Fiction: Jaudon – An American Family (a novel) [24]

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Chapter 24. Ricardo

The door closed behind Claude, and Ricardo drank the last of the cognac in his glass. He smiled and walked to the bar to refill his glass. Claude’s cognac had been gone a long time back. This was from Ricardo’s private shipment. He had gone into business with an importer of fine wines and liquors, which at the time seemed foolish even to himself. However, he had underestimated the wealthy people of Houston. They had a hunger for the finer things in life. Nothing said, Look at me, see how rich I am, better than a fine French wine or champagne.
    Ricardo had been expecting Claude. He knew J.F. couldn’t overlook a lawsuit, and it had gotten the reaction he wanted. But he had to admit, the twenty-five percent interest in the drilling company had come as a surprise. Neither J.F. nor Claude understood banking or how money was moved around, because if they did the last thing they would have done was put a man they had just tried to fuck over in charge of their finances.
    Claude was very much like his father. He was sure he was right, no matter how wrong he might be. The world centered around them. J.F. had two fine boys who had married into Rafael’s family after living with them after Juan Garcia and his wife died, and who still lived with Rafael’s family – two sons whom J.F. hadn’t seen since they were babies. Claude – even knowing that the boys lived with Ricardo’s father – had never asked about their welfare.
    Jesús Jaudon had married Ricardo’s sister Carmen Maria Rodrigo on June 5, 1890, and his other sister, Sara Louana Rodrigo, married José Jaudon on May 12, 1892. Ricardo himself had married Sadie Kirkling in 1890 and had twins in 1891. That was three marriages that neither J.F. nor Claude cared anything about. Ricardo swirled the cognac in his glass. He knew that things could came back to haunt people who were careless with the feelings of others. J.F. wouldn’t live forever, and the day he died the sins of the father would be visited upon his son. Claude might be riding high today, but one day Ricardo would have his pound of flesh. He was in no hurry, he could wait.
    A trust fund had been set up for the boys, and when they turned 21 they moved the money to Ricardo’s bank. José was in Chicago studying to become a surgeon, and Jesús was becoming the future of the lower Rio Grande Valley.
    An Englishman had gone broke trying to grow wild orange trees. Jesús used his trust fund to buy the land, with its trees, which were native to the Valley but tasted more like lemons than oranges. Jesús grafted onto them sweet Mediterranean orange stems, ending up with a strong root base and a sweet orange. In a few years, he was shipping all the way to New Orleans.
    Ricardo was proud of the boys and more proud of the Mexican blood they carried in their veins. Then there was J.W. Hankins, who had quit his job with Rockwell and moved to Houston, Texas, where, as Ricardo predicted, he opened a bank and started looking for drillers. He had four leases north of San Antonio close to the Bexar County wells that Rockwell had financed, and he was in a hurry to find oil. What Hankins didn’t know was that by then the Bexar County wells, which he had okayed for Rockwell’s investment, had gone dry.
    Hankins sank two wells, and each of them was a bust. The only money he had in his bank was his own. The investors had backed out after Rockwell contacted them and left a vile threat of some bad things that could come their way for doing business with Hankins.
    Hankins was running low on cash, so he put up the remainder of his leases as collateral on one more long shot. Ricardo had loaned him the money. Three months later, the well was declared a dry hole. J.W. Hankins shot himself in the head in a cheap hotel room in Houston. Ricardo ended up with 47 leases, 20 of which he knew were good. These he was sitting on until the time was right.

    He was on his way to lunch when the news came of an oil strike in Corsicana, Texas. J.F. Jaudon owned six or seven leases in that area. Ricardo stopped at the Western Union office and sent a wire to Claude stating it would be a good idea to get a drilling team together and offered the one that J.W. had been using. Then he headed back to the bank.
    What Ricardo didn’t know was that Claude was still in town. Instead of going home, Claude had gone to the train freight station to pick up his new car. While in France he had met Karl Benz, who at the World Fair was selling cars that he built one at a time for wealthy people. Claude had ordered one, and Benz’s agent was waiting at the train station for him to pay the shipping cost.

    Ricardo recognized Claude as he walked near the station on his way to the bank and raced up to him. “Is that your automobile?”
    Claude looked at the agent. “It will be as soon as I pay this man $2,000.”
    Ricardo pulled the man by the arm toward the bank. Inside, he shouted at a clerk behind the counter, “Give this man $2,000. Have him sign for it.” He turned and nudged Claude to go back outside with him. “They’ve hit oil in Corsicana. We need to go take a look at where it’s at. You own leases there.”
    The automobile was a three-wheel two-seater and had no waterproof cover for the passengers. Nor was it very fast. Claude got in and set the spark while Ricardo turned the crank. The engine fired and Ricardo jumped in. “Turn around,” he shouted. “We need to get to the train station. A work train carrying men and rail for laying track goes out once a day. We can make it if we hurry. We should be able to load the car onto a flat bed and use it to make the two-mile trip from the track into Corsicana.”
    The next morning they unloaded the car in the middle of nowhere, but 15 minutes later they could see the town. They caught the eye of many people as they joined the wave of folks heading toward the well. Few had ever seen an automobile, except in pictures, no less an oil well. It was the first real oil well to come in, and everybody wanted to be able to say they saw the first one. When they arrived, a long line of wagons and buggies already there forced them to park some distance away and walk to the well. As they came abreast of it they noticed a man speaking to reporters.

    The man was wearing a uniform with a tag that read, “American Well & Prospecting.” He was telling the reporters that the drilling company was from Kansas and had a contract with the city to drill a water well, but they hit oil instead. He seemed concerned that the city wouldn’t pay for the well because there was no water.
    As far as oil wells went, this one wasn’t much to see. A small trickle of oil was being closed off by a cap tightened onto the well’s pipe sticking up from the ground. Claude leaned into Ricardo and asked, “Do we have any leases in the town itself?”
    “I would guess they are outside the center of town. But your father has them – I can’t say for sure.”
    Claude backed away from the group standing around the foreman. “Do you know who my dad was paying to canvas for those leases?”
    “I may have their names in some of his papers at the bank. Why? You have more leases now than you will ever drill.”
    Now they were walking back to the auto, and Claude was talking in low tones. “Look where that well is. The town is built on top of the oil. We have to get our people in here to get leases from these homeowners. The oil is here. We’re standing on it.”
    “You can’t set up rigs and drill in people’s front yards.”
    Claude laughed. “If there’s oil under their yard, I can assure you they will be more than happy to have their own well – in front or back, or even in a side yard.”
    They caught the train on its return run to Houston. At the bank, Ricardo got out and walked around to Claude’s side. “Once I have the canvassers’ names, are you wanting me to pay them for securing more leases? If so, it’s time to transfer your money to my bank.”
    “I have to get back home tonight, but I’ll take care of the money end, you just get us the leases.”
    Ricardo watched Claude speed away down the street. He wasn’t impressed with the new-fangled automobile. It didn’t feel safe at all. He said a small prayer: “Please don’t kill yourself – not yet anyway.”

Copyright © 2019 by Ed Rogers