POWER’S LUCK
Lockwood had already resolved to accept the hint of the turpentine
camp. It was absolutely necessary now that he should have some excuse
for his presence. He was sure he could get work in the camp, now that
the rush of the season was in full swing, and it would give him time
and countenance.
So he waited, till it should be time to find Craig at his place.
Whites and blacks came and went in a slow dribble, leaving always a
residual group on the gallery, but toward the middle of the forenoon
he espied a large car in the distance, driven up the road at a furious
pace. It swerved up to the store, skidded wildly in the sand, and
brought up in front of the steps.
Lockwood coveted that machine. With its aid he could make a hundred
miles in a night, and an escape would be easily arranged. With acute
interest he turned to look at the two young men who leaped out and
came up the steps, passing loud and cheerful greetings by name to
almost every one on the store gallery.
“Mornin’, Mr. Power! Howdy, Jackson! Good mornin’, sir!” went round,
and Lockwood noticed that everybody looked pleased and interested. He
was more than interested himself. These were more than the owners of
the coveted car. These were the men he most wanted to see—McGibbon’s
new friends.
Both of them were extravagantly well dressed for that place. They wore
expensive outing suits, with silk shirts and gorgeous ties under their
soft collars. Silk socks of brilliant hue showed above their canvas
shoes, and each of them sported a heavy watch chain.
One of the flashy motorists might have been twenty-five, big and
heavily built, with a florid, good-natured face and a thick, brown
mustache. He wore a large, scintillating stone in his tie, which might
truly have been a diamond. His brother appeared much younger, perhaps
not twenty, slim and dark and handsome, also decorated with a diamond
pin and a flashing ring on his left hand. The faces of both of them
expressed reckless good-humor and an undisciplined exuberance of
animal spirits—possibly, also, the effect of a drink or two, early in
the day as it was.
These, then, were the recipients of the cigars and furniture, of the
expensive freight. It appeared that these were McGibbon’s hosts. But
they most certainly did not appear all likely to be confederates or
associates of such a man as McGibbon. Lockwood’s first suspicions died
as he looked and listened. More likely, he thought, these rich young
countrymen were fresh victims of his enemy, though his guide of the
night before had said that Hanna had brought them luck—all kinds,
mostly money.
The brothers got their mail at the post-office wicket, and came out on
the gallery again, laughing loudly. They were duly introduced to
Lockwood, and shook his hand heartily.
“Right glad to know you, suh,” declared the eldest. “I hope you’ll
come in and see us. Everybody knows where we-all live. Will you be
stoppin’ long?”
“Mr. Lockwood’s the new woods rider for the turpentine camp,” the
postmaster explained.
“Well, I’m not sure about that yet,” Lockwood put in. “It depends on
Mr. Craig. I haven’t seen him.”
“I reckon that’ll be all right,” said Tom Power, with large optimism
“I might run you down to the camp. Charley Craig’s a good friend of
mine. Only he likely wouldn’t be there now. We’ll be comin’ back by
here in an hour or so. Kin you wait that long?”
“Why, yes. That’ll be mighty good of you,” said Lockwood gratefully.
Things were shaping just as he could have wished. “I’ll wait here a
while. But don’t trouble unless it happens to suit.”
“Suit us right down to the ground,” cried the younger brother. “We’ve
got to go down to the landing right now. Got to see about some freight
that come in on the boat last night. Any of you-all want to ride down
with us?”
Two of the idlers accepted, and the big car went off in a whirl of
sand.
“Them boys certainly are goin’ the pace,” some one said.
“They shorely are,” a second concurred. “Well, I reckon they’ve got
the price, and they’re both of ’em good fellows.”
“Best in the world,” said Mr. Ferrell. “I hear the old man don’t like
it, though. Says he can’t live up to autymobeels and champagne, and
he’s goin’ back to live in the woods.”
“They’ve come into money, have they?” Lockwood inquired.
“Yes, sir. I dunno how much. Nobody does. I don’t reckon they know
themselves, nor cares, so long’s it lasts. Anyhow, they say they
didn’t git half, nor a quarter of what was comin’ to ’em by rights.”
“They was livin’ ’way up the river in the swamps, an’ never heerd on
it,” drawled another lounger. “Might have died without knowin’ nothin’
’bout it, ef it hadn’t been for that smart lawyer down in Mobile.”
“Some says Hanna had something to do with it,” said Ferrell.
“What’s the story?” Lockwood ventured to ask openly.
“Why, this here property—the old Burwell plantation—used to be one of
the big estates here one time, before the war,” said the postmaster.
“There was the house; you’ll see it when you go by to the camp, and
maybe a thousand acres with it. Most of it was timbered, though, and
pine wasn’t worth nothin’ in them days; but there was two or three
hundred acres of good light land, and some bottom land, and they used
to run fifteen or twenty plows, and raise right smart lot of cotton, I
reckon.
“But then the whole Burwell family died out, all in one generation,
you might say. Some kind of a third cousin got it, and he hadn’t no
kin, and died without marryin’. There wasn’t no heirs then nowhere. A
good few people put in some claim, I guess, but they couldn’t make
good; and the whole place laid idle, and most of the plantation growed
up with blackberries and dogwood. So, of course, the State took it at
last.
“Most of the timberland was sold then. Charley Craig, the turpentine
man, bought some of it, and leased some more to turpentine it.
Gradually the State land agents sold most all of it off in bits, all
but the house and about a hundred acres of sandy land that wasn’t no
good for anything. They rented that to a fellow from Monroe County,
and he tried to farm it. I reckon he never got rich on it, but the
Powers sure ought to be thankful to him for keeping the brush cut off.
“Then this smart lawyer in Mobile got wind of it and started to dig up
an heir. He figured that the Burwells must surely have some sort of
kinsfolk somewhere, and sure enough he located old Henry Power, three
years ago.
“Power was livin’ up the river then, as I said, in a cabin in the
swamps, not much better’n any nigger. I didn’t know ’em much then, but
I reckon they was a tolerable tough lot. The boys was up to most kinds
of devilment, and some said they was mixed up with ‘Blue Bob’s’ river
gang. I dunno; likely there was nothing in that yarn; for they was
mighty good boys, if somewhat lively, and everybody liked ’em, pore as
they was.
“It sure must have jolted old Henry Power when he heard that the
Burwell property was coming to him. But it took close to a year to get
it. The legislature had to pass a bill; but that lawyer had things
fixed up hard and fast, and there was no getting away from the
evidence that Power was the right man.
“But he didn’t get the whole estate—not by a heap. In the first place,
the State couldn’t give back what it had sold, and it wouldn’t give up
but half of what it got from selling the timber, and then I guess the
lawyer got about half of that again for his share. But, anyhow, I’ve
heard that Power got a haul of close on to fifty thousand, besides
getting their clear title to the house and what was left of the land.”
“I see,” said Lockwood, more interested than he cared to show. “And
now they’re enjoying it!”
“They shorely are. You seen that big autymobeel. They’ve got a fast
motor boat down in the bayou, too—cost a thousand dollars, I hear.
Champagne at ten dollars a bottle is what they drink.”
“Old Henry Power don’t drink none of it,” drawled a farmer. “Says corn
liquor is good enough for him yet.”
“Mebbe so. I reckon so. Anyway, the boys is some high rollers these
days, and not stingy, neither. Any man what wants a loan can get it
there. And there ain’t nothing too good for Miss Louise.”
“Their sister?”
“Yes, sir. She’s been away in N’Orleans, they say. Earnin’ her own
livin’, likely. But she come back last fall. The old man wanted her
back, and she had to have her share of what’s going.”
“How about Mr. Hanna?” asked Lockwood. “Has he been here long?”
There was a short silence.
“Sharp cuss, that Mr. Hanna!” said a man sitting on the steps.
“Why, I reckon he’s all right,” said Ferrell indulgently. “Great
friend of the Power boys. He come here soon after they got the place.
Northern man, seems to be, and knows his way round all the big cities,
I reckon. Likely it was him put the boys up to all them fancy drinks.
They never knowed nothing about such things before.”
“Well, I’d like to know the Power boys,” Lockwood remarked carelessly.
“Why, you do know ’em!” Ferrell exclaimed with amazement. “Wasn’t you
introduced to ’em both right here? They’ll expect you to go and see
’em—visit ’em if you can, and stay as long as you like. We ain’t got
no Northern ways down here in the piny woods.”
This theory of reckless hospitality did not, however, deter Mr.
Ferrell from accepting fifty cents from Lockwood for his breakfast.
Lockwood waited and smoked on the gallery as the forenoon wore on. He
wanted to get another look at the Power boys; certainly he would call
on them if he saw any opening. He was not afraid that McGibbon—or
Hanna—would recognize him. His face was thinner and darker and had, he
thought, totally changed in expression. His hair had grizzled. In the
old days, too, he had worn a small, pointed beard and mustache; and he
now went clean shaven.
But the big car did not return from the landing. As he waited and
meditated, the balance of Lockwood’s purpose changed a little. He
thought he saw light in the situation. There might be good hunting
here after all, for a bird of prey. He imagined Hanna arriving in this
wilderness, suave, dignified, experienced, swooping down upon these
newly rich poor whites, and he imagined the tremendous weight and
influence the man would carry.
Even so McGibbon had swooped down upon him at Melbourne, seven years
ago—handsome, dignified, wise, with an apparently vast experience of
men and affairs, and Lockwood had fallen under the impression, though
he had had considerable experience of men and affairs himself. He had
a real-estate business at that time in Melbourne, Virginia, a
fast-growing city, and his business was growing with it.
The two men became friends, and soon were in practical partnership,
though no legal partnership was ever established. Lockwood was an
excellent salesman of real-estate, but a timid speculator, and
incapable of the intricacies of office detail and bookkeeping. It was
in these last that McGibbon excelled. In fact, the expert accountants
at the trial had been obliged to confess themselves baffled by some of
the extraordinary complications of figures with which McGibbon had
covered up his tracks.
Looking back, Lockwood saw that the man must have been bleeding the
business all along, though to this day he did not understand all the
methods employed. Nor did he yet have any positive proof that Maxwell
was McGibbon’s confederate—Maxwell, smooth, hard, close-mouthed, but
with eyes and ears open for real-estate opportunities. He had got
them, too. McGibbon had seen to that.
It was Maxwell who had come forward when the crash arrived. Lockwood’s
whole assets were tied up in a block of speculative building; a
business depression had killed the market, and he could neither finish
the half-built houses nor sell them as they stood. He was obliged to
accept Maxwell’s ridiculous valuation; and Maxwell had finished the
houses, held them for a few months, and then apparently turned them
over to McGibbon, who had sold them at an immense advantage. The
method of the freeze-out was plain enough now. But Lockwood had known
the latter part only by report, for the prison doors had closed behind
him. McGibbon had been also indicted as an accessory, on the same
charges of fraud and misappropriation of funds; but he had no
difficulty in clearing himself; and with apparent reluctance he had
given damning evidence against his partner.
Now Lockwood believed that he had caught the bloodsucker in the act of
attaching himself to another prey. It was poetic justice, it was no
less than providential that he should have arrived at that moment at
Rainbow Landing.
Noon approached, and still Power’s car did not return. Lockwood grew
restless and uneasy. He got up and walked back down the amber and
yellow road. He might go to the turpentine camp; at any rate, he was
anxious to have another look at the house where McGibbon had managed
to establish himself.
He passed the great grove of walnut and oak and reached the entrance.
The white colonial house wore by no means its moonlight air of mystery
and grace. In the blazing sun it showed sadly old and weatherworn; its
white paint was scaling off, a sickly and dirty gray; the fence was
broken down in many places; the rickety gate hung by one hinge.
Rubbish of deadwood, a tin can or two and rags of burlap littered the
white sand of the driveway. None of the family was in sight; but at
the front door a negro was holding two saddled horses, and Lockwood
walked quickly on.
He had not gone fifty yards when he heard the trample of the horses’
hoofs behind him, and stepped aside. He had a glimpse of the shining
coats of the animals, and the glitter of new leather, but his
attention was all for the riders.
A girl was riding past him, sitting astride, in a gray skirt and a
white waist. He knew instantly that it must be Louise Power; he had
only a flash of brown hair under the black hat, of dark eyes, of a
sweet and slightly opened mouth, but it roused a dim stirring of
recollection in him.
She was gone before he could analyze it, and McGibbon rode close after
her. Lockwood had raised his hat, and McGibbon acknowledged the
salutation curtly, with a casual glance at the pedestrian. The horses
went ahead at a canter, and were presently small in the distance
between the pines.
It was McGibbon, beyond any doubt. Lockwood recognized him even more
certainly than the night before. He looked after the riders with dark
satisfaction. He knew where to have McGibbon now; he could take his
time and choose his hour. But his mind involuntarily and uneasily
turned to search the problem of where he had already seen the girl’s
face.