Chance's Bluff Page 8

  Chance shook his head in frustration. “Now, see, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. I can’t make heads nor tails of that fancy talk, thank you kindly all the same.”

  “The poem is saying that lines on a page have no meaning in themselves,” Ben explained. “You are what is real. You are what has meaning.”

  “Well now.” Chance looked flattered. “That makes a bit more sense.” He gazed at the book with new respect and tucked it in his pocket. “Here.” He pulled out his harmonica. “Take this. Whenever you play ‘Turkey in the Straw,’ remember when we rode together.”

  Ben tucked it inside his uniform coat and watched the tall Iowan trot away on his roan mare, knowing they would likely never see each other again. Remembering the Indian waiting quietly next to him, Ben took a deep breath and turned his horse’s head north. “All right,” he told his new companion. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chance

  Iowa

  Spring, 1865

  Chance intended to ride past the farm without stopping, wanting to see Betty Cuthbert before greeting anyone else. His mother and the farmhands would just have to wait. When he approached the bend of the river where he had grown up, though, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Instinct told him something was wrong, although at first he couldn’t tell what it was. Then he spotted the farmhouse and caught his breath.

  Signs of neglect were everywhere: peeling paint on the walls, dead rosebushes by the doorway, a broken window pane. Then something else forced Betty to the back of his mind and made his stomach clench, a smell like a dead rat trapped behind a cast-iron stove, but more powerful, sickeningly so. The odor wafted from behind the house, growing stronger when the wind changed its course.

  Swinging down from his saddle, Chance marched up to the door where a notice fluttered from the boards, bleached by the sun. He tore down the paper and squinted, but could only make out a few faded letters. Crumpling the notice, he hurled it to the ground and took off around the side of the house. Anxiety squeezed his innards so tight he could hardly breathe.

  “Obadiah? Sam? Where are you?” Chance had known the hands since he was a boy. Surely they had not grown lazy enough during his absence to let the farm come to this.

  The stables were empty. Not a cow or a pig was in sight, not even his dog, Bonnie, or a barn cat prowling for mice. Although it was already June, the fields had not been tilled. Weeds raised their heads amidst hard clods of dirt unbroken since the last harvest.

  He aimed a kick at a rusted plow left in the middle of the field, and, muttering under his breath, headed back. With the strength of anger and fear, he ripped away the boards that barred the door, yanking the nails clean out of their holes. The door was bolted shut, but three well-aimed kicks sent the door banging open, and he stepped over the sagging hinges. “Ruthie? Samuel? Ma? Where the Sam Hill is everybody?”

  The house’s rooms were dark and musty, but, to his relief, the rotting smell came only from the fields outside. He strode through the empty house, investigating. None of the furniture or any of the bric-a-brac looked out of place, but a thick coat of dust lay over everything. His mother would have clipped the servant girl, Ruthie, on the ear to see the house in such a neglected state.

  He heard a squeak, and a mouse bolted into a hole after he nearly crushed it under his boot. Without breaking his stride, Chance pushed open the door of his mother’s bedroom and noticed the close atmosphere smelled strongly of violets. Rather than scenting the air pleasantly, the perfume’s effect was sickly, as if a whole field of the flowers had rotted.

  An overturned crystal bottle lay on the floor by the dresser, a long-ago gift from his father to his mother, her only vanity, saved for Sunday worship services. Nothing else in the room seemed out of place. His mother’s dresses still lay folded in the trunk at the foot of the bed, while her silver-backed brush and comb, a few white hairs entangled at the base, sat atop the rosewood dresser.

  He picked up the brush by its cold metal handle. Then he flung the brush down and rushed out of the house. “Ma! Ruthie!”

  There was no response, not even the echo of his own voice. A hot, dry breeze kicked up a flurry of skittering leaves and he shivered violently. The scene reminded him of when he and his fellow soldiers had sent a secessionist’s plantation up in flames. The next day he’d returned to gloat over the burned-out house but instead felt a sickness in the pit of his stomach. Now his own farm had been devastated, though not by fire. What was the source of that sickening stench, anyway?

  The notice he’d torn off the door swirled against his boot and he picked it up, smoothing it out and straining his eyes to make out the faint letters. “C-l-o-s-e-d b-y o-r-d-e-r …” He recognized some of the letters, but not enough to sound out the words. The rest of the message was gone, bleached away by the sun. He stuffed the document in his pocket and squinted into the distance, where a white-painted clapboard house glimmered. Abe Swenson, his neighbor, would know what had happened. The old Swede was a decent sort despite his thick accent and old-world ways.

  Ignoring the foul smell, he mounted Sally and turned her nose toward the neighboring property.

  A large farmhouse with a recently built wing on one end greeted him as he approached. When the door swung open in response to his knock, he saw that Abe Swenson had prospered while Chance was away. The old man wore a bottle-green satin waistcoat and leaned on a gold-handled cane, although his homely face with jutting ears and candid-looking blue eyes made him look like the old farmer he was.

  He welcomed his young neighbor into the parlor and offered tea, but at Chance’s question, a sad look settled on the features above the Greek beard. “Ah, yes. Your mother.”

  The mournful way he said the words caused an unseen hand to tighten around Chance’s heart like a rope around a calf’s neck. He could barely squeeze out the words. “What happened? Where is she?”

  Abe bowed his head under its thatch of white hair. “Died two weeks ago, my boy. You’d have passed her grave coming from town—but no, of course, you’d have been riding from the east. She said she wanted to be laid to rest on the farm, next to your father, but they planted her in the public cemetery instead. Didn’t own the land, so they said she had no right to be buried in the family plot.”

  “Didn’t own the land?” Distracted by the news of his mother’s death, Chance was having trouble following what Abe said.

  “The bank foreclosed.” The Swedish-accented voice was tinged with regret. “When I heard of the auction, naturally I went over right away to see if I could do something, but it was too late. They refused to negotiate. Your mother hung on for a year before she died, no doubt of a broken heart.”

  “But how … ?” Chance jumped up and strode to the window, hitting his thighs with hard, rhythmic blows to relieve the pressure inside him. None of this made sense. Again, he had a feeling this was all a dream.

  “It started a couple of years ago, when the bank converted to one of those new national banks. One of their bank managers came to town to oversee the changes,” Abe explained from the depths of his wingback chair, his veined hands loosely crossed on the gold-headed cane. “Name of Hugh Lott. Smart, a young fellow, not like Mr. Trumbull, who’d be willing to work with you if things got tight. Lott forecloses the first month someone gets behind. Watches the ledgers closely, then pounces like a cat.”

  “But we owned our land free and clear.” Chance’s voice sounded strangled. “We never had a mortgage.”

  Abe sighed. “I’ve always had that policy myself. But Lott went around to all the farms as soon as he arrived, with his smooth talking ways, and convinced old-timers to take out loans to upgrade their farm equipment. Said it was modern times, and we ought to do things the modern way. As a favor, he even put ’em in touch with a supplier he knew, some fellow from St. Louis.”

  “A crony of his, eh?” Chance said bitterly.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” Abe agreed. “I passed up the offer myself.
Too old, I told him. Got no offspring to worry about. My equipment ought to do fine by me till I’m dead and gone. But your ma …” He shook his head, and his face grew long. “The farm suffered while you were gone. She was ashamed of the state it had sunk to, wanted to have it all bright, new-painted, and profitable when you got home.” He lowered his voice confidentially. “They say when Mrs. McInnes found out what those contracts said, she ’bout had apoplexy right in the lobby of the bank. ‘Those weren’t the terms you told me, and you know it!’ she screeched, with half the town looking on. Told Mister Lott that God would pay him back in kind. What a woman!” His blue eyes sparkled with admiration. “I never did see her in such a dudgeon.” Settling back in his chair with a sigh, he fingered his cane. “She threatened to file a lawsuit, but it was no good. The bank’s lawyers had tied up everything in a nice, tight bow. When your letter came saying you was heading home, they say she turned white as a salt lick. Died the very next day.”

  Chance gazed blindly out the window. He suspected his neighbor was mistaken about what had happened. His mother was too smart, too tough not to be aware of what was in a contract before signing it, even though she’d never been to school and could read no more than he could. No, something must have happened to force her into it, but he could not imagine what it was. The sympathy in Abe’s voice sounded sincere, but it made no difference. Sympathy wouldn’t bring his mother back.

  Nor his land.

  Grief turned to anger. It was his land, not the bank’s, no matter what a scrap of paper said. His grandfather had settled that stretch of river bottoms when no one else wanted it, neither white men nor Indians. Fresh off the boat from Aberdeen, Preston McInnes had just about broken his back digging wells and sowing wheat in that hard, never-before broken soil, never giving up through drought and hailstorms and bank failures. Then, when everything was ready, he’d gone back east and brought back a pretty, well-educated wife, Mabel Rose. Preston’s only son, Obed, had been born on the farm. The two men lay buried right next to each other, and now, by rights, the farm belonged to Chance.

  “How much was the loan?” His voice was hoarse.

  “Dunno. A hundred dollars, maybe.”

  “The land alone is worth two thousand!”

  “Unfortunately, the farm was written up as collateral for the loan. When your ma defaulted, the bank took it all.”

  Chance turned around, hands clenched into fists. “My mother wasn’t book learned like my grandma, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d never have put up the whole farm against a loan that small.”

  “Of course not.” Abe sounded patient. “But that ain’t what they told her. They claimed the security was nothing but a few dozen head of cattle. If Hecuba coulda read those papers herself, she’d have known better. Too bad that when she was growing up, her papa didn’t believe in book learning for women.”

  “I’ll borrow more money from another bank.” Chance was thinking quickly, desperately. “If I pay back the first loan, this Lott fellow won’t be out any cash, and I can get my land back.”

  “It’s too late. No one’s gonna loan you any money. Even if they did, Lott wouldn’t accept the payment. Don’t you see? He planned it this way.”

  Sick at heart, Chance knew his neighbor was right. In spite of his mother’s tart tongue, the truth was that she was too naïve, too trusting. Hecuba McInnes never would have suspected anyone of trying to cheat her. After all, everyone in town had always known and trusted each other.

  Until that new banker had come in.

  Chance’s head snapped upright. “Why couldn’t Ma pay the loan back? She could have sold the new equipment and some of the livestock to raise the one hundred dollars.”

  Abe cleared his throat. “Well, that’s the funny thing. Just before the loan came due, it appears that the livestock drank poisoned water and died. Horses, cows, pigs … all of ’em.”

  That explained the stink, Chance thought numbly.

  He wasn’t aware of saying goodbye or stumbling to his horse. On the way home, he turned aside to ride through the pastures and inspect the dead animals. The carcasses lay where they had fallen, bellies distended. Marks of suffering were evident in their rigid poses, the slanting “M” of the McInneses’ brand still recognizable on their rotting hides.

  Chance remembered how his pa had loved the livestock as if they were part of the family, leaving the house’s warm hearth on a freezing night to care for a sick heifer or supervise the delivery of a calf. During branding season, Obed would stay out around the clock, working as hard as any of his hired men. Harder. If his father saw this devastation … Feeling something wet on his cheek, he roughly smeared it away with the back of his hand and nudged Sally toward the house.

  If only his mother had told him of her troubles! During the war, she’d sent him several letters, dictated to one of her book-learned friends from the First Baptist Church. The letters told of church picnics and spring rains, with no hint of the burdens she’d faced. If he’d had some warning, Chance thought, he’d have found some way to come back and prevent the foreclosure, even if it meant deserting.

  Turning toward Abe Swenson, his thoughts hardened. For all his old neighbor’s sympathetic airs, Chance suspected the Swede could have prevented the foreclosure. Abe had a big, comfortable house and, to judge by his new gold-handled cane, plenty of money. How could the neighbor not know what was going on under his very nose, not, that is, until it was conveniently too late? Surely Abe could have lent one hundred dollars without blinking an eye.

  Chance’s grip tightened on the reins and Sally shied. He was suddenly certain his mother had turned to her neighbor for help. She would have known that swallowing her pride was better than losing the farm. And Abe had turned her down. Who was most likely to snap up the title from the bank before the ink was dry on the foreclosure? A rich neighbor, who could cheaply and effortlessly double the size of his farm. Land was worth nothing without a willing buyer, and Abe Swenson had probably been the first in line, check in hand. Eyes narrowing, Chance slowly looked back at the Swede’s house, and his lips moved silently in a new vow. He would not rest until he’d regained what was by rights his, even if he had to resort to their methods: lying, cheating, stealing …whatever it took.

  That night he stayed in his former bedroom, but hardly slept. The beloved old farmhouse, once so familiar to him, now felt empty and strange. He’d expected to return to a place full of family and friends, but everything was gone. The shadows felt like ghosts, and he thought of the empty bedroom next to his that had been his parents’. He was used to his father being gone. That had happened long ago, when he was a child, and that absence had grown less painful over time, like a pulled tooth. But his mother’s loss was fresh and raw. Hecuba McInnes had been a harsh woman, but those she loved, she loved well. She had been honest, firm in her faith in God and her sense of right and wrong. Without her, Chance felt adrift, alone in a way he’d never felt before. At least during the war, he’d pictured her here, in the family home that his grandpa had built, an island of stability in a chaotic world. And now … she was gone.

  The next morning, Chance methodically began to tear down the boards that covered the windows and doors, leaving the house open so the breeze cleared out the musty scent of neglect, mouse droppings, and spilled eau de toilette. Then he went out to dig a pit to cover the bloated bodies of the dead farm animals.

  Deep inside him, hope remained that the farm was not really lost. One simple piece of paper could not overturn all that his grandfather, his father, and he had worked so hard for. Surely Hecuba McInnes’s death would convince the bank that they had wronged her. Surely the townspeople would back him up, especially the others who had been swindled. Iowans always stuck together through good times and bad. Together they would fight back, drive out the heartless new banker, and reclaim their land.

  Chance knew starting over wouldn’t be easy. He’d already spent much of his soldier’s pay, saving only enough for some food and ammunition. It wou
ld take cash money to replace the livestock, but at least he could plant the fields from the contents of the seed bags stacked in the barn. A crop of wheat by summer’s end would be the first step to renewing the farm.

  His mount was a riding horse, not a plow horse, and she made it clear the unfamiliar harness was beneath her dignity. Although Chance spoke soothingly, Sally balked as he tried to lead her between the plow’s traces, looking at him with hurt brown eyes.

  “Get up, Sally.” He whistled encouragingly. “Get on, there.” Finally, he used the lash a little. With an injured expression, she shook her neck and reluctantly started forward.

  It had been a long time since the sod had been turned, and Sally was inexperienced and half-hearted. Chance was only able to plow one acre before he was forced to turn back, his recently healed ribs stabbing with pain. Disappointed, he turned Sally out to pasture, and he hobbled toward the house, holding a hand to his side. Then he drew up, startled.

  They had come sooner than he had expected. One of the men was hunched over, hammering back the boards that Chance had just torn down; the other stood with feet planted apart giving directions. A black rig stood in the background like the carapace of a giant beetle.

  “Hey, there!” Chance bellowed, accelerating to a limping trot.

  The shorter, older man wore a three-piece black suit, bowler hat, and white kid gloves. The clothing must have been stifling in the late-afternoon heat, but he showed no sign of it. His black leather shoes shone like bottle glass, but Chance knew that in a few minutes they’d be covered with a fine layer of dust like every other surface on the wind-blown farm.

  The stranger barely glanced at him. “Step lively, Samuel,” he said in a nasal city voice, then checked a gold pocket-watch. “I’ve an appointment at the bank in an hour.”

  “Sam?” Chance’s voice reflected his shock as he turned toward the other man. Sam glanced guiltily up at his former employer, then went back to work, as if he hoped not to be recognized. Chance was upon him in an instant, gripping the other man’s shoulder with one hand while ripping away the hammer with the other. “Golldarn it, Sam, what are you doing?”