“Not anymore.
“That’s my promise to you, and to my dying breath I will honor it.
“I also want to share one other bit of information with you.
“I feel it’s time to give Mr. Savage some of his own medicine.
“Since the blackout, he has been insisting on being paid in gold or silver bullion or coins. Many years ago he began putting that clause in his mortgage paperwork, and most of you, as I did, signed our mortgages without regard to it.
“It dawned on me earlier today that it’s not fair for him to demand such payment from his customers, while at the same time using the collapsed dollar as an excuse to withhold the bank’s deposits.
“I visited him today and demanded to close my accounts, and to receive my money in the same currency he’s been demanding of you. Gold or silver.
“At first he pitched a fit. The veins in his forehead popped out and I was afraid he might be having a heart attack.”
She looked around the crowd and smiled.
“And let’s face it, none of us would have been heartbroken if that were the case.
“He finally acquiesced and gave me my money in gold. I could tell from the look in his eyes he was really hurt, for a greedy bastard like him values gold more than anyone or anything else on this earth.
“It’s time to treat Savage in the same manner he’s been treating the good and decent people of Blanco.
“I encourage each and every one of you to do what I did. Go to the bank and confront him. Tell him you’re tired of his abuse. Demand to know how much money is still in your accounts, and tell him to close them.
“Tell him you demand payment in silver or gold coins or bullion.
“And tell him if he refuses, you’ll come and get me. And I’ll march right back to the bank with you.”
That was it. Red finished her rant. There was nothing else to say.
She walked down the gazebo’s steps and directly over to Lilly, who had joined Beth and Jacob in the crowd.
She hugged Lilly, who said, “Thank you, Red. This town really needed that.”
A murmur was going through the crowd. John Savage was perhaps the most hated man in town, and a man who was generally feared. He had the power to quite literally put most of the citizens of Blanco out of their homes and onto the streets. Most residents knew they stayed in their homes at his pleasure.
And many of them would never say it. But they were hoping somebody got the gumption to do away with him.
Someone within earshot of the Ranger said, “Let’s go to the bank. Let’s go demand our money right now!”
His friend responded, “We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It’s after five now. The bank is closed now and Savage has gone home.”
Another woman added, “Don’t be silly. The bank may be closed, but Savage won’t go home until after dark. He’s afraid to travel in the daylight, for fear somebody will shoot him. He’s been like that for weeks.”
As the townsfolk broke up, a bit more jovial than they’d been when they arrived, the tall Ranger pulled his horse’s reins to the left and gave him a soft kick.
And rode briskly over to the First Bank of Blanco.
-52-
The “closed” sign was posted on the front door of the bank.
The Ranger assumed Savage had closed the bank at five p.m., in accordance with the business hours posted on a placard adjacent to the door.
In reality, the bank had been closed for hours, as Savage drank himself into a stupor at his desk.
If what the townspeople the Ranger overheard say was true, Savage was still inside the bank, waiting for the cover of darkness to head home.
And he was in great danger.
He rapped loudly on the door’s heavy glass panel.
There was no response.
He rapped again, this time a bit louder.
There was still no response.
Savage was still conscious, but just barely. And he heard the persistent knocking.
He muttered to himself, “What in hell ish wrong wiss you peoples? Can’t you jush leaf me the hell alones?”
Ranger Randy Maloney was patient to a fault.
He knocked again, this time with a verbal greeting.
“Mr. Savage, it’s Ranger Maloney from the Texas Rangers. I need to speak to you again. It’s important.”
From within the bowels of the bank, and in the mental state he was in, it was surprising Savage heard him at all.
But he caught a couple of the words: Ranger and important.
He poured himself out of his desk chair and onto the floor, then used to desk to pull himself somewhat to his feet.
He made his way to the door one piece of furniture at a time, using each piece to steady himself and to regain his bearings.
Once at the door, he forgot why he was there.
Then the rapping came again.
“Mr. Savage, this is Ranger Maloney. It is vital that I speak with you.”
Savage opened the door, a truly foolish thing to do under the circumstances.
But he was in no state of mind to be prudent or practical.
“What do you want, Ranger? I tole you I wush not guilty of these show-called ‘murders’ you shpoke of. Why don’ you jush go the hell away and leaves me alone?”
“Mr. Savage, I’m here on your behalf, to protect you. I believe you’re in great danger.”
Even as drunk as he was, the words got Savage’s attention.
“What do you mean?”
“Can I come in?”
Savage stood aside and the big Ranger lumbered into the bank.
“I just came from a town gathering where your name was discussed a considerable amount. You’re not a very popular man in Blanco. Were you aware of that?”
“Ah, to hell wish dem! To hell wish all of dem! I don’ care if they like me or don’ like me. I own thish town. To hell wish all of dem.”
“You shouldn’t be so cavalier, Mr. Savage. What I saw out there was bordering on a lynch mob.”
“A lynsh mob? Who in hell they gonna lynsh? You? Cause they damn sure ain’t gonna lynsh me.”
“I disagree. I think there’s a good chance of some harm coming to you if things don’t change.”
“Why? Why would dey be mad at me?”
“Because of the way you’ve been treating them. Demanding they pay their mortgages in gold or silver and evicting those who can’t.”
“Ish all legal, Ranger. Ever’ damn bit of it. Ish even in the paperwork they shined.”
“Being legal and being right are two different things, Mr. Savage. Did you ever think of cutting them some slack, under the circumstances? The world has changed in ways nobody ever saw coming. It wouldn’t hurt you to be neighborly and work with these people instead of trying to kick them all out of their homes.”
“Screw them all. What the hell do you know about it? I di’nt get where I gots to today by feeling shorry for peoples. They agreed to my terms when they shined those contracts. They shouldn’t have shined if they di’nt want to live up to their end.”
“Very well, Mr. Savage. I’m going to offer you some advice, and if I were you I’d take it.”
“And jush what advish is that, your holy highnesh?”
“I’m going to advise you to stay off the streets for the next couple of days. I’ll finish my investigation and see what happens. I’ll also try to calm down the crowd. If they stay in the state they’re in now, I think there’s a good chance someone will shoot you as soon as you step outside.”
“Why they gotta hate me show bad?”
“You have to put yourself in their shoes, Mr. Savage. The world has changed since this time a year ago. Everybody is scared. They know it’s just a matter of time before the food runs out. Many people can grow their own crops and raise their own livestock to sustain themselves and their families.
“But not if you go kicking them off their land. As they see it, you’re condemning them to a slow and agonizing death
by taking away their ability to grow food. And by taking away perhaps the only thing they’ve got left. Their dignity.”
“Screw dem all. And screw their diggity… their didgity… damn it, their dignity too. I di’nt make dem sign doze papers. Dey did dat of their own accord. I’ve got no sympathy for them at all.”
“That’s pretty obvious. Do you have any food here?”
“Why? You wants me to make you a damn sammish or shomethin’?”
“No. I want you to stay here for a couple of days.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t you been listening? If you go out there you may be shot. The town is riled up against you. They’re not happy with you at all.”
“Well, you’re a lawman. Pertect me.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do.”
The Ranger gave up talking to the man and decided to look around for himself.
In a closet behind Savage’s desk he found several cases of Campbell’s Chunky soups, with pull-top lids. And several cases of Lay’s potato chips. Outside the closet door were four cases of drinking water, neatly stacked.
“I want you to stay here for two or three days. I’ll finish my investigation by then and will have a chance to talk to Judge Moore and the mayor. Hopefully they can help me calm everyone down.”
He may as well have saved his breath. When he turned back to look at Savage, the portly banker had sat down on a couch in the bank’s reception area and passed out.
The Ranger let himself out, making sure the door latched behind him.
-53-
The sun was shining brightly the next morning, but one standing in the center of the bank might think it was still night. The heavy drapes were tightly drawn over all the windows, and the edges of each window had been darkened with black spray paint some months before.
Savage had done that himself, with spray paint he purchased from, of all places, Butch Poston’s hardware store.
The purpose of the paint was to keep nosey passersby from trying to peek into the bank’s windows after the hours of darkness, when Savage was working alone in his office.
But a side effect he hadn’t anticipated was its effectively blocking the sunlight from seeping through the windows and bathing the bank with a limited amount of light.
In the state he was in, hung over and exhausted, Savage might have slept until early afternoon were it not for the church bells.
At nine a.m. sharp, the town timekeeper rang the church’s bells nine times, spaced evenly two seconds apart.
The old church just happened to be across the street and two doors down from the bank.
When the mayor first hired the men to ring the bells every hour on the hour, Savage had pitched a fit.
“How in hell am I supposed to get any work done at my bank when those damn bells are so loud they rattle the bank’s windows?”
It was an exaggeration, of course. But to a man like Savage who lied about anything and everything, an exaggeration was no big thing.
“Deal with it,” the mayor had told him. “Our people are clamoring for work and desperate for an effective way of keeping track of time. This solves both problems.”
“I don’t care about what the people want. I’m the town banker and police chief. My opinion has to count for something.”
The mayor, whose house was already paid for, was one of the few people in town who didn’t pay heed to whatever John Savage said.
“Your opinion counts about as much as the dog shit I scraped off my boot this morning. The town needs the timekeepers, and they’ll stay. If you don’t like it, I suggest you use some of that gold in your bank and buy yourself a good set of earplugs.”
Savage huffed off cursing under his breath. He didn’t like losing battles.
The first thing he did when he got back to his office that day was to consider his options. He couldn’t foreclose on the church because it was one of the few structures in town mortgaged through another bank. Years before the elders voted to go with the Bank of Austin, who offered them a better deal.
He’d thought about having Sloan burn the church down, but even he could see that was bad karma.
So he reluctantly learned to live with the bells.
He still didn’t like them.
When the bells rang he was still in a stupor from swilling half a bottle of Maker’s Mark. So much so that he couldn’t keep track of the number of times they rang.
He thought it was seven.
He cursed, stretched to ease a stiff neck, and closed his eyes tightly in an attempt to go back to sleep.
Then he heard something else.
People talking.
Angrily so.
He eased his heavy frame from the couch and winced as his back reminded him it wasn’t a proper place to sleep.
He half waddled, half stumbled, to the bank’s front doors and eased back the heavy black curtain.
“Well, it’s about time. You were supposed to open ten minutes ago. Let us in.”
There were no less than six of his customers outside.
He hadn’t had this many customers first thing in the morning in years.
“Oh, crap.”
It seemed to sum everything up quite well.
-54-
Savage no sooner got the door unlocked before his customers pushed it open, almost knocking him down in the process.
They rushed in and formed a line at the teller window.
None of them had ever closed an account with the bank before, and they were unsure what the procedure was.
“What are you all here for,” Savage demanded. “And what are those papers you all have?”
The first customer in, Martin Eady, said, “This is the last bank statement I got before the power went out. It says I have almost eleven hundred dollars in my checking account. I want it all, and I want it in gold.”
“In gold? Martin, you know I don’t have any gold on hand.”
Another man spoke up.
“Savage, you’re a damn liar. You’ve been demanding payment in gold and silver from us. I don’t think you’ve been eating it. We want some of it back. We want our due.”
Savage thought he was pretty good at thinking on his feet. Even when he had a pounding headache and was exhausted.
“All the gold I get goes to one of the big banks in Austin. They have a better vault than I’ve got and it’s more secure there.”
“Oh, bullshit, you little weasel!”
The comment came from a tiny woman of eighty one years. Her name was Margaret Williker, but she was more commonly known around town as the church lady. That was because she was seldom seen on the streets except for Sunday.
She continued, as several of the others smiled at her choice of words.
“We know damn well you never leave this town,” she said. “And if you ever tried to walk yourself the ninety miles to Austin you’d fall over dead.”
“That might not be such a bad thing,” someone else muttered.
Savage continued to protest.
“I never said I took it to Austin. I pay couriers to do it. They make a run to Austin twice a week.”
“Oh, crap, sonny. You may think we’re fools, but we’re not. Nobody who lives in Blanco would do that for you. And any outsiders who came into town to pick up your gold for you would be spotted before they got ten steps past the city limits.”
“That’s why I have them come to pick it up in the dead of night. You don’t want to advertise you’re carrying gold, for crying out loud.”
“So how come you had gold yesterday when Red came in to close her accounts?”
Savage’s mouth clamped shut.
“Well?”
He should have known Red would blab.
“I had… I had just enough on hand to pay her. I have no more.”
Margaret was getting impatient. She knew she was being played.
She turned to the others and said, “I’m too old to make the walk. Would one of you young fellers be willing to fe
tch Red? She can settle this pretty damn quick, I reckon.”
That was something Savage definitely didn’t want to happen.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I do have a limited amount of bullion in our reserve account. I’m not supposed to touch it without permission from the Federal Reserve. But what they don’t know won’t hurt them, right?”
No one believed any more of his garbage, but it appeared they were going to get their gold, so they stopped arguing and found a bit of patience.
Each one watched as Savage paid them off one by one, weighing gold bars and shaving gold and silver coins to make up smaller amounts.
“Don’t try to rip us off,” Margaret told him. “Red said she’s going to double check your weights and will rain hellfire down upon you if you short us.”
It was a lie, but she could always ask for forgiveness when she went to church on Sunday.
The customers came as a group and resolved before they stormed the bank they’d remain that way.
Margaret suggested it. “That way the last customer won’t be all alone if he decides he doesn’t want to pay them.”
It took the better part of an hour, but Savage finally got everyone paid.
They were turning to go, when Savage had a brilliant idea.
At least he thought it was.
Hush money.
“Wait,” he said. “I have a bonus for you.”
He reached into a bank bag and drew out six tiny bars of silver bullion.
He walked from one customer to the next, and placed a bar into each of their hands.
“These are worth a little over four hundred dollars apiece,” he said. “All I want you to do in exchange for it is to keep what we did to yourselves. I can’t afford a run on the bank. Don’t tell your friends I paid off your accounts. Don’t tell your neighbors, don’t tell anyone.”
One of the men started to open his mouth to protest, until Margaret put her hand on his arm to shush him.
“You have our word, Mr. Savage. We won’t tell a soul. Right, folks?”
She looked at the other customers one by one.
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