Chapter 29
Righty had an uneasy feeling as he cut through the night sky atop Harold’s back. He had told Tats to make sure he had no guards posted in his backyard, because he had something very special to show him tonight and for his eyes only.
Righty felt about as comfortable taking this step as one would stepping onto a fallen tree serving as the only bridge between two sides of a thousand-foot cliff. But Righty knew that not only was this necessary but long overdue.
Many things had happened over the last several months. He had bought up every ranch abutting the mountain range that served as a natural barrier between his agricultural activities and Sivingdel. For most men, the only way to travel from the ranches to Sivingdel was by going far east on horseback past the mountains and then cutting back far west before then heading north slightly towards Sivingdel, a trip that would take at least a couple of weeks. But for him it was around a half-hour flight.
However, his insistence on keeping Harold a secret was starting to impede his ability to expand his business.
Whereas the first ranch Righty had purchased was devoted largely to cattle with only some minor agriculture at the time of purchase, most of the other ranches along the mountain range (fourteen in total) were already devoted largely to agriculture. Righty had been forced to pay all of the ranchers far more than the fair value of their land for the same reason his first ranch had been such a tough buy—the rancher’s love of the land—and because the word was getting out quick that he could afford it.
His last ranch had cost him about seven times the value. But he had considered it well worth it.
He now owned approximately 600,000 acres. There was no entry to this land from the west or north without scaling large mountains. It abutted the southernmost border of Selegania. And to approach it from the east would require trespassing over many miles of private property before discovering anything illegal.
About two weeks after his first crop had ripened, Tim Sanders, his senior-most rancher, had discovered approximately an acre’s worth of plants that produced seeds. He had paid Tim the promised $100,000 immediately. It had been a jubilant moment for Righty, for he realized now that he was no longer dealing with a finite crop whose destruction or discovery could promptly bring about his downfall.
The moment Tim had showed him the seed-bearing plants, he felt that the gods themselves had descended and handed him a blank check, perhaps as part of some celestial experiment to see what one ambitious man could do with access to limitless money.
He had offered the ranchers the choice between continuing their normal ranch work full-time or moonlighting between that and Smokeless Green cultivation at six times their normal salary, and not one seemed to think handling both would be exceptionally onerous. He had then instructed them to take all the plants with seeds and grind the bulbs into powder so that the seeds could be extracted separately for future harvesting.
He had purchased sophisticated weight scales and begun instructing them each day how many packages he wanted and of what weights. Tim proved himself to be a rather ingenious tinkerer, and, with various odds and ends he purchased, he soon devised a contraption that collected the powder directly from the weight scale and then compressed it tightly into a bundle.
Righty had been impressed by this, and so he brought Tim a large, fashionable coat that any gentleman would have been comfortable wearing in Sivingdel and asked him to create secret compartments in it that would enable him to carry the maximum weight possible.
After numerous failed attempts, Tim eventually found a way to reinforce the inner fabric with leather without it being perceptible in the slightest when the coat was worn, and on the inside he installed numerous secret compartments that allowed Righty to carry up to fifty pounds.
Still not satisfied, Righty had Tim repeat the process with a pair of pants. After repeated experiments, Tim was able to create a thirty-pound carrying capacity.
Tim and the original ranchers were disciplined and dependable and usually kept around ten different coats and pairs of pants stocked and ready for Righty with a total eighty-pound load. But from there, things became rather tedious.
Still uncomfortable sharing with anyone the secret of Harold’s existence, he had to hike off towards anything remotely approaching seclusion to be picked up by Harold. Sometimes, the grove of trees between the house and the ranchers’ space provided him sufficient cover for him to feel confident calling Harold, but on days with little cloud cover he often was forced to do a half-hour hike up into the forest before asking Harold to pick him up.
Then, there was the issue of Sivingdel itself. Long gone were the days when he could be dropped off near the desolate edges of the junkyard. Tats now owned three palatial mansions inside of some of the most opulent areas of Sivingdel, and while the neighborhoods were calm and quiet, dropping out of the sky mounted on a bird that made an eagle look like a cardinal would probably raise some eyebrows, not excluding those of Tats, who would notice if the bird suddenly landed in his backyard.
Because of this, Righty had to be dropped off at the most isolated locations of Sivingdel within walking distance of an area where he might procure the services of a stagecoach. He had experimented with multiple locations on the edges of the city and found that on average he had to walk for about an hour before finding a coach, after which he then spent around thirty minutes getting to Tats’ house. On one occasion, he had Harold set him down inside a small forested area of the city’s centrally located park, but when he emerged from the trees dressed like a gentleman with mud all over his shoes this had prompted some curious stares from a couple of patrol officers, and he decided once was enough for that experiment.
Thus, each trip to Sivingdel was taking about three hours when he kept it strictly to business, and he was usually doing two trips per day. He was making approximately $1.5 million falons per day from these trips. On some occasions, he would stay and practice sword fighting and hand-to-hand combat with Tats, who had installed an exquisite gymnasium in each of his mansions. Righty saw this as a valuable investment because Tats was his top-ranking agent in Sivingdel, and the last thing Righty wanted was to lose one of the very few men he trusted due to a robbery, kidnapping, or assassination.
Tats had been making progress both with the sword and with hand-to-hand combat that rivalled Righty’s own. Long gone was the skinny frame that had once filled the inside of Tats’ loose-fitting clothing. His forearms bulged with muscles so well-developed that a professor of anatomy could have used them to instruct his class without needing to skin the arm of a cadaver. He told Righty that he put in five hours of practice every day with the sword and two hours of boxing and grappling training on a variety of sandbags and wooden dummies that he had, and Righty saw every scintilla of proof of Tats’ claims in his meteoric rate of learning.
Just a couple months ago, Righty had surprised him with a superbly crafted sword from Pitkins. Righty had communicated Tats’ height and weight to Pitkins, and Pitkins, although he preferred to meet his customer face to face, prepared the sword accordingly. The gift of this sword had appeared to intensify still further the nearly unsurpassable zeal with which Tats already trained.
Righty had less logistical trouble with Rucifus. He met with her once per month, at which time they pored over a map and came up with an excruciatingly detailed agreement of exchanges that would take place in the forest east of Sodorf City. Harold would fly him deep into the woods to the agreed-upon location. Righty would dismount and pick up the money. And then he would leave the agreed-upon product amount behind. He had no need to stuff his coat and pants with Smokeless Green for these drops. Harold carried two hundred pounds in his talons as easily as a man might carry a kitten. One of Rucifus’s agents would always be scheduled to pick it up within an hour or two.
Rucifus had been a bit reluctant to always leaving the money there first when they had initially discussed this plan, so Righty had told h
er, “Fine, I won’t accept any money from you today,” and then he handed her the shipment he had brought. Then, he said, “From now on, every payment will be for the last shipment you received. That way, I’m taking the risk.”
That had broken Rucifus’s stubbornness immediately, and the only purpose of their monthly meetings was to make adjustments to the amount of product Righty was leaving behind, which Rucifus was constantly requesting to be increased, and Righty happily obliged her. Due to the large amounts he was providing her each week, and due to the increasing currency strength of the velur, Righty was earning about $30,000,000 falons each week.
Thus, in spite of having bought up an area of land so large that few private citizens, if any, in the history of Selegania could match it, Righty constantly found himself burying barrel after barrel packed tightly with millions of falons in the hills surrounding his house.
As for the structure of his enormous estate, he decided to divide it into a series of zones. The eastern seventy percent of his land was devoted exclusively to the wholly legal activities of farming and cattle-raising. No one in this area had any knowledge of his illicit activities.
The most western five percent of his land was currently being used for the cultivation and processing of Smokeless Green. Beyond that, he kept about ten percent of his land completely off limits to anyone. He wanted this land unwatched for his own privacy and also to keep space available for the expansion of Smokeless Green cultivation.
But between these two extremes was a middle ground, constituting about fifteen percent of his land, that he used as a training ground. He and his original thirty ranchers set up a series of targets for archery practice, areas for sword practice, and a large variety of exercise equipment. Weights, climbing walls, climbing ropes, and other similar things were used here, and Righty usually spent at least two hours every evening with his men engaged in such martial pursuits.
Word spread throughout the ranch of these activities, and for the young men seeking to prove themselves—which was a large percentage of Righty’s overall work force—participation in these martial exercises came to be seen as a most-coveted privilege.
Once per week, Righty would have Tim select thirty men to demonstrate themselves in a variety of contests, such as boxing, grappling, archery, and dexterity with the sword. Of these, he usually bestowed upon the best five the privilege—and the subsequent obligation—of regular participation in martial exercises. He referred to these men as the Ranch Guard.
Little by little over the last several months, the numbers had added, until he now had around 130 men in the Ranch Guard. He was purchasing new swords from Pitkins on a regular basis, although this had required a little arm-twisting. Pitkins’ strong preference for crafting swords that were equal in beauty and lethality made for a slow turnaround time, but Righty had explained convincingly the constant threat he faced on his ranch from bandits and ultimately persuaded Pitkins to begin crafting swords in bulk that, while just as deadly as his normal product, could not have moonlighted as pieces of art.
Righty enjoyed his time with the men, and he enjoyed the flood of money; but he was beginning to have a crisis of conscience and of purpose. He was growing extremely weary of the constant trips to Sivingdel that robbed him of so much of his time. He was growing equally weary of hiding barrels of cash in the mountains each week, wondering if the money would rot or be stolen before he ever found a use for it. Sometimes, he grew weary even of his martial exercises, as he realized his only motivation therefor was to protect this secret lifestyle that, by virtue of its secret and illicit nature, he was seemingly forbidden to enjoy.
A man with a mere fraction of your wealth might enjoy it a hundred times more, he thought. He began to see each barrel of cash he buried as representative of another fruitless task. If money could not be enjoyed, was it still money?
Janie was now expected to give birth within weeks. Would he ever tell her the truth? Would he ever tell his child the truth? Would his child be safe?
Their relationship was not in the dumps right now, but it was tense. He missed many an evening at home, and he sometimes sensed she approached and hugged him only to see if she smelled alcohol or perfume because often after her embraces she disengaged and spent much of the evening in sullen discontent.
He suspected she had probably stopped by the store on several occasions, and after not finding him there on a single one realized he was up to something. He wanted to buy her fancy things, most of all a palatial mansion, but that would raise questions.
He now earned more money in a single week than he ever would have in an entire year had he become the undisputed bare-knuckle boxing champion of Selegania—rather than the savage pariah banned from the ring for life—and yet he still lived like a lumberman. He was beginning to feel that, while his secretive prudence had once been more than justified, there was no point continuing another day in this illicit business if he was going to continue living like a pauper while burying millions in the ground.
It was this general sentiment that had prompted him to cross the barrier he was now traversing, something that before would have been unthinkable.
It was a dark, but not impenetrable, night, and he could see a lone figure seated on a bench abutting the backside of the palatial mansion below.
Harold’s talons touched the ground. Righty slid off.
“Hi, Tats,” Righty said, feeling a bit bashful.
Tats’ eyes looked like saucers.