Chapter 11: 1885: U.S. Territory of New Mexico

The morning after my put-on fight with Charlie Hackett at the saloon, Marshal Garrison asked, “How’d it go last night?”

I pointed to the bruise on my chin. “Charlie seemed committed to the role.”

Baca asked, “What’s going on with Major Hackett? He’s been mighty short-tempered lately.” Elfego had not been told of the militia troubles.

I said, “It shouldn’t be a problem around here anymore. General Lange fired him this morning.

“Fired him? Really?”

I nodded. “Part of the problem is that Charlie’s been drunk every day. Last night General Lange and I went to see him, to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t at his rooms. We split up and went searching for him. I found him at a bar on the south side a’ town. When I tried to talk to him, he gave me this.” I showed him the bruise.

“He hit you?”

I nodded slowly.

“Is that why he was fired?”

“Let’s just say that it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Baca just shook his head. “You can’t ever tell with Anglos what’s really going on in their heads.”

I suppressed a grin.

The following Monday, July the twentieth, I returned to the Santa Fe Marshals Service office after a trip to Gallup that I had expected would take at least a week.

A three-way dispute had developed between a Hopi clan, a Navajo clan, and a white rancher over a parcel of land along the Rio Puerco (PWARE-coh), one of three rivers by that name in the Territory.

One Rio Puerco flowed into the Rio Grande. The second Rio Puerco was a tributary of the Rio Chama, which then joined the Rio Grande. The third Rio Puerco, which flowed through Gallup, continued west into northeastern Arizona Territory, where it joined the Little Colorado River. The Little Colorado flowed west into the Grand Canyon to its confluence with the Colorado River.

“Puerco” translates to “pig,” but the name, as used in Nuevo Mexico, means “muddy,” as all three rivers were normally silt-laden. In dry years, following the spring run-off, they were sometimes known not to flow at all.

Nonetheless, the land along the Rio Puerco in northwest New Mexico produced richer grazing than elsewhere on those arid highlands.

The original dispute arose between a Hopi shepherd and a Navajo shepherd, and quickly involved clan members from both tribes. There was no love lost between the Hopi and the Navajo at the best of times; territorial disputes were common. But this time, a white cattleman had taken advantage of the rhubarb to move his herd into the valley under the watchful eye of some well-armed cowboys. The Indians saw the rich seasonal grass disappearing to the hungry beeves. Shooting broke out. A cowboy and a Navajo had been wounded.

Governor Ross sent me to deal with it.

The Governor had Amador Cabal fetch me on the morning of the fifteenth, two days after my imbroglio with Charlie Hackett. Marshal Garrison was already aware of the problems along the Rio Puerco from reports wired to him by Frank Fitch, the Deputy U.S. Marshal in Gallup; Garrison had shown those telegrams to me. As a routine, Garrison sent a memo summarizing the reports to Judge Bergman, who was the ostensible supervisor of the Marshals Service in the Territory.

So I wasn’t surprised when that was the topic about which the Governor was concerned. I had little more detail that Garrison had provided Judge Bergman, so my meeting with Ross was short and my assignment rather vague: “Go out there and see what you can do,” the Governor told me.

I spent the remainder of the day at the government office building learning what I could of the Navajo, the Hopi, and that part of the territories. I’d had little contact with those two tribes, what little there’d been was from the week I spent in Gallup when I was going through the orientation.

That evening, I boarded the southbound D&RG to Lamy, for the westbound AT&SF passenger train.

There was now a railroad to Gallup, and beyond: the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Its home office was in Saint Louis. The road was being built in segments, and the two legs that had been just recently completed connected Saint Louis to Tulsa, Oklahoma and Albuquerque to Needles, California, just across the Colorado River on the western Arizona border. The A&P’s ambition was to compete its road from Saint Louis all the way to San Francisco.

With the A&P having its present terminal at its junction with the Santa Fe, the A&P passenger trains operated in coordination with the AT&SF timetable. This meant that I would have no need to lay over before boarding the Gallup train, which is just as well, because the connection wasn’t actually in Albuquerque. It was about fifteen miles south, across the Rio Grande from the Isleta Pueblo, a small farming village. The A&P hadn’t bridged the Rio, yet, so the transfer station was isolated. It would have been isolated even had there been a bridge, especially because the transfer occurred at ten-twenty o’clock at night. The return was no better, with the connection at five in the morning.

Still, it was much faster than riding a horse all that way -- and it beat the stage-coach all hollow.

Regardless of those conveniences, my schedule remained inconvenient. The train put me in Gallup at three a.m. The A&P hadn’t had any sleeper cars, so I had to manage some sleep slouched against the window. In Gallup I took a hotel room for the remaining hours of the night, but my intention was to rent a room at the boarding house where I stayed years before. As far as I knew, Frank still boarded there. I was confident I’d be more welcome, though, if I didn’t wake the landlady in the middle of the night.

By nine-fifteen that morning, I was sitting in Frank Fitch’s small office, a single room that was tucked in between a barber shop and a mining company office.

The problem was, Frank wasn’t there.

The barber had seen me rattling the door knob and had come out onto the boardwalk. He asked, “You Marshal Becker?

“I am.”

“Got a badge?”

I smiled and said, “One moment,” and dug my badge case from my breast pocket. I held it so he could read my credentials.

He nodded and held out a key, saying, “Frank had to go up to Buffalo Springs late yesterday. He figures to be back mid-day tomorrow. He said to make yourself at home.”

“Where’s Buffalo Springs?”

“North most of a day’s ride, on a decent horse.”

I reached out my hand, “Well, thanks. I’m Judah Becker, Mister...?”

“Judah? Thought your name was Seneca.” He’d taken my hand but had hesitated before shaking it.

“‘Seneca’ is an old Army nickname that seems to stick with me. You can use that, if you prefer. I answer to either name.”

Now he shook my hand. “I know how that is. My name’s Ben Rothschild, but I answer to ‘Hey, you.’” He was grinning.

“That’s a popular nickname, back where I grew up in Ohio. I sometimes answered to it, myself.”

“Whereabouts in Ohio?”

“Near Defiance.”

“How about that. I’m from just upriver, Fort Wayne, Indiana.” In fact, the Maumee River originated in Fort Wayne, at the confluence of the Saint Joseph and Saint Mary’s Rivers.

We chatted for a minute more before a customer walked up to him and he followed the man into the shop. I turned and let myself into Frank’s office. I found a note on his desk:

Seneca, had to fetch a prisoner, be back Saturday afternoon or evening. Frank

He included the name the rooming house where he stayed, suggesting I bunk there. It was the same one I remembered.

I locked up the office and went by the boarding home to arrange a room, and cadged a late breakfast for the price of a dime.

I decided I needed to take it easy, as I didn’t want to wade into anything before hearing more about it, so I lounged on the front porch of the boarding home after breakfast, enjoying a third cup of coffee and a pretty good biscuit slathered with butter and honey. The porch faced west, so it was well shaded that time of day and I relaxed in a rocking chair, watching what traffic there was headed toward the cluster of businesses that made up Gallup’s commercial district.

Soon enough, an Indian man pushed open the garden gate that separated the boarding home property from the street. He was looking at me expectantly as he came to a stop at the foot of the two steps leading to the porch.

“Mister, would you be Marshal Seneca Becker?”

I leaned forward in the rocker and said, “My proper name is Judah Becker, but I am known as Seneca and I am a United States Marshal. How can I help you?” At a guess, he appeared to be of perhaps thirty years and showed a few minor facial blemishes, likely signs of an earlier bout with small-pox.

“My name is Jace Chee, Marshal. I was at the Bitsee Trading Post when Marshal Fitch got there. I work for him sometimes. He asked me to come see you if you were in town this morning.”

I reached to shake his hand. “Good to meet you, Mister Chee. Come up and have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?”

He shook his head. “Best not, Marshal. The lady don’t like Indians comin’ around. There’s a cantina up the street where we could talk.”

I asked, “Do you know what Marshal Fitch thought you might help me with?”

“I sometimes help him out with things amongst the Dine’.” He pronounced it “Di-NEH” and I knew it was the name by which the Navajo called their tribe. As with many Indian tribal names by which they referred to themselves, Dine’ meant, more-or-less, the people.

“Let me put this cup and saucer inside and get my hat and I’ll be right with you.”

A few minutes later we were sitting in the cool dark interior of a spacious cantina, a few of the tables occupied by men of several races who were eating late breakfasts of frijoles, chorizo, huevos, y tortillas in various combinations. I ordered coffee for both of us. A young waiter moved confidently among the tables, carrying trays of steaming food from the kitchen out back, and removing stacks of dirty dishes through the same back door.

“What does Frank usually pay you, Mister Chee?”

“Please call me Jace, Marshal. Frank pays me four bits a day.”

I fished fifty cents worth of coins from my waistcoat pocket and set them in front of him.

He pushed them back to me. “Frank asked me for a favor.”

I slid them toward him again. “The laborer deserves his wages, Jace. I’d feel awkward using your time otherwise, and I might demand less help than I actually need.”

He said, “You drive a hard bargain, Marshal Becker,” as he slid the coins into his hand, and thence into a pouch he had tied to his belt.

“Call me Judah or Seneca, as it suits you. I presume you know something about this dispute along the Rio Puerco?”

He grunted. “There’s always disputes along the Rio Puerco. It’s the best grazing in this part of the Dine’tah.”

“The Dine’tah? What does that mean?”

“The land of the Dine’.”

“Ah. But is it? I mean, is it ancestral Navajo territory?”

He shrugged. “Who’s to say? By our traditions, yes, it is our land, since the time before time when the Dine’ first came from beneath the earth. But then there are the dwellings of the Anasazi who clearly lived here before us, but our saga does not account for them.”

“What do you think?”

“In my heart, it is the Dine’tah. In my head, I see what I see. But that does not make it Hopi land, either.” He shrugged again. “Though the Hopi traditions say they are the descendants of the Anasazi.” He sighed, “But now it is all the white man’s land, isn’t it? And we know they are not the Anasazi.”

I chuckled and said, “Today it belongs to the United States. A few years ago, it belonged to Mexico. A few years before that, it was Spain.”

“But all white men.”

A thought struck me. “We are all white men and red men and black men and yellow men, always fighting over the land and killing one another. Nations fight in Europe, and in India, and Africa, and China. And today we are fighting over grazing land along the Rio Puerco and before that, the Navajo -- or the Hopi. Or maybe the Utes.”

He watched my eyes briefly, then turned his eyes downward and was quiet for long moments. I waved the young waiter over and ordered some tortillas and honey.

Chee finally took a drink of his coffee, then said, “I had not thought of it like that. We are all different colors of the same men all doing the same thing: fighting with each other, always and forever.” He looked up at me. “Is this a good thing to know?”

“In the church Sunday school I went to when I was a boy, I learned that the New Testament says, ‘The truth will make you free.’ My Uncle Sammie, of the Onodowa’ga tribe, who white men call the Seneca, said the same thing. Knowing how things truly are allows you to take the more sensible course. It is the difference between hoping the river isn’t in flood and knowing that it is. The flood may be bad news, but knowing of it, you can make whatever preparations are required.”

“That is much to think about.”

I smiled. “Well, think about it on your own time. Tell me about this dispute. What do you know of the white cattleman?”

“He brought his herd down from Colorado, following the San Juan River, but he is pushing southwest. It is said he has a contract to deliver beef to the San Carlos Apache reservation in Arizona Territory, but he is fattening up his Apache beef on Dine’tah grass.” He shrugged again. “Or maybe Hopi grass.”

I said, “Or maybe Chinese grass.”

He looked at me puzzled, then grinned. “Or African grass.”

I said, “You seem well-spoken, Jace. Did you attend school?”

“A minister and his daughter had a school in Bitsee.”

“Where the trading post is?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Were you baptized?”

“Twice. It just never seemed to take.”

I laughed aloud, attracting attention among the dwindling number of diners.

“Bitsee’s on the trail to Buffalo Springs?”

“No, it’s some to the east.”

“So Frank went there to find you?”

“No. He came there to see my sister. And he planned to stop there on his way back from Buffalo Springs, too, else he’d be comin’ back this afternoon.”

“Does your sister favor Frank?”

“She does. So does their daughter.”

“Oh, ah, I don’t mean to pry. Let’s hear more about the grazing along the Rio Puerco.”

“Sure,” he said. “What has the shepherd’s upset is that the grass won’t grow back as full again until next spring. Flocks from both tribes depend on that grass to see them through until the rains of late summer.”

It was already mid-July, so I asked, “When do the rains start?”

“Maybe in two weeks, maybe in six, maybe tomorrow.” I realized it was about the same all over the Territory. Late summer usually witnessed heavy local thunder storms that would develop usually of an afternoon or evening and pass by within a half hour, or more or less. But they could dump prodigious amounts of rain as they did so, filling ordinarily dry arroyos and washes with roaring rivers of mud and debris. They could wash man and animal away as if they were straw.

“Is there any grass left to fight over?” I asked.

We were interrupted then by the noisy entry of the barber, Ben Rothschild. He stood inside the door a moment, searching as his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light.

I called, “Are you looking for me, Mister Rothschild?”

He turned toward my voice and squinted, then came over.

He acknowledged Jace with a nod, then leaned close to me and said, in a quiet voice, “I just heard that the cattleman whose herd is in the Puerco Valley has been shot and killed, over by Manuelito.”

“Where’s that?”

Chee, who had been able to hear Rothschild, said, “Maybe twenty-five miles west, along the river. There’s a trading post and a few Dine’ families live nearby.”

I said to Rothschild, “D’ you wanna sit down, have some coffee?”

He said, “Sure, thanks,” and he slid into a chair. I got the waiter’s attention, and called, “Mas cafe, por favor,” pointing to all three of us.

Then I turned to Rothschild. “Do they know who did it, who shot...? Do either of you know that cattleman’s name?”

“Michael Atwood,” Rothschild supplied. “He was from Cortez, Colorado. His men called him Big Mike.”

“Do they know who killed him?”

Ben shrugged. “They figured it was an Indian, and those cowboys hung some Hopi shepherd. Then the Navajo and the Hopi joined up to go after the cowboys. Now the cowboys are forted up in the trading post.”

“When did all this happen?”

“Just this morning.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“Fireman off a locomotive that was up that way. He came in my shop to use a bathtub.”

I asked Chee, “How long could they hold out in that trading post?”

He shrugged. “If they didn’t do anything stupid, they could last for days. That trading post is built like a castle keep. It’s adobe, has narrow windows, heavy doors, and even has a hatch to the roof with places to shoot from behind cover.”

“What about water?”

“The well’s enclosed and attached to the store.”

“Who else might be in there?”

“The old man who built it just after Kit Carson defeated the Dine’ and tried to kill them all at Bosque Redondo.”

I glanced at Chee but neither his voice nor his face displayed any emotion.

I said, “I need to see the deputy sheriff. I should let him know I’m in town anyway.” Gallup was in Rio Arriba County, which county seat was at Tierra Amarilla, close to a hundred fifty miles northwest, if you’re a crow. By trail, it was more than thirty miles further.

I stood, just as the waiter brought a coffee pot and a cup for Rothschild.

“Finish the coffee and the tortillas, fellas, but I need to get going.”

Chee stood, “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not necessary, Jace. You can keep the fee.”

Chee insisted, “If Frank we’re going, he’d take me along.”

I glanced at Rothschild, who shrugged and said, “I see ‘em together a lot.”

I asked Chee, “D’you have weapons?”

“I have a Model Seventy-six Winchester and a double barreled break-action twelve gauge. They’re both in Frank’s office.”

Nodding, I said, let’s go see the deputy, first.” I handed four bits to the waiter, who had been standing by ready to pour coffee. “Will that cover it?”

He held one of the quarters out to me. “It is too much, señor.”

I said, “Keep it, muchacho. Bring Mister Rothschild whatever he wants, por favor.” I clapped Rothschild on the shoulder. “Thanks for bringing the word, Ben. Enjoy your brunch.”

I was already halfway to the door when I heard Rothschild call, “Brunch?” But Chee and I went on our way.

Outside I said, “Let’s see the deputy first. Then we can collect your firearms.”

I’d been introduced to a sheriff’s deputy during my orientation visit, so I walked directly to the old mission church that Gallup used as a town hall. The deputy sheriff’s office was just inside the front door on the left. It was even smaller than Frank’s cubby-hole. Next to the door was a foot-square, white sign with neat black letters:

Tomas Jurado / Deputy Sheriff / Rio Arriba County / Javier Prado, Sheriff

But no-one was there.

From across the entrance hall, a man in an equally tiny office called, “Deputy Jurado went downto the rail yard.” The sign next to that man’s office door read:

Armand Quintana, Assistant County Clerk / Rio Arriba County Western District / Martin Upshaw, County Clerk

I stepped closer. “Thank you Mister Quintana. About how long ago was that?”

The man frowned a little, looking unsure of my intentions. I reached for my badge wallet, removed the star in a circle badge and pinned it on my frock coat. “I’m United States Marshal Judah Becker, from Judge Bergman’s court in Santa Fe.”

“What happened to, uh...?”

“Marshal Garrison?”

“Yeah, did he quit?”

“No, he’s still Marshal for the federal district. I’m sort of a, uh, a Marshal-at-large, I guess you could say. I go where I’m needed.”

“You here about that rancher getting killed over by Manuelito?”

“I got in on the train this morning, before he was killed. But that’s the problem that I came to look into.”

“Well, you better hurry. Tomas went down to the rail yard to see if he could rustle up a train to take him over there.”

“I guess I’d better. Gracias, Señor Quintana.”

I told Chee, “Go get your gear. I’ll need to get mine, too, but right now I’ll get down to the rail yard, see if I can catch up with the deputy.”

Gallup was, for the most part, a railroad town, having grown mainly as a rail head supply depot during the construction of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad’s primary route. The town’s name was an honor paid by the A&P to its paymaster, David Gallup. With the railroad responsible for its existence, most of the commercial district lay parallel to the rails on their north side, though its civic center -- the old Spanish mission church -- was closer to the river, to the south, and had been built long before such things as railroads had been invented.

Even so, it was a matter of minutes before I reached the depot, where I was directed to a railroad business car, a somewhat disreputable looking passenger coach, typical of a pre-War style, parked on a short spur in the adjacent three-track rail yard.

As I approached the car, I could hear raised, tense voices emanating from within, as several of the windows were open. Mounting the steps, I realized it was the deputy sheriff, Tomas Jurado, trying to convince someone to run an engine out to Manuelito with him as its passenger.

“You ain’t got that kind of authority, Jurado, so just clear out a’ here ‘fore I get the railroad copper to throw you out.”

“Your railroad copper is probably already too smashed to stand upright.”

“Still won’t get -- who the hell are you, now?” That last was addressed to me by a tallish, corpulent man with a full beard whose shirt ballooned out between his waistcoat and his trousers. He was seated at a roll-top desk behind a waist-high counter.

“I’m United States Marshal Judah Becker.” I was wearing my star, but I opened my badge wallet to show him my appointment certificate. “I hereby invoke Article twenty-nine of the Federal Railroad Charter Act of eighteen sixty-two.”

“And...?” the man sneered. “You can invoke until you’re blue in the face, it don’t cut no ice with me.”

“Mister Dooley,” I began, his name having been supplied by the station-master, “are you refusing my direct order?”

“What order?” he scoffed.

“My order for immediate cooperation under the Railroad Charter Act of eighteen sixty-four as required of an interstate railroad by an authorized federal agent or agency.”

“I never even heard of it. Now go away.”

I turned to Jurado. “Are you the deputy sheriff?”

“That’s right. I heard you got in this morning, Marshal. Reckon you know that Frank’s up north.” Jurado was a couple inches shorter than me, was clean-shaven and looked to be in his late twenties.

“I’ve been informed. But would you do me the favor of taking this man into custody and securing him in the town’s lock-up?”

“Really?”

“Right away. While you do that, I’ll flag down the next train that comes by and we can be on our way to Manuelito.”

“What?” sputtered Dooley.

Jurado said, “There a locomotive with its steam up right here in the yard.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“Now just hold on one damn minute,” Dooley exclaimed, struggling to his feet. “Let me wire Saint Louis, get their okay.”

I said to him, “You can wire whoever you want once you pay your bail. The Charter requires immediate compliance, Mister Dooley, not a vote by your board of directors.” I turned to Jurado. “The charge will be treason. Remind your judge that the required bond is ten thousand dollars. Did you bring leg irons?”

“Hold on a second,” Dooley all but shouted. “What is it exactly that you want?”

“A locomotive to take us to Manuelito, and tout de suite.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Gimme a minute.” Ha walked to a window and shouted, “Ramon, get Carlos, Benito, and Alejandro. Tell ‘em it’s an emergency run, like right now.”

A faint, “Si, Señor Dooley,” could be heard in response.

I said, “Mister Dooley, if you’ll give me the Form twenty-seven-dash-three, I can fill it out right now.”

“Form what?”

“Twenty-seven-dash-three. You want the Atlantic and Pacific to get paid for this, don’t you?”

“I never heard of a Form twenty-seven-dash-three.”

I shook my head, “Well then it’s no wonder you were skeptical.”

Chee arrived at that point. He had a bedroll and two long guns. He said “Bueno, Tomas, good morning Mister Dooley.”

“Are you going along on this, Jace?” Jurado asked.

“I’m sort a’ fillin’ in for Frank with Marshal Becker, here.”

I turned to Chee, my back to Dooley, and I gave him a broad and obvious wink, along with a hidden thumb gesture toward Dooley. Chee gave a quick wink in return.

I said, “Mister Chee, Mister Dooley will need help finding the Form twenty-seven-dash-three if he wants to get paid for our trip. Has Frank ever shown you one? I’d like you to help Mister Dooley look for them while I collect my gear.”

“Frank showed me a bunch of papers, and I remember one had a big Form two-seven then a line and a three. Would that be it? He only had the one and he was using those papers for stove kindling a couple winters ago.”

“That would be it. He needs to find it so I can fill it out.”

Jurado said, “I can help, too. Show us where you keep that sort of stuff, Mister Dooley.”

While Jurado occupied Dooley, I said quietly to Chee, “I fed him a line of horse shit about federal requirements. Just keep him busy looking for that imaginary form and away from the telegraph. I’ll get my gear and be right back.”

“The boarding house backed onto the commercial street along the tracks, so it was only a matter of minutes until I was back. I’d even filled a quart canteen with well water.

Dooley said, “Marshal, I can’t find that form. What’s on it?”

“Let me think. Let’s see, there’s a line for mileage, a list of the rolling stock and their code or serial number, each crew member by position and name and hours on and off duty, uh ... I’m sure there’s more, maybe you can figure that out. Tell you what, just gather any information that you can and I’ll take it with me back to Santa Fe. Oh, that reminds me, put down your own time, too. If you’re too busy to work on it during your normal hours, just do it on your own time and I’ll see if we can have you reimbursed directly. I’ll also send a supply of that form.”

A locomotive and tender, with a caboose attached, pulled up next to the business coach. Dooley grabbed a note pad and said, “There’s your light section. Let me get the identity numbers and you can be on your way.”

As we stepped down from the coach we found ourselves facing the steps to the caboose. A man on that platform said, “Step up her, señores, you can sit down inside.”

Inside the caboose was the layout of a narrow bunkhouse, with an open loft I knew was called a cupola with chairs mounted front and back on both sides. Below, there were four sets of double bunks, a stove, a water basin below a wall-mounted tank with a spigot, and a small closet that held a privy that dummped onto the tracks, just as in passenger coaches. At each corner of the car was a chair that looked forward, or back, through an observation window, a small writing surface in front of each.

“I’m the conductor, Alejandro Peña. Most folks call me Ale (AH-lay). Upstairs,” he tapped on the man’s shoe, “is our brakeman, Ramon Ferrer.” Ferrer gave a casual salute.

I realized Peña had been addressing me and that he likely knew Chee and Jurado. I offered my hand. “I’m Judah Becker, out of Santa Fe.” My marshal’s star was visible, so I didn’t use any formal title.

“Well, make yourself comfortable, Marshal. I plan to use that seat there,” he pointed to the forward right corner seat. “I can see our engineer, Carlos Arranda, from there and I can go wake him up if I see him fall asleep.” He was grinning.

“Oh, good,” I said. “I was afraid I was going to have to do that. Mind if I take a nap on one of these bunks?”

He pointed to a bare ticking mattress. “You can use that one. It’ll be most of an hour to get out there.”

That long?”

He nodded. “It’ll take us fifteen minutes just to turn this beast around and work our way out of the yard. Plus, there’s a through-freight due and we’ll have to wait ‘til it passes.”

“How do you turn it around?”

“There’s a wye spur. The tracks take the shape of the letter Y. We back down one arm, then go forward out the other. What takes time is throwing all the switches and waiting for the crewman who does it.” He hooked a thumb toward Ferrer. “He’s not slow, but the size of this means lots of walking.”

“I nodded. “More time for my nap, then. Gracias, Señor Peña.”