Chapter 16

Riding up the slope to the Hacienda I was disappointed that I didn’t get to see the expression on the Kennedys’ faces. My disappointment was forgotten a moment later when Steve stepped out of the courtyard door to welcome us back.

After a quick handshake and backslap of welcome, we joined the rest of the men in unloading the boot of the coach and carrying the luggage inside. Carla, after a quick discussion with Anna, ushered the Kennedys and Tom’s father inside to show them their rooms. Beth took the children and babies upstairs to begin sorting out the luggage and let the babies get some much-needed rest.

Steve followed us inside, fairly bubbling with excitement and began telling us about his trip. Anna stopped him before he’d said two words.

“Steve, we’re just as excited to hear about your trip as you are to tell us about it, but we’re going to have to hold it for now. We have visitors, the Kennedy ladies, who we’re not sure of, so please try to contain yourself until we can meet in the den behind closed doors.”

Clearly disappointed, but understanding, Steve nodded his head and ducked into the den while the rest of us retired to our bedrooms to freshen up. Both Anna and I decided that a shower was in order after almost three days without one. While playing was definitely on our minds, we decided to forgo the pleasure until some other time. Anna went first, while I shaved, and somehow was already dressed and downstairs when I finished my shower and returned to the bedroom.

Downstairs, I found Steve, Anna, Tom, and Yolanda, relaxing in the den with George and Celia. Closing and barring the door, I sat down and poured myself a cup of coffee.

“Where’re our guests?” I asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“I had Carla give them a quick lunch of sandwiches, which they were eating when I came downstairs. I managed to convince them and Tom’s dad to take a wagon tour of the Estancia with Maco this afternoon,” Anna said, a small smile playing around the edges of her mouth. “They just left.”

“Well done, my love,” I said, clapping my hands together and rubbing them as I turned excitedly to Steve. “So, tell us everything. Where you went, who you saw, and what the results were!”

“Paul, I’d need two full days to explain everything in detail, so I’ll just hit the highlights. That ought to keep us busy until the Kennedys get back. You’re going to have to fill me in on what’s going on with them some time as well.”

I waved at Tom, indicating it was his story to tell.

“To keep it short, my father has fallen in love with the elder Kennedy and vice versa from what I can tell. The problem is that the younger sisters act like gold diggers and it’s their mother’s doing,” Tom said. “We could be wrong, of course, but we’re leery of them until we understand their real motives. The fact that all three are very strong-willed doesn’t help and, in fact, their very presence in a group of people seems to be divisive.”

“Anna and I will handle them, Steve,” Yolanda said, patting Tom’s hand. You just need to be aware we’re all still undecided about their presence here.”

“I see,” Steve replied slowly. “Well, in that case, I’ll try to be circumspect in what I discuss with you all where they could hear. Now then, are you ready for my report?”

Steve smiled at the chorus of ‘yes’ and held up his hands to quiet everyone down.

“All right then. When I left here after George and Celia’s wedding we went to Santa Fe for a few days before traveling on to Chicago. The trip from Santa Fe to Independence was one long miserable trip by horseback. I’d forgotten how miserable it could be. It was also the single longest part of the trip, time-wise. Anyway, from Independence we traveled by steamship to St Louis and from there by train to Chicago.

“In Chicago, I met with George Pullman who was happy to sign our contract to make the four deluxe touring cars you want. He readily agreed to the delivery schedule and to use your overall design of a parlor, dining area, four small sleeping rooms with pull-down beds, and a small kitchen in each car. As you warned, Paul, he was disappointed to learn that we had our own staff and neither needed nor wanted him to supply them. He even tried to reduce the price if we contracted with him to supply the staff. In the end, he agreed to everything we wanted, and it was below your estimated price.

“After three days in Chicago, we took a train to Albany,” he said while making a face of dissatisfaction. “That makes it sound like we got on a train and rode it the entire way to Albany. Nothing could be further from the truth. While we paid a single fare at the train station in Chicago, we each got a whole pad of tickets, each ticket for a different train. We ended up changing trains and railroad lines eight different times between Chicago and Albany. If the security teams hadn’t been keeping a watch on my luggage and the porters, I’d have lost my luggage in Cleveland Ohio. But the speed! Oh, my word, over eight hundred miles in seven days. Imagine going twenty miles an hour, sometimes even faster, for hours on end. There were plenty of boring waiting time at the different stations where we had to change trains but still, seven days!

“I stayed in Albany for a few days and met with Erastus Corning, the President of the New York Central Railroad who was only too happy to spend an afternoon giving me tips about running a railroad as well as supplier recommendations for almost anything you can think of associated with a railroad. An afternoon with him and we were ready for a trip to Utica, which we did by horse.

“We stayed at Bagg’s Tavern in Utica while we were there, and I must tell you that the service is excellent. Anyway, it took me a few days to track down Jesse Williams and, again, he was only too happy to show me his cheese-making operation, once he found out we wanted to duplicate it here in the territory. I spent the night with him and his charming family, leaving the next morning for Albany with all the contacts we need to order the equipment and supplies you need to start an operation here.

“Once I got back to Albany, I rested for a couple of days and then we caught a steamship to New York City. After an exchange of messages, I met with Ebenezer Starr down in Yonkers about the revolvers you wanted. He was surprised that you wanted so many and upset that you didn’t want them as built. He quickly calmed down when he looked at the drawings you made, Paul. He looked at them for almost an hour, digging out pen and paper and doing a bunch of calculations I couldn’t begin to follow, but in the end, he was happy and agreed to both the price we offered and the schedule I sent you in the letter.

“From New York, we took a train to Philadelphia via Johnstown. In Johnstown, I met with John Fritz at the Cambria Iron Company. When I asked about buying a copy of his three high rail mills for use here, and the engineers to put it together, he was tickled. The parts I sent with my letter are a complete spare set of the first half of the process he had sitting in the big production building.

“I passed the other half of the equipment and the engineers in Independence on my way back. They had a problem with the freight wagons they’d originally hired and were working with another freight hauler to get them at least as far as Santa Fe, if not Pinos Altos. I expect to hear something from them in the next three or four weeks.

“John Fritz introduced me to the President of Cambria, and we eventually finalized a deal for four hundred miles of rail track and a like amount of two-inch pipe with connectors. The first shipment of sixty miles of track and pipe should be arriving next June with an additional delivery of sixty miles of track and pipe every other month after that.

“In Philadelphia, I spent a couple of days with the folks at Baldwin going over our requirements for the three steam engines, one of which was more than half-built. They balked at guaranteeing that all three would be exactly alike but eventually agreed. I think it was the thought of building three water cars to your design that won them over in the end. They really liked the idea of a vulcanized rubber fitting for the water intake on the engine and it was a done deal after we met with Charles Goodyear.

“Goodyear liked the idea of rubberizing telegraph cables but said vulcanization wasn’t the answer we needed. He directed me to a cousin, up in New Haven, who had developed something called Kerite insulation, that would work much better for what we wanted to do. He was nice enough to write a letter of introduction for me when I told him I’d be visiting New Haven and would pay a call on his cousin.

“I let Baldwin and his folks talk me into delaying delivery of the first engine and water car until June, the year after next, that’s 1859. They wanted to test the water car and vulcanized rubber fittings as their excuse, but I think they were worried about documenting the engine they almost had completed to a level of detail that they could make two more just like it.

“From there, I spent another week haggling with William Allison at Junction Car Works hammering out a contract for them to build the rest of the rolling stock you wanted. They finally agreed to twelve hopper cars, thirty freight cars, thirty cattle cars, fifteen-second class passenger cars, and six first-class passenger cars. Again, they agreed to use your specifications, Paul, but the price ended up higher than we expected and offset the savings we had from the Pullman contract. They also agreed to deliver the cars in three annual increments with one-third of each type of car delivered each year starting in June 1859.

“Three weeks in Philadelphia was about all I could take, and I was glad to leave it behind. It was too much like New York City. How anyone can live in such a small area with so many other people is a mystery to me, but they seem to enjoy it.

“Anyway, we traveled to New Haven Connecticut by train, a trip requiring even more train and line changes than the one from Chicago to Albany did. By the time I got to New Haven, it was near the end of July and I was beginning to worry about having to travel through the plains in the middle of winter. My worries were unfounded, as you’ve no doubt surmised since I’m here now.

“I met with Benjamin Henry at the New Haven Arms Company and, like the others, he was only too happy to sell us his new repeating rifles. He was a little reluctant to add the short wooden forestock since it was, to him, an unnecessary added cost. I did what you said Paul and asked him how he expected people in the west to hold the bare metal rifle barrel in the summer when the temperature was over 100 degrees. He finally relented and sold me half of the fifty rifles he had on hand as well as half the ammunition he had on hand. He let slip that neither the War Department or the Navy Department were interested in the rifles and he was beginning to lose hope. I did have to wait a week for the fore stocks to be made and added to the twenty-five rifles I shipped you.

“During that week of waiting, I met with Austin Goodyear Day, AG for short, who is Charles Goodyear’s cousin. Getting an appointment with him was a trial until I remembered the letter of introduction. That letter got me in to see AG almost immediately. When I explained what you wanted to do, and that his cousin Charles had recommended Kerite instead of vulcanized rubber, he was eager to help us out despite his busy schedule. Since he originally developed Kerite for underwater telegraph cables he already had a supplier of wire. You can expect the first delivery of Kerite insulated wire in the spring of next year as soon as this winter’s weather breaks. He guaranteed delivery of 100 miles of insulated wire every other month beginning next June but I had to contract for a total of 1000 miles of it before he’d sign the contract.

“With everything on my list accomplished, we headed for home. The train ride back to St Louis was even longer, more boring, and tedious than the trip out. The steamship from St Louis to Independence was too short as far as I was concerned, although I was glad to be back on horseback - for the first few days out of Independence at least. After that, I was wishing for the train again. We finally made it back to Santa Fe near the end of September. After a couple of days relaxing in Santa Fe, we left for the Hacienda, arriving a few days ago,” he ended with a flourish.

“All I can say is, wow!” I said. “That’s some traveling you did and trying to wrap my head around all the work you did is going to take a few days. I’m going to need to sit and talk with you while I try to update all the timelines with this new information.”

“Oh, the various contracts, expense receipts, and a letter from the Judge are in my satchel,” Steve said, waving away my comments and pointing to his over-stuffed satchel bulging with papers lying on my desk. “I’ll want the satchel back when you’ve emptied it,” he added grinning. “You’ll want to read all those things carefully before updating the timelines.”

Ignoring the satchel for the time being, we spent the next two hours giving Steve a rundown of all of our activities since he’d been gone. When we were done with that, Anna suggested we move into the living room so that she and Yolanda could warn the others, as they came in, about our guests.

Dinner was a tense affair, at least among the adults, as no one in the Hacienda was sure of our guests after Anna and Yolanda’s warnings. The children, however, more than made up for the adults with their never-ending questions, stories about school, and verbal sparring about almost any subject under the sun. Surprisingly, it was the children talking in various languages that brought life to the faces of the Kennedy twins, and a twinkle of intelligence to their previously dull eyes.

It turned out that the twins had specialized in English and other languages at college. Between them, they were fluent in eight languages besides English. They both were fluent in English, French, and German, while Faith was also fluent in Florentine Italian, and Greek. Hope, on the other hand, was also fluent in Swedish and Russian. Their fascination with the children fluently speaking English, Spanish, Apache, Latin, Florentine Italian, and German was complete, showing us all a side of them that we’d not seen before.

Little Mike was completely taken with the twins and was ready for them to start teaching him all the languages they knew the next day at school. The twins were likewise taken with Mike and were just about ready to agree to teach him, but stopped short, realizing what a commitment they were about to make. Instead, they simply told Mike that they’d be happy to teach him after his school day if he really wanted to learn for as long as their visit lasted.

Dinner over, we all moved to the living room where Anna brought me my guitar.

“I know you’re tired but please play us a song or two,” she asked sweetly.

Taking the guitar, I sat down next to her, and asked, “What kind of song would you like to hear tonight?”

“Why, a happy love song of course. Make us all forget about any troubles we might have,” she answered mischievously.

Two songs popped into my head and I before I realized it, I was playing ‘Blue Skies’. I followed that with ‘I Love You Because’, singing it directly to Anna. By the time I was done, her eyes were brimming with happiness, and a twinkle that let me know she felt the same way.

“That’s enough for tonight,” I said, putting the guitar down and cuddling Anna under my arm as I leaned back into the chair.

“All right,” she murmured, “but tomorrow night you’ll play the piano for us?”

“Of course, my love,” I answered softly. “You know I can’t refuse you anything.”

We hadn’t been paying attention to anyone else, so it came as a surprise when Tom gave me a light slap on the back of my head.

“Stop with the mushy stuff already,” he said in a mock angry voice. “You’re making the rest of us look bad. Again!”

“Yes dear,” I replied in the drollest voice I could come up with while Anna was in my arms.

It must have worked because the hint of tension that had been hanging over the Hacienda since our arrival seemed to disappear and we settled into pleasant conversation for the rest of the evening.

I was in the den the next morning when Tom, Kit, George, and Steve came in, closing the door behind them, and taking seats in the sitting area. I was so absorbed in thought about what I’d just read in the Judge’s letter that I didn’t even notice they were there until Tom cleared his throat.

“What’s got you so deep in thought, Paul?” Kit asked.

“The letter Steve brought with him from the Judge and another one I just received from Mick,” I said, picking the letters up and waving it in their direction. “The Judge’s letter is a mix of good, indifferent, and bad news, which isn’t so unusual, but when I combine his indifferent and bad news with the letter from Mick about Alex Grey, and what we suspect about Mesilla and Tucson, it becomes downright terrifying,” I said, slapping the letter back down in frustration.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about, Paul,” George said. “Maybe if you walk us through the letter and your suspicions it will crystallize your thoughts and clue us in at the same time.”

Staring at the letters a moment longer, I looked up at the four men sitting in front of me. “That might help. Tell you what though, let’s bring the ladies in as well. They always seem to bring a different perspective that adds clarity. Besides, we’re each going to tell our respective lady everything we talk about anyway, so we might as well let them have it first-hand.”

Tom jumped up from his chair and was out the door before I’d even finished expressing the thought. Less than five minutes later, Anna, bearing a coffee service, led the ladies into the room followed by Tom. Tom closed and barred the door, while the ladies sat next to their husbands, and everyone settled in comfortably.

“I was reading the latest letter from the Judge a few minutes ago and a letter I just got from Mick,” I began. “The letters themselves are unremarkable. There’s nothing earth-shattering in either one, but together, they both started me thinking. My thinking led me to try to combine puzzle pieces. I don’t like the picture the puzzle pieces are showing me.

“Kit suggested I go through all the information we have so far and give you my thoughts on how I see the puzzle pieces coming together. I guess what I want is for each of you to examine the pieces, and determine if the picture you see developing from them is the same one I see.”

I stopped, looking around the room to judge their reaction. Seeing nothing but interest and concern, I continued. “First, let me recap what we’ve experienced ourselves. First, there’s ‘the Boss’, described as a short, thin, blonde-haired man. A dapper dresser with a penchant for wearing a strange round hat, who might, or might not, live in Santa Fe. He’s attempted to kill me many times over the last six years, but only one man, in over a hundred he’s sent, ever met him, and that appears to have been by accident. He seems to prefer to stay in the background, hiring his thugs through a middleman.

“We have a vague description of the middleman, which may or may not be accurate, of a younger, trim man of average height, often drunk, who works as a functionary of some kind for the Territorial Government in Santa Fe.

“Through this middleman, ‘the Boss’ has managed to set up organizations in both Santa Fe and Mesilla. We’ve managed to significantly reduce the organization in Mesilla, but that’s mostly through catching various illegal activities and linking them to others. We have no idea of the extent of the organization in Santa Fe.

“Two things about what ‘the Boss’ has been doing have struck me as unusual. Looking back, it seems to me that with every failure, he responds by escalating the level of violence in his next attempt. That escalation was against me personally at first but eventually broadened to include Anna, her family, our friends, and now our business interests to include our employees. To me, this means that I’ve become a threat to him for some reason. An extremely personal threat. Why, I don’t know. For all the men we’ve killed or arrested, it doesn’t seem that we’ve hindered his activities all that much.

“The other unusual thing is that he switched from directly paying the killers he sent after me to paying them indirectly.”

I stopped, seeing the look of confusion on everyone’s face, including Anna. Frustrated at my inability to articulate my thoughts on this, I took a minute to figure out the best way to present what I was trying to get across, before continuing.

“The first few times I was attacked were in and around Santa Fe. All of the attackers were carrying a little more money than what an average man would be carrying, but it wasn’t beyond what someone might have. The same held true for the men who attacked me in Las Cruces and almost killed me here before the Hacienda was built. The lack of money and what they all said before they died, tells me that all of those men were part of the Santa Fe operation set up by ‘the Boss’. An operation where his gang members were paid a regular wage by ‘the Boss’.

“The next few times ‘the Boss’ sent men after me, he used professional gun hands, and paid them up front with large amounts of money and promised a bounty on top of that when they brought back proof that I was dead. That seemed to have ended when we killed those six on our wedding day.

“Then he started using the Comancheros, led by Flatnose, but he wasn’t paying them. In fact, he was a partner with the Comancheros. Yes, he was offering a bounty for me, but there was no up front payment. When they attacked the Hacienda last year, there was no direct payment from ‘the Boss’. According to Flatnose, his pay for killing me was being able to pillage the Estancia of anything and anyone he wanted.”

“The attacks since then, follow the same pattern. Hard men, in small groups, who set up ambushes for anyone who represents me or our businesses. The Estancia and the mine have both been targeted, and people have been killed. None of the ambushers were carrying much money. This all tells me that ‘the Boss’ was either running out of ready cash or had other, higher priority things he needed his money for.

“Whichever it was, it now seems ‘the Boss’ has money again because he’s switched back to paying his gang, or gangs, a regular wage. I say this because of the attacks on the rail bed. According to the last two letters from the Judge, the rail bed near Santa Fe continues to be attacked by small groups of men riding shod horses. The tracks from the site of each attack disappear either on the road near Santa Fe or on hardpan near the attack site. The attacks are tapering off because of the weather but they still continue. In no instance have the rail bed workers been attacked directly.

“All this leads me to believe that ‘the Boss’ is rebuilding his gang in Santa Fe after having lost most of them when he sent them south to build an organization in Mesilla and attack us on the Estancia. It also tells me that he is still short on money to the point that he can’t hire more men, otherwise we’d have seen more attacks on the rail bed and on our workers.