Finally Almeda looked straight into Mr. Shaw’s face. “The long and short of it, Patrick,” she said, “is that I brought the solution to your problems with the Royce Miners’ Bank home with me from Sacramento right in these saddlebags!”
She picked up the leather pouches that had been sitting beside her, stood up, and turned them upside down. Bundles of paper money poured out onto Mr. Shaw’s lap.
All of us gasped. Almeda laughed at everyone’s reaction as the fortune in greenbacks spilled onto the chair and floor.
“Thunderation, woman!” roared Pa. “You came all the way from the city with that in your bags? What if you’d been stuck up? Tarnation, that’s a pile of money!”
“I had your son to protect me,” Almeda replied. “How could I be afraid? And Zack and I prayed for the Lord’s presence to go beside us. We read Psalm 91 together, and we took our Father at his word.”
All this time poor Patrick Shaw just sat where he was, in speechless silence, gazing down at more money than he’d ever seen in his life.
“It’s to pay off your loan, Pat,” said Pa at length. “How many days you got left on the call?”
“’Bout nine. Chloe’s already started to pack up our things.”
“Well you tell her to unpack them,” said Almeda firmly, “and you ride straight into town and march into Royce’s bank and put this money down on his desk, and you say to him, ‘Mr. Royce, here’s your money, just like your notice-of-call said. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like a receipt and the clear title to my property.’”
Still dumfounded and bewildered, Mr. Shaw managed to stammer out the words, “But I can’t take this . . . this ain’t my money.”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Shaw,” said Almeda. “We’ll make everything legal and tidy and you don’t have to be concerned about us. We’re not giving you this money, we’re loaning it to you. I borrowed it from Mr. Finch at four-and-a-half percent interest. We will make you the loan at the same rate. You pay off the Royce bank, and next month begin making payments to us instead. We will then pay back Finchwood Ltd. as you pay us. And since the interest rate is less, your payments every month will be less than Franklin was charging you. You’ll be out from under his yoke, you’ll have your land back, and as long as you keep the payments up from now on, everything will be fine.”
“I—I don’t know how to thank you,” said Mr. Shaw.
“No thanks is needed, Pat,” said Pa. “You’d have done the same thing to help us if you were in a position to.”
“It’s an investment for all of us,” added Almeda. “For us and for Mr. Finch, for the future of Miracle Springs and its people, and against the scare tactics of Franklin Royce.”
“Well, I reckon I can understand that. But I can’t see how it’ll help anyone else around. They’re still gonna be too afraid to vote against him for mayor. And Royce is liable to be so mad he’ll start calling other folks’ loans due, and then we’ll just be making it worse for everybody.”
“You’ve put your finger right on the risky part of our plan,” said Almeda. “Before I left for the south I told Drummond it was going to be like a giant poker game. And here’s where we have to hope our bluff works.”
“How’s paying off my note gonna bluff him?”
“Because you’re gonna tell the other men around just what you’ve done,” said Pa. “You’re gonna tell them you paid Royce off with money you borrowed, and that there’s more where that came from.”
“But you can’t tell them where we came by it,” added Almeda. “Just say that you borrowed it. And then you tell them that we’ll back anybody else up whose loan gets called too.”
“You mean it?” exclaimed Mr. Shaw in disbelief.
“We mean to try,” answered Pa. “You just spread the word around town that nobody’s got to be afraid of voting for Almeda on account of what Royce might do with their loans. You tell ’em that you’re gonna vote for her—that is, you are gonna vote for Almeda, ain’t you, Pat?”
“You’re dang sure I am! After what you’ve done, how could I not? It’s not every man who’s got friends like you! You two are just the kind of mayoring this town needs, and I aim to tell everyone I can too!”
“Well, you tell ’em to vote for Almeda and that Royce’s not likely to do a thing to ’em. If he tries and starts threatening other folks like he did you, then you tell ’em to come see us.”
“I still don’t see how you can do such a thing.”
“What my husband has been trying to say is that we’ll back up our promise as far as we can,” said Almeda, “and we’re praying it’s far enough. Mr. Finch said he would support us up to fifty thousand dollars. That should enable us to protect three or four others from being evicted by Royce. If he persists beyond that, then we could be in trouble. That’s when we have to hope he won’t call our bluff.”
“Well, I’ll do what you say.”
“Just remember—you keep quiet about all this we talked about,” said Pa. “Pay off your loan and start talking up Hollister for Mayor. Then we’ll leave our friend Royce to stew over it.”
Chapter 15
Into the Hornet’s Nest
If we thought Almeda’s handbill caused a commotion, or Pa’s marching in and smacking Mr. Royce in the face while the widow Robinson got an earful in the other room, that was nothing compared to the uproar caused when Mr. Shaw walked into the Royce Miners’ Bank that same afternoon, calmly asked to see Mr. Royce, and then dumped eighteen thousand dollars in green United States bills on the desk in front of him, asking for his change, a receipt, and the cancelled mortgage note and clear deed of trust for his property.
The exclamations from the bystanders, and the look on Mr. Royce’s face, according to Mr. Shaw telling us about it later, was a sight to behold.
“His greedy eyes got so big seeing all that money in front of him,” he said, “for an instant I thought he was gonna dive right on top of the desk after it! But then the next second he suddenly seemed to remember this money meant he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on my land and wouldn’t be getting that six-and-a-quarter percent interest no more.
“‘What kind of a trick is this, Shaw?’ he said.
“’Ain’t no trick,’ I answered him. ‘You called my note due, and there’s the payment, just like you asked—nine days early.’
“‘Where’d you get it, Shaw?’ he asked.
‘Nothing in your notice of call said I had to tell you everything I do. You said I had to pay you, and I done it.’
“‘I know you don’t have a dime to your name,’ he growled. And watching him when I put that money in front of him made me realize that he wasn’t after the money at all, but that he wanted my place. ‘What did you do, hold up a stage? Or is it counterfeit?’
“By now I was enjoying myself, and I decided to pull a little bluff of my own. ‘Mr. Royce,’ I said, ‘that is good U.S. legal currency. I come by it perfectly legal, I’m paying you off in full with it. Now, if you don’t write me a receipt and give my note back showing it’s paid in full, with the extra from the eighteen thousand I got coming back, then I’ll just be on my way over to the Sheriff’s office!’
“Well, he blustered a while more, but finally he took the cash and put it in his safe, and got out the papers and signed everything over to me. But he didn’t like it, I could tell. There he was with eighteen thousand dollars, and a look on his face like I’d gotten the best of him. And he gave me back the extra—there’s $735 back from your $18,000!”
He plunked the money down on the table.
“Keep it, Pat,” said Pa. “You use that to clear up your other bills, and if you still got extra, then it’ll help make the first few payments.”
“Then you come by the office tomorrow,” added Almeda, “and we’ll draw up a note and some terms. At four-and-a-half percent, it shouldn’t be more than $135 or $140 a month.”
“I can’t tell you how obliged I am to you!”
“You just get folks over being afraid of
voting for us!” said Almeda.
“Oh, I’ve already been doing that! Once that money fell out onto the desk in Royce’s bank, it was like I’d stirred up a hornet’s nest! I no more’n walked out the door of the bank and it seemed the whole town knew already. All the men came pouring out from the stores and their houses, cheering me and shaking my hand and hitting me on the back. Why, you’d have thought I struck a new vein under the mountain! And of course the question they was all asking was, ‘Where’d the loot come from, Pat . . . where’d you get that kind o’ cash!’ But I just kinda kept to myself, smiling like I knew a big secret, and said, ‘Let’s just put it this way, boys. Wherever I got it from, there’s more where that came from. And so you don’t need to be one bit afraid of what’s gonna happen if you vote for Mrs. Hollister for mayor. Matter of fact, boys,’ I added, and I let my voice get real soft like I was letting them in on a big secret, ‘matter of fact, it’s come to my attention that our old friend Royce is charging us all close to two percent more interest than the going rate down in Sacramento. Unless he’s a dang sight dumber than I think, he ain’t gonna call your loans due. He’s been making a killing on us all these years, and he ain’t about to upset his money-cart now.’”
“What did they say to that?” asked Almeda. Pa was laughing so hard from listening to Mr. Shaw that he couldn’t say anything!
“They were plenty riled, I can tell you that. And once I told them that I had it on the word of a man I trusted that they’d be protected in the same way if Royce called their loans due, they all walked off saying they weren’t gonna vote for no cheat like him for mayor!”
“You done good, Pat,” Pa said finally.
“Did you tell anyone that it was us who was behind it?” asked Almeda.
“Rolf Douglas came up to me afterward, kinda quiet. Said he was two months behind with Royce and was afraid he was gonna be next. I told him to go see you, in your office, Mrs. Hollister. I think you can likely expect a call from him real soon.”
“Rolf ain’t no Widow Robinson,” said Pa. “But I don’t doubt that word’ll manage to spread around.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have told him,” said Mr. Shaw, worried.
“No, no, Patrick, it’s just fine,” said Almeda. “Word had to get around. Just so long as folks don’t know how we were able to do what we have done—at least not for a while. We want to keep Franklin off guard and guessing.”
Chapter 16
Pa Plays Poker—Eyeball to Eyeball
Word got around, all right—in a hurry!
Two days later we got a call from Franklin Royce that was anything but friendly. Pa must have sensed there was fire coming out of the banker’s eyes while he was still a long way off. The minute he saw the familiar black buggy, he said to Almeda, “I’ll handle this,” and walked a little way down the road away from the house.
“I’m here to talk to you and your wife, Hollister,” said Mr. Royce, hotly reining his horse up in front of Pa but remaining seated in his carriage. As he spoke he glanced over to where Almeda and I were standing near the door. His eyes threw daggers at us.
“What you got to say, Royce,” replied Pa, “you can say to me. I’m not about to put up with any more of your abuse or threats to my wife or daughter. If you haven’t learned your lesson from what happened in your bank last week, then maybe I’ll have to knock some more sense into that head of yours.”
“You dare lay a hand on me, Hollister, and I’ll have you up on charges before the day’s out!”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” said Pa. “But if you dare to threaten anyone in my family again, I won’t stop with bloodying your nose. Now go on . . . say your piece.”
“I’d like to know what the two of you think you’re trying to do, paying off Patrick Shaw’s note like that?”
“We made him a loan. I don’t see anything so unusual in that.”
“You’re mixing in my affairs, that’s what’s unusual about it!”
“Ain’t no law against loaning money to a friend.”
“You don’t have that kind of cash!”
Pa shrugged.
“I want to know where you got it!”
“There also ain’t no law that gives a banker the right to meddle in someone else’s private affairs,” Pa shot back. “Where Pat Shaw got the money to pay you off is no more your concern than where we might have gotten it to loan him—that is if we had anything to do with all this you’re talking about.”
“You know good and well you have everything to do with it, you dirty—”
“You watch your tongue!” shouted Pa, taking two steps toward Royce’s buggy. “There are ladies present. And if I hear one more filthy word from your mouth, I’ll slam it shut so hard you won’t speak any words for a week!”
Cowed but not humbled, Royce moderated his tone.
“Look, Hollister,” he said, “I know well enough that you are behind that money of Shaw’s. It’s all over town. You know it and I know it and everybody knows it! Now I’m here to ask you—the two of you—” he added, looking over at Almeda, “businessman to businessman, having nothing to do with the election, I’m asking you what are you trying to do by meddling in my affairs! Banking and making loans is my business, and you have no call to step into the middle of my dealings with my customers! I want to know what your intentions are.”
“I figure our intentions are our own business,” replied Pa coolly.
“Not when they interfere with my business!” Royce shot back. “And word around town is that you intend to continue sticking your nose into my negotiations with people who owe my bank money. So I ask you again, Hollister, what are your intentions?”
“Our intentions are to do what’s right,” answered Pa.
“Paying off other men’s loans, even when they are in legal default?”
“I ain’t admitted to doing any such thing.”
“Cut the hog swill, Hollister!”
“You want to know my intentions,” Pa said. “Then I’ll tell you straight—it’s my feeling that a man’s duty-bound to stand by his neighbors, whatever that means. And that’s what I intend to do. I’ll tell you, Royce, I’m not really all that concerned about you or your banking business, because from where I stand it seems to me you’re looking out for nobody but yourself. Now you can do what you want to me. You can say what you want, you can spread what lies you want. You can sic some investigator on me to try to run me off my land. You can beat my wife in this election. And maybe in the end you will run me out of Miracle Springs and will some day own every stitch of land from here to Sacramento. But nothing you do will make me stop standing up for what’s right, and for trying to help my friends and neighbors so long as there’s anything I can do for them. Now—is that plain-spoken enough for you?”
“So you intend to continue backing up the loans of others around here even if they should be called due, as people are saying?” repeated Royce.
“I said I aim to do what’s right.”
“What are you trying to do, Hollister, open a bank of your own?”
Pa shrugged. “I got nothing more to say to you.”
“You can’t do it, Hollister. You’ll never pull it off. You can’t possibly have enough cash to stand up to me.”
Almeda began walking toward the two men.
“Franklin,” she said approaching them, “do you remember just after I entered the mayor’s race, you said to me, ‘Two can play this game?’ You were, of course, insinuating that you could be just as underhanded toward me as you thought I was being to you by the publication of my flyer. I think anyone with much sense would say that this last month demonstrates that you have few equals when it comes to underhanded tactics.”
“How dare you suggest—” the banker began, but Almeda cut him off immediately.
“Let me finish, Franklin!” she said. “You have spread rumors about me throughout the community. You threatened my daughter and my husband in different ways. And now you are opening a store just dow
n from mine intended, I presume, to drive me out of business. All we have done is help a friend. That hardly compares with your ruthless and self-serving behavior. And if it takes our going into the lending business to keep you from hurting any more of the families in this town, then so be it. Your own words condemn you, Franklin. Two can play this game! And if you feel compelled to enter the supplies and freight business, perhaps we will feel compelled to open a second bank in Miracle Springs, so that people can have a choice in where they go for financial help.”
“That is utterly ridiculous!” laughed Royce with disdain. “The two of you—a miner and his shopkeeper of a wife—financing a bank! I’ve never heard of anything so absurd! It takes thousands, more capital than you’ll ever have in your lives! The very notion makes me laugh!”
“You are very cocky, Franklin,” she said. “It may well prove your undoing.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Royce loudly.
“It isn’t only capital a business needs. Besides money, it takes integrity and a reputation that people can trust. I would say that you may be in short supply of those latter assets, Franklin, however large may be the fortune behind your enterprises.”
“A bank takes money, and nothing else. I don’t believe a word of all this! You may have stashed away a nest egg to help that no-good Shaw, but you won’t be so lucky next time.”
“We were hoping there wouldn’t have to be a next time, that you would see it will do you no good to call the notes you hold due.”
“Don’t be naive, Almeda. I’m a banker, and money is my business. And it’s not yours! So stay out of it!”
“If you call Rolf Douglas’s note, or anyone else’s, Royce, you’re going to find yourself straight up against us again,” said Pa, speaking once more. His voice rang with authority.
“I don’t believe you, Hollister. I’ve checked your finances, and I know your bank account. You don’t have that kind of money.”
A Place in the Sun Page 7
