Youngblood hawke, p.40
Youngblood Hawke, page 40
But she was a satisfying wife and mother, strong on culture, and she ran a charming household. Her whine remained to her from her childhood spoiling. It was not an unpleasant whine, but rather a perpetual minor-key recitative, with a faint threat under it of coming down with some dread ailment if she were not pampered. At the moment she was whining about moving to New York. The theme was familiar enough so that Scotty could carry on a perfectly rational conversation, at the same time thinking out the business problems that would come up at the annual board meeting of Hawke Brothers Coal Company in Hovey, even doing arithmetic in his head. "Ellie, honey, the trouble is how would I make a living?" he said, turning the pages of the statement to the balance sheet. "Them sumbitches up in New York too smart for me. Down around here a dumb country boy like me can figure out a deal now and then that can pay off."
"Oh, Scotty, that's just talk. You weren't born in Lexington and you built Dog Leg Park. As long as we left Hovey I don't see why we don't go where the living is best."
Scotty said, mentally dividing the net profit of Hawke Brothers by the number of shares, and coming out with a very good dividend, "They a lot of things down here I got to keep my eye on. This coal binness—"
They heard chimes at the front door. Urban Webber, Scotty's white-headed attorney, came sauntering through the French doors to the patio. He accepted an invitation to coffee, and unrolled a newspaper flat on the table with something of a flourish. "Seen the big news?"
The photograph of Youngblood Hawke from the book jacket stood out in a two-column feature story in the middle of the front page:
KENTUCKY NOVELIST
WINS PULITZER PRIZE
FOR WAR NOVEL
'CHAIN OF COMMAND'
"Hey! How about that, Ellie! Ole Art, your own cousin! He's not only rolling in money, he won the goddamn Pulitzer Prize!"
The Hoags devoured the article, their heads together over the newspaper. Ellie whined happily, "Honest, when I remember Art at high school! He was just a big gawk who couldn't find a pleasant word to say and his neck was always dirty, and now if he isn't famous."
"Guess you went for the wrong fellow, hon."
"Are you crazy? My own cousin? Anyway, if Art Hawke had ever made a pass at me I'd still be running. All the girls thought he was awful. I mean he could be sweet but you couldn't take him seriously, he was so, I don't know, so immature. Honest, the way things turn out in life. If we lived in New York I bet we'd meet all the famous people through Art."
"Well, hon, one of these days maybe I'll look into the situation up there. The Pulitzer Prize! Goddamn! Ole Art!"
5
Scotty's Cadillac slid up into the mountains through a pelting rain, taking the steep twisted grades of broken blacktop as though they were a level highway. Urban Webber said, after some desultory chatter about the agenda of the board meeting, "I take it you're pretty friendly with this Youngblood Hawke."
"Ole Art?" Scott kept his eyes on the road. They were entering the stretch where coal trucks thundered down from the western end of Letchworth County to the rail spur at Canton. "Why, we went to U.K. together, and as you know he was in the Clinton Road syndicate, though he backed out of that, and he has a big piece of Bluegrass Shopping Center in Louisville which is coming out real good. Also he's in on a couple of my other jobs. When I was in New York last we had a real good time and killed a hell of a lot of bourbon together. Art's a great fella."
"I'm a little surprised," the lawyer said, "that you haven't been able to settle with Mrs. Hawke through him."
Scotty grinned. "Well, now, Aunt Sarah's a funny woman, got a mind of her own, as you would say. What's the difference? She doesn't have a shadow of a case. So you've repeatedly told me."
"I adhere to that position," Webber said, his blue eyes less merry than usual, his round face drawn in determined lines. "It's my interpretation of the facts. In a lawsuit, though, especially when you go into land titles and mineral titles, you can never be sure how or where you'll come out. It's always better to avoid an action or to settle it."
"Granted," Scotty said, "but I'm afraid Ellie's aunt is what you might call a grasping woman, being a poor relation, more or less. I haven't pushed Art for a settlement. I haven't even raised the subject for a couple of years."
"Well, we're on the calendar of the Circuit Court for June 18," Webber said. "Now might be the time to raise it."
"Why? What's the urgency? That whole Frenchman's Ridge binness happened so long ago I don't hardly remember none of it, but I sure don't see where we could possibly owe Mrs. Hawke anything. Why, the mine showed a loss, didn't it?"
"Let me review the facts for you," said Webber patiently. Scott had a way of playing dumb, and of finding his ideas while the lawyer talked. "Without wanting to cry over spilt milk, I think it was unwise to let Mrs. Hawke's accountant examine the books of the mine."
"That accountant's retired and gone to live in California," Scott said. "Had a coronary last summer."
"I didn't know that. It's just as well that he isn't available. In fact that's a real help." The lawyer smiled at his client's habit of treasuring and then springing useful bits of news. "We're left, all the same, with the fact that we told Mrs. Hawke the mine lost money."
"Well, it did, didn't it? The books of Hawke Brothers are in perfectly good order. I don't remember what we told her and I don't know what her accountant told her, I only know we opened our books to him and I don't see how a binness could be more open and above board than that."
The lawyer said, "It's perfectly true the first mine you dug at Frenchman's Ridge turned out unprofitable. That's what the accountant reported."
"It sure was unprofitable. That was what finished me in the coal binness."
"You also ought to recall that your geologists found the seam branched off in a promising way toward the disputed land. Now for various tax reasons, which we can readily disclose in court because they were bona fide, I recommended that you continue to carry the loss of the first operation in Hawke Brothers and form a new Delaware corporation to continue the operation, which eventually extended under the land Mrs. Hawke claims."
"Was that the Eleanor Coal Company? It's all very unclear in my mind, I don't know anything about Delaware corporations."
"That was the Eleanor Coal Company," the lawyer said with an amused twist to his mouth. "And let me remind you that Eleanor Company took some five hundred thousand tons of top grade Lazarus number four coal, with a total value at the mine head, at wartime prices, of about one million eight hundred thousand dollars. It paid royalties at five percent to Hawke Brothers."
Scotty said, "Well, I was always confused about that Eleanor Company, it was just a lot of paper shuffling that you recommended. But if it's relevant to this binness why didn't Mrs. Hawke's accountant come across it?"
"Because the royalties that Eleanor Company paid to Hawke Brothers went into general receipts, Scotty," the lawyer said, a shade too patiently. "Hawke Brothers was getting royalties from sixteen or seventeen smaller operators in wartime. Mrs. Hawke's accountant probably should have asked whether any of those general receipts represented royalties on the disputed land. But he didn't."
Scott swung the car into a filling station. "Let's grab a cup of coffee while they fill up."
They lunged through the heavy rain into the tiny diner where two skinny mountaineers in shapeless blue clothes slouched on stools, talking a language that hardly sounded like English. The mountaineers glanced at them through narrowed eyes and went on talking in lowered tones, about a game warden who had either shot somebody or been shot. Scott said, over black bitter coffee, "The way you put it, Mrs. Hawke's suing me because she hired a stupid accountant. I made that offer for her to look at the books in good faith because I thought that would ease her mind about a settlement. I didn't reckon on her taking me up, but I didn't care if she did. Her claim is ridiculous. We owned the mineral rights to that land. You examined the title for Eleanor Coal Company before we commenced mining. Your written opinion approving it is in our file."
The lawyer said, with a slight shift of his eyes toward the miners, "Scotty, I'm sure you'll do very well before a jury if it ever comes to that but there's no jury here."
The mountaineers dropped coins on the counter and went out, and the lawyer watched their departure with relief. The counter man was loudly frying eggs in the kitchen. "You may recall that my title report was the second. Hawke Brothers got an opinion of the disputed parcel from Judge Sparkman. His conclusion was that Mrs. Hawke had title."
"I don't recall that at all and I'm sure you're wrong," Hoag said. "It would have obliged us to offer her royalties. Aunt Sarah never would have accepted reasonable royalties, she'd have asked for the moon and my left arm. We never would have gone into the land if there was any cloud on our title."
"That's not going to work, Scott, because you were on the board of directors. There are minutes which you signed that show a discussion of that first opinion, and the feasibility of making Mrs. Hawke an offer."
"Are those minutes in a loose-leaf book or a bound book?"
The lawyer wrinkled his whole face. "You're not suggesting that we lose some pages of minutes? It's loose-leaf, as you know well, but a hole in a sequence of minutes is far more damaging in court than—"
"Hold on, Urb. I'm no lawyer but I'm not exactly a goddamn fool. I'm just thinking that many times I haven't been present at a meeting or came in late and had no idea what went on. I've signed minutes as a matter of form without looking at them a year or so after the fact, and then they been inserted in the loose-leaf book. You know how slow they are sometimes at Hawke Brothers bringing records up to date."
The lawyer fell silent. They paid for the coffee, returned to the car, and resumed driving through the rain. Neither spoke for several minutes. Scott reached a hand toward the radio when Webber said rather sharply, "That's all well and good, but I have my own position to consider."
Scott took his hand off the dial and looked into the lawyer's eyes for an instant. "Why, what's the problem, Urb? This the first I know that you worrying about this sumbitch, so help me."
"I must say you'll make a wonderful witness, but let's hope it never gets to that point," Webber said. "I hold to my legal opinion that you and not Mrs. Hawke—by you I mean Hawke Brothers, of course—had title. Mrs. Hawke thought she owned the mineral rights because that old illiterate John Crewes sold her a fee simple deed without restrictions. But he'd already sold the coal rights years before. If both our claims simply went back to the common grantor John Crewes you'd be totally in the clear. The trouble is that damned quitclaim she bought in for five dollars on that dead Halphen patent. She did it pro forma, because old Judge Crain told her to. But on one interpretation—the interpretation of the first opinion you got, as a matter of fact—the Halphen patent is the senior line of title."
Scott said, "Are you saying that because Mrs. Hawke signed a paper she paid five dollars for and didn't even understand, she's in a position to collect a whole pot of money? It's ridiculous on the face of it."
"Now Scotty, the price anyone pays for title is irrelevant to land law. You know that. Good God, the whole state of Kentucky could have been bought for a couple of hundred dollars at one point. Huge tracts did change hands over and over at that rate or for even less. But the titles trace back to the sovereign and are good as gold. As for Mrs. Hawke's not knowing what she was doing, half the cases of land law in these counties involve, somewhere along the line, the X marks of illiterates.
"And the thing is, Scotty, Mrs. Hawke's lawyer has based his case on that quitclaim. He's just a young bonehead from Edgefield and his petition is incompetently drawn, it isn't even in good English, but he's nosed out the main point. He's asked for an accounting. If you have to give an accounting in court you'll have to disclose the whole Eleanor Coal operation, Scott, you can't monkey around any more, believe me. It doesn't look good that you didn't disclose it to Mrs. Hawke, and the judge will be unfavorably impressed.
"But that isn't the worst of it. The judge could find against you on the question of title and make Hawke Brothers pay her the amount of the royalties. That would be, depending on the award, between one and two hundred thousand dollars. The bigger risk here is that if the court learns of the first survey—if it knows that you were legally advised from the start that she had title—then even if you did go and get another opinion, he may find that what you did was wilful trespass. Wilful trespass calls for punitive damages equal to the full market price of the coal, Scotty, that's nearly two million dollars. You were the president and guiding spirit of Eleanor Coal Company. I can't assure you that you may not be found personally liable for a truly fantastic sum of money.
"Now one more thing. Though as I say I rigidly adhere to the soundness of my title report, it may be considered questionable practice that I conducted it without taking cognizance of the first examination in any way. That was an accommodation to you, and I'm not sorry, but—"
Scott said, "Let me stop you right there, Urb. I'm just a binness man and the fine points of the law are beyond me, but I never asked you or anybody to accommodate me with any act of questionable practice. You're a seasoned lawyer and a hell of a lot older than me and anything you did I had every right to assume was in order and legal. This is a hell of a time to tell me you did something questionable."
"I utterly deny that I did anything questionable, I'm talking about possible interpretations of a circuit court judge. Scott, I'm going to refresh your memory a little more. We were having dinner together at the Gray Meadow Country Club, in the far corner by the statue of Man o' War, just the two of us. I'd just completed the title examination you asked me for, and I had the written opinion with me. You read it right there at the table. You said, "This is what I want, Urb. Thanks a million. I guess we can go ahead.'
"I said that you had to remember you'd be held responsible for your knowledge of the first opinion."
"You said, 'Urb, who's really got title here?'
"I said, and I remember my exact words, 'If I were sitting on the case in a court I might or might not find for Mrs. Hawke. But this report represents my best judgment at this time.'
"Then here's what you said, Scotty, more or less. You said, 'What can we lose here by going ahead? Chances are she'll never find out, even if we do have to go under White Branch Section. It's all a lot of black rooms and tunnels under the hill. So far as the mine foremen are concerned there's just another corporate entity taking over the operation and writing the checks. It happens all the time. If she does happen to find out—' "
Scott said, whirling the car out of a skid around a sharp curve, "She wouldn't have found out if she hadn't stumbled on that punch-through, wandering around in the goddamn wilderness. Go on."
"You said, 'If she does find out, what's the difference? We've got title. We show her how old John Crewes skinned her. We make a sympathy settlement for a quitclaim. If she gets tough and sues, knowing Aunt Sarah, why, a lawsuit takes years and thousands of dollars. She may die. She may get tired of shelling out legal fees. Anywhere along the line we can settle, if we have to, for a small fraction of what she'd ask as royalties. She's a grasping woman and if we try to make a deal with her we'll never mine this coal. At the worst, the very worst, we'll lose the case and the court will award her royalties at a lower percentage than she'd hold us up for. I think we're in fine shape.' " The lawyer paused to light a cigarette. "Maybe I've changed a few words here and there but that, Scotty, is the gist of what you said."
"I don't remember a word of that. I don't even remember having dinner with you. I remember getting the title report from you in the mail."
"I gave it to you hand to hand at the country club," Webber said.
"Urb, what's your recommendation here? What action do you want me to take?"
The lawyer said, "If you think you have sufficient influence with Youngblood Hawke, by all means prevail on him to drop the case. The land is really his, the mother holds it in trust for him. They're both plaintiffs, though the mother's pushing the action. If one plaintiff withdraws we probably can get a summary judgment and squash the whole thing."
Scott said, half to himself, "Well, ole Art sort of does have confidence in me, a little bit. He's invested quite a bit with me, you know. I hate to go pressuring him on a thing like this."
Webber said, "I appreciate that a successful author is a fine continuing source of risk capital for you. You have to consider, however, that your possible liability in this lawsuit is really appallingly large."
Scotty heaved a long thick sigh, almost a groan, then shook his head. "I don't know. Art might want to come along. Old Aunt Sarah wouldn't let him. She'd make life such hell for him he'd never withdraw. Why she'd go up to New York and move in with him. She'd never stop talking till he did what she said. Art likes his peace, where his mother is concerned. I don't blame the poor sumbitch."
"Then the only alternative I can see," Webber said, "is to try again to settle. Offer her something substantial. Say ten thousand. She'll leap at it."
