Still Jim

by Morrow, Honore

  Pen stood with tear-blinded eyes and trembling lips. Iron Skull cleared his throat: "I hope you don't mind my butting in this-a-way!"

  Pen shook her head. "I'll do my best," she said. "Only I'm pretty small for the job."

  "Here he comes now," said Williams.

  Jim rode up and dismounted. "Hello, Pen! What do you think of my roads? I'm crowding as many men onto the roads as I can until the water goes down. Idleness is bad for them. You see, in spite of electric lights and a water system we're a long way from civilization and it gets on the men's nerves unless we keep 'em busy. I'm going to start a moving picture show in the lower camp. The official photographer will run it for us. Just the usual five-cent movies, you know. Anything above running expenses will go toward the farmers' debt."

  Iron Skull moved away to speak to Suma-theek. Jim went on slowly: "You can see what I'm up against in Ames. Any day I may get a recall. Every farmer on the project hates me for some reason or other. I tell you, Pen, if they don't let me finish my dam and the roads to and from it, it will ruin my life."

  Pen's tender eyes studied Jim's face. Long and thin, with its dreamer's forehead and its steel jaw, it was the same dear face that Penelope had carried in her heart since that spring day long ago when a long-legged freshman had said to her, "I'm glad you came. I'm going to think a lot of you. I can see that."

  "You know, Jim," she said, "that your mother and Uncle Denny always shared your letters with me?"

  Jim nodded. "I wrote them for that."

  "And so I really know a good deal about your work. Uncle Denny and I studied the maps and the government reports and then he actually saw the dams, you know, and would tell me all the details. Honestly, we'd qualify as experts in any court! And if you'll just let me share your worries while I'm out here, I shall be prouder even than Uncle Denny after you've asked his advice. And won't I crow over him after I get back to New York!"

  A glow came to Jim's eyes that had not been there for years. "Gee, Pen! You tempt me! But I'm not going to load you up with my troubles. You have enough with Sara. Perhaps Sara will shoot Ames for me! Sara looks like a sure-enough gunman, now. How he has changed, Pen!"

  "If only you could have forgiven him enough to have written him once in a while, Jim. After all he's been more than punished, even for the Marathon matter or for that crazy romance about the ducal inheritance. I realized, Jim, after I had married him, that Sara was quite capable of the Marathon incident. Yet I wish you had forgiven him!"

  "The Marathon, Pen!" cried Jim. "For heaven's sake, don't suppose that was why I didn't write to Sara! It's the dirty trick he did in marrying you that I'll never get over!"

  "Oh, but that's not fair!" returned Pen. "He—well, anyway, he's a cripple now and needs your help."

  "I—help Sara!" exclaimed Jim. "Why I simply don't know he's living! It's my turn now. Sara has had his innings. Desert methods are perfectly simple and direct and I'm a desert man. You are here with me, Penelope, and you are going to stay with me."

  Iron Skull was coming back. Pen laughed. "You and Sara ought to write movie dramas, Jim." Then she sobered. "Don't misunderstand my coming to the dam, Jimmy. I've learned a good many things since you left me in New York. One thing is that we can't cut our lives loose from other lives and be a law to ourselves. Another is that any responsibility we take up voluntarily ought to be carried to the end."

  Jim looked at Pen curiously and his jaw set. She was several years younger than Jim, yet something had come to her in the years just past that made him in some ways feel immature. But Jim had not hungered and thirsted for eight years in starry solitudes with one memory and one dream to keep his heart alive, to relinquish the dream without a fight.

  "Penelope," he said, "you don't know me."

  Pen smiled. "I know you to the last hair in that brown thatch of yours, Still Jim." Then she turned to Iron Skull, who was eager to have her talk to old Suma-theek.

  For some days Jim had no opportunity to continue Pen's education with himself as textbook. He was engrossed in watching and tending the flood. Old Jezebel enjoyed herself thoroughly for a week. She fought and scratched at the mountainsides, but save the chafing of purple lava dust from their sides she made no impression on their imperturbability. She ripped down the last pouring, contemptuously leaving tons of rock and concrete at the foot of the concrete section. She roared and howled and shook the good earth with the noise of a railway train tearing through a tunnel. And Jim laughed.

  "If it wasn't for you, old girl," he told her one afternoon, "I'd go crazy with the flea bitings of the Enemy. But you, bless your wicked soul, are an honest part of the game. I was bred from the beginning to fight floods. You attack in the open, like an honest vixen. Wait till I get my clutches on you again."

  As Jim finished this soliloquy with considerable satisfaction to himself, Iron Skull came up and laid a newspaper on his saddle horn.

  "The newspapers are roasting you, Boss Still."

  "What do they say this time, Iron Skull?" Jim did not offer to lift the paper.

  "You are inefficient. A friend of Freet's. They don't say you caused high water but they insinuate you suggested it to the weather man. You'd ought to tell the Secretary of the Interior the whole truth about the Makon, Boss Still."

  "I can't do that, Iron Skull. I'm no squealer."

  "I know. And I've always advised you to keep your mouth shut. But write to the editor of this paper, Boss."

  Jim did not reply at once. The two were on the mountainside, not a great distance from Pen's house past which the new road was to run. The Indians were making ready for the sunset blasts. Above the distant roar of old Jezebel, old Suma-theek's foreman's whistle sounded clear and sweet as he signaled his men.

  This was Geronimo's country, the land of the greatest of the Apache fighters. All about were the trails he and his people had made. Yonder to the north, across a harsh peak, was Geronimo's own pass. And now the last of Geronimo's race was building new trails for a new people.

  The naked beauty of the brown and lavender ranges, the wholesome tang of the thin air, the far sweep of the afternoon sky, seemed suddenly remote to Jim.

  "It's bigger than any editor," he said. "I don't know what is the matter. My only hope is that I can finish my dam before they get me."

  "You've got to fight back, now," persisted Iron Skull.

  "It's not my business to fight for permission to build this project!" cried Jim. "I was hired to build it! I was hired to fight old Jezebel and not the farmers!"

  The little superintendent laid a knotted hand on Jim's knee. "You must take my advice in this, partner. I'm an old man and I'm likely to go any time. I'd like to feel that I'd helped you into a big success. It's the only record I'll leave behind me except a few dead Injuns. We both come of good old New England stock and we've got to show the old fighting blood ain't dead yet. I want to tell you—Hi! Suma-theek! Jump! Jump!"

  Suma-theek was standing close to the mountain side out of which a blast had cut a great slice of rock. Up above his head some loosened stone was slipping down the mountain. As he called and before either Jim or the Indian saw the impending danger, Iron Skull dashed across the road and shoved Suma-theek out of the danger line. But he miscalculated his own agility. The rapidly-sliding rock caught him on the head and he who had shed Indian bullets like raindrops went down like a pinon, smitten by lightning.

  For one breath there was an appalling silence on the mountainside. The Apaches stood like a group of bronzes. The eagle who lived on the Elephant's side hung motionless high above the road. A cotton-tail sat with quivering nose and inquiring ears above the rift of the slide.

  Then, with a shout, Jim flung himself from his horse and thrust the reins into an Indian's hands.

  "Ride for the doctor!" and the Indian was off like a racing shadow.

  At Jim's call, old Suma-theek gave a great groan and ran to lift Iron Skull's head. The Indians gathered about in wonder as Jim knelt beside his friend. For Iron Skull was d
ead.

  Penelope ran out of the tent house at Jim's shout and made her way among the Indians to Jim's side.

  "O Jim!" she cried. "O Jim! O Jim!" Then she dropped down and lifted the quiet face into her lap and wiped the blood from it and fell to sobbing over it. "Oh, what a useless death!" she sobbed. "What a useless death!"

  Jim held his dead friend's hand close in his own. Through his tear-blinded eyes he saw a golden August field and felt other fingers clinging to his own.

  The doctor, driving the mule ambulance, dashed up the half-made road. He looked Iron Skull over, and shook his head. "Get the stretcher out," he said to Jim.

  Four Indians lifted the stretcher with Iron Skull on it, but when they would have put it in the ambulance, old Suma-theek stepped forward. He was taller even than Jim. His face was lean and wrinkled. His eyes were deep-set and tragic. He wore a twist of red cloth filet-wise around his head.

  "He die for Injun. Let Injun carry 'em home," said the old Apache. "He heap good fighter. He speak truth. He keep word. He a big chief. He die for Apache. Let Apache carry 'em home."

  The doctor looked inquiringly at Jim who nodded.

  "I'll go on down to his house and get things ready for him," said the doctor and he drove off.

  Jim and Penelope stood back. The four Indians bearing the stretcher followed after Suma-theek and in a long single line the remaining Apaches followed, joining Suma-theek in the death chant which is the very soul cry of the desolate:

  "Ai! Ai! Ai! Beloved!

  "Ai! Ai! Ai! Beloved!"

  Down the winding road in a world all liquid gold from the setting sun, past the great shadow of the brooding elephant, past the cable towers and the engine house where the workmen stared, motionless and aghast, into the twilight of the valley where the electric lights flared, the chanting Indians carried the old shedder of bullets and laid him on his bed.

  The camp was very silent that night. The Mexicans had feared and respected the little Superintendent. They had shared with the Indians the belief that the Little Boss could not be killed. The remains of the old Makon Pack were openly grief-stricken and told half-whispered stories of Iron Skull's prowess in the old days of tunnel building. The camp was smitten with awe at this sudden withdrawal. Sudden death was the rule on the Projects, yet it always left the camp breathless with surprise. The little community of twelve hundred souls, so isolated, so close to the primeval despite its electric lights, suddenly felt utterly alone and helpless.

  Close after eight o'clock Jim dashed out of his house as if a voice had called him. He dropped down the steep trail to the canyon, crossed the canyon and took the steep trail up the Elephant's side. It was a sharp lift but Jim's long legs took it easily. When he reached the Elephant's top he crossed the broad back to a heap of bowlders and threw himself down in their shelter.

  It was a moonlit night. Silver lay the desert with the black scratch of old Jezebel across it and the ragged purple shadows of the ranges to the east. Jim sat, chin in palm, elbow on knee, eyes wide on the soft wonder of the night. It always seemed to him that the desert night freed him of time and space and set him close to the Master Dream. He had learned to take his grief and his despairs to the desert mountain tops.

  He had sat for an hour going over his life and his friendship with Iron Skull when a quick step sounded on the Elephant's back and Penelope swung past him out to the edge of the crater that formed the Elephant's east side. She stood there, her gray suit fluttering in the night wind, looking far and wide as if the view were new to her. Then she sat down on the ground, clasped her arms across her knees and bowed her head upon them. There was so much despair in the gesture that Jim could not bear the sight of it.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XIV

  THE ELEPHANT'S BACK

  "All living things have a universal hunger—to live again. The hunger for descendants is the same hunger."

  Musings of the Elephant.

  "Penelope!" Jim called softly.

  Pen raised her head as if she were dreaming.

  "Pen!" repeated Jim, rising and walking slowly toward her. "Don't sit so near the edge."

  "You can see the eagle's nest from here," said Pen, pointing down the crater wall. "What brought you up here, Still?"

  "The Elephant is an old friend of mine, particularly when I'm broken up as I am tonight," replied Jim, taking Pen's hand and leading her back to his own place which was sheltered from the wind. "What brought you here? And how about Sara?"

  "Sara took some morphine tonight. He will be motionless until morning. Ever since the new moon came, I've been promising myself a trip up here."

  "So Sara adds dope to his other accomplishments!" commented Jim.

  "He suffers so from insomnia, I don't blame him," answered Pen. "He has pain practically all of the time. I think he gradually grows worse. Poor Sara! He said tonight he hated the sight of even a dog that can use its own legs. Don't be too hard on him, Jim."

  "I can't help being hard on him when I see how he treats you, the cad!" said Jim.

  "He can't hurt me," said Pen. "I'm too sorry for him. Though I'll admit that I never knew what it was to lose control of my temper until after I was married. Still, where will they bury Iron Skull?"

  "We have a little graveyard high on the mesa-top, yonder. He had not a relative in the world. He was of good old New England stock. He was trying to tell me something about his feeling for the Dam because of that when he was killed."

  Jim was speaking a little brokenly and Pen laid her hand on his arm.

  "The big dangers on the dam, we try to guard against. We can't even foresee a thing like Iron Skull's sacrifice. But I know he would have liked to have gone giving his life for someone he loved the way he did old Suma-theek. Sometimes I think there ought to be listed on a bronze tablet on the wall of each great structure the names of those who died in giving it birth. The big structures all are consecrated in blood. Skyscrapers, bridges, and dams all demand their human sacrifices. Thirty men went on the Makon. We've lost eight here so far."

  "Sara was frightfully upset," said Pen. "That's why he took the morphine. Any thought of death makes him hysterical. The chant set him to swearing frightfully. Jim, I'd give anything to be able to set Sara right with himself."

  "Pen, why did Sara come down here?" asked Jim abruptly.

  Penelope hesitated. She did not want to voice Iron Skull's suspicions until she had verified them. "I don't know, Jim," she said finally. "I thought it was for his health and land, but I feel uneasy since I see his attitude toward you."

  "If he has an idea of speculating in real estate, I'll have to head him off," said Jim. "Land speculation hurts the projects very seriously."

  "What harm does it do?" asked Pen.

  "Inflates land values so that farming doesn't pay with the already heavy building charges for the dam."

  "Oh, I see!" mused Pen. "I'll talk to Sara about it."

  "Don't say a word to him. I can fight my own battles with Sara. Penelope, what were you thinking about when you sat over there at the crater edge with your head on your arms?"

  In the moonlight a slow red stained Pen's face. Jim watched her with puzzled eyes.

  "I—I can't tell you all I was thinking," she said. "But some of it was because of Iron Skull. I was thinking how awful it will be for us to die, you and Sara and me, leaving not a human being behind us, just as Iron Skull did."

  "Most of us New Englanders are going that way," said Jim. "We Americans have so steadily decreased our birth rate in the past hundred years that we are nearly seven million babies below normal. South European children will take their places."

  "Well, I don't know that it will hurt America in the long run," said Pen.

  "I think it will," insisted Jim. "This country is governed by institutions that are inherently Teutonic. The people who will inherit these institutions are fundamentally different in their conceptions of government and education. I'm a New Englander, descendant of the Anglo-Saxon founders of t
he country. I can't see my race and its ideal passing without its breaking my heart."

  "Why do you pass?" asked Pen sharply. "Why don't you brace up?"

  "We don't know how," said Jim.

  "I wonder if that's true," murmured Pen, "and if it is true, why!"

  Silence fell between the two. The night wind sighed softly over the Elephant's broad back. The eagle, disturbed by the voices above his nest, soared suddenly from the crater, dipped across the canyon, and circled the flag that was seldom lowered before the office. The flag fluttered remotely in the moonlight.

  "Look, Jim," whispered Pen, "the eagle and the flag so young and the Elephant so old and poor Iron Skull lying there dead! I wish I could make a legend from it. The material is there.... Oh, Sara said such horrible things tonight!"

  Penelope shivered. Jim jumped up and held out his hand. "Come, little Pen! I'm going to take you home. How cold your fingers are!"

  Jim kept Pen's cold little hand warm within his own whenever the trail permitted on the way back. But he scarcely spoke again.

  The next day Iron Skull's funeral was held in the little adobe chapel which was filled to overflowing. A great crowd of workmen, Americans, Mexicans and Indians, gathered outside. At Suma-theek's earnest petition, Jim allowed the Indians to carry the coffin on their shoulders up the trail behind the lower town to the mesa crest where the little graveyard lay. And Jim also gave Suma-theek permission to make a farewell speech when the grave had been filled. The missionary had protested but Jim was obdurate.

  "Suma-theek owes his life to Iron Skull. I shall let him do his uttermost to show his gratitude. He is a fine old man, as fine in the eyes of God, no doubt, as you or I, Mr. Smiley."