CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The sun had long since sunk beneath the sheen of the ocean and one by one the distant stars pricked sharp and clear through the azure veil that made the world a unit in the depths of space. From their spanless heights, moonlight and starlight plunged like hissing shafts of water and, like shafts of water falling on the softly resisting air, broke in diffused mantles that half concealed and half revealed the softened contours of the slumbering world. The gently falling radiance disclosed no detail of the swelling plains below, yet each tumid roll, crowned with its aureole of lustrous light voiced with tongueless words an everlasting peace.
Winston was busy until far into the night. There was a strange sense of oppression as he passed from point to point of the now completed dam. The machinery that had for so long a time been pulsing with life, was now stilled. There were no banked fires under the boilers, to speak of rest for the labor of the morrow, for the labor was completed. In the laborer's camp, the men were packing their few belongings for an early start in the morning. Some were busy touching up the machines for their long rest. These were not to be dismantled at once, but were to wait a more convenient time. The lanterns of the men twinkled through clumps of mountain pine where the shadows lay thick and deep; then faded to a dim point in the white moonlight. The occasional clink of a hammer, and the voices of the men drifted across the water, softened by distance. It was funereal, after all! And he had looked forward to these very sounds with an impatient thrill. Now it was all completed. The last stone of the dam had been laid, from the dam to the terminal canal every gate had been put in, every trestle had been built, every tunnel had been driven. Tomorrow, with the men, he would go over every foot of the canal for a final inspection. If this was satisfactory, and he knew it would be, in two days the gates would be opened and the water turned into the canal.
Winston was standing on the apron of the dam looking out over the great reservoir that in the moonlight lay like a plate of burnished steel between the pine-clad granite hills that dipped steeply into the water. The dam was already filled to the brim, and the full volume of the Sangre de Cristo was sweeping through the weir and plunging into the cañon below. The sights and sounds only deepened Winston's oppression. His work was done; the work he loved so well. The future held nothing so bright as the past had held. Only, in the future, was there to be the dull routine of office work, the laying off of orange groves, the running out of ditches that would lead the water to them; simple work this that any tyro who could set a level and read an angle, could perform. No intricate problems that absorbed every energy of an active mind, that blotted out consciousness of time and self in delicious oblivion of existence; no obstacles of nature that lifted a forbidding hand "thus far and no farther;" no thrill of determined battle that rushed against these obstacles and bore them down. His field had been sown; the harvest was waiting for him to thrust in and reap, what? Money; that was all. Money that would only intensify his consciousness of an existence that like rank vegetation throve aimlessly only to rot and thrive again. What would love, even Helen's love, mean to him? Would that, assured, satisfy him, or would it, possessed, be to him like his work that was done? What had drawn them together but an intense, absorbing, common interest?
This mood was strange to Winston. He could, and did, reason himself out of it; but its influence remained. In his cabin, which was his office as well, he wrapped his blankets around him and lay down to sleep.
Helen's night was sleepless. She had retired early, not to sleep, as she knew, but that in solitude she might try to think out more clearly her course of action. Her admiration for Winston had increased a thousand-fold, if that were possible; and he had offered her his love to crown it all, and she had seemed to weigh it in her hands, as a Jew might bite a piece of gold to try its worth. She had done this when every fiber of her heart cried out against it, demanding that she should render to Ralph his own. Why had she turned even seemingly against Ralph, against herself?
Only that she might do penance for her sin. Was not that it after all? But she was innocent of any intentional wrong. Was it not selfishness, this penance which she was imposing upon herself? Was she not compelling Ralph to bear a part of her punishment, demanding that he wait in doubt till she could declare herself purified? Was it not pride and selfish pride which demanded that through Elijah's redemption she should be declared free?
Then a thought came to her which quickened every nerve to painful throbs. Was it not worse than selfishness, was it not a crime? Was not this shielding of Elijah a crime against others, innocent? What if she should fail? Her heart was beating with great, painful throbs. She thought of what Ralph had told her as he had showed her the weak points of the dam. "If the waste weir should be choked, in a few hours the dam would be gone." He had pointed out to her just how simple a thing it was to wedge the gates and to choke the weir. And she had listened, and to protect herself, – that was the pitiful part of it, – to protect herself, she had warned him to be on his guard. She began dressing herself with trembling fingers. She would go to him and tell him all. Let him think what he might, she would tell him all, unsparing of herself. She parted the flaps of the tent and stepped out into the night. Outside, she paused for a moment. The soft gray of the moonlight, lying white on the silent tents, the sighing of the pines, the distant, bell-like notes of calling wood-birds, spoke to her of peace that stilled her acute fears. Then she became conscious of another sound; a throbbing, muffled roar that made the night air tremulous.
She changed the direction of her steps. On the bridge that spanned the waste weir, she looked down on the swirling waters that rushed over the floor of the weir. For a moment she paused, then went out over the foot-board of the dam. The gate house rose black from the waters that lapped against the dam. Inside the gate house, every wheel and gear was in place. Once more in the open air, her tense feelings relaxed. She laughed at her fears. Her resolution hardened. In the morning she would tell Ralph everything. The relaxation from the strain of the night induced a sleep that kept her late in bed. When she joined the others, Ralph had gone. The party were to camp that night at the mouth of the cañon, where he would meet them the following day for lunch. Helen was disappointed. At first she thought of riding ahead and hunting out Ralph, but she knew him, and the idea of overtaking him was absurd. She restrained herself with as much patience as she could command, but her senses were on the alert.
The ponies were saddled and bridled, waiting for them when breakfast was over. Helen was surprised at this. She well knew the spirit of mañana, which, with the lesser virtues had come down to the descendants of the Spanish cavaliers. She was therefore surprised at the alert, beady eyes of the swarthy Mexicans, in place of the dreamy lassitude to which she was accustomed. The surprise was ephemeral and soon passed away; but she was to recall it later.
The following morning when the party was again under way, Helen rode up to Uncle Sid.
"Uncle Sid, you ride down to the camp with the crowd, and I'll meet you there at noon. I'm going this way." She pointed to a trail which branched off from the main line.
"What for?" Uncle Sid asked bluntly.
Helen could hardly answer satisfactorily to herself much less to Uncle Sid.
"Oh," she replied, "because I want to. Won't that do?"
"You'd better come along with us," Uncle Sid protested. "You might meet some more dried beef."
"I'm not afraid; besides I'm mounted now." Then they parted.
The trail which Helen had chosen, followed the canal. For a distance it was squeezed tight between the walls of the steep-sloped, cedar-tufted barranca. The bed was dry now; but when the water should be turned on, this trail would be impassable. A little further, and the gorge opened into a deep arroyo which the canal bridged, then turned and followed the opposite bank.
Helen had followed this trail for two reasons. In the first place, she wanted to be alone. Then, this was the trail over which she had ridden with Ralph when he had first shown her his work. The head of the arroyo was clad with a thicket of cedars, so dense as to be almost impenetrable. As the last foot-fall sounded on the bridge, Helen's pony halted abruptly, and with swelling nostrils and forward pointing ears, whinnied a short, sharp challenge. There was an answering whinny, and Helen's eyes followed the direction of the sound. Almost hidden by the dull leaves of the cedars, was a draggled looking pony, saddled, with the reins trailing on the ground. At first, Helen hardly noticed the figure squatting limply beside the pony. His dishevelled clothing was stuck full of gray needles, like those scattered on the ground, whence the figure had evidently just risen to a sitting posture. The man raised his eyes and Helen's heart stood still. In the gray, drawn face, the dull, lusterless eyes, she recognized Elijah Berl. As she looked wonderingly at him, in spite of the knowledge of his misdeeds, a great wave of womanly pity swept over her heart. A single glance at the pitiful figure, with the knowledge that had come to her from her associations with him, told her the struggle he had lived through, a struggle that had unbalanced his reason and left him lower than the beasts of the field.
"Oh, Elijah! Why weren't you at the dam?" Her voice was tremulous, in spite of her efforts to control it.
The answer to her words was a vacant, uncomprehending stare.
"Every one missed you," she continued. "Every one was asking for you." Again she paused, eagerly searching her soul for words that would bring the light of reason to the listless eyes.
There was no response, save a dropping of the dull eyes, an aimless picking of the fingers at the needles that clung to his garments.
Helen reined her pony close to the abutment of the bridge, and dismounting, trailed the bridle on the stones. She trembled at what she was about to do, but the spirit of atonement forced her on. Another moment, and she was beside the limp figure, one hand resting on the bowed shoulders.
"Elijah, listen! I have something to tell you. Listen, for you must not miss a single word. Go back to Ysleta, go back to Amy. You are free. Mr. Seymour – "
At the name, Elijah sprang to his feet, his hands clenched and knotted, his eyes shining with maniacal rage.
"Curse him!" he shouted, "Curse him, curse him! Curse them all for a pack of ravening wolves! He has done it; they have done it! The Philistines be upon them! They be of them who would gather where I have strewn, who would reap of the harvest I have sown. The day of wrath is upon them, the consuming anger of a terrible God. Listen!" He seized Helen's hand, crushing it in his fierce grasp, as he bent forward toward the cañon of the Sangre de Cristo. His eyes were strained, his lips parted.
Helen was half conscious of a sudden silence. The roaring waters were stilled. She was beginning to comprehend the reason and the import of the hushed waters. Elijah dropped the clasped hand; he stood triumphant, his head thrown back, his eyes raised to the cloudless sky.
"It is done! 'I will tell you what I have done for my vineyard; I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and I will break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns. Hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it!'"
The words were chanted, rather than spoken; chanted with the resonant triumph of him who has fought and won. He yet stood, with clenched, outspread hands; but the color was dying from the drawn cheeks, the fierce light fading from the gleaming eyes. Then he stood as before, dull, listless, apathetic. The momentary fire had burned itself to ashes.
Helen stood with every sense strained to catch the full import of Elijah's changing moods. What was he about to do? What had he done? She must prevent his purpose if possible, nullify it if – this was not to be thought of now. She must read, and read quickly, the flickering light of reason that burned fitfully through the chaos of his soul. She was certain that reason had departed; was it beyond recall? She must try. Precious as she felt the moments to be, she must yet try. She took one of Elijah's hands in her own firm grasp.
"You don't understand, Elijah. He is not your enemy." She dared not use Seymour's name again. "He is your friend. He and Ralph have sent out men to find you; they are searching for you now. They are looking for you to tell you that the money has been restored. They say that – " Helen hesitated, but the pause was imperceptible, "you did the best thing, the best thing for the company, in buying the Pico ranch; that you saw farther than they did."
Helen was hesitating mentally, but her words went on without pause. She was watching intently for a sign of comprehension in the stolid, passionless face. With her last words, the light came again to the eyes she was searching. Not the fierce passion-blaze of unchained fury, only the peaceful glow of returning reason. He spoke slowly, stumblingly, as one waking from a dream.
"They know now, – that I was right, that – I did right?" The eyes again wavered between intelligence and stupor.
"Yes, Elijah, they know now."
His voice was querulous.
"Why didn't they trust me? After all I had done; why didn't they trust me?"
"They do trust you now. Come back, Elijah. All is forgiven."
Elijah's reply was again querulous, almost peevish.
"Why didn't they trust me? Why didn't they trust me before it was too late?" The bitterness dropped from voice and manner. His voice was loud and terrible. "Don't you hear me? It is too late! Listen! It is too late! Don't you know what this means? Listen! The roar of the water has stopped! Don't you know what this means? The flood gates are closed. In a few minutes, in a few hours, the reservoir will fill, and the water will go over the dam. Don't you know what that means? It is too late!" He paused! there was a strained look in his eyes. Then he sprang into action.
"Is it too late? My God! Is it too late?"
He was in the saddle, the pony's head pointing up the cañon, his flanks shrinking from the pounding stirrups, and from the lashings of the bridle thongs.
Helen watched the flying horseman. For a moment she was struck motionless with uncomprehending terror. What did it all mean? What could she do? Oh, if Ralph were only here! For a moment she stood; then she was on her pony and riding hard toward the camping place and Ralph. Through scrubby sage and cedar, stumbling in burrows, shying at stinging cactus, her horse was driving madly on. Her thoughts were all on finding Ralph; but mingling with these, were the beady eyes of the alert Mexicans, and the silenced waters of the Sangre de Cristo. These had a meaning for her now.
From the summit of a low ridge, she saw below her the camp of the party for which she was so eagerly watching. One tall figure she singled out and kept her eyes upon him. He turned. She could almost see his questioning eyes as he strode out from his companions. He was near enough to hear her cry —
"Oh, Ralph! The dam! The dam! Elijah is at the dam!"
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Winston asked no questions. Whatever else there might be to learn, could be learned at the dam with no waste of precious time. As to what time meant, Winston was fully alive. As to what effect the constant, lonely ferment over real or fancied wrongs would have upon a morbidly sensitive mind, he took no moment to forecast. He knew the ruin that could be wrought; for he knew the strength and the weakness of the dam; and he knew Elijah. The thought that Elijah could be driven to wreck the crowning work of years of struggle, seemed to him monstrous, but he knew that it was possible; and he knew Elijah. He knew also the sinister conditions in the note to Mellin. He knew that they were harmless now; but Elijah did not know.
Winston could count upon his men and they followed his lead. He was eager, anxious; but neither eagerness nor anxiety prevented the calm judgment which spared his horse while pushing it to the limit; and his men followed his lead.
As he flew past the intake gates of the canal he noted that they were closed. This fact pointed to the worst. As he rode through the cañon he noted the silence, the oily threads of water sliding between the boulders; these facts made suspicion certainty. The worst had happened or was on the way.
As he came near the dam, he did not need the sight of the thin, wrinkling veil that was sliding over the crest, and, in ever increasing volume, was plunging into the depths below, to tell him what had happened. As he sprang from his horse, he did not need to see the tangled mass of earth and timber that choked the waste weir to the brim, nor did he need to see the closed gates and the broken wheels that forbade the hope of opening them. Long ago, so it seemed, he had forecast the design and the method of its execution.
He saw another sight which he had not forecast. He saw repentance – repentance, he saw surely; atonement, if within the reach of time, and life, and sacrifice of life. He saw Repentance with bared brow, with gray, drawn face, with glowing eyes that directed crashing strokes of a shining axe, eating deep into a locking tree-trunk which held back with its mass of crushed timbers and close-packed earth, the seething waters of the weir. He saw it all, and his heart swelled and pulsed and throbbed with the glory of it. He saw and felt the glory of it, that lifts man above the beasts that raven, the angels who adore, and places him at the side of God, the crowning labor of his mighty hands.
But through the swelling, flaming glory that bathed the world with the light of heaven, the earthborn instinct thrust; to save a human life though repentance and atonement were laid low, and the light that they radiated was quenched. Through the oily, sliding, deepening veil Ralph dashed, shouting as he went —
"Come back! Come back! Elijah! Come back"!
But Repentance heeded not the call. Once again the shining blade bit deep in the straining timber, and Atonement had gained its perfect work.
A crash like riving thunder drowned the swirl of falling water, and the huddled mass of rock and earth and timber groaned and swelled and thrust, and then, with a crash and roar, swept through the stone-paved weir and plunged into the yawning canon.
The blade had fallen from the bared hands; the gray, drawn face was lifted to the heavens; but the grayness was gone. In its place was the light that comes from but one source. Repentance was crowned with atonement; but life had departed.
Not quite. From a boiling eddy, struggling, impatient to join the swirling rush of turbid waters, pitying hands drew a torn, bruised body. A rough, kind hand brushed earth-stained locks from the still face.
"My God! That sight would make a man of the devil!" This was the tribute of a dormant soul cased in a toil-calloused body.
Ralph was bending low. The eyelids fluttered, then sprang open; but the vision was not of this world. The lips trembled —
"Amy! Amy!" Then they closed forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Had a ball of fire, shot from the cloudless sky, smitten one of their number to eternal silence, no greater, no more awesome hush could have fallen upon the merry party below the dam. Men looked at each other with stricken eyes, then turned to watch the speeding horsemen led by Winston. As Helen rode nearer to them, questioning eyes were turned to her, but she gave no heed. Only in the white, set face they read the outlines of some awful tragedy. Uncle Sid was first at her side.
"Come with me," she commanded. Then she turned and rode slowly toward the cañon. Uncle Sid rode close beside her.
"What is it, little girl?" There was a pitying, restful caress in the softened voice.
Helen longed to throw herself in his arms, to bury her head on his breast, to pour out her soul in confession before him. She controlled herself, her voice.
"I have found Elijah." Then she told him all. It was good to unburden herself. She told of the pitiful wreck from which reason had all but fled; the burst of insane rage when Seymour's name was mentioned; the dumb struggle to grasp the assurance that he was forgiven, was free; the hopeless plaint, "Why didn't they trust me before it was too late, – " the silence of the river; the wild cry, – "Is it too late, my God, is it too late?" the mad ride, fury driven, up the cañon trail. She told him of her fears for the dam, how easily it could be wrecked, and her voice, steady until now, broke pitifully. "I should have told Ralph all. Only my wicked pride kept me from it."
Uncle Sid reined his pony closer and laid a soothing hand on her arm.
"It isn't too late, little girl. Listen! You have saved Elijah. You have saved the dam!"
They were near the cañon now, and a heavy murmur, growing in intensity, pulsed in the quiet air. A great, hopeful light glowed in Helen's eyes; then it suddenly gave place to anxious fear. Was it too late after all? Had the dam given way? A moment and her questions would be answered. She sat with parted lips, and straining eyes, waiting for the rending, crashing thunder that would come if – then a sigh of relief escaped her. At the cañon's mouth, the turbid, soil-stained waters of the Sangre de Cristo were leaping and falling, but the volume was decreasing. She turned to Uncle Sid.
"Wait here. I am going up the cañon."
She felt that she was losing control of herself; she was striving against it, but in vain. Try as she would, she could lay hold of nothing in the past that could aid her. What had been her past? A sense of right and a determination to live in accord with it, and with what results? In self-confident pride she had looked down with contempt upon Ysleta boomers and their methods. At the first beck of Elijah, yielding to the subtle, intangible influence which he had thrown around her, she had abandoned her principles and had become as one of them. Not openly, not strongly, not defiantly, here was the shame and the pain of it; she had not been herself, but another. She had protested, to herself, to Elijah, she had stood up against him and had gone down before him. Day after day, the meshes of this sinister influence had held her more closely in its silken web; day after day, her past stood out more clearly with all its pitiful failures, and day after day the future, even with the light of the past beating white upon it, saw her yet more strongly bound. What deeper depths would have yawned to engulf her, had not Elijah's declaration jarred her to a loathsome recognition of what she was, of what she might become, she shuddered to forecast. A smile of bitter self-contempt played over her lips for a moment; then was gone.
In her darkness, there was yet a ray of light. She had failed, failed miserably. She bore this in upon her soul with no softening words. This was her darkness.
Brave, strong, patient hands had laid hold upon Elijah. If they had not saved him, they had saved his work. They had laid hold upon her. If they had not saved her, they had made her failures harmless. This was her light. She could forget herself, her pain, her shame, in the glory of Ralph's triumph. From the dust of her humiliation, she could yet raise a heart filled with unselfish love.
Yet was there not hope? Ralph had known all that had lain on the surface and he had offered her his love and had asked for hers in return. She would be brave. She would tell him all. Even though he cast her aside, she would yet have her love for him which could not harm him, but save her. She would tell him all. Then if the light of love still shone in his eyes, the light of the love he offered, the light of the love he asked, she would know it; she could trust it without fear. She was learning a lesson that might not avail her; but she was learning a lesson. On the somber background of repentance the brightest pictures of life are painted.
Through the pine boughs that hung low over the trail, she caught a glimpse of hatless men who were carrying a burden between them. For a moment her heart stood still. It was death. Then her heart once more beat high. She saw Ralph's face, a face clouded with grief but yet lightened by a supernal glow. She slipped from her pony and with bowed head waited for the covered burden to pass by. Then her eyes were raised to Ralph's; her hand was in his.
"It is all over, Helen; but his death was glorious. It was worth a thousand lives."
Her hand in Ralph's, she heard the story of Elijah's life redeemed in death. Tears welled from her eyes and fell silently down her cheeks.
Ralph was drawing her nearer; his arm was around her.
"I know all now, Helen." He would have said more but she checked him gently.
"No; you do not know all. I must tell you. I must." She was trying to free herself.
"I want you to tell me just one thing."
"I must. Then – " her eyes met his bravely.
He laid his fingers gently on her lips.
"I know what you would tell me, but I do not care to hear. I will not listen, Helen. Don't you believe that I know myself, that I know you?"
She hid her face in her hands.
"Ralph."
"Stop!" Ralph's voice was strong and commanding. "Every word you speak condemns me."
Slowly the hands dropped from the face that was now raised to his. The great, dark eyes were deep with questioning hope. The lips trembled with a smile that a breath would fan into life.
"I must obey my master."
Ralph's face was close to hers. His voice was low and strong.
"Then tell me that you love me."
"I love you. With all my heart and soul and strength, I love you."
Gently she put him aside.
"Let me go now, Ralph. I must be with Amy."