The Desert Fiddler

by Hamby, William H

  "I have thought of that," Bob again got up, moved by the agitation of doubt. If it were his own money to be risked he would not hesitate a moment—but one hundred thousand dollars of another man's money and his own reputation!

  "For these reasons," continued Imogene Chandler, "I advise you to go into it—and you'll win.

  "Now play to me."

  CHAPTER XXI

  Imogene Chandler had spoken most confidently to Bob of his success. But after he was gone she began to be pestered by uneasy doubts—which is the way of a woman.

  She and her father had been compelled to operate on small capital. They had figured, or rather Imogene had, dollar at a time. This new venture of Rogeen's rather appalled her. A hundred thousand of borrowed money! It was almost unthinkable. Anywhere else but in this land of surprises such a proposition would seem entirely fantastic.

  With so much involved any disastrous turn would leave him hopelessly in debt. And besides—her thoughts took a more uneasy turn—she felt it was going to put him in danger. Reedy Jenkins and his Mexican associates would be very bitter over Bob's getting the Red Butte—and they might do anything.

  The next evening, when Noah Ezekiel came over, Imogene had not gone to her shack.

  "Sit down, Noah," she said, "I want to talk to you."

  "That's what my maw used to say when I'd been swimmin' on Sunday," observed the hill billy as he let his lank form down on the bench.

  Imogene laughed. "Well, I'm not going to scold you for breaking the Sabbath or getting your feet wet, or forgetting to shut the gate. What I want, Noah, is to get your opinion."

  "It's funny about opinions," remarked Noah impersonally to the stars. "Somebody is always gettin' your opinion just to see how big a fool you are, and how smart they are."

  "Noah Ezekiel Foster," the girl spoke reprovingly. "You know better than that. You know I want your opinion because I think you know more about cotton than I do."

  "All right," said Noah, meekly. "Lead on. I got more opinions in my head than Ben Davis' sheep used to have cockle burs in their wool."

  "What do you think of the Red Butte Ranch?"

  "It's a blamed fine ranch."

  "Do you think Mr. Rogeen will make money on it?" She tried to sound disinterested.

  "That reminds me," replied Noah, "of Sam Scott. Sam went to Dixion and started a pool hall under Ike Golberg's clothing store. After Sam got it all fixed up with nice green-topped tables and white balls, and places to spit between shots, he got me down there to look it over.

  "'How does she look?' says Sam.

  "'She looks all right,' I said.

  "'I'm going to get rich,' declares Sam.

  "'That all depends' I says, 'on one thing.'

  "'What's that?' says Sam.

  "'On whuther there is more money comes down them stairs than goes up.'"

  Noah twisted his shoulders and again looked up impersonally at the stars.

  "You see makin' money is mighty simple. All you got to do is take in more than you pay out. But the dickens of it is, losin' it is just as simple—and a durned sight easier."

  Imogene was smiling into the dusk, but her thoughts were on serious matters.

  "Well, which do you think Mr. Rogeen will do?"

  Noah twisted his shoulders again, and shuffled his feet on the ground.

  "I always hate to give a plumb out opinion—because it nearly always ruins your reputation as a prophet. But Bob ain't nobody's fool. And he's white from his heels to his eyeballs—everything except his liver."

  Imogene laughed, but felt a swelling in the throat. That tribute from the hill bill meant more than the verdict of a court.

  "The only trouble is," Noah was speaking a little uneasily himself, "Reedy Jenkins is a skunk and he's got some pizen rats gnawing for him. There ain't nothin' they won't do—except what they are afraid to. Bob's got 'em so they don't tie their goats around his shack any more. But they are going to do him dirt, sure as a tadpole makes a toad.

  "Reedy Jenkins has got hold of a lot of money somewhere again; and he's set out to bush Bob, and get away with the pile. I don't know just how he's aimin' to do it; but Reedy don't never have any regrets over what happens to the other fellow if it makes money for him."

  The hill billy's words made Imogene more uneasy than before. And yet looking at the lank, droll fellow sitting there in the starlight, she again smiled, and sighed.

  "Well, I'm mighty glad Mr. Rogeen has you for a friend," she said aloud.

  "A friend," observed Noah, "is sorter like a gun—expensive in town but comfortin' in the country.

  "But really I ain't no good, Miss Chandler. As I used to say to my dad, 'if the Lord made me, he must have done it sort of absent mindedly, for he ain't never found no place for me.'"

  Imogene arose. She knew this big-hearted, rough hill billy must be tired. She went over and laid her hand lightly on his shoulder and said with a solemn tightening of the throat—"Noah, you are the salt of the earth—and I'd rather have you for a friend than a diamond king."

  Noah arose, emotion always made him uncomfortable, and shuffled off to his tent without a word.

  But he turned at the entrance to the tent, and looked back. The girl sat quite still, her face turned up toward the stars.

  "Well," said Noah to himself, "she's got me all right."

  On the fourteenth of June Bob Rogeen and Noah Ezekiel Foster rode through the Red Butte Ranch.

  The fields lay before them checkered off into squares by the irrigation ditches, level as a table. The long rows of cotton were five to ten inches high, and of a dark green colour. The stand on most of the fields was almost perfect. One Chinaman with a span of mules cultivated fifty acres.

  "Lou Wing is a great farmer," continued Bob, enthusiastically. "He is doing the work for 45 per cent. of the crop. I pay the water and the rent; and of course I have to advance him the money to feed and pay his hands. He has twenty partners with a separate camp for each; and each partner has four Chinamen working for him. That is system, Noah. It certainly looks like riches, doesn't it?"

  "All flesh is grass," Noah sighed lugubriously, "except some that's weeds."

  "Cotton is going up every day," said Bob. "It was nine cents and a fraction yesterday."

  "That means," remarked Noah Ezekiel, "Reedy Jenkins could sell them eight thousand bales he's got stacked up on this side and pay all his debts and have twenty thousand over."

  "But Reedy is not paying his debts."

  "Not yet," said Noah; "he is borrowin' more money."

  "Is that so?" Bob was sharply interested. He had not feared Reedy much while he was out of funds. "When did you hear that?"

  "Saturday night," replied Noah. "You can gather a whole lot more information round the Red Owl than you can moss."

  "I wonder what he is going to do with it?" Bob's mind was still on Reedy Jenkins.

  "He's done done with it," answered Noah. "He's bought the Dillenbeck irrigation system."

  Instantly all exuberant desire to shout went from Bob's throat and a chill ran along his veins. In a twinkling the heat of the friendly sun upon those wide green fields with their fingered network of a hundred water ditches became a threat and a menace. After all, by what a narrow thread does security hang!

  Bob walked as one on a precipice during the following weeks. Never was a man more torn between hope and fear. On the one hand, the cotton grew amazingly. Fed by the nourishment stored in that soil which had lain dormant for thousands of years, watered by the full sluices from the Colorado River and warmed like a hotbed by the floods of sunshine day after day, the stalks climbed and climbed and branched until they looked more like green bushes than frail plants. Bob rode the fields all day long, even when the thermometer crept up to 127 in the shade, and a skillet left in the sun would fry bacon and eggs perfectly done in seven minutes. Often he continued to ride until far into the night, watching the chopping of the weeds, watching the men in the fields, and most of all watching the watering. Yes, t
he crop was advancing with a promise almost staggering in its richness. It looked now as though some of these fields would go to a bale and a half an acre. And slowly but surely the price of cotton had climbed since March, a quarter of a cent one day, a half the next, a jump of a whole cent one Friday; and now on the second day of August it touched 10.37. With a bale to the acre at that price Bob could add $30,000 to his estimated expense and still clear a hundred thousand dollars on this crop. When he thought of it as he rode along the water ditches in the early evening, he grew fairly dizzy with hope. But then on the other side: the unformed menace—Reedy Jenkins owned the water system!

  The fear had taken tangible shape when he got his water bill for June. But there was no raise in price. Again yesterday, the bill for July came, and still no raise in price.

  It was ten o'clock that night when he got into Calexico and went to the hotel.

  As the clerk gave him the key to his room, he also handed him a letter, saying:

  "A special delivery that came for you an hour ago; I signed for it."

  Bob's fingers shook slightly as he took it. Glancing swiftly at the corner of the envelope he read:

  DILLENBECK WATER CO.

  CHAPTER XXII

  Reedy Jenkins, the first night of August, sat in his office, the windows open, the door open, the neck of his soft shirt open, and his low shoes kicked off. But his plump, pink face was freshly shaven and massaged and he wore two-dollar silk socks. Even in dishabille Reedy had an air of ready money.

  There had been dark days last fall when he had been so closely cornered by his creditors that it took many a writhe and a wriggle to get through. Nobody but himself, unless it was the dour Tom Barton, knew how overwhelmingly he was bankrupt.

  But Reedy had kept up an affable front to all his creditors and a ready explanation. "We are all broke, everybody in same boat. Why sweat over it? Of course I've got some cotton across the line; we'll just leave it there and save the duty until it'll sell. Then I'll pay out."

  He kept up this reassurance until cotton began to sell, and then he postponed:

  "Wait; we are all easier now. Got enough so I can cash in any day and have plenty to pay all bills. But just wait until it goes a little higher."

  And when it had gone to eight cents, eight and a half, and at last nine, his creditors had ceased to worry him. Now that Reedy could sell out any day and liquidate, and still be worth a hundred thousand or more, there was no hurry to collect. Nobody wants to push a man who can pay his debts any hour. Some of them even began to lend him more money. He had borrowed $25,000 as a first payment on the $200,000 for the Dillenbeck water system.

  To-night Reedy had a list of figures before him again. Cotton had touched 9.76 to-day. Things were coming to a head. It was time to act.

  Reedy had one set of figures in which 8,000 bales were multiplied by fifty and a fraction. It added $474,000. There was a column of smaller sums, the largest of which was, Revenue $28,000. These smaller sums were totalled and subtracted from $474,000, leaving $365,000—a sum over which Reedy moistened his lips. Then he multiplied 15,000 acres by something and set that sum also under the $365,000 and added again. The total made him roll his pencil between his two plump hands.

  Madrigal, the Mexican Jew, entered with a jaunty gesture, and took a chair and lighted a cigarette.

  "When did you get back from Guaymas?" Reedy leaned back, lighted a match on the bottom of his chair and touched it to a plump cigar.

  "Yesterday, Señor Reedy." There was always a mixture of aggressiveness and mocking freshness in Madrigal's tone and air.

  "See Bondeberg?"

  The Mexican nodded.

  "Everything all right?"

  "Si, si." Madrigal sometimes was American and sometimes Mexican.

  "I've had a dickens of a time getting trucks," said Reedy, speaking in a low, casual tone. "But I got 'em—twenty. Be unloaded to-morrow or the next day. I've arranged to take care of the duty. They are to be sold, you understand, with an actual bill of sale to each of the twenty Mexican chauffeurs you have employed."

  Madrigal nodded lightly as though all of this was primer work for him.

  "Have everything ready by the tenth. I think I can close up this water deal by that time."

  As the Mexican left, Reedy reached for his telephone and called El Centro.

  "Mrs. Barnett?" Soft oiliness oozed from his voice. "This is Reedy. What are you doing this evening? Nothing? How would you like a little spin out to the foot of the mountains to get a cool breath and watch the moon rise?—All right. I'll be along in about thirty minutes. By, by." The words sounded almost like kisses.

  "Mrs. Barnett"—Reedy slowed down the machine as they drove off across the desert toward the foothills—"I owe everything to you."

  The widow, all in white now—very light, cool white—felt a little shivery thrill of pride go over her. She half simpered and tried to sound deprecating.

  "Oh, you merely flatter me." She was rolling a small dainty handkerchief in her palms.

  "No, indeed!" responded Reedy, roundly. "No one can estimate the influence of a good woman on a man's life."

  "I'm so glad"—the shivery thrill got to her throat—"if I've really helped you—Reedy." It was the first time she had used his given name, although he had often urged it.

  "You know," he continued, "in spite of the great opportunities for wealth here, I do not believe that I could have endured this valley if it had not been for you. You can't imagine what it means to a man, after the disagreeable hurly-burly of the day's business, to know there is a pure, sweet, womanly woman waiting for him on the porch."

  Mrs. Barnett gulped, filled with emotion. "I do believe," she almost gushed, "men like the shy, womanly woman who keeps her place best after all."

  "They certainly do!"

  "I don't see," mused Mrs. Barnett, "how a man really could care for a woman who becomes so—so—well, rough and sunburned, and coarsened by sordid work—like that Chandler woman, for instance. I mean, I don't see how any good man could care for that sort."

  "Nor I," said Reedy, emphatically. He steered with one hand, and got both of her hands in the other.

  "This year is going to be a great one for me. Cotton is already over ten cents. I'll need only $25,000 more, and then I can clean up a fortune for all of us."

  Mrs. Barnett, still thrilling to that hand pressure, moved a little uneasily.

  "Uncle Jim has been right hard to manage for the last two times. He was real ugly about that last $40,000. I had to remind him how much my poor mother did for him and how little he had done for us before he would listen to me."

  No wonder the widow quaked within her at the honour of being elected to do it all over again. It was not because she hesitated to attempt it for so noble a man; but for the moment she was desperate for a way to go at it. She had used in the last effort every "womanly" device known to conservative tradition for separating a man from his money. But she hesitated only a moment. A watery heart and a dry eye never won a fat loan. Undoubtedly her womanly intuition—or Providence—would show her a way.

  "I'll do my best, Mr. Jenkins"—she lapsed into the formal again—"to get the loan for you. But Uncle is getting right obstinate."

  "That's all right, little girl," he patted her hands. "I trust you to do it, you could move the heart of Gibraltar. And as I've promised you all the time, when I close up these deals I'm going to give you personally $25,000 of the profits in appreciation of your assistance. And that is not all"—he squeezed both the widow's hands a moment, then released them as if by terrific resolution—"but more of that later. We must close up this prosaic business first."

  The next morning at ten o'clock Jim Crill stamped up the outside stairway, stamped through the open door and threw a check for $25,000 on Reedy's desk.

  "That's the last," the old gentleman snapped with finality. "And I want to begin to see some payments mighty quick."

  Reedy smiled as the old gentleman stamped back down the stairs
, proud of his own ability as a "worker." And he was not without admiration for Mrs. Barnett's ability in that line. It would be interesting to know how she had done it so quickly.

  "If the old man knew," Reedy picked up the check and grinned at the crabbed signature, "what this is going for, he'd drop dead with apoplexy at the foot of the stairs."

  He reached for the telephone and called the freight agent:

  "Are those motor trucks in yet? Good! We'll have them unloaded at once."

  There are two ways to make a lot of money perfectly honestly: One is to produce much at a time when the product legitimately has such a high value that it shows a good profit. The other is to plan, invent, or organize so as to help a great many men save a little more, or earn a little more, and share the little with each of the many benefited. And there are two ways to get money wrongfully: One is by criminal dishonesty—taking under some of the multiple forms of theft what does not at all belong to one. The other is by moral dishonesty—forcing or aggravating acute needs, and taking an unfair advantage of them, blackmailing a man by his critical wants.

  Reedy Jenkins had merely intended to be the latter. He had not planned to produce anything, nor yet to help other men produce, but to farm other men's needs—get hold of something so necessary for their success that it would force tribute from them. He planned to hold a hammer over the weakest link in others' financial deals and threaten to break it unless they paid him double for the hammer.

  Reedy indorsed Jim Crill's check, and stuck it in his vest pocket. He liked to go into a bank and carelessly pull $25,000 checks out of his vest pocket. Then he took from a drawer twenty letters already typed, signed them, and put them into envelopes addressed to the ranchers who bought water of the Dillenbeck Water Co.

  "Now"—Reedy moistened his lips and nodded his head—"we are all set."

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Bob tore the letter open with one rip, and read it with his back to the desk: