Centennial

by James A. Michener

  As Wendell and the Union Pacific continued to bring farmers into the Platte Valley, and when all of them wanted to grow sugar beets as their cash crop, it became obligatory that a stable labor supply be found, and in early March of 1906 Potato Brumbaugh, in his customary bang-bang way decided to do something about it.

  Climbing into his six-cylinder Model K touring Ford—he would naturally be the first in Centennial to own an automobile and he would want a big one—he thundered down to Denver, asked where the Mexican quarter was, and pushed his way into the cantina where laborers were whiling away the last of the good winter days.

  “Evening,” he said.

  “Alloo,” one of the Mexicans replied suspiciously.

  “I’m Potato Brumbaugh. Grow beets at Centennial. I have three good jobs open. Good pay. Good house.”

  The men looked at him suspiciously. The girl serving beer eyed this old man with his suspenders and belt but did not smile.

  “Well?” Brumbaugh said. No response.

  He stood in the middle of the smoke-filled cantina and his eye fell on a hollow-cheeked man sitting alone in a corner. This man had black hair hanging down to his eyes, and the general look of a man who knew how to work. Ignoring the others, Brumbaugh walked over to him, extended his hand and said, “It’s a good job. You better come.”

  The quiet man looked at the big hand being thrust at him, reflected for a moment, then grasped it and rose. “What do you like to be called?” Brumbaugh asked, and so far as the man could recollect, this was the first time in his life that any Anglo had ever asked his preference on anything.

  “Tranquilino,” he said.

  “You got two friends?”

  Tranquilino looked about the cantina, then nominated two likely men. Brumbaugh went to each and made an offer of employment. To his gratification, the men accepted and asked when Brumbaugh wanted them. He said, “Right now,” meaning within the week, and the men said, “Good,” and indicated that they were ready to go.

  “Where shall I pick you up?” Brumbaugh asked.

  “Here,” the men said.

  “When?”

  “Now.” Yes, they meant now. When Brumbaugh asked what they would do about their rooms, they said, “We’ll be back in November,” and it was arranged. They left the cantina for a few minutes, reappearing with small bundles. “We go,” they said, expecting to walk to the railroad station. When they saw the automobile and realized that they were to ride in it, they shouted for the others in the cantina to come see.

  An impromptu fiesta was held in the street, after which the three men climbed into the Ford, and Brumbaugh headed north.

  The ride was even more exciting than the automobile, for Brumbaugh drove as if the highway had been built for him. Tearing down the middle of the road, he swore right and left at anyone or anything that threatened to encroach, and when he reached open countryside north of the city, he proved himself a terror to dogs and chickens. The three Mexicans loved the boisterousness and joined Brumbaugh in shouting at pedestrians and cats. In this joyous manner they went to work.

  At the end of the first week Brumbaugh was afraid to tell anyone else what good workers Mexicans were, lest they be stolen from him. The men liked farming, understood problems of soil and were not averse to doing stoop-work. They had been employed to work from March to November, and what they were asked to do made no difference. They were meek people, Brumbaugh noticed, not at all like the pushy Russians, who hated to be told what to do, nor the industrious Japanese, who stared as if their eyes would pop out when a new procedure was being explained in a language they could not understand. You told a Japanese farmer once, he never forgot.

  The Mexicans liked to be told three times, not because they were slow to learn but because they wanted to be absolutely certain they knew what the boss wanted. Once they felt that they and the boss had agreed on what was needed, they performed stolidly and well. Because the men had no children to help them, the way the Russians and Japanese did, they evolved their own back-breaking way of blocking and thinning beets. It was ingenious and effective, founded upon the short-handled hoe. Tranquilino, for example, blocked and thinned two rows simultaneously. Squatting with his left knee firmly on the ground between the two rows, he kept his body weight on the bent right leg. This left his right hand free to chop with the hoe, now one row, now the other, while his left thinned the multiple clumps as far ahead as he could reach. Next he dragged the right knee forward, while his left leg bent to support his body for the next chopping-thinning operation. This duck walk was an art which allowed his deft hands to chop and thin an acre of beets during each twelve-hour day. Of course his back ached. Of course his knees grew scabs, but always he told the others, “It’s better than climbing poles in the silver mine.” And he began to visualize how much easier his work would be when he had his children to trail behind him, doing the thinning.

  Those Mexicans are awful good, Brumbaugh concluded, and he noticed that Takemoto had found four of them, as had the one Italian farmer who had stayed north. But what gave Brumbaugh the greatest reassurance was his discovery that the Mexicans showed no signs of wanting to save money to purchase their own farms. On Sundays they did not go prowling the countryside looking for abandoned land, but sat resting in the shade near their shacks. They were content, and Potato Brumbaugh began to think that maybe at last he had found his ideal workers.

  And when the Mexicans came to him, asking his help in sending their giros postales back to their families, he felt a positive bond of affection for them. “Hell,” he finally confided at a small meeting of farmers, “we got a gold mine in them Mexicans. This fellow Tranquilino working for me. Of every dollar I pay him, he sends ninety-three cents down to his wife and kids. I can’t figure what he lives on. I don’t know any Russians or Germans ever helped their families that way.”

  As the summer wore on. Brumbaugh discovered the other solid qualities possessed by Tranquilino Marquez. He tended cattle well, could lift more than either of the other men, had a quicker laugh when an accident befell him. He was a tough, wiry man, and from time to time Brumbaugh muttered to himself, “He’s as good a man as I am ... without the learning.” He therefore proposed that Miss Keller teach Tranquilino to read and write, but the Mexican refused to assume the heavy burden of literacy.

  “You take care of the giros for me,” he said. “That’s enough.”

  Brumbaugh also offered him a small piece of irrigated land to grow vegetables on, but again Tranquilino was reluctant to be trapped into unnecessary responsibilities. “I watch your land,” he said. “Got no time watch my land too.” And he protected Brumbaugh’s interests with affection; nothing belonging to the farm went unattended, The magnificent Model K was polished until it glinted; the cattle were moved joyously at the slightest pretext, so much did Tranquilino enjoy playing cowboy on a borrowed horse. But the Mexican’s special contribution was his meticulous attention to irrigation, for whenever Brumbaugh’s turn came to draw water from the ditch, Tranquilino was on hand, inserting his canvas dams, cutting holes in the bank and leading the water onto all parts of the field.

  In October, when the beets were harvested and delivered to the factory, Brumbaugh offered Tranquilino a special deal: “Stay with me over the winter. I’ll call the carpenter and have him make your shack winter-proof.”

  “Oh, no!” Tranquilino said. “I want to be with the others in Dember.”

  “What are you going to do about money?”

  “Money? You send Serafina the giros. She has money.”

  “But you?”

  “Me?” Tranquilino asked, raising his palms to heaven. “I find a little money.” And with the others he was off to Denver, but not before assuring Brumbaugh, “we be back to tend your beets.” Then, hesitating, “You come get us in automobile?”

  The city of Denver, which had shown itself capable of withstanding almost anything, from gold-rush murderers to Colonel Frank Skimmerhorn’s volunteers, displayed no eagerness to make c
oncessions to Mexicans who had begun to invade the place during the winter months. They were a stubborn, quiet people who did not want to be bankers or schoolteachers. They spoke Spanish and intended to keep on speaking it. They ate strange food like tortillas and chili beans, and they did not hunger for steak. Their cantinas were dusty and noisy, and they wanted them kept that way. In each a naked bulb hung suspended from the ceiling by a cord, and they did not want a lampshade. Above all, they preferred to settle quarrels in accordance with their custom.

  In a society where a young man, to prove his manhood, is required to have sexual intercourse with a maximum number of young women, and where a brother is obligated to kill any man who violates his sister, there are bound to be disturbances on a Saturday night. Often they were settled with flashing knives. To shoot a man from a distance would be unmanly; to rely upon a mechanical tool like a revolver instead of one’s own face-to-face bravery would be cowardly.

  To the western Anglo, accustomed to gunning down his foes from afar, the use of a knife was abhorrent and even shameful. - There was something noble and dignified in being able to pump six quick lead bullets into an enemy at sixty paces, but to grapple with him at close quarters, he with his knife, you with yours, was somehow contemptible. In a year when Denver had sixty-seven shootings, many from ambush, no complaint was made, for this was the honorable pattern of the west; but when one Mexican—a short, hot-tempered fellow who worked for Brumbaugh—knifed another for fooling around with his sister, a cry of moral indignation swept the city, and newspapers warned the Mexicans that Denver was not about to tolerate any descent into barbarism.

  The Mexicans did not have an easy time in Denver, but they had made a section of it their own, and many began bringing their families up from Chihuahua and Sonora. The settlement in the heart of the city grew, and even more than semi-Spanish cities like El Paso and Santa Fe, it became the mecca of Mexican laborers. In the beet fields north of town they could find work during the summer; in the cozy cantinas of Denver they could pass the winter, surviving as best they could.

  No Mexican enjoyed Denver more than Tranquilino Marquez. Returning to the mile-high city after long months in the beet fields was a journey to an earthly paradise. Bringing what little money he had saved after sending Serafina her giros postales, he would burst into the familiar cantinas on Santa Fe Street and buy beer for his old acquaintances. The hot food, the noisy Spanish songs warmed him; when his money was gone and the blizzard whistled down from the high Rockies, he would huddle in some warm corner and tell the crowd, “Winter’s the best part of the year.”

  In late 1909 events began to unfold which would exile Tranquilino from this congenial refuge. The trouble started with Potato Brumbaugh, and as so often happens in such affairs, the difficulty arose not from a lack of affection but from an excess of it. Brumbaugh had always liked Marquez, recognizing him for the superior workman he was, and now he wanted to make a significant gesture to prove his appreciation.

  However, the generous-hearted Russian was absolutely incapable of understanding Marquez as he was: a sober, quiet, illiterate peasant quite content with present conditions. Brumbaugh wanted him to go to school, wanted him to farm his own little plot of land. Potato had a clear concept of what relationship a farmer should have to his land, and a German-type industriousness was fundamental. He would teach the Mexican how to live, and as a first step he dangled before Tranquilino an alluring opportunity.

  Throwing his arm about the Mexican’s shoulder, he said in a mixture of German, English and Spanish, “Tranquilino, you are my best friend on earth. I don’t like to see you wandering back and forth ... Centennial ... Denver ... Chihuahua. You must have your own home. Go back to Old Mexico one last time to fetch your family. I’ll build a little house over there and it’s yours rent-free as long as you live.”

  Once more Tranquilino drew back. “I like Dember,” he said. “When winter comes, I like Santa Fe Street ... music ... Mexican food. House up here, no friends, cold weather. I like Dember.” And he refused the offer.

  But in 1911, when the November beet check was in, Brumbaugh faced up to the fact that he was not paying his Mexican help their fair share of the income from his land, and he was not the kind of man to profit improperly from the work of others, so he told Tranquilino, “You are my son,” and he meant it, for when he had forced his own son, Kurt, to study law and thus into the management of Central Beet, Potato had inadvertently driven the boy from the farm, and he was now a stranger to the land, a young man alienated from his beginnings.

  “I need you with me,” Potato told Tranquilino with some embarrassment. “I am an old man and I need help. Bring your wife and children. You can work this land as long as you live.” So Tranquilino set out for Old Mexico.

  In the early years of the twentieth century the Venneford Ranch underwent a dislocation which could have had disagreeable consequences had not Charlotte Lloyd been understanding as well as tough. It had started with a confidential letter from Finlay Perkin, addressed to her alone:

  You and James Lloyd have been married three years now, and I deem it imperative to bring a rather difficult matter to your attention, even though I am sure that you must be aware of it. The Bristol owners consider it most unwise for John Skimmerhorn to be retained as manager while you and your husband, major stockholders, reside on the premises with full ability to run the operation. It is not only a waste of money but it also threatens antagonisms between the two men. Skimmerhorn is only fifty-four and can easily find himself another job. We could give him the best recommendations. I therefore recommend that you dispense with his services immediately.

  When Charlotte read the letter she recognized its propriety. As Perkin had intimated, she had for some time been pondering the situation.

  It was a nagging source of irritation to her to watch the daily activities of the ranch, knowing that her husband held only a secondary position. She owned forty-six percent of the shares, but Jim was almost a lackey, taking orders from John Skimmerhorn. It was galling to see her mild-mannered husband playing such a poor second fiddle, and she had often contemplated moves to correct this imbalance.

  Now shrewd old Finlay Perkin had provided the opening, and she jumped for it. Running out to the calving shed, she told Jim, “Just got a letter from Bristol. They have a great idea. You’re to be general manager.”

  “What about Skimmerhorn?” he asked instantly.

  “He’ll find something.”

  Turning off the hose with which he had been washing down the shed, he asked, “Is Bristol thinking of firing Skimmerhorn?”

  “Not exactly firing ...”

  “Charlotte,” the wiry Texan interrupted. “John Skimmerhorn gave me my chance to learn ranching. When we got the cattle here, Seccombe didn’t want to hire me but Skimmerhorn insisted.” He paused to recall the greatest debt of all. “In the middle of Llano Estacado”, when we were nearly dead of thirst, he bought my mother’s cattle.” He turned away so that his wife could not see the moisture rising to his eyes.

  “What does all that mean?” Charlotte asked.

  Slowly and with great force he said, “It means that John Skimmerhorn cannot be fired.”

  “But ...”

  “Charlotte! He can never be fired from this ranch. Never!”

  “Are you content to take orders the rest of your life from another man?”

  “He’s not another man. He’s been like a father ... He’s ...” He fumbled, then said with finality, “You can fire me, Charlotte, but you cannot fire him. And if Bristol insists, they’ll lose us both.”

  His wife could think of many practical arguments, but she knew that he would override them, and in a way she was gratified to have seen this side of Jim. She had lost respect for her first husband, Oliver Seccombe, because he had grown so morally flabby that he stood for nothing.

  Her second husband, this resolute Texas cowboy, was stating once and for all that the life of John Skimmerhorn was not negotiable, and althou
gh she did not agree, she loved him the more for it.

  So she bided her time, and about eleven months later Jim Lloyd received a letter which he described to his wife as “a bolt out of the blue.” It was from R. J. Poteet, in Jacksboro, Texas, and said:

  A group of English financiers is putting together a large ranch west of here and they’ve asked me to come in with them. I have some cash saved up, so I can handle it from that end, but I’m getting too old to manage so large a property and I told them frankly I wouldn’t come unless they’d allow me to hire someone else to do the heavy managing, and the only man I’d trust with the job is your manager and our mutual friend, John Skimmerhorn. I would never make a move like this behind your back, so do I have your permission to open the matter with him?

  It was sort of providential, Jim thought, that Poteet’s offer should arrive just when Charlotte was getting restive again about having the older man around, and he sent Poteet a telegram to the effect that if the Jacksboro job was advantageous for Skimmerhorn, the Venneford people would release him.

  Three days later, R. J. Poteet, sixty-four years old, but still slim and wiry, got off the Union Pacific and greeted his three old trailmates, Skimmerhorn, Lloyd and Calendar, who had been brought into town by the other two. They went into the bar of the Railway Arms and retold ancient tales.