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Chapter 40. Misjudged

Ricardo was waiting in Chicago to be picked up at the train station by his sister and José Jaudon. Ricardo’s attorney had prepared papers to challenge James Jaudon’s will. He was going after JJ Ranch, or three-quarters of it anyway. He hadn’t read the will, but if José and Jésus’ widow and son, Juan Martinez, were mentioned in the will, they would have been notified, and they had heard nothing.
    And then there was Sophie Davis; Ricardo was sure that Clara Davis would want her daughter to have what was due her. The big question, and the most important part of the puzzle, was José.

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Chapter 39. Time Flies

The oil fields kept coming, one after the other. In 1907 Piedras Pintas came in, then, at last, oil was hit in the Goose Lake fields. In 1908, Henry Ford’s first car, the “Model T,” came off his new assembly line. The gasoline engine was on the way to becoming king of the road. Almost overnight the streets of Houston had to contend with the honking of car horns. It would drive the price of oil even higher.

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Chapter 38. Oil Thieves

The moon had yet to come up and the night was so dark the men were falling over things on the ground. Mr. Tompson and his four armed men were moving into position for an all-night stakeout. They found a good spot among the girders of a well across from Claude’s capped wells.

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Chapter 37. Here Today/ Gone Tomorrow

Claude’s move back to Houston had been a good one. Through the telephone service with his people in Beaumont, he was able to be close to the action at the same time. The new century was opening like a box of candy – one happy surprise after another. In 1901, Mckinley was assassinated. The Stock Market took a dive, as did oil stock, but with Teddy Roosevelt came a calming. Things were looking up for the country as a whole. But life will always throw you a curveball when you least expect it.

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Chapter 36. Rafael’s Funeral

The new century brought new and wonderful things, but it left some old things behind. The first of these was Rafael Rodrigo. On November 6, 1905, at the age of 57, Rafael died in his sleep of a heart attack. Even with his bad back, James made the trip to McAllen, Texas, to say goodbye to his old friend. He had to go first to Brownsville and there change trains for McAllen. No direct line from San Antonio yet existed.

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Chapter 35. Beaumont, Texas

With the oil came the boom. Ricardo opened a bank in Beaumont and Claude had an office three doors west of the bank. Both were on the main street and a short walk to the local cat house or bar. Spindletop’s oil flow was slowing down, and there were no more exploding gushers, although plenty of oil was still being pumped. James was drilling test holes on Goose Creek, and at a couple of other salt domes along the Gulf Coast.

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Chapter 34. Timber War

As wars go, the Timber War was not a traditional war. There were no marching bands, no uniforms, and no cavalry charges. It was more of a guerrilla war, not unlike what the Indians waged in rustling cattle, as when the Kiowa Indians raided James and Goodnight’s herd on their drive to California. The Indians would come in small groups, take a few logs, and be gone before anyone got wise to them. They even stole the 14 logs James had left on the ground to rot after killing the four thieves. The other six were still stacked on the ground beside the road to the house.

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Chapter 33. Spindletop

Spindletop was a hill just 4 miles south of Beaumont, Texas. It had long been thought that oil lay under the salt dome that had created the hill. A few wildcatters had tried to drill wells there, but the salty sand would plug up their drills. It wasn’t until Captain Anthony F. Lucas was hired by the Higgins Company that the tide changed. Lucas was an expert in salt-dome formations. His first drilling reached 575 feet before he ran out of money, at which point he asked a number of people for money, one of whom was Joe Cullinan.

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Chapter 32. Great Storm of 1900

The century started out great guns with the promise of much change and much wealth. That is, until the hurricane on September 8th.
    Claude was making money but he knew oil wells could and would go dry sooner or later. He ordered three more rigs and equipped them with the new drilling platform called the Corsicana Rig. It used high hydraulics and was faster and easier to operate. They weren’t cheap, but he could afford the investment. The companies that were still drilling were the ones that had made it through the snowstorm and weren’t working on a shoestring; they had big money behind them and were there for the long run. A wildcatter would pop up every now and again but nothing like before the snow.

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Chapter 31. José

José barreled out of James’ office almost running over Claude, who had been trying to listen at the door. He looked around until he spotted his wife in another room and headed toward her. Ricardo cut him off. “What happened? Are you all right?”
    José shouted to Sara, “Bring Maria, we’re going home.”
    Ricardo asked, “You mean back to the Pullman car for the night?”

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Chapter 30. Family Divided

1900 was the beginning of the century that saw the Texas oil boom explode. Millions of dollars would be made and millions would be lost. By 1897 the State’s first refinery had begun running. Its first oil was shipped in 1899. Some people made money, others lost everything. But the Jaudon and Rodrigo families would still be standing when the dust settled – some of them anyway.

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Chapter 29. War

1898. The Spanish-American War. Col. Theodore Roosevelt recruits volunteers and forms the Cowboy Cavalry, later to be known as the Rough Riders.

Jesús Jaudon heard that volunteers were needed to fight a war and a training base was opening in San Antonio. He had been trying to decide what he should do. He consulted Rafael about joining, but got little help, mainly because he could tell Rafael didn’t want him to go.

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Chapter 28. Rodrigo Family

Things were going well for Ricardo. He had hired the company that J.W. Hankins used to drill his three dry wells and hid the entire thing through a fake corporation in New Hampshire. His three wells in Corsicana were top producers. His import/export business was doing better than he had ever hoped, as were his other investments. After the snowstorm of ’85, he foreclosed on two well sites whose owners couldn’t make their payments, and he now had five wells pumping oil. Claude had picked up four more wells and was now pumping seven.

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Chapter 27. Oil Wells

By 1895, Claude’s office was running like a fine clock. For his Finance Administrator, he had hired Gerald Whitney from a firm in Chicago. Warren Townson was his Office Manager, and Jeffrey Wright had sold his real estate business and gone to work for Claude as Project Manager.
    Cornell Stevens, his gofor, went back and forth between Houston and Corsicana. At first a few places tried to turn Cornell away because of the color of his skin, but Claude had a way of making it clear that Cornell would be welcomed or there would be payback.

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Chapter 26. The Oil Game

Claude took a suite at the Royal Houston Hotel on the main street of town. He had a bedroom and a sitting room, and a private bath with a large tub and running water. He had a desk moved in and one of the new fancy telephones for his desk. There was yet to be any long-distance calling, but most businesses in downtown Houston were now hooked into the switchboard exchange. His first call was to Ricardo. “This is Claude. Did you get the men out doing their jobs?”
    All lines in town were party lines, so the business conversations had to be somewhat in code. “I contacted them and they are on the job. Where are you?”

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Chapter 25. The Ranch

Claude made it home in about the time it would have taken riding a horse. And driving the automobile was hard work and quickly became tiresome on the long trip from Houston. He planned to go back to Houston the next day, but it would be by train.
    He parked in front of the house and everybody came running out to see the new automobile. James said, “I hope you didn’t trade my horse for that damn contraption.”

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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.

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Chapter 23. Oilmen

Unlike Ricardo, who looked upon the oil business as a banker, Claude saw the oil business through the eyes of an engineer. Ricardo wanted to know how to make money off it and Claude wanted to know how it worked.
    The drilling of wells wasn’t something new. The difference for Claude was that before it was for water, and now it was for black gold. The need for oil had increased since the Civil War. The country was growing and needed fuel to power it into the next century, a century where the car he saw at the World Fair would be commonplace upon the landscape of America. Claude saw the boom that was coming, and it made his blood race. Within a few months, he had a complete library of books dealing with oil drilling and refining.

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Chapter 22. Au revoir Paree

In the summer of 1893, Claude, Dominique, who was with child, and their daughter, Donna, who would turn three on the 10th of November, passed the Statue of Liberty as their ship came into New York Harbor.
    It had been three long years since Claude had said good-bye to the Lady in the bay. He wiped an eye as a tear slid down his cheek. He hadn’t thought his homecoming would be so emotional.

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Chapter 21. Eiffel’s Tower

Joc had a reserved section at the Wild West Show, dead center in the front row, just below the dignitaries’ section, with its bar and waiters. He had ten guests including Claude and Dominique, who sat alongside him.
    The show featured lots of gun shooting and horse riding. Indians attacked settlers and stagecoaches alike but never won a battle. Bill Cody was always the hero that saved the day, riding in on his white horse with both guns blazing. Joc kept asking with great excitement, “Is that real? Does that happen? Have you ever shot an Indian? Do you know any of the people in the show?”