Hard Money (18 page)

A look of wary temptation crossed Maizie's face, but she put her head back again, listening for the faint sounds coming from the kitchen through the door Beulah had left open. Again, her eyes opened and strayed to the cribbage board. And then, slowly, her moccasined foot lifted off the floor, touched the cribbage board and sent it to the floor, where it overturned. Plain satisfaction was written on Maizie's face as she observed that Beulah's pegs were pulled loose and lying on the rug.

“Beulah!” she called. “Beulah!”

There was a swift scurrying of footsteps, and Beulah appeared at the door, a startled look on her broad and homely face.

“I just knocked against the table and tipped the board off,” Maizie said impatiently. “Do you remember where you were pegged?”

A look of sly understanding crossed Beulah's face. This accident happened at least twice a week, and she had long since learned with the tact peculiar to a good servant that this was her cue to prevaricate.

“I swear I don't remember,” Beulah said. “You've got such a memory, Maizie. You put them back where you think they were.” She returned to the kitchen and the punch, knowing that she had thereby sacrificed the game and put Maizie in the best of humors, for Maizie would cheat unashamedly.

The doorbell clanged then, and Beulah dropped her work and hurried out into the corridor. Maizie was at the door of the room, and she said gruffly, “You mix that punch. I'll see to it.”

Sharon was already in the foyer, and Maizie came up and kissed her. Walking back through the neat house, they chatted together, mostly about the heat.

When they were in the small room again the cribbage board had disappeared, and the room showed signs of a quick tidying. Sharon leaned her parasol against the wall and sank down into a chair. Maizie regarded her shrewdly for a silent moment and then said, “Heavens, child. Aren't you used to this heat yet?”

Sharon looked at her without stirring. “Yes. What made you ask?”

“You're peaked. You look like a chicken with the pip.”

Sharon only smiled and relaxed.

“How was your trip to the coast? The last one, I mean,” Maizie asked.

“Awful.”

Maizie snorted. “Then why did you go?”

Sharon shrugged lazily. Beulah came in with the punch and left, and Maizie served Sharon's glass, which she accepted and sipped listlessly.

“The trouble with young people now,” Maizie said shortly, “is that they haven't anything to do. It's the trouble with some old people, too, like me,” she finished bluntly.

“What can I do, Maizie?” Sharon asked idly. “If I were poor I'd have to keep house for my father. But I'm not, so I do nothing.”

“Get married,” Maizie said.

“You're married. And you complain, too.”

“I raised four boys and buried three girls,” Maizie said grimly. “By the time you do that, you won't want to do much more, even though you should.”

Sharon said, “But I'm not married, Maizie. I don't even want to be.”

“Look at Vannie Shore,” Maizie said idly, watching Sharon. She could see her stiffen a little, but there was no other sign of response. “Now she's not married. She works so she hasn't got time to think about marriage.”

“Yes,” Sharon said.

Maizie squared herself comfortably in her chair, her shrewd old eyes veiled. “Come to think of it, she'll take that in her stride,” Maizie went on garrulously. “She's taken everything else—men, one marriage already.”

“Yes,” Sharon said.

“Queer how attractive she is to men,” Maizie mused. “They seem to like her—all of 'em.”

“Yes.”

“It's that man she used to have that stops them,” Maizie said contemptuously. “The fools. They think it's us women that care about a woman being married. We don't give a hang, as long as she doesn't trespass on our property. It's the men that read up on the law and morals and then give us fits if we break a few, while they bust every one of 'em to their own satisfaction. But when it comes to women—oh no. They've got to be perfect.” Maizie laughed a little. “The fools. Then when it comes to a girl like Vannie, they're stumped by their own rules. Oh, well, it serves 'em right, as long as they know what they're missin' and it hurts 'em.”

Still nothing but a nod from Sharon. Maizie decided to be bolder.

“Seems like one man might show up in Vannie's life that knew the rules and didn't give a hang,” Maizie went on. “From what I hear there's one showing.”

Sharon said carefully, “Is there? I can't imagine who.”

“Phil Seay,” Maizie blurted out.

Sharon's gaze whipped around to Maizie. “Phil Seay? But I thought—” She paused, and the color began to creep into her pale face.

“What did you think?”

“Nothing. It was just something Hugh told me quite a while ago. About him, Seay, being with Vannie the night a gambler was shot. It—she established his alibi, Hugh said.”

“Unh—hunh, I heard it too,” Maizie said. She sat back and sipped her punch, watching the agitation working in Sharon's face. When Sharon looked over at her again Maizie was contemplating the far wall.

“Maizie,” Sharon said timidly.

Maizie hauled her gaze down.

“Have you—is he—does he still see her?” Sharon asked. “Vannie, I mean.”

“What if he does?” Maizie asked curiously. “You don't like him.”

“But does he?”

Maizie rubbed her chin and regarded Sharon with a conspiratorial air. “He may. He's going to see more of her if I have anything to say about it.” She rose and set her glass on the table. “You know, he won't do anything unless he's rawhided into it, like any other man. I thought of having them over here some night and leaving them alone.” Her back was to Sharon, and she walked over to the secretarie. Opening it, she drew out an envelope and was careful not to look too sharply at Sharon when she handed it to her saying, “You know, he's not the roughneck you thought him, Sharon. Read that.”

Sharon opened the note. It trembled in her hands. “Dear Mrs. Comber, [it read] I have not thanked you for asking me to that singer's reception. I was called away suddenly, leaving me no time to explain why to you. I apologize, and I did enjoy the company and the rye whisky, what little I tasted of both. Very truly yours. Phil Seay.”

Before Sharon could comment, Maizie chuckled. “That devil. He's sly, too.”

“Sly?”

“‘I did enjoy the company and rye whisky, what little I tasted of both,'” Maizie quoted. “Isn't that leaving open the way for an invitation for more?”

“I don't think so,” Sharon said coldly. “I think it's civil and maybe—maybe impudent, although he meant to be friendly. It's his way.”

“It's his way of thanking me for introducing him to Vannie Shore,” Maizie said, winking. “I know. He wants me to ask her again some time and him, too, and that—”

“He does not!” Sharon said sharply.

Maizie's face was carefully surprised. “Why, Sharon,” she said slowly. “What are you in such a bother about?”

For one brief second Sharon's defiance was magnificent, and then it crumbled, and she jumped out of her chair and rushed to Maizie's open arms and sobbed as if her heart would break. Maizie hugged her, ashamed of the low tricks she had resorted to, but there was yet humor in her eyes.

“I love him, Maizie,” Sharon said brokenly. “I—I love him!”

“I know you do, you little fool!” Maizie said. “I knew it from the first time I saw you together. That's why I asked him to my party.”

Sharon said brokenly, “But he didn't even see me! He never does! It was Vannie! And—and you did it! On purpose, too!”

“Of course I did!” Maizie murmured. “It was one way to break that fool pride of yours by siccing another woman on him, an expert!”

Sharon fought her crying, but she kept her face hidden in Maizie's shoulder. “But what will I do?” she moaned. “I've lied, Maizie! I'm—I'm engaged to Hugh.”

“Damn him for a tailor's dummy!” Maizie said shortly, and with such violence that Sharon raised a tear-streaked and wondering face to her.

“Send him packing,” Maizie said curtly. “Are you going to lose a man, a gid-down, hell-roaring broth of a man because you're afraid to tell a suit of pressed clothes that he'd better get out!”

“But Dad,” Sharon quavered. “I—it's a promise, Maizie, to Hugh. It's loyalty, it's my word, it's—”

“Your word, my foot!” Maizie interrupted. “Do you think there's a man alive that counts a woman's word worth a damn until she'd dead! Of course not! It's a woman's privilege to lie!”

“But he doesn't love me, Maizie!” Sharon said bleakly, forlornly. “He doesn't love me a bit!”

“He will. He can't help it. He'll fume and—”

Maizie's kindly advice was interrupted by an ear-splitting whoop that racketed through the rooms, rolling echo on echo.

Maizie and Sharon looked at each other, and then Maizie went to the door. The whoop, approaching now, poured into the room with the brassy delight of a madman's.

Ben suddenly appeared in the door. He grabbed Maizie by the upper arms and pulled her into the room in a lunatic dance, and all the time he was yelling, “Oh, god damn! Oh, god damn!”

“Stop that cursing, Ben!” Maizie shouted. “What's the matter?”

“Matter? The tunnel's through!” Ben shouted back at her. “My God, it came out with a rush that washed that drill clean down to the river! It's pourin' water—millions and millions of water! Rivers of water! All the water in the Pintwaters! It's runnin' through that tunnel! It's through!”

For one stunned moment Sharon looked at Maizie with disbelief, and then they were in each other's arms. They were both crying now, and Ben, too happy to be articulate, ran out to tell Beulah, whooping through the rooms again in his lunatic dance.

Fifteen minutes later Ben had the carriage hitched, and he was whipping his horses into a gallop toward town, Sharon and Maizie urging him on. Tronah had taken the news with that good humor which its philosophy reserved for the best man. This morning Charles Bonal had been a fool; now he was a genius. Guns racketed off in the streets, and its traffic was hopelessly jammed with celebrants. Men who had never seen the tunnel, who had sneered at every mention of it, were drinking in the streets. As always the town took any excuse for a rousing, drunken time.

Ben sawed the carriage at top speed down alleys to avoid the crush. Once out on the road, they found it jammed with people heading for the tunnel and a sight of its miracle. Ben drove through the crowd, scattering them like tenpins. At the top of the pass they could see the whole camp lying below them. Down the millrace, which had been dug so long it was almost a part of the landscape, was a sizable stream of water, unmistakably water. At the edge of the mill run and over the sides of it were great pools of water, where it had overflowed in the first rush. The camp was boiling with excitement.

Growing crowds lined the banks, pouring toward the tunnel. Sharon saw it all in an excitement not far from tears.

At the camp, nobody knew where Bonal was. There was a delirium of joy; nobody talked sense or wanted to talk sense. On the small porch of the bunkhouse a huge keg of beer had already been broached, in keeping with Bonal's promise that the night the tunnel was put through every man could drown in drink if such was his inclination. Smiling, yelling workmen raced through the camp, toting tools or running for those they had forgotten. The townsmen already here were flocking to the tunnel mouth. Even now, the water in the mill run was subsiding, but its flow was steady and continuous.

Sharon directed Ben to go to the office. She got down and ran into it. The first room was empty. She was about to turn away when she remembered the back room.

Opening the door, she saw Charles Bonal seated on the swivel chair, puffing on the blackest of his cigars alone. But on his cheeks, clinging to his beard, were tears of unashamed weeping. Without speaking, he took Sharon in his arms. This was the moment he had dreamed about, had fought for and prayed for in his strange way, and now that it was here there were no words to use. They would not come. He clung blindly to Sharon, the force of his hands hurting her.

Later, when he could talk, when they were both calmer, Sharon asked, “But what happened, Dad?”

“Only the Lord knows,” Bonal said soberly. “At first we thought we hit a water pocket. We did. Seay was in the tunnel with Hulteen, setting off a shot. The shot knocked the plug out. The water rolled at them, and they ran. It caught them and washed them out, half drowned Seay and the mucking crew—”

“Hurt?” Sharon said swiftly.

“No. Seay's all right. When the big head of water was past, he went in again to the tunnel. It's his report that makes me certain we're through. The rock formation has changed again. This is a looser, gravelly type that almost washes out with the water, but doesn't cave.” He looked at his daughter and smiled. “It's the type that Hugh struck before they had to give up work at the bottom of the Dry Sierra's shaft.”

“Then …?”

“It's practically certain we're through—all but the mucking. No drilling, only mucking and timbering. And the water in the Dry Sierras is falling fast. We found that out immediately.”

Slowly, then, Sharon got the whole story. The water had picked up the receiving tank and the drill and rolled them out of the tunnel mouth and part way down the slope. After the great head of water subsided, Seay went in, to return with his report. With agonizing uncertainty, they had compared notes with Hugh over at the Dry Sierras, had checked the water level in that shaft. It was falling, would be dry by nightfall. It was clear sailing. The Dry Sierras would start digging down, the tunnel mucking forward. Soon, unbelievably soon, the two shafts would meet. Yes, when that happened the fight was won. The tunnel was finished and timbered then. Janeece would eat crow until he gagged on it. In a few weeks it would be accomplished. Week after that, the work on the biggest reduction mill in the Tronah field would start, and it would be erected right on the banks of the Freeling, not a hundred yards from his office. There was more of it, and Sharon laughed at her father's rare loquacity.