ROAD TO RICHES

The Great Railroad Race to Aspen

 Prologue

            “GEE-UP!” boomed a voice through the blinding rain.  The sharp crack of a whip followed the words, and twin Belgian horses strained against their harnesses to obey.  Gale force winds pushed against the horses’ powerful muscles, but they slowly made headway through the storm. A mud-encrusted length of steel crawled out of the surging river and came to rest on the sand beside a stack of similar rails.

            A tall figure in an oilskin duster strode angrily up to the scene.  The driver of the horses looked anxious as he approached.

            “That’s the last of them, Boss,” he said placatingly.

            “Whose dang-fool idea was that stunt?!” the newcomer called through a wet kerchief over his face. 

            The driver kept his head tipped down to prevent his hat from blowing away and shouted against the howling wind. “The river weren’t so high a few minutes ago, Luke.”

            Luke Ballister, gang boss of the Colorado Springs to Pueblo spur, removed his kerchief, exposing his face to the stinging rain, and glared at the driver with flashing green eyes.  “I asked you whose idea it was?”

            “See,” began the man nervously, not meeting the eyes of the taller man while he unchained the steel rail from the hitching chain, “Ben and me thought that it would be a lot quicker to move the rails to the new site if we floated them on the river.”

            Luke looked at him incredulously, and had to shut his mouth against the rain.  “You thought five tons of steel rail would float?”

            “Well,” replied the driver slowly, “With a big enough raft . . .”

            Luke shook his head as he tried to grasp the concept.  “Tom, a raft big enough to float that much steel on a river this little is called a bridge!” 

            Tom winced at the obvious sarcasm.

            He'd opened his mouth to continue the reprimand when the sound of pounding hooves and furious splashes caught his attention.  He turned to see a lone rider, head bowed low over his horse’s neck, galloping toward them.

            He dismissed Tom with an angry wave of his hand.  “Get that steel loaded back on the flatbed and rub down those horses!  They’ve done their share for today.”

            Luke walked toward where the rider was dismounting.  He could read the yellow lettering of the Western Union on the oiled saddlebags.

            “Can I help you?”

            “Looking for a Colonel Ballister,” the rider shouted.  “I have an urgent telegram.”

            Luke started at the name.  Colonel—now, there was a title Luke hadn’t heard in a while.  He’d stopped using his war title when the war ended.  Many men would use the title they’d earned forever.  Luke had done so himself for a time.  It was just that the war had been so hard, so bloody, and so damn long ago.  He wanted to forget.  Get on with his life.  He was Mister Ballister now.

            “I’m Colonel Ballister,” Luke replied cautiously.  Who could possibly be trying to reach him using that name?

            “You’ll have to sign for it,” the rider said.  “Can we get out of this storm?”

            Luke couldn’t think of anything he would enjoy more.  He led the driver to the rail car that served as an office.  “Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe” was painted in tall, bright letters on the side of the car.  Once inside, Luke gratefully removed his soaked hat.  The Western Union driver did the same.  He then pulled an oilskin sleeve from beneath his poncho and handed Luke the cable.

            Luke had no way to dry his hands.  Everything in the car was rain-soaked from repeated door openings, so he simply did his best not to smear the ink on the paper.   He signed for the cable on the line of the log where the messenger indicated.  The man then carefully replaced the log under his poncho.  He put on his hat and pulled it down tight, opened the door to the car, and bulled his way back into the storm to make his next delivery.

            Luke carefully opened the outer covering and unfolded the thick yellow paper.  The cable was brief.

GREETINGS COLONEL—STOP—HAVE URGENT NEED OF YOUR SERVICES—STOP—DRG OFFERING $200 TO MEET WITH YOU—STOP—PERSONAL FAVOR TO ME—STOP—LEAVE IMMEDIATELY TO MEET WITH JACKSON DRG OFFICES LARIMER STREET—STOP—$100 ALREADY WAITING IN YOUR NAME AT WELLS FARGO LITTLE LONDON—STOP—OTHER $100 WHEN YOU ARRIVE—STOP—WITH FOND REGARDS GENERAL PALMER

            The name made Luke smile, and he spoke to the empty room, “As I live and breathe, General William Jackson Palmer!”  He read the telegram through a second time, slowly.  Two hundred dollars!  What could be important enough to pay him two hundred dollars just to ride to Denver for a meeting?  What was important enough for Palmer to pay Western Union to track him down to deliver the telegram?

            Luke’s head spun with questions.  He poured himself a cup of piquant chicory and stared out into the abating storm as he thought about it. A shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds briefly, only to be chased away.

            Just a month remained until the job with the AT&SF was completed.  He would earn the standard $75 for his work as gang boss.  He could nearly triple that money in a single day!  Once more, he read the cable.  It was the Denver & Rio Grande that wanted his services, not the general.   Why was Palmer even helping the D&RG after they’d forced him out?  Luke was suspicious by nature.  It was how he had survived through the war.  The only way he could think of to verify the contents of the cable was to travel to Wells Fargo in Colorado Springs, christened “Little London” by the general himself when he’d founded the town years before.

            When work ended for the day, he saddled his horse, Star, and rode the ten miles to Colorado Springs.  Sure enough, there was $100 held in his name at the desk, wrapped in official Denver & Rio Grande stationery.  He stood in the brightly lit lobby of the Wells Fargo office and made his decision.