Along The Fortune Trail (8 page)

T
he next day, Sammy threw a lead rope on Dobe and made the three-mile round trip again, walking and leading his horse. He wondered if his horse was confused about being walked the whole way. “I'll be saddled up soon enough … but we'll do it this way for now. Truth is, Dobe, my legs need the work a whole lot more ‘n yours. I'd let you take a shot at ridin’ me, but I see you didn't bring a saddle.” He sensed how much the horse was enjoying the outing, so they made the trip every day for the next two weeks, during which Sammy's strength and wind improved daily.

He finally saddled the horse and mounted up one afternoon, wanting to find out how his ribs would react to an easy ride. But he had trouble restraining Dobe, who wanted to run. He turned him loose, feeling confident that it couldn't be too bad. The horse ran as if speed were a magical tonic. Across the open plain of the high valley floor, Dobe ran at breakneck speed, his mane flapping and nostrils flaring, with his eyes fixed on the horizon as though he were running to catch it. Sammy hunkered down and hung on, relieved that his ribs were noticeable, but not causing him any real pain. “Yeeeehawww!” he belted out with wild exuberance, as the cold wind burned his face and filled his lungs like pure adrenaline.

About a half-mile into the gallop, they approached the Needles, a series of small drain ravines from a large arroyo out of the bluffs. Dobe took them as jumps. “Here we go!” Sammy shouted as Dobe's heavily muscled shoulders and haunches propelled horse and rider airborne to clear the first of the four needles.

The landing sent a mild shock through Sammy's ribcage that became more severe with the next three landings, leaving him unable to draw breath for a moment. He let Dobe run out for another half-mile across good ground before reining him to a walk. The deep throb in his ribs let Sammy know that he wasn't yet ready for any real time in the saddle. He turned his horse toward the Twin T. at a trot. “We'll be doin’ that again real soon … runnin’ and working. Yes sir, it won't be long now.”

For weeks, Sammy had done every conceivable chore around the Twin T. that his recuperation would allow. He hauled wood and water for the ranch and bunkhouse, fed out the ranch livestock, cleaned and serviced the horse tack, and brushed out half a dozen horses each day. He cleaned all of the Taylor brothers’ rifles and pistols, plained and refitted some of the ranch house doors, and oiled all the mechanical household appliances.

Now, his health had improved enough to take on something he was itching to do: chop wood. The muscles in Sammy's upper body had not yet fully recovered from the atrophy. He knew that swinging an axe for a while would help.

Before he started, he spent ten minutes just slowly stretching out his upper body. Then he swung the axe easily into the chopping block for another five prior to putting up the first piece of wood and ramping up his speed and power. Splitting the dry-cord pine was therapeutic physically and mentally. He paced himself and proceeded to chop wood for most of the afternoon.

The fatigue in his arms and shoulders felt good, reminding him that simple work was good for the soul. Sammy continued chopping for much of the next week, working through the soreness with unrelenting determination, and feeling pride at tripling the stacked woodpile, which had already been plentiful. The rotation schedule, that included most of the crew taking turns in splitting wood, could be abandoned for a while because of Sammy's newfound obsession.

As bunkhouses typically went, the Twin T.'s by comparison was like a five star hotel. There were small, but separate, quarters for the top eight men in seniority. The rest slept in the large open bunkroom at the end of the hallway. A coffee pot sat atop the stove, while oil lamps illuminated hardwood floors and log walls that had bear, elk, and deer heads mounted in several spots. An area of counter and cabinets held every manner of things, including a cupboard where pie, cake, biscuits, and jerked beef routinely resided.

Six of the boys played cards at the center table, while four others occupied a few of the big cowhide chairs that ringed the room. The black, potbelly stove blazed from the other front corner opposite Sammy and produced enough heat to radiate down the long hall. Franklin Edward looked up over his cards at Sammy and asked with curiosity, “You chop all that wood, Leaky? Jeez, the whole south wall of the ranch house is piled high!” Lundy shot Franklin a look, who instantly understood his mistake and made a face that implored some understanding. “Yeah … stepped in it. No ‘Leaky.’ Call the man ‘Sammy!’ It's tough fer an old cowhand like me to remember that someone all of a sudden has a new name,” Franklin said with mock disgust.

“Well it ain't new, nimrod. It's his preferred name,” Lundy casually remarked. “In fact, once he gets his money, you better be callin’ him ‘Mister Winds.’”

Sammy looked up from the book he was reading in the front corner of the bunkhouse, considering the question put to him and the brief exchange that had taken place between Lundy and Franklin. “Call me whatever you want, Franklin. As long as I understand you're talkin’ to me, I'll be fine. Yep, I chopped it all. So if you'd like to address me in a manner that recognizes my superior feats, I'm sure I'll know you're talkin’ to me.” Sammy flashed a broad, toothy grin.

Franklin's level gaze held onto Sammy's for a moment. Then, he looked at Lundy and said placidly, “The little pecker head just shanghaied me.” The rest of the men laughed.

T
he Taylor brothers had come west three decades earlier with nearly eighteen thousand dollars in U.S. government bank notes, earned as employees in their family's liquor production and distribution business in New York City. They had another thirty thousand each of reserve deposited in various New York City banks.

Taylor Liquor Sales specialized in Irish potato whiskey and stout beer, which was served by virtually all of New York's saloons and refined restaurants, as well as many establishments throughout New England. The business employed seventy-three people, and it had facility space of an entire city block in an east-side area of Manhattan known as “Little Dublin.” Their mother kept the books and order, while their father and his two younger brothers provided the recipes and production know-how, learned through generations of well-known whiskey distilling in Ireland.

But like their grandfather, who had left the thriving family concern in Ireland to pursue the adventure and opportunity of America, the twin grandsons, Homer and Reuben, had an insatiable desire to chase their own challenge. They dreamt of becoming cattlemen in the American west.

As young boys in New York, they had awakened a grand canyon full of adventure reading western dime novels, whose stories and articles portrayed a vastness and call of the big country that drew each of them from the core of their beings. They made their plans as boys and carried them forward into manhood like a blood oath of mission and honor. After a dozen years of sales careers steeped in legendary achievement, they left the family business and headed west with a pledge from their parents that they could return to the business at any time. They never did.

It had been a risky proposition, traveling west with such an amount of money and no pre-determined destination other than the Colorado/New Mexico area. They accepted that challenge as part of the adventure and necessity of it all. In early 1845, six months after they arrived and thoroughly scouted an area they believed to be perfect for their endeavor, they bought sixty thousand acres of northern New Mexico Territory from a vicar of the Spanish government for twelve thousand dollars. They used the remainder of in-hand cash to build, stock, and outfit the ranch, which they immediately named the Twin T. The land had multiple tributary water sources and was a mixture of foothills, forest, and high-plains grasslands marked by elevation changes that included buttes and valleys with good vegetation and retreat. With the help of a small army of hired hands during construction, Homer and Reuben spent a year building the main ranch house, bunkhouse, corrals, barns, pens, line shacks, and wells.

The first few years had been sketchy, mostly because of the lack of practical experience associated with running a cattle operation. But Homer and Reuben had never been short of perseverance and natural talent. They were self-educated and brimming with confidence and a can-do spirit that was aided by gathering every bit of information available on cattle and cattle ranching. Early losses were minimal and buried by the joy of living their dream and having the means to sustain it. They started with small herds and operated the ranch mostly by themselves.

At the conclusion of the Spanish/American war in 1848, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ceded vast Spanish territories, including New Mexico Territory, to the United States. The Taylors thought they might lose their land. But as good fortune had it, the U.S. government recognized their Spanish-issued deed as legitimate, and the worth of their land tripled shortly thereafter. In 1850, Homer and Reuben negotiated a beef contract to supply western U.S Army forts, and their cattle ranch quickly evolved into a big operation. The ensuing decades had fulfilled all that as boys they imagined could be.

Homer was three hours older than Reuben, whom he occasionally referred to as “little brother,” even though Reuben was almost two inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. Both men were tough, proud, and all business in ranch matters, though Reuben had become more flamboyant in personality and action after nearly being killed by a grizzly in the Twin T.'s sixth autumn. Reuben credited the bear attack with delivering him to a new plane of existence that spawned episodes of ravenous appetite for whores, whiskey, and gambling, concluded by periods of introspective retreat in which he wrote poetry.

Homer indulged Reuben's eccentricities as God's handiwork and took no issue, mostly due to Reuben's fierce work ethic and steadfast business skills. Homer, for his part, had occasionally engaged in some of the same activities, but was considerably more private and discreet in his affairs. He knew of the whispered speculation over the years connecting him with Jacqueline, but neither of them wanted marriage and were never public enough to confirm anything.

When seven-year-old Sammy Winds had arrived at the ranch in the summer of 1857, both brothers had thought it providential that Sammy, as the sole survivor of a murderous Indian attack, had come to land on their doorstep. They took it as a mission to do right by the boy.

Reuben instructed him in hunting and fishing and trapping, and the workings of guns and gear. Sammy took to all of it, quickly learning timeless techniques of utilizing the earth's bounty and demonstrating intuition that marooned of a born breed, as the essence of man personified in purpose.

Homer concentrated on giving the boy classical education, and read Grimm's, Aesop, and Andersen to young Sammy. Initially, Homer explained the morals, ethics, and lessons of the stories. Gradually, he sought the boy's opinion and judgment in the aftermath of each tale, asking deep questions in the simplest of ways and stringing together questions that lit a stepping path of logic and reason. Homer was a natural teacher, and Sammy was a natural student.

As the years went on, he taught Sammy history, philosophy, science, and math, and he further kindled the fire of his intellect with Aristotle and Plato and Plutarch and Virgil and Dante, and The Bible.

With the mentoring of Homer, Reuben, and Lundy, and all that everyone else on the Twin T. had dispensed and offered to Sammy as their advice or wisdom, or the one or two things they knew to be truly invaluable in living, it had been quite an education.

Frigid wind whistled through the treetops with the song of winter's lullaby, and a full moon hung low in the sky, glowing dully through a lone opening in the clouds like the night's soul. Sammy dismounted and walked Dobe into the barn, then lit a lamp and pulled his saddle. It was caked with snow, as was Sammy's hat and coat, and icicles hung in his beard. Both man and horse were grateful to be out of the storm they had endured for the last hour of the ride back from town.

Sammy rubbed the horse down with hay for the next ten minutes, then quit and looked at Dobe. “You're on your own, pard. I'd like to have a cup with you, but I don't figure you'd drink it … and right now I need it. Rest up.” Dobe snorted and stamped, and Sammy was gone toward the ranch house in earnest pursuit of hot coffee.

Jacqueline was whipping cream, while Lucilla and Raquel worked on potato pies and biscuits. The smell of roasting beef wafted by Sammy as he entered the kitchen. “Happy to see I made it back in time to be on the front end of this deal,” he said, grabbing a coffee cup and heading to the stove, where two oversized coffee pots always faithfully stood.

“What deal is that?” Jacqueline asked.

“That deal of a meal that's permeatin’ my olfactory sense and creatin’ an anticipation of beautiful satiation.”

“What you say, Mister Sammy?” Lucilla asked.

“He said he's hungry,” Jacqueline answered. “Supper's at 6:30, like always. So if you look yonder to the cuckoo, you'll ‘cipher about forty more minutes. Homer was here a minute ago asking if you were back yet. He'd like to visit with you. I believe he's back in his den.”

“Yeah? You know what it's about?”

“No. Mister Taylor keeps his own counsel. But you can tell me what he wanted when you're done and then I'll know,” Jacqueline said with a mischievous smile.

“What if he wants to consult with me about whether or not we need a new head cook?”

Jacqueline quickly retrieved a dishtowel off the counter and snapped it like a whip, hitting Sammy mid-thigh and causing him to spill a little coffee as he flinched back and yelled “Ow!”

“Tell him he'd be doing me a favor,” she said. “Yes, maybe I'll just take Lucilla and Raquel and we'll open our own fancy dining in town. Then this whole outfit would be a bunch of starvin’ pilgrims!” Lucilla and Raquel laughed hysterically with a few whoops and snorts mixed in.

“Now you better not keep the man waitin’,” Jacqueline declared. “That cuckoo will sure enough be punctual come 6:30 … and so will supper.”

“Okay, I see we're done laughin’ for now.” He refilled his cup and headed for Homer's den.

The door was slightly ajar, and Sammy knocked lightly several times. “Come in,” Homer called. Sammy walked into the den, a cavernous room with a massive stone fireplace that reached through the highest vault of the ceiling and was flanked on both sides by bookcases containing the western classics along with books of all sorts. To his right was an ornate, wooden hand-painted globe of the earth, suspended at axis by a wrought iron frame. It sat next to a grouping of four leather chairs facing each other with a low oak table between them that featured a two-foot tall bronze of a running buffalo pursued by an Indian on horseback with his spear at the ready. Along the log walls were maps and various paintings, mostly western, but with two depicting New York and San Francisco skylines that belied the rest of the room and revealed a small measure of the owner's depth. Log cabinetry on the far wall displayed a gun case with an extensive collection of antique muskets and pistols and knives, and adjacent shelving held a maze of artifacts and keepsakes collected from travels that included five continents. Wall-mounted oil lamps ringed the room, throwing a pale ghostly light upon the colossal eight point bull elk head looming high on the wall behind Homer's desk. A bank of four windows on the far wall faced east. The glass was frosted at the corners and presented a picture of large white flakes blowing by horizontally that contrasted quite visibly against the dark bluish background of night.

“Looks like you got back just in time,” Homer said, motioning for Sammy to sit down. “It's flat gettin’ with it. Another hour and you'd have been hunting cover before you made it back.”

“Yes, sir. I'm glad I pulled in when I did. A night in Pico Caves or Scrub Hollow would have been a miserable prospect.” Sammy sat down opposite Homer, who was repacking a pipe. “Who knows what manner of varmint or beast I'd have been sharin’ either one of those with?”

“Might have been a good deal compared to hunkerin’ down under a tree in the open,” Homer offered as he struck a match and lit his pipe. He took a strong pull and blew out a billowing cloud that mixed with the scent of the burning pine. The aroma was pleasant and reminiscent to Sammy of the many evenings he had spent in the room, studying with Homer.

“It's mid January, and you've said you'll likely make the trip to Denver in late March or early April—just a few months from now.”

“Yes, sir,” Sammy replied.

“Well, Reuben and I have had a number of discussions about this whole circumstance of yours and we're in complete agreement about an offer we'd like to make you … and we feel like the time's right to tell you about it. Give you some time to think about it before you make your journey. Reuben's up in Truchas right now, but he wanted me to go ahead and have this conversation without him. The fact is, Sammy, we both think of you as a son. I know Lundy does, too, for that matter. You're family. You've more than pulled your weight here ever since you were a boy … and we're damn proud of the man you've become.”

Sammy straightened up a little in his chair, feeling his throat constrict slightly and his eyes glisten just a hint.

“We're not young men anymore,” Homer continued. “We've lived the way we wanted to and made a fortune doing it. Lord willing, we'll keep at it for some good time yet. But now were at a point where cutting back the size of our operation makes sense for us. We don't need sixty thousand acres anymore. Sammy, we'd be happy to sell you the Escalante corner for what we paid. The Escalante area is about twenty thousand acres … water and grassland as good as anywhere else on this ranch. Of course, you know that. It cost us twenty cents an acre, four thousand dollars. If you decide you want to do this, you can pay us when you're up and running and profitable—or, more to the point, whenever it suits you. There's some selfish motivation here. We'd like to see you stay in this country. Hell, we'd give you the land, but it's important a man pays his way. Understand this though, Sammy … you don't owe us a damn thing. If you decide you're movin on,’ or you want to keep things the way they are now, you'll always have our respect. The truth is, a man like you can do or be anything he chooses. It's a big ole world out there, and you could rope it a lot of different ways.”

Sammy sat forward a little. “Mister Taylor, I owe you everything. And with all respect, sir, that land's worth at least ten times what you just quoted me. That ain't exactly payin’ my own way. It's more like being given a gold mine and payin’ a filing fee.”

Homer took another pull off his pipe and shook his head. “Well, there's just no getting past you. I see you're exploring as usual. You've paid your way since the day you arrived in ’57. If it preys on your thinking, you should know that we have individual arrangements with Lundy, J.P., and Franklin that benefits each of them. And Jacqueline is provided for also. They've all been with us a long time. These are all confidential matters, Sammy.”

“I would imagine, sir. I'll say no more.”

Sammy looked out the window a moment. It was snowing harder, but it didn't register as he absorbed the weight of the conversation. He swung his eyes back to Homer. “Growing up here has been … well, I can't imagine the Lord could have provided any better. I am in debt to you and Reuben and Lundy for my life. I hope you know that I would honor any request of yours to my last breath.