist thirty was moine. An’, Mac, as they wuz only about fifty of them, yez must be a liar.”
The train drew on toward Medicine Bow. Firing ceased. Neale stood up to see the Sioux riding away. Their ranks did not seem noticeably depleted.
“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” sang Casey as he wiped his sweaty and begrimed rifle. “Mac, how many Sooz did Shane kill?”
“B’gorra, he ain’t said yet,” replied McDermott. “Say Shane . . . Casey!”
Neale whirled at the sharp change of tone.
Shane lay face down on the floor of the car, his bloody hands gripping his rifle. His position was inert, singularly expressive. Neale strode toward him. But Casey reached him first. He laid a hesitating hand on Shane’s shoulder.
“Shane, old mon,” he said, but the cheer was not in his voice. Casey dropped his pipe. Then he turned his comrade over. Shane had done his best and his last for the U.P.R.!
Chapter Seventeen
Neale and King decided to return to Benton. Slingerland saw them off and said that when it became practical to hunt buffalo again, he would send for them. Also, they planned to go into the Black Hills late in the fall, visit Slingerland’s old camp, and then try to locate the gold buried by Horn.
The trapper’s last words to Neale were interesting: “Son, there’s a feller hyar in Medicine Bow who says as how he thought your pard Red was a bad cowpuncher from the Panhandle of Texas.”
“Bad?” queried Neale. “Red’s as good as gold.”
“Wal, he meant a gun-throwin’ bad man, I take it.”
“Don’t let Red overhear you say it,” replied Neale, “and advise your informant to be careful. I’ve always had a hunch Red was really somebody.”
“Benton’ll work on the cowboy,” continued Slingerland earnestly. “An’, son, I ain’t so all-fired sure of you.”
“I’ll take what comes,” returned Neale shortly. “Good bye, old friend. Look me up when you come to Benton. And if you can use us for buffalo hunting without the ‘domn’ Sooz,’ as Casey says, why, we’ll come.”
As the train pulled out, Neale carried with him the memory of Slingerland’s reluctant and wistful good bye. It made Neale think: where were he and King going? Friendships in this Wild West were stronger ties than he had known elsewhere.
The train arrived at Benton after dark. And the darkness seemed a windy gulf out of which roared yellow lights and excited men. The tents, with the dim lights through the canvas, gleamed pale and obscure, like so much of the life they hid. The throngs hurried, the dust blew, the band played, the barkers clamored for their trade.
Neale found the more pretentious hotels overcrowded and he was compelled to go to his former lodgings, where he and King were accommodated.
“Now we’re here . . . what’ll we do?” queried Neale, more to himself. He felt as if driven. And the mood he hated and feared was impinging upon his mind.
“Shore, we’ll eat,” replied King.
“Then what?”
“Wal, I reckon, see what’s goin’ on in this heah Benton.”
As a matter of fact, Neale reflected, there was nothing to do that he wanted to do.
“You-all air gettin’ the blues,” said King with solicitude.
“Red, I’m never free of them.”
King put his hand on Neale’s shoulder. Demonstration of this kind was rare with the cowboy. “Pard, are we goin’ to see this heah Benton . . . an’ then brace an’ go back to work?”
“No. I can’t hold a job,” replied Neale bitterly.
“You’re showin’ a yellow streak? You’re done, as you told Slingerland? Nothin’ ain’t no good? Life’s over, fer all thet’s sweet an’ right? Is thet your stand?”
“Yes, it must be Red,” said Neale with scorn of himself. “But you . . . it needn’t apply to you. Let me alone. You go your way.”
“I reckon I’m sorry,” rejoined King, ignoring Neale’s last words. “I always hoped you’d get over Allie’s loss . . . You had so much to live fer.”
“Red, I wish the bullet that hit Shane today had hit me instead. You needn’t look like that. I mean it. Today when the Sioux chased up, my hair went stiff and my heart was in my mouth. I ran for my life as if I loved it. But that was my miserable cowardice. I’m sick of the game . . . and almost through.”
“Are you in daid earnest?” asked King huskily.
Neale nodded gloomily. He did not even regret the effect of his speech upon the cowboy. He divined that somehow the moment was critical and fateful for King, but he did not care. The black spell was enfolding him. All seemed hard, cold, monstrous within his breast. He could not love anything. He was lost. He realized the magnificent loyalty of this simple Texan, who was his true friend.
“Red, for God’s sake, don’t make me ashamed to look you in the eyes,” appealed Neale. “I want to go on . . . you know?”
“Wal, I reckon I’ll stick,” drawled King. He had changed when he said that. He had aged. The dry humor of the cowboy, the amiable ease, was wanting.
“Oh, hell, forgive my selfish rottenness!” burst out Neale. “I’m not the man I was. But don’t think I don’t love you.”
They went out together, and the hum of riotous Benton called them and the lights beckoned and the melancholy night engulfed them.
* * * * *
Next morning late, on the way to breakfast, Neale encountered a young man whose rough bronzed face somehow seemed familiar.
At sight of Neale this young fellow brightened, and he lunged forward. “Neale! Findin’ you was like huntin’ for a needle in a haystack.”
Neale could not place him, and he did not try hard for recognition, for that surely would recall his former relation to the railroad.
“I don’t remember you,” replied Neale.
“I’ll bet Red does,” said the stranger, with a grin at the cowboy.
“Shore. Your name’s Campbell, an’ you was a lineman for Baxter,” returned King.
“Right you are,” said Campbell, offering his hand to Neale, and then to King. He appeared both glad and excited.
“I guess I recall you now,” said Neale thoughtfully. “You said . . . you were hunting me?”
“Well, I should smile,” returned Campbell, and handed Neale a letter.
Neale tore it open and hastily perused its contents. It was a brief urgent request from Baxter that Neale return to work. The words, almost like an order, made Neale’s heart swell for a moment. He stood there staring at the paper. King read the letter over his shoulder.
“Pard, shore I was expectin’ jist thet there, an’ I say go!” exclaimed King.
Neale slowly shook his head.
Campbell made a quick, nervous movement. “Neale, I was to say . . . tell . . . there’s more’n your old job waitin’ for you.”
“What do you mean?” queried Neale.
“That’s all, except the corps has struck a snag out there, west of Benton. It’s a bad place. You an’ Henney were west in the hills when this survey was made. It’s a deep wash . . . bad grade an’ curves. The gang’s stuck. An’ Baxter swore, saying . . . ‘We’ve got to have Neale back on the job!’”
“Where’s Henney?” asked Neale rather thickly. Campbell’s words affected him powerfully.
“Henney had to go to Omaha. Boone is sick at Fort Fetterman. Baxter has only a new green hand out there, an’ they’ve sure struck a snag.”
“Yes. There’s a trooper camp. Colonel Dillon an’ some of the officers have their wives out on a little visit to see the work. They couldn’t stand Benton.”
“Will you thank Baxter and tell him I’m sorry. I must refuse,” said Neale.
“You won’t come!” ejaculated Campbell.
Neale shook his head.
King reached out with big eager hand. “See heah, pard, I reckon you will go.”
Campbell acted strangely, as if he wanted to say more, but did not have authority. He looked dismayed. Then he said: “All right, Neale. I’ll take your message. But you can expect me back.” Then he went his way.
“Neale, shore’s there’s somethin’ in the wind,” said King. “Wal, it jist tickles me. They can’t build the railroad without you.”
“Would you go back to work?” queried Neale.
“Shore I would if they’d have me. But I’d reckon thet little run-in of mine with Smith has made bad feelin’. An’ come to think of thet, if I did go back, I’d only have to fight some of Smith’s friends. An’ I reckon I’d better not go. It’d only make trouble for you.”
“Me! You heard me refuse.”
“Shore, I heerd you,” drawled King softly. “But you’re goin’ back if I have to hawg-tie you . . . an’ pack you out there on a horse.”
Neale said no more. If he had said another word, he would have betrayed himself to his friend. He yearned for his old work. To think that the engineer corps needed him filled him with joy. But at the same time he knew what an effort it would take to apply himself to any task. He hated to attempt it. He doubted himself. He was morbid. All that day he wandered around at King’s heels, half oblivious of what was going on. After dark he slipped away from his friend to be alone. And being alone in the dark quietness brought home to him the truth of a strange strong growth, out of the depths of him, that was going to overcome his morbid craving to be idle, to drift, to waste his life on a haunting memory.
He could not sleep that night, and so was awake when King lounged in, slow and heavy. The cowboy was half drunk. Neale took him to task, and they quarreled. Finally King grew silent and fell asleep. After that Neale likewise dropped into slumber.
In the morning King was again his old cool, easy, reckless self, and had apparently forgotten Neale’s sharp words. Neale, however, felt a change in himself. This was the first morning for a long time that he had not hated the coming of daylight.
When he and King went out, the sun was high. For Neale there seemed something more than the sunshine in the air. At sight of Campbell, waiting in the same place they had encountered him yesterday, Neale’s pulse quickened.
Campbell greeted him with a bright smile. “I’m back,” he said.
“So I see,” replied Neale constrainedly.
“I’ve a message for you from the chief,” announced Campbell.
“The chief!” exclaimed Neale.
King edged closer to them, with the characteristic hitch at his belt, and his eyes flashed.
“He asks as a personal favor that you come out to see him,” replied Campbell.
Neale flushed. “General Lodge asks that?” he echoed. There was a slow heat stirring all through him.
“Yes . . . Will you go?”
“I . . . I guess I’ll have to,” replied Neale. He did not feel that he was deciding. He had to go. But this did not prove that he must take up his old work.
King swung his hand on Neale’s shoulder, almost staggering him. The cowboy beamed. “Go in to breakfast,” he said. “Order for me, too. I’ll be back.”
“You want to hurry,” rejoined Campbell. “We’ve only a half hour to eat an’ catch the work train.”
King strode back toward the lodging house. And it was Campbell who led Neale into the restaurant and ordered the meal. Neale’s mind was not in a whirl, nor dazed, but he did not get much further in thought than the remarkable circumstance of General Lodge’s sending for him personally. Meanwhile Campbell rapidly talked about masonry, roadbeds, wash-outs, and other things that Neale heard, but did not clearly understand. Then King returned. He carried Neale’s bag, which he deposited carefully on the bench.
“I reckon you might as well take it along,” he drawled.
Neale felt himself being forced.
They indulged in little further conversation while hurriedly eating breakfast. That finished, they sallied forth toward the station. Campbell clambered aboard the work train. “Come on, Red,” he said.
And Neale joined him in like speech.
“Wal, seein’ as how I want you-all to get on, an’ the railroad built, I reckon I’d better not go,” drawled King. His blue eyes shone warm upon his friend.
“Red, I’ll be back in a day or so,” said Neale.
“Aw, now, pard, you stay. Go back on the job an’ stick,” appealed the cowboy.
“No. I quit, and I’ll stay quit. I might help out . . . for a day . . . just as a favor. But . . .” Neale shook his head.
“I reckon . . . if you care anythin’ aboot me . . . you’ll shore stick.”
“Red, you’ll go to the bad if I leave you here alone,” protested Neale.
“Wal, if you stay, we’ll both go,” replied King sharply. He had changed subtly. “It’s in me to go to hell . . . I reckon I’ve gone . . . but thet ain’t so for you.”
“Two’s company,” said Neale, with an attempt at lightness. But it was pretend. King worried him.
“Listen. If you go back on the job . . . then it’ll be all right for you to run in heah to see me once in a while. But if you throw up this chance, I’ll . . .” King paused. His ruddy tan had faded slightly.
Neale eyed him, aware of a hard and tense contraction of the cowboy’s throat. “Well, what’ll you do?” queried Neale shortly.
King threw back his head and the subtle fierce tensity seemed to leave him.
“Wal, the day you come back I’ll clean out Stanton’s place . . . jest to start entertainin’ you,” he replied, with his slow drawl as marked as ever it was.
A stir of anger in Neale’s breast subsided with the big warm realization of this wild cowboy’s love for him, and the melancholy certainty that King would do exactly as he threatened.
“Suppose I come back and beat you-all up,” suggested Neale.
“Wal, thet won’t make a damn’ bit of difference,” replied King seriously.
Whereupon Neale soberly bade his friend good bye and boarded the train.
* * * * *
The ride appeared slow and long, dragged out by innumerable stops. All along the line laborers awaited the train to unload supplies. At the end of the line there was a congestion Neale had not observed before in all the work. Freight cars, loaded with stone and iron beams and girders for bridge work, piles of ties and piles of rails, and gangs of idle men, attested to the delay caused by an obstacle to progress. The sight aggressively stimulated Neale. He felt very curious to learn the cause of the setback, and his old scorn of difficulties flashed up.
The camp Neale’s guide led him to was back some distance from the construction work. It stood in a little valley through which ran a stream. There was one large building, low and flat, made of boards and canvas, adjoining a substantial old log cabin, and clustered around, although not close together, were a considerable number of tents. Troopers were in evidence, some on duty and many idle. In the background the slopes of the valley were dark green with pine and cedar.
At the open door of the building Neale met Baxter face to face, and that worthy’s greeting left Neale breathless and aghast, yet thrilling with sheer gladness.
“What’re . . . you . . . up against?” asked Neale.
“The boss’ll talk to you. Get in there,” Baxter replied, and pushed Neale inside. It was a big room, full of smoke, noise, men, tables, papers. There were guns stacked under portholes. Someone spoke to Neale, but he did n
ot see who. All the faces he saw so swiftly appeared vague, yet curious, interested. Then Baxter halted him at a table. Once again Neale faced his chief. Baxter announced something—Neale did not hear what.
General Lodge looked older, sterner, more worn. He stood up. “Hello, Neale,” he said, offering his hand, and a flash of a smile changed his face.
Neale replied to the greeting with a dignity that was not true to his feelings.
“Come in here,” said the chief, and he led Neale into another room, of different aspect. It was small; the walls were of logs; new boards had been recently put in the floor; new windows cut, and it contained Indian blankets, chairs, a couch.
Here General Lodge bent a stern and piercing gaze upon his former lieutenant. “Neale, you failed me when you quit your job,” he said. “You were my right-hand man. You quit me in my hour of need.”
“General, I . . . I was furious at that rotten commissioner deal,” replied Neale, choking. What he had done now seemed so little—an offense to his chief. “My work was ordered done over!”
“Neale, that was nothing to what I’ve endured. You should have grit your teeth . . . and gone on. That five miles of reconstruction was nothing . . . nothing.”
In his chief’s inflexible voice, in the worn and shadowed face Neale saw the great burden, and somehow he was reminded of Lincoln. And a passion of remorse seized Neale. Why had he not been faithful to this steadfast man who had needed him?
“It seemed . . . so much to me,” faltered Neale.
“Why did you not look at that as you have looked at so many physical difficulties . . . the running of a survey, for instance?”
“I . . . I guess I have a yellow streak.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?” went on the chief. Evidently he had been disappointed in Neale.
“I might have come . . . only Red, my friend . . . he got into it, and I was afraid he’d kill somebody,” replied Neale.