His wife, Martha, had been appalled by her husband’s ruthlessness and greed, but she was a good woman who would never think to leave her husband, or to tell anyone else of his misdeeds. Adhering to the Biblical injunction to honor and obey her husband, she lived her short married life without complaint, no more than a shadow within the shadows. Martha died when the youngest of her three children, Billy, was five years old.
She didn’t live to see any of her sons grow up, and they, especially Ray and Cletus, were the worse for it. Perhaps the ameliorating influence of a good mother would have made Ray and Cletus good men instead of the pompous bullies they became. Billy, everyone agreed, was made of better stuff.
Having invited all the neighboring ranchers over for a meeting, Ike was now standing by the liquor cabinet, leaning back against the wall, looking out over the gathering. His arms were folded across his chest, and his hat was pushed back on his head. He was smoking a thin cheroot as he watched the others arrive.
“Ike, what’s all the secrecy? I mean, why are we meeting here, instead of at the Morning Star at our usual time?” one of the ranchers asked.
“I reckon enough of you came to take care of what we need to take care of,” Ike said. “So, if you’ll all get settled, we’ll get started.”
While waiting for the meeting to start, the visiting ranchers had gathered into conversational groupings to exchange pleasantries and information. With Ike’s call to them, the little groups broke up and everyone started looking for a place to sit. Ike waited until all were settled and quiet before he continued.
“I’m sure that by now nearly all of you have met a fella in town by the name of Wade Garrison,” Ike started.
“Garrison, yeah, I know who he is,” one of the other ranchers said. “He’s a pretty nice fella.”
“Yeah, he’s a real nice fella,” one of the other ranchers put in.
“Got hisself a real pretty daughter, too.”
“Tell you what, George, you keep that up and Louise is likely to use a frying pan to knock out what few teeth you got left,” one of the others said, and all laughed.
Ike, perceiving that the meeting was getting out of control, held up his hands to call for quiet.
“We ain’t here to talk about Garrison’s pretty daughter,” he said.
“Well, what are we here to talk about?”
“The railroad.”
“The railroad? What railroad?”
“The one that Wade Garrison is plannin’ on buildin’ between Higbee and La Junta,” Ike said.
A couple of the ranchers let out a whoop of joy.
“No kiddin’?” one of them said. “We’re gettin’ us a railroad? Why, that’s wonderful news!”
“No, it ain’t good,” Ike said. “It ain’t no good a’tall. We got to stop this from ever happening.”
The other ranchers looked confused.
“Now, why in the Sam Hill would this be a bad thing?” a rancher named Phillips asked. “If we could take our cows into Higbee, instead of La Junta or Benton, think how much easier that would be.”
“And think how much money it’ll cost us,” Ike said. “Don’t you see? If Garrison gets control of the railroad, he can hold us up for any amount he wants.”
“What makes you think he would do that?” a rancher named Warren asked. “The other railroads don’t do such a thing.”
“All the other railroads already have the tracks laid and their routes formed. They make enough money they don’t need to hold us up. It’s different with Garrison. He’s tryin’ to do all this on his own. It’s costin’ him a ton of money and trust me, he’s goin’ to be wantin’ to get it all back from us. He’ll hold us up for as much as he can get from us.”
“Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that,” Warren said. “It could be you are right.”
“You say we have to stop him?” Phillips asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, my question is, how do you plan to do that?”
“Shouldn’t be too hard,” Ike said. “He is going to have to have cattle to ship, in order to make a profit. All we have to do is deny him cattle to ship. If we don’t ship any of our cattle—if we don’t use the railroad for freight, he’ll be done for. A railroad can’t make it on just passengers.”
“Sounds reasonable to me,” Warren said.
“Mr. Clinton, I have to ask this. Suppose he goes ahead and builds the railroad,” a man named Lassiter said. “How far are you willin’ to go to stop it?”
“If he finds out that we are all determined not to use it, he won’t build it. He’s not going to just throw his money away.”
“But what if he does start buildin’ it, how far are we goin’ to go to stop it?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when it happens,” Ike said.
Higbee
Wade Garrison was a former general in the Army of the Confederacy. Before the war, he had been a major in the United States Army, a graduate of West Point with a degree in engineering. He had built railroads for the army; now he was planning to build a railroad for himself.
“These are damn good doughnuts, General,” Simon Durant said. Durant was a banker from Denver, one of four bankers who were gathered in Garrison’s Higbee office.
“You’ll have to thank my daughter for that,” Garrison replied. “She made them.”
“All right, General, you got us all here,” one of the other bankers said. “What do you want to talk about?”
“This,” Garrison said, pointing to a large map that was tacked up on the wall of his office. The map covered Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas, and it was crisscrossed with blue lines, and one red line.
“Gentlemen, on this map, you see the railroads that serve our fair state, and in fact, connect our state with both coasts. Those railroads are represented by the blue lines. I propose to add to that network by building the CNM&T from La Junta, Colorado, to Big Spring, Texas,” Garrison said. “On the map, the CNM&T is represented by this red line.”
“The CNM&T?” one of the bankers asked.
“The Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas,” Garrison said. He stepped up to the map. “As you can see, that will open up all of Southeast Colorado, Northeast New Mexico, and Northwest Texas. That would provide service to several thousand miles of country not now served by rail. And the connections at either end, with existing railroads, will mean that we can ship our cattle from here to Chicago, we can import fruit from Florida, or we can buy a ticket to San Francisco or New York and be there within a matter of a few days.”
“If I might ask a dumb question,” one of the bankers said.
“Greg, as I used to tell my junior officers, there are no dumb questions,” Garrison replied. He paused for a second, then added, “Just the dumb-assed people who ask them.”
For a second, the four bankers looked surprised. Then, realizing that it was a joke, they laughed appreciatively.
“Go ahead, ask,” Garrison said.
“If you look at that map, you will see that there are very few towns or even settlements along the proposed route. Where will the business come from?”
“Ah, the railroad will generate its own business,” Garrison said. He pointed to the state of Nebraska. “Gentlemen, when Nebraska was admitted to the Union in 1867, it had a population of just over one hundred thousand people. Today, it boasts over one million. That is a tenfold increase in two decades’ time, and that increase is due to the railroad.” Again, Garrison pointed to the route of the CNM&T Railroad. “Our railroad is covering twice the area of the Nebraska railroads, which should mean at least twice as many people.”
“You are painting a rosy picture, General,” one of the bankers said. “But let’s get right down to it, shall we? You are going to need financing.”