Ready Money

Summary

A lank-haired drifter named Steve Baird rides the iron rails West until the desert itself seems to spit him out at the mouth of a rotting shaft called The Skyrocket, a mine so haunted by failure that even vultures circle elsewhere. Together with Mike Reardon—part-time prospector, full-time cautionary tale—he stakes the last of his sweat-soaked dollars on this splintered timber graveyard, hoping to conjure ore from oblivion. But veins stay hollow, creditors sharpen their pencils, and the calendar pages bleed red. Salvation, or its counterfeit twin, arrives in Manhattan’s gaslit labyrinth where Steve collides with Jackson Ives, a dapper maestro of forged engravings who trades fifty grand in bogus bills for a slice of the apparently worthless claim. Flush with funny money, Steve parades through parlors where Grace Tyler—heiress, aesthete, collector of almosts—deciphers the sparkle of prosperity in his eyes rather than the ink on the notes. Her coterie follows, flinging genuine fortunes at a mirage. Back in the dust, neighboring magnate James Morgan—part Midas, part murderer—detonates a hillside to bury Mike and the secret of The Skyrocket’s newfound luster; instead, the blast rips open a cathedral of gold that drowns the landscape in molten sunlight. Suddenly counterfeit becomes convertible, fraud becomes fortune, and the forgery that should have unraveled instead stitches every destiny together: Morgan’s villainy is repaid in nuggets, Ives scrubs his criminal ink into Midas gilt, and Steve—once a penniless pilgrim—ascends an altar of bullion to wed Grace while the reformed swindler signs the marriage certificate as witness.

Synopsis

Steve Baird travels West, and with miner Mike Reardon, buys an abandoned mine called The Skyrocket. Hoping to raise money to cover his notes, Steve goes to New York where he meets forger Jackson Ives. Ives gives Steve $50,000 in counterfeit money for stock in the mine just before the notes are due. When Grace Tyler and other wealthy friends see the money they also buy stock, believing that Steve is a success. Meanwhile, neighboring mine owner James Morgan discovers that The Skyrocket contains gold, and he sets off an explosion, hoping to kill Mike before he discovers it. Instead of killing Mike, the explosion uncovers the gold and everyone becomes wealthy, including Ives who now has the money to make his forgeries good. At the end, Steve and Grace are married with Ives as best man.