THE SPIDER WATER.
I.
Not officially: I don't pretend to say that. You might travel the Westfrom fresh water to salt without ever locating the Spider Water, by mapor by name.
But if you should happen anywhere in the West to sit among a gang ofbridge carpenters, or get to confidence with a bridge foreman; or findthe springy side of a road master's heart--then you might hear all youwant about the Spider Water; maybe more.
The Sioux named it; and, whatever their faults, no man with sense everattempted to improve on their names for things--whether birds, orbraves, or winds, or waters; they know.
Unfortunately our managers hadn't always sense, and one of themcountenanced a shameful change in the name of Spider Water. Some idiotdubbed it the Big Sandy; and the Big Sandy it is to this day on map andin folder. But not in the heart of the Sioux or the lingo of trackmen.
It was the only stream our bridge engineers could never manage. Bridgeafter bridge they threw across it--and into it. One auditor at Omaha,given to asthma and statistics, estimated, between spells, that theSpider Water had cost us more than all the other watercourses togetherfrom the Missouri to the Sierras.
Then came to the West End a masterful man, a Scotchman, pawky and hard.Brodie was his name, an Edinburgh man, with no end of degrees andmaster of every one. A great engineer, Brodie, but the Spider Watertook a fall even out of him. It swept out a Howe truss bridge forBrodie almost before he got his bag opened.
Then Brodie tried--not to make friends with the Spider, for nobodycould do that--but to get acquainted with it. For this he went to itsoldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie spent weeks and weeks, summers,up the Spider Water, hunting. And with the Sioux he talked the SpiderWater and drank fire water. That was Brodie's shame, the fire water.
But he was pawky, and he chinned unceasingly the braves and themedicine men about the uncommonly queer creek that took the bridges sofast. The river that month in and month out couldn't squeeze up waterenough for a pollywog to bathe in, and then, of a sudden, and for afew days, would rage like the Missouri, and leave our bewildered railshung up either side in the wind.
Brodie talked cloudbursts up country; for the floods came, times,under clear skies--and the Sioux sulked in silence. He suggested anunsuspected inlet from some mountain stream which, maybe, times, sentits stormwater over a low divide into the Spider--and the red menshrugged their faces.
Finally they told him the Indian legend about the Spider Water; tookhim away up where once a party of Pawnees had camped in the dust of theriver bed to surprise the Sioux; and told Brodie how the Spider--moresudden than buck, fleeter than pony--had come down in the night andambushed the Pawnees with a flood. And so well that next morning therewasn't enough material in sight for a ghost dance.
They took Brodie himself out into the ratty bed, and when he said heapdry, and said no water, they laughed, Indian-wise, and pointed to thesand. Scooping little wells with their hands, they showed him therising and the filling; water where the instant before was no water;and a bigger fool than Brodie could see the water was all there, onlyunderground.
"But when did it rise?" asked Brodie. "When the chinook spoke," saidthe Sioux. "And why?" persisted Brodie. "Because the Spider woke,"answered the Sioux. And Brodie went out of the camp of the Siouxwondering.
And he planned a new bridge which should stand the chinook and theSpider and all evil spirits. And full seven year it lasted; and thenthe fire water spoke for the wicked Scotchman, and he himself went outinto the night.
And after he died, miserable wreck of a man, the Spider woke and tookhis pawky bridge and tied up the main line for two weeks and set uscrazy, for it cost us our grip on the California fast freight business.But at that time Healey was superintendent of bridges on the West End.
His father was a section foreman. When Healey was a mere kid, he gotinto Brodie's office doing errands. But whenever he saw a draughtsmanat work he hung over the table till they kicked him downstairs. Then,by and by, Healey got himself an old table and part of a cake of Indiaink, and with some cursing from Brodie became a draughtsman, and oneday head draughtsman in Brodie's office. Healey was no college man;Healey was a Brodie man. Single mind on single mind--concentrationabsolute. Mathematics, drawing, bridges, brains--that was Healey. Allthat Brodie knew, Healey had from him, and Brodie, who hated evenhimself, showed still a light in the wreck by moulding Healey to hiswork. For one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall be masterof these bridges. When I am dust he will be here what I might havebeen--this Irish boy--and they will say he was Brodie's boy. And betterthan any of these doughheads they send me out he shall be, if he wasmade engineer by a drunkard. And Healey was better, far, far betterthan the doughheads, better than the graduates, better than Brodie--andto Healey came the time to wrestle with the Spider.
Stronger than any man he was, before or since, for the work. All Brodieknew, all the Indians knew, all that a life's experience, eating,living, watching, sleeping with the big river, had taught him, thatHealey knew. And when Brodie's bridge went out, Healey was ready withhis new bridge for the Spider Water, which should be better thanBrodie's, just as he was better than Brodie. A bridge like Brodie's,with the fire water, as it were, left out. And after the temporarystructure was thrown over the stream, Healey's plans for a Howe truss,two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson bridge to spanthe Spider Water were submitted to headquarters.
But the cost! The directors jumped the table when they saw the figures.Our directors talked economy for the road and for themselves studiedpiracy. So Healey couldn't get the money for his new bridge, and wasforced to build a cheap one which must, he knew, go some time. Butthe dream of his life, this we all knew--the Sioux would have saidthe Spider knew--was to build a final bridge over the Spider Water, abridge to throttle it for all time.
It was the one subject on which you would get a rise out of Healey anytime, day or night, the two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumaticcaisson Spider bridge. He would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. Hisbridge foreman, Ed Peeto, a staving big one-eyed French-Canadian, hadbut two ideas in life. One was Healey, the other the Spider bridge.And after many moons our pirate directors were thrown out, and a greatand public-spirited man took control of our system, and when Ed Peetoheard it he kicked his little water spaniel in a frenzy of delight."Now, Sport, old boy," he exclaimed riotously, "we'll get the bridge!"And after much effort by Healey, seconded by Bucks, superintendent ofthe division, and by Callahan, assistant, the new president did consentto put up the money for the good bridge. The wire flashed the word tothe West End. Everybody at the wickiup, as we called the old divisionheadquarters, was glad; but Healey rejoiced, Ed Peeto burned red fire,and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes.
There was a good bridge needed at one other point, the Peace River, atreacherous water, and Healey had told the new management that if theywould give him a pneumatic caisson bridge there, he would guarantee theworst stretch on the system against tie-up disasters for a generation;and they had said go ahead; and Ed Peeto went fairly savage withresponsibility and strutted around the wickiup like a Cyclops.
Early in the summer, Healey very quiet, and Peeto very profane, withall their traps and belongings, moved into construction headquartersat the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouriclosed over the heads of tall Healey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarmof ants the bridge workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed.The blowpipes never slept, night and day the sand streamed from below,and Healey's caissons sank like armed cruisers foot by foot toward thebed-rock. When the masonry was crowding high-water mark, Healey andPeeto ran back to Medicine Bend to get acquainted with their families.Peeto was so deaf he couldn't hear himself sing, and Healey was asragged and ratty as the old depot; but both were immensely happy.
Next morning, Sunday, they all sat up in Buck's office reading lettersand smoking.
"Hello," growled Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila under thetable, "here's a general orde
r--Number Fourteen."
The boys drew their briars like one. Bucks read a lot of stuff thatdidn't touch our end, then he reached this paragraph:
"The Mountain and Inter-mountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division, with J. F. Bucks superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant of the consolidated divisions."
"Good boy!" roared Ed Peeto, straining his ears.
"Well, well, well," murmured Healey, opening his eyes, "here'spromotions right and left." Bucks read on:
"H. P. Agnew is appointed superintendent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Healey."
Bucks threw down the order. Ed Peeto broke out first: "Did you hearthat?"
Healey nodded.
"You're let out!" stormed Peeto. Healey nodded. The bridge foremandashed his pipe at the stove, jumped up, stamped across to the window,and was like to have sworn the glass out before Healey spoke.
"I'm glad we're up with the Spider job, Bucks," said he. "When theyget the Peace River work in, the division will run itself for a year."
"Healey," said Bucks, "I don't need to tell you what I think of it, doI? It's a shame. But it's what I've said for a year--nobody will everknow what Omaha is going to do next." Healey rose to his feet. "Whereyou going?"
"Back to the Spider on Number Two."
"Not going back this morning. Why don't you wait for Four to-night?"
"Ed, will you get those staybolts and chuck them into the baggage carfor me when Two pulls in? I'm going over to the house for a minute."
They knew what that meant. He was going over to tell the folks hewouldn't be home for Sunday as he expected--as the children expected.Going to tell the wife--the old man--that he was out. Out of therailroad system he had given his life to help build up and to makewhat it was. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like ahermit and working like a hobo. Out--without criticism or reason orallegation. Simply, like a dog, out.
Bucks and Callahan looked down on the departing train soon afterward,and saw Healey climbing into the smoker. Every minute he had beforethe new order beheaded him he spent at the Spider. One thing he meantto make sure of--that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of theSpider bridge as he had planned it. One monument Healey meant to have;one he has.
After he let go on the West End, Healey wanted to look up somethingEast. But Bucks told him frankly it would be difficult to get a placewithout a regular engineer's degree. It seemed as if there was no placefor Healey but just the mountains, and after a time finding nothing,and Bucks losing a roadmaster, Healey--Callahan urging--agreed to takethe little job and stay with his old superintendent. It was a big drop,but Healey took it.
Agnew meantime had stopped all construction work not too far alongto discontinue. The bridge at the Spider was fortunately beyond hismandate; it was finished to a rivet as Healey had planned it. Butthe Peace River bridge was caught in the air, and Healey's greatcaissons gave way to piles, and the cost came down from a hundredto seventy-five thousand dollars. Incidentally it was breathed fromheadquarters that the day for extravagant appropriations on the WestEnd was passed.
That year we had no winter till spring, and no spring till summer; andit was a spring of snow and a summer of water. The mountains were lostin snow even after Easter. When the snow let up, and it was no longera matter of keeping the track clear, it was a matter of lashing it tothe right-of-way to keep it from swimming clear. Healey caught it worsethan anybody. He knew Bucks looked to him for the track, and he workedlike two men, for that was his way in a pinch. He strained every nervemaking ready for the time the mountain snows should go out.
There was nobody easy on the West End. Healey least of all, for thatspring, ahead of the suns, ahead of the thaws, ahead of the waters,came a going out that unsettled the oldest calculator in the wickiup.Brodie's old friends began coming out of the up-country, out of theSpider Valley. Over the Eagle Pass and through the Peace Ca?on came theSioux in parties and camps and tribes. And Bucks stayed them and talkedwith them. But the Sioux did not talk, they grunted--and traveled.After Bucks Healey tried, for the braves knew him and would listen.But when he accused them of fixing for a fight, they denied and turnedtheir faces to the mountains. They stretched their arms straight outunder their blankets like stringers, and put their palms downward andmuttered to Healey, "Plenty snow."
"I reckon they're lying," growled Bucks listening. Healey made nocomment; only looked at the buried mountains.
Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly.Once in April; that is the foothills water. Once in June; that is themountain water.
Now came an April without any rise; nothing rose but the snow, and Mayopened bleaker than April; even the trackmen walked with set faces. Thedirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held.
Section gangs were doubled, night walkers put on. Bypasses were opened,bridge crews strengthened, everything buckled for grief. Gullies beganto race, culverts to choke, creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. Fromthe Muddy to the Summit the water courses swelled and boiled; all butthe Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June the Spiderslept. But Healey was there at the wickiup, with one eye always runningover all the line and one eye turned always to the Spider, where twomen and two, night and day, watched the lazy surface water trickleover and through the vagabond bed between Healey's monumental piers.Never an hour did the operating department lose the track. East andwest of us everywhere railroads clamored in despair. The flood sweptfrom the Rockies to the Alleghanies. Our trains never missed a trip;our schedules were unbroken; our people laughed; we got the business,dead loads of it! Our treasury flowed over; and Healey watched, and theSpider slept. But when May turned soft and hot into June, with everyditch bellying and the mountains still buried, it put us all thinkinghard. It was the season for floods.
TO BE CONCLUDED.