Free Hard Money by Luke; Short

sorry about having to leave, but it couldn’t be avoided. You understand?”
    Sharon patted his arm in understanding, and then, anxiety on her face, she said, “Hugh, do you think Janeece wants to see you about—about tunnel business?”
    â€œIt’s likely.”
    Sharon sighed. “Why, oh, why does that man have to be such an octopus?”
    â€œI’ve wondered,” Hugh said quietly, grimly. “I don’t like it either, Sharon. I’m heart and soul and body for your father, but at times like this my hands are tied.” He looked down into her eyes. “I’m engineering a redistribution of stock, darling. Maybe when that’s settled I can be a little more independent of him.”
    Sharon stood on tiptoe and kissed him, then closed the door softly. Hugh went below and through the lobby to the gig hitched just above the hotel, and while his driver handled the fretting horses through the crawling traffic, Hugh lighted a cigar and lounged back in the seat. A worried frown stamped his face, and he was suddenly and deeply disgusted with this camp. He threw away his cigar, and as they pulled out of the thick traffic of the streets and the horses stepped out, he regarded the night in moody silence.
    The plant of the General Milling and Mining Company lay below town and to the south. It was one building, huge in proportions, and built in the shape of a Greek cross. The stamps of its mills boomed heavily into the night.
    A quarter mile from it they left the rutted freight road and took a smooth graveled one. This approach to the mill was cared for, with iron lamp posts spaced at regular intervals into the grounds. The mill building itself was a paradox. The north wing of it contained the offices, and fronting this wing was an artificial lake, around which the drive circled. In the middle of the lake was a fountain of cast bronze, Neptune with trident on an elaborate conch shell half smothered in waves. A wide border of precious grass edged the lake, and young shrubs edged the grass. This was Tronah, Hugh thought wearily, with so much free money that it lavished a pretty artificial lake on the ground of a stamp mill, the heaviest, most awesomely businesslike industry of the whole camp. It was typical, for a tasteless ostentation was the mark of success here. Wasn’t he driving a team of chestnuts from his suite in the Union House to his offices two miles away?—A thoroughbred team that was absurdly expensive and a monstrous care in this town where every bale of hay, every measure of oats, must be freighted over two mountain ranges. Didn’t he have champagne with lunch, followed by a three-dollar cigar which the dry air had already ruined?
    Tronah was no city; it was desert, but it was more profligate with money than any city since Rome. And with plain dirt miners, freighters, cheap gamblers and storekeepers for its peerage, its taste was that of a brothel. It bred strong men only to mock them with their own vulgar actions. Money bought anything, except a few women like Sharon. And strangely, Hugh considered, he was wanting money so he could have her. Right now, he had a tiny toehold in the big feed trough of bonanza, and with luck and a little shrewdness, he would end up with both feet in it. If Janeece willed it. The thought of the man curdled Hugh’s disgust. It wasn’t the fact that this man, also self-made, had all the power of the west-coast banks concentrated in his frail hands that angered him; it was the fact that with him, Charles Bonal’s enemy, Hugh was almost sure to cast his lot.
    He said curtly, “Stop,” as they reached the massive iron gates in front of the office, and he alighted from the gig.
    â€œWait for me here,” he added.
    He walked slowly around the lake, feeling its almost cool emanation. One section of the north wing had lights in the windows, and he knew Janeece was inside. Conquering his reluctance, he approached the