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the NE&P offered transportation across the country free of charge to any family that would settle on the plains. Not only that, he threw in a free cow, bags of seed, and a handbook on cultivating the land. there were accommodations in the boxcars, along with the families' belongings, the cows, and the seed. By the time Shaughnessy's tracks had reached the Dakotas, there were homesteads and towns all along their wake and the big money soon began rolling in, just as he had expected: the crops and stock the immigrants produced came east and the implements and items they needed as they prospered went west—all on the NE&P. the gamble had paid off.
ARTHUR HAD STOPPED TRYING TO WORD his telegram and simply sat tapping his desk with the pencil. He looked at the picture of his wife Xenia and thought about phoning Boston, just to talk to her. She'd seemed unusually distant in their last conversations and he couldn't understand why, except he might be spending too much time in Chicago. But more pressing things were now in the air.
His father's cavalier attitude about the company's predicament upset him. Even though his father was known in certain circles as a "man of action," Arthur had observed over time that he could sometimes be paralyzed when confronted with large di$culties—such as the time a few years back when he seemed to come apart after a racehorse stable he owned in upstate New York went bankrupt.
Everybody could see it coming, bad buys in horseflesh and the manager secretly pocketing stud fees for himself, but the Old Man wouldn't act. Wouldn't sell horses or fire the manager. Just said, "One good season at Saratoga and we're back in business." Change seemed beyond him, the older he got. At the time, Arthur thought it would have been smarter if the Old Man had invested in a glue factory or a rendering plant, for all the horses were worth. More and more, the elder Shaughnessy seemed to devote himself to social hobnobbing, lavish entertaining, and improvident travel instead of applying himself to the company. Yet when the big decisions were made, he insisted on being the one to make them.
Except now, this: SEE IF YOU CAN HANDLE IT, the telegram had read. How? Arthur thought. they had a payroll of $388,000 to meet by week's end, plus a $428,000 loan payoff to the National Bank of Boston. Cash on hand was less than $900,000. the Old Man had been in Boston—why for chrissakes wouldn't he go to the president of the bank and get an extension? Arthur knew the answer. the Old Man was embarrassed that it should be known around town—especially in the circles that shunned him—that the great rail mogul Shaughnessy was actually short of cash. So what does he do instead? He goes to Ireland!
Recently Arthur had been doing much reflecting on what had gone wrong with the NE&P, rolling it around in his head like a man rolling a ball bearing on a table. things certainly had been rosy until the past several years, and then events that were far beyond anyone's control overtook them. For one, Washington politicians had begun to object to the giving away of millions of acres of public land to railroad companies for their rights-of-way. All sorts of outrages found their way into newspaper headlines—railroads owing millions to the government, then demanding insulting extensions of the loans while the owners cavorted around in private Pullmans or disported themselves with the kings and queens of Europe. the entire nation was suddenly up in arms over such abuses of the public trust.
Arthur's father had been the recipient of nearly a thousand miles of free track land until, as the route reached westward through southern South Dakota, he was, quite literally, stopped in his tracks.
the weather in those climes was not being cooperative, either. the first years were good, all considered—including the usual blizzards and droughts— and the sturdy Scandinavians stuck it out, being used to the cold, if not the heat. then, during the first decade of the new century, the droughts became more frequent and the winters more severe, killing sheep, cows, and pigs.
Excerpted from El Paso by Winston Groom. Copyright © 2016 by Winston Groom. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.
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