Prayers for Sale

by Sandra Dallas

  “Not so happy,” Hennie said, ending her commune with Jake, telling him he ought to put in a word with the Lord about Nit, and while he was at it, would Jake ask for help for her in shaking the blue devils she had about moving. “George Grace fell off a cliff in a snowstorm, and a Denver lawyer cheated Merry Belle out of everything her husband left her. She’d gone to him to ask for help with George’s estate. George’s money was in shares of the Rosalie silver mine in Leadville. The lawyer said Merry Belle was lucky she’d come to him that day, because he knew of a report on the mine that was due to be issued in less than a week, telling that the Rosalie’s ore vein had pinched out.”

  Hennie shook her head at the memory. The attorney said if Merry Belle turned the shares over to him right then, he’d move them for her for $1,500. In a week, they’d be worthless. So she sold George’s interest to the attorney. When the report came out, it told that the Rosalie had hit a rich new vein. The lawyer sold the shares later on for $10,000, an amount that would have taken care of Merry Belle for the rest of her life.

  “What did she do?” Nit asked.

  “She didn’t do anything. But I did. I got in touch with a friend of mine, Ma Sarpy. I’d done her a kindness once, and she’d always said she was beholden to me. Besides, this was just the kind of job she liked.”

  Nit frowned. “Who?”

  “It’s not a name that’s known much anymore, but once, there was a goodly number familiar with it, some to their sorrow. I’ll tell you about her,” Hennie said, pleased at a chance to sit and tell a story. There were so many stories yet to tell the girl. She looked around the cemetery until she spotted a stone bench beside a grave. “Sit yourself.”

  The girl, too, seemed glad for the chance to get off her feet, for her ankles were swollen, and she was peaked and drawn. It sapped a woman to be pregnant at that altitude. “Do you still think the baby’s due at the turn of the year?” Hennie asked.

  “I’m not just sure. I haven’t had my complaint since before I came here, maybe a month or two before that, but I didn’t pay it attention, since I’d had the baby not so long before,” the girl replied. “I feel good,” she added quickly, “just a little tired.”

  “Why, I am myself,” Hennie said.

  “And you’re not even—” The girl stopped, not sure she should complete the joke.

  “Pregnant,” Hennie finished for her and laughed.

  Nit smiled, then grew serious. “I tell you, Mrs. Comfort, I get the all-over fidges sometimes. What if something’s to happen to Dick on the dredge, like Mrs. Pinto was telling, and I’m left alone to have the baby? And if I lost a baby again, why I can’t know what I’d do with myself. I might drown myself in that dredge pond.” She stopped and watched as a whirlwind of aspen leaves swirled around them. “I can’t tell Dick how scared I am. It would bemean him, because he works hard. But it festers at me, and he knows that.”

  “Of course it does, at a time like this. You go to a funeral, and you can’t help thinking about your own self.”

  “I worry about it all the time.” Dick hated the dredge; he’d rather be underground, Nit continued. Dick liked Middle Swan just fine, better than home, even, and so did she. Why, they could go to the movies any night of the week, and on Saturday nights sometimes, Dick took her to dinner at the Grubstake Cafe. Imagine just sitting down and having somebody bring you your food and you don’t have to lift a finger—or help with the dishes, either, she said. “And when I don’t want to cook, I just go out and buy something off the hot tamale man that has a cart in front of the Gold Pan. I’ve got to be good friends with Zepha—and you, of course. Oh, you’re the reason I’ve come to like Middle Swan so much. If Dick had real mine work, everything would be fine.” The boat groaned, and Nit looked off in its direction. “I guess there’s nothing to be done about it.”

  Hennie nodded, wishing there were, but she’d searched her mind and couldn’t come up with anything. She swept the aspen leaves and pine needles off the bench, and the two women sat down, looking off at the blue sweep of the Tenmile Range. Nit unbuttoned her coat and rested her hands against the curve of her large belly, staring at the mountainside, where a clump of yellow aspen was surrounded by a fringe of green leaves that had not yet turned color. She pulled down the hem of her dress, an ordinary dress with an eak in it that she’d added to fit her pregnancy, waiting for Hennie to begin.

  “I’ll tell you that story now,” Hennie said, hoping to take the girl’s mind off her worries. “I wish I had my piecing, but it didn’t seem right to bring it to a funeral.” She closed her eyes and raised her face to the sun again, clearing her throat and collecting her thoughts.

  Emma went by that name of Ma Sarpy, although Hennie didn’t know where it came from, because Emma wasn’t so old when she started working the other side of the law, maybe thirty or thirty-five. Perhaps Ma came from her name, Emma. It didn’t matter. Ma Sarpy was a good name, because it threw people off, made them think she was an old woman. Sarpy was her first husband’s name. Her second husband was Ned Partner, who was once a famous outlaw. After the two of them retired, they went by the name of Keeler and lived an ordinary life down in Georgetown. The two of them were never caught. Nobody would turn them in, because the folks they cheated wouldn’t admit to it. And others who knew what they did—Hennie was one—admired them.

  Ned and Emma were con artists. They swindled people out of their money, but they never went after anybody who didn’t deserve it. They skinned men by turning their own greed on them, so that they couldn’t go to the authorities. Oh, they had no pretensions of being Robin Hood, and they earned a nice living for theirselves in that way, and what they did wasn’t legal, but it kind of made folks chuckle. Emma would have gone after the lawyer who fleeced Merry Belle even if Hennie hadn’t asked her to, because there was a darkness inside her. Hennie thought that something had happened to her once, because she had a black hatred for men who took advantage of women.

  The con was an obvious one, almost too easy to appeal to Emma, who liked to put together more complex schemes. All she did was what the attorney had done. In fleecing Merry Belle, the lawyer had cheated a poor confused widow, so that was just what Emma pretended to be

  Emma, Ned, and Hennie—Emma insisted if the con were to be done properly, Hennie would have to be a part of it, for no one would suspicion a fleecing if two women were involved—showed up at the lawyer’s office one morning. They told him that they were from Leadville, staying in Denver with Emma’s sister, and had picked his name from the directory. By streaking her hair white with powder and rubbing black under her eyes, Emma made herself look sixty. Ned, still a boyish-looking man a few years younger than Emma, put on the clothes of a dandy and pretended to be her son, while Hennie played the role of a spinster daughter.

  The lawyer almost rubbed his hands together in anticipation when the three stepped into his office, Emma telling him that they needed legal advice, for her husband had died unexpectedly, leaving them with property in Denver.

  “Why, I don’t know a thing about property. My son here”—Emma pointed at Ned—“says he wants to buy it, but he don’t have the money, and I can’t give it to him, for there is his sister . . .” Emma touched a handkerchief to her eyes. “She must be provided for.”

  Hennie gave a tight-lipped smile, while Ned sent her a sullen look.

  “What did your husband own?” the lawyer asked.

  “Real estate,” Ned broke in. “I have the description.” He handed the lawyer a piece of paper.

  The man studied it. “Oh, Broadway. That’s not a very good address, I’m sorry to say.” He looked at Emma with a sorrowful countenance.

  Emma glanced at Ned, who looked away, then at the lawyer. “I don’t even know where it is, but my husband said it was valuable.”

  “Oh, it might be worth something one day—if you could live a hundred years.” He gave a bark of a laugh. “I expect your husband bought it for the future. But now . . .” He shrugged, then leaned for
ward and lowered his voice. “I have it on the best authority that a rendering plant will be built close by, and that will drive down the value of your property even further, for who would want to build a house or an office block there? We must sell that address as quickly as we can. I’ll check into the matter.”

  “Father was never any good at investments,” Hennie said resentfully. “I myself told him not to buy the land.”

  “How much can we get?” Emma twisted the handkerchief between her fingers.

  The lawyer put out his hands, palms up. “I will let you know.”

  “I need fifteen thousand dollars,” Emma blurted out.

  “Oh, my dear lady, I shouldn’t think the lots are worth even a fraction of that. I have in mind perhaps three thousand dollars. Word may already be out about that plant,” the attorney replied.

  Crestfallen, Emma stood and thanked the attorney, and the three left. Emma assumed, and rightly so, that the lawyer would be too lazy to check the ownership of the property. He would wait to see if they returned before beginning any work on the estate. No need to put himself out if Emma was simply shopping for a lawyer. In fact, Emma surmised, the man would be surprised if she came back at all.

  It was Ned, not Emma, who returned. The following day, he walked into the lawyer’s office, looked around to make sure the two of them were alone, and closed the door.

  “Ah,” the lawyer said. “I have done some checking—”

  “Don’t play me,” Ned cut him off curtly. “I don’t care if Mother and Sister believe a rendering plant will be built near Father’s land, but I myself am not such a fool. I know there is talk of a fine hotel going up in the next block, and that makes our property very valuable indeed, worth twice the fifteen thousand dollars Mother wants.”

  The lawyer observed Ned for a moment, then said, “I should have known you were a very smart young man.”

  “Yes,” Ned agreed. “But not smart enough to pull this off myself, because I don’t have the money.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “I don’t care about my sister. Or Mother, either. They have held me back in my profession, and Mother expects me to take responsibility for both of them. I won’t have it.”

  Ned looked at the attorney, who nodded and said, “Continue.”

  “You will put up the money to purchase the property, which Mother can be persuaded to sell to you for thirteen thousand dollars, and we’ll buy it together. You’ll be repaid your investment when we sell, and I’ll give you twenty-five percent of everything over the thirteen thousand dollars. As I say, I believe we can get twice that amount on the market. It’s a splendid idea.”

  The attorney snorted. “My dear fellow. If I were to put up the money, I would buy the property myself.”

  Ned shook his head. “No you could not, because Mother depends on me for advice, and I will tell her not to sell to you.”

  The attorney thought that over, pointing out that $13,000 was a great deal of money. He would not consider risking such an amount for less than fifty percent of the profit. The two of them haggled, Ned offering thirty-five, then forty percent, but finally, he agreed to give the attorney half.

  “Now that we have settled that, there is the matter of trust. How do I know I can trust you?” the attorney asked, adding, “A man who would cheat his own mother.”

  “That from a lawyer who would cheat his client?” Ned responded. “You don’t know that you can trust me, nor I you. So we’ll put it in writing. You can draw up the paper, and I’ll sign it. Mother will be selling the property to both of us. She’ll never see the document, because her eyes are poor. I shall have to read it for her, and then I shall tell her to sign it.”

  The lawyer mulled over the proposition for several minutes, asking Ned a number of questions that Ned answered to the man’s satisfaction. At last, the attorney rose and held out his hand. “I believe we have an agreement. I shall work up the papers and have them ready for you tomorrow.”

  “Cash,” Ned said. “I tell you she won’t accept anything else. Father never trusted banks, and Mother doesn’t, either. That’s why she came to you and not to a banker.”

  “That is a great deal of money.” The lawyer frowned, running his tongue over his upper lip, but at last, he agreed. As Ned was leaving, the man stopped him, “What about your sister? Won’t she read the documents?”

  Ned sneered. “Her eyes are worse than Mother’s, and she is too vain to wear spectacles. You can put your mind to ease about her.”

  The following day, as Ned, Emma, and Hennie walked into the lawyer’s office, the attorney greeted them with a smile, saying in his liar’s voice, “I believe I have good news for you, very good news indeed.”

  “Oh,” Emma said, slipping into a chair. Ned stood beside her with his hand on her shoulder. Hennie went to the window and stared at a building across the street, trying to settle her nerves, for she was not used to swindling others.

  “I have found a buyer who is willing to pay you thirteen thousand dollars for your property, and he has left an offer for that amount. The man is from out of town and unfamiliar with the city. But you must sign the papers this instant, before he discovers the bad news.”

  “We told you we want fifteen thousand dollars, and we won’t settle for less,” Hennie said suddenly, her back still to the lawyer.

  “Oh, you are greedy. It’s a stroke of luck to get this much,” Ned told Hennie. Then he turned to Emma. “Mother, don’t let’s haggle.”

  “I don’t know,” Emma said uncertainly.

  “It is against my advice,” Hennie said, “but I suppose you won’t take it any more than Father did.”

  Emma suddenly looked cagey. “I won’t take a note. I’ve heard of men who cheat widows out of their property with bad notes.”

  “I anticipated that, dear lady. I have the cash in my safe.” He smiled unctuously. “The papers are here for you to look over and sign. Take your time, but I must tell you the sooner we complete the business, the better off you will be. The offer could be withdrawn at any moment.”

  “My eyesight isn’t good,” Emma said, turning to Ned. “You had better read the documents.”

  Ned picked up the paper, in which the widow agreed to sell her property to a partnership made up of Ned and the attorney, not to an out-of-town buyer. After Ned read it, he told Emma, “It’s in order, Mother. Sign on the last page.”

  Before she could do so, Hennie grabbed the document. “It is best I read it, too.”

  The attorney’s face froze as he looked at Ned. But Ned only smiled and mouthed, “. . . as a bat.” Nonetheless, the man rubbed his hands together until Hennie handed the contract to Emma and said, “Yes, it appears to be in order, although I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  “Brother is right. We can’t be greedy,” Emma said, dipping a pen into the inkwell on the desk and writing her name on the paper. As she did so, the lawyer handed a second contract to Ned. “This simply confirms that your son, as your advisor, agrees with your decision,” the attorney told Emma.

  The document did no such thing, of course. It was a partnership contract in which Ned agreed to pay the attorney a ten percent fee for locating a buyer in addition to splitting the profits fifty-fifty. Ned looked sharply at the lawyer, who merely shrugged. The two had made no such agreement about a fee, but the lawyer knew that Ned had no choice but to sign, what with Emma and Hennie in the room. If the son resisted, he would show his hand in cheating his mother. Ned gave the lawyer a surly look and wrote his name. Then he said, “Sister, do you want to read it?”

  Hennie gave him a dismissive wave of her hand. “If you want us cheated out of two thousand dollars, I will have to go along with it.”

  With the papers in hand, the attorney went to his safe and withdrew an envelope containing the cash, which Ned counted twice, for he did not trust the lawyer and figured the man might try to shortchange them.

  Satisfied, Ned gave Emma the money, which she tucked into the
front of her bodice. Then she rose and held out her hand. “My dear man, however can I thank you?”

  “Your gratitude is thanks enough,” he said. “I shall file the papers for your estate and be in touch with you.”

  With a very large bill, no doubt, Hennie thought.

  The con took three days and was as easy as picking up a nickel off a sidewalk. Merry Belle recovered her money, and Ned and Emma made a nice profit for theirselves. They offered to share it with Hennie, but she was uneasy about accepting ill-gotten gains.

  When the attorney discovered he had been tricked, he was mad enough to chew splinters. Hennie found out about it, for the Denver address that Emma had given to the lawyer belonged to a friend of Hennie’s, a woman who was in on the swindle, although there wasn’t the least reason for the lawyer to suspect that. When he discovered he’d been fleeced, that Emma hadn’t owned the property at all, he hightailed it to the house, where the three were supposed to be. Hennie’s friend, who acted sympathetic about the lawyer’s plight, convinced the man that Emma had picked her name out of a directory, just as she had his, and she advised him to go right to the police. But of course, he couldn’t do that, for he’d have to reveal that he had tried to cheat a widow out of her inheritance.

  “He got what was coming to him. God doesn’t put up with people that do meanness on and on and on,” Hennie said as she reached over and picked a purple flower, handing it to Nit. “Wild aster, in case you don’t know it,” she said. She pointed to a white flower like a daisy, with feathery leaves that grew wild across the plots. “And that’s chamomile. It makes a real good tea.”