A Place in the Sun

by Michael Phillips

  So I dusted off my writing satchel, read over the notes from interviews I’d done earlier, and tried to figure out how I could go about telling people in the rest of the state about this election in what Mr. Kemble would call an “unbiased” way. Then I started going to visit folks again to find out their thoughts, now that the election was getting close and Almeda was back in it.

  Chapter 4

  My First Interview

  One thing I was learning about being truthful was the importance of being out in the open with folks—not only being honest in what you said, but coming right out with things so that nothing was ever said or done behind another person’s back. I don’t think there’s anything more destructive among people than thinking and saying things about someone that you’re not willing to tell them to their face. And I knew that if I was going to be a writer—especially if I was going to write about people—I had to show integrity in this straightforward way.

  So I figured there was only one place to begin my article about the election, especially if I was going to be fair and unbiased.

  Therefore, that very afternoon, I rode into town, left Raspberry with Marcus Weber at the stable, and crossed the street to the bank. I went straight to Mr. Royce’s office, knocked on the door, and walked in.

  If he was surprised to see me, he certainly didn’t show it. But neither did he smile.

  “Mr. Royce,” I said, “I would like to talk with you, if you don’t mind. Either now, or some other time.”

  “Now will be fine, Miss Hollister,” he replied, still sitting behind his desk, still not smiling or showing any sign of emotion. He motioned me to a chair with his hand.

  “I imagine you know,” I said, “that my stepmother has decided to remain a candidate for mayor after all.”

  “So I understand,” he replied. “It is of course her decision to make, but it is an unfortunate one that will, I fear, have most unpleasant consequences.”

  The squint of his eyes as he looked steadily into my face confirmed his meaning. I took a deep breath to steady myself.

  “Well I have decided to go ahead with what I was doing too,” I went on. “I am going to write the article or two I was planning about the mayor’s election. And to do a good job I am going to have to continue talking to people around town and interviewing them.”

  “I am very sorry to hear that,” said Mr. Royce. But his tone held a threat. “It would deeply grieve me to see a promising young writer such as you find herself on the wrong side, shall we say, of powerful interest groups and individuals who—”

  “Look, Mr. Royce,” I said, “I know you’re trying to scare me by making it sound like I’m going to be in danger if I don’t do what you say. But if Almeda can do what she’s doing in spite of all the trouble you could cause her and our family, then I figure I can too. I’m going to do it whether you like it or not, and you might as well just stop trying to frighten me off by talking like that.”

  He stopped, his mouth half open, shocked that I would cut him off and dare to speak so brazenly.

  I probably shouldn’t have interrupted him, or spoken quite so boldly. But he was starting to make me angry with all his cool words and hidden threats, sitting there behind his big fancy desk as if he owned the world and could tell everyone else what to do! And I knew he was especially annoyed that Almeda and I were causing him so much trouble. He wanted us to stop interfering with his plans and the powerful grasp he used to hold on to everything around him. I’m sure he figured he could scare us into submission. Well I didn’t like it! My face got red and my voice sounded a little edgy, but I couldn’t help it.

  For a second or two he just stared, probably wondering whether he should threaten me further, or stand up and throw me out of his office! But before he had a chance to do either, I spoke again. And this time I went on and said everything I’d come in to say. I didn’t want to give him a chance to cut me off.

  “Now, doggone it, Mr. Royce,” I went on, “I’m gonna try to be fair in this article I’m writing. It’s not going to be something that’s supposed to make people favor Almeda. I want to present both sides and talk to folks who are gonna vote for you and for her. My editor Mr. Kemble said he didn’t think I could write a fair and unbiased article, being so closely involved like I am. He said I couldn’t be objective—he called it a conflict of interests.”

  I paused to take a breath, but only for a second.

  “But I’m going to prove him wrong, Mr. Royce,” I said. “I’ll show him that I can write an unbiased article about the election that will interest the people who read his newspaper. I intend to be fair, but you’re not making it very easy for me to think unbiased thoughts when you’re telling me and my Pa and my mother the things you’re going to do to us if we don’t just quit and let you run for mayor all by yourself. What would folks think if I wrote about what you said to us?”

  “I would deny every word,” replied the banker coolly. “It would be my word against that of a teenage girl desperately trying to sway people in favor of her father’s wife. No one would believe a word you said.”

  “You might be right, for all I know,” I said. “I don’t want to write those things, and I’m not going to write them. What I came here for was to interview you and to ask you to give your side on some things. Whether you believe me or not, I want to write what’s fair and truthful about you as well as Almeda. And it would be a lot easier to be fair to you if you’d give me a little help instead of talking mean like you’re doing.”

  I stopped. Judging from the expression on his face, people didn’t normally speak quite that plainly to Franklin Royce. And if I’d stopped to think about it, I probably wouldn’t have either. But I’d done it, and it was too late to take my words back now!

  He sat just staring back across his desk at me. The office was completely silent. His face didn’t give away a hint of what he was thinking. I’d heard Pa and Uncle Nick talk about poker faces, and if this was one of those, then I understood what they meant!

  Finally Mr. Royce’s voice broke the quiet.

  “What do you want to know?” he said. The red was gone from his cheeks and the meanness from his tone, although he was obviously not pleased with the whole affair.

  “Why do you want to be Miracle Springs’ mayor?” I asked, getting out a sheet of paper from my satchel and inking my pen. “What made you decide to run?”

  He cleared his throat, but kept looking at me almost warily. The question sounded like what a newspaper reporter would ask, and yet he didn’t quite believe it was coming from the mouth of a girl he wasn’t sure he trusted.

  “I, uh . . . feel that the town, growing as it is, must look to its future, and who could be better qualified to lead such a diverse community forward than one like myself, who has been such an intrinsic part of helping in its growth up till now?”

  I wrote quickly to get down all his words.

  “So you feel you are the most qualified person to be mayor?”

  “I do.”

  “Because you are the town’s banker?”

  “That of course is a large part of it. In that role I have, as I said, helped this community grow. I have helped to finance much of the building, most of the homes. I have a stake in the community because of who I am and what I have done. As mayor I will always be looking out for the best interests of its people.”

  Again there was silence for a while as I wrote. Mr. Royce was getting used to the idea of an interview. He was starting to sound like he was delivering a campaign speech.

  “Your opponent, Mrs. Hollister, could no doubt say the same thing about her history in the community and all the ways she has helped the miners,” I said. “What real difference is there between you and her?”

  His eyes narrowed for an instant, and I knew he thought my question meant more than I intended.

  “Of course she could say it,” he answered with just an edge of derision. “But there is a clear difference between a $13,000 loan to build a house or buy a sprea
d of acreage, and a store where you buy a fifty-cent gold pan or a five-dollar sluice box or pay a few dollars so that a free black man can freight your supplies somewhere for you. A little supply store and a bank are hardly equal in their impact upon the community, and I am sure the voters in this area will have the good sense to acknowledge that difference on November 4.”

  “Do you think your position as banker might be a drawback in any way?”

  “What do you mean? How could it possibly be a drawback?”

  “There are some people who have said they might have trouble trusting you as mayor.”

  “What people?” he said, his voice rising and his eyes flashing.

  “I cannot say who,” I replied. “But I have talked with some folks who aren’t sure they’d altogether like a banker in charge of their town.”

  “Look, Miss Hollister,” he said angrily, “if you want to ask me some questions, that’s one thing. But if you’re going to come into my office and tell me to my face that I’m not to be trusted, and then put the lies people say about me in your article, I’ll have no part of it!” He rose from his chair. “I believe it is time for this interview to come to an end. You can’t say I didn’t warn you what might happen if you persist in this folly. You tell that fool father and stepmother of yours that for their own good they’d better stop fighting me. I won’t be denied what is rightfully mine, and I will not be responsible for people who stand in my way! Good day, Miss Hollister.”

  I remained seated and returned his stare. That man made it real hard to keep a Christian attitude! But I kept sitting there and didn’t get up and leave like he wanted me to. Finally I spoke again, as calmly as I could.

  “Please, Mr. Royce,” I said, “I was only saying what some people have told me they’re thinking.”

  “During your so-called interviews about the election!”

  “That’s right,” I answered. “And if I’m going to write a fair article, then I ought to know how you would answer those people. Otherwise, if you just make me leave and I have to write the article with only their side of it to go on, then your perspective never gets to be told. I’m trying to give you a decent shake here, Mr. Royce, but you’re making it downright hard! Do you want me to tell what you think or not? If you want me to leave, I will. But then I have no choice but to write just from the other interviews I get. And I am going to write this article, Mr. Royce, with or without your cooperation!”

  He stood looking down at me just a second or two longer, then slowly sat down, like an eagle smoothing his ruffled feathers.

  “Go on, Miss Hollister,” he said calmly, “what is your next question?”

  “Perhaps I should go about this differently,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me, Mr. Royce, how and why you first came to Miracle Springs, and how you became involved in banking in this community.”

  On this safe ground, Mr. Royce started up and was soon talking comfortably. I kept taking notes, and asked him more questions about himself, and the rest of my time in his office, while not “pleasant,” was calmer than the beginning. When I left fifteen minutes later I had plenty of information to offer a fair look at Royce the candidate—if “fair” is the right word, considering what I knew about Royce that I couldn’t say.

  I never asked him about the business of calling Mr. Shaw’s note due. I knew I could never mention it in the article. And for the time being I’d rather he didn’t know I knew about it.

  Chapter 5

  Talk Heats Up

  I didn’t need worry about trying to keep it a secret that I knew of the Shaws’ problem.

  Within a few days everyone knew. And most everyone was plenty riled. If the election had been held right then, Franklin Royce wouldn’t have gotten a single vote!

  Word had just begun to circulate back through the community that Almeda was going to run after all . . . and that she was in a family way. Those two things alone had people talking, and the “Hollister For Mayor” sign back up in the Freight Company window kept it all fresh in people’s minds. But when the news got around about Mr. Shaw getting evicted by the bank, Franklin Royce wasn’t exactly the most popular man in Miracle Springs that week!

  Pa kept saying he couldn’t figure out why Mr. Royce did it. “Gotta be the stupidest thing I can think of doing,” he said, “just before the election. Why, Tad could run against him now! Anybody in the whole town could beat him hands down.”

  Almeda was both furious and delighted. This foolish move by the banker suddenly made it seem as if she had a good chance of winning the election. But on the other hand, what good would that do Patrick and Chloe Shaw? Even her being the town’s mayor wouldn’t get them their house and land back.

  Finally Almeda decided to make the Shaws an issue in her campaign, to try to use it to make people think twice about voting for Mr. Royce, and at the same time to coerce the banker into giving the Shaws another chance if they could get caught up and current again with their payments to the bank. “I would gladly sacrifice the election,” she said one night at the supper table, “if Royce would negotiate some equitable terms with Patrick.”

  “Might be that you can do both, Almeda,” said Pa, “win and make him back down.”

  “I’m going to do everything I can to try,” she replied. “But the first order of business has to be somehow getting the Shaws out of their dilemma.”

  Almeda planned to give her first campaign speech the very next Sunday after church, right on the main street of town in front of Parrish Mine and Freight. Pa and Marcus Weber got busy building a three-foot-high platform for her to stand on, and the rest of us fanned out all over the community telling everybody to come, that we needed their support. She had some important things to say.

  “And, Corrie, Zack, all of you,” she said, “make sure the women know how important it is for them to come, even if they can’t vote. If they’re there on Sunday, and they hear what I say, their husbands will hear every word eventually! Women, children, dogs, horses . . . we just need a good crowd! We’ve got to show people that we are serious and that the opposition to Royce is real. That’s the only way they’ll give earnest consideration to voting for me.”

  By Friday, the whole community was buzzing! One of the town’s most well-liked men was on the verge of getting run off his place. A pregnant woman who couldn’t even vote herself was running for mayor against the town’s powerful banker, and a campaign speech was scheduled in two days. Folks were talking of nothing else!

  What a “human interest” item all this would make! I began to wonder if the article I was writing would be any good at all, leaving out all the things people were talking about. But I was almost done with it, so it was too late to start over. I thought maybe I should write a second one to come about a week after the first. I’d have to see what Mr. Kemble said.

  Before I had a chance to worry about that, it began to come clear to Pa why Mr. Royce had taken the action against Mr. Shaw about his loan.

  “He’s a schemer all right,” Pa grumbled. “He’s making an example of Pat, showing folks what he’ll do if things aren’t to his liking.”

  “And demonstrating that he isn’t afraid, even of what people think of him,” added Almeda with a frustrated sigh. “I really don’t know how to stop him, Drummond. Right now everyone’s mad at him and saying they’ll never accept him as mayor. But when it comes down to their decision, and their own homes and land that he holds the mortgages on, I’m afraid they’ll worry less about how much they like Franklin Royce and more about their own security. And I can’t say that I blame them. I don’t want people voting for me if they’re going to be hurt by it.”

  “He can’t foreclose on everybody,” said Pa. “He’d be a fool. He’d be cutting his own throat. His bank would be out of business.”

  “But don’t you see, he doesn’t have to follow through with his threats. Just the fear that he might will be enough. People won’t run the risk. They’ll give in to him. That’s why he called Patrick’s note due when he d
id. At first it looked like a foolish campaign move. But in reality it conveyed just the message to this community Franklin wanted it to—I hold the power and the purse strings in this town, and I am not afraid to use them. I don’t care if you like me. I don’t even care if you all hate me. But just don’t cross me or you’ll end up in the same dilemma as Patrick Shaw.”

  “In other words,” growled Pa angrily, “vote for me . . . or else!”

  “I think that’s the basic message he hopes the men of this community will glean from the Shaws’ trouble. He doesn’t care a bit about all this anger circulating around right now, as long as once it dies down he’s succeeded in getting that message across.”

  Almeda sighed. She knew she had taken on a tough opponent who apparently held all the cards. Her initial enthusiasm was fading some, I could tell, and I knew from her washed-out complexion that she didn’t feel well either.

  “Well you just give ’em your best in that speech on Sunday,” said Pa, trying to bolster up her spirits. “Maybe we can beat that rascal yet!”

  Almeda smiled back at him, but it was a pale, wan smile. She rose slowly to her feet and walked to the door and outside. She needed to be alone a lot during those days. Pa knew it and let her go without any more talk between them.

  Chapter 6

  Campaign Speechmaking

  On Sunday morning church was packed, and folks were waiting for what was going to happen that afternoon.

  A little after one o’clock, we all rode up to the front of Parrish Mine and Freight in the wagon. A few people were milling around already, and soon others began to arrive for the speech, which was scheduled for 1:30.