Chapter 15
Into the Hornet’s Nest

If we thought Almeda’s handbill caused a commotion, or Pa’s marching in and smacking Mr. Royce in the face while the widow Robinson got an earful in the other room, that was nothing compared to the uproar caused when Mr. Shaw walked into the Royce Miners’ Bank that same afternoon, calmly asked to see Mr. Royce, and then dumped eighteen thousand dollars in green United States bills on the desk in front of him, asking for his change, a receipt, and the cancelled mortgage note and clear deed of trust for his property.

The exclamations from the bystanders, and the look on Mr. Royce’s face, according to Mr. Shaw telling us about it later, was a sight to behold.

“His greedy eyes got so big seeing all that money in front of him,” he said, “for an instant I thought he was gonna dive right on top of the desk after it! But then the next second he suddenly seemed to remember this money meant he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on my land and wouldn’t be getting that six-and-a-quarter percent interest no more.

“‘What kind of a trick is this, Shaw?’ he said.

“’Ain’t no trick,’ I answered him. ‘You called my note due, and there’s the payment, just like you asked—nine days early.’

“‘Where’d you get it, Shaw?’ he asked.

‘Nothing in your notice of call said I had to tell you everything I do. You said I had to pay you, and I done it.’

“‘I know you don’t have a dime to your name,’ he growled. And watching him when I put that money in front of him made me realize that he wasn’t after the money at all, but that he wanted my place. ‘What did you do, hold up a stage? Or is it counterfeit?’

“By now I was enjoying myself, and I decided to pull a little bluff of my own. ‘Mr. Royce,’ I said, ‘that is good U.S. legal currency. I come by it perfectly legal, I’m paying you off in full with it. Now, if you don’t write me a receipt and give my note back showing it’s paid in full, with the extra from the eighteen thousand I got coming back, then I’ll just be on my way over to the Sheriff’s office!’

“Well, he blustered a while more, but finally he took the cash and put it in his safe, and got out the papers and signed everything over to me. But he didn’t like it, I could tell. There he was with eighteen thousand dollars, and a look on his face like I’d gotten the best of him. And he gave me back the extra—there’s $735 back from your $18,000!”

He plunked the money down on the table.

“Keep it, Pat,” said Pa. “You use that to clear up your other bills, and if you still got extra, then it’ll help make the first few payments.”

“Then you come by the office tomorrow,” added Almeda, “and we’ll draw up a note and some terms. At four-and-a-half percent, it shouldn’t be more than $135 or $140 a month.”

“I can’t tell you how obliged I am to you!”

“You just get folks over being afraid of voting for us!” said Almeda.

“Oh, I’ve already been doing that! Once that money fell out onto the desk in Royce’s bank, it was like I’d stirred up a hornet’s nest! I no more’n walked out the door of the bank and it seemed the whole town knew already. All the men came pouring out from the stores and their houses, cheering me and shaking my hand and hitting me on the back. Why, you’d have thought I struck a new vein under the mountain! And of course the question they was all asking was, ‘Where’d the loot come from, Pat . . . where’d you get that kind o’ cash!’ But I just kinda kept to myself, smiling like I knew a big secret, and said, ‘Let’s just put it this way, boys. Wherever I got it from, there’s more where that came from. And so you don’t need to be one bit afraid of what’s gonna happen if you vote for Mrs. Hollister for mayor. Matter of fact, boys,’ I added, and I let my voice get real soft like I was letting them in on a big secret, ‘matter of fact, it’s come to my attention that our old friend Royce is charging us all close to two percent more interest than the going rate down in Sacramento. Unless he’s a dang sight dumber than I think, he ain’t gonna call your loans due. He’s been making a killing on us all these years, and he ain’t about to upset his money-cart now.’”

“What did they say to that?” asked Almeda. Pa was laughing so hard from listening to Mr. Shaw that he couldn’t say anything!

“They were plenty riled, I can tell you that. And once I told them that I had it on the word of a man I trusted that they’d be protected in the same way if Royce called their loans due, they all walked off saying they weren’t gonna vote for no cheat like him for mayor!”

“You done good, Pat,” Pa said finally.

“Did you tell anyone that it was us who was behind it?” asked Almeda.

“Rolf Douglas came up to me afterward, kinda quiet. Said he was two months behind with Royce and was afraid he was gonna be next. I told him to go see you, in your office, Mrs. Hollister. I think you can likely expect a call from him real soon.”

“Rolf ain’t no Widow Robinson,” said Pa. “But I don’t doubt that word’ll manage to spread around.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have told him,” said Mr. Shaw, worried.

“No, no, Patrick, it’s just fine,” said Almeda. “Word had to get around. Just so long as folks don’t know how we were able to do what we have done—at least not for a while. We want to keep Franklin off guard and guessing.”