“So you were near to broke before then?”
“Six straight years of drought, Archer, would challenge any farmer no matter how competent. Fact is, it nearly did me in. The oil is the only thing that saved me. And it was a damn close call. One month or two the other way, this house and land are gone from me. I had been engaged in discussions with the oil folks before I took out the loan. They just didn’t have their reports back yet, and I needed the funds from Pittleman to keep things going, wages and bills to pay. Timing is everything in this world.”
“Pittleman owned the bank, too. So why not just do a deal with those folks?”
“I would have preferred that, but Pittleman’s bank turned me down for a loan. His doing, I’m sure. You see, he can charge a lot more interest if the loan was from him. And I believed he liked the fact that I had to come to him personally for my financial survival. He was just that sort of man. Loved nothing better than putting the screws to folks.”
“I can see that.”
“When the field reports came in better than anyone possibly thought they would, I struck my deal with the oil company and received initial payments. Being a savvy man, I diversified my holdings immediately: stocks, bonds, gold dust in those little pouches, along with cash and rare coins.”
“And gold bars,” added Archer. “Now you’re rich again. Does your daughter know?”
“The oil companies cannot act with stealth in a place like this. But no one knows that the reports came back favorably. And I would appreciate it if you would not tell anyone, including Jackie.”
“Okay.”
“You see, I would not want my daughter to come back to me solely because she thought I was now rich. I hope you can understand that.”
“If I had a daughter, I guess I’d feel the same way.”
Tuttle slapped his desktop. “God, I sometimes think that that devil of a man hypnotized her or something.”
“Don’t know what to tell you there.” He glanced at the envelope in Tuttle’s other hand. He had put the cash from the safe in it. “Now, you added in my two hundred dollars to that sum, didn’t you?”
“I actually made it three hundred, Archer.”
Archer’s eyes widened in amazement. “Why’s that? Our deal was for two.”
“Because I never really believed you would accomplish your task successfully. And I like to reward exceptional performance.”
“She hasn’t agreed to come home yet.”
“But you’ve given me the opportunity to talk some sense into her, and that’s good enough for me.”
The men exchanged cash for promissory note. Tuttle extracted a match from a box on his desk, struck it afire, and placed it against one edge of the papers. Both men watched the document flame up until Tuttle tossed the inferno into the fireplace behind him.
“I think that we’re finished here, Archer. I need to get some work done,” he added. “And if you see Jackie, tell her I will be at 27 Eldorado Street promptly at nine o’clock tonight.”
“I’ll do that.”
Archer left the house, stepped off the front porch, and looked around.
A whirl of dust in the distance was coming closer and revealed itself to be a man on a farm tractor. He was heading for the barn that lay about a hundred yards behind the house. Archer glanced back at the house to see if anyone was watching him and then headed that way.
“Hey there,” he said when he came within earshot. The man had parked the John Deere tractor, and was presently checking its engine.
It was the man who had driven Tuttle in the car. He didn’t have his chauffeur’s uniform on now. He wore dirty jeans, a checkered shirt, and a straw hat with a white band. Dusty, worn boots covered his feet, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up, revealing a mass of writhing muscles as he torqued a bolt with a long wrench.
The man looked up, then set down the wrench, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead with a greasy cloth lying on the engine cover of the tractor.
“Hey there, yourself.”
“You were driving the Cadillac the other night.”
“Sure was.”
“Nice-looking car.”
“It’s a beauty all right. You’re Archer, right?”
“Yep. I was just here doing some business with Mr. Tuttle.” He put out his hand. “It’s Bobby, right?”
“That’s right. Bobby Kent. Nice to meet you, Archer.”
The men shook hands.
Archer said, “Quite the farm he’s got.”
“Yeah, but it’s been nothing but a pain in the ass for the last half-dozen years or so. Not nearly enough rain.”
“But now I understand everything’s okay.” He gave Kent a knowing look.
“You mean the oil?”
“Didn’t know if you knew about it.”
“I been showing them boys from Texas all over the dang place for about ten months now. They dig a hole here, then run their tests and do their calculations. And then dig another hole fifty feet over from the last one and do it all over again. Drove me crazy. Just give me a tractor to ride all day and soil to tend, and I’m a happy man.”
“Well, it paid off for Mr. Tuttle.”
“Guess it did, yeah.”
“How long you been here?”
“Hell, fifteen years if it’s been a day.”
“So you knew Isabel and Jackie?”
Kent put his hat back on and nodded, his expression turning somber. “Sure did. They’re both gone now. Isabel’s dead and Jackie left, oh, it’s been about a year gone by now for both.”
“An accident, I heard?”
Kent turned and pointed to the hay bale doors on the second story of the barn. “Happened right there. She fell out of there and got impaled on the upraised cone of a corn picker. It was damn awful. Bloody as all get out.”
Archer thought back to the piece of equipment he had seen on an earlier visit here to one of the outbuildings while he was looking for the Cadillac.
“Allis-Chalmers Corn-picker?” he said.
Kent looked at him in surprise. “That’s right. You a farmer?”
“I’ve done a little bit of everything over the years.”
He wondered why Jackie had not added in this detail of her mother’s death, but then again, what did it matter? The woman was still dead, regardless of the exact particulars.
“Who found her?” He knew what Jackie had told him, but remembering Shaw’s method, he wanted corroboration.
Kent’s face twisted into disgust. “Poor Jackie did.”
Archer looked over at the spot and imagined the daughter finding the bloodied corpse of her mother.
“Maybe that’s why she left, huh?” said Archer, looking back at Kent.
“Could be. She loved her ma. All’s I know is she was gone pretty soon after.”
“Mr. Tuttle took her leaving hard, I understand. And he wants his daughter back.”
“Don’t know nothing about that.”
“Okay, well, good talking to you.”
“See you around, Archer.”
Archer retraced his steps, climbed into the Nash, and drove off.
He felt the bulge of money in his pocket, which was a nice feeling. But what had happened to Jackie and her mother had left him with a level of sadness that he supposed was a little odd, since he’d never met Isabel and barely knew her daughter.
Yet maybe there was a reasonable explanation.
You might be an ex-con, Archer, but you kept your heart, despite a war and then prison. And that’s something. As bad as things might get, don’t ever sell yourself short on that.
Chapter 36
He drove fast back to Poca City. The wind whistling through the open windows felt good, liberating, and about as far from Carderock Prison as a man could get and still be on this earth, he reckoned. He dropped the Nash off at the garage on Fulsome, leaving the keys in the glove box, as Jackie had requested.