Читать книгу Boulder Dam - Zane Grey - Страница 9

Bewildered, and suddenly sick with the conviction of catastrophe, Lynn absurdly searched the empty cabin with hopeful eyes. Then he flung aside the curtain that hung before the opening through the partition at the back. The little storeroom and woodshed were likewise empty.

“She’s gone!” he admitted, and spying the garments he had lent her and both his blankets and the one she had arrived in, he was further staggered. “Gone! Without a stitch on her! Good heaven, what’s to be made of this? . . . I’ll kill those crooks.”

Lynn sank in the old rocker and gazed blankly at the packages he had dropped to the floor. A cold sweat broke out all over him. He endeavored to still his agitation so that he could think what he must do. But it was futile. His grief and fury, and another emotion unfamiliar to him, would not be assuaged at the moment. He could not sit still. He got up to pace the floor. What had happened to Anne Vandergrift? Helpless before that one poignant query he could only reiterate it.

A rustle outside the open door brought Lynn upright. A white face appeared against the black background. It flashed across the threshold. Anne Vandergrift ran in with softly thudding feet. She closed the door and dropped the bar in place, then turned to come to him, her gray eyes unnaturally wide and bright.

“Anne! . . . You’re not gone? They didn’t get you?” Lynn burst out.

“No. But have I had a scare! Oh, I thought you’d never—never come,” she replied.

If the moment had not been so vital and compelling Lynn would have laughed at the girl’s ludicrous appearance. She looked lost in his fleece-lined coat, and she had donned a pair of his overalls and had tucked the bottoms in heavy woolen socks. She kicked off his loose slippers and then slipped out of the coat. Under it she had on his red blouse, which completely hid her femininity. But after a second glance at her flashing face and tumbling hair Lynn did not see anything else.

“I borrowed your clothes,” she said, her gravity breaking.

“So I see. You look—swell,” he rejoined haltingly and then flounced onto the chair as if weak in his relief.

“By George, but I’m glad you’re here safe.”

“You couldn’t be half as glad as I am.”

“I thought . . . Well, never mind. . . . How come, Anne—that I found you gone?”

“I slept almost all day,” she replied hurriedly. “When I got up I thought I’d better put on these. It was a good thing I did. I’d hardly got dressed when I saw a big car down by that long house across the road from the tents.”

“That’s the mess hall where we eat.”

“I saw men get out. There were five of them. Gangsters! Oh, I could recognize a gangster now in a burlap sack. They looked like wolves on the scent. Four of them went in. And the one who stayed by the car was Bellew.”

“Bellew!” ejaculated Lynn, leaping up.

“Yes. I knew him, even at that distance. I nearly dropped. All I could think of was to run and hide. I went out the back way—out into the brush—where I hid behind a rock. I was not able to see the car, but I could have seen it come down the road toward the cabin. It didn’t come. And after a while I lost some of my fright, but I stayed out there till I saw the light show from your window. I’d heard a car—a sputtering, rattling car which I thought was yours. But, believe me, I made sure it was you in here.”

“Anne, what was Bellew doing out here?” demanded Lynn.

“He was after me. He might have been on some other errand. That’s possible. But I felt he was after me.”

“What made you feel that way?”

“I—I don’t know. Only I saw him—I heard him. He wasn’t like a human being. He’s steel and—and flint. A terrible man! It made me weak just to know he was out there. . . . Mr. Weston, please—please don’t let him get me.”

“Cut the mister,” responded Lynn, gruff in his confoundment and apprehension. “My name’s Lynn. I fetched your things and some supper for both of us. But we’ll have to cook it.”

“I can cook,” she said seriously.

“I’ll build the fire and get some water in. Then I’ll go out and snoop around. I didn’t see any cars, only trucks as I drove in. . . . I wonder—had I better take you away tonight?”

“Oh, let me stay,” she pleaded wildly. She appeared terribly unstrung.

“That’d really be best. I didn’t have time to find you a boarding-house.”

“Lynn, why not let me stay here a—a little while. . . . Let me hide here till Bellew gives up searching?”

“Here! . . . In my cabin—with me?” exclaimed Lynn, aghast.

“Yes,” she importuned, her eyes gravely upon him. “You’re the only decent man I’ve met since I worked for Mr. Smith.”

“Thanks. . . . Say, L.A. must have been as bad to you as Shanghai,” returned Lynn, and he considered her suggestion a moment. It struck him singularly that he did not instantly repudiate the idea. But he nipped an insidious and pleasing temptation in the bud. “No, Anne, that wouldn’t do at all.”

“Why wouldn’t it—unless I’d impose upon you. But I could sleep in your woodshed—take care of your cabin.”

“I daresay you could, Gray Eyes,” he replied, regarding her with a growing realization that her personality equaled her charm. He could not help contrasting her with Helen Pritchard, whose memory only an extraordinary allusion could invoke. “Suppose you were caught here.”

“I wouldn’t care—for myself.”

“Well, I would. It’d ruin your good name.”

“With whom? Some of these workingmen? Possibly your boss or some officials? But I’m unknown here and alone in the whole world.”

“Anne! It’s not the thought of myself that makes me disapprove. Or lack of—of feeling for you. It’s principle. Lord knows, I’m not much. I’m a failure myself—and also alone in the world. But I won’t risk disgracing you.”

“You’re risking more by taking me to Boulder City. More than my life! . . . That Bellew will find me. He will. . . . Oh, I’d kill myself the minute I had a chance. But those beasts do not give a girl a chance even for that.”

“I could drive you to a railroad and put you on a train,” he replied, unable to meet the eloquent beseeching eyes.

“That would be as bad. Where can I go? What can I do? There’s no work these days. I’d be worse off than when I tramped the streets of Los Angeles.”

Lynn bent over to light the fire. He was in a tight spot, and he felt himself yielding. He ought to have been glad to shelter and protect this girl, and he wondered what besides his thought of her good name was at the root of his reluctance. Having lighted the fire he slowly got up to find her close beside him, waiting in a suspense that made him blurt out, “Anne, you’re distractingly pretty!”

“What of it?” she cried, almost in desperation. “I can’t help that. . . . Oh, I hate my face—all of me! If it weren’t for that I’d have missed this horrible experience.”

“Yeah? Well, any other girl having your beauty wouldn’t hate it, believe me. . . . I’ll go out now, Anne, and have a look around. Fasten the door. I’ll be back in half an hour. Meanwhile you get supper.”

Lynn put on the fleece-lined coat and strode out. The night was dark and cloudy, with a damp breeze off the river. Before he had gone halfway to the mess hall he realized he would have to give in to Anne’s proposition, at least for the moment. The poor kid was so frightened that she wanted to stay near the one man who had been kind and brotherly to her. Lynn persuaded himself anew that he had not refused on his own account. It really was the best and safest way out of the difficulty for the time being. And once having submitted to the idea he got something out of it, a warm, fine sense of another opportunity to prove to be what he had once hoped he might be, a relief not to take her away to a sleepless fear. What if some of the laborers discovered her in his cabin, or the boss, or even Mr. Carewe himself? The security for Anne would be sufficient until the evil hour came.

The doorman, Duncan, a cheery Scotchman, hailed Lynn: “Where have you been, me boy, these days?”

“Been to Vegas, and I’m batching it at my shack. Anybody asking for me, Dunc?”

“Lots of visitors today, but none for you, Weston.”

“Do you remember a big car driving up around four this afternoon? Bunch of young men?”

“Shure. They had dinner. Gave me a dollar for showing them around.”

“What’d they ask you?”

“Nothin’ particular.”

“Did you see them leave in their car?”

“I did that. And watched it. Their driver shure balled the jack.”

“Dunc, I want a mattress and a couple of blankets. Mine are not so hot. Guess I drew some old stuff when we moved down from the dormitory. Where’ll I get them?”

“There’s plenty of unoccupied tents since Boles took off that bunch of hands. Out at the end of camp. Help yourself and don’t say nothin’!”

Lynn walked around before he went in search of the needed articles. Over by the mill the clouds of pale dust hung over the noisy scene, obscuring the electric lights. The roar went on unceasingly, and to make out the swinging of carriages, the lifting giant arms of the cars and the looming through the gray shroud of huge trucks, all without a visible man in sight, gave the place an uncanny magic. Presently he hurried back to the camp, and after some search he located an unused tent from which he appropriated a mattress and blankets. These he carried to his cabin.

Lynn took care to go around to the side window and call low to Anne. She let him in, her eyes shining upon him as she grasped the meaning of the burden he carried.

“Oh, Lynn, you’ll let me stay!”

“Yes, I crawl. . . . Lord, I hope I’ll never be sorry. But I guess its the best thing for a few days—till I can get some woman to take you in.”

Her mute gratitude added to the thought-provoking mood she had fastened upon Lynn. He carried the mattress and blankets back into the shed, where he found room to make his bed. The fact that only a hanging piece of canvas would separate him from the cabin did not now disturb his equilibrium. He was astounded to find that she had put on the dress he had fetched from Boulder City. In fact upon his return from his half hour at the mill he had come in without noticing that she had changed. He had seen only her face, her eyes, her look of gladness.

“Say, but you’re a peach!” he broke out, in sincere admiration. “No wonder Bellew and Sneed fell for you!”

“Oh, Lynn—don’t,” she faltered, with a blush that was not all shame. “Don’t spoil any—any nice speech with the names of those men. . . . Does it fit me? The shoes do—and the stockings are all right, if they’ll stay up.”

She turned round anxiously for his benefit. Lynn, gazing at the trim form, and remembering that he had seen her only in a blanket, and his pajamas and then outrageously clad in his work clothes, wondered if that was why she burst upon his sight such a perfect beauty of a girl.

“Anne, I went to a great college for three years,” he said, “one noted for being the stamping ground of the swellest girls in California. Even in Hollywood they don’t show any more stunning girls, though they have plenty of them. But you’ve got any girl I ever saw there skinned to a frazzle, if you know what I mean.”

“Supper is ready,” she replied, with heightened color, “if you’ll help me find things to serve it on.”

Lynn’s resourcefulness was put to a full test. Tin cans and chips of clean wood were requisitioned. They sat down on the two box seats with one plate, one cup, one knife and fork and spoon between them. The tragic shadow that had hovered over Anne seemed to lift for the hour. She was young, and she responded to the situation almost with gaiety. Lynn felt her unconscious leaning toward a something stronger than a deep gratefulness for his help and protection. He was the one who sustained embarrassment. Many had been the bright eyes to look at him across luxurious tables at the Roosevelt, the Biltmore, the Coconut Grove and places too numerous to recall, but he had never met eyes that could compare with these gray-green ones of Anne Vandergrift’s, that shone like stars upon him here in this dingy bare shack. The situation seemed incredible, yet while Anne forgot her peril and revealed herself as a simple and unsophisticated girl, glad to be dependent upon him for shelter and protection, Lynn found it stingingly real and sweet.

After the meal they turned out the light and stole through the woodshed to the back, where they walked into the cool, windy hall of the desert. Lynn said it would be safe for her to walk there after dark, but she must not go outdoors during daylight nor risk being seen at a window. Anne seemed to grow quiet out under the stars. He saw her tear off a bit of sage and press it to her lips and nostrils. The basin floor was hard-packed gravel covered with tufts of sage and clumps of greasewood far apart. Lynn led around back of the mills, across the railroad tracks to the bank of the river.

“This is the Colorado, Anne. Some river, believe me!” said Lynn. “Listen now.”

Up from the gloomy gleam of water came a gurgle and murmur that was musical as all running water is, but from the bend beyond, the current roared low, and from the black gap below even the silence seemed sullen, waiting, forbidding. It was so broad there, too, that Lynn could not see the opposite bank. In the starlight it flowed on ponderously, majestically, supreme in its power.

“It makes me afraid,” whispered Anne.

“Me too, now. At first I didn’t get that. Funny how this river grows on one. I’ve seen the Columbia up in Oregon, which is much larger. But it did not affect me. This Colorado is red in color, one third sand, and it runs with strange currents, whirlpools, holes and bulges that cannot be gauged or explained. It’s not like any other river. I studied engineering at college, and this job fascinates me. I can’t grasp it. I think Carewe, the chief engineer, must have a colossal egotism, a monumental gall besides his genius, to imagine he can stop the Rio Colorado.”

“I’m cold,” said Anne, shivering. “I don’t know whether or not it’s the breeze, or the river, or something. Let’s walk.”

They turned to face the flare of lights against which the dark spiderlike skeleton structures stood out and the clouds of dust rolled up like smoke. Presently they were near enough to hear the din of a vast mechanical system handling tons of sand and gravel every minute. They half circled the mill and camp back to Lynn’s cabin.

“Just as well not to turn on the lights,” he said. But he replenished the fire in the stove and drew up the one chair for Anne, who stretched cold hands to the heat. After a little while he could see her dimly. And it seemed to him that he was dreaming.

“Anne, I’m not very practical,” he said in low voice. “It only just occured to me that you’ll need things a girl needs. And I must buy cooking utensils and tableware.”

“I thought of it—and how I am ever to pay you back.”

“Never mind that. . . . I’ve an idea. Tomorrow night I’ll drive you in to Boulder. You can buy what you need at one store while I’ll go to another. Sue, the clerk I know, goes off at six o’clock. So we run very little risk.”

“Lynn, I—I can’t tell you how I feel—what—” she faltered. “But if you only could know my worry and disgust for weeks in L.A.—and then—the tortures I suffered when that woman took my clothes—and last my fright . . . This cabin seems like heaven. Every little bit I wake up and wonder if it’s true.”

“Well, I’ve a faint idea what you’ve been through,” Lynn rejoined sympathetically. “We can put this stunt over for a little, if we’re careful. Then, would you let me send you back to L.A. or Frisco, or some Arizona town where Bellew and Sneed couldn’t find you?”

“If you wish, of course, I’ll have to go. But . . .”

“But what?” queried Lynn, as she hesitated.

“I’ll never meet anyone again so—so kind as you,” she said.

“Oh, nonsense,” blurted out Lynn. “Sure you will. At that, I never heard before I was so kind. I was a flop with the girls on the campus. . . . Anne, it’s not that you—I want to get rid of you. Honestly, this situation is intriguing, to say the least. You’re a peach. Circumstances have thrown you with me. Well, what kind of a fellow would I be to take advantage of it?”

“I understand you—but I’m afraid I’m pretty ignorant. . . . My mother died when I was little. My father never told me anything. He kept me in—never let me meet anyone. And when I came out to work for Mr. Smith the men and boys I met at business school and his office annoyed me. I might have liked them if I’d have known how to take them. But I didn’t. I always wanted to be a boy. But I’m a girl—homeless, friendless, helpless. That’s why I hate the thought of your sending me away. Still I couldn’t ask you to take care of me indefinitely.”

“I might be as rotten to her as any other man,” he replied somberly, as if speaking to himself.

In the dim fire-lit obscurity of the cabin Lynn saw her big eyes, like haunting holes in a blanket, fix upon him intently.

“I don’t believe—that,” she whispered.

“You don’t?” he rejoined thickly.

“No. I shall not.”

“But you have no idea of what kind of a fellow I am.”

“Oh, yes I have. You’re just—just splendid.”

“Anne, my doubt of myself is only bitterness. Someday I’ll tell you my little tale of failure. I used to grovel in morbid brooding. Hard work has almost cured that. Honest to God, I’d like to be good and splendid. I’d like to be worthy of a helpless girl like you trusting herself alone with me in this camp shack out on the desert. But I don’t trust myself. . . . Suppose I should come home drunk some Saturday night?”

“I’d be sorry—but not afraid.”

“Oh hell! What am I talking about? I won’t come home drunk.”

Anne leaned in the dusk to press his hands. Then as if divinely startled she flashed up to go to the window. Lynn hunched over the stove, hugging to his breast the fine emotion she roused in him. He must cling to that. Anne Vandergrift might be another of the influences come to help him rise.

“I’ll hit the hay now,” he said. “I’ll be gone tomorrow before you are awake. Out the back door, which I’ll lock. Don’t forget to be careful. I’ll be here by five. We’ll get supper and beat it for Boulder City. Good night, Anne.”

She murmured in reply, came softly back to him, as if to repeat her former impulsive action. But she checked it. The last ruddy glow of the fire shone upon her face and the speaking shadows where her eyes hid.

Lynn left her standing there and sought his bed behind the partition and the woodpile. The place was not half bad. He would be as snug as a bug in a rug. It was almost like camping out, a land of sport he had known so little and would have loved. Mice ran over his bed, friendly inmates of his cabin he had been fond of feeding. The distant hum of the mill filled his ears. Before he fell asleep he realized that the events of the last few days had incalculably heightened the spirit which had had its inception in his contact with Boulder Dam.

Work next day was something for Lynn to eat up. He was on the job every instant, keen as a whip, careful as always but of swifter and better judgment in swinging and emptying his loads. He felt glad that he did not have to part with this engine for a while. Before he had any idea of the nearness of the shift the whistle blew, and he was free.

The instant Anne opened the door and he met her eyes in the sunset light he knew she had been waiting for him. And there came a quick return of the pleasurable excitation that he had now to associate with her presence.

“Let’s step on it, Anne,” he said gaily. “It’ll be dark in half an hour. And you know we have a heavy date.”

“The day has been so long,” she replied, with a smile warming the wanness from her face.

“Anything doing to worry you?” he asked quickly.

“No. . . . It’s gone.”

The two of them speedily dispatched what was left of the food Lynn had brought back from Boulder. Dusk found them ready for the drive in, Anne quiet and intense with emotions that must have been happy, Lynn gay and voluble with a levity quite foreign to him. Nevertheless he was exceedingly vigilant about getting Anne out unseen by any laborers. As he drove by the mills he made her slide down in the seat until they had passed the zone.

“Sit up now, Gray Eyes,” he said.

And silently he thought he should kick himself into an appreciation of this rare treasure the winds of chance had blown into his life. Lynn’s gaiety suffered an eclipse with that thought. He drove on, giving the car all it could stand, keenly aware of the clean-cut pale profile close to his shoulder. In less than half an hour he turned across the main road into the one street of Boulder City that was finished. It was Sunday night, but just the same as Saturday or any other night. Boulder Dam activity never ceased. Night was the same as day. He parked the car before a dark building far down the street.

“Here we are, Anne. Swell ride, wasn’t it? And I once owned a Lincoln and had a girl who fitted the upholstery. . . . Hop out, child. This will be duck soup for us. . . . Take this money. There’s your store—five doors up. The big well-lighted store. Mine is here on this side—the one with the red sign. I’ll be in there if you don’t find me here in the car. As you belong to the feminine class you’ll be longest. Ha! Ha! So you can expect me to be waiting. . . . A last word. If any young men accost you—which is a cinch will happen—you be deaf and dumb! Get that!”

“I may not be deaf but I’ll be dumb,” she returned with an adorable smile. As she started she wheeled to whisper anxiously: “Don’t wait very long for me. Come after me!”

Lynn watched the graceful shape move swiftly across the street. Would she ever again be free of fear? What blackness of consciousness must have been forced upon Anne! Lynn cursed under his breath. If he ever got his hands on this Bellew it would be too late for one thug to pull that pocket gun stunt.

It did not take Lynn long to purchase an assortment of utensils, tablecloth, paper napkins and a generous supply of canned goods and vegetables, fruit, butter and bread for at least a week. These he carried out to the car and stowed away in the back seat. Then he paced up and down, close to the building, so that the numerous passers-by would not get a good look at him. Lynn regretted that his build, if not his looks, rendered him conspicuous.

Anne did not come. Lynn waited fifteen minutes, and that, counting the time he had taken for his purchases, seemed to be quite enough for Anne to accomplish her errand. But Lynn held himself in hand for another quarter of an hour. Then he made for the big store.

As he looked in the wide door of the well-lighted store he saw Anne laden with packages attempting to get by two young men. At that moment one of them, a tanned grinning boy like hundreds Lynn had seen, drew back with a parting shot to his comrade.

“Snowballs, Bo. Nothin’ doin’.”

But the other, a handsome bold-eyed fellow, persisted without the ingratiating gaiety that had set well upon the younger man.

“Where’d you spring from, Lovely?” he asked. “I never saw you before. Let me help you carry those bundles?”

Anne appeared not to hear him, but her gray eyes belied that with a darkening flush. As she swerved to get aside, the young man, apparently by accident, knocked some of her parcels from her arms. With profuse apologies he made as if to help Anne gather them up when Lynn intervened.

“Fade, you masher!” he said, and he shoved the fellow back with a hand that must have impressed its latent power. “I might take a crack at you.”

“No offense, sir,” returned the other, red in the face. “I was only offering to help the lady.”

Lynn turned to Anne, who appeared in the act of rising with her array of parcels. But now her poise was destroyed by a vivid blush.

“Tough luck, Sis, that you can’t enter a store without running into these ——” Lynn said and bent to relieve Anne of her burden. As they went out Lynn’s sharp ears registered some disturbing remarks.

“Bo, that was Biff Weston, the old All-American fullback,” rang out an excited voice. “I’ve seen him here before. . . . Did you get off lucky? I’m telling you.”

Anne heard Lynn’s caustic imprecation, and as they drew beyond the store she looked up. “I heard what he said. Biff Weston. What’d they call you that for?”

“I’m afraid I had a bad rep for biffing fellows. It sure was hard to keep from handing that guy one. But, Anne, please overlook it. I didn’t want to draw attention to you.”

“Oh! I wonder. Would I have been distressed if—if you—biffed him—as you call it? . . . Oh, dear, it makes me miserable. It enrages me!”

“What does, Anne?”

“I can’t go anywhere. I can’t poke my darned face outdoors that I’m not followed or annoyed or insulted—or—or kidnapped.”

“Child, if you were older and vainer you’d get a tremendous kick out of that. You’ve got what every woman would give her soul for. You’ve got what Helen of Troy had.”

“And that was—Lynn?” asked Anne, stumbling along, as she tilted up her head.

“A lovely face and beautiful body. It’s a tough break, Anne. But I confess I wouldn’t change them if I could.”

“Well, I would,” Anne averred stoutly.

Anne’s bundles on top of those that Lynn had deposited in the back of the car filled it completely.

“Anne, what’d you have done that night if my car had been as full as it is now?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Anne wailed at the very thought.

“Would we dare go . . . No, we wouldn’t. Anne, you’re playing he—havoc with my will power. . . . Get in, girl. Aren’t you going back with me? Home? . . . Don’t sit so faraway. It’ll be cold, and you have my fleece-lined coat.”

“I’m afraid to be happy,” she whispered to herself. And all the rest of the way down into the basin and across to and beyond the camp she was silent.

That evening passed somewhat like the preceding one except that Lynn did not take Anne for a walk. The many packages lay unopened on the floor and table.

Next afternoon Lynn rushed back to the cabin, eager to see Anne again and to do some wood chopping and other chores. He had gotten by the first happy circumstance, but no more, when Anne called his attention to a big shiny touring car coming down the road.

“Visitors. They’re always butting in,” muttered Lynn. The car came on to the mess hall, where it halted, evidently to allow the chauffeur to ask directions. Then it came on by the tents, straight for the lonesome cabin beyond.

“It’s coming here,” Anne whispered with agitation.

“No! Who’d want to see me? . . . But by thunder, it’s come past the tents! . . . Anne, hide in the woodshed.”

Presently Lynn could no longer see the car from his window. But he heard it come on and stop. The snap of a car door and the sound of a girl’s quick high-pitched voice sent Lynn’s heart thumping into his throat.

Then followed a nervous rapping on his door. Lynn pulled it open with a sweep. A fashionably attired young woman, with blond hair waving superbly under her little hat and blue eyes darkly expectant, stood before his threshold.

“Biff! How perfectly fine you look—you big bronzed giant,” she said with a dazzling smile.

“Helen!”