Chapter 6 - The Banker’s Winter Deadline
Josephine loaded the wagon before dawn.
Smoked beef.
Sausage.
Bread.
Rendered cooking fat.
Two pots.
Coffee.
Lucien stood beside the team with his arms crossed.
"You intend giving away food we need to sell."
"I'm giving away enough to sell everything else."
"That's not how business works."
Josephine climbed onto the wagon seat.
"Which successful business have you run?"
Lucien stared at her.
Jeb coughed behind his glove.
Josephine looked at him.
"You coming?"
Lucien climbed aboard.
Bitter Creek was busy when they arrived.
Mining families crowded Main Street.
Freight drivers unloaded supplies.
Winter had trapped several wagons in town, increasing the number of people competing for food.
Josephine parked beside the freight depot.
Then she started cooking.
The smell traveled.
Within twenty minutes, people gathered.
She served small portions without charge.
A miner tasted smoked beef.
"Where'd this come from?"
"Ironwood."
Another man frowned.
"Paper says your goods might be seized."
Josephine nodded.
"Our ranch has a loan. So does half the county."
That drew laughter.
She continued.
"What you eat after purchasing it belongs to you. If the bank figures out how to repossess supper from your stomach, I'll personally refund your money."
More laughter.
The tension broke.
People bought.
By noon, she had sold nearly everything.
Lucien watched coins pile into the cash box.
"You planned that line?"
"No."
"You should."
"Why?"
"It was good."
She smiled.
Crowe's advertisement remained in the newspaper.
But word-of-mouth moved faster.
Ironwood food tasted better.
That mattered.
A mining foreman approached.
"Mrs. Hatcher?"
"Josephine."
"Name's Patrick Doyle. Copper Ridge Mine."
He handed her a folded paper.
"We've got sixty-eight men through March."
Lucien stepped closer.
Doyle continued.
"Need two hundred pounds preserved meat per month."
Josephine kept her expression calm.
Inside, her heart raced.
"Payment?"
"Half delivery, half thirty days."
"No."
Doyle blinked.
"Excuse me?"
"Seventy-five percent on delivery."
"Nobody gets that."
"Then buy from Red Hollow."
Doyle studied her.
"You know they quoted lower."
"Then why are you here?"
He smiled.
"Seventy."
"Seventy-five."
Doyle held out his hand.
"Done."
Lucien stared after he left.
"Do you ever compromise?"
"I just did."
"You wanted seventy-five."
"I wanted eighty."
Lucien laughed.
Then the laughter vanished when he saw a familiar black carriage outside First Territorial Bank.
Gideon Crowe stepped down.
He spotted them.
Josephine could almost see his irritation.
For the first time, Ironwood had done something Crowe had not anticipated.
Lucien started toward him.
Josephine caught his sleeve.
"Don't."
"We can't avoid him forever."
"We don't need to avoid him. We need to outlive him."
But Crowe approached them.
"Successful morning?"
Josephine smiled.
"Very."
Crowe's eyes moved toward the empty wagon.
"I see."
Lucien said, "Something you need?"
Crowe ignored him.
"Mrs. Hatcher, may I offer advice?"
"No."
Crowe smiled anyway.
"You are building a business on livestock your husband does not own outright."
"We're building value."
"Temporary value."
Josephine met his gaze.
"Is that why you're worried?"
Crowe's smile faded.
"I'm not worried."
"Then stop buying newspaper space about us."
Lucien looked at her.
Crowe went still.
Josephine continued calmly.
"People who aren't worried rarely spend money convincing others to be."
A few nearby townspeople had begun listening.
Crowe noticed.
His voice lowered.
"You don't understand this territory."
"Perhaps."
"Men have lost more than businesses trying to learn it."
Lucien stepped between them.
"Threaten her again."
Crowe looked at him.
"I didn't."
"Do it."
For a long moment, neither man moved.
Then Crowe tipped his hat.
"February first, Hatcher."
He walked toward the bank.
Josephine watched him.
"Again."
Lucien nodded.
"The deadline."
"He enjoys saying it."
"He thinks it's already over."
Josephine looked at the cash box.
"Then we should disappoint him."
They entered the bank.
Thaddeus Vale sat behind an enormous walnut desk.
He was older than Crowe, with neatly trimmed gray whiskers.
He smiled without warmth.
"Mr. Hatcher."
Lucien placed money on the desk.
"Payment against principal."
Vale's smile changed.
He counted it.
"This is more than expected."
"Get used to it."
Vale glanced at Josephine.
"I've heard of your new enterprise."
"So has everyone else."
Vale folded his hands.
"I must caution you, Mrs. Hatcher, entrepreneurship does not alter the note."
"We know."
"February first."
Josephine almost rolled her eyes.
"Does every man in Bitter Creek rehearse that sentence?"
Vale ignored it.
Lucien asked, "What balance remains?"
Vale provided the number.
Even after the payment, it was enormous.
Josephine's optimism faltered.
Three months of smokehouse production would help.
But not enough.
Not unless they grew rapidly.
As they left, she asked Lucien a question.
"How much land can you sell without losing the water?"
"None I'd sell."
"Not asking what you want."
"Why?"
"We need contingency plans."
Lucien stopped.
"No."
"Lucien—"
"No land."
"If the alternative is foreclosure—"
"No."
His voice was so firm she understood there was history there.
"Why?"
Lucien looked down Main Street.
"My father built Ironwood."
Josephine waited.
"He came with nothing. Took wages breaking horses. Bought the first hundred acres. Then another. My mother kept chickens in the house during the first winter because the coop froze."
Josephine smiled faintly.
"Sounds practical."
"She was."
He looked toward the mountains.
"They're buried on the hill above the ranch."
Josephine understood.
Selling land wasn't financial.
It was personal.
"I won't make you sell it."
Lucien looked at her.
"You say that like you can prevent it."
"I intend to."
Back at Ironwood, construction continued.
The second smokehouse was finished.
Then the third.
Josephine organized shifts.
Instead of exhausted men doing everything, she separated ranch work from production.
Two men preferred the smokehouse and stayed there permanently.
Billy discovered he was excellent at sausage preparation.
Jeb became unexpectedly obsessive about wood temperature.
"You smoke too hot," Josephine told him.
"I'm doing what you said."
"You are doing what you remember me saying."
"Difference?"
"About thirty degrees."
Jeb grumbled and adjusted the vent.
By December, Ironwood Provisions had regular customers.
Money accumulated.
Not fast enough.
But steadily.
Then the first major snowstorm hit.
For three days, roads vanished beneath drifts.
Mining orders could not move.
Neither could cattle.
Josephine worried the smokehouse business would stop.
Instead, something strange happened.
Travelers began arriving.
A stagecoach became stranded near Ironwood.
Then a freight wagon.
Then two families heading west.
Josephine fed everyone.
Lucien protested exactly once.
She looked at him.
He stopped.
When the storm ended, those travelers carried stories into every town along the route.
Stories about Ironwood.
About the starving ranch that had become the best-fed place between Bitter Creek and the mountains.
About the red-haired woman who could turn almost anything into a meal.
Orders increased again.
Hope grew.
Then, on Christmas Eve, a rider arrived from the bank.
Lucien opened the letter beside the fire.
Josephine watched his face change.
"What?"
He handed it to her.
The bank had revised its position.
The outstanding balance would not merely come due February first.
The bank had decided not to renew under any circumstances.
No extension.
No restructuring.
Full payment.
Or foreclosure.
At the bottom, beneath Thaddeus Vale's signature, was another notation.
Josephine read it twice.
The bank reserves the right to assign the note to another qualified holder prior to maturity.
"What does that mean?" Billy asked from the doorway.
Josephine looked at Lucien.
"It means they can sell his debt."
"To who?"
Neither answered.
They both already knew.
Outside, snow fell quietly over Ironwood.
Inside the office, Josephine understood Crowe's strategy.
He no longer needed the bank to seize the ranch.
He could simply buy the loan.
And if Gideon Crowe became the man holding Lucien's debt, February first would not be a negotiation.
May you like
It would be an execution.
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