“You missed him all right, sis,” said Tom, still working in vain with the lock of the valise. Giving it up, he slit the leather open. “But he didn’t git what he come back for, after all.”
There were shirts, collars, and ties in the bag, a man’s ordinary traveling outfit. But under these was a thick packet of hundred-dollar bills, and in the bottom of the bag a mass of loose jewelry—pins, cuff links, a watch, a diamond ring—all the loot he had been able to pick up in his hurry, out of the expensive luxuries he had persuaded the Powers to buy.
“Yes, this was what he came back for,” said Lockwood. “He hadn’t any money with him, and he had to get this. Likely he’s had this ready for weeks, in case he had to bolt at any moment. Let’s see how much there is.”
The packet contained seven thousand one hundred dollars. Of this, five thousand dollars was undoubtedly the proceeds of the sale of the “oil stock;” the rest was of unknown origin, perhaps his commissions on the Powers’ purchases.
“I reckon that two thousand one hundred dollars is yourn,” said Tom. “Seems that Hanna done you worse’n any of us. Dog-gone it, here, take the hull lot! You shorely do deserve it!”
“Hold on! I’m not going to take Hanna’s plunder,” Lockwood laughed. “Wait. You’re going to need all your money.”
“Well, I certainly ain’t goin’ to buy no more autymobiles,” said Tom. “I’ll git this one fixed up mebbe. Nor no more wine nor two-bit cigars. Fine-cut an’ corn licker’s good enough for me, an’ not much of that, neither. I’m shore goin’ to buy some plows, though, an’ a couple of good mules, an’ some hawgs. This yere’s the porest land on earth, but I reckon it’ll grow somethin’. We might buy that fifty acres ’cross the road. That ain’t quite so pore. I been thinkin’ of what you said ’bout raisin’ hawgs an’ peanuts.”
“I reckon Mr. Lockwood’d better give up turpentinin’, and come here an’ advise us what we-all ought ter do with our money,” said Henry. “We could pay him a right good salary—better’n Craig pays any woods rider. It’d be money in our pockets.”
He meant it. He glanced interrogatively at Tom, who nodded an emphatic assent.
Lockwood smiled, looking from the gallery across the road to the woods, all mellow now in the late afternoon light. The crowds had dispersed; they had followed Hanna’s body to the store. Deep peace slept on the quiet landscape. It might be poor land, but he had grown to love it, that country of yellow sand and pine, of yellow-pine and rainbow sand. He liked its people, too, even those who had just wanted to lynch him. He had come there as an outlaw, and Rainbow Landing had made him over.