River of the Brokenhearted Read Online Free Page B

her husband knew this himself. The bank must take it over, and he, Elias, might, if the price was right, buy it.
    Yet Janie might have the ludicrous idea that she could run the place after King died. So, Elias added, now was the time to put a lock on the theatre door—seal it up before she got that chance.
    “I see,” Harris said, as men say who don’t see at all. “You think so—board it up.”
    “It has been done before,” Elias said. “Besides, the Biograph really is the legit place for the big Hollywood pictures. I can combine the two theatres to make one—it will save your bosses a headache—and you know the town can’t support two places.”
    Elias liked to assume that Janie had done something deceitful to her husband at the moment he was dying. What that something was, Harris himself didn’t know. But Harris nodded, stood up, and closed the door. Perhaps, Elias suggested, she was hiding him so he could not sell the place.
    “Is that what is going on?” Harris demanded,
    “I am not going to say anything,” Elias said.
    “Then there is the mortgage,” Harris said. “I have never lost a mortgage in my life—but you see, I didn’t give this mortgage to her—nor did I give it to him. Old McGrathon did.”
    Elias threw up his hands.
    “Well, that’s just it. I feel helpless fighting a woman—because I don’t want to, but you see, if I don’t, her theatre’ll put us both out of business. I spoke many times about it with King—three times he was ready to sell and three times she says no. Now her husband is too weak to make any decision and decides to go back home or wherever. What we need is to do something for her so she can have some little money. I’ve known George King—he’s an entertainer just like me—I understand him—I understand the practicality of the English. She doesn’t!”
    He said this though there were no mortgage arrears, and Harris agreed because he was terrified that there might be if she took over.
    “I would have to get head office in Montreal to sign on that—to board her up,” Harris said.
    “I know it’s a bother to you,” Elias said.
    “Oh, no—I can have it wired by Tuesday.”
    Elias glanced bitterly out the window, at snow falling against the paved street, and the flame from his lighter flickering on in the dusk. Then he sat back, legs spread, and puffed on his smoke, full of expectation and life. The intention was for both of them to show each other their solicitude for the woman.
    But on Tuesday morning a storm covered the river. All businesses were locked, schools shut, and the telegraph office was blocked with snow. By now it was announced that King was dying.
    Hearing from Usoff Assoff, the man who had come with his blind horse up the street to deliver coal, that they were thinking of shutting her theatre, Janie knew she had to act. She was twenty-five years of age and walking past the couch where her husband was dying, she took the shotgun and said to my father, “I’m going to the hall. Take care to stay here—I will try to get to the maid.”
    Janie, however, was not dispirited and walked through the snow toward the theatre with a shotgun under her arm.
    She meant to guard the Regent against anyone from the Biograph or the bank, armed with a double-barrelled 12-gauge my grandfather had bought for bird hunting. And she had something else—she had the deed and the will that stated the business was now hers alone.
    Harris, who did not get the go-ahead from the head office until Wednesday morning, found her there, pointing the shotgun at him. Shaken, he hurried back to the bank.
    “She pointed the gun at me—a lunatic—it might have gone off, and then where would I be? Well, there you have it—I wouldn’t be, would I?”
    The mortgage payment was made that afternoon. It was brought to the bank by Walter McLeary, her projectionist and cousin. Harris informed Mr. Elias that his hands were tied for the moment.
    “How hysterical she is,” Elias