Читать книгу The Complete Novels of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Страница 45

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William Wells Woolfridge was not an impressive man in the open air; in fact he was apt to take on a neutral coloring when surrounded by neighbors. It required four walls and a little furniture to draw him out. With a desk in front of him and a few sheets of business to trap his attention, he slowly acquired a distinct personality and threw off an atmosphere of authority that his subordinates were quick to sense and even more quick to obey. There is no autocrat like the man who feels himself lacking in outward command.

Perhaps it was his face that made him seem negative. It was a smooth and pink face, suggesting freckles. He wore riding breeches and cordovan boots, and all his clothes matched in shade and were scrupulously pressed. His hair ran sleekly into his neck, his hands were like those of a musician; he had the air of eating well, and indeed his ranch kitchen was stocked with victuals the rest of the country never heard of, nor would have eaten if they had. He was thirty-five and seemed younger; he looked like an Easterner, which he once had been; he looked like a business man, which he was; he looked nothing at all like a cattleman, but he owned more acres than Dad Satterlee, hired thirty punchers in season, and sported a very modern ranch house appointed with Filipino boys in white jackets. The rank and file of Roaring Horse never quite got used to him; but they didn't know, either, the extent of his power nor the far-reaching sources of his fortune; his forefathers had done very well in many lines and many places.

About nine o'clock in the evening William Wells Woolfridge entered the hotel and walked as inconspicuously as possible up the stairs, letting himself into a room occupied by two other gentlemen. One was a visitor from down-territory, the other Josiah Craib. After a few preliminary words, preceded by an adequate measure of rye, the gentleman from down-territory, whose name was on the register as T. Q. Bangor, came to the issues.

"Fortunate thing, Woolfridge, that this rodeo gave me an excuse to come up here and see you. The less of fuss the better. Written correspondence won't do at this stage. It may interest you to know that our engineers have given me some rather favorable estimates."

"Good enough," replied Woolfridge. Though a fortune hinged on the statement he took it with urbane calm. "But why not use words that bite a little deeper?"

At this point Craib rose, gaunt body casting a grotesque shadow against the wall. "You don't need me. I'll go back to my office." With a nod to each of them he went out, closing the door softly behind him, and down the street; as he marched through the crowd, hands clasped across his back and his eyes dropped to the sidewalk, there seemed to be a deep and somber fire burning within the man. Once, when he passed into the bank, he looked at the stars above. That was a rare thing for Craib to do.

In the room Bangor proceeded. "Your banker friend gives me an uneasy, insecure feeling. What does the man think about?"

"God knows," said Woolfridge. "It doesn't matter. He's tied to me. Go on."

"I didn't put the specific case before our engineers," explained Bangor. "I made it an arbitrary and theoretical proposition to keep them off the track. Until the big news breaks we want no leaks. But they assure me of this point—to divert enough water from the proposed power dam for irrigation purposes will be all right. It depends on the following factors—that the number of acres to be irrigated does not require more than so many acre-feet of water, that the dam is high enough and the back basin great enough to take care of a set minimum for the generation of electrical current. I have all the figures with me. It checks all right with the reserves we will be carrying when the Roaring Horse project goes through. I'll give you the sheets to run over. But there are a lot of angles to this thing, and I wish you'd talk to me straight out. I want the picture in your head."

Woolfridge pulled a map from his pocket and unfolded it on the bed. It covered the Roaring Horse country between peaks and western alkali wastes, between Roaring Horse canyon and town, and it had been especially drawn by surveyors for Woolfridge. He laid a finger on it. "All you see here is desert grazing land. Intrinsically worth whatever you've got to pay for it. Fifty cents an acre, ten dollars an acre. All as dry as a bone except for drilled wells and two small creeks. The Roaring Horse absorbs everything. At present this land is good for nothing but cattle. Less than eleven inches of rainfall a year on it. That's the first fundamental proposition.

"The second proposition is that this land is astonishingly fertile; it will grow absolutely anything if irrigated. I've tested it. The third proposition is that we have had three bad cattle years with another in prospect and the ranchers discouraged and willing to sell. I have quietly bought a lot of range through my dummy company next door. I will continue to buy until I have an almost solid strip along the canyon within easy irrigating distance. The control will be absolutely mine. I will irrigate it, divide it into small farms, and sell. Ten dollar range land with water on it is worth, in this district, from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars."

"Yes, but Woolfridge, have you given enough attention to the cost of installing an irrigating system? One unforeseen item can lay you flat on your back."

Woolfridge smiled, still the mild, soft-fleshed man. "Let's check the items of expense. First, the dam. You are building it for a power dam—doesn't cost me a penny. You will charge a nominal sum for the use of the water later, but that falls on the homesteader, not me. Second item is the main ditch. And outside of one small piece of digging, about three hundred yards, that won't cost anything, either. Look on the map here."

He traced a shaded line that started on the upper end of the Roaring Horse canyon and worked parallel to it, though angling away slightly as it traveled. "That's a gully which in prehistoric days was a good-sized creek. Its mouth comes within three hundred yards of the rim, and that piece had somehow been overlain with soil. It travels down grade with the general contour of the country for ten miles, sliding gradually away from the rim. When your dam is built that gully, shoveled out, will tap your basin, take the water and carry it by gravity those ten miles. Soil is hard underneath, no porous sands. And there is my main ditch."

Bangor shook his head. "You are a very lucky man, Woolfridge."

Something of the mildness went from Woolfridge. His eyes cooled, the smooth cheeks became distinctly hard. All at once he was a different individual, aggressive and slightly overbearing. "Not lucky, Bangor. I have been studying this five years. One more item—the lateral ditches. They will go in as I sell the ranches. I've got a mechanical digger in mind that will slash them out of the ground in no time at all. There is the cost of it. Advertising will mount up, of course. Buying out the present ranchers will cost. But the whole sum is nothing when compared to what I expect to make. There is a quarter or a half million in this one angle."

"We are the means, therefore, of supplying you with a very nice fortune," said Bangor, not overenthused.

Woolfridge had been watching his man closely, gauging the latter's reactions. The coldness became more pronounced, his speech snapped more crisply, more rapidly. "I expected some such reply, Bangor. I am prepared to meet it. I said I have studied this five years. It depended wholly on somebody building a dam on the Roaring Horse. A power dam with excess water for irrigating purposes. Otherwise it couldn't pay. Your company had to get a site. I called this to your attention—an ideal location from every point of view. Moreover, when you got in trouble with Bi-State Power I saw to it my block of stock was instrumental in giving you a position that was not assailable. I helped you. I expect help in return."

"Your help had definite strings attached," Bangor reminded him. "It still has strings attached."

"I believe in protecting myself," was Woolfridge's quiet answer. "This isn't charity. You will make money from the deal. Not only in water rent but in the development of a whole new region. Personally I've got controlling interest in the bank, in a warehouse, and shortly will also have bought the major store here. All through the dummy corporation. I expect to build up a marketing organization in time. Long after I take my first profit there will be a steady, year by year percentage of the general prosperity coming my way."

"You let nothing past you."

"I have studied it a long time," said Woolfridge. "There is yet one difficult barrier to cross. I have got to buy out Satterlee or the whole thing falls to pieces. His land slices my project in two. The ditch runs across it; and the man would let his fingers be hacked off before he'd see the cattle range split into homesteads. So I have got to take him out of the game."

"From what I saw of him," suggested Bangor, "he looks both prosperous and stubborn."

"Both," agreed Woolfridge. "But all men have a price. Somewhere up the scale I'll find his. Now, we must work quietly and let nothing get out. You don't know how cattle land hates the smell of small farms. They'd block me if they understood. The name of my dummy—they wonder who is behind it—-sounds like a big joke to them. They can't understand how this country will ever get water. Moreover, they don't want it."

"Who is in with you on this deal?" question Bangor.

"Nobody. When I want a thing done I do it myself. I never let another man see my hand if I can help it. And the rewards I keep alone, having well earned them."

In saying that the core of his nature broke through the neutral wrapping and lay exposed. His round cheeks were flushed and hard; there was a slanting, oriental cast to his eyes that defied Bangor's power of analysis. Bangor saw part of Woolfridge's underlying coldness and a part of the man's acquisitive will, but there was still some latent explosive force beyond sight. It was to him an uncomfortable moment. He broke it quickly.

"We should have an answer to our application in Washington. That's only formality. It will go through. And so will our business with the territorial engineer. You had better get your necessary legal business in order as well."

"I am taking care of that," said Woolfridge. Bangor had the disquieting sensation that the man had taken care of a great many things. He knew Woolfridge very well; he knew his approximate wealth and connections. Yet from time to time Woolfridge surprised him by producing still another weapon out of the case. Stock, a friendly official, some secret control.

"Well," went on Bangor, "when you are ready to break the news let me know. I'll hold off until then. By the way, the governor is preparing to lay a series of distinctly radical reforms before the ensuing legislature. I don't like it. But we'll beat them."

"Give the governor my regards," was Woolfridge's ironical comment. "Two years from now I'll send him back to private life."

"How?" was Bangor's startled question.

Woolfridge shrugged his shoulders and motioned to the bottle. The interview was over. They drank in silence, and Woolfridge prepared to leave. By the door he turned for a last word. "See you in the morning. You are sitting with me. It will be very interesting. Watch a man named Jim Chaffee. It will repay you. He has a terrific reputation for ability in these parts." He seemed to thaw and drop back to his inconspicuous role. "By the way, Gay Thatcher is an extraordinarily charming lady. Where is she from?"

"Don't know," said Bangor. "She's been socially up around the capital this fall. Her past seems to be entirely her own business, but she walks through the best doors."

"I should think so," murmured Woolfridge, and let himself out.

Bangor waited a spell. Then he pulled off his shoes and stared a long, long interval at the wall. His thoughts seemed to displease him, and in the end he spoke a short piece. "How did he get that stock in the first place, and how did he know we were battling for a place in the sun? Now he talks to me as if I were a secretary. Me! And I'd like to throw him overboard but don't dare. He's playing his own cards, which may not be mine. Where does he think he's going to get the power to defeat the governor? That man is a profound mystery."

William Wells Woolfridge went down the plush carpeted stairway of the Gusher and paused in the lobby beneath a crystal chandelier. The Gusher was not a modern hotel. Its frame dated back to an ancient army post. But recently unknown capital had taken over and remodeled the place. It glittered cheerfully of a night, its walls were loaded with murals, and its woodwork ran to fancy scrolls and jigsaw figures. Each room on the lower floor opened grandly into another—lobby, dining hall, ballroom, and gaming parlor; and each room was differently colored and took name from that color. Most appropriately the gaming parlor was called the Gold Room, into which Woolfridge sauntered, seeming pleased at the comfortable crowd gathered there. It should have pleased him. It was his hotel, though this was another under- cover possession, and the Gold Room was his idea. It netted him money; it furnished a cosmopolitan air to the town and public sentiment in no wise disapproved. The Gold Room, according to his own rigid directions, was thoroughly genteel, and women sometimes stood at the doorway looking on. There was a bar beyond a partition, but not a drop of liquor entered the precincts of this room; men went to the bar if they were athirst.

The playing had started, but he found Dad Satterlee leaning idly against a wall, talking politics to French Melotte, looking for all the world like a man who had absolutely no interest in the click of chips or the shuffle of cards. Dad was an inveterate poker player, but he went about it cagily. Woolfridge tapped him on the arm and nodded toward the lobby. Satterlee followed, his red, blunt face shining honestly against the light; his hair was the color of iron and his eyes were like disks of steel; but Satterlee liked to laugh, and the echo of it rang strong and free wherever he was.

"Nice crowd," said Dad, scanning the lobby.

"That's right," agreed Woolfridge. "About that proposition of mine—"

"Oh, hell, I thought you had somethin' to tell me about the rodeo. Don't pester me with any more offers."

"I will meet any reasonable price you set, Satterlee," insisted Woolfridge. "I'm serious."

"Yuh? Son, if I set a price it wouldn't be nowise reasonable. And that's likewise serious. What would me and my wife do with a lot of money and no place to go? Shucks, you ain't talkin' to a poor man."

"Now you're trying to draw me into something else," said Woolfridge mildly. "I don't care what you do with the money. Buy a battleship and tour the world. It may sound like nonsense to you, but I need your range worse than you do. I want it bad enough to pay a stiff price. And I have always found a man could buy anything if he wanted it sufficiently. I have also found all men will sell at a price. I'm trying to find yours."

"Great shades!" snorted Dad. "You got the dangdest way of dickerin' I ever heard tell about. Same as sayin' I can keep on talkin', but you'll get my land by and by."

"I'm trying to find your price."

"Well, I'll set a price high enough to keep you off," said Dad. Immediately he checked himself and looked into Woolfridge's face with a sharp, shrewd penetration. "No, I won't let you run me into any corral like that, either. Might take me up. You're foxy, but you ain't got good sense tryin' to extend your range in a bad year. Not when you got to pay boom prices. What's in the back of your coco, anyhow?"

"Just what I told you," was Woolfridge's patient answer. "I want to be the kingpin in this piece of country. If a man can afford to nurse his vanity, why not?"

Satterlee bit into his cigar and became mellow. "Now, listen. I was born here. I courted my wife here, and I buried three kids out yonder on a green little knoll. I made money here, and I've sorter put my roots way down deep. Don't you talk dicker to me any more, son. I'm finished. All you and me can discuss is horses and buckers to-morrow. Believe I'll sit in a judicious game."

He left Woolfridge, eyes sparkling with the robust anticipation of battle. Woolfridge watched him settle up to a vacant table and crook his fingers at sundry prospects. There was one particular man who seemed on the verge of joining this new game; but Woolfridge caught that man's eyes and held it for a fraction of a moment. He turned into the street and walked through the shadows. In a little while somebody drew abreast, obscured. "What was it, Mr. Woolfridge?"

"Before you sit in that game with Satterlee," murmured Woolfridge, "I wanted to tell you to tighten your play all around. Tighten it up, Clyde, understand? Play for Satterlee and let the others win or lose, but play for Satterlee."

A moment's silence. "You told me when you brought me into this country, Mr. Woolfridge, I was not to turn a crooked card."

"So I did and so you have. And you have built up a reputation for being square. Which is exactly what I wanted you to do. Now go back there and do as I say. I have been nursing you along for this particular time. Use all the tricks in your bag, Clyde, which are manifold. That's all."

"How much have I got behind me to do this?"

"You are free to sign I O U's to twenty thousand. I'll privately protect them. I'll protect any obligation—so long as you whittle down Satterlee. Boost the play high. Dad's feeling good. Now go back there and work."

"All right—"

Behind them was the smashing of glass and one sharp explosion. They turned to see a saloon door erupt a vast, towering form. Down the street came a mighty wailing cry, weird and full throated and savage; a cry that seemed possible only to some enraged beast. It poured along the thoroughfare, striking a chill into the holiday humor of the crowd. Clyde the gambler swore and made nervous gestures with his slim fingers.

"Great God, what's that?"

Woolfridge lifted his thin shoulders. "That is Theodorik Perrine twisting his own tail for to-morrow's battle."