ASHES

Repugnant, ugly, the main shops of the D. & R. system sprawl in a mass of soot-coated buildings, steel rails, gaunt traveling cranes, belching smokestacks and great piles of metal parts, some red-leaded against the elements, some crimsoned by the bite of rust. Over all lies dirt and grease and noise. Huge locomotives lumber about, vomiting clouds of black smoke and adding the discordance of their whistles and bells to the din of bellowing blowers, the rumble of cranes and the growl and mutter of many machines.

On the fringe of the plant is the ash pit. Beneath great slatwork sections of covering, deep, still waters, capped with restless tongues of vapor, brood. There was a time when the pit lay uncovered, but at night men blundered out of the darkness and vanished, to be hauled forth days later by Juan Mendoza and his great clamshell bucket. So the pit was covered and the bucket lifts the sections as Juan desires.

Tracks run beside the pit and concrete slides catch the smoking contents of the locomotive ash cans and guide them, hissing and plopping, down into the deadening waters.

High in the air over the pit Juan Mendoza sits in a little traveling cage and, from midnight until eight in the morning, guides the great clamshell bucket as it scoops the ashes from the bottom and deposits them in the waiting cars. A short, slight young fellow, Juan, mild-mannered, quiet and shy; his features the olive tint of the Latin; his English softly slurred at times. Friendly is Juan, too, and kind.

It was that strain in him which made him stop one night when he fancied that he heard a sound of distress. The hour was near midnight, and he was on his way to work, walking between dark, brooding lines of freight cars in the upper yard. The sound he heard was faint, made even more so by the crunch of his feet on the cinders and the distant noise of a yard engine shifting some cars. But there was a quality about it that touched him, and he stopped and listened intently.

In a moment the sound came again, a plaintive whimper, muffled, elusive as to its whereabouts.

Juan stood irresolute. He had no time to spare, and excuses counted for little after the midnight whistle blew. While he hesitated the whimper came again. It was too much for the gentle soul of Juan. He investigated.

The sound seemed to come from the next line of cars over. He gripped his bag of lunch between his teeth and clambered over the couplings between two cars; and by dint of listening and searching he came to its source. It was the door of an empty freight car, jarred open an inch or so.

When his crunching steps halted before the door there was a moment’s silence. Then, through the crack came a faint, hesitating whimper, pleading yet doubtful. Juan set himself and pushed the door back with a shriek of rusty hinges. He carried a small pocket flashlight and he pressed the button and threw the beam into the dark, cavernous interior of the car.

The light picked out the author of the sounds, a puppy, all feet and legs and head. But it was not fat and sleek and healthy, as puppies should be. Its bones stood out starkly, and its gaunt, starved body spoke of days spent without food and water. A puppy from some far city, without doubt; an unwanted puppy who had been shut in the car by a heartless owner and sent away into the unknown.

Juan looked at the starved outcast cowering back in the beam of light, and clucked in pity. And then he spoke gently. A moment the puppy listened and then its tail stirred, its body trembled and finally it crawled toward the glaring eye of light and the friendly voice that came from behind. When it came within reach, Juan set his bag of lunch on the car floor and gathered the small bundle of skin and bones to him.

The puppy whimpered with content; the last of its fear fled and it lifted its head and licked him on the cheek.

Because he was late, Juan did not tarry on the spot. He placed the puppy in the crook of his left arm and picked up his bag of lunch with his right hand. As he hastened on toward the shops he made shift to open the bag of lunch and break off bits of sandwiches and give them to the starved one.

By the time Juan had gotten his time card and made his way through the shops to the ash pit, his heart was lost to the snuggling bundle which nestled in the crook of his arm. And the puppy pushed its nose deep between his arm and side and breathed slowly with pure contentment.

So they came out of the night, into the smoky area of the ash pit lights, and then into the brighter glare of the small building which stood beside the pit. This held the lockers of the pit crews and served as their general headquarters. Inside the door Juan halted and blinked for a moment. The puppy took its head from beneath his arm and looked about with interest.

The members of the twelve-to-eight trick were gathered inside, donning their work clothes and talking. At the sight of the puppy they stopped speaking and gave it their undivided attention. One, Thompson by name, asked—

“Where’d you get him?”

“I found heem,” Juan answered.

“Where?”

“In a freight car.”

“Sort of a hobo dog, eh?”

And the men laughed. Juan set the pup down on the floor and then straightened up and shook his head.

“No, a poor puppee who had a cruel master,” he said, and then added comfortably, “But that is past. He is feexed for all right now.”

“Goin’ to keep him?”

Juan nodded.

“What’s his name?”

Juan hesitated, and then a smile came over his face.

“Sammee,” he said. “From thees time on he will be Sammee.”

Sammee looked up at the men with a friendly air. And the men responded and called to him and whistled and snapped their fingers. One, however did not. He was Smith, a man who had but lately come to the pit. A rather short man was Smith, but not slight. His frame was broad and heavyset and he leaned slightly forward as he walked, suggesting a great ape. One eye had been gouged out in some brawl, and it gave to his countenance a malignant cast.

Smith looked at Sammee scornfully with his one eye, blinked the lid several times over the bloodshot ball and asked:

“Why didn’t you knock him in the head? He’s half dead anyway.”

Juan shrugged and flashed his teeth in a smile.

“He will live,” he said. “And I like heem. He is nice.”

“How nice?” demanded Smith with a sneer. “He’s just a mongrel pooch, not worth shooting.”

Juan turned his head and looked Sammee over carefully before he answered—

“Well—I don’ know how nice—just nice.”

Smith hunched his gorilla-like shoulders and growled—

“If he was mine I’d knock him in the head an’ pitch him in the pit.”

There was a moment’s silence at his words. And in that silence Sammee cocked his head up at Smith and then deliberately turned his back upon him.

Thompson led the laughter.

“He hasn’t got any use for you, Smith,” he roared. “Read you like a book, he did.”

Smith scowled; and when the laughter kept up he shouldered his way to the door and went out into the night. As he passed Sammee he gave the pup a venomous glance from his one good eye.

Juan was looking down at the puppy and did not observe it. Sammee yawned and Juan placed his lunch bag on a bench and made him a bed with some clean waste that was lying around. Then he opened his locker and put on his work clothes. When the midnight whistle sounded he went forth to his night’s work, not forgetting to fill an empty can with water and set it before Sammee.

From that night Sammee and Juan became inseparable. Each night the puppy came to work with his master. And while Juan glided to and fro, high over the pit in the control cage of the crane, Sammee snoozed on the bed of waste that Juan fixed for him or went on short exploring expeditions around the outside of the small building.

Smith the one-eyed, gorilla-framed, persisted in his dislike. He said loudly and often that dogs like that should be put out of the way. Every time that Sammee crossed his path he aimed a kick or a curse at him.

Sammee, in turn, quickly became aware of Smith’s enmity and avoided walking near him. Finally his repulsion became so great that when Smith came too near him the hairs on his neck would lift and a growl would issue—not perhaps as fierce as he imagined it to be, but a growl nevertheless—all of which furnished fuel for the flame of Smith’s dislike.

Once, when the men were gathered together for the twenty-minute lunch period, he stated that if Sammee ever bit him he would kill the dog at once. Juan was sitting on the floor and Sammee was lying between his outstretched legs. Juan dropped his hand on Sammee’s back in a caress and said to Smith—

“He will not hurt you.”

Smith glowered across the room at the two of them and snapped:

“I know damn’ well he won’t! But if he tries it—I’ll fix him!”

“He is but a small puppee,” said Juan defensively.

“He’ll be a dead pup one of these days,” growled Smith.

Juan was troubled by the threat. He had a peace loving disposition and did not know exactly how to deal with the truculent Smith; so he did not reply, and after a moment went on eating his lunch.

Early the very next night Sammee brought the wrath of Smith down upon him. Smith had slipped on a loose clinker. To balance himself he threw out a hand and seized the nearest support, the main rod of an engine that was then on the pit. The rod was covered with dirty grease and oil and Smith’s hand was fouled with it. He had no waste in his pocket and went to the locker building for some.

Juan, as was his custom, had gathered the stock of clean waste into a bundle and made a little bed in one corner for Sammee. The puppy was curled up on it when Smith entered.

Smith stalked into the door, looked about the room, saw there was no waste but that under the puppy and advanced across the room with an oath. Sammee watched him approach. The hairs on his neck rose up and a tiny growl rumbled in the back of his throat. As Smith reached down to throw him off the waste, he gave a deeper growl and opened his small mouth threateningly.

In none too good humor anyhow, Smith halted and swore a great oath. His one eye flamed and he looked swiftly about the room. There was an old battered brake-stick leaning in one corner and he lurched across to it. Sammee sensed trouble and arose from his bed and warily started for the door. And when Smith picked up the brake-stick and charged at him, he fled through the door into the night, his voice raised in shrill yelps.

Juan, high in the air, heard him and saw, through the half-gloom of the pit lights, the squat figure of Smith dash out of the building after him, the battered brake-stick held threateningly in one hand. Juan stopped the crane and made his way down to the ground as quickly as he could.

He met Smith returning from an unsuccessful chase into the darkness that lay beyond the rays of the pit lights.

“Sammee—” demanded Juan anxiously. “Where is he?”

“The little devil’s out there somewhere,” snarled Smith. “He got away this time, but I’ll get him as soon as he shows his nose.”

“What did he do?” asked Juan in a troubled voice.

“Tried to bite me!” flamed Smith. “I told you if he ever did it I’d kill him. He’s as good as dead now.”

“He did not bite you?”

“He tried to!”

“Then,” said Juan stoutly, “you shall do nothing to heem. He is but a puppee.”

“The hell I won’t!” declared Smith, his one eye flaming.

His love for Sammee gave Juan unexpected spirit.

“The hell you weel!” he retorted.

Smith looked at the slight, little, mild-mannered Juan and was speechless with astonishment for a moment. He would as soon have expected the unfortunate Sammee to turn and charge him as to see a show of spirit from his master. In a moment speech returned and he grunted savagely.

“You heard me! And if you get fresh I’ll beat you up afterward.”

Without deigning to say more he shouldered by and returned to his work.

Juan sighed and went in search of Sammee. After a little, by dint of calling and keeping out in the darkness, he found him. Lest there be further trouble at the time, he took Sammee under his arm and carried him up into the control cage of the crane.

There, on the floor of the little cage, between Juan’s feet, Sammee lay until the four o’clock whistle blew. But the whir and growl of the motors overhead and the snap and spark of the controls kept Sammee in a constant state of terror. So, when he descended to eat his lunch, Juan took Sammee down with him. Although Juan was mild of disposition, he was not a coward, and he did not think that Smith would harm the dog while he was around.

In that he was correct. With the first flush of rage over, Smith lost some of his lust for the instant death of Sammee, but he still retained his hate. So much of it showed in his face that Juan took his bag of lunch and went outside. There, on a box by the side of the door, he sat and munched the food. And for amusement, after Sammee had eaten, Juan took a small stick and began to throw it off, that Sammee might bring it back to him. It was the first of many tricks that he hoped to teach his pet.

Sammee had learned his lesson well. When the stick left Juan’s hand he would dash after it at top speed. And when it had fallen to the ground and he had picked it up and given it a few shakes, he brought it back at once. So, for some minutes they played, and both became absorbed in the game.

Neither saw Smith finish his lunch and lean against the inside of the doorway. Neither had an inkling of the thought that came to Smith, a thought that twisted his face into a leer and made his one eye glitter with anticipation.

The lunch period came to an end. Down the tracks, at the inspection pit, the inspectors finished another locomotive and one of them backed it off and started toward the ash pit. That stretch of track was on a down grade and the monster locomotive slipped silently along, tender first.

Juan picked up the stick and gave it an extra hard toss. Up into the darkness it went, and off Sammee dashed after it. He did not locate it at once and ran around in little circles, searching. Suddenly, another stick, a larger stick, sailed out of the doorway, clattered on the inside rail of the tracks, and slipped down into the water. Sammee heard the noise, thought his master had thrown another stick, and dashed frantically to where it had fallen. Over the first track he went and looked questioningly down into the pit. And while he gazed, the monster steel tender slipped swiftly down out of the night and blotted life from him with one sickening crunch.

Juan had seen the stick sail through the air, had followed Sammee’s movements with his eyes, without thinking. The end had come as a complete surprise to him also. He sat in stunned silence as the locomotive came to a halt, and then, back of him, a laugh of satisfaction burst forth.

“Now he’s a good dog,” jeered Smith.

Slowly Juan stood up and turned around. For an instant he looked at the leering face of Smith and a tide of blinding rage welled up in him.

“You are a devil!” he said thickly, and ran at Smith, his fists flailing.

It was little more than a gesture. Smith would have made two of him. The one-eyed one received him with anticipation. The shower of blows that Juan rained he parried easily. And then he set himself, swung one of his long, powerful arms and caught Juan full in the pit of the stomach.

There was nothing more to it. Juan staggered back into the night and collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony. Smith looked at him and laughed.

“I guess that’ll fix you for a while,” he said with satisfaction.

The whistle sounded; the men went back to their work before Juan recovered from the effects of the terrible blow. Slowly he dragged himself up from the ground, deathly sick, and staggered over to the box by the door, where he could sit down.

For some minutes he rested on the box, sick in body and sick in mind. Sammee had been his one true friend. And Sammee was gone. A great ache filled his heart.

No one noticed him and presently he stood up and walked over to the bottom of the ladder leading up to the crane. He was still weak and he leaned against the side of the pillar, postponing the ascent for a moment.

His eyes, wandering aimlessly about, came to rest on the great steel crane bucket. It hung motionless, rusted, scarred—an inanimate thing of steel. Yet, for him, every night it ceased to be just a bucket, became instead almost a part of himself.

At the thought Juan looked at the bucket with increasing interest. It did as he willed. The great mass of steel, the thick cables, were his to command. By them he was metamorphosed into a colossus who scooped great handfuls of ashes from far beneath the surface of the deep water-filled ash pit and cast them unerringly to one side. On the ground he was small, puny. But the moment he entered the little cage, high above, he ceased to be himself—became instead a cable-thewed giant capable of prodigious feats of strength; capable of—yes, capable of crushing those beneath him if he so desired. Even the gorilla-framed Smith was but a puny thing when he, Juan Mendoza, stood in his little cage high in the air. Smith, with all his strength, could never do to him what he could do to Smith from above.

Juan stood away from the pillar and lifted his shoulders. The pain in his stomach fled, the slight giddiness which had clung to him disappeared. A strange, sweet, new strength, a sense of power, of confidence, stole through him. A flash of inspiration appeared to him.

Smith was standing outside the engine directing a hose into the ash pan. Juan stepped on the slatwork that covered the deep, brooding waters of the pit and walked to his side.

Smith saw him approach, glowered at him, and when he was close said—

“Well, what d’you want?”

Juan looked up at him sternly.

“I tell you—look out,” he said slowly. “Thees night you will be sorree.”

Smith scowled.

“What’s eatin’ you?” he demanded. “Didn’t you get enough?”

Juan stared at him silently.

“I tell you, look out,” he said evenly, and turned away.

Smith watched him go in silence. After a moment he broke it with an oath and turned back to his work.

Swiftly Juan climbed to the top of the ladder. Moving carefully lest he touch the live power wire, he crawled on the crane and stood up. He was high above the pit lights, above everything, standing in pitch darkness. Below stretched the world of the shops, a distant world it seemed. The day-time cacophony was subdued. A deep, murky gloom, broken and slashed by feeble lights and flickering torches, turned the shops into a vast hive of the unknown.

There was movement on the ground, but of a sort that slipped silent and unseen through the darkness. One moment nothing, the next the looming shadow of a locomotive, or of a car. A swing around a corner and a collision with a ghostly workman. A voice calling, the source drowned by the all-pervading darkness. Winking pinpoints of light bobbing along with no apparent support; a Stygian world in which all things were possible—and probable.

Juan looked about him and drew a deep breath. Up there, high above everything, he seemed infinitely removed from the earth, a part, almost, of the sky overhead. There was something about it that had always thrilled him, that had sent the blood racing through his veins in joy and brought, many times during the night, songs caroling to his lips.

But there was no joy in Juan’s heart then, no song on his lips. A great hurt filled him, a bitterness. And there was something more, something the sight of the bucket had put into his mind. With a last look about, he made his way over the motors and cable drums until he reached the roof of the little control cage. He stooped, pushed back a small slide, felt with his foot, found the top rung of a ladder inside, and descended.

From the glassed windows of the little cage he could look out on all sides. On his right was the ready lot filled with locomotives, repaired, greased, coaled and watered, waiting for their runs. On his left, the dark outlines of the shop buildings were etched indistinctly in vagrant rays of light. Through the open trapdoor in the roof a lone star looked down upon him.

Below him in the murky light that shrouded the pit stood the engine. At its side—Smith. Juan eyed him rigidly. The muscles in his jaw set and his hands slipped over to the controller handles. Then before he could do anything, the locomotive below slipped off the pit with a soft purr of exhausts. Smith, his work finished for the moment, walked off the slatwork covering of the pit.

Juan relaxed with an impatient exclamation. But there were no more locomotives below at the moment and, with a final bitter glance at the back of Smith, he went to work. His hands moved swiftly between the different controller handles. The cage swung out over the pit. At the same moment other motors overhead whirred and the great clamshell bucket dropped.

On the section of slatwork covering over which the cage hovered, a five-foot length of I-shaped steel was bolted. Juan stopped the downward rush of the bucket a few inches above the steel beam. Then, gently, he set it down and closed the huge jaws tightly in the channel of the I.

He touched another control and the bucket arose without effort, lifting the half-ton section of slatwork covering by its bite on the I-beam. As the bucket lifted, the crane slipped down the pit a few feet. There, clear of the gaping square of water which the section had uncovered, the bucket settled. The section came to rest easily; the bucket jaws unclasped; the crane swung back over the open water.

For the next hour Juan worked steadily. His hands moved constantly between the controls. The bucket dropped down, down, disappeared beneath the water, and still dropped. It touched the bottom; the cables slackened. He moved another control. The cables tightened, one more taut than the rest. Far below the surface the great jaws bit deep into the piles of ashes and closed on a huge bite. The cables stilled a moment and then began to slip smoothly up out of the water. The top of the bucket broke the surface, then the main part, and then it rose into the air, cascading water and ashes back on the black surface of the water. With a sweep the bucket traveled over to the string of empty ash cars which stood on the tracks at one side of the pit. Over the cars the bucket jaws yawned, the wet ashes dropped and the bucket swooped back for another bite.

Another locomotive slipped over the pit, and Smith again appeared on the slatwork covering, farther away. The crane gradually shifted down the pit, nearer and nearer to where he was working. His figure appeared plain through the uncertain light. Finally he looked up. The bucket was in mid-swoop, the jaws hanging open and loose. As Smith’s glance met his, Juan snapped the jaws shut. And as they clanged together ominously Juan scowled.

Smith turned back to his work. But when, on the next swoop from the ash cars the jaws again snapped in mid-air, he started slightly. Juan, who was watching closely, smiled grimly to himself.

The locomotive presently moved off, but another one took its place at once. Juan finished the spot where he was working, replaced the covering, and opened up a new one, almost beside where Smith was working.

He carried the half-ton covering from the new opening over behind Smith, stilled it at a foot in the air, then opened the bucket jaws and released it. At the crash and tremor of the impact, Smith started and cursed. He turned, his face twisted with rage, and shouted up—

“Watch out there, you fool, you’ll kill some one yet!”

Juan thrust his head through the window and called down—

“I tell you—look out!”

“Look out hell! I’ll look out for you when you come down!” snarled Smith. “You’ll get some more of the medicine you got awhile ago!”

“If you are alive,” Juan called back. And he suddenly snapped the jaws of the bucket as it hung in the air. It was near Smith’s head and he ducked. As the bucket swung away, Juan looked down and laughed aloud.

Smith clenched a great fist and shook it savagely. He stood undecided, but Juan paid him no further attention and he presently turned back to his work.

For ten minutes they worked, the one guiding the bucket, the other cleaning the ash pan. And then the locomotive backed off the pit and another took its place. The new engine stopped so that Smith was compelled to stand at the edge of the gaping hole into which the bucket was dropping.

From above Juan watched him, calculating. It was so easy to drop the bucket on him, clutch him tight, and plunge him down beneath the dark waters of the pit. It would not take long. A very few minutes and Sammee would have a companion.

He thought of Sammee, and the laugh that had come from Smith when Sammee died. Sudden rage swept him and he halted the bucket in mid-air and started it on a swoop in the direction of the squat figure below.

Something stayed him. He checked the bucket, swung it back and dropped it down beneath the waters. And as he did so, he fiercely berated himself. It was so easy; might well be an accident.

While he turned the matter over in his mind, the bucket scooped the last of the ashes from the pit bottom and came up half full. Juan dropped them into the ash car and halted the bucket in mid-air. It was his last chance. Not that night would another such opportunity occur.

They would probably be separated by yards in another few minutes. No chance for an accident then. And when eight o’clock came, and he was on the ground again, Smith might do as he promised—probably would.

Juan’s hands strayed over the controller handles. He tensed—but the moment passed. He drew a deep breath.

“No!” he muttered to himself in Spanish. “I will not kill!”

And he lowered the bucket to swing the section in place. The jaws closed on the I-beam, gripped; the cables tautened and the heavy section arose. High Juan swung it. And as he slowed it in the air, one edge dipped down. Down it went, towards Smith. Juan saw, and leaned from the window to shout a warning.

Smith looked up, saw the great section in the air above him, tilting down, down, upon him. Already nervous, he sprang back in alarm. His heel slipped between the two slats and caught. He tripped, fell backward, and his head struck against the great steel trailer casting of the engine. He uttered no sound. His body went inert; he rolled to one side and slipped into the brooding waters of the pit with a sullen splash. The heavy rubber boots he wore carried him under at once.

Juan leaned far out and gazed at the swirl in the dark waters below. It subsided; the floating blanket of cinders drew together and heaved in diminishing swells over the spot. The sound of a tolling bell from a departing locomotive came muffled through the eery hush of the early morning. At the sound Juan shuddered and crossed himself.

“Dios! It is the will of God!” he said to himself fiercely.

Five minutes, three minutes, and it would all be over. No one had seen. He had but to turn his head, to light a cigarette, nay, just to scramble out across the crane and spend futile minutes summoning help, and the thing would be done.

He looked down at the black water, and suddenly a shudder wrenched him and he cried:

“Santa Maria! I can not!”

He jerked back inside and his hands flashed to the controls. With a lurch the crane rumbled down the pit. The bucket dropped, and while it was descending the jaws opened and allowed the heavy section to fall the last five feet.

Back over the opening the crane sped. The last tiny tremor on the surface had smoothed out. The water lay black and silent below.

Juan leaned out, suddenly cool. The crane stopped and the bucket dropped. He watched it disappear beneath the surface. Somewhere below was Smith. Somewhere, and the black water was thirty feet deep!

It was Juan, not the bucket, who reached down with a great mailed fist. Deep he groped, to the very bottom. Slowly, skilfully, that he might not injure with the power of his might, he felt about. The world of men, the shops, faded as the whole of his mind centered on the bit of bottom deep below.

With his cable-thewed muscles he groped, foot by foot. And at last he was rewarded. Gently he closed the jaws. They gripped. He stayed them. A motor overhead whirred. The wet, sleek cables slipped up out of the water. The top of the bucket broke water. Juan leaned far out and watched breathlessly. Up, first the pulley at the top, then the half-opened jaws. Then—a dark object between the jaws.

Juan exhaled his bated breath in a rush of relief. He swung the bucket to one side, laid the great bulk of Smith carefully on the slatwork covering and then lifted the bucket and swung it to one side. He gazed down at the sprawling figure for a moment and swallowed. And as he turned to the ladder at his back and started for aid, he murmured philosophically:

“Dios! It is the will of God!”

And the lone star looked down through the trap door overhead and blinked approvingly.