MONEY MAGIC
By HAMLIN GARLAND
SUNSET EDITION
HARPER & BROTHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
COPYRIGHT 1907 BY HAMLIN GARLAND
[Illustration: HE ROSE AND WALKED UP AND DOWN]
CONTENTS
I. THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
II. MARSHALL HANEY CHANGES HEART
III. BERTHA YIELDS TO TEMPTATION
IV. HANEY MEETS AN AVENGER
V. BERTHA'S UPWARD FLIGHT
VI. THE HANEY PALACE
VII. BERTHA REPULSES AN ENEMY
VIII. BERTHA RECEIVES AN INVITATION
IX. BERTHA MEETS BEN FORDYCE
X. BEN FORDYCE CALLS ON HORSEBACK
XI. BEN BECOMES ADVISER TO MRS. HANEY
XII. ALICE HEATH HAS A VISION
XIII. BERTHA'S YELLOW CART
XIV. THE JOLLY SEND-OFF
XV. MART'S VISIT TO HIS SISTER
XVI. A DINNER AND A PLAY
XVII. BERTHA BECOMES A PATRON OF ART
XVIII. BERTHA'S PORTRAIT IS DISCUSSED
XIX. THE FARTHER EAST
XX. BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
XXI. BERTHA MAKES A PROMISE
XXII. THE SERPENT'S COIL
XXIII. BERTHA'S FLIGHT
XXIV. THE HANEYS RETURN TO THE PEAKS
XXV. BERTHA'S DECISION
XXVI. ALICE VISITS HANEY
XXVII. MARSHALL HANEY'S SENTENCE
XXVIII. VIRTUE TRIUMPHS
XXIX. MARSHALL HANEY'S LAST TRAIL
MONEY MAGIC
CHAPTER I
THE CLERK OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE
Sibley Junction is in the sub-tropic zone of Colorado. It lies in a hot,
dry, but immensely productive valley at an altitude of some four
thousand feet above the sea, a village laced with irrigating ditches,
shaded by big cotton-wood-trees, and beat upon by a genial,
generous-minded sun. The boarders at the Golden Eagle Hotel can sit on
the front stoop and see the snow-filled ravines of the mountains to the
south, and almost hear the thunder crashing round old Uncompahgre, even
when the broad leaves above their heads are pulseless and the heat of
the mid-day light is a cataract of molten metal.
It is, as I have said, a productive land, for upon this ashen,
cactus-spotted, repellent flat men have directed the cool, sweet water
of the upper world, and wherever this life-giving fluid touches the soil
grass and grain spring up like magic.
For all its wild and beautiful setting, Sibley is now a town of farmers
and traders rather than of miners. The wagons entering the gates are
laden with wheat and melons and peaches rather than with ore and
giant-powder, and the hotels are frequented by ranchers of prosaic
aspect, by passing drummers for shoes and sugars, and by the barbers and
clerks of near-by shops. It is, in fact, a bit of slow-going village
life dropped between the diabolism of Cripple Creek and the decay of
Creede.
Nevertheless, now and then a genuine trailer from the heights, or
cow-man from the mesas, does drop into town on some transient business
and, with his peculiar speech and stride, remind the lazy town-loafers
of the vigorous life going on far above them. Such types nearly always
put up at the Eagle Hotel, which was a boarding-house advanced to the
sidewalk of the main street and possessing a register.
At the time of this story trade was good at the Eagle for two reasons.
Mrs. Gilman was both landlady and cook, and an excellent cook, and, what
was still more alluring, Bertha, her pretty daughter, was day-clerk and
general manager. Customers of the drummer type are very loyal to their
hotels, and amazingly sensitive to female charm--therefore Bertha, who
would have been called an attractive girl anywhere, was widely known and
tenderly recalled by every brakeman on the line. She was tall and
straight, with brown hair and big, candid, serious eyes--wistful when in
repose, boyishly frank and direct as she stood behind her desk attending
to business, or smiling as she sped her parting guests at the door.
"I know Bertie ought to be in school," Mrs. Gilman said one day to a
sympathetic guest. "But what can I do? We got to live. I didn't come out
here for my health, but goodness knows I never expected to slave away in
a hot kitchen in this way. If Mr. Gilman had lived--"
It was her habit to leave her demonstrations--even her
sentences--unfinished, a peculiarity arising partly from her need of
hastening to prevent some pot from boiling over and partly from her
failing powers. She had been handsome once--but the heat of the stove,
the steam of the washtub, and the vexation and prolonged effort of her
daily life had warped and faded and battered her into a pathetic wreck
of womanhood.
"I'm going to quit this thing as soon as I get my son's ranch paid for.
You see--"
She did not finish this, but her friend understood. Bertha's time for
schooling was past. She had already entered upon the maiden's land of
dreams--of romance. The men who had hitherto courted her,
half-laughingly, half-guiltily, knowing that she was a child, had at
last dropped all subterfuge. To them she was a "girl," with all that
this word means to males not too scrupulous of the rights of women.
"I oughtn't to quit now when business is so good," Mrs. Gilman returned
to the dining-room to add. "I'm full all the time and crowded on
Saturday. More and more of the boys come down the line on purpose to
stay over Sunday. If I can stick it out a little while--"
The reason why "the boys came down the line to stay over Sunday," was
put into words one day by Winchell, the barber, who took his meals at
the Eagle.
He was a cleanly shaven young man of twenty-four or five, with a
carefully tended brown mustache which drooped below the corners of his
mouth.
He began by saying to Bertha:
"I wish I could get out of my business. Judas, but I get tired of it!
When I left the farm I never s'posed I'd find myself nailed down to the
floor of a barber-shop, but here I am and making good money. How'd you
like to go on a ranch?" he asked, meaningly.
"I don't believe I'd like it. Too lonesome," she replied, without any
attempt to coquette with the hidden meaning of his question. "I kind o'
like this hotel business. I enjoy having new people sifting along every
day. Seems like I couldn't bear to step out into private life again,
I've got so used to this public thing. I only wish mother didn't have to
work so hard--that's all that troubles me at the present time."
Her speech was quite unlike the birdlike chatter with which girls of her
age entertain a lover. She spoke rather slowly and with the gravity of a
man of business, and her blunt phrases made her smile the more
bewitching and her big, brown eyes the more girlish. She did not giggle
or flush--she only looked past his smirking face out into the street
where the sun's rays lay like flame. And yet she was profoundly moved by
the man, for he was a handsome fellow in a sleek way.
"Just the same, you oughtn't to be clerk," said the barber. "It's no
place for a girl, anyway. Housekeeping is all right, but this clerking
is too public."
"Oh, I don't know! We have a mighty nice run of custom, and I don't see
anything bad about it. I've met a lot of good fellows by being here."
The barber was silent for a moment, then pulled out his watch. "Well,
I've got to get back." He dropped his voice. "Don't let 'em get gay with
you. Remember, I've got a mortgage on you. If any of 'em gets fresh you
let me know--they won't repeat it."
"Don't you worry," she replied, with a confident smile. "I can take care
of myself. I grew up in Colorado. I'm no tenderfoot."
This boast, so childish, so full of pathetic self-assertion, was still
on her lips when a couple of men came out of the dining-room and paused
to buy some cigars at the counter. One of them was at first sight a very
handsome man of pronounced Western sort. He wore a long, gray frock-coat
without vest, and a dark-blue, stiffly starched shirt, over which a red
necktie fluttered. His carriage was erect, his hands large of motion,
and his profile very fine in its bold lines. His eyes were gray and in
expression cold and penetrating, his nose was broad, and the corners of
his mouth bitter. He could not be called young, and yet he was not even
middle-aged. His voice was deep, and harsh in accent, but as he spoke to
the girl a certain sweetness came into it.
"Well, Babe, here I am again. Couldn't get along without coming down to
spend Sunday--seems like Williams must go to church on Sunday or lose
his chance o' grace."
His companion, a short man with a black mustache that almost made a
circle about his mouth, grinned in silence.
Bertha replied, "I think I'll take a forenoon off to-morrow, Captain
Haney, and see that you both go to mass for once in your life."
The big man looked at her with sudden intensity. "If you'll take
me--I'll go." There was something in his voice and eyes that startled
the girl. She drew back a little, but smiled bravely, carrying out the
jest.
"I'll call you on that. Unless you take water, you go to church
to-morrow."
The big man shoved his companion away and, leaning across the counter,
said, in a low and deeply significant tone:
"There ain't a thing in this world that you can't do with Mart
Haney--not a thing. That's what I came down here to tell you--you can
boss my ranch any day."
The girl was visibly alarmed, but as she still stood fascinated by his
eyes and voice, struggling to recover her serenity, another group of
diners came noisily past, and the big man, with a parting look, went out
and took a seat on one of the chairs which stood in a row upon the walk.
The hand which held the cigar visibly trembled, and his companion said:
"Be careful, Mart--"
Haney silenced him with a look. "You're on the outside here, partner."
"I didn't mean to butt in--"
"I understand, but this is a matter between that little girl and me,"
replied the big man in a tone that, while friendly, ended all further
remark on the part of his companion, who rose, after a little pause, and
walked away.
Haney remained seated, buried in thought, amazed at the fever which his
encounter with the girl had put into his blood.
It was true that he had been coming down every Saturday for
weeks--leaving his big saloon on the best evening in the week for a
chance to see this child--this boyish school-girl. In a savage, selfish,
and unrestrained way he loved her, and had determined to possess her--to
buy her if necessary. He knew something of the toil through which the
weary mother plodded, and he watched her bend and fade with a certainty
that she would one day be on his side.
When at home and afar from her, he felt capable of seizing the girl--of
carrying her back with him as the old-time savage won his bride; but
when he looked into her clear, calm eyes his villiany, his resolution
fell away from him. He found himself not merely a man of the nearer
time, but a Catholic--in training at least--and the words he had planned
to utter fell dead on his lips. Libertine though he was, there were
lines over which even his lawlessness could not break.
He was a desperate character--a man of violence--and none too delicate
in his life among women; but away back in his boyhood his good Irish
mother had taught him to fight fair and to protect the younger and
weaker children, and this training led to the most curious and
unexpected acts in his business as a gambler.
"I will not have boys at my lay-out," he once angrily said, to Williams,
his partner, "and I will not have women there. I've sins enough to
answer for without these. Cut 'em out!" He was oddly generous now and
then, and often returned to a greenhorn money enough to get home on.
"Stay on the farm, me lad--'tis better to milk a cow with a mosquito on
the back of your neck than to fill a cell at Cañon City."
In other ways he was inexorable, taking the hazards of the game with his
visitors and raking in their money with cold eyes and a steady hand. He
collected all notes remorselessly--and it was in this way that he had
acquired his interests in "The Bottom Dollar" and "The Flora"
mines--"prospects" at the time, but immensely valuable at the present.
It was, indeed, this new and measurably respectable wealth which had
determined him upon pressing his suit with Bertha. As he sat there he
came to a most momentous conclusion. "Why not marry the girl and live
honest?" he asked himself; and being moved by the memory of her
sweetness and humor, he said, "I will," and the resolution filled his
heart with a strange delight.
He presented the matter first to the mother, not with any intention of
doing the right thing, but merely because she happened into the room
before the girl returned, and because he was overflowing with his
new-found grace.
Mrs. Gilman came in wiping her face on her apron--as his mother used to
do--and this touched him almost like a caress. He rose and offered her a
chair, which she accepted, highly flattered.
"It must seem warm to you down here, Captain?" she remarked, as she took
a seat beside him.
"It does. I wouldn't need to suffer it if you were doing business in
Cripple. I can't leave go your Johnny-cake and pie; 'tis the kind that
mother didn't make--for she was Irish."
"I've thought of going up there," she replied, matter-of-factly, "but I
can't stand the altitude, I'm afraid--and then down here we have my
son's little ranch to furnish us eggs and vegetables."
"That's an advantage," he admitted; "but on the peak no one expects
vegetables--it's still a matter of ham and eggs."
"Is that so?" she asked, concernedly.
"'Tis indeed. I live at the Palace Hotel, and I know. However, 'tis not
of that I intended to speak, Mrs. Gilman. I'm distressed to see you
working so hard this warm weather. You need a rest--a vacation, I'm
thinkin'."
"You're mighty neighborly, Captain, to say so, but I don't see any way
of taking it."
"Furthermore, your daughter is too fine to be clerkin' here day by day.
She should be in a home of her own."
"She ought to be in school," sighed the mother, "but I don't see my way
to hiring anybody to fill her place--it would take a man to do her
work."
"It would so. She's a rare little business woman. Let me see, how old is
she?"
"Eighteen next November."
"She seems like a woman of twenty."
"I couldn't run for a week without her," answered the mother, rolling
down her sleeves in acknowledgment that they had entered upon a real
conversation.
"She's a little queen," declared Haney.
It was very hot and the flies were buzzing about, but the big gambler
had no mind to these discomforts, so intent was he upon bringing his
proposal before the mother. Straightened in his chair and fixing a keen
glance upon her face, he began his attack. "'Tis folly to allow anything
to trouble you, my dear woman--if anny debt presses, let me know, and
I'll lift it for ye."
The weary mother felt the sincerity of his offer, and replied, with much
feeling: "You're mighty good, Captain Haney, but we're more than holding
our own, and another year will see the ranch clear. I'm just as much
obliged to you, though; you're a true friend."
"But I don't like to think of you here for another year--and Bertie
should not stand here another day with every Tom, Dick, and Harry
passin' their blarney with her. She's fitter to be mistress of a big
house of her own, an' 'tis that I've the mind to give her; and I can,
for I'm no longer on the ragged edge. I own two of the best mines on the
hill, and I want her to share me good-fortune with me."
Mrs. Gilman, worn out as she was, was still quick where her daughter's
welfare was concerned, and she looked at the big man with wonder and
inquiry, and a certain accusation in her glance.
"What do you mean, Captain?"
The big gambler was at last face to face with his decision, and with but
a moment's hesitation replied, "As my wife, I mean, of course."
She sank back in her chair and looked at him with eyes of consternation.
"Why, Captain Haney! Do you really mean that?"
"I do!" He had a feeling at the moment that he had always been honorable
in his intentions.
"But--but--you're so old--I mean so much older--"
"I know I am, and I'm rough. I don't deny that. I'm forty, but then I'm
what they call well preserved," he smiled, winningly, "and I'll soon
have an income of wan hundred thousand dollars a year."
This turned the current of her emotion--she gasped. "One hundred
thousand dollars!"
He held up a warning hand. "Sh! now that's between us. There are those
younger than I, 'tis true, but there is a kind of saving grace in money.
I can take you all out of this daily tile like winkin'--all you need to
do is to say the wan word and we'll have a house in Colorado Springs or
Denver--or even in New York. For what did you think I left me business
on the busiest day of every week? It was to see your sweet daughter, and
I came this time to ask her to go back with me."
"What did she say?"
"She has not said. We had no time to talk. What I propose now is that we
take a drive out to the ranch and talk it over. Williams will fill her
place here. In fact, the house is mine. I bought it this morning."
The poor woman sat like one in a stupor, comprehending little of what he
said. The room seemed to be revolving. The earth had given way beneath
her feet and the heavens were opening. Her first sensation was one of
terror. She feared a man of such power--a man who could in a single
moment, by a wave of his hand, upset her entire world. His enormous
wealth dazzled her even while she doubted it. How could it be true while
he sat there talking to her--and she in her apron and her hair in
disorder? She rose hurriedly with instinct to make herself presentable
enough to carry on this conversation. As she stood weakly, she
apologized incoherently.
"Captain, I appreciate your kindness--you've always been a good
customer--one I liked to do for--but I'm all upset--I can't get my
wits--"
"No hurry, madam," he said, with a generous intent. "To-morrow is
coming. Don't hurry at all--at all."
She hurried out, leaving him alone--with the clock, the cat, and the
hostler, who was spraying the sidewalk under the cotton-wood-trees.
Quivering with fear of the girl's refusal, the gambler rose and went out
into the sunsmit streets to commune with this new-found self.
Life was no longer simple for Mrs. Gilman. It was, indeed, filled with a
wind of terror. Haney's promise of relief from want was very sweet, yet
disturbingly empty, like the joy of dreams, and yet his words took her
breath--clouded her judgment, befogged her insight.
She went back to the dining-room, where her daughter sat eating dinner,
with a numbness in her limbs and a sense of dizziness in her brain, and
dropping into a chair at the table gasped out:
"Do you know--what Captain Haney just said to me?"
"Not being a mind-reader, I don't," replied the girl, calmly, though she
was moved by her mother's white, awed face.
"He wants you!"
Bertha flushed and braced both hands against the table as she replied,
"Well, he can't have me!"
With the opposition in her daughter's tone, Mrs. Gilman was suddenly
moved to argue.
"Think what it means, Bertie! He's rich. Did you know that? He owns two
mines."
"I know he is a gambler and runs two saloons. You see, the boys keep me
posted, and I'm not marrying a gambler--not this summer," she ended,
decisively.
"But he's going to give that up, he says." He hadn't said this, but she
was sure he would. "His income is a hundred thousand dollars a year.
Think of that!"
"I don't want to think of it," the girl answered, frowning slightly. "It
makes my head ache. Nobody has a right to so much money. How did he get
it?"
"Out of his mine--and oh, Bertie, he says if you'll speak the word we
needn't do another day's work in this hot, greasy old place! The house
is his, anyway. Did you know that?"
Bertha eyed her mother closely--with cool, bright, accusing eyes--for a
moment, then she softened. "Poor old mammy, it's pretty tough lines on
you--no two ways about that. You've got the heavy end of the job. I'd
marry most anybody to give you a rest--but, mother, Captain Haney is
forty, if he's a day, and he's a hard citizen. He has been a gambler all
his life. You can't expect me to marry a sport like him. And then
there's Ed."
The mother's face changed. "A barber!" she exclaimed, scornfully.
"Yes, he's a barber now, but he's going to make a break soon and get
into something else."
"Don't bank on Ed, Bertie; he'll never be anything more than he is now.
No man ever got anywhere who started in as a barber."
"Would you rather I married a gambler and a sure-shot? They tell me
Haney has killed his man."
"That may be all talk. Well, anyhow, he wants to see you and talk it
over; and oh, Bertie, it does seem a wonderful chance--and my heart's so
bad to-day it seems as though I couldn't see to another meal! I don't
want you to marry him if you don't want to--I'm not asking you to. You
know I'm not. But he is a noble-looking man--and I get awfully
discouraged sometimes. It scares me to think of dying and leaving you
without any security."
One of the waiters, half-dead with curiosity, was edging near, under
pretense of brushing the table, and so the mistress rose and took up the
burdens of her stewardship.
"But we'll talk it over to-night. Don't be hasty."
"I won't," replied the girl.
She was by no means as unmoved as she gave out. She had always admired
and liked Captain Haney, though he never moved her in the same way that
the young barber did (for Ed Winchell had youth as well as comeliness,
and there is a divine suppleness in youth), yet he had been a welcome
guest. "A hundred thousand dollars a year! And yet he's been coming to
our little hotel for a year--to see me!"
This consideration was the one that moved her most. All the bland words,
the jocular phrases of his singular wooing came back to her now,
weighted with deep significance. She had called it "joshing," and had
put it all aside, just as she had parried the rude jests of the brakemen
of her acquaintance. Now she saw that he had been in earnest.
She was wise beyond her years, this calm-faced, keen-eyed girl, trained
by adversity to take care of herself. She knew instinctively that she
lived surrounded by wolves, and, much as she admired the big frame and
bold profile of Captain Haney, she had placed him among her enemies. His
coming always pleased her but at the same time put her upon the
defensive.
Strange to say, she enjoyed her position there in her battered little
hotel. "If it weren't for poor old mother--" She arrested herself and
went back to the counter with a certain timidity, a self-consciousness
new to her, fearing to face the gambler now that she knew his intent was
honorable.
The room was empty, all the men having gone out upon the walk to escape
the heat, and she took her seat behind her desk and gave herself up to a
consideration of the life to which the possession of so much wealth
would introduce her. She could have unlimited new gowns, she could
travel, and she could rescue her mother from drudgery and worry. These
things she could discern--but of the larger life which money could open
to her she could only vaguely dream.
The first effect of marrying Marshall Haney would be to cut short her
life in Sibley; the second, the establishment of a home in the great
camps about them.
As she looked around the dingy room buzzing with flies, she experienced
a premonitory pang of the pain she would suffer in going out of its
doors forever.
When Haney came back an hour later, he read in the cold, serious look
she gave him a warning, therefore he spoke but a few words on
commonplace subjects, and returned to his seat on the walk to await a
change in her mood.
This meekness on the part of a powerful man moved the girl, and a little
later she went to the doorway and said to the crowd generally, "It's a
wonder some fellow wouldn't open a cantaloupe or something."
Haney put his finger to his mouth and whistled to the grocer opposite.
He came on the run, alert for trade.
"Roll up a couple of big melons," called Haney, largely. "We're all
drying to cinders over here."
The loafers cheered, but the girl said, in a lower voice, "I was only
joking."
"What you say goes," he replied, with significance.
She did not stay to see the melons cut, but went back to her desk, and
he brought a choice slice in to her.
She took it, but she said, "You mustn't think you own me--not yet." Her
tone was resentful. "I don't want you to say things like that--before
people."
"Like what?" he asked.
She did not answer.
He went on: "I don't mean to assume anything, God knows. I'm only
waitin' and hopin'. I'll go away if you want me to and let you think it
over alone."
"I wish you would," she said, realizing that this committed her to at
least a consideration of his proposal.
He held out his hand. "Good-bye--till next Saturday."
She put her small, brown hand in his. He crushed it hard and his bold
face softened. "I need you, my girl. Sure I do!" And in his eyes was
something very winning.