Hard Money

by Short, Luke;

  “San Francisco.”

  Bonal inclined his head. “That Mexico City trip was a blind. Janeece has men down there now, scuttling my ship.” He smoked thoughtfully. “I did my business in a cheap hotel, and with Mexican mine owners from San Luis Potosi, who were in town at my request.”

  “Good God, Bonal,” Tober blurted out. “What did you find out? That’s what we want to hear!”

  Bonal deliberately waited a moment, while he carefully flicked the ash from his cigar. “We have money,” he announced then. “Not an awful lot, but if we handle it carefully, it’ll do us.”

  Tober said pardonably, “Jesus!” and sighed.

  “The stage driver on the Walker River-Tronah leg assured me last night that the tunnel was still running,” Bonal murmured, observing Seay. “He also mentioned something about a poker game.”

  Tober said dryly, “Liars, those stage drivers, to a man.”

  Bonal rose and peeled off his coat, still avoiding Seay’s eyes. Then he yanked off his tie and said to no one in particular, “I think, gentlemen, that all three of us can stand considerable kicking around.” His gaze touched Seay, and for a moment it held all of a grateful man’s thanks. “Let’s look at the tunnel.”

  The three of them went out, but Seay paused in the outer office and said to Hardiston, “Come with me a moment, Hardiston.”

  Outside, and away from the door, they faced each other. Tober and Bonal, in shirt sleeves, were deep in conversation as they passed the bunkhouse. The sun hammered mercilessly from overhead, causing Hardiston to squint as he looked up at Seay’s cold and impassive face.

  “Bonal came back too soon for me to spare you all of it, Hardiston. If I were you, I’d pack up now, while Bonal is in the tunnel. You won’t have to face him if you hurry.”

  “Pack up?” Hardiston murmured, watching Seay’s face with unblinking eyes.

  “Yes, you see that money I was robbed of was mostly in bank notes, not gold. That’s the trap I laid. Tober couldn’t have changed the notes, because he was with me till daylight. He didn’t address the package, or take it to the express office.”

  For a long moment, Hardiston regarded him, his neatly shaven face unexpressive. “He could have addressed it the night before, and his confederates could have expressed it.”

  “Man,” Seay said with tolerant patience, “I’m only trying to keep you from facing Bonal for it. Take your choice.”

  “I’ll go,” Hardiston said finally. “Thank you, Seay.”

  Seay walked off. He paused in midstride and came back to Hardiston, who was standing motionless. “Why did you do it?” Seay asked, his voice kindly.

  “For a lot of money,” Hardiston murmured and walked off toward the office.

  Chapter Seven

  Stole’s opera house, a bravely painted board affair of some three stories and a gingerbread front, witnessed immortality that night. To a gold camp, starved for music and ignorant of her technique, Adelina Patti sang for two hours. It was all in good humor, but these rough miners who jammed the house from pit to gallery would not let her go. If her reluctance to sing encores was known to them, as it was to the theater of New York and Chicago, they ignored it and called her back. Time and again she stood and stamped her foot in refusal to sing again, and time and again they made her. Her dark, chiseled beauty was like a wine of her own Latin country, fiery and proud, and these rough men hungered for a sight of it and for her voice. At last she gave in and sang for another hour, and perhaps, because it was in waltz-time, they shook the building with their applause for her “Fior de primavera,” not a word of which they understood. When it came time for her “Home, Sweet Home,” which countless times had thrilled less sentimental audiences than this, its lyric message was so moving that pandemonium let loose. The miners howled down Dan Stole each of the twenty-five times he appeared in front of the curtain to tell them Patti had left. A group of tearful Italian miners in the front row made the first considerate move to go. They were jeered wildly, but it served to break up the evening, and reluctantly the house started to empty.

  Sharon and Hugh and Charles Bonal walked the few doors from the opera house to the hotel and went upstairs.

  Sharon was first into the room, and as she stepped over the sill she stopped abruptly. Phil Seay stood before the chair he had just risen from, his pipe in his hand, looking taller than usual in his black clothes.

  Charles Bonal said over Sharon’s shoulder, “Been here long, Phil?” and Sharon stepped reluctantly into the room.

  “A few minutes.”

  All three were in the room now, and Charles Bonal turned to Hugh. “I believe you two have met,” he said dryly.

  Hugh laughed and put his hand out to Seay. “I believe we have, although the meeting wasn’t official.”

  Seay said, “How are you, Mathias?”

  “Considerably more at ease than when I last left you.”

  Bonal was laughing at this as Sharon swept past them down the hall. Bonal caught the maid before she disappeared and said, “Bring whisky and ice, Sarita.” To Hugh and Seay he said, “Sit down. I’ll be with you in a moment, Phil,” and he followed Sharon. She was waiting at the door of her room, and she beckoned him in and closed the door and said vehemently, “Dad, he’s not going with us!”

  “Who said he was?” Bonal showed surprise.

  “But why is he here?”

  “I asked him.” He grinned into his beard, then laughed bluntly at his daughter. She had barely mentioned to him Seay’s refusal to give her money for Maizie, but he guessed how her pride had suffered. Always unable to refuse her anything himself, he delighted to see another man tame her, for he was not completely blind to the fact that Sharon must learn someday that other people besides herself possessed a will. Hugh was not much help in this department. Right now, Bonal could not precisely understand her agitation. Her face had lost some of the calm loveliness it had when she was listening to Patti, and there was quite genuine anger in her eyes. Inside the fragile white beauty of her dress, her slim body was taut. Bonal took her hands now, and his face sobered.

  “Here, child,” he said gruffly. “Can’t a man ask his own friends up for a drink before a party?”

  “I suppose.” Sharon’s voice was nicely controlled.

  “If you can’t tolerate him, I won’t ask him any more. Tonight, I wanted to give you two young folks some time to yourselves,” he said more gently. “Seay was going out to Maizie’s, and I thought I’d take him. Besides that, I like him.”

  “I don’t. He’s—” She was going to say “insulting,” but she knew it would anger her father into demanding definite proof, and the proof she gave him would make him roar with his rough laughter.

  “He’s what?”

  “He’s not a gentleman!”

  “No, thank the lord,” Bonal sighed. “He’s a man, though, and that’s something much rarer. He’s a man who can’t be licked.”

  “But Dad, you picked him up off the streets!” Sharon protested. “You put a lot of faith in character. Do you know his?”

  “Better than I know Hugh’s,” Bonal replied quickly, “and that’s no reflection on Hugh.”

  “But a gambler, a tough!”

  “I recollect I was a swamper in a St. Louis barroom once,” Bonal said dryly. “I even banked faro—and worse than Seay did.”

  Sharon dropped her gaze and walked away from him. Bonal’s face was vaguely troubled as he raised his hand to the doorknob. “He won’t bother you, my dear.” Tentatively he made his suggestion. “Have you ever tried treating him with less of a high hand?”

  Sharon whirled, her skirts billowing, but when she saw that her father was serious, she choked down her protest and considered. “No, I hadn’t. I really didn’t ever dream I’d be forced to associate with him.”

  “And why wouldn’t you associate with him?” Bonal asked testily.

  “I don’t know. All your superintendents before this were—were not our sort of people. Oh, I don’t mean t
hey weren’t all right, but we didn’t entertain them. They were like workmen.”

  Bonal winced inwardly, but he only said, “Aren’t his manners all right?”

  “When he wants them to be.”

  “Doesn’t he dress right?”

  Sharon nodded. “I thought he looked remarkably handsome tonight,” she said frankly.

  “That’s better,” Bonal said quietly. “He’s presentable, in other words. And now the only complaints outstanding are that you dislike him and that he’s a workman, which he is. The first is your own business. The second is snobbishness. So”—he smiled again—“I can’t respect your judgment in this case.” He opened the door and winked at her. “The Old Man has spoken—and as usual to deaf ears.”

  Sharon made a face at him and then laughed, and they were both in good humor as he left. In his own room, he changed his shoes, wondering at the ways of his daughter, rose from the bed and walked over to a box of cigars which lay open on the table. Reluctantly, he emptied his breast-coat pocket of a rank of black, squat cigars, and filled it again with these slim, light-colored ones from the box—his lone concession to mixed company. He got a soft hat and went out to the parlor, where Seay and Hugh were talking. He took Seay and went out.

  Comber’s house, seen from the ridge, was a blaze of lights in all three stories. A great rank of carriages almost blocked the drive, for this was one of the Comber parties, and not to be treated lightly.

  Ben, sheepish in an emergency butler’s uniform, took their hats in the foyer, and the solemn wink that Seay gave him was a slight compensation for the indignity of trading a stable full of quiet horses for a house full of noisy people.

  Maizie and Abe Comber were receiving in the huge doorway, in the rooms beyond which most of the guests were assembled. Maizie was wearing a dress of rich purple silk, and on her ample bosom was a huge diamond pendant that almost vied with the brilliance of the crystal chandelier behind her. The hand she extended to Seay was so beringed that it felt like a handful of metal. She said, “You go on in and get a drink. You’ll need it.”

  Abe, true to Maizie’s prediction, was wearing a soft unpleated shirt, and he eyed them and the company with a mild and expansive benevolence that smelled of rye whisky.

  Bonal and Seay went straight to the room indicated by Maizie, where the buffet supper was being laid out on two huge tables that abutted one wall. There was a punch, which they both refused for whisky, and drinking it, Seay looked over the company. Bonal was already talking to two men.

  A string orchestra struck up in an adjoining room. Under the sparkle of the chandelier, people had formed small conversational groups, the sweeping dresses of the women colorful and gay against the uniform black of the men. Seay noticed that most of the women here were middle-aged, although there were many young men. He saw Sharon and Hugh come in and mingle immediately with a group of people who seemed gathered around three girls whom he could not see.

  “Finished?” Bonal asked, and Seay said yes, feeling the whisky warm him. “Then let’s meet all these people.”

  Bonal went from group to group, introducing him. These were the men of power in this camp, and their women. For the most part, they were amiable, accepting a friend of Charles Bonal’s as their own. The younger people all seemed eager for Patti to come, and they waited with impatience.

  When she finally did come there was a murmur of excitement in the rooms as word was whispered that she was here. Afterward, Maizie entered, with Patti beside her, and people moved toward them. Beside Maizie, Patti was short and almost girlishly slight, although she was a mature woman. Her yellow evening dress, low cut to expose the olive smoothness of her shoulders, was theatrically conceived and chosen. Her black hair was brushed cleanly off her forehead, and in it she wore a butterfly pin of pearls flanking a huge and flawless emerald. She wore no other jewelry, not even her wedding ring. But it was Patti’s eyes that made her beauty—large, black as jet, with long sweeping eyelashes under full black brows. Her straight nose and girlish mouth were patrician, almost haughty, but her smile was as unaffected as that of a Roman flower girl.

  Seay only glimpsed her, and then she was hidden by the people crowding around her.

  “A beautiful woman,” Bonal murmured and turned immediately to resume his discussion of milling costs.

  Maizie eventually emerged from the crush arm in arm with a woman whom she guided by stages across to where Seay stood, his broad back to her. He felt a hand on his arm and turned to confront her, his tall shoulders hunched a little to hear better.

  “This is Phil Seay, Vannie,” Maizie said to the woman beside her. “Vannie Shore.” Before him, Seay saw a woman of about his own age, with hair as black as, and sleeker than, his own. Her pale blue dress was simple, severe, and there was a warm and reserved friendliness to her smile as if she had already heard of him and liked him before they met. She gave him her hand. It was a full handshake, like a man’s, Seay thought, and he regarded her with quiet interest as he murmured the amenities.

  “Vannie Shore,” he mused. “I’m in your debt for a couple of hundred feet of track, am I not?”

  Vannie laughed huskily. “Which hasn’t been paid back.”

  “The Bonal Tunnel doesn’t run on a cash basis,” Seay replied. “Maybe you’ve heard that.”

  “I believe I’ve heard it mentioned in mining circles,” Vannie admitted, and they both smiled. Seay looked over her shoulder to find Sharon Bonal regarding him with a steady stare. She flushed, catching his stare, nodded slightly and turned away.

  Vannie put her arm through Seay’s and said, “Shan’t we wait until the crowd’s let up before you meet the guest?” and Seay agreed.

  They found chairs, and Seay sat beside her and considered her with veiled curiosity. She was watching the room and its movement at once serene and interested. It came to Seay that this was a strong woman, who had known men and been loved by them, but he searched back through his mind for any remembered mention of her and found only Tober’s. She felt his gaze and turned to him and smiled, acknowledging it.

  “Have you ever wanted to watch something like this without being watched yourself?” she asked presently.

  “I haven’t seen enough of them to want to,” Seay replied.

  “You don’t mingle with these people, then?”

  Seay shook his head, and Vannie confided, “Neither do I. I only came tonight because of Patti and because Maizie insisted.”

  “Because of Patti?”

  “Yes, she’s staying with me tonight. I knew her in San Francisco.”

  She caught the look of puzzlement in Seay’s eyes, and she shook her head. “Please don’t ask questions. Someone will tell you about me,” she said quietly, and there was a note of defense in her tone.

  Seay only frowned and was silent. Presently, Vannie leaned toward him and said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be brusque.” She regarded Seay now with the same sort of curiosity which only a moment ago he himself had shown.

  “I begin to suspect something,” she said at last.

  “So do I.”

  “That Maizie introduced us because we’re two of a kind?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “We are, aren’t we?” Vannie asked slowly. “You don’t like this, nor do I. Moreover, we don’t belong here. Isn’t that it?”

  “You do,” Seay answered with quick and inexplicable loyalty. “I don’t.”

  “I don’t either, really. Will you have supper with me tonight?”

  For answer, Seay drawled, “I have a pipe hidden in my pocket, and I’d like a smoke. Do you suppose …?” His voice trailed off as he watched her.

  “Yes, I do. Come on.”

  The couples were just beginning to crowd into the room alcove, where the buffet supper was laid out. Seay knew they would not be missed. At the foyer door Ben was standing, hands in hip pockets, looking out at the carriages, whistling thinly and teetering.

  “Hello, Ben,” Vannie said, and Ben jerked around a
nd then relaxed. “Hello, Vannie.”

  “Do you think you could manage to find your way out here with some food, Ben?” Vannie asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ben said emphatically. “I already took some out to Hugh Mathias.”

  “Was that to the right or left?” Vannie asked gravely.

  “To the left.”

  Vannie turned to the right, and they walked down the long stone-flagged porch. Presently she paused and seated herself on the wide balustrade, and Seay stood beside her. His pipe packed and lighted, he inhaled deeply, a strange uneasiness within him. The murmur of the coachmen in some profane argument down by the carriage house drifted over to them and died, and it was quiet. Two forlorn frogs in the fountain sawed away fitfully.

  “How still the night is,” Vannie murmured.

  “It’s a desert night.”

  “You like it?”

  “It’s what I’ve seen most of my life. But I can’t imagine liking another kind of night.” He was high and remote beside her, his restless face now hard and young in the soft light.

  Ben padded out with food on a tray and pulled up a small table.

  “Do you want this?” Seay asked abruptly of Vannie.

  “No. Why did I ask for it? Convention, I suppose.”

  “Trot off with it, Ben,” Seay said. “Maybe the boys out there would like it.”

  “That makes two,” Ben said delightedly and went off with the tray, to hurry down the steps and disappear in the direction of the carriages, while Seay and Vannie laughed together. Seay sat on the balustrade now, his curiosity stirring, and watched this woman near him.

  Presently Vannie murmured, “Tell me, has Charles Bonal a chance, a desperate chance to put the tunnel through?”

  Seay said, “Yes,” promptly, curtly.

  “I’m glad,” Vannie said, “and not because my good hunch will pay me.”

  “Pay you?”

  “Yes, Jake believed in Bonal before he died, and he loaned him money. I’ve loaned him more.”

  Seay didn’t comment, but again he found himself trying to recall a name which he knew very well he had never heard.