Free El Paso: A Novel by Winston Groom Page A

the fate of the rest of Mexico, which is a state of eternal war! We must stand together in this, no matter what it takes, no matter what the sacrifice, personal or financial. What is at stake here, gentlemen, is nation-building!” the Colonel thundered. “And nation-building is what America is about!”
    These remarks by Colonel Shaughnessy were much more to Strucker’s liking, though he noticed that most of the others did not applaud, and some seemed to look dismayed, but even through the haze of smoke and gin at least he thought he’d found in the Colonel a man of action, a man who might be useful—to the German cause.

    IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS, after everyone else had gone to bed, the Colonel poured himself a nightcap in a very private little anteroom off his private suite on the ship. Only two or three of the Ajax crew even knew the room existed, and no one was let in without permission. The room was quite small, with but a single port. On the walls hung personal mementos from the Colonel’s life and career: military photos from the Rough Rider days, college baseball and football pictures, scenes from a safari, and a shot of the Colonel on his favorite horse. The only furniture in the room was an overstuffed black leather chair, a side table, and a lamp.
    He sat in the chair sipping his drink and wondering what Arthur’s reaction had been to his telegram: SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT.
    He knew their situation was critical, but neither, to the Colonel’s way of thinking, was it grave. He was being squeezed, both professionally with the NE&P and personally. He had been extravagant lately and his personal finances were quite thin right now. But there were many ways out—the most immediate and obvious of which was to postpone the note due to National Bank of Boston. But be damned if he’d go over there, hat in hand, and reveal his predicament to those pompous bastards.
    It would be all over town. Of course, it would get all over town, too, when Arthur went there—as the Colonel knew he must—but Arthur had a way of explaining things that the Colonel did not enjoy. Say what you would, the boy could handle it.
    When the Colonel went in for a loan, he simply marched up to the president of the bank and said, “Phillip, I want you to put a million in the NE&P account tomorrow,” and it would be done, and later the legal papers would follow. The Colonel greatly delighted in this kind of power and pull. Now it would have to be explained why NE&P needed an extension on such a loan, and that would be sticky business. Questions would be asked that could lead someplace he did not wish them to lead. Arthur was far better at explaining such things, while he himself would probably just harrumph around and maybe even get belligerent and cause a row.
    As far as the long-term went, Shaughnessy was confident things would work themselves out. They always had. Building the railroad up he’d experienced many reverses, yet when things seemed darkest, something always intervened to pull them through. What it would be this time, he did not know—the munitions contracts, perhaps; another wave of immigrants to whom he could resell the notion of western homesteading, just as he had to the others. Or perhaps something else he hadn’t even considered. The Colonel had always been lucky in his life.
    After all, didn’t he win the railroad in a dice game in the first place?
    In the center of the room was a polished walnut stand upon which sat a complicated mechanical device housed in a large glass dome; it was silent now but by ten a.m. would begin spouting out ticker tape with quotations from the New York Stock Exchange. The Colonel sat in his chair and stared at the ticker tape machine and sipped his final brandy of the night. By the time the machine began clattering out its first morning messages, the dinner guests would be shaking off their hangovers to the realization that they had become the latest victims of the Colonel’s most