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Four days later, I rode down the main street of
Flagstaff. This wasn't an 'end of the line' town, at least not now, but it
remained a wild and wooly place for young men fairly fresh from the East. The
travelers of the railroad were as varied as the vistas they had seen on their
travels on that road. Miners, lumbermen, cowboys, Europeans, Chinese, English
barons - all were in a hurry to get somewhere, for the boom mentality was on
them. They all thought that if they could hit the right place at the right time,
they would be rich. I suppose they were correct, if they could find that
combination of time and place.
The commodities moving through the streets were just
as varied. Ponderosa pine logs were moving to feed the demand for building
material and mine shoring. Ores of gold and silver traveled under heavy guard.
Copper ore was now the up and coming mining interest, but it lacked the glory of
the more showy metals.
The buildings and businesses were also a sight to see.
Here an elaborate hotel with a huge false front advertised oysters in the dining
room. There a small building made from scraps of wood offered venison and beans.
A rooming house I passed was offering more than that, if I could judge by the
scantily clad ladies looking out a second floor window.
"Hi, Handsome, come on up and have a good
time."
I doffed my hat and smiled up at them but I sped up my
pace a little bit. Somehow I had an urge to check my poke, just to see that it
was still there. Just inside an alley a couple were.... Well, I wasn't sure just
what they were doing. It's not polite to stare so I just got kind of a sideways
glance. Seems like my Pa hadn't told me all the ways of the outside world.
Course, he had probably never run into this activity, either. I made a note to
check it out sometime in the name of science.
"I tell you, I ain't seen lice like this since
the Johnny Rebs had me in prison."
"You know it, Seth. I think I'm going to fumigate
and then move out into the hills. Lot less vermin out there."
This conversation was from two drovers that were just
leaving the hotel that I was headed for. Call me persnickety, but I changed my
mind about entering and decided another night in the woods would suit me just
fine. After all, think of the money I would save.
I had gone back to tracking the 32-20 shooter upon
leaving Kirbyville. There wasn't much to go on for the first day, but then I
found where the man on the big horse had joined him again. They had pulled off
the trail to converse, then traveled to where the big horse was hitched with his
teammate. I had been right. The man was a wagoneer.
Memory of the description of Hazeltine came to mind.
Could this be the same wagon? The one with the removable signboards? I thought
it was likely. Their tracks mingled so much with others on the trail that I
headed north in a straight line. I had been told that anyone traveling in this
area would end up in Flagstaff sooner or later. This sounded like good advice so
here I was, hoping to find a peddler's wagon, as well as a man that shot a
32-20.
A sign advertising "Guns, Ammo, and Fine
Sundries" drew me into a store. I could see the place did carry a good
selection and I asked the clerk, "Do you sell much 32-20 ammo?"
"Yes, it's becoming quite popular with the sheep
men. Shoots a little flatter so they like it to keep the coyotes away. It does a
better job than you might think. A lot of deer are shot with it, and I've even
heard of a couple of bear. Would you like to look at a rifle?"
"No thanks, a friend of mine shoots that caliber
and I thought he might have been through here. It wasn't such a common caliber
where we came from."
"Oh, and where was that?" This fellow was
getting plumb nosy.
"Yonder," I answered with a tip of my head
that might have meant anywhere from across the street to a small European
country. I went on down the street to see what else I might see. There were many
livery stables, so I figured to hit them all.
The first three only catered to one parent company,
but at the next I got the first lead that I was on the right track.
"Yeah, I had a peddler through here two day age.
He left his team overnight. I've seen him before. He said he was involved in a
land development business."
"Do you remember his name?"
"Sure do, he said it was Byrd. Funny, 'cause I
would have sworn it was different on his last trip. Maybe my memory's going
bad."
"Somehow I doubt it. He just has a different name
for every day of the week. You should hear what it is for Saturday."
This added to the difficulty but it was not
insurmountable. Out here, names didn't amount to much. I was almost automatic
for a lot of folks to make up new ones when they moved West, hence the song,
What Was Your Name in the States. Descriptions were much more apt to ring a
bell.
"Do you know where he was headed when he left
here?"
"Nope, he didn't volunteer any information. The
team was out in the street for quite a while, then it was gone."
"Did you see where he went while he was
here?"
"I did notice him going into the assay office.
And it seems like he had his meals at Mrs. Murphy's place down the street."
I thanked him for the information and went off looking
for more. Mrs. Murphy turned out to be a blowsy woman who just loved to talk.
She was also a great baker, and I had two pieces of pie and plenty of coffee
while I got her around to the question at hand.
"Oh, Lord, yes, Mr. Byrd is such a nice man. Has
a good appetite, you know. He is helping the poor farmers from back east move
out here and get a fresh start. Never thinks of himself - just tries to help
others."
I noticed that her walls were covered with the new
fangled wallpaper. I had to look at such things to keep the look of sheer
disbelief from my face. Boy, had this guy ever fed her a line.
When I thought I could keep a straight face I said,
"That's amazing. What does he live on? "
"Oh, he has mining interests. He said he had had
good luck in the past and he would soon be having more with a new prospect south
of here." She lowered her voice conspiratorially even though we were alone
in the room. "He's even going to let me in on the action. When he comes
back I'm going to invest a hundred dollars. Mr. Byrd says it will pay back
forty- to -one. Now wouldn't that be nice?"
"Ah, yeah...yeah, it sure would. Did he say where
he was going? Maybe I could get in on that deal too. I've got a little saved
up."
"You seem like a nice lad. And I could put in a
good word for you. All I know is that he said he had to go a ways east, but he
would be back in a month at the latest. Maybe you should just hang around and
wait for him to come back."
I smiled and shook my head. "Too restless. I'm
sure I'll run into him somewhere."
"Well, good luck to you. And say
"Howdy" for me."
I left the eatery thinking the woman would be lucky if
she didn't lose everything she had. For her sake I hoped I was wrong, but any
man that would set up those poor settlers would certainly think nothing of
taking a widow's savings. Her mention of mining interests sent me to the assay
office.
A small man wearing a visor looked up when I entered.
The room was neat and organized, and this added to the air of competency that
the man gave off.
"Yes, what would you like tested?" He wasn't
trying to hurry me; it was just an attempt to save time.
"Actually I've got a couple of questions."
"Sure, I'll tell you if I know the answer. What
about?"
"Do you know anything about oil? Back home in
Pennsylvania there were some wells that made some money. Or at least they had
speculators investing in them."
"Yes, oil, well, I think it will be one of the
great riches in the future. Even now it's being used more and more in place of
whale oil. I hear whales are getting scarcer and that drives the price up. And
all the young men are coming west. Not many want to go to sea. I don't blame
them.
"Do you know that well refined Pennsylvania oil
has sold for over a dollar a gallon in Chicago and New York? Well, it has, and I
expect its use to increase as the railroads start hauling it all over the
country.
"Why do your ask? Did you find some? Not down on
the Navajo land, was it?"
"Well, it was pretty close to it. I take it you
know about that area."
"Oh yes, It's fairly common knowledge in the
trade, but unless you can convince the Indians to drill for it then it will stay
in the ground. If anyone went ahead and sunk a well on the reservation land he
would probably start a war."
"What would happen then?" I remembered the
murdered brave. Somebody was trying to start a war.
"Our side would win, just because we have more
people and arms. Throw in the southerners and we can out-breed them. After that
the laws would be so tangled up that wells could probably be run for a long
time. But it wouldn't be worth it. Who's to say which one of us would die in the
war? There is still plenty of gold and silver out there. Go find some of
that."
"I wasn't interested for myself. I have reason to
believe that at least one man is planning on starting that very war."
His eyes widened with sudden comprehension. "It's
Byrd, isn't it? He's been asking a lot of questions, but always skirting the
location of the oil he's found. He hasn't staked any land either. That tells me
that wherever he wants to drill is not open for it. The Navajo land is the only
area like that I can think of."
He sized me up for a second and then motioned me over
to a map table. There he rolled out a section that covered the whole Navajo wash
area. "This is the area in question, right? Who else would benefit from
boundary changes? Figure that out and you could defuse the situation. Somebody
should."
He was right. Somebody should. I supposed I was the
most likely to do it, although I was not a lawman. I kept telling myself I was a
gunfighter, but that voice was growing steadily weaker. Anyway, I was liable to
get into some shooting if I tried to stop these men. Wasn't that what I had
dreamed of? Putting my skills to work for a good cause? Here was the chance.
The assayer had asked who else would benefit from the
scam. The one person that came to mind was the one I had been so sure of, the
one that had convinced me he was only trying to hold onto what was his own. That
person was Ben Drisco.
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