Papa’s nonverbal response was somewhere between a growl and a groan.
Normally, Willa — in a blue-and-black plaid shirt and jeans and work boots, hair back in a ponytail — would have been prepared to pitch in on the loading. But she was glad Uncle Burt had volunteered to come along, because she wanted to be at her papa’s side when he and Mr. Harris spoke. She would not be excluded, because everyone in and around Trinidad knew that she ran the ranch as much as or more than her daddy these days.
Waiting on the boardwalk to one side of the entrance to Harris Mercantile were sacks of flour, sugar, beans, and rice, as well as small barrels of bacon packed inside bran, eggs packed in cornmeal, a tin of lard, a carton of Arbuckles’ coffee, and a jug of molasses. Overseeing these was Lem, Harris’s broad-shouldered, tow-haired, overalls-clad boy of twenty or so, whose greatest skill was fetching and carrying.
She parked the buckboard in front of the stairs up to the storefront and helped her father down. In his weather-beaten broad-brimmed tan hat, canvas jacket, gray flannel shirt, and Levi’s, Papa might have been there to help load, as well; but this apparel, so much like what most of his hands wore — if a mite more expensive — reflected his attitude that he was just another working man at the Bar-O.
O’Malley hitched his horse, then came over to Willa, Boss of the Plains hat in hand. Just before father and daughter started up the steps, Uncle Burt gave her a look that said he’d handle things out here. She nodded at the big man, whose rumpled smile was a comforting thing, and took her father’s arm and went up to the boardwalk, where Newt Harris was emerging from his store.
The heavyset, blond, mustached merchant was again in a medium-brown suit with a string tie, sending a message of serious business that would have clashed with her papa’s attire, if he could have seen it. With a smile that tried a little too hard, Harris held open one of the twin doors to the store for them to enter.
They did.
Their host closed the door behind them. A single hanging kerosene lamp gave the store an eerie feel, not that the light during the day in here was anything but dim, either, the lack of side windows contributing to a dark interior. Long, merchandise-cluttered counters — candy jars, tobacco, stacked clothing — were on either side, and the walls were lined with shelves of household items and bins of foodstuffs. Hanging from the ceiling were coiled ropes, buggy whips, horse harnesses, and pails, throwing odd shadows.
In the midst of this looming commerce, which, of course, her father could not see, Harris and his two guests stood rather awkwardly. From outside came the creaks, whumps, and squeaks of sacked goods being hauled down and loaded up into the waiting buckboard.
Harris reached his hand out and found her father’s and shook it a bit too eagerly; Papa released his grasp almost at once.
“I appreciate your business, George,” the merchant said with forced cheer, “and your willingness to stop by for a chat.”
“If this is about that goddamned spur,” her father said, in a rare instance of taking the Lord’s name in vain, “you are wastin’ your breath, Newt Harris. We have contrary opinions, and let us leave it at that.”
“George, please. Hear us out.”
“Us? Why, is there more than one of you?”
From the rear of the store came figures forming out of the darkness. It gave Willa a start, but she quickly felt foolish, realizing this was only the rest of the Citizens Committee — their barber/mayor Hardy, druggist Clem Davis, hardware-store owner Clarence Mathers, and undertaker Casper Perkins. The latter, a small bald man with a top hat for added height and a black frock coat for suitable dignity, hadn’t been present at yesterday’s more official and public meeting of the Citizens Committee. Perhaps he’d been busy with a client.
All the men, in a rehearsed manner that unnerved Willa almost as much as their appearance from the gloom, gave their names and said hello to her father, their fellow member. Each removed his hat as a symbol of respect, which, of course, Papa couldn’t see.
Then, perhaps because the premises were his, Harris took the lead, even though the mayor was present.
“George,” he said, his tone formal yet friendly, “we’ve gathered tonight to ask you, to beg you, to listen to reason. Trinidad needs the Santa Fe branchline. Needs it to grow. Needs it, frankly, not to die.”
Papa said nothing.
Harris had run out of words already, so the mayor stepped in. “George, if Ellis or one of these other nearby communities gets the Las Vegas spur, our businesses will suffer and maybe wither away. We will indeed die. Trinidad will be just another ghost town.”
Willa almost smiled at the word ghost, considering the strange angles and contours created on the faces of these businessmen thanks to that one hanging lantern. That the town undertaker was among them only added to the effect.
But her father, again, said nothing. His face, out of the kerosene-created shadows, was impassive, like something carved out of wood. Like the cigar-store Indian she’d once seen in a Denver hotel lobby.
The druggist spoke up. “You depend on my business when your cows and cowboys get sick, not to mention any family needs. George, if I’m out of business, think of the inconvenience to you! It’s miles to the nearest apothecary!”
Papa said nothing.
The hardware man gave it a try. “You count on me for supplies, from screws to clavos, from hinges to gate handles. If Trinidad dries up and blows away, you’ll be riding mile upon mile to fill them kind of needs!”
Papa said nothing.
She could hardly wait to hear what the undertaker had to offer, but he remained as silent as Papa. As silent as his customers.
Harris spoke again. “We hope to reason with you, George, to talk this out, talk it through... but so far you don’t seem to want to give our side of it a fair look. If we can’t appeal to your friendship, your sense of community, if not your own convenience, having a decent little town like Trinidad in your backyard, a town you helped establish, then maybe... just maybe... we can appeal to your pocketbook.”
And from the darkness at the rear of the store came one last materializing ghost: a distinguished, wide-shouldered one in big city togs, with the eyes and beak of a hawk, and a beard barbered better than their mayor could ever have managed — Grover Prescott of the Santa Fe Railroad.
The Citizens Committee members parted like the Red Sea for their financial Moses, who stood facing their one solemn, stone-faced, obstinate member.
“Mr. Cullen,” Prescott said in that politician’s deep timbre, “my apologies for organizing this meeting and bringing you into it in a somewhat deceptive fashion. But my entreaties to meet with you at your ranch have met with no response. So I have leaned upon these good men of your community, your friends, your fellow committee members, to provide me with an opportunity to make you an offer.”
Papa said nothing.
“Sir,” Prescott continued, “I have spoken with the independent ranchers, who, with their smaller spreads, do not approach the acreage you yourself control. But together they could provide the Santa Fe with the necessary right-of-way...” Prescott chuckled. “Granted, that passage will have rather more twists and turns than a branchline might ideally have.”
Papa said nothing.
“And that is why, Mr. Cullen,” Prescott said, undiscouraged, “we are prepared to pay you twice the collective sum we have offered those smaller ranchers.”
Papa said nothing.
“Furthermore,” Prescott said, ramping up his vocal delivery to where various objects in the storefront rattled and shook, “we would happily make a side arrangement with the Bar-O to purchase beef for our workers during the branchline’s construction. In addition, we would pay rent for the tent city that will follow the workers on their necessary course.”