Читать книгу Boulder Dam - Zane Grey - Страница 8

With a start Lynn hastily withdrew his hand. His first whirling thought was that thugs had used his car as a means to get rid of a murdered victim. Then his straining eyes distinguished the dark little head and the white shoulder. He sustained a strong shock. And on the instant when he sought to find his wits another gasping intake of breath routed his fearful consternation.

“Alive, by God!” he cried under his breath, and he ripped open the door.

Lynn put his arms under the girl, and lifting her out he carried her toward his cabin, bending a searching glance all around. The flare of electric lights did not extend that far. He could not be seen in the gloom. The girl felt like a lightweight in his arms. Holding her in one arm, he opened the door, went in and laid her on his bed. His next swift move was to bar the door, after which he let down the canvas curtains to his two windows. After that he reached up to turn on the electric light.

The girl was recovering consciousness, if she had lost it. Then her eyes opened, wide gray gulfs of terror.

“Don’t let them—get me,” she begged almost inaudibly.

“I’ll say they won’t, young lady,” Lynn burst out in relief as well as haste to reassure her. “I found you in my car—just now. Drove out all the way from town.”

“Where am—I?” she asked.

“You’re in my shack at the gravel pits above the dam—thirty miles from town. I work here. My name’s Lynn Weston. I’m from California. . . . You’re safe, girl.”

“Oh, thank heaven!” she cried weakly and appeared about to faint.

“Don’t—don’t pass out. Tell me quick—are you injured?” And he leaned over to shake her gently.

“No, I’m not hurt.”

“Did they—Bellew or Sneed—any of that rotten gang—harm you?”

“Oh, you know—!”

“I overheard enough to—to give me a hunch. Quite by accident I happened to hear Sneed and his men as they came out of the Monte. They spoke of Bellew. Then down the street where I was looking for my Ford. Ran into Sneed again—his car—three men jumped out. They had seen you run by under the light. They held me up—with a gun—the thugs! Asked if I’d seen a girl. You must have hidden in my car then.”

“Oh! I’ve gotten away,” she exclaimed, staring up at him. Her white hands shook as she held the blanket close.

“You sure have. But tell me—did they? . . . How’d you happen to be—this way? Surely you don’t belong to Bellew or Sneed?”

“Bellew’s a white slaver.”

“Oh! So that’s it? Now we’re . . . Say, girl, did he—they harm you?”

“No. I’m all right—only scared—and frozen stiff.”

“What a sap I am!” Lynn said, and sprang into action. He kindled a wood fire in his little stove and put water on to heat. Then he got out a pair of pajamas and spread them upon his rude rocker to get warm. He found his slippers, also, and a fleece-lined coat. “There! Soon as the fire’s hot you get into these—and put the blanket over your knees. I’ll go outside. Then I’ll come back say in ten minutes and make you a cup of coffee.”

With that Lynn stalked outdoors to pace up and down before his cabin. It was not likely that anyone would come along at this hour, but he kept strict lookout, while he marveled and pondered over the adventure that had befallen him. Who was this girl, and how had she gotten into such a predicament? She appeared to be about nineteen years old and she was strikingly beautiful. He could not forget her large gray eyes stained dark in fright.

He walked up and down beside the car. What would he do now that he had accidentally saved the girl? He did not know. But it dawned vaguely upon him that the something he had felt coming must have had its inception in this adventure. The whole year he had toiled there, from almost the very day he had turned away in bitter contempt from Helen Pritchard there on the rim of Black Canyon where he had sustained the crucial shock of his life, had been one of inscrutable pangs and dawnings, of a grim stubborn resolve, of fleeting dreamful glimpses of the reward of a newer different life. Could this girl have been dropped out of the clouds to react in some way upon him? Every hour of toil, every bit of suffering, everything that had happened during this eventful year, looked back upon, seemed to have been intended to test him in some inexplicable way. Lynn had to ridicule the fact that inside his cabin was a young girl whom fate had thrown in his way and had given him the good fortune to serve, perhaps to save, her.

“I’m a queer sap,” he thought, gazing across the dark void toward the bold mountains. “Finding out I never knew myself. Sentimental—and full of mush in this modern day! Maybe I’d be well to trail along with this unknown self. It’s a cinch the other side was a flop.”

Presently he went back into the cabin, barring the door behind him. His guest sat in the old rocker before the roaring stove, dressed as he had expected to find her. But Lynn was wholly unprepared for the prettiest girl he had ever seen.

“Well, how you making out?” he asked gayly.

“I’m warm and comfortable—thank you,” she replied gratefully. “And that awful something—here—is leaving me.”

“A hot cup of coffee will help it go,” Lynn said cheerfully and proceeded to lift the steaming pot off the stove. “I don’t batch it here. But I’ve a few camp utensils I found in this shack, and I amuse myself making coffee occasionally. . . . But perhaps you’d prefer a drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“That’s lucky. Now that I think of it, I haven’t anything to offer you. . . . Here’s your coffee. It’s hot, so be careful. And here’s sugar. . . . I guess I’ll drink a cup myself. It sure was cold driving out tonight.”

Presently Lynn drew a box up to the stove and seating himself upon it sipped his coffee and watched the red fire through the little barred door. What he wished most at the moment was to look at this girl so strangely thrust upon him and next to that to question her. Nevertheless he refrained from either.

“I’ll go outside presently and let you have my bed,” he said. “I can find a place to sleep. I’ll be right close, in the woodshed in case you want me. Then in the morning we’ll talk over what’s best to do.”

“You’re very good,” she murmured. “What can I do? No clothes—no money!”

“We’ll get the clothes,” Lynn said quickly. “Just you write out what you need—what things, size, you know, and I’ll get someone to go to the store.”

“I’ll pay you back if I can only find a job,” she replied gratefully. “Only I’ll always be afraid to hunt for a job again. Because that is how I fell into this terrible fix.”

“Miss, you needn’t tell me if you’d rather not. Only I—”

“Oh, I must tell you,” she interposed earnestly. “You’re kind—and nice . . . I can trust you. I’m alone—no friends—no relations—no home. You might be the friend I need so dreadfully.”

“I will be,” rejoined Lynn. “As I told you, Lynn Weston is my name. Did you ever hear of it?”

“No. But your face is familiar. I’ve seen it somewhere. Are you in the movies?”

“Good Lord, no. I was just a football player—soon forgotten.”

Apparently the girl had gotten over the worst of her fright by this time for she began, eagerly. “My name is Anne Vandergrift. I’m nearly twenty. I was born in Salem, Illinois. My mother died when I was little. A few years ago my father followed her. But before he died he arranged for a friend of his, Henry Smith, who had gone to Los Angeles, to give me work. I came West. Mr. Smith sent me to business school for six months and then employed me. I lived with his family and was happy. Then came the Depression. It ruined Mr. Smith. He committed suicide. His family had to get out and fare for themselves. So did I. Jobs were easy to get. But I couldn’t keep them—I—I couldn’t—”

“Why not?” Lynn interposed deliberately and turned to look at her. That done he had neither inclination nor power to avert his fascinated gaze.

“Because the men who offered me jobs or tried me out wanted me to—to go out with them. I just couldn’t see it their way. So I kept tramping the streets. I lived on my savings, and they dwindled until I was broke. My landlady kept my few belongings and turned me out. . . . That day on Main Street I found an employment agency with a sign in the window, girls wanted. I went in. A woman told me she had jobs for waitresses in Las Vegas. That the town was booming with the building of Boulder Dam. I said I’d be glad to take any wages and go at once. Then she questioned me sharply, asked about relatives or friends in Los Angeles. When I explained I had none she said she would send me to Las Vegas that day by bus. She’d pay my fare and have someone meet me in Las Vegas. I had only an hour to get ready. I was ready, right then, and so I told her.”

“Well, Anne,” Lynn spoke up dryly as she paused for breath. “Strikes me you were pretty much of a tenderfoot to fall for that line so easily.”

“I was. . . . That woman went with me, put me on a bus. There were several other girls, two that I didn’t care to talk to. And one who couldn’t speak English. Other passengers got on at San Bernardino and Barstow. But I didn’t get acquainted with them. It was after dark when the bus got to Las Vegas. A man with a thin dark face and sharp dark eyes met me as if he knew me and took me to a house and gave me a room upstairs. He said he’d send my supper up to me—that Las Vegas was a wild town and I mustn’t go out. I was too tired and excited even to eat much.”

“Anne, you don’t look like a dumbbell,” Lynn burst out almost heatedly at the girl’s evident innocence. “Why, any kid would have been suspicious of that situation.”

“I thought it was strange, but I had no choice,” she went on mournfully. “I slept like a log. And I was awakened by a hard-faced woman who brought my breakfast. She told me to hurry and eat and said she’d be up again right away to talk about work. I ate my breakfast in bed and was just about to get up and dress when the woman came in again. She locked the door and gathered up my clothes. Then she went out and locked the door. I was horrified. But still I didn’t quite understand. When I began to look around I discovered the only window was a skylight in the ceiling. The walls were thick—the door heavy. Then I realized I was a captive. I wrapped a blanket round me. It seemed a long time before I heard any noise. Then I heard voices outside the door. It was a young man that entered—a well-dressed, smooth-faced chap, good-looking except for his eyes. They were hot, like molten metal. He carried a thin shiny whip in his hand. He talked sweet—I forget his words—tried to get fresh, and when I flung him off he cut me across the leg with the whip. . . . Look here.”

Whereupon the girl, now pale and earnest in her story, dropped the slipper off her right foot and let the blanket fall from her knees. She pulled up the pajamas Lynn had lent her and showed a shapely leg with a cruel red welt marring its white beauty.

Lynn bit his tongue to keep back a wrathful curse and could only stare in amazement and anger.

“That cut hurt so terribly I fell right down on the floor,” resumed the girl, once more lifting the blanket over her knees. “He would have struck me again, surely, when another man entered. He was older and had a face like a hawk. His right hand was in his pocket, and he stuck it out at the younger fellow. ‘Beat it!’ he said. As the first man ran out a third man came in. He was not young and somehow he was different. He looked only at my face. ‘It’s the girl I want, Bellew,’ he said. ‘She’s the one I saw brought off the bus. . . .’ Bellew said, ‘Cost you ten grand, Ben Sneed,’ ‘Listen, hophead,’ replied Sneed, and his voice cut like a blade, ‘I’ll pay the ten grand, but right now—and take her away as soon as I can.’

“I remember every word they spoke. And I saw how Bellew stood with that pocket of his pointed toward Sneed. He had a gun in it, because I’d seen that in the movies. . . . ‘Bellew, I’ll talk turkey with you,’ Sneed said, cold as ice. ‘You lock this girl in here. You can go with me while I dig up that ten grand.’ ‘Ben you’re not the big shot in this burg,’ snarled Bellew. ‘You’re only a booze peddler. This is my racket.’ ‘Yes,’ said Sneed, ‘this racket is yours, all right, along with other dirty rackets, one of which is hijacking my trucks. I’m wise to you. And one more blow like that will be curtains for you and all of your gang. It’s not my way to talk turkey with men like you. That’s on account of this girl. . . . Come on, now, scram.’

“They left the room,” whispered Anne Vandergrift, moistening her lips. “I was alone. I don’t know whether the time dragged or flew. But the room began to get dark. I knew the sun had set. It grew night. I could only wait and pray. After a while I heard loud voices—footsteps. I listened. The woman was being dragged up the stairs. More men came running up the stairs. A fight followed. Blows, curses! I found myself free and stumbled down a stairway that opened into an alley. From there I got on the main street. I ran as fast as I could, holding the blanket round me. At first someone followed me, I was sure. But I got away—up that side street—where I found your car. I tried to start it, but couldn’t. I only had enough strength to crawl in the back and hide. . . . That’s all, Mr. Weston—and here I am.”

She sat back in the rocker, pale and breathless from her recital, her gaze intent upon Lynn. He saw that her eyes were unusually large and gray-green in color. She had nut-brown hair, curly and disheveled, with glints of a lighter shade in it. Her face was cast in a mold that would have been beautiful even without expression or glow. Her eyes were wide apart under level brows. Cheek and chin and neck all merged in a perfect contour without line or blemish, and a faint blue tracery of veins showed through the pearly skin.

“Some story!” Lynn exclaimed huskily. “You had a lucky break! . . . Let me find you pencil and paper so you can write out that list before you go to bed.”

“Won’t it look strange—you buying all these woman’s things?”

“I’ll get a woman to do it.”

“What will she think?”

“By George! I’ll have to fix that somehow. Because I want to find a job for you over at the supply camp. I’ll puzzle it out. . . . Slip out of that coat, please. I’ll need it. And I’ll take this blanket you brought with you. Go to bed now and sleep. You’ll be warm—and safe.”

She stood up to comply with his request, and despite his ill-fitting pajamas she presented a picture he would not soon forget.

“And you—you’ll be where you can hear me?”

“Just outside.”

“Won’t you freeze?”

“I’ll be okay. Let’s see now. I’m on the job from nine until five. I’ll have to come in early, start you a fire and get the list and beat it to camp. Maybe I can get an hour or two off. Then after work I’ll see you. . . . Good night, Anne Vandergrift.”

She murmured an inaudible reply, and he felt her eyes on him as he saw to the stove, and then as he backed toward the door he looked up to see her earnest, unutterably grateful face.

Lynn went out to get in the car, and wrapping the blanket round his legs he slid down to rest and think, if not to sleep. After a few minutes the light went out in the cabin. A dull rattle and roll of wheels, with an occasional roar, filled Lynn’s ears. The immediate problem concerning this girl did not seem to present any particular obstacle. He could place her in one of the boarding houses over at camp and take care of her till he had found work for her. Boulder Dam was known to try all the workers who applied. But what concerned Lynn was these damned racketeers. Since his advent at Las Vegas he had heard gossip about them. They were princes of crime. They had a system of extortion the laymen could not understand. If the little booze-peddling agents had money to burn what vast sums Ben Sneed must command! If he offered ten thousand dollars to Bellew for this singularly attractive and innocent girl he would pay ten times that amount. These men carried on their nefarious trades with no regard for the law whatsoever. For them there was no law. Their rivalries, jealousies, greeds, had them continually at each others’ throats.

Pondering over this serious phase of the situation Lynn fell asleep. Late in the night he awoke, cramped and cold, and shivered and dozed and waited until daylight. Then he went to the gravel camp cook house and had his breakfast, filled his pockets with fruit and made some sandwiches. After that he hunted up his boss and asked for a little time off. The camp rules were strict, but he succeeded in his mission and then hurried back to his cabin.

When he entered, Anne was sound asleep. Lynn carried a basin of water and his shaving things outside, where he proceeded to break his usual routine. He had never shaved very often and never until after work. He was aware of this departure, but did not question it. When he got through, the sun burst rosy and bright over the Arizona mountains. Lynn went indoors again, not tiptoeing this time. But the girl did not stir. He rolled up the eastern canvas blind which let in the sun upon Anne’s face. Lynn was compelled to halt and gaze at her. Something more than a natural admiration stirred in him. How young, fresh, helpless, sad and lovely she looked in that rosy morning light! Lynn had to give her a little shake to awaken her.

The big eyes fluttered open. Shadows of slumber succeeded to shadows of doubt and fear. Her gaze flashed from Lynn round the cabin and back again. “Oh! Where am I? Who . . .”

“Wake up, Anne, and remember,” he said cheerily. “I’m the lucky guy who found you in his car last night. . . . Listen, I’ll lay a fire for you to start when you want to make a cup of coffee. Here’s some fruit and sandwiches, all I could swipe. Bar the door after I go out. My luxurious bathroom is in that compartment through the window there. . . . Where’s your list? Ah, there it is! It doesn’t appear long for a young lady at the moment absolutely dependent upon a Boulder Dam laborer’s pajama.”

“I don’t need—very much,” she faltered, and the color in her face was not all a sunrise flush.

“Okay. I’m off. You were hard to wake up. Sleep all day.”

“Will you be gone so long?”

“I have to work, you know, mysterious stranger. And drive in for your things after hours. So long. And don’t worry. It’s all right.”

Lynn hurried out, somewhat amused and puzzled at his feelings. He had been in haste to leave the cabin, yet he wanted to stay. Tincan appeared cantankerous that morning and did not want to get going. She was always presenting Lynn with new and intricate mechanical problems to solve. At last the engine thawed out, sputtered and roared. Once beyond the great dunes of gravel Lynn stepped on the gas and put the old tin horse to its best paces.

The spring morning must have been unusually beautiful. Lynn found the sunrise glamour on basin and range like rose-colored glasses to delight the eye. The hard picture of the desert appeared softened. Sage and greasewood, and bare swales of sand, and rolling ridges were crested with tints of fire. The Colorado flowed out of a red gap in the frowning walls and slid with ruddy gleam on toward the black canyon which still slept in somber shadow.

Lynn made the run up the grade to the main road in record time. Then he slowed for the turn down on the bench where Boulder City was in course of construction. It took vision to make of all the heaps of earth and piles of lumber, the bare skeletons of buildings rising like a denuded forest, the trucks roaring to and fro, the big steam shovels clanging, the action of workmen thick as a swarm of crawling bees, the acres of shacks and tents stretching far along the level—it took eyes to picture the shining and model city that was to become famous there.

A long street of stores terminated in the finished dormitories and the great dining house that took care of thousands of men. Lynn halted his hot car at the largest store.

After buying some food supplies and the list of clothes for Anne, he found upon applying for information that there were several hundred married men among the builders there, and they kept house in the little cabins that were being rapidly built for their accommodation. He was furnished with a list of names of those who would take a boarder. One of these was a pipe fitter named Brown, who lived with his wife in the camp at the gravel mills. Lynn drove back to the basin.

At ten o’clock he climbed the steel crane to relieve the engineer who had been put on his job. Lynn had graduated to this job by the hard apprenticeship he had served as a common laborer. And his job was to run one of the lofty carriages that swung the big tanks of graded sand and gravel from the huge piles to the freight cars which were loaded under the steel bridge. It was a job of concentration and precision. Lynn had to be alert all the time. The sand and gravel came in carloads from the pits of the river, were dumped from the high trestle into the mills, to come out cleaned, assorted, into the rounded glistening mounds, from which they were loaded again into freight cars and hauled down to the canyon, to the electric cement mill, most marvelous of Boulder Dam’s many magic machines.

Lynn took a nameless pride in the fact that he was a little cog in the vast system of wheels which must whirl ceaselessly for years, without ever a stop, until Boulder Dam was completed. How he had arrived at that stage he scarcely understood, unless the contrast from former toil and its accompanying pangs had developed it in him. That day, as the humming and roaring hours passed, he conceived the idea of having a hand at other and perilous jobs down in the canyon. The great diversion tunnels that were to carry the waters of the Colorado under the walls and around the dam, these haunted him, and the work had only begun. He wanted to ride one of the carriages that dropped a thousand feet down into the canyon, to perch like an eagle above it all and watch. He intended to be a driller, a dynamiter, a scaler, most perilous of all work on the dam, and lastly to rise to some competent and permanent job.

These plans coalesced and fixed in his mind that day, and he admitted that it was because Anne would be working at Boulder City and he wanted to be near her. It was just a kindness on his part, he thought, a desire to serve her and outwit those villains who trafficked in the souls and bodies of American girls.

That day turned out to be the most endless Lynn had ever spent there. But it wore to a close, and then he made for his car. Sunset burned in his eyes all the way to the construction camp.

At last he hauled up short before his dark cabin. He had not thought of it, but he should have expected it to be dark. The girl would hardly have risked turning on the lights in his absence. Lynn lifted out the big parcels of supplies and rapped on the door.

No response! He rapped again anxiously. Still there was no answer. She must be asleep. He tried the door and to his amazement it was unbarred. He went in, and called in a low voice. Then alarm seized Lynn. He flashed on the lights and in consternation saw the cabin was empty. No fire in the stove! His pajamas lay on the bed unfolded, as if hastily thrown there. Anne Vandergrift was gone.

“My God!” he thought. “Is it possible those thugs could work so quickly!”