by Penny Hayes
"Through their husbands."
"Exactly right. A woman's head is unable to deal with large figures."
"So, what you're saying is that a woman may save here — preferably through her husband, but she cannot borrow."
"Precisely."
"Oh, stop using big words like some damn Easterner, Douglas," Julia snapped. "You used to stomp through cow shit in the fields just like my father did."
Margarita watched Marsh's ears turn red. If the situation were not so humorless she would have burst out laughing.
"I'm not your run-of-the-mill woman, Douglas," Julia stated. "You know that that money you speak of is still in your vault because of me."
"Why? Because you painted the picture on the wall?" He glared at her with his piercing eyes.
"This bank has never lost as much as one penny due to that painting. It was a grand plan."
"Yes, that's true, Julia," Marsh readily agreed. "A grand plan, indeed." The banker removed a slim cigar from inside his coat pocket and carefully snipped off one end with a tiny gold pocket-knife. Lighting it, he blew a lazy puff of thin, blue smoke toward the ceiling. "But I must remind you," he said, studying its glowing end, "it was a man, a member of the town council, who thought up the idea."
"Oh, posh!" Julia exploded. "It was my fine work that stopped thieves so successfully."
Julia's blunt honesty stung Margarita. But she listened with growing hatred of Marsh and his down-the-nose attitude toward the two of them, toward women in general. If only she dared tell him just who she was. She would put the fear of a bandito into his heart. Yellowthroat would destroy him.
Marsh reached across his desk and knocked ash into a small clean ashtray. "You force me to repeat myself, Julia. It was a man's idea. You merely followed orders."
"Orders!" she exclaimed. "Orders! I was asked, not ordered, as the only artist in Colter, if I would do it. I didn't even request payment."
"We did buy your paints for you," Marsh said kindly.
Rolling her eyes toward the ceiling, Margarita could not help saying spitefully, "Oh, how incredibly generous."
Julia gave her a sharp look. "What about all the business my father transacted at this bank for years and years?" she asked Marsh. "Doesn't that count for something? Can't you see that I am his daughter? That I would not shame his name by incurring a bad debt? Perhaps I could mortgage my home."
"I'm sorry, Julia. It's the bank's policy not to lend money to women." He turned to Margarita. "I'm very sorry, Madam."
"A moment ago it was your policy, Mr. Marsh, not to grant loans to women," Margarita said in a near shaking voice. Her head ached viciously. "Just exactly whose policy is it? Yours personally, or the bank's?" This man no longer made her nervous. He made her angry.
"I speak for the bank, Madam," he said, his eyes boring into hers.
Margarita did not yield to his fixed stare, but she tightened her hands in her lap and clenched her teeth, not daring to speak further lest she say something to draw undesirable attention to herself. Abruptly, she stood. "Are you ready, Julia?"
"Quite," came the crisp reply.
Marsh, too, began to rise to see them out.
"Oh, don't bother to get up, Douglas," Julia said, stopping him midway with a raised palm. "We know where the door is ... as do all women who come to you for help. And please watch. Notice how capable I am of opening this door unassisted." She swung wide the door and exited with sweeping grace. Margarita, her nose high in the air, followed and did not look back.
The two women walked decisively through the bank and out its front doors. Still holding their heads high, they climbed into the buggy.
Before Julia could bring the buggy around, Belle walked up to them. "Howdy, girls. Get your loan?"
"Oh, hello, Belle." Julia glanced briefly at her friend and shook her head.
"What's the problem?"
"He said he would never loan money to women. Any woman."
"He said that? Why, that perfect piece of prairie dog shit." Belle's angry voice caused Julia and Margarita to look keenly at her. "Listen, gals, you go right back into that bank. Knock down the damn door to get into his office if you have to, and stay there. I'll be right over."
"What are you talking about?"
"You want to go to Dimmick's Goldfield, don't you?"
"Of course we do," they chimed.
"Then do what I tell you, and don't let him throw you out." Then Belle suddenly asked, "How about taking me along? I could use a change of scenery."
"I don't mind, do you, Margarita?" Julia asked, turning to her.
"Not at all," Margarita readily agreed.
"Belle," Julia said, "it's a long hard trip. Why—"
"I'll do the same thing there that I'm doing right here — only make more money at it," the saloon girl answered with a laugh. "Maybe I could help you during the day—if I have any energy left. Don't know why I didn't think of it before now. I'll come back rich as a queen. Maybe even start my own house."
"Why would you want to come back to Colter?" Margarita questioned her, gesturing at the town with contempt.
"Why not? I've been here so long it's home now. Besides, it'll give the ladies something to talk about for years at their quilting bees." She chuckled lightly to herself. "You go on back to the bank now. I'll be along. Remember, don't let him throw you out." She hastened toward the saloon.
"Well, life is funny, isn't it?" Margarita remarked.
Julia shrugged. "Let's go and see just how funny."
A few minutes later the two women sat firmly anchored to the chairs they had recently vacated, while a blustering, red-faced Marsh stood at the open door of his office trying to shoo them out.
"I already explained, Julia, and very patiently, I might add, that I don't loan money to women."
"You do now," came a commanding voice. Belle breezed through the door.
"Belle!"
"Hello, Douglas," Belle said with a smile. "Why don't you just shut the door and let's rehash this whole thing?"
"I don't want any interruptions, Abner," he called to the nearest teller. "None." He closed the door and pulled up an extra chair for Belle. "What’s this all about?" he demanded, seating himself behind the desk. "How did you get involved, Belle? I already told these women that the bank doesn't loan —"
"Yes, yes, yes," Belle interrupted. "They explained. Now let me spell out something very clearly to you, Douglas. You are going to give them the money. How much is it, Julia?" A graceful hand patted her already neat hair.
Julia read from her notepad. "Five thousand two hundred and eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents."
"You're going to give them five thousand two hundred eighty-seven dollars and sixty-three cents," Belle said. "In fact...." She suggested to the two women, "You'd better have him add another thousand to that. Give yourselves a little room to breathe. In addition," she said, turning back to Marsh. "I'll be leaving with them."
"You can't."
"Why on earth not?"
"Because, because...."
"I understand, Douglas," Belle said. "But as you know, things — and people — change. And obviously you have changed."
With great interest and growing amusement Margarita watched the nervous, fidgeting banker and the extremely confident saloon girl.
Marsh remained firm. "I still will not loan the money."
Belle cocked her head to one side. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yes!"
Unruffled by his vehemence, the saloon girl reached into her purse and pulled out a small blue sheet of paper. Leaning toward Julia, she sniffed at it. "Scented, you know." She began to read. "My darling sugar plum. I can't begin to tell you how much I've missed —"
"Sugar plum?" Julia quickly said, an understanding smile crossing her face.
Marsh leaped from his chair. "I won't be blackmailed," he thundered. He slammed a fist on his highly polished desk.
Be
lle looked up innocently from the note. Marsh's face was purple with fury. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the wall and his labored breathing. Unmoved, she glanced again at the note and continued reading. "... how much I've missed you since last night when —"
"Damn your ungrateful hide, you blackmailing little whore!" The banker mopped a perspiring forehead.
"Your wife would love to have this. It's even dated and signed. Probably a banker's habit." She leaned toward Julia and pointed at the signature. "And the jewelry. It's really quite beautiful."
"You swore you'd burn —"
"My God, Douglas, a girl's got to have some protection against the men in her life. You demand collateral daily right here in this bank. Why would you think I would do less in my line of work?"
"All right, then! Six thousand two hundred and eighty-seven dollars."
"And sixty-eight cents."
"And sixty-eight cents," Marsh roared. "And not a penny more! And I'll be damned glad never to see you again."
The dancehall girl smiled, but kept still.
Julia said, "Kindly deposit the money in a joint account for us now, Douglas." She held out her hand, palm up. "And we'd like a receipt."
"And don't you dare stand in their way, darlin'," Belle warned. "Or I'll send your wife —"
"You're biting off your nose to spite your face, Belle. What're they to you?" He jerked his shaggy head toward his newest clients. "I gave you good money. What the hell have they done for you?"
"The difference is, Douglas, that they see me as a human being. You only see me as a whore."
"You women are all alike." Marsh steadied himself against the edge of his desk, his face a dangerous red. "A conniving, scheming, bunch of hellcats."
"Of course we are," the saloon girl agreed cheerfully. "How do you think we've gotten as far as we have? You're a user, Douglas. That's all you've ever been. You really should have helped them." Standing, Belle turned her attention toward her friends. "He'll have the money for you in a few minutes, ladies. Come and see me afterward. We'll have breakfast over at Nancy's Restaurant and celebrate." She walked to the door. Her hand on the knob, she turned to Marsh. "You know, honey, you never were that good in bed. But, oh, the money you laid on my table. It made it all worthwhile." She slammed the door. Her perfume lingered in the air behind her.
Margarita and Julia each stifled a smirk as Marsh stood, visibly trembling, staring at the closed door. He glared at them. "A word of this to my wife."
"You may rely on our discretion," Julia promised.
Chapter Seventeen
Margarita and Julia could not go to Dimmick's Goldfield for some months. The necessity to find someone to rent the house, waiting for mail orders to arrive from the East, for shipment of the oven, wagon, and stock, and all the additional equipment they would take along took weeks; too many weeks to think that going to Dimmick's at this late time in the year would be a practical move.
It was an opportunity for Margarita to insist that Julia teach her to read. Using the Bible and the weekly newspaper, Margarita learned to cope with English relatively well. She followed with interest the news of America's growing railroads through Canada and across this vast country down to old Mexico, and of the new games mentioned in the women's section called tennis and bingo, and that canned meats as well as fruits were becoming more popular in stores now. She wondered if there would come a day when women would no longer put food by, but simply go to the store and buy what they needed. She read about the continued deterioration of the United States' president, James Garfield, since being shot this past July by Charles Jules Guiteau, a disgruntled office seeker. It was reported that Garfield had blood poisoning and was in a great deal of pain. In an October paper, she read to Julia in halting English that he had died on the nineteenth of September. She had been watching his progress so closely for so many days that she was unable to read the words without feeling sadness for the man.
Margarita and Julia stayed in Colter until the early spring of 1882, spending the time in further planning, having the wagon dismantled, fattening up their horses for God only knew what, buying a cow — and learning how to milk her — and how to shovel shit in record time because they both despised cleaning out the stall in the barn where she was spending the winter; learning all about chickens — and learning to hate them, too; and gathering together all the goods that arrived by train and through the mails. There were tins for pies, cakes, cookies, and bread, and metal plateware, because glass or bakeware might not survive the journey, and a gun or two — just in case; and other needed implements such as needles, thread, razor-sharp knives; a tent, cots, more lanterns and blankets and linens. The supplies piled up in the parlor and spilled over into the kitchen, and throughout the cold season it felt like Christmas.
Owning the cow and chickens had added a bonus. Margarita and Julia made a little extra money throughout the winter selling their milk and eggs to Clare at the Emporium. There had been, too, some relief for the Sanchez family in Mexico from part of the bank loan sent them through the United States Mail Office.
Then came the day when the last box had been packed and hauled to the train station and the final dusting of the house done so that the new renters would not think Julia a poor housekeeper.
Margarita and Julia drank a cup of coffee heated over a small fire outdoors because the oven was already crated and waiting at the station. The renters would have to supply their own cookstove. They drank coffee in haste and nervousness as they waited for Belle to pick them up in a rented two-seat buggy. Their animals had been taken to the blacksmith's stable the day before. They, too, would be waiting at the station, brought there by the smithy.
The women were edgy as they washed and dried the dishes and put them neatly away. One at a time, they ran to the backhouse for a quick stop. At last they were ready. The house was ready. The time had come.
"Hello, the house!" came a shout from outside.
"Let's go," Julia said.
Staring into each other's eyes, they gave one another a hard, almost desperate hug.
"Well, Yellowthroat?"
"Well, artista?"
Julia locked up and hung the key on a nail by the door. They looked back once as the buggy pulled away, and then they rode down the road toward Colter as if they hadn't a care in the world.
* * *
In five or ten minutes the conductor would yell, "Broken—wiiing!" signaling Julia and Margarita and Belle to depart the train and see to it that their animals and endless boxes and barrels of goods were transferred and packed carefully onto the waiting bullwhackers' ox-drawn carts that would take them and their supplies the final ninety miles north through the mountain passes to Dimmick's Goldfield.
The women had spent the last five days and four nights riding second class on dusty trains, first traveling north on the Union Pacific to the Colorado border, then switching to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, before final boarding onto the Southern Pacific, down in Tucson.
They took turns napping on the single bench to which they were entitled while the other two women sat up. They had brought along canned and dried foods, eating nutritiously but unimaginatively, and drinking tepid water offered by the conductor. They were uncomfortable but remained in high spirits, with the bulk of their conversation centering on the money they thought they could make in the next few months; more, they estimated, than they could earn in two, perhaps three years, had they stayed in Colter, or moved to another town, and baked.
On the second day of their journey the train made a prolonged stop in Santa Fe. The three women left the train long enough to enjoy an outstanding noonday meal at a restaurant located next to the station house. Harvey Girls, all dressed alike with dark brown dresses protected by snow white aprons reaching from bosom to floor, brought them course after delicious course of game birds and fish, boiled potatoes, several fresh vegetables, sweet cakes, and coffee. The women could barely rise from the tabl
e to make the short return trip back to the train depot.
From Colter to Dimmick's, more than eight hundred miles away, the land changed and then changed again from gentle, rolling, grassy hills to high craggy mountains and mesas hundreds of feet high, and monstrous cliffs streaked with hues of reds and browns and rusts. The train rolled across great frightening gorges and onto shrub-covered plains interrupted by rugged mountains, slab-sided buttes, and occasional sand dunes. Just before the train reached Tucson, it passed through the giant multi-armed saguaro, abundant as trees in a forest, some as much as fifty feet high and weighing up to ten tons, and kept company by the low prickly pear cactus. Bright flowers of red and yellow and gold splashed in undulating waves of color across the desert floor.
Before they reached Brokenwing, the women had forgotten where they had seen this gorge or that mountain, or the beautiful eagle soaring in the sky, so much had they observed.
At each station change they were worried sick that their precious belongings would not be handled well, that their livestock would not be able to tolerate the long journey, that their luggage and supplies would be lost or stolen or destroyed. They hovered around the baggage handlers who moved their animals and supplies. Their collective worry was intense but unnecessary. Every article and creature they owned, with the exception of two hens — good layers they were, too — make it to Brokenwing, the place where all those continuing north to Dimmick's Goldfield must depart the train.
On the fifth day the train screeched to a halt at a waterstop at the northern edge of the Sonoran Desert where cactus — spiny teddy bear chollas — marched across the land by the thousands. Exiting their car, the women looked around tentatively. Even Margarita, who had traveled hundreds of miles alone across open territory, felt intimidated by the hostility of the country. Unconsciously she moved closer to Julia.
The bullwhackers were the only ones to greet the departing passengers. They had met this train dozens of times, their wagons with teams of fourteen or more oxen standing stoically in the afternoon sun, awaiting the newest arrivals from all over the country. The bullwhackers would make money today. It was pay up or carry your load on your back. The travelers would quickly learn that from now on nothing was cheap.