Chapter 6: A Virgin

Ana---Hiring Vaquero was a great idea! This man was not only good with the livestock, but he also made a great teacher. The first group of ten arrived one Monday morning. I listened to him explain what he was going to teach them. He told them how he considered working cattle to be one of the most honorable professions in the world. He told them his story about how his ancestors were given sanctuary on a big ranch in Mexico and why they had left. I almost cried when I heard his story about how the O’Shea’s had found his group of half-starved Apache living alongside a river and had taken them in and given them jobs (Read ‘Lt. Jack’ for that story). He told the boys that if they worked hard and learned ‘his’ tradecraft they would have a place on this ranch for the rest of their lives.

He got busy that same day, assigning them each a horse to take care of and teaching them to care for it. The next day he started teaching them to ride. To me it looked like all were having fun and were grateful for the chance to learn a trade. I was wrong.

Friday three quit and were on the afternoon flight back to the city. Vaquero told me not to worry. He said if he got two or three to stay, he would consider it a success. He was right again. Two weeks later two more wanted a ride back to the city.

The next week he called me and asked me to meet with two more. These two surprised me. They did not want to be cowboys, but they loved living up here. They wanted jobs working on my side of the lake. I put one in the kitchen to help the chef. The other wanted to work outside so I made him Jose’s helper. He kept the grass around the hotel and the cabins cut and helped with the flower beds. Now there were three. Just like Vaquero predicted.

Maybe now is the time to tell you about what is happening on the ranch. First my ‘tourist business is going great! We are booked solid up for months in advance. Our clients come from all over the world. We have people from Canada and the States as well as from Europe. Some come to fish, others to just relax and enjoy the cool weather and the isolation. We provide ‘hayrides’ as well as overnight camping trips. Everyone loves flying in our ‘flying boats’.

The other side is doing just as well. We have orders for our ‘grass fed-grain finished’ beef from every major hotel and restaurant in the country. Will and Rico along with help from their computer ‘Dove’ never have a problem with either the feedlots or the breeding program. Our slaughterhouse and packing plant ensure that we sell ‘meat’, not livestock. Also, we have no transportation costs like meat produced in the States!

One more thing, we bought the dam!

Remember the day Chip Fields arrived in the country? I could not meet him at the airport because I had an important meeting with my father. Adriana met him for me then Travis and I met him the next morning. Well that big meeting was about the dam.

The dam supplies all the electricity for the capital and most of the surrounding area. There was a big political push to privatize the public services that were government owned at the time. The electric company was one of them. My father and Mr. Perez had this idea to buy the dam and the entire electrical grid of the country. The way the government ran it was so corrupt that it always lost money. People stole electricity by connecting to the grid before their meters. So electric bills really did not reflect the true costs of electricity. Dad planned on changing all that. He and Mr. Perez would handle the bills, making sure that there was no theft of electricity. O’Malley’s Security was hired to make sure there was no theft. When people heard that O’Malley’s Security would be checking the meters, lines were quickly disconnected and re-connected behind the meters. No one wants to get cross ways with O’Malley’s Security. Know what I mean?

The way the company was set up, PeGo (Perez-Gomez) Power would handle all the inter-structure and the billing. They would purchase the electricity from another company. Dad thought it would be perfect if the O’Shea Ranch owned and maintained the dam and the land that came with it. Which included a strip 25 miles downriver and 5 miles on each side of the river. That was another 160,000 acres. I consulted with Angel and paid the six and a half million dollar asking price. Within two years that loan was paid back!