Shortgrass Song (65 page)

“A hundred settlers! When I came here, there were no settlers!”

“Uncle Sam never said the first could have it all.”

Ab chewed his lip. “I'll fence the creek! Don't let your U.S. marshal tell me I can't fence the creek! I own it. I'll keep your herds from water.”

“We'll use the windmills,” Mayhall said.

“Those are my windmills. I'll tear them down.”

“Can't you see us drillin' our own?” He angled his rifle barrel toward the wooden tower where the well drillers were working. “We'll drill more, too. We'll have plenty of water without your cotton-pickin' creek.”

Ab fumed. “You won't prove up.”

Mayhall shrugged. “Maybe not. Won't be the first time, will it? But I'll still take you down a peg or two. Now that we're here, others will be comin'. There's men filin' on Monument Park land today. You're gonna see a land rush, colonel. Meanwhile, my little ol' bulls will be breedin' your prize cows faster than you can…”

“Shut your mouth!” Ab shouted. “You've made your point.” He reined his horse away from the newly established Mayhall Ranch.

Sam followed. “What are we gonna do, colonel?” he asked.

“You send the boys out,” Ab said. “Have them ride all the fences. I want to know how many have been cut. Don't fix any yet, just get back to the ranch and tell me how bad it is. I'm going to ride into town and see the county clerk.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam said.

SEVENTY-SEVEN

Ab found a line of land seekers at the county clerk's office. He stormed past all of them.

“Good morning, colonel,” one of them said with a self-assured grin.

Morley Bertram and a homesteader were looking over the county map when Ab burst in.

“Get your fingers off my land,” he said. “I see where you're pointing!”

Bertram frowned. “Mr. Smethers, would you excuse us, please.”

The homesteader smirked and saw himself out.

“What do you mean letting Mayhall file on my ranch?” Ab demanded.

Bertram shook his head and sat on his desk. “It's not your ranch, colonel, and you know that as well as I do.”

“Have I not supplemented your salary for fifteen years in order to gain exclusive ownership of Monument Park?”

“Colonel, how many times have I told you over the past three or four years that if you want to own Monument Park, you had better start buying it from the government? Merely fencing the land is not good enough. I've told you that a hundred times.”

“You were supposed to keep the settlers out!” Ab said.

“And I did keep them out, sir, as long as I possibly could. But there have been numerous complaints sent in to the land office, the state capital, Congress! The Front Range is settling too fast, colonel. I simply can't keep the homesteaders out anymore. They have a legal right to file on Monument Park.”

Ab pointed a threatening finger at the little functionary. “Don't you quit on me now, Bertram. I'll see that you are ruined along with me. I'll tell them about your stipend.”

Bertram scoffed. “I'd rather take my chances with you than with them.” He nodded toward the land filers beyond his door. “I can deny your charge. It's your word against mine. And, frankly, colonel, you're not as popular a figure in this county as you once were. The fence cutters are gaining control. Besides, if I did continue to work with you, the land office would come out here to investigate, and they would find both of us guilty of fraud. They're cracking down, colonel.”

Ab couldn't think of anything else to say. He held his breath, turned red, grunted, and began to pace.

“It's the windmills,” Bertram said. “They've tipped the odds. Times have changed.”

Ab's wooden leg continued to clack against the floor.

“It's not as bad as it looks,” Bertram said. “You still own every plot on both sides of the Monument, all the way from your ranch to the head of the creek. That's valuable land. You control the water rights. The Appropriation Doctrine entitles you to as much water as you need to irrigate all the land you own. You were first to build ditches. That gives you priority. And there's still time for you to buy more land. As much as you can afford. Come look at the map. Show me what you want to buy.”

“Look at the map?” Ab roared. “Is that what you think you're giving away to these claim jumpers? Squares on a map? Why don't you come look at the land instead of the map?” He stomped his peg down on the floor and stormed out, pushing his way through the homesteaders who would soon acquire his kingdom.

*   *   *

Sam collected intelligence from the fence riders and sauntered to the cabin about sundown to break the news to Ab. “It ain't good,” he said, standing on the porch, talking to his employer in the dark doorway. “They've cut the wire to every pasture, even the cross fences. There's already another homesteader drivin' stakes around your number-four windmill.”

“Using my well?” Ab said, as if wounded.

“Yes, sir. Says you can tear the windmill down if you want to, but you can't legally close the well. He says he can build his own windmill or buy yours from you. Either way, he has claim to the land.”

Ab glanced nervously across his fragile domain. He could feel them digging post holes, breaking sod. Their plowshares might as well have been turning his own flesh.

“Mayhall organized them,” Sam said. “They planned to move in today and all this week, together. They say there's a dozen men ready to stake their claims tomorrow.”

Ab's eyes were still sweeping the prairies.

“What do you want us to do, colonel? You want us to run those sorry bulls into the mountains? We could stampede some through Mayhall's place. We'll make it hard on 'em. That homesteader up on number four has already plowed a firebreak. We could set fire inside of it. Burn his grass.”

“No,” Ab said.

“The boys are with me,” Sam said. “If this ranch goes, our jobs go.”

“No,” Ab repeated. “It isn't worth getting yourself killed. Mayhall meant what he said today. He'll put a bullet through your head. You dumb Texans can never tell when you're whipped.”

Sam straightened up and stepped back. “Wouldn't be no Texas if we did.”

“And the whole nation would be better off. Just leave those nesters alone. There's nothing you can do.”

Sam left, angry and worried, and trudged back to the bunkhouse. He liked the Front Range. He had planned on working there the rest of his life.

Ab dragged his rocker out onto the porch and watched the stars come out.

“You want your supper, colonel?” Lee Fong asked.

Ab waved him away. “Give it to the dogs, Lee Fong.” He rocked, his mind getting tired again.

A light came up in Buster's little cabin. What in Hades was that black man up to now? Always working on something, always tinkering, inventing. Nigger rigging! Ab chuckled. (“Forgive me, Ella. Just a thought.”) Always improvising. Always thinking.

He left the rocker and walked down the porch steps. Pausing, he looked up at the stars. He followed the irrigation ditch, gurgling with life-giving water. The trail was well-worn. Buster had forgiven him for burying Pete on the hill. Buster forgave everything. His was true wisdom.

It was over. The ranch was lost. He felt almost relieved. He wanted to laugh. He wanted so badly to feel the release of laughter.

When he got to the door, he found Buster working on an experimental wildflower seeder.

“Evenin',” the inventor said, looking up from his work table. “Come in.”

Ab made for the old bunk, his peg leg leaving craters in the burlap carpet as he walked. He sat quietly and watched Buster trying to fashion a funnel from an old sheet of tin.

“What did that little county clerk tell you?” Buster asked.

Ab sighed. “I'm whipped, Buster. They've got my ranch now.”

“What are you gonna do?”

Ab leaned back against the log wall. “What would you do?”

Buster tapped a single rivet and pushed his new contraption away. He tilted back in his chair and propped his feet up on the table. “I'd get my good name back.”

“What in Hades does that mean?”

Buster smiled. “Ol' Mayhall has made hisself the hero. Made you look like the goat. Them new settlers, they don't know you tamed this place. They don't know you fought the Indians, brought in the first cattle. You got to start all over makin' your reputation with them. They think you're just a greedy old rancher fencin' the public range.”

“I'm greedy for what's rightfully mine: Monument Park.”

Buster scratched his curly beard. “There's more than one way to own land.”

Ab waited. He squinted. “Are you going to tell me what you mean?”

“Get 'em on your side instead of Mayhall's.”

“How?”

“Let ‘era have your ranch. They're gonna get it anyway. Tell 'em they're welcome to it. Sell 'em the wire off your fences. Sell it cheap.
Help
'em settle. Sell 'em your cattle, too.”

Ab sat up, tense and hopeful. “Go on.”

“Take the money you make and buy as much land as you want around the ranch here. You can keep raisin' your horses and maybe a few beef steers.”

“How am I going to make my living off of a few horses and beef steers?”

“You can make your livin' off land and water. You own all that land along the creek. Hold on to it. Lease it out to them farmers. Sell 'em the water. You own the water rights. I'll help you build a new reservoir upstream, just as long as I get enough down here to grow my crops. We can irrigate this whole valley.”

“You think they'll buy water from me? They'll just drill the park full of wells.”

“They can't pump enough out of a well to wet more than a couple of acres. They can grow enough to get by but not enough to make money. They want to make money. They'll buy your water.”

Ab sank back against the wall again. “Maybe. But that's one poor way to own this valley. They'll reduce me to opening sluice gates and turning spigots.”

“I ain't through yet,” Buster said. “You need to buy yourself a quarter section beside your railroad pens and your depot.”

“What for?”

“Start yourself a town. Holcomb, Colorado. Cut it up in lots and sell 'em. Build yourself a general store. Them farmers will need supplies and tools. Might as well buy 'em there. It's closer than Colorado Springs. Give 'em credit. Help 'em make good.”

“Credit?”

“Yes, sir. You've got to get 'em started. You want 'em to prove up.”

“I do?”

“Some of 'em. There's good farmers and there's bad farmers. About half of 'em will prove up. Then they'll want to buy out the farms of the other half, the ones that don't make it. And that's where you really make your money. That's where you start to own this valley all over again, in a whole new way.”

“Buster…” Ab rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of the advice. “What are you talking about?”

Buster let his feet fall from the table to the burlap. He leaned forward in his chair. “Make yourself a banker.”

“A banker!” Ab actually laughed at the notion. It felt good to laugh.

“They're gonna need to borrow money to buy more land. You loan it to 'em. They're gonna mortgage their farms, colonel. If you want to own Monument Park, that's the way to do it. Repossess it!”

Ab fell sideways on the bunk, kicked his wooden leg, and released his cares in laughter. “Oh, Buster, you've got more big ideas! Where am I going find the funds to start a bank?”

“Think like bankers think. Start with a little of your own money, then go see Captain Dubois. Go courtin' investors.”

“This isn't Wall Street. Where am I going to find investors?”

Buster stomped his foot on his burlap carpet. “Start right here.”

Ab couldn't sit up for laughing. “You? Buster, you have no idea how much money it takes to start a bank, do you?”

Buster grinned and got up. He walked to the open door, looked out both ways, closed the door, and latched it. “Help me move this table over,” he said.

Ab shook his head and pushed himself up from the bunk. He lifted one side of the table and helped set it aside. Buster knelt on the burlap and found a flap that had been under one leg of the table. He pulled the flap back to reveal the sawdust underflooring. Carefully, he parted the sawdust with his hands as Ab bent over him. Under four inches of wood shavings he came to the lid of a wooden box. He opened the lid. Ab gasped. Buster began removing bundles and bundles of government bills, neatly sorted and tied.

“My Lord, Buster! How much have you got down there?”

“Almost ten thousand.”

Ab staggered back to the bunk and sank onto the quilt. His face darkened. “Where did you get that much money?” he asked.

“Been farmin' twenty years now. Never bought nothin' I didn't think I couldn't make money with. I grow my own food. I grow feed for my stock. I just been savin' it. It ain't enough to start a bank with, but it's somethin'.”

Ab stared with admiration at the pile of bills on the table. “You need to put it in a bank, all right. But you know how people are. No offense, but if folks heard I was starting a bank with the wages of a Negro homesteader, they'd laugh me all the way back to Pennsylvania.”

“You don't have to say where all the money comes from. Nobody will laugh at Captain Dubois's name. I know he'll help you. He doesn't want you goin' broke and losin' Amelia's share of the Holcomb fortune.”

Big ideas just came naturally to Buster. There
was
more than one way to own Monument Park. How long had he been thinking about it? Ab grabbed two bundles of cash, squeezed them, smelled them. He looked up, sadly.