It was fortuitous that Hart McAllister had moved back East and that McBain had disappeared again into the mountains. Whatever plans he had for dealing with Fancy's husband would be far easier to accomplish if Chance McAllister was left to his own devices.
Jason smiled at Chance as he drew himself into the crowd of well-wishers around the platform. Perhaps it would be best to become McAllister's friend.
Dear Bro,
Thought I'd best let you know what I've been up to with your money and mine. There's opportunity on every street corner now and I'm trying not to let any fruitful possibility escape us.
Real estate seems to be the fastest, surest bet. The more silver, the more people arrive—they all need housing, stores, gambling halls, cafes and every other item you can think of. I'm buying claims, too. Some have panned out, some haven't, but before long every square inch of the Mosquitoes will be taken and I'd kick myself from here to Albuquerque if I hadn't grabbed what I could for us.
The Silver Alliance is working even better than I planned. The big boys like to be members of exclusive clubs and silver's the most rarefied of them all. We've sent lobbyists to Washington and we're tight with the men who pull the strings.
Sometimes I look around and say, "What the hell are you doing, McAllister? What makes you think you can pull this off? You're nothing but a Kansas farm boy." Other days I've got more confidence than God Almighty. So far, I've added a tidy bundle to our assets and I've made powerful friends— but I suspect you know I walk a tightrope, bro, and it's important when you do that, never to look down.
Your letters convince me Yale is everything you hoped and then some. I like the sound of Canfield—seems as though we're both headed up a rung or two on society's ladder. Rut sounds decent and solid, which is two points more than I can say for any of the men I'm hanging out with, most of whom would cut your throat for the practice.
Fancy said to send her love. I guess I don't have to tell you I send mine, too.
Your entrepreneurial brother, Chance
Chapter 67
Chance watched the men around the poker table with a practiced eye. You could tell a great deal about a man by how he played the game. Mean-spiritedness showed, and avarice, intellect, conscience, integrity—all were there to be deciphered by the initiate. His own long suits were memory and optimism, or maybe they were just different names for the instincts of a born gambler.
"I'm afraid those jacks of yours have a way to go to beat my flush, Monty." Chance laid down his cards face up, with the flourish of the showman, and gauged the responses around the green-felt battlefield.
Harvey grunted disgustedly as he tossed in his cards, Haw laughed out loud, Monty slapped his hand down on the table and left the group without a word.
"How'd you know what he was holding?" Fancy asked from behind Chance's shoulder as the men dispersed. She loved cards and wasn't without talent, but Chance's gifts were awesome.
"I'd been counting down, that narrowed the choices considerably. And old Monty has a 'tell.' "
''A tell? What's that?"
"Gamblers and con men watch for them in a pigeon, sugar. A quirk of some kind, an idiosyncrasy. Like playing with a pinky ring when you're on a roll, or twitching your nose when things are tough. Monty pats his bald head when he's got a borderline hand, and he plays with his chips when he knows he's got it won. If he'd had a royal flush or four aces he would have had his hand on his chips all through that last hand."
Fancy laughed delightedly at the secret, it was so much like her own technique, always watching for the nuances in everyone's behavior... tucking away each new piece of reference material for when she'd need it.
The two walked arm in arm out into the raucous Leadville night. The stars seemed near enough to touch in the crystal air and Fancy felt Chance's exhilaration. He'd been showing off for her at the poker table, it made him seem young and ingenuous, despite the sophistication of the game.
"What were you and Hart like when you were small?" she asked, wanting to know everything about him.
"I don't know, sugar. I was restless, I guess. And happy. Hart always was the serious one who knew just where he was going and how to do things right. All I knew was what I wanted.
"Hart was my little brother, Fancy, but in a lot of ways I looked up to him, relied on him, because he was so solid."
"Did you envy him, or want to be like him?"
Chance chuckled good-naturedly. "You can't be what you're not, sugar. I never thought I was supposed to be anyone but me. But I admired Hart just the same. Still do."
He guided her deftly over a puddle, a protective gesture; she held fast to his arm, savoring the moment.
"My daddy was a man you would have loved, Fancy. Big as an oak, red-haired like Hart. The kind of man who takes real good care of his own. My mama made our world gentle, even elegant, despite the hardships of prairie life... despite the poverty. She remembered the graces she'd learned in her girlhood... it must have been hard on her to have left such a soft, pretty world behind to follow my daddy. In some ways, maybe you and she have a lot in common."
"Except that she left her world willingly, and she had your daddy to lean on."
"Well, you have me now, sugar. You don't have to be afraid anymore."
Fancy heard the pride in her husband's voice and wished with all her heart that she could trust his ability to keep her safe as much as she did his intent.
Fancy looked radiant sitting in Jewel's parlor; the lethargy of the first few months of pregnancy had passed and she'd begun to glow.
"Chance has been so wonderful to me lately, Jewel," she said exuberantly. "He sends me flowers for no occasion whatsoever, and he's so happy about the baby he could burst."
"I'm real glad to see you so shiny, kid. You look about as happy in your marriage as anybody I've ever seen." She refrained from saying that she and Rufus had both caught Chance casting appreciative glances over her girls, and they'd heard stories from other houses. Of course, he was a man and no more than human, but Jewel's instincts told her it was mighty near the beginning of marriage for a wandering eye or any other part of the male anatomy and didn't bode well for the future.
"I hear that husband of yours bought up some more property day before yesterday, honey. He seems hell-bent on owning all of Colorado."
Fancy frowned a little. "I do hope he knows what he's doing, Jewel. It seems to me he doesn't pay very much attention to the mine now that Hart's gone, and I'm not sure he really listens to Caz, or does his homework on any part of the business, before he acts. It's about the only thing about him that makes me nervous."
"Even if you're right, honey, men don't much like their wives mixin' into their business dealin's. Better watch your step on how you handle your doubt in his ability—he might start bein' a little less wonderful, if he thinks you're a better businessman than he is."
"I try not to interfere, honestly I do, Jewel. It's just that you know how hard it is for me to trust anybody... and then I see Chance trusting absolutely everybody with our money, and it simply sets my teeth on edge."
Jewel laughed and shook her head.
"It never ceases to amaze me how the same qualities that attract men and women to each other when they're single, make 'em mad as hornets at each other once they get hitched."
"I was never attracted to Chance's trusting everybody!"
"No, ma'am, but you sure as hell was attracted to the fact that he did as he damn well pleased and didn't ask nobody's by-yer-leave. Now you're pissy 'cause he ain't askin' you for advice."
"What are you telling me, Jewel?"
"I guess I'm advisin' you to take what joy you can, whilst you can, honey. I'm sayin' you got money and a husband, and a baby on the way—maybe you should just go ahead and enjoy the bejeezus out of them good things you got on your plate... and quit worryin' about what you cain't change anyway."
About the best they could hope for would be if the two of them piled up some real good times together, she sup
posed. Some real bona fide A-one type happiness to be a bulwark against their own inevitable follies...
"How are you feeling physically these days, kid?" Jewel asked, to brighten her own mood.
"Oh, I'm just fine now, Jewel, much better than when I had Aurora. But Lord, this belly is heavy to carry around all day. God help the poor cows who have to do this all their lives—I can't fathom how they stand it."
Jewel laughed good-naturedly. "Nothin' much comes easy to the female of any species, I guess. I'm glad you're not doing the shows now, Fancy. There's plenty of acts we can book in here 'til the baby comes and you might just get a kick out of simply bein' a great lady for a change."
"Maybe it will be nice to sit around all day and be pampered," Fancy said. "Maybe now I'll have the chance to do all those things other women occupy their time with. I wonder what they are."
Jewel laughed out loud.
"I mean it, Jewel. I don't have a clue what other women do all day. I've been a field hand, a prospector, an actress, and a business owner, but I've never once been idle. Well, maybe it's time to find out. There surely isn't any business in the world worth losing Chance over."
Fancy hugged her friend and waved to Rufus on her way out the downstairs door. It always made her feel so much better to talk to Jewel; she managed somehow to just take life as it came without getting lost in endless speculation as Fancy did.
From her window, Jewel watched Fancy step into her elegant rig and disappear down Harrison. She hoped Chance would at least let the kid deliver this baby in peace; Lord knows, she'd suffered enough carrying the last one alone. She said a silent prayer that Fancy would be spared the knowledge, for a little while at least, that she was still alone.
Chapter 68
Visions of the Christmas he, Chance, Bandana, and Fancy had spent together at the cabin began to plague Hart as the semester drew to a close. "I'm homesick for a threadbare log cabin perched on a rock," he chided himself. "Now that's pretty damned stupid." But "home" has mostly to do with the people in it, so try as he would, the vision of the long-ago Christmas haunted him as the holiday neared.
Rut was packing for his trip home to Savannah when Hart entered his room.
"I don't suppose I could lure you into coming home to Eden with me," the southerner said. He hadn't missed Hart's mopiness as the holiday approached. "My family tends to be boisterous and a bit hard to take around holidays, but all things considered, they're a civilized bunch, and we'd like you to sample a taste of southern hospitality."
Hart's eyes lit up for the first time in weeks. "I'd be so grateful for the chance to share a family this Christmas, Rut, that they could all sit up and howl at the moon for all I care. Are you certain there'll be room for me?"
The merriment the question provoked in Rutledge Canfield was inexplicable to Hart until he arrived at Eden, the Canfield plantation north of Savannah.
An avenue of stately oaks led from the road to the house; they overhung the carriage path so lushly that the temperature beneath their shady canopy must have been a full fifteen degrees less than in the surrounding meadowland.
Near the residence, long avenues of hothouses bathed in the Georgia winter sun. "My father fancies himself a horticulturalist," Rut explained as they passed by. "He has imported exotic flora from all over the tropics, I'm afraid. You'll have a steady diet of pineapples and bananas and breadfruit at every meal if you make the mistake of complimenting him on his prowess."
The graceful architecture of the plantation house spoke of generations of privilege. An immense rosewood piano and a harpsichord both graced the Aubusson carpet in the music room; cherry desks, mahogany liquor cabinets, satinwood armoires, enhanced every corner. There were Dresden vases in one room, Sevres in the next; exotic Oriental porcelains brimmed with flowers in such profusion, Hart's eye didn't know where to light first. Pervading all were the mingled scents of sweet-olive, magnolia, honeysuckle. Eden indeed, thought the man who'd been born in a prairie farmhouse and graduated to a miner's cabin.
Into Hart's astonished hand a servant planted a frosty glass of brandy, sugar, and peppermint. "Julep," explained Rut with an offhand chuckle. "It's the obligatory panacea for all ills of our climate." Rut's southern drawl had become more pronounced as they'd traveled southward.
"If you're wondering how this plantation managed to escape the wrath of Sherman on his way to the sea," he offered, noting Hart's discomfort, "our money didn't come from slaves—at least not for some generations. Half of it is northern factory money, the other half comes from farming and commerce, shipping and such in New England and Savannah... banking, too, and just about any enterprise you can name that makes money. We have powerful friends in the North, who proved immensely helpful during the war. The hostilities caused us some problems, of course, but nothing at all compared with what our neighboring farms endured."
"You call this a farm?" Hart asked, thinking of his daddy, and the plot of bare dirt and rocks the man made to bloom in Kansas. Rut didn't answer, but took his friend's arm and propelled him up the satinwood staircase.
"No need to meet anyone until dinner," he said genially. "That'll give us time to freshen up. Nobody moves around here during the middle of the day, but after you've rested, I'd be pleased to take you on a tour. You ride, of course?"
"That's one thing I can do," Hart replied, grateful for this small inch of common ground.
"Fine then, fine. I'd offer you boots and breeches, but I'm the largest male in my family and I doubt you'd get more than one leg into my size.
"Tell you what. We'll both just wear our dungarees and be done with it." Rut seemed delighted by this solution to a problem Hart couldn't fathom, until after he'd seen the elegant shirt and jacket Rut wore for their outing.
Hart chuckled when he drew near the pristine paddock. "People don't live this good where I come from, Rut, never mind horses."
The stable boys—Rut called them grooms—smirked when they saw Hart, but a frown from Canfield silenced them.
Rut put one slickly booted foot into the stirrup of the horse the groom held for him, and sprang onto its back with the kind of effortless grace Hart associated with generations of aristocracy. The former farm boy mounted easily and they trotted off together.
"Someday," Hart said, looking out across the most spectacular piece of real estate he had ever imagined, "I'm going to have me a farm... a place where I can hold the warm earth in my hands, and watch things grow from it. A place with a studio that lets in God's sunlight to bathe a man's soul in inspiration."
"You've a long way to go before then, my friend," Rut replied.
"Before I have the money for it, you mean?"
"Not at all. I mean you'll have to satisfy all the wanderlust in your soul first, Hart. You'll have to paint those Indians you're always fantasizing about. You'll have to see Europe. Be seen by the critics. The world of the artist is no longer as solitary as it once was. You'll need to meet the right people of influence."
Hart laughed. "What I want is painting, not politics, Rut. You make it sound like I'm running for office."
Rut smiled at his friend—he had sensed at university that Hart had no notion at all of how attractive his craggy features and powerful body were to women.
"I'm afraid that's the way the world works, Hart. But don't you worry—I've got a few tricks up my sleeve for you that may help a bit. As a matter of fact, I've asked Mother to invite Rene Dusseault here to Eden this weekend. He's probably the most influential dealer New York or Paris has to offer.' It's important that you get to know such people." Hart looked skeptical.
"You're good, Hart," Rut said, reading the uncertainty in his friend's face. "Very good. Your work is bold and strong. Sensual, too, and robust. You've got something new to say and one day people like Dusseault will want to hear it."
Hart thought a moment, troubled by the inequity in their stations. "And just what can I do for you in return, Rut? All this..." He gestured with his hand toward the endless beauty of Eden
. "Your hospitality. Your help. I'm in your debt already and don't know how to repay it. Why are you doing all this?"
"You're my friend, Hart... and you have something that a great artist must, and I can never, have."
"And that is... ?"
"Hunger," Rut replied. "All this precludes it... I have gifts, you see, but I have been blessed with too much of life's comforts ever to feel the hunger you feel.
"I could go to the Indians as you intend to... I could paint them skillfully. But I could never understand the starvation in their bellies... or the deprivation, or the frustration of rejection. Or the fear of annihilation. These emotions are denied me by the plenty you see around you. Like Cassandra, doomed always to tell the truth and never to be believed, I am doomed always to understand the mechanics of genius, but never to achieve it."
"And you think that I can?" Hart asked, stunned by Rut's candor and the generosity with which he viewed his work.
"I do. So I have appointed myself your Svengali."
"I don't know what to say, Rut. You seem to have far higher hopes for me than I do for myself."
"Ah, the shortsightedness of genius," Rut said with an unreadable expression on his handsome face; then he laughed aloud, at what, Hart wasn't certain, put spurs to his gelding, and ran Hart a race back across the meadows to the stable, just as dusk was beginning to tint the sky mauve. He took a fence so high, it nearly spooked the roan, but Hart could see it was a show of pride and skill, defiance and manliness. Rut was a strong man, for all his sissified upbringing.