Part 3 — Eleven Licenses Returned
The name on the bill of sale was Hollis Crane. Deputy Garza read it aloud and turned the page, and then I understood why he had told me not to touch another thing. Hollis ran the little title-loan office on the highway outside Dalhart, the one with the neon sign that said Cash Today. Half the cowhands in the county had been in there one time or another.
The licenses were collateral. Garza explained it to me on the tailgate, with the ledger open on his knee. Hollis lent money to hard-up working men at rates that would make a banker blush, and when they could not pay he held onto their driver licenses until they did. Without a license, a man cannot drive to work, so most of them paid whatever he asked. Eleven of them were still waiting.
Delbert Haney was number nine in the stack. He was not dead, and he had not run off in disgrace to Oklahoma. He had borrowed three hundred dollars in 2004 when his truck broke down, fallen behind, and watched the interest grow past two thousand dollars. When Hollis refused to give back his license, Delbert gave up and moved to Guymon, where he started over.
The trailer belonged to a man named Pickett, who had died, and who owed Hollis money on a loan. Hollis seized the trailer, welded the false floor himself, and used it as a hiding place for his collateral. He knew the sheriff would never think to search a rusted horse trailer. Then he took it to the auction, in a hurry, and forgot to empty it.
A man who holds another mans license is really holding his freedom, and most people know it the day they sign.
Texas has a government office just for this. The Office of Consumer Credit Commissioner licenses lenders, and holding a customers license as collateral is flatly illegal. Garza called them from my yard. By Friday an investigator had arrived with a clipboard and a calm voice, and Hollis, for the first time in his life, found himself on the wrong side of the counter.
The investigation found over sixty loans with illegal interest. The license was revoked, and the state ordered Hollis to refund every borrower, with penalties. A county judge accepted his plea to a misdemeanor, plus a fine and community service. The state forwarded the eleven licenses to their owners, with letters of apology and a check.
Delbert drove up from Guymon himself to collect his. He stood in my barn with his hat in both hands, gray at the temples and thin as a fence rail, and looked at that old trailer a long time. Then he laughed and said, Royce, I thought I would never see that card again. We shook, and I shod his daughters pony for free.
The sheriff let me keep the trailer, which I had paid for fair and square. I cut the rest of the false floor out myself and used the diamond plate for a workbench. Colt and I painted the outside a dark red and put new tires on it. It rides smooth and quiet now, without a trace of mouse.
Bonnie still says I got robbed on the price. I say I got paid in the best way a man can. On opening day of branding season, we hauled two good mares to the Tidwell place with Delbert riding shotgun, the first time in twenty years he had sat in a cab with a license in his pocket. He turned the radio up and sang along.