We let the horses graze while he was getting steam up. A half hour later, we loaded the horses on the tug, Doriac, and he took us across to a dock and drew us some directions. We headed east and he went downstream. We got to the tracks and turned north. An hour later, we got to a loading platform and ramp that had a signal flag attached to a pole and I ran the flag up. We sat down to eat and let the horses graze. I figured we’d stay around for an hour and then go on and start traveling. Buck said he could hear the steamer whistling. I figured that it could not be from the river and it was probably a train. I went over to the rail and listened just like I did in the army, and my ears were picking up something. I listened to the other rail and I heard the thump-thump of the train coming.
“What direction did you hear that whistle coming from?” I asked Buck. He pointed south.
After a while we both heard the whistle. Then we saw the train coming. The engine whistled a short blast and the conductor came out on the steps and the engine slowed down and rolled in puffing nearby. I rode alongside and told him that we were cash customers. He was not going to stop, so I reached in my pocket and pulled out 20 gold and handed it to him and told him it was very urgent that I get to St. Louis. He gave the signal to stop. He had a couple of empty box cars, so we loaded onboard and he got underway again.
Buck stayed with the horses and I went to the caboose and talked with the conductor about how we could get to St. Louis. He said we had better get off at Davis Junction and catch the train to Cairo coming from Jackson this afternoon.
We got off at Davis junction and all they had there was another flagpole and five houses, one was a diner. We went in and had a steak and a piece of apple pie with some coffee. Buck was hungry as always, I didn’t know where he put it all. When the train came in, they had a boxcar for horses. A young man in an army uniform was sitting in the door. He was watching four horses in the car. We loaded in our two and he said he would watch them. I gave him half dollar for his trouble and he was happy. We had two nosebags full to feed them after a while. We took our saddlebags and rifles and got on the first-class section. There were some ladies and gentlemen around. I knew we were out of place with our riding gear; me with my Mexican jacket and Buck dragging those big Texan spurs.
“You fellows going to a war?” the conductor asked us.
“We have been to several already,” I said.
“Where to?” he asked.
“St. Louis.”
“You will have to get off at Vandalia Junction and change trains in the morning,” he stated.
“When are we getting to Cairo?” I asked.
“Ten twenty P.M. It is seven dollars with the horses and first class.”
I paid him, and we started rolling. It felt good to relax in our seats. Buck was fascinated with everything; the ship and trains were all new to him.
In Cairo, Buck went back to be with the horses. We rolled out our blankets on some clean straw and he went to sleep. I slept some in the car. The next morning Buck saddled up we got off and changed to the other station, had a big breakfast, and then loaded the horses again. Buck stayed with the horses and I went to a first-class car and paid our way and relaxed.
Chapter Twenty Two
When we got to St. Louis I did not know where to go, so I went out to the farm. Moses was there and he greeted me as Master Dave Sir. He sure was happy to see me. I went to wash up and I asked him to hitch up to a buggy and take us to my father’s house. I rode with Moses and Buck rode his horse. When we got there, I went up to the door and knocked. My mother opened the door. She looked at me and said, “Johnathan.” Then we embraced and went inside. Liz and my dad then came to greet us, along with everyone else. It was quite a large get together. The girls were off in school. I brought Buck inside and introduced him as my partner and son.
“Where is your daughter?” Liz asked.
“She is on the ship taking care of our seven horses and wagon and looking after Vandorn.”
“You mean a seven-year-old little girl is doing all of that?” she asked.
“She is looking after another family with two girls as well,” I stated.
Mary and Vicky were in school and Jeff was running his freighting business. I explained to Dad what had gone on with Mr. Vandorn on the ship. He told me that they notified him that the ship was underway again and they would be here in six days. I told Dad to be very careful because they might go after him next. I suggested he take Buck and me with him wherever he went.
I had to go with Dad to register my proxy with the secretary for the board meeting. When the meeting started, I had to be there first thing. The opposition wanted a new chairman and demanded an immediate vote. The board voted and then they wanted our votes. An older lady got up and voted 25,000 shares. Several others voted shares all for my father. Then I got up and voted 700,000 shares for my father. It was challenged, but the secretary said it was the shares held by J.G. Whitney and the proxy had been signed by the chairman, Mr. Vandorn.
My father now had twice the shares that he needed to fire three of them and appoint Liz as a full director. She sat down next to him and had her files with her. They started to talk about several problems and she had her say about everything. After the meeting, I told Liz that I was proud of her and we kissed a couple of times.
When we got home, we had a nice dinner and my little son sat next to me. I cut up his meat for him. When he was not with me, he was with Buck.
The opposition dumped all of their shares and paid quite a lot to beat dad; the price dropped from fifteen to seven dollars.
“I wish we had some money to buy up some shares,” Liz said. “It will go back to fifteen in a few days.”
“I can give you a little money if you need some,” I told her.
She held out her hand and said, “Give.”
The saddlebag was near the couch, so I picked it up and handed it to her. She almost fell over, the saddlebag was so heavy. She went to the table and dumped it out. I took off my money belt and put it on the table, and Buck did the same. She then started to count and my mother helped. After an hour of counting and stacking all of the gold, she said there was over 8,000 dollars.
“I could have told you that,” I remarked.
“We could buy a whole block of shares. Is it okay with you?” she asked.
“You are the director, not me,” I told her.
“What kind of money are some of these coins from the seventeen-fifty’s and seventeen-seventy’s?”
“Those are old Mexican gold coins. You can have one for a lucky coin.”
The next day the ship George Washington was arriving. We were all there on the dock as she came alongside. Buck went to hitch up the horses and I went to greet Mr. Vandorn and Liz. She was so happy to see me. I told Mr. Vandorn to ride in the wagon just in case someone still wanted him. I told Mr. Jensen to follow Buck out to our farm and to stay there. I promised him that I would get him a job tomorrow; he could have a couple of rooms in the house. Buck dropped Mr. Vandorn off at the house and my father took him around discussing business; they were good friends. Big Liz took charge of little Liz and they became good friends. Liz was really fascinated with her story. Little Liz got a room by herself and I went to tuck her in, she was happy. Little David came by too and wanted to be with little Liz. She was nice to him. She had never had a brother before.
That next morning when Buck came for breakfast, David followed Buck and Liz around. Mr. Vandorn left and went to New York with the train in Dad’s private car. I told Dad that I wanted a horse ranch out west in Colorado or Utah to raise some cattle on. He told me about the land that the railroad got from the government. Every other section along the rail line, the U.P. could sell for development. The government land could be homesteaded. As a veteran, I could get 640 acres and he suggested going out there to look and see what was available. I could ride out on the trains and look things ove
r, and Mark could show me around. He said to send Liz back because he needed her on the board for as long as we were building our homes. He said that she loved her job and was really good at it.
Mr. Vandorn came back and spent a week with my father. Then he wanted to go to Kentucky to see his brother. He asked Buck and me to go with him.
When we arrived, we were treated like royalty. I told his brother that I would be going out to Colorado or Utah to start a horse ranch close to the railroad to make my shipping easier, and it would make traveling with the family easier too. I told him that my wife was on the board of directors and she would be traveling back and forth. Vandorn was raising thoroughbreds; he had some beautiful horses. He was fascinated with our travels through Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Louisiana on horses and later by wagon.
When Mr. Vandorn was getting ready to go, we decided to go home too. David Vandorn had a surprise for us; he gave me a two-year-old stud and gave Buck a filly. Both were beautiful horses. There was no turning them down, so we took the horses. David Vandorn asked us to stay in touch so when we had our ranch in Colorado he could visit and see the country.
We had to go by freight train, which was better for us anyway. They put our boxcar next to the caboose and we rode in the caboose with the conductor. We pulled into a siding about two hours north of Knoxville and the trainmen started cooking. Then they said they forgot the meat and instead we would be having potato soup. I told Buck to go shoot some meat for lunch. He left and a half hour later returned with two turkeys. They wanted to know how he got them. He told them that he flew up in the sky and shot them down, and that he learned it from me. We had turkey stew, it was good. The conductor was going to take a turkey home.
They switched us out in Lexington during the night and put us next to the caboose to Louisville where we met the new train crew. They told us to take the bunks because they would be too busy to use them. We slept all the way to Louisville and they switched us out and put us with another train to St. Louis. They held the train for us, so the men did not know who we were. One train man finally asked me how much of the railroad I owned. I told him that I would have to ask my wife, she was on the board of directors.
I ran over to a store and bought a ham to contribute to the food. Buck checked the horses every chance he got. He fed them oats in nosebags and got water from the caboose.
We got in to St. Louis late that night. They lined up the boxcar so we could take the horses. We started walking them out from the yard and noticed a cab parked in front of a bar. The mare of the cab was talking to our horses, so we angled over that way. The driver was passed out in the back seat. We tried to wake him but he was out. We tied up the two horses in the back and drove home to the farm. I put a dollar in the driver’s pocket and slapped the mare on the butt and she headed out to the prairie to graze. We stabled the horses and Moses drove us home.
The next day, I took everybody out to the farm to show them our two new horses. Everybody agreed that they were nice. Liz got to meet Mrs. Jensen and they got along great. The three girls had a good time. Little Liz wanted to move out to the farm, and Buck and I wanted to as well. I wired Mark and told him that I was interested in getting myself a ranch out there somewhere so that I could get in to the horse business and maybe also raise some cattle. He told me to come out on the train and find a place to homestead and build myself a nice home.
I started to talk to the family about all of this and told them that I would go out there and see what I could find; they all wanted to come with me. Liz said that she could come and stay for a while but then she would have to go back and work. We would need the money.
“You don’t need me to help you build our house and you will need a lot of things that I can send you,” she explained. “You can come on the train to visit me and I can come on the train to visit you.”
I told my dad that we would be going out there and he said I could take his private car, and a boxcar for horses and a caboose. He said he would send help to cook and clean. I told him that we were fine and could cook and clean ourselves. I wired Mark telling him that we were getting ready to come out and I asked him if we could bring him anything. He wired back and said that he needed a good buckboard. I ordered two buckboards, one for him and one for myself. We got the buckboards and loaded them on a flatbed car. We hooked up the boxcar caboose and a private car ready to go with any work train in the west. My father helped with the supplies. We were just waiting for the two girls.
Two days later, the girls arrived and we moved onboard. We were coupled onto a freight train that night and started traveling. We ended up on a siding in the morning. An hour later, the passenger train backed into the siding and hooked up to us. The conductor said we would be with him all day all the way through Kansas. A couple of hours later we came in to Topeka. There were a bunch of soldiers on the platform. The conductor had a problem and my wife went up there to ask what the problem was; she called the conductor David. I went up there just to listen and the conductor said there was a whole company trying to come onboard and we only had two cars for them and no horse car, besides ours. She asked how many horses they had, he said there were seven. They had already paid, but he only had the two cars.
“What if we fill up the first-class car?” she suggested.
“I cannot do that, unless you order me to,” he told her.
The captain was listening in. Liz said since they had already paid they would travel with us, “Fill up the first-class car and put their horses in our horse car,” she ordered. “You have a lot of officers, Captain.”
“We have our platoon leaders and three extra lieutenants that are traveling with us. They just got out of the academy,” the captain explained.
“Send them back to my private car,” Liz said.
The three heard this and came closer. Liz told them to tell the girls to fix breakfast. They all yes ma’amed her and took off for the private car. She saw me and asked how many could ride with me in the caboose. I told her it would fit six. Liz then ordered six corporals and/or sergeants into the caboose.
“Aboard Captain, and we go,” said the conductor. “If you need to, you can put some men with the horses.”
Then a first-class passenger came in hollering at the conductor demanding that he get the soldiers out of first class. Liz overheard the commotion and said, “David, if anybody does not want the U.S. Army around, tell them to get off and walk.” The soldiers heard that and laughed. She came back to the private car and said, “I guess we will be going soon.”
The captain ordered everybody onboard and we started moving. We had five in the horse car and five lying down on the buckboards. We started traveling. A sergeant asked me who Liz was. I told him she was part owner and on the board of directors.
We went on, stopping for water and wood for the locomotive. We watered the horses a couple of times and made a fire and coffee. We had a stove in the private car and the caboose. We gave the men on the flatcar some coffee and started cooking in the caboose and private car; we made beans with ham and warmed up some rolls. We did not know what they were doing forward. We fed our soldiers aft, and we fed the men in the horse car and gave them a full pot of hot coffee. They were happy. There was a lot of fresh straw in the box car so they could lie down and rest.
After we went by Colby, we had a hot box on the second passenger car. We saw the smoke from aft as the train made a small turn to the right and signaled with the airline to stop. We stopped and I ran forward. The bearing was hot and the oil was burning. The conductor got the brakeman to get some water from the tender and he poured the pen full at the bearing. He said we would have to set the car out as soon as we could. They started going again slowly. We were not moving very fast at all. We came to a siding at Brewster and they went in and stopped the train.
There were several buffalo grazing and I told Buck to shoot one and we would feed the whole train. While we went af
ter the buffalo, I made a fire and told the girls to start peeling some potatoes. We had our biggest pot on the fire with some water and the potatoes and carrots went in. We were just waiting on the meat. We heard Buck shoot one. He skinned it and sent both flanks and the hump back. We did the cutting up on the back of our buckboard and put the meat into the pot; Liz added some flour to thicken it up and the steam started to come. Little Liz tended the fire. As soon as it was done, the soldiers were coming with their bowls and the girls were dishing it out. The young lieutenants were there helping the girls. We made a second and third batch and the whole train had a good meal.
The conductor went to Bruster and wired the problem in. When he returned, he reported to Liz that they were sending the work train in the morning to take us in to Burlington. When the work train came in, it brought two cars and a box car for horses. They made up a train and transferred the soldiers from the first class. We were left in Burlington. Two hours later, a freight train came and hooked onto us; we were going through Colorado with the freight train.
Two days later, we were in Thompson where Mark was located. They put us into a siding and that’s where we stayed for a while. They lifted the buckboards off and took the flat car. We got ourselves two rooms where Mark stayed and a corral for our horses. They took the caboose and our horsecar, so now we only had the private car for the girls.
We hitched up to my buckboard and went up the line with Mark to look at the country. I was looking for some property that had water, grass, and land that could be worked on in order to homestead. Green River had water, so we went towards Green River. There was the San Rafael River close by that had good water and nice land. Green River had some one room houses and some shacks, so I suggested we go look at San Rafael River.
We went on our way and got to the bridge over the river. Everything looked good south of the tracks. Mark said we could get the railroad land and we could both homestead the two sections south of it bordering on both sides of the river. We found a place where we could cross over. We followed the river a ways and it looked good; it was nice grass land. We saw deer and antelope and buffalo grazing. We headed back, and I told Mark that I would bring the wife and Buck out tomorrow to see what they thought.
Sheriff Tucker Page 14
