Sallie blushed, but the summer blue eyes didn’t waver.
“Cotton left all of his holdings to you, Miss Coleman.”
“Me! Now, why would he do a thing like that, Mr. Waring?”
“Because you accepted him for who he was, and he said you respected him and asked his advice. He said nobody else, man or woman, ever asked for his advice. You followed it, too. That was important to Cotton.”
“But . . . but—”
“You’re a very rich woman, Miss Coleman. It’s a short will. I’ll read it to you, and you can ask me questions, if you want, when I’m finished.”
Sallie listened to the old attorney’s quivering voice, understanding only one word: rich. Other people were rich. People like herself were never rich. If she were rich, she could go back to Texas and help her family. She would have to ask how much money that would take. She wished then that her life had been different. She wished she could read and write well. Cotton had helped her a little, but she’d been too ashamed and embarrassed to let him know how ignorant she was.
The attorney’s voice trailed off. He was finished. She needed to pay attention. He had said she should ask questions. He was staring at her expectantly. “Mr. Waring, I’d like to help my parents out if that’s possible. These past few years I’ve sent little bits of money back home, but there are quite a few young ones to take care of. How much do you think that will cost? If there’s enough I’d like to maybe move my family to a little house with a yard for the children. Maybe buy a toy or two and a new outfit. Schooling too. My pa, he . . . how much will all that take?”
“Compared to what you have, what you’re asking is a spit in the bucket. You’re rich, Miss Coleman. Let me put it to you another way. Do you know how much a million dollars is?” Sallie’s head bobbed up and down. In her life she’d never seen more than fifty dollars at a time. A million had to be a lot more than that. She wished she’d paid more attention to Cotton when he was doing numbers with her. All she wanted was to be able to count the money at the end of the day and know it was accurate.
“Then you multiply that by about fifty and that’s what you’re worth, possibly more, thanks to Cotton Easter. That doesn’t count the property. Right now it’s not worth much. Possibly someday it will be worth a fortune. Cotton’s daddy thought so, and so did Cotton. My best advice to you is to take some of that money and buy up the rest of the desert and sit on it until the time is right to sell it. It’s going for about sixty-five cents an acre. I can arrange all that for you if you want me to handle your affairs. If you have another attorney in mind, that’s all right, too. I’ll be sending you monthly reports on your finances, which pretty much stay the same since everything is locked up. Later, I’d like us to sit down and talk about the stock market. Will you be wanting to move into the Easter house? They gave it a name when Cotton was just a tad. His daddy called it Sunrise. You own the mountain it’s sitting on.” He dangled a set of clanking keys to make his point.
“What house is that, Mr. Waring?” Sallie gasped.
“Cotton’s daddy’s house up on Sunrise Mountain. A fine house it is, too. Cotton’s granddaddy had everything sent here from Boston. The finest furnishings money could buy Real plumbing. There’s a well and an automobile. There’s a couple who look after the place. You can live there if you like. It’s yours.”
A house called Sunrise. Sallie wondered if she was dreaming. “How many rooms does it have?”
“Eleven. Four complete bathrooms. Beautiful gardens. Do you like flowers, Miss Coleman?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Waring, I love flowers. Do you?”
“Wildflowers especially Bluebells, and those little upside-down bells, the yellow ones. My mother used to have a beautiful flower garden. Where do you live now, Miss Coleman?”
“In a boardinghouse. I have a big room. It has pretty wallpaper and white curtains on the windows. I can’t open the windows, though, because of the grit and sand. I’d like to see those curtains move in the early morning breeze. Window screens are frightfully expensive.”
“You don’t have to worry about things being expensive anymore. If you don’t mind me asking, Miss Coleman, what will you do? If you have a mind to tell me a little about your background, I might be able to help you. Plan your future, so to speak. Cotton trusted me. I’d like it if you would trust me, too.”
Sallie sat back in the hard wooden chair and stared directly at the old attorney. She spoke haltingly at first, and then, as she grew more comfortable with the truth and shame, the words rushed out. “I’m one of eight children. I’m the oldest girl. The boys, they took off as soon as they could. My pa, he drank too much. My mother took in washing and ironing. I helped. There was never enough food. I was never warm enough. I left when I was thirteen. I made my way here and sang for my supper. Cotton said I sang like an angel. He loved to hear me sing. The miners gave me tips sometimes. Cotton was always generous. He didn’t care that sometimes, when there was no money, that I would . . . take money for doing things that would shame my mother. That’s just another way of saying I was . . . am . . . a whore. You didn’t expect me to say that, did you, Mr. Waring?”
“No, I didn’t. I’m not going to judge you, Miss Coleman.”
“That’s good, Mr. Waring. I won’t judge you either. Now we can start out fair. I can read and write a little. Maybe I can get someone to teach me now. There was no time for school and no nice clothes back in Texas. The good ladies in town called us white trash. Nobody cared about us. I wanted better, the way my brothers wanted better. Someday I’m going to find them, and help them if I can. I’ll be taking you up on the offer to move into that fine house. Do you know if the windows open?”
The old attorney smiled. “I’ll make sure they do. Miss Coleman, I have an idea. Do you think you could find someone to take your place at the bingo palace, for say, six months? Maybe a year. I know a lady in California who operates a finishing school for young ladies. If you’re amenable, I can make arrangements for her to . . . to—”
“Polish me up?” Her tinkling laugh sent goose bumps up and down the attorney’s arms. “I suppose so. But first I have to go back to Texas. Family needs to come first, Mr. Waring. When I get back, we can talk again. Where’s that safe you spoke about? Do you give me the money or do I just open the safe and take it? Do I have to write everything down?”
“Miss Coleman, you can do whatever you want. When would you like to visit the house?”
“Today”
“It’s a two-day trip on horseback. I can make arrangements to have you taken up tomorrow if that’s all right with you. Here is the combination to the safe and the keys to the house. These past few years a lot of the funds were put in banks once I felt it was safe. This box sitting here has all the bankbooks. They’re yours now. All you have to do is walk into any one of them, sign your name, and take as much money as you want. You’re agreeable, then, to my purchasing more desert acreage?”
“If you feel it’s a wise thing to do.”
“I do.”
“Then you have my permission, Mr. Waring.”
“How do you feel now, Miss Coleman? I’m curious.”
“Sad. Cotton was such a good friend to me. I cannot believe that he would leave me all this money. Is there something in particular he wants me to do? I guess what I’m saying is, why? Why me? He had friends. There must be family in Boston. Are you sure it is meant for me?”
“I’m sure.” Waring rose, walked around the desk, and held out his hand. He held her delicate hand a moment longer than necessary. “Enjoy your new fortune, Miss Coleman.”
“I’ll try, Mr. Waring.”
Sallie held out her hands for the small wooden box containing the bankbooks.
Outside in the late morning sunshine, Sallie stared up and down the street. She wondered how things could look the same as they had looked an hour ago when she first walked up the steps to the attorney’s office.
Sallie’s eye traveled to the line of stores whose owners s
he knew by name. Toolie Simmons owned The Arcade where beer on draft was sold, The Rye & Thackery run by Russ Malloy, the Red Onion Club, The Gem Counter with the letter N backwards on the rough sign, and on to the Arizona Club, whose sign proudly proclaimed its whiskey was fully matured and reimported. Men sat in the small pools of shade on spindly chairs, tilted back at alarming angles, talking, smoking their cigars and pipes as they waited for the saloons to open at noon. Those men would work if there were work to be had. Maybe she could do something about that. Some of them waved to her, others tilted their straw hats in recognition.
“Gonna sing us a pretty song tonight, Miss Sallie?” one of the hard rock miners shouted.
“Not tonight, Zeke, I’m heading for Texas to see my family, and I have a lot to do. Soon, though. You just tell me what you want me to sing, and I’ll do it just for you.”
“Heard the Mercantile got some canned peaches yesterday, Miss Sallie.”
“Thanks for telling me, Billy. Would you like some?”
“I purely would, Miss Sallie.”
“I’ll get some on my way back and drop them off. You gonna be at the Arizona Club?”
“Nope. Don’t got a lick of money in my poke today I’ll be waiting right here for you.”
Sallie nodded as she skirted the barrels of hardware and produce outside the Mercantile Company. She smiled at Hiram Webster as he stopped sweeping the sand from in front of his doorstep to let her pass. “Good morning, Mr. Webster. It’s a fine day, isn’t it?”
“ ‘Tis that, Miss Sallie. Lots of blue sky today.”
Sallie was convinced no one knew about her good fortune. As she walked along she remembered the tents and the smell of frying onions that permeated the air the day she’d first arrived. The tents were all gone now, replaced with newer wooden buildings. It was still a rough town, a shoddy town, a man’s town. She realized she could fancy up the town now if she wanted to. She could buy up whatever she wanted. She could knock down all the shabby buildings and start over. Cotton said if the price was right, a person could buy anything.
Sallie stepped aside as three ladies walking abreast passed her, straw baskets on their arms. They didn’t acknowledge her in any way Sallie smiled anyway, and said, “Good morning, ladies.” The scent of sagebrush seemed to be all about her as she walked along, past the bakery, the icehouse, the pharmacy, and the milliner. A gust of sand swirled past her. She tried to dance away from the circular swirl that spiraled upward, but her shoes were covered with sand. She stomped her feet and shook the hem of her skirt.
“Mornin’, Miss Sallie. What brings you to this end of town? Can we do anything for you here at the Chamber of Commerce?”
“Yes, you can, Eli. How much do you think it would cost to plant cottonwoods up and down this fine street, on both sides?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I’d like to donate them and pay for the labor to plant them in memory of my friend Cotton Easter. Maybe some benches under the trees for the ladies to sit on. I think they’ll make the street real pretty”
“That they will, Miss Sallie. The town’s coming back to life a little at a time. I like that.”
“I do, too, Eli.”
Sallie fought the urge to dance her way down the street. It was a dream—but if it was a dream, what was she doing with the box in her hands? Well, there was one way to find out for certain. She stopped in a shop doorway, stuck her hand into the box, and withdrew one of the bankbooks. She looked at the name of the bank embossed in gold leaf on the front. Sallie retraced her steps, walked around the corner, and continued walking until she came to the bank. She entered, walked up to the bank teller and handed him the small blue book. “I’d like . . . five hundred dollars, please.”
Five minutes later, Sallie walked out of the bank in a daze, the five hundred dollars safe in her purse. It was real, it wasn’t a dream. She tripped down the street, giddy with the knowledge that everything Alvin Waring had said was true.
The money secure in her purse and loose bills in the pocket of her dress, Sallie stopped first at the Mercantile Company for a bag of canned peaches that she immediately handed over to Billy along with ten dollars. She handed out money to all the hard rock miners, admonishing them to eat some good food and to take a bath before they spent the rest in the Red Onion.
Sallie opened the door to the bingo palace with her own key In the bright sun filtering into the large room, it looked like a sleazy, smoky, rinky-dink parlor with rough furniture, a rickety bar, bare windows, a cashier’s cage, and a small stage that doubled as the bingo stand, where the bingo numbers were called, and where she sang at the beginning and end of the evening. She walked around, touching the felt-covered poker tables at the far end of the room, sitting down and then getting up from the bingo benches. She straightened the stack of bingo cards into a neater pile. Maybe she should throw everything out and start from scratch. She sat down again and closed her eyes. How best to pretty things up? A real stage, small, with a red velvet curtain that opened and closed. Matching draperies on the windows that could be closed in the winter. Chandeliers over the tables for better lighting. Perhaps a spotlight for the stage. A new bar, the kind the Arizona Club had, shiny mahogany with a brass railing. Leather stools with brass trim to match the bar. A new floor with some sections of it carpeted. No more spittoons. Definitely a new front door with glass panels, maybe even colored glass. She’d have some trees planted around the building, flowers if they would grow. She walked over to the farthest corner of the room, where she sat when things were slow or when she just wanted time by herself. She sat down on a wobbly chair and leaned her arms on a table whose legs didn’t match. She smiled when the table rocked back and forth the same way her chair did. Cotton said the man who made the chair and table had a crooked eye. She wondered if she would miss things the way they were now. Old things were comfortable. New things took some getting used to.
Sallie stared at the small stage where she called out the bingo numbers hour after hour. She was always happy when a grizzly miner won his four bits and whooped in delight, his dirty boots stomping on the floor, the other miners cheering him on.
The bingo palace didn’t make a lot of money, barely enough to pay the winners and herself. The doors opened at noon for her regular customers. By paying close attention she was able to tell which customers were hungry, which customers came to gamble, and which ones just wanted to hear her sing. The hungry ones were her biggest problem. Jeb, the owner of the steak house, allowed her to run a tab for hard-boiled eggs and pickles that she handed out on a daily basis. Most days if she had thirty customers she was lucky. The three poker tables covered in green felt had dust all over them. Most of her customers didn’t have enough money to start up a poker hand, and those that did had to extend credit and write IOUs. The bingo cards were safer. Often she sat at one of the tables with her customers, playing poker for dry beans. She always lost. On rare occasions when one of the miners had a little extra in his poke, he’d lay money on the bar for her. Right before she closed at midnight she’d slip that same money under Jeb’s door to pay off her marker.
What she really loved about her customers was the fact that they did their best to act like gentlemen when they came into the palace. They’d spruce up by slicking their hair back, shaking the dust from their clothes and boots. Most times they washed their hands even though they didn’t have enough money for a room and a hot tub. She could always tell when they trimmed their whiskers, and she’d always compliment them and tell them they looked like fashionable Boston gentlemen. They’d cackle with glee and then she would laugh, too, when she was forced to admit she’d never seen a proper Boston gentleman.
Things were going to change now. For the first time in her young life, Sallie felt fear of the unknown. If only she weren’t so ignorant of the world. There wasn’t much she could do about the fear of the unknown. She could get some learning, though. She wished again for her brothers, Seth and Josh. If only she knew where they were. All i
n good time or, as Cotton said, Rome wasn’t built in one day, whatever that meant.
In her room at the boardinghouse, with the door closed and locked, Sallie opened the wooden box. Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, she looked at all the bankbooks—red ones, blue ones, green ones, two brown ones. So many numbers. She tried to comprehend the number of zeros. Mr. Waring made it sound like she could buy the world. The world! She wept then at her ignorance.
When there were no more tears to shed, Sallie’s thoughts turned to Cotton Easter, her benefactor. I don’t understand, Cotton, if you had all that money, why did you live like you did? There were times when you were hungry and didn’t have the money to rent a room. You didn’t have a dollar for a bath. Life could have been so much easier for you.
I wish you had let me know what you were planning. What should I do with all your money, Cotton? I never knew there was so much money in the world. You must want me to do something. What? She looked around, half-expecting to hear Cotton’s voice. She flopped back against the ruffled pillows, the wooden box toppling over. She saw it then, the crinkled piece of white paper. A letter. Maybe it was for her, from Cotton. She crossed her fingers and then blessed herself. Please let it be printed letters. Please, God, let me be able to read the words. Don’t let me be ignorant now. I need to know why Cotton was so good and kind to me. Please, God. I’ll build a church. I swear to You I will. I’ll call it St. Cotton Easter. Cotton was a religious man. He prayed every day. He taught me a prayer. I promise I’ll say it every day.
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