Lucky Billy
Page 5
Before I came to this place two men highly regarded by the citizens, Robert Casey and Juan Patrón (one of the best educated Mexicans I have met, he is quite intelligent & appears to have good principles) were shot and Casey killed, after they had become outspoken in political meetings against "the House." Patrón was wounded and crippled for life, he was shot through the back about ½ an inch to the left of the spine, in about the hollow of the back the bullet was taken out from just under the skin of his stomach, & strange to say he survived it, though it seems to have touched the nerves that command his left leg, he has very little control over it, this is the only ill-effect he feels from it & at the time he was shot, he thought he was shot in the leg & not the back, is not that odd?
To the House's dismay they caught the man who shot them, William Wilson, & By Jove! you would like this story if I could just build a fire and dry the ground for you to sit on and tell it by starlight in the wilderness of New Mexico. William Wilson, if you please, had to be hung twice, they hung him for 9 minutes, put him in a coffin, & a Mexican woman lifted the lid & said he was alive! Lawrence Murphy of the House said he'd been legally hung, they had to let him go, but he couldn't prevent the townsfolk from dragging Wilson from the coffin & hanging him again.
Had I money enough to carry out my land and cattle scheme I could obtain a purchase to break their Irish stranglehold on commerce in this place. You haven't told me yet when your first remittance will come, but I want it very badly & in fact, the whole amount. It would ease my mind & facilitate the working of things enormously; I can't explain to you, or express to you the strain all this is on me, I feel like a man on a runaway horse, new dangers appear almost at every stride. I sit & think for an hour or two & get up weary with the tension; & my only consolation is that I am all right at present & the scheme not spoiled yet. If you have not sent me the money send it at once on receipt of this, send me the £3200 in drafts of £500 apiece (of course one would have to be for £700) as fast as you conveniently can, then if you think you can let me have £2000 more, write & let me know.
You see I am unable to lay a scheme before you until it is perfected throughout, & in the interim I have nothing to do but bite my nails & fret at the slow flight of time, if you send me the money that I have written for, you will see that I shall invest it in a way that will secure your interest in every shape. Now I think that I have unburdened my mind, which acts as a sort of safety valve to my sanity, I need not repeat the oft told tale of the love I bear you, so I will simply say that I remain as ever, your affectionate son,
John
Lincoln, New Mexico
11th April, 1877
7 Belsize Terrace
Hampstead,
London, England
Much Beloved Parents,
The game is going marvelously well so far, I keep on making my points, but there are some that can't be made without money & ready money. Now as regards safety, I am going to execute a small deed & give it into the safe keeping of Dick Brewer, to be opened in case of any accident happening to me & it will be appointing R. A. Widenmann & A. A. McSween as trustees of my property until you could get over here. I shall have the finest property I have seen since I have been in the United States. To hold unsurveyed land is a sort of game of "bluff" (Poker) I am willing to undertake, I could run a herd of cattle upon it & call all the best locations "camps" & have men in my employ to represent that they owned them & I should then have force enough to carry out any intentions I might have in regard to them. To run a small herd of cattle will cost as much as it would to run one twice or three times as large, for one needs a cook, if one has but two herders, a stable, a mowing machine, a wagon, a work team, a couple of houses, a cattle corral, camp cooking outfits for the ranch & road, a barn &c &c which cost just as much for the running of 200 as for 1000 head of stock. So you see that the more cattle a man has, the more economically they can be worked. The property I have my closest eye upon you could recover every cent out of in the event of my death that it will cost; & more too; & in my safe I shall always keep full particulars, both of the property acquired & speculations gone into.
Dick Brewer has got over his smallpox & is well & hearty. I am as well as ever. Brewer's father & mother have gone back to Wisconsin so this is a Bachelor's hall, there is nothing very polished about it, but the welcome is as hearty as it can be. You may be interested in knowing that I go by the name of "The Englishman" as a general thing & they say to Dick from time to time, "Confound that Englishman, what is he going to do in this country anyhow?" These are the reported comments of the "House," which Murphy and Dolan are said to make. McSween calls them "Irish scum" but I say tut-tut and tighten his leash.
You are right in supposing that McSween is to be instrumental in working my points & you can take my word for it that my arrangements with him are such as will be the most likely to bring everything out as I wish it. I have all the confidence in him that is necessary, in so important an affair, but nevertheless I never give a chance away or have a corner out of which he could make a cent out of me against my will.
Dear Darling, Much Beloved Sister Lilian, when I read the Dear kind words you wrote to me, I thought I had never wished to go home as much before. I saw a grand, great, bald headed eagle, sailing & sailing & sailing round in the sky, above my head; I looked up with my eyes full of tears, & thought, "if only I had that eagle's great, strong wings, how swiftly I would fly across the land & the sea, & how straight I would go, to my Dear Old Sister" then I thought how I should kiss & hug you, till I thought there would be nothing left of you, for I could never make you know how much I love my Dear Little Sisters. I love you all the time till my left leg nearly breaks. I never think of being happy unless I think of my Pets; & whenever I am happy, I am sorry that you cant share whatever it is that is making me so, whether it is the "drumstick" of some old turkey "gobbler" or a ride on a fine clay under a blue sky, & a shining sun. I sometimes dream that I see you all, & I wake up so happy that I nearly cry.
And Dear Darling Mother, don't imagine that I am overcome, from morning till night, with a sense of lonely-ness & depression, or that what seem hardships to you are any inconveniences to me, for that is not the case; my heart always feels as light as a feather; ambition will help a man to disregard the present entirely, & if you could see me building a fire in a camp under the star spangled (not banner, of Uncle Sam) but vault of heaven, you would probably hear me whistling at the same time (the nearest I could get with my unmusical mouth) "I wish I had a fish with a great long tail" & if the matches would not strike & I had to do without the "lambent flame," the expression my "fiz" (physiognomy) would wear, would be far more indicative of wrath at the trouble, than sadness. If I could explain my plans for making money to you, Mother, it would sound like a sort of fairy tale; I have kept up a "terrible thinking" (like that speechless parrot) all the time, to puzzle, & twist, & turn & patch, & alter my scheme until I have made it fit my requirements, but I believe that if I had the money I want (I can make do with £3200 this year, but could do much more with £5200) you would be astonished at the result.
My health is splendid; nothing seems to hurt me. Smallpox, I guess, hates the sight of me; I sleep every night like a sack & snore & snort like a "grampus" from 9 pm until 5 am. Widenmann does not sleep very well & is I think a musician (although I am not much of a judge of that class of stock) & lies in bed & listens to my solos on the "base vile" until he can't stand it any longer, he then punches me in the ribs or anywhere else that comes handy & tells me he wants to go to sleep, "All right, old fellow, it's a free country, go ahead" I tell him & turn over & pitch it a key lower down, in the morning he blows up about it the way I treat him, but I tell him "I have only got his word for it, as I did not remember waking up after I said goodnight." "Well then, Harry, you're a confounded Galloot" he says & we change the subject. He calls me Harry under the misapprehension that you also know me by my middle name, how he came by this chimerical fancy I haven't the least notio
n. This is Sunday, Dick Brewer and Widenmann are off on a bear hunt & Widenmann has taken my rifle. God bless you all, my darling darling Pets! Good night!
John
Lincoln, New Mexico
14th May, 1877
7 Belsize Terrace
Hampstead,
London, England
My Most Beloved Father,
I can't begin to express my appreciation of your generosity. My present exchequer at last is adequate to the task of all my schemes of which you shall have the latest and most surprising news. If things turn out exactly as I expect at the end of the first year, & you could spare more capital, £2500 more capital would nearly double the amount of the profit, but I consider the amount that I have received is as much as one ought to put into stock to start with, an addition the next year would be all right though.
I am now going to introduce you to my latest scheme for making money, it is a little new to you so open all your ears; & before I start let me tell you that it has been long studied & has my full endorsement. First of all, let me tell you that groceries in this country realise a profit of 50 percent on the return & they are a cash article; in the second place there are two cash customers for four staple items in this country, viz., the Indian department, & the Army, & the articles they buy are corn, hay, flour, & beef. In the third place, the Mexican is essentially a "borrowing" animal, if anyone will lend he can't help borrowing, any more than the needle can help turning to the pole; but unlike most borrowers, he pays willingly as soon as it is in his power. Fourthly this country is so far away from any other (I mean this district) that produce raised here is protected from foreign produce by a tariff of 1½ cents per pound (for it costs 1½ cents per pound for wagon freight from any other produce market). Fifth this district is not large & one can arrive at within a few lbs. of the amount of grain that will be required by the whole community or any member of it. Now the question arises, out of the existing circumstances & with these ascertained points, what scheme, if practicable, would catch the ready money of the Indian department, & the Army, & avoid the dangers of too many debtors among a needy & improvident class?
The first part of the question is simple to answer; by having hay, beef, corn, or flour raised within the district, Uncle Sam is compelled to patrónise you & pour his almighty dollars into your cap. The answer to the second is simple likewise. Don't credit the poor shiftless wretches with what they can't pay. Now, you see we know what we want to do; we are like the wise men whom Columbus told to balance the egg. The solution I think you will agree is found in the following problem. Tunstall opens a grocery store, Mexican applies for groceries; T. supplies him with groceries in return for promisory notes to deliver x lbs. of grain to his store of fair merchantable quality, upon the 20th day of August, T. having ascertained beyond doubt that the crop planted by M. will (when gathered) equal x. The same problem can be solved in the same way on the flour question. By this means T. can acquire a controlling interest in both these articles. The question then arises, is T. sure to get the contracts? perhaps he may not, but whoever does, must come to T. to buy, or get "bust," including Murphy and Dolan and their "I louse."
"But (I hear you say) this is not going into a ranch business at all. We don't see what all this means." Just you hold on for a spell till I "shpit on me hands" as Pat said. You see the Mexicans would bring their steers, cows, calves, yearlings, & year-olds, ranches &c &c to trade for groceries just as sure as anyone would sell to them that way. Now you see I would sell for any good property they brought. This is how the "House" does it. If their title was good, I would take their ranch as payment & let it; it would be splendid property to hold.
This country is different to any other & if a man is somewhat supple & can accommodate himself to circumstances he can make far more than if he tried to run his affairs just as he would, or could, in an old country. All the fixtures necessary to run my store will be a desk, a scale, & a safe, & I should need all of these if I had nothing but a cattle ranch. My most earnest desire is for success & more on account of my sisters my Pets than for myself; for if I can but win I would be content to cast the fruits of my success at their feet, knowing that I had won the means of smoothing away a vast proportion of the rocks in their path & given them the means of beautifying their lives & I could retire from the scene without a sigh.
You see what I drive at. The ranch scheme and the store scheme are interchangeable. Certain ranches if controlled would control the price of grain & in this country it is more easy to corner the market than in any other part of America. Now to make things stick "to do any good," it is necessary to either get into a ring or to make one out for yourself. Everything in New Mexico, that pays at all (you may say) is worked by a "ring," there is the "Indian ring," the "army ring," "the political ring," the "legal ring," the "Roman Catholic ring," the "cattle ring," the "horsethieves ring," the "land ring" and half a dozen other rings including Murphy and Dolan's "Irish ring," but theirs is on shaky legs. I have it on good authority that they are close to ruin. My ring is forming itself as fast & faster than I had ever hoped & in such a way that I now possess nearly 400 cattle and 4,000 acres, the finest plum of the lot as to ranches hereabouts. To which the addition of a store will present a formidable aspect and make every Mexican now beholden to the "House" stiffen & roach his back like a mule & buck through the ring that is using him & into mine instead. McSween and Widenmann, of course, are my principal allies but in the matter of daily operations, the machinery of the business, which necessitates taking the bit between one's teeth, Dick Brewer has agreed to be my foreman, & his talents are such that he attracts the best "hands." They work for him and thereby work for me. I propose to confine my operations to Lincoln County, but I intend to handle it in such a way as to get the half of every dollar that is made in the county by anyone; & with our means we could get things into that shape in three years if we only used two thirds of our capital in the undertaking.
The land scheme will take, as I have told you, £3200 from first to last. The payments have already commenced & will continue to have to be paid until about next Deer. Or Jany. After which there will be only a small payment left to be made about 12 months after that. If these kind of little outlays run me close you must strain every point to keep me supplied as I intend to work things in such a shape (unless my luck leaves me altogether) that I win the game. There is no speculation about it, & nothing that you can't wash your hands quite clean of in a moment, if you desire it.
Please hug for me my Much Beloved Trinity. Yours as ever,
Most Affectionately,
John
Lincoln, New Mexico
12/77
7 Belsize Terrace
Hampstead,
London, England
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Tunstall,
Your son John is away and is not able to write to you this mail, but is, as he says, "alive and well" after the "rustling" of his horses. He will doubtless send you his letter shortly.
Yours sincerely,
Robert A. Widenmann
P.S. We have been in great trouble but it is now all over.
Lincoln, New Mexico
6th December, 1877
7 Belsize Terrace
Hampstead,
London, England
My Dear Father,
I have had to expose myself a great deal in raking over the country, on expeditions arising out of all that has happened, when I was by no means in a fit state to go; I feel pretty badly used up just now. I don't know whether (like the horses) I shall be able to get on my pins as soon as the new grass comes. When a fellow has to go through what I have clone in the last 4 months, & just has sand enough left to play the last card, & wins the odd trick; I can assure you that until the excitement of the next rubber moves him, he feels more like a dead man than a live one; I hardly like to write it, but I feel awfully used up.