Trouble Shooter. Ernest Haycox
thousand citizens," said Leach Overmile, He was all Texan, tall and thin and as soft-spoken as a girl. Cold as it was he wore only a thin cotton shirt and a pair of striped butternut breeches tucked into the low-topped boots characteristic of cattle land. A Colt's .44 slapped against his right thigh. "Steeped in sin and proud of it. Kinda tame against Julesburg, though. Vigilantes have got the tough ones temporarily scared. What's Omaha look like?"
They turned into the Rollins House and walked up the stairs to the room Peace kept against his frequent passages in and out of the place. He dropped his plunder and lighted a lamp.
"Omaha's busy but dull. More than a month of office work would kill me." He had his shirt off and he had poured himself a basin of water; standing in front of the dresser mirror, he lathered his face.
Overmile dumped himself casually across the bed, lying full length. Phil Morgan, one of the junior civil engineers on the job, sat more properly in a chair. He was a year or two older than Peace, perpetually nursing a pipe. He had a settled, philosophical manner, with a gravity lining his mouth. He was content to let the others talk.
"Who was that girl?" demanded Overmile.
Peace brought his razor sweeping down his face. "Couldn't find out," he mumbled.
"You tried," Overmile pointed out ironically. "All I got to say is, Big Sid sure has taste."
"Sure."
The door opened without ceremony and a pair of older men walked in. Peace laid down his razor. He said, "I was just coming over to the office, Sam. Hello, Jack."
Sam Reed said, "You've heard the news, I suppose."
Jack Casement said: "What's doing in Omaha?"
They were both small, wiry men. Reed, superintendent of construction, had a rather gentle face set off by a heavy black beard. As for Jack Casement, who held the contract for laying steel all the way through, there was no gentleness about him. He was a terrier, a doughty, scrapping little terrier, physically unable to stand still, never unwilling to fight it out with any of the thousands working under him. Like Reed, he carried a full beard, the color of rust.
Peace went back to finish his shaving. Casement fished up his pipe and began stirring around the room. Peace said: "Your brother Dan told me to say you can have eighty cars of material a day. Omaha looks like a freight dump. So does Council Bluff. Stuff piled story-high on both sides of the river. Ferries workin' twenty-four hours a day. What news, Sam?"
The door opened again with a bang. A burly young man came in and said, "What the hell here, Peace?"
"Mama Tarrant's little boy, Ed, once more," murmured Overmile, "This joint begins to resemble an old settlers' convention."
Ed Tarrant went over and shook Peace with a broad blow on the back. "Here comes the swallow with the spring. So we whip hell out of the Central this year, don't we? Had supper? No? Well, what this room needs is a little more fraternity. Just wait right here. Don't move a step." He wheeled around and waggled his thumb profanely at Overmile and left them, slamming the door with a boisterous violence. Tobacco smoke began to turn the light blue.
Overrnile said mildly: "That wild bull."
"What news, Sam?" prompted Peace.
Reed said: "Well, we had our schedule for '68 all set. We were to locate to Salt Lake and lay steel as far as the Wasatch range. With a little survey work done west of Salt Lake to Humboldt Wells. But last night I get a wire from Dodge. He's dropped his work in Congress and he'll be here within a week."
Everybody paid Sam Reed strict attention. Peace stood still, the razor suspended. For General Dodge was chief engineer and his word was law to all of them.
Reed went on in his dry way. "Our schedule's been knocked to pieces. The order now is to make our location lines final all the way to Salt Lake in thirty days, and to Humboldt Wells, 220 miles west of the lake, in another sixty days. We are, moreover, to cover the whole line with men, regardless of the cost, and get into Salt Lake with steel as fast as possible. It makes no difference where snow catches us this year. We are to keep on."
Jack Casement said, "You hear? Five hundred miles of steel to be laid down, and no stops."
"Why?" said Peace.
Reed shrugged his shoulders. He had a trick of saying important things without emphasis. He moved his cigar to another corner of his mouth, speaking around it. "Under the original setup, the Central was to build from Frisco east to the California line and the Union was to build west from Omaha and meet them there. All of us know Huntington and Stanford and Crocker have been too ambitious to stop at the California line. So they had their charter changed and came on. Now they have persuaded the Secretary of the Interior that the Central is financially and morally purer than the Union and so should have more rewards. Well, it looked like brag until now. But the fact is that the Central has put the Sierras behind and they've got all the level stretches of Nevada in front, whereas we haven't yet reached our heavy work in the Wasatch chain."
"Which," said Casement, always preoccupied with the problem of getting steel laid, "we'll hit in the dead of winter."
Reed went on. "So Central sprung its surprise. It intends to beat us into Salt Lake. If it succeeds it will block us out of our only logical terminal and dictate its own terms as to what the Union will have in through traffic. We're hipped. If we lose, our whole financial structure blows up. There's no revenue to be had out of a road running nine hundred miles across a desert without a terminal. The government will listen to the road reaching the lake first—and Central means to make Union the tail of the dog. My guess is that Huntington and his partners aim to beat us to Salt Lake so that they can whip the Union into line and control the whole road from Frisco to Omaha. We have got to reach Salt Lake first regardless of cost—regardless of anything." He leaned forward and his eyes brightened. "We've got to get there first."
Ed Tarrant came banging back into the room, bearing glasses and a bottle. He said, "Amity and concord and fraternity—that's the ticket." But the thoughtful silence of the group struck him, and he looked about with a curious eye and shrugged his shoulders. Frank Peace finished his shave; he put his shirt and coat back on. The rest of them were entirely caught up in their own considerations, with the room turning a hazier blue from the rising spirals of tobacco smoke. Ed Tarrant poured the drinks, passing them around. "My God," he muttered, "is this a wake'?"
"We're going to have trouble enough," said Reed quietly. "Some of it we can forecast, like weather and grading delay and operating breakdown. Some of it we can't. We're going into country this season that the Indians claim as private hunting ground. There's some sort of a treaty about it. I don't know the rights—all I know is I've been told to lay steel. But the Cheyennes are sore and they're going to hit us. I know also we've got some agitators in our construction gangs. Who's payin' 'em to cause trouble? Make your own guesses. And I know that the gamblers aim to take control of the end of track towns away from us this year. Our rule has been hurting their profits. That's why Big Sid Campeaux came back early this season. They've got their joints laid out already at Laramie. Our tracks will reach there in two or three days. And then the ball opens. The company has been served notice by these fellows, through Campeaux, that they do not propose to observe the authority of any mayor or town marshal we may appoint."
"A fight?" drawled Leach Overmile, and reared up from the bed. His sandy hair made an unruly whorl down across his forehead; eagerness gleamed out of his indigo eyes.
Reed said to Peace, "The construction train leaves for end of track in an hour. I've had Overmile arrange for horses to meet you there. Go on to Fort Sanders and locate Mormon Charley. He's close to the Indians. I want you to have him use his influence with the Indians not to fight us. You don't do any more office work this year, Frank. From now on your particular job is to haridle the grief along the right of way. And, in particular, you've got to handle the toughs. The train leaves in an hour."
Peace said: "I haven't had supper. And I've got some personal business."
Reed smiled a little bit—and the other men in the room shared that. "All right. Give Eileen my regards. The train can wait."
"Gentlemen,"