Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [9]

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Chapter 9. Changing World

Claude came in late that night, long after James had gone to bed. Clara and he had a long and revealing talk. Claude had thought his father was turning his back on his new sister and her mother, and he was surprised to learn it wasn’t J.F. but Clara who had decided to raise the child on her own.
    She pointed out that she was well off and capable of providing a good life for Sophie. Whereas J.F.’s life was always in turmoil, hers was peaceful and happy.
    Claude left Clara’s feeling good that his sister was indeed in capable hands. Having been raised by J.F., he knew how hard a man his father was. He missed his aunt Sara, who had been the only softness he had known growing up.
    He came in the house on tiptoes – Patch was waiting for him on the other side of the door. After a little petting, the two went to his room and Patch jumped onto the foot of the bed and curled into a ball.
    The next morning Claude came down to find J.F. gone. After Ricardo was forced to call James “J.F.,” Claude, in protest, had also started calling his father that. It stuck and James seemed to like it.
    In the kitchen, two Mexican women Claude didn’t know were preparing his breakfast. “Do you know where my father is?”
    The heavy-set woman at the stove answered, “He go to town – have business. Say he see you this evening.”
    Claude ate and then went to the barn and saddled a horse. It was strange being back on the ranch. He had grown up there but there was no one still working whom he knew. Everywhere he turned he saw strangers doing the work that old friends had done just a few years before.
    He swung a leg over the back of the horse and settled into the saddle. He rode toward the high country, where tall trees covered the sky. James had bought the land from the government years before. A creek a mile back in the woods ran into the Guadalupe River. He and Ricardo swam in it as kids. Claude needed something familiar to hold onto, and he hoped a dip in the cold spring water would be it.

    The trees had grown taller and the landmarks were covered over by bramble, so it took a while before he stumbled upon the waterhole. Cattle had found the creek over the years, and the banks that had been sharp and rugged when he was a child were now flat and smooth. Where the deep pool had been, shallower water now spread across the landscape.
    He got down and let his horse drink – there would be no swimming.
    He rode down the back side of the hill and came to the banks of the Guadalupe, on both sides of which cattle were grazing. He moved along the bank taking his time, looking for that one thing that would flash a memory.
    He came to a very tall tree with a trunk five or six feet in diameter. He remembered it from the times he and Ricardo would fish on the other side. Coming around the trunk, the horse jumped sideways at the sight of two Mexican kids fishing in the same spot that he and Ricardo had used.
    One of the kids looked up. “Buen dia, señor.”
    Claude laughed, “Buen dia, niños.” Just like that, he was home.
    He turned the horse, and at a gallop, he headed back to the ranch. He was an engineer, and he had an idea as to how to improve the ranch. He hoped J.F. wouldn’t be too late coming home. The ride hadn’t turned out the way he thought it would. He had found something much better than a feeling of being at home: now he had a dream.

J.F. Jaudon was well known at the National Bank of Texas. All of his money was there, and it was a lot of money. He was in the President of the Bank’s private office, sipping a fine Kentucky bourbon. “Now, J.F., what can we do for you today?”
    “Well, Mister Hutchinson, my land has been taking a beating from so many cattle crossing it. The price I charge doesn’t compensate for it.”
    “What do you plan on doing about it?”
    “I’m thinking about raising the price of the toll.”
    Mister Hutchinson saw that J.F.’s glass was empty and signaled to the waiter by the bar to bring more. “How much are you planning to raise the fee?”
    James held his glass up as the Mexican poured more bourbon. “I figure, to break even, I need to go up at least fifty percent.”
    “Why have you come to me?”
    “Because you know how much these ranchers make, and I want to know what kind of a pushback I’m likely to have to deal with.”
    Mister Hutchinson stalled for a few moments. “I guess you haven’t heard.”
    “Haven’t heard what?”
    “There’s a bill on the floor in Austin right now, backed by the Cattlemen’s Association, that will make it against the law to block federal land from the public’s use.”
    “You trying to say I will have to let people cross my land for free?”
    “I’m sorry, J.F., but if the bill passes – and it looks like it will – that is what I’m telling you.”
    James stood and set his again-empty glass on Hutchinson’s desk. “It may happen, but not without a fight.”
    James was making for the door, the banker shouting at his back: “J.F., you’ll have no one on your side if you try and fight this!”
    James’ next stop was at his lawyer’s office. The main door banged against the wall as he rushed in. “Walker, where the hell are you?”
    A private door opened and Herbert Walker stepped out. “Why all the fuss, J.F.?”
    “In your office, Walker. Why didn’t I know about the Free Access Bill that is about to be passed in Austin?”
    Walker followed James back into his office. “J.F., that’s something you normally tell me – you know more about what is happening in Austin than I do.”
    James couldn’t sit down. He paced back and forth. “Here is what I need you to do: get a copy of the bill. I don’t care how you do it, but get it. I also want a list of the people that are backing the damn thing. Then, get me the names of the locals that are behind it. Lastly, get word to every rancher that they have 48 hours to get their cattle off the free range before I close the toll roads. After that, no one is crossing my land.”
    Walker had been writing this down. “Anything else?”
    “We’ll see once you bring that hill to me. And I want it by tomorrow night.”
    “Damn, J.F, that’s a long ride. Why don’t you stay overnight here in town?”
    James opened the door to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, and you’ll be welcome to stay over at my home.”
    James had a buggy with two fine black horses that could fly for hours on end, and he set a fast pace back to the ranch, but a pace the horses could do easily.
    The sun had been down about an hour when James pulled up to the barn and a young man, Miguel’s son, ran to the buggy and held the horses. James got down and told the young man, “They’ve been pushed hard. Walk them until they cool down and then rub and feed them.”
    He could see Claude on the front porch as he came across the yard. At the steps he said, “Good evening, glad to see you made it home.”
    Claude smiled. “It was late but the stay was worth it. I have a beautiful sister.”
    “Yes, indeed you do. Come into my office and have a whiskey with me, we need to talk about something.”
    “I’d love to, and I have something I want to run past you.”
    James poured them a drink but didn’t take his seat behind the desk where he normally sat. Instead, he pulled one of the two big chairs around to face Claude. “I’ll go first.” James took a drink and cleared his throat. “I guess I should have told you this long ago, but I saw no need for it. But today, with all the racists that are coming into power, it has become a dangerous time for people like you.”
    “What do you mean, ‘people like me’?”
    James took another drink. “I’ve never told you the full story about your mother.” He waited but Claude said nothing. “We were very much in love. The Civil War had just ended when you were born. Chassy and I had to flee Mississippi to save both you and us.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    James emptied his glass. “Son, your mother had been a slave before the war freed her. But you were so white no one would have believed you weren’t my child. The Night Riders would have killed all three of us.”
    Claude looked around and shook his head. “Are you saying, I’m half Nigro?”
    “Yes and no. Your mother was half white, so I guess that would mean you’re one-quarter black.”
    “That’s a lie – I’m whiter than you!”

    “I know, Son, and that is the real danger. These assholes can overlook a rich colored person, but never one that tries to pass as one of them.”
    Claude beat his head with his fists, trying to knock out what he couldn’t believe. “Why did you tell me? I’ve done just fine not knowing. Why now?”
    “One day you will be taking over the ranch and you’ll find someone you want to marry. There’s a chance the child may not be white. You have to prepare for this. Same as it almost got me killed, it could do the same to you.”
    Claude grabbed the bottle and headed out the door. James didn’t try to stop him. He knew the conversation wasn’t over, and once the shock settled Claude would want to know more – or at least James hoped that was how things would go.

Copyright © 2019 by Ed Rogers