He staggered to the candle and blew out its wavering flame. Picking up the shape, he stole with it into the next room. He knelt by the bed that had been Gerty’s. And the grandson of old Jasper Gingg cried out his hurt, with his arms around that unyielding waist, his head against that stuffed bosom.
CHAPTER XLII
A CORNER OF HIS HEART
THE second evening after the closure Rickard was dining with the Marshalls in their car. The Palmyra was preparing to leave the siding. She was to pull out the next day. Already Marshall was restless. Tucson was calling him; Oaxaca was calling him! And he was due in Chicago for a conference with Faraday.
Rickard had been protesting against his new orders. It hurt him to curtail his force. “Not until the concrete gate is finished, and the whole length of levee done, will I feel safe.”
“Faraday says to go slow,” repeated Marshall. “He’s got something up his sleeve. It may be taken off his hands. If that’s the case, we’ve done our part.”
“I like to leave my work finished, not hanging in mid-air,” grumbled the engineer. “He’d hate to do this over again. I would! You will advise him when you see him next week, Mr. Marshall? Don’t let him cut down on the force we have now. Let us keep,” and then he smiled, “as many as we can!”
For the hobo ranks were thinning as late snows beneath the sun. Up North, a city was rebuilding. In Mexico, new mines were being opened up. The west coast of Mexico was calling to those restless soldiers who march without a captain.
“They are going out by way of Calexico,” Rickard was still smiling over some memories of desertion. “They’ve learned that they can hoof it to Cocopah, and from there sneak in on the work-trains. Work crews are more vulnerable than regular brakemen; they have more imagination. To them, these returning hoboes are heroes. It was they who saved the valley, not you, Mr. Marshall! That’s their opinion.”
“I preferred my ‘snap’ myself!” returned Marshall. “Have you cut down on the Indians?”
Rickard nodded, remembering how Hardin had opposed himself yesterday to the number of men retained; as being twice too many! The same Hardin! An awkward relationship swung toward the two men. Hardin, it was easy to see, was striving to remember his gratitude to the man who had stopped the river. He himself had different reasons for wishing to be fair to Tom Hardin! His name was brought up by Tod Marshall. “She was light potatoes,” he dismissed the woman. “But she’s broken the man’s spirit.”