Hard Money (13 page)

They were alive, the nine of them. Hulteen was on his knees, the water runneling around him, his face screwed up with pain, and his fists rammed in his eyes.

“Take that light away!” he cried hoarsely, and Seay laughed.

Down the tunnel a string of empty dump cars was trundled back, and the nine men loaded on them. Some of them were laughing and others were sobbing, while around them the joyful and cursing workmen slapped each other on the back and cursed again with delight.

Seay swung on a car and rested his hand on Hulteen, who looked up at him and shook his head and grinned and said nothing, his head hung.

Outside the whole camp was jamming the tunnel mouth, and the men were soon carried away. Seay saw Tober, and he walked over to him, weaving on his feet, and said, “Get me a horse, Reed. I want a horse, too. Get me a gun.”

Tober opened his mouth and turned his head to yell, and then he whipped around to catch Seay, who had fallen into him. He stood him on his feet again, and for three brief seconds Seay's legs tried to take the weight and couldn't. He collapsed.

Tober, grinning, let him slack to the ground and rose and bawled joyfully, “Give me a lift, you buckos, and shag it!”

Chapter Nine

Hugh Mathias' secretary took Charles Bonal's hat and said, “Mr. Mathias would like to see you in the board room, Mr. Bonal.”

Bonal strode toward the door marked, H. Mathias, Manager, and the secretary said quickly, “Not through there, Mr. Bonal, please. Follow me.”

Scowling, Bonal followed the secretary, who left the anteroom, turned right at the corridor and down it, stopped at the second door and opened it. The room was large, holding only a huge table flanked by a dozen chairs. Three large pictures of the Dry Sierras buildings decorated the wall. Hugh Mathias was standing before one of the windows smoking a cigar, and when the door opened he whirled to see who it was. Dropping his cigar, he came swiftly around the table and shook hands with Bonal.

“I couldn't receive you in the office, Bonal. There's a man in there I didn't want you to see until I could talk to you.” His face was drawn, its agitation plain.

“I've got to be brief,” Hugh said, talking in a low voice. “You know, of course, about that market flurry last week when they were hammering our stock.”

“You told me about it.” He was quietly curious.

Hugh reached in his pocket and brought out a telegram and handed it to Bonal. “I got this last night, late. It's from our attorney in Frisco. It simply says that after the smoke cleared on the market the other day a Mr. Barton McCauley showed up with enough Dry Sierras stock and voting proxies that I'd better pay attention to him. It also says McCauley has a man on the way to Tronah.” Hugh gestured toward the office. “He's in there now. A lawyer—Freehold, by name.”

Bonal read the telegram and handed it back to Hugh and asked quietly, “How does that concern me?”

“He asked me to send for you.”

“What for?”

“All he would say was that it was a business matter of some importance that concerned us both.”

Bonal said, “All right, let's see him.”

Hugh put down his cigar and showed Bonal to the corridor. In the anteroom once more he held the door to his office open and Bonal walked inside. A spare, tall man was seated at a chair drawn up next to Hugh's chair. Hugh introduced them and put a chair for Bonal facing the desk. His office was large, pleasant, simple.

Freehold carefully lighted a cigar, not looking at Bonal, who was studying him with a belligerent curiosity.

“Mr. Bonal,” Freehold said in an expressionless voice, “I've made this trip for two purposes—to examine the books of this mining company and to talk with you.”

“I'm here,” Bonal said, his voice expressing no pleasure in that fact.

“So are the books,” Freehold replied, gesturing with a burned match to the open ledger on the desk. “These books tell me that the Dry Sierras holds your notes due to be called next week sometime. Is that correct?”

Bonal nodded. “As far as it goes. However, I was assured that any time I wanted a ninety-day extension on it, I could get it, supposing a one-per-cent increase in the rate of interest was agreeable to me. It is.”

“Have you that in writing, Mr. Bonal?” Freehold inquired.

Hugh put in quickly. “No. It was simply a gentleman's agreement.”

Freehold regarded Hugh with a polite tolerance. “Between whom, may I ask?”

“Bonal and myself.”

“And you acted in what capacity?”

“As chairman of the board,” Hugh said, his irritation mounting. “I'm empowered to make loans with a certain per cent of the surplus, and I act with the consent of two thirds of the directors.”

“Would it interest you to know,” Freehold asked, “that at the meeting of the stockholders next month the personnel of the board will be changed?”

“You mean I'm to be removed?” Hugh asked quickly.

“That depends.”

Hugh came forward in his chair and said, “On what does it depend, Mr. Freehold?”

Freehold said idly, “The group I represent, Mr. Mathias, headed by Barton McCauley, has the voting power to remove you as chairman of the board. If we do so, it will be because you refused to act in accordance with our wishes. We represent the majority of stockholders, of course.”

“And what are your wishes?” Hugh demanded.

Freehold's gaze touched Bonal and then settled again on Hugh. “That the notes of Bonal, held by us, shall be called on the specified date and not renewed.”

Bonal grunted. His beard hid any expression in his face, and he sat utterly motionless.

Hugh's face was flushed. “Let me call to your attention, Freehold,” he said quickly, “that I'm chairman until the board meeting following the stockholders' meeting. That will be some weeks off.” He leaned back in his chair. “Those notes come due before that, and I will certainly renew them.”

“I was afraid of that,” Freehold said. “You will be served with an injunction restraining you.”

“On what grounds?”

“That's it's unwarranted gambling with company funds. I already have a stockholders' petition before the judge. He can't very well deny the injunction.”

Hugh said hotly, “And my attorney will start suit to make you show cause why—”

Bonal said abruptly, “No, son, no!”

Hugh turned to him, and Bonal raised a hand. “Let me talk, please.” He turned to Freehold and asked, “What objection is there to renewing my notes?”

Freehold smiled thinly. “You asked for it, Mr. Bonal. It's this. We feel that it would be less risk to back a roulette game without money than to lend it to the Bonal Tunnel scheme.”

“Why?”

Freehold shrugged. “Intrinsically, it's unworkable, we think.”

“You mean, Janeece thinks so.”

Freehold said evenly, “I don't recall that his name is listed among the stockholders I represent. We simply refuse to gamble.”

Bonal nodded gently. “All right. There's no use of your resorting to the courts. I understand that my notes will be called at maturity, with no chance of renewal.”

“But there is!” Hugh said hotly. “They can't—”

“They can,” Bonal cut in. He spoke to Hugh now, his voice suddenly gentle. “I appreciate your loyalty, Hugh, but there's no reason to jeopardize your career in a fight you're sure to lose.” To Freehold he said, “Let's have your report read that Mathias disagreed with you, but that he's willing to abide by the decision of the new directors. Shall we?”

Freehold nodded. “I think so.” He rose, shook hands with both men, instructed Hugh that he would receive written orders before two days were up and let himself out.

When he was gone Hugh looked soberly at Bonal, who was sitting back in his chair, his eyes veiled and brooding.

Hugh said bitterly, “And that's how I keep my word.”

Bonal stirred and sighed. “That's how most of us do, Hugh. We try, and that's all.”

“It's rotten,” Hugh said quietly.

“It's business.” Bonal rose and took out a cigar and lighted it, and his beard was outthrust, as if he were ashamed to have Hugh witness this moment of defeat. “Well, to hell with it,” he said mildly, as he threw his match on the rug. “I can meet the notes and have some funds left over.”

“But not enough to complete the tunnel?”

Bonal shook his head, and they were both silent. Presently Bonal said, “Don't take it so hard, son. I've fought these scabby rats all my life. I've got a few tricks to take yet.”

“But the tunnel.”

Bonal looked up, and his eyes were grim. “They're still working on it, aren't they?”

He got his hat in the outer office and went out to the buggy. From here he could look down on the town laid out untidily below him. The morning sun was not kind to it, and it lay ragged in all its hot ugliness. Bonal paid no attention to the activity behind him up the slope, where the dump cars were clanging out of the shaft house. The laboring hoist engine was filling the still air with its bustling, and the sacked ore was being loaded onto the freight teams to one side of the shaft house.

In the buggy, going down the winding grade to the town, he chewed reflectively on his cigar. Strangely, he felt a pity for Hugh Mathias, who had yet to learn that business and friendship do not mix. At any rate, Hugh had helped to tide him over the darkest moments, when the tunnel seemed impossible to get under way. He had loaned money until his directors had called a halt. Tools, equipment, men, money—everything that made the tunnel a fact—Hugh Mathias had gladly given, for he had a faith in the tunnel that was next to his own, Bonal believed. Sharon would hate this, mostly for Hugh's sake, and Hugh would tell her in an agony of shame. Better tell her before he got the chance, Bonal thought wearily. Back of thought, he wondered with an old man's surfeit of life if he would ever have rest from trouble. Misfortune dogged the tunnel with an implacability that sometimes frightened him. No, that wasn't entirely true. There were nine men over the mountain, alive because he had the good fortune—or sense—to hire Phil Seay. The thought of Seay warmed something inside Bonal and gave him a kind of impersonal strength. There was
his
kind of man, with a hard belly and hard fists and a brain inside his hard skull, a man who would rather fight than eat, and who had the strength to be gentle. Bonal remembered him as they carried him down to the bunkhouse after Hulteen and his men were freed. He lay there in the same clothes he left Maizie Comber's party in three nights before, and he was already a thousand miles deep in sleep, and yet he contrived to be as stubborn and unyielding in sleeping as some men are in waking. Charles Bonal laughed quietly, so that his driver looked quickly at him and then away. There was a frank envy in Bonal as he thought of it, and he sighed a little remembering that all he could share with Seay was the pleasure of the fight, and none of its healthy lust. Damn the years.

At the Union House he mounted the stairs to his suite with his indomitable deliberation and entered the corner room he called his office. Sharon heard him enter and called to him from another room, and when she came in he was seated at the desk. She kissed him and sat on the desk, and she looked so fresh and lovely that he did not have the heart to tell her of Hugh's misfortune.

“Dad, will you take me to the tunnel this afternoon?” Sharon was saying, and she had to repeat it before Bonal asked why. “But I've heard nothing for five days except about the cave-in. Can't I see it?”

“Half naked?” Bonal inquired, for Maizie had told him of Seay's retort.

Sharon blushed and then laughed delightedly, and Charles Bonal felt better.

“So Maizie told you?” Sharon said. “That man has got a horrible mind.”

“He's got a mind,” Bonal admitted. “It's not always—”

There was a hammering on the outside door, and it was imperative. Bonal started to rise when Sharon skipped off the desk and went over and opened the door.

Reed Tober strode in. He went straight to Bonal's desk and leaned both hands on it and said, “Bonal, you've got to stop him!”

“Who?” Bonal asked quickly. “Seay?”

“Yes. He's huntin' every saloon in town now, kickin' doors in, and not a man on the streets will touch him.”

“Is he drunk?” Sharon asked swiftly.

Tober turned to her, his eyes wide, staring. “Drunk? No ma'am, I wisht he was. I could hit him then.” He turned back to Bonal. “I can't stop him. He'd kill me.”

“Who is it he's looking for?” Bonal said.

“I think it's Feldhake. When he woke up this mornin' he dressed and took his gun and rode over here, and he's on the prod.” Tober shook his head pleadingly. “If you can't do it, don't try, Bonal, but we got to stop him.”

“Where is he?” Sharon asked.

“I dunno. One of the saloons. He'll make them all until he finds him, and when he does he'll kill him, and that's all Janeece wants. That's all he'll need. He won't care about witnesses or about a reason. He'll kill him.”

“Who won't care?” Sharon cried, exasperated at Tober's jumbled speech.

Again Tober turned to her, his face almost surprised. “Why him, ma'am.”

“Where is Yates?” Bonal asked harshly. “Can't he stop him?”

“He don't want to,” Tober said emphatically. “He's told him to quit it. Now all he wants is for him to pull that gun—just pull it.”

“But I can't do anything, Reed,” Bonal said wearily. “For four days he laughed at me whenever I told him to leave the tunnel.” He rose and reached for his hat on the corner of the desk.

“We got to stop him,” Tober said stubbornly. “We got to—”

“Dad, let me do it!” Sharon said swiftly. “The sight of a woman will stop him! You'd only make him worse! So would Tober!”