Michener, James A. (145 page)

Rusk argued: if they have railroads in Kansas, won't we have them soon in Texas? Then our cattle won't have to trail hundreds of miles. They'll ride straight through to Chicago.'

Poteet laughed: 'You ever followed the history of railroads in Texas? "Give us five thousand dollars and we'll have a train at your town in seven months." Fifty railroads have been organized that way, and not one of them has seen an engine on its tracks, and most of them haven't seen the tracks.' He studied the bleak land that encompassed Fort Garner and said sardonically: 'You may get trains here about 19 and 81, if then.' And he warned Rusk not to experiment with strange bulls: 'You'll produce an animal that can't trail to market, and I won't try to drove such weaklings north.'

Rusk's own foreman, Frank Yeager, was displeased when Rusk, ignoring all advice, purchased two Hereford bulls from a breeder in Missouri, who told him: 'Great idea, Rusk! Your Longhorn from Texas is an authentic breed, just like my Hereford from England. Your strong cows and my fat bulls will produce a majestic animal,' and when Earnshaw received the bill of sale he noticed that it showed the name of his cattle with a capital L, just as if they had been Black Angus. But when the bulls arrived at Fort Garner, Yeager almost refused to unload them when they arrived by wagon from Jacksborough, but Earnshaw enlisted support from his wife: 'Emma, thy bulls are here and Frank is proving difficult.'

'I didn't order them,' she pointed out, but he pleaded: 'They're thine now. Please help.' So she relented and persuaded Yeager to unload the beasts, but when he saw how fat they were, how listless compared to the rangy Longhorn bull that he preferred, Mean Moses, he refused to deal with them and left that job to the two black cavalrymen and the white infantryman.

But now a problem in ranch management arose, one that was beginning to perplex the entire frontier. Because the imported bulls were so valuable, they had to be grazed in a pasture from which they could not stray. This would have been a simple problem in Missouri, where there were ample oak trees for fence posts and soft soil in which to place them. But in this part of Texas there were almost no trees stout enough to yield wooden posts and split rails, and when they were imported, at prohibitive cost, it was almost impossible to dig post holes in the hard-baked, rocky earth. After many disappointments, Yeager growled: if you want to fence in those precious bulls of yours, you've got to buy posts from East Texas.' So a few cartloads were imported at a cost that frightened Earnshaw.

The pastures in which they kept the two bulls were so small that the animals grew fatter and fatter for lack of exercise, and it was Yeager's opinion that if he put half a dozen strong Longhorn cows in with each bull, 'them Longhorn ladies'U chew them dumplin's up.' In this he was wrong; Hereford bull and Longhorn cow mated

well, and began to produce stout, reddish-colored calves of great attractiveness and commercial promise, but this merely aggravated the problem, for now more fences were required to keep the more valuable offspring protected. Every time one of the imported bulls produced another calf—and there were now hundreds of such potent sires on the Western ranches—the Texas frontier was threatened a little more, for when a Longhorn worth only five dollars was replaced by an imported beast worth forty, procedures had to change, and Rusk was continually saying: 'We must have more fences.'

In the early 1880s one of the most revolutionary forces in American history appeared in West Texas, a brash young man of such explosive enthusiasm that ten minutes' talk with him was bound to produce visions. He was Alonzo Betz, thirty-two years old, out of a place called Eureka, Illinois. He wore a bizarre mixture of clothing, half dude-Chicago, half rural-Texas, and he chattered like a Gatling gun: 'Folks, I bring a solution to your problems. I come like Aaron leading you to the promised land.' None of his listeners could figure out how Aaron got into the picture, but Alonzo gave them scant time for such reflection.

He talked with his hands, drawing vast imaginary pictures, and as he warmed to his subject, he liked to pull his purple tie loose as if its tightness had impeded his words: 'Folks, right there is the answer to your worries. I bring you the future.'

What he brought was one of those inventions like the cotton gin which modify history, and as soon as he revealed it on the former parade ground at Fort Garner, Earnshaw Rusk appreciated its applications: 'This here we call the barbed-wire fence, because at intervals along it, as you can see, our patented machine twists in a very sharp, pointed barb. We also provide you with a post which even this child could hammer into the sod, and when you've strung three strands of this around your fields, your . . . cattle . . . are . . . penned . . . in.'

Frank Yeager scoffed: 'My Longhorns'll knock that fence down in one minute.'

Alonzo Betz jumped on the threat. He literally jumped two feet forward, grasped Yeager by the arm, and cried loudly: 'You're right to think that. Everybody does at first. From Illinois to Arkansas, I've been told "My bulls would knock that fence down in one minute," just like you said. So let's get your bulls and you and me build a little pasture right here wired in with my barbed wire, and we'll put a load of fresh hay out here . . .'

He engaged the entire population of Fort Garner, eleven fami-

lies now, in the erection of a corral, and all were amazed at how easily the thin steel posts could be driven into the hard earth and how deftly the wires could be strung. Several men and one woman scratched their hands on the sharp wire, at which Betz chortled: if my wire stops you good people, it'll sure stop your stock.'

When the little area was fenced, he shouted for Yeager to bring in some Longhorns, and he shouted—he never just spoke—for the best available hay to be piled out of reach. For nearly an hour the villagers watched as the powerful animals moved up against the unfamiliar fence and backed off when they came into contact with the barbs.

it works!' Earnshaw cried, and Emma, too, was pleased, but Yeager would not surrender: if we'd of had Mean Moses in there, down goes that fence.'

Once more Alonzo Betz jumped at the challenge: 'Let's fetch this Mean Moses and leave him with the others overnight,' and when this was agreed upon he said: 'I'll stand guard, because one thing I've learned. No honest man from Illinois can match a man from Texas when it comes to sheer deviltry. I don't want you goadin' your animals on with no pitchfork.'

So the test was run, with Betz and Yeager enforcing its honesty, and through the long night the two men talked, with Betz proclaiming the glories of the future when every field would be fenced, and Yeager longing for the past when the range from Fort Worth to California remained free. At intervals people from the houses came to watch Mean Moses destroy the fence, but instead they saw the hungry bull start time and again for the succulent hay, only to be turned back by the barbed wire, and when dawn broke over the treeless plains and everyone saw the fence still standing with Moses docile inside, the future of barbed wire in this part of Texas was assured.

But Alonzo Betz was still a showman, one of the best, and when day had well broken he said: 'Now I want to prove to you good people that your Longhorns were really hungry during their vigil. Watch this.' And he produced an instrument they had not seen before, a pair of very long-handled wire cutters. The handles have to be long,' he explained, 'so as to apply leverage to these very short, sharp blades. Look what this means, how easy it is to handle barbed wire.'

Going to the fence, he positioned himself halfway between two posts, and with three rapid snips of his cutters, he threw down the fence, and through the opening thus provided, Mean Moses and the hungry Longhorns piled, eager to reach the hay.

'How much will it cost to fence in six thousand acres?' Rusk

asked, and Betz replied: 'Show me your configuration,' and when Rusk did, the salesman made a quick calculation: 'Six thousand acres is nine point thirty-eight square miles. If perfectly square, you would need about twelve miles. In your configuration, more like fifteen miles. I can sell you barbed wire and posts for a hundred and fifty dollars a mile, so to do it all, which I would not recommend, would cost you two thousand two hundred and fifty.'

The figure staggered the Rusks. It was quite beyond their reach, but they could see that the future of ranching was going to be determined by valuable cattle enclosed in relatively small pastures protected by barbed-wire fencing. 'What could we do?' Earnshaw asked, and Betz, eager to get a demonstration ranch started in an area which he felt was bound to prosper, said with great enthusiasm: 'My company, D. K. Rampart Wire and Steel of Eureka, Illinois, we want to establish a chain of ranches exhibiting our product. So everyone can see its application. We can fence in about three thousand of your acres for a special price of one thousand and fifty dollars, and we'd be honored at the opportunity to do so.'

It was agreed. Rusk, Yeager and Betz mounted horses, and accompanied by the two black cavalrymen, surveyed the Larkin lands, and all quickly concluded that they should enclose all fields abutting on Bear Creek and place additional fencing around the tank so that access to this steady supply of water could be controlled: 'This way you protect your water. You protect your valuable bulls. You keep everything neat.' At the end of the ride, even Yeager had to acknowledge that a new day had dawned on the Texas plains, and he began to study the pamphlets that would make him an expert on the handling of barbed wire. But before the deal could be concluded there was the question of money, the perennial problem of the frontier.

The growth of any village into a town was a subtle procedure. First came the store, for without it there could be no orderly society, and Fort Garner now had a good one run by the former sutler. Next came the school, and third, there had to be a good saloon to serve as social center for the cowhands and such adventurous young women as might want to try their luck in the settlement. Earnshaw, as a good Christian, did not wish to sell one of his barracks buildings to a soldier who had once been stationed at the fort and who proposed to open such an establishment, but he was also a Pennsylvania Quaker, and a cannier lot of businessmen had never been brought across the ocean to America, so a deal was struck, not with Earnshaw, who refused to touch liquor, but with

Emma, who said: 'A town needs a little excitement.' The Barracks, as it was named, provided it.

The fourth requisite was a bank, which would lend money, provide stability, and serve as the industrial focus of the surrounding area. Certainly, Fort Garner needed a bank, but it was doubtful that any would regard such a meager economy as a sound basis for taking risks. Where would a bank look for its business? A few stock sales? An exchange of real estate now and then? Money mailed in from stabler societies back east to sons and daughters trying to subdue the plains? It might be decades before a place like Fort Garner could justify a bank, but just as the need became greatest, a man with tremendous vision and steel nerves moved into town, bought one of the better stone houses, imported a big iron safe, and announced himself as the First National Bank of Fort Garner, Texas.

Clyde Weatherby came from Indiana, home of America's shrewdest horse traders, and although he brought with him only limited capital borrowed from his former father-in-law, who wanted to see him, as he said, 'get the hell out of Indiana and stay out,' he did bring a marvelously clear vision of the future, which he confided to no one: Land is the secret. Things have got to happen out here—what, I don't know. Give me some land that touches water, and I'm in business. He had various intricate plans for getting hold of land and using it creatively.

Outstanding because of his well-tailored suits and string ties, he became favorably known as Banker Weatherby, generous in lending, severe in collecting, and when Rusk and young Betz appeared before him to seek a loan for payment on the barbed wire, he was enthusiastic.

it could prove the making of the West,' he pontificated, and the men agreed. He then asked directly: 'Mr. Rusk, what's the total bill to be?' and when Earnshaw explained, he smiled at Betz and said: 'Not excessive. Your price is lower than your competitors',' and Betz said: it better be.'

'Now, Mr. Rusk, how much of the thousand and fifty dollars can you provide?' When Rusk said: 'Emma and I have five hundred and fifty in cash,' he smiled warmly and said: 'Excellent. So what you wish from me is a mere five hundred dollars.' Both Rusk and Betz were surprised that he should refer to this sum as mere; to them it was a fortune.

'How could we arrange this?' Rusk asked, and Weatherby said: 'Simplicity itself! You give me a mortgage, extend it for as many years as it will take you to pay off, and pay only three and three-quarters percent interest each year, no mind to the balance.'

'How much would that be?'

'Less than nineteen dollars a year.'

'That would be easy,' Rusk said, whereupon Weatherby added: 'There is the provision, you know, that if conditions change at the bank, we could demand payment in full, but that never happens.'

'And if I couldn't pay ... in full, I mean?'

'It's known as "calling the loan," but it never happens.'

'But what does it mean?'

Very carefully Mr. Weatherby explained the legal situation: 'Our Texas Constitution of 18 and 76 forbids me from taking your homestead in fulfillment of an ordinary debt. And it forbids me from issuing you a mortgage simply to acquire funds for idle indulgence. But it does allow me to give you a mortgage on your homestead for its improvement, and that's what we're doing here.'

'So my entire ranch is mortgaged?'

in this case, yes. If you fail to pay us back our money, we take your ranch, and sell it at auction to get our money, and give you what's left over.'

In one respect, this was not an indecent deal, for the original Larkins had acquired their six thousand acres at an average cost of only four cents an acre, so that its base value was not more than $240, less than half the amount of the loan the bank was making; but in a practical sense the conditions being offered were appalling. The Rusks could pay interest for ten years, and reduce the outstanding balance to $100, but if they ever had a bad year in which they could not come up with the interest to keep the mortgage alive—or if the bank at that bad moment chose to demand payment in full—the Rusks could lose not only their land but also the improvements, which might be extremely valuable. It was one of the crudest systems ever devised for the conduct of business, but it was sanctified by every court; through this device bankers would gain control of vast reaches of Western land, especially in Texas. When Earnshaw Rusk signed his mortgage for $500 he unwittingly placed his future in jeopardy, but as Banker Weatherby assured him: 'We never foreclose.'