The Octopus : A Story of California

“My son Lyman should be here, gentlemen, within at least ten minutes. I have sent my team to meet him at Bonneville,” explained Magnus, as he called the meeting to order. “The Secretary will call the roll.”

Osterman called the roll, and, to fill in the time, read over the minutes of the previous meeting. The treasurer was making his report as to the funds at the disposal of the League when Lyman arrived.

Magnus and Harran went forward to meet him, and the Committee rather awkwardly rose and remained standing while the three exchanged greetings, the members, some of whom had never seen their commissioner, eyeing him out of the corners of their eyes.

Lyman was dressed with his usual correctness. His cravat was of the latest fashion, his clothes of careful design and unimpeachable fit. His shoes, of patent leather, reflected the lamplight, and he carried a drab overcoat over his arm. Before being introduced to the Committee, he excused himself a moment and ran to see his mother, who waited for him in the adjoining sitting-room. But in a few moments he returned, asking pardon for the delay.

He was all affability; his protruding eyes, that gave such an unusual, foreign appearance to his very dark face, radiated geniality. He was evidently anxious to please, to produce a good impression upon the grave, clumsy farmers before whom he stood. But at the same time, Presley, watching him from his place on the sofa, could imagine that he was rather nervous. He was too nimble in his cordiality, and the little gestures he made in bringing his cuffs into view and in touching the ends of his tight, black mustache with the ball of his thumb were repeated with unnecessary frequency.

“Mr. Broderson, my son, Lyman, my eldest son. Mr. Annixter, my son, Lyman.”

The Governor introduced him to the ranchers, proud of Lyman’s good looks, his correct dress, his ease of manner. Lyman shook hands all around, keeping up a flow of small talk, finding a new phrase for each member, complimenting Osterman, whom he already knew, upon his talent for organisation, recalling a mutual acquaintance to the mind of old Broderson. At length, however, he sat down at the end of the table, opposite his brother. There was a silence.

Magnus rose to recapitulate the reasons for the extra session of the Committee, stating again that the Board of Railway Commissioners which they—the ranchers—had succeeded in seating had at length issued the new schedule of reduced rates, and that Mr. Derrick had been obliging enough to offer to come down to Los Muertos in person to acquaint the wheat-growers of the San Joaquin with the new rates for the carriage of their grain.

But Lyman very politely protested, addressing his father punctiliously as “Mr. Chairman,” and the other ranchers as “Gentlemen of the Executive Committee of the League.” He had no wish, he said, to disarrange the regular proceedings of the Committee. Would it not be preferable to defer the reading of his report till “new business” was called for? In the meanwhile, let the Committee proceed with its usual work. He understood the necessarily delicate nature of this work, and would be pleased to withdraw till the proper time arrived for him to speak.

“Good deal of backing and filling about the reading of a column of figures,” muttered Annixter to the man at his elbow.

Lyman “awaited the Committee’s decision.” He sat down, touching the ends of his mustache.

“Oh, play ball,” growled Annixter.

Gethings rose to say that as the meeting had been called solely for the purpose of hearing and considering the new grain tariff, he was of the opinion that routine business could be dispensed with and the schedule read at once. It was so ordered.

Lyman rose and made a long speech. Voluble as Osterman himself, he, nevertheless, had at his command a vast number of ready-made phrases, the staples of a political speaker, the stock in trade of the commercial lawyer, which rolled off his tongue with the most persuasive fluency. By degrees, in the course of his speech, he began to insinuate the idea that the wheat-growers had never expected to settle their difficulties with the Railroad by the work of a single commission; that they had counted upon a long, continued campaign of many years, railway commission succeeding railway commission, before the desired low rates should be secured; that the present Board of Commissioners was only the beginning and that too great results were not expected from them. All this he contrived to mention casually, in the talk, as if it were a foregone conclusion, a matter understood by all.

As the speech continued, the eyes of the ranchers around the table were fixed with growing attention upon this well-dressed, city-bred young man, who spoke so fluently and who told them of their own intentions. A feeling of perplexity began to spread, and the first taint of distrust invaded their minds.

“But the good work has been most auspiciously inaugurated,” continued Lyman. “Reforms so sweeping as the one contemplated cannot be accomplished in a single night. Great things grow slowly, benefits to be permanent must accrue gradually. Yet, in spite of all this, your commissioners have done much. Already the phalanx of the enemy is pierced, already his armour is dinted. Pledged as were your commissioners to an average ten per cent. reduction in rates for the carriage of grain by the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, we have rigidly adhered to the demands of our constituency, we have obeyed the People. The main problem has not yet been completely solved; that is for later, when we shall have gathered sufficient strength to attack the enemy in his very stronghold; BUT AN AVERAGE TEN PER CENT. CUT HAS BEEN MADE ALL OVER THE STATE. We have made a great advance, have taken a great step forward, and if the work is carried ahead, upon the lines laid down by the present commissioners and their constituents, there is every reason to believe that within a very few years equitable and stable rates for the shipment of grain from the San Joaquin Valley to Stockton, Port Costa, and tidewater will be permanently imposed.”

“Well, hold on,” exclaimed Annixter, out of order and ignoring the Governor’s reproof, “hasn’t your commission reduced grain rates in the San Joaquin?”

“We have reduced grain rates by ten per cent. all over the State,” rejoined Lyman. “Here are copies of the new schedule.”

He drew them from his valise and passed them around the table.

“You see,” he observed, “the rate between Mayfield and Oakland, for instance, has been reduced by twenty-five cents a ton.”

“Yes—but—but—” said old Broderson, “it is rather unusual, isn’t it, for wheat in that district to be sent to Oakland?” “Why, look here,” exclaimed Annixter, looking up from the schedule, “where is there any reduction in rates in the San Joaquin—from Bonneville and Guadalajara, for instance? I don’t see as you’ve made any reduction at all. Is this right? Did you give me the right schedule?”

“Of course, ALL the points in the State could not be covered at once,” returned Lyman. “We never expected, you know, that we could cut rates in the San Joaquin the very first move; that is for later. But you will see we made very material reductions on shipments from the upper Sacramento Valley; also the rate from Ione to Marysville has been reduced eighty cents a ton.”

“Why, rot,” cried Annixter, “no one ever ships wheat that way.”

“The Salinas rate,” continued Lyman, “has been lowered seventy-five cents; the St. Helena rate fifty cents, and please notice the very drastic cut from Red Bluff, north, along the Oregon route, to the Oregon State Line.”

“Where not a carload of wheat is shipped in a year,” commented Gethings of the San Pablo.

“Oh, you will find yourself mistaken there, Mr. Gethings,” returned Lyman courteously. “And for the matter of that, a low rate would stimulate wheat-production in that district.”

The order of the meeting was broken up, neglected; Magnus did not even pretend to preside. In the growing excitement over the inexplicable schedule, routine was not thought of. Every one spoke at will.

“Why, Lyman,” demanded Magnus, looking across the table to his son, “is this schedule correct? You have not cut rates in the San Joaquin at all. We—these gentlemen here and myself, we are no better off than we were before we secured your election as commissioner.”

“We were pledged to make an average ten per cent. cut, sir–” “It IS an average ten per cent. cut,” cried Osterman. “Oh, yes, that’s plain. It’s an average ten per cent. cut all right, but you’ve made it by cutting grain rates between points where practically no grain is shipped. We, the wheat-growers in the San Joaquin, where all the wheat is grown, are right where we were before. The Railroad won’t lose a nickel. By Jingo, boys,” he glanced around the table, “I’d like to know what this means.”

“The Railroad, if you come to that,” returned Lyman, “has already lodged a protest against the new rate.”

Annixter uttered a derisive shout.

“A protest! That’s good, that is. When the P. and S. W. objects to rates it don’t ‘protest,’ m’ son. The first you hear from Mr. Shelgrim is an injunction from the courts preventing the order for new rates from taking effect. By the Lord,” he cried angrily, leaping to his feet, “I would like to know what all this means, too. Why didn’t you reduce our grain rates? What did we elect you for?”

“Yes, what did we elect you for?” demanded Osterman and Gethings, also getting to their feet.

“Order, order, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, remembering the duties of his office and rapping his knuckles on the table. “This meeting has been allowed to degenerate too far already.”

“You elected us,” declared Lyman doggedly, “to make an average ten per cent. cut on grain rates. We have done it. Only because you don’t benefit at once, you object. It makes a difference whose ox is gored, it seems.”

“Lyman!”

It was Magnus who spoke. He had drawn himself to his full six feet. His eyes were flashing direct into his son’s. His voice rang with severity.

“Lyman, what does this mean?”

The other spread out his hands.

“As you see, sir. We have done our best. I warned you not to expect too much. I told you that this question of transportation was difficult. You would not wish to put rates so low that the action would amount to confiscation of property.”

“Why did you not lower rates in the valley of the San Joaquin?”

“That was not a PROMINENT issue in the affair,” responded Lyman, carefully emphasising his words. “I understand, of course, it was to be approached IN TIME. The main point was AN AVERAGE TEN PER CENT. REDUCTION. Rates WILL be lowered in the San Joaquin. The ranchers around Bonneville will be able to ship to Port Costa at equitable rates, but so radical a measure as that cannot be put through in a turn of the hand. We must study–”

“You KNEW the San Joaquin rate was an issue,” shouted Annixter, shaking his finger across the table. “What do we men who backed you care about rates up in Del Norte and Siskiyou Counties? Not a whoop in hell. It was the San Joaquin rate we were fighting for, and we elected you to reduce that. You didn’t do it and you don’t intend to, and, by the Lord Harry, I want to know why.”

“You’ll know, sir—” began Lyman.

“Well, I’ll tell you why,” vociferated Osterman. “I’ll tell you why. It’s because we have been sold out. It’s because the P. and S. W. have had their spoon in this boiling. It’s because our commissioners have betrayed us. It’s because we’re a set of damn fool farmers and have been cinched again.”

Lyman paled under his dark skin at the direct attack. He evidently had not expected this so soon. For the fraction of one instant he lost his poise. He strove to speak, but caught his breath, stammering.

“What have you to say, then?” cried Harran, who, until now, had not spoken.

“I have this to say,” answered Lyman, making head as best he might, “that this is no proper spirit in which to discuss business. The Commission has fulfilled its obligations. It has adjusted rates to the best of its ability. We have been at work for two months on the preparation of this schedule–”

“That’s a lie,” shouted Annixter, his face scarlet; “that’s a lie. That schedule was drawn in the offices of the Pacific and Southwestern and you know it. It’s a scheme of rates made for the Railroad and by the Railroad and you were bought over to put your name to it.”

There was a concerted outburst at the words. All the men in the room were on their feet, gesticulating and vociferating.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” cried Magnus, “are we schoolboys, are we ruffians of the street?”

“We’re a set of fool farmers and we’ve been betrayed,” cried Osterman.

“Well, what have you to say? What have you to say?” persisted Harran, leaning across the table toward his brother. “For God’s sake, Lyman, you’ve got SOME explanation.”

“You’ve misunderstood,” protested Lyman, white and trembling. “You’ve misunderstood. You’ve expected too much. Next year,—next year,—soon now, the Commission will take up the—the Commission will consider the San Joaquin rate. We’ve done our best, that is all.”

“Have you, sir?” demanded Magnus.

The Governor’s head was in a whirl; a sensation, almost of faintness, had seized upon him. Was it possible? Was it possible?

“Have you done your best?” For a second he compelled Lyman’s eye. The glances of father and son met, and, in spite of his best efforts, Lyman’s eyes wavered. He began to protest once more, explaining the matter over again from the beginning. But Magnus did not listen. In that brief lapse of time he was convinced that the terrible thing had happened, that the unbelievable had come to pass. It was in the air. Between father and son, in some subtle fashion, the truth that was a lie stood suddenly revealed. But even then Magnus would not receive it. Lyman do this! His son, his eldest son, descend to this! Once more and for the last time he turned to him and in his voice there was that ring that compelled silence.

“Lyman,” he said, “I adjure you—I—I demand of you as you are my son and an honourable man, explain yourself. What is there behind all this? It is no longer as Chairman of the Committee I speak to you, you a member of the Railroad Commission. It is your father who speaks, and I address you as my son. Do you understand the gravity of this crisis; do you realise the responsibility of your position; do you not see the importance of this moment? Explain yourself.”

“There is nothing to explain.”

“You have not reduced rates in the San Joaquin? You have not reduced rates between Bonneville and tidewater?”

“I repeat, sir, what I said before. An average ten per cent. cut–”

“Lyman, answer me, yes or no. Have you reduced the Bonneville rate?”

“It could not be done so soon. Give us time. We–”

“Yes or no! By God, sir, do you dare equivocate with me? Yes or no; have you reduced the Bonneville rate?”

“No.”

“And answer ME,” shouted Harran, leaning far across the table, “answer ME. Were you paid by the Railroad to leave the San Joaquin rate untouched?”

Lyman, whiter than ever, turned furious upon his brother.

“Don’t you dare put that question to me again.”

“No, I won’t,” cried Harran, “because I’ll TELL you to your villain’s face that you WERE paid to do it.”

On the instant the clamour burst forth afresh. Still on their feet, the ranchers had, little by little, worked around the table, Magnus alone keeping his place. The others were in a group before Lyman, crowding him, as it were, to the wall, shouting into his face with menacing gestures. The truth that was a lie, the certainty of a trust betrayed, a pledge ruthlessly broken, was plain to every one of them.

“By the Lord! men have been shot for less than this,” cried Osterman. “You’ve sold us out, you, and if you ever bring that dago face of yours on a level with mine again, I’ll slap it.”

“Keep your hands off,” exclaimed Lyman quickly, the aggressiveness of the cornered rat flaming up within him. “No violence. Don’t you go too far.”

“How much were you paid? How much were you paid?” vociferated Harran.

“Yes, yes, what was your price?” cried the others. They were beside themselves with anger; their words came harsh from between their set teeth; their gestures were made with their fists clenched.

“You know the Commission acted in good faith,” retorted Lyman. “You know that all was fair and above board.”

“Liar,” shouted Annixter; “liar, bribe-eater. You were bought and paid for,” and with the words his arm seemed almost of itself to leap out from his shoulder. Lyman received the blow squarely in the face and the force of it sent him staggering backwards toward the wall. He tripped over his valise and fell half way, his back supported against the closed door of the room. Magnus sprang forward. His son had been struck, and the instincts of a father rose up in instant protest; rose for a moment, then forever died away in his heart. He checked the words that flashed to his mind. He lowered his upraised arm. No, he had but one son. The poor, staggering creature with the fine clothes, white face, and blood-streaked lips was no longer his. A blow could not dishonour him more than he had dishonoured himself.

But Gethings, the older man, intervened, pulling Annixter back, crying:

“Stop, this won’t do. Not before his father.”

“I am no father to this man, gentlemen,” exclaimed Magnus. “From now on, I have but one son. You, sir,” he turned to Lyman, “you, sir, leave my house.”

Lyman, his handkerchief to his lips, his smart cravat in disarray, caught up his hat and coat. He was shaking with fury, his protruding eyes were blood-shot. He swung open the door.

“Ruffians,” he shouted from the threshold, “ruffians, bullies. Do your own dirty business yourselves after this. I’m done with you. How is it, all of a sudden you talk about honour? How is it that all at once you’re so clean and straight? You weren’t so particular at Sacramento just before the nominations. How was the Board elected? I’m a bribe-eater, am I? Is it any worse than GIVING a bribe? Ask Magnus Derrick what he thinks about that. Ask him how much he paid the Democratic bosses at Sacramento to swing the convention.”

He went out, slamming the door.

Presley followed. The whole affair made him sick at heart, filled him with infinite disgust, infinite weariness. He wished to get away from it all. He left the dining-room and the excited, clamouring men behind him and stepped out on the porch of the ranch house, closing the door behind him. Lyman was nowhere in sight. Presley was alone. It was late, and after the lamp-heated air of the dining-room, the coolness of the night was delicious, and its vast silence, after the noise and fury of the committee meeting, descended from the stars like a benediction. Presley stepped to the edge of the porch, looking off to southward.

And there before him, mile after mile, illimitable, covering the earth from horizon to horizon, lay the Wheat. The growth, now many days old, was already high from the ground. There it lay, a vast, silent ocean, shimmering a pallid green under the moon and under the stars; a mighty force, the strength of nations, the life of the world. There in the night, under the dome of the sky, it was growing steadily. To Presley’s mind, the scene in the room he had just left dwindled to paltry insignificance before this sight. Ah, yes, the Wheat—it was over this that the Railroad, the ranchers, the traitor false to his trust, all the members of an obscure conspiracy, were wrangling. As if human agency could affect this colossal power! What were these heated, tiny squabbles, this feverish, small bustle of mankind, this minute swarming of the human insect, to the great, majestic, silent ocean of the Wheat itself! Indifferent, gigantic, resistless, it moved in its appointed grooves. Men, Liliputians, gnats in the sunshine, buzzed impudently in their tiny battles, were born, lived through their little day, died, and were forgotten; while the Wheat, wrapped in Nirvanic calm, grew steadily under the night, alone with the stars and with God.

CHAPTER V

Jack-rabbits were a pest that year and Presley occasionally found amusement in hunting them with Harran’s half-dozen greyhounds, following the chase on horseback. One day, between two and three months after Lyman s visit to Los Muertos, as he was returning toward the ranch house from a distant and lonely quarter of Los Muertos, he came unexpectedly upon a strange sight.

Some twenty men, Annixter’s and Osterman’s tenants, and small ranchers from east of Guadalajara—all members of the League—were going through the manual of arms under Harran Derrick’s supervision. They were all equipped with new Winchester rifles. Harran carried one of these himself and with it he illustrated the various commands he gave. As soon as one of the men under his supervision became more than usually proficient, he was told off to instruct a file of the more backward. After the manual of arms, Harran gave the command to take distance as skirmishers, and when the line had opened out so that some half-dozen feet intervened between each man, an advance was made across the field, the men stooping low and snapping the hammers of their rifles at an imaginary enemy.

The League had its agents in San Francisco, who watched the movements of the Railroad as closely as was possible, and some time before this, Annixter had received word that the Marshal and his deputies were coming down to Bonneville to put the dummy buyers of his ranch in possession. The report proved to be but the first of many false alarms, but it had stimulated the League to unusual activity, and some three or four hundred men were furnished with arms and from time to time were drilled in secret.

Among themselves, the ranchers said that if the Railroad managers did not believe they were terribly in earnest in the stand they had taken, they were making a fatal mistake.

Harran reasserted this statement to Presley on the way home to the ranch house that same day. Harran had caught up with him by the time he reached the Lower Road, and the two jogged homeward through the miles of standing wheat.

“They may jump the ranch, Pres,” he said, “if they try hard enough, but they will never do it while I am alive. By the way,” he added, “you know we served notices yesterday upon S. Behrman and Cy. Ruggles to quit the country. Of course, they won’t do it, but they won’t be able to say they didn’t have warning.”

About an hour later, the two reached the ranch house, but as Harran rode up the driveway, he uttered an exclamation.

“Hello,” he said, “something is up. That’s Genslinger’s buckboard.”

In fact, the editor’s team was tied underneath the shade of a giant eucalyptus tree near by. Harran, uneasy under this unexpected visit of the enemy’s friend, dismounted without stabling his horse, and went at once to the dining-room, where visitors were invariably received. But the dining-room was empty, and his mother told him that Magnus and the editor were in the “office.” Magnus had said they were not to be disturbed.

Earlier in the afternoon, the editor had driven up to the porch and had asked Mrs. Derrick, whom he found reading a book of poems on the porch, if he could see Magnus. At the time, the Governor had gone with Phelps to inspect the condition of the young wheat on Hooven’s holding, but within half an hour he returned, and Genslinger had asked him for a “few moments’ talk in private.”

The two went into the “office,” Magnus locking the door behind him. “Very complete you are here, Governor,” observed the editor in his alert, jerky manner, his black, bead-like eyes twinkling around the room from behind his glasses. “Telephone, safe, ticker, account-books—well, that’s progress, isn’t it? Only way to manage a big ranch these days. But the day of the big ranch is over. As the land appreciates in value, the temptation to sell off small holdings will be too strong. And then the small holding can be cultivated to better advantage. I shall have an editorial on that some day.”

“The cost of maintaining a number of small holdings,” said Magnus, indifferently, “is, of course, greater than if they were all under one management.”

“That may be, that may be,” rejoined the other.

There was a long pause. Genslinger leaned back in his chair and rubbed a knee. Magnus, standing erect in front of the safe, waited for him to speak.