The Halted Train: Aristocratic Dining by the Royal Gorge

At first the owner and head chef of Jack's Coach Gourmet (On Sidings) didn't want me to write about him. He had enough customers, he said. He only agreed when I told him this blog doesn’t really get that many hits, and even then he asked me not to say exactly where he is.

He has his reasons. Jack serves the powerful from all over, mainly regional Army commanders and cartel jefes but also water magnates, gun and explosive dealers, private security men, and a manager of call centers in three settlements. On Tuesday they’ll be trying to kill each other; on Wednesday at Jack's they’ll sit at neighboring tables.

Jack wouldn’t tolerate anything else. He operates on a membership basis, like a college alumni club, and although he has nothing to threaten his members with but the loss of his restaurant, to them it feels like a real threat. They love coming to Jack’s.

It's not just his food, which is very good but not magical. It's the after-dinner smoking parlor, home of the best chess in four territories. A few of the men who come here are gourmets; a few are cigar lovers; they are all chesshounds.

Once, Jack told me, an especially tense, high-level game was interrupted by gunfire. A Posse had come all the way from the western edge of the state because they’d heard that the Territorial Governor would be there. Not only did two of the other guests—an Army major and a cartel boss—order their personal guards to fight back together, they cooperated for four weeks, totally unauthorized, to hunt down and punish the Posse survivors.

The major was demoted and transferred for exceeding his authority, and the cartel boss was executed, basically for the same reason. The shooting itself also badly damaged Jack's generator. He was closed for a month and lost two near-master chess players. He can’t afford a repeat.

In my last post I mentioned that I’m traveling with an Eastern reporter. Normally we wouldn't have been allowed in without an invitation from a member, but my reporter friend happened to drop the name of the Sheriff I also wrote about in my last post. It turns out he’s one of Jack’s suppliers, trading delicacies like mushrooms, dandelion greens, watercress, wild honey, and venison for diesel. They don't really need each other, Jack says, and it's not efficient business for either of them, but they're old friends and like the excuse to meet.

Not that Jack doesn't love the mushrooms: morels and black morels in spring, milky caps, shaggy manes, and chantrelles in summer. The day we visited the Sheriff had brought him the last of the year's boletes and the first of the year's pine nuts.

We happened to show up on a Sunday evening, not a popular time. Most of his customers go to church, and as most Westerners know, getting to church and getting home again is enough struggle for a Sunday even if, like a few of Jack’s regulars, you have your own Praetorian Guard. So Jack “wasn't cooking much,” he said, “just enough for the four or five die-hards” he expected later.

Well, not much turned out to be fresh linguine with a porcini-alfredo sauce, half a grilled trout each with a fresh lemon wedge and minced dill, and for dessert chopped apples, pine nuts, and honey-sweetened whipped cream on a butter shortbread cookie. (That Sheriff isn’t Jack’s only supplier. He’s ludicrously stocked with foods most Westerners see once a month if ever: fresh heavy cream and eggs, aged Romano and pecorino, smoked ham, saffron.)

Given what Jack had told us about his clientele, I was naturally curious about the other four people who showed up. But they didn’t talk much. One had brought a newspaper—the paper my reporter friend works for, in fact—and leafed through it while he ate, spending twenty or thirty seconds per page until he reached the crossword, at which point he took a pen from his rear pants-pocket and went to work.

My friend said she hadn't thought you could get her paper in the West, and asked the man where he'd bought it. All he would say was that he had it flown to him.

After dessert we all went down to the smoking car. I'd begun nursing my last pouch of tobacco the day before, not sure when I'd get the chance to buy more. I was smoking only when I couldn't stand it anymore, and then only enough to bring on that front edge of a nicotine buzz before I pinched it out to finish later. More than half the time I was smoking the last half or third of a butt, so more than half the time my first drag was bitter and ashy. It was foul and made me wish I’d quit years ago.

Truly the mantra of the Western tobacco addict.

But my friend had a company credit card, and Jack had a working card reader and cigars. I smoked mine like a barbarian, sucking it all the way into my lungs, mixing a little smoke from the cigar with a lot of air through my nose. It made the tiny muscles in my face relax. Two of the other customers lit their own and we opened the car windows to let out the smoke—we were only at 5,500 feet so it wasn’t too cold outside.

Jack’s one waitress brought us all brandies and put away the humidor, and then she sat at the far end of the smoking car with her guitar and sang for us:

This old smoke filled bar is something I'm not used to
But I gave up my home to see you satisfied
And I just called to let you know where I'll be living
It's not much but I feel welcome here inside.

And I've got swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool
And my new home has a flashing neon sign
Stop by and see me any time you want to
Cause I'm always here at home till closing time.

I've got everything I need to drive me crazy
I've got everything it takes to lose my mind
And in here the atmosphere's just right for heartaches
Thanks to you I'm always here till closing time.

And I've got swinging doors, a jukebox and a bar stool
And my new home has a flashing neon sign
Stop by and see me any time you want to
Cause I'm always here at home till closing time

Yeah, I'm always here at home till closing time.

She sang it folk-style. Her voice wasn't professional, or even very strong, but it wasn’t bad. She was on key, anyway, and the room was small.

It was all very civilized. My ashtray was thick, clear glass with a deep bowl, my leather-upholstered chair was firm yet comfortable, my brandy was served in a snifter just big enough to warm with one hand. The chessmen were hand-carved in soft stone, polished, with fresh felt on their bottoms, and the board was made of black and white marble. It was so nice there, in fact, that when the waitress took stopped singing my reporter friend compared it to "a hotel bar on a weekday afternoon, back in DC before the war."

One of the chess players looked up from his game and talked to us for the first time. "Don't get comfortable," he said, "it's the Wild West out there."

"Does that make you cowboy or Indian?" said the man with the newspaper. He had a Spanish accent.

The chess player smiled. "I'm the traveling snake-oil salesman. You're the cattle rustler. My friend here," meaning the other player, "he's the U.S. Cavalry."

I suppose I should have guessed, even if the man was in civilian clothes. He was black, and these days a black man in the West is probably a settler or in the Army. Jack had said a number of his members were officers, and that they usually came out of uniform.

The man with the newspaper raised his glass. "To the U.S. Cavalry!" he said.

He left soon after. Jack leaned in and told us he managed airlift security and airstrips for a drug syndicate in Arizona and New Mexico. My friend rushed after him for an interview and the two of them talked for half an hour inside the empty, pigeon-shitted train station next door.

Now, when she ran outside I went after her. I was responsible for her—officially, I was her guide—and she was rushing after a drug-cartel employee. She waved me off before I got close, though—later she told me she’d been afraid I’d spook the guy. So when they went into the station I just stayed close enough to see their shapes through the window, pacing around the small parking lot while I waited.

On one trip around the lot I passed by the NS-man’s pickup, a brand-new model. A boy of around eighteen was trussed in the bed, squatting on his heels with his back against the cab. One piece of rope tied his left ankle, went through an eyebolt on the cab wall behind him, and finished around his right ankle. The bolt was two inches above the bed floor and right between his legs, and with his feet just wider than his hips he had maybe six inches of slack. Another piece of rope went around both of his wrists, pulled them between his knees, and tied them to that same ring. He couldn't unbend his back, sit, or stand. He couldn't roll backward because the cab was there to stop him, or forward without pulling his shoulders out of joint.

He must have been like that all through our dinner, and I couldn't tell if he was still conscious or if the pain he must have felt in his thighs, knees, ankles, and back had knocked him out. If he’d screamed during dinner we wouldn’t have heard him: inside the train car, built to shut out noise, we could barely even hear the diesel generator right under the windows. His head hung forward and I couldn't see his eyes. He wore a settlement work blazer.

I wish I could say I was brave enough to untie him, but I wasn't. If he’d raised his head and looked at me I might not have been able to turn away—I know I’d have seen him since the full moon was shining. I don't know whether or not to be grateful that he didn't. It felt inhuman, but what could I do? We’ve seen too much suffering in the West; we know how little we can help each other most of the time. We have to ignore each other, otherwise we would drown in our guilt and shame. I would be surprised if you reading this hadn’t turned away from at least one person who needed your help.

All I did was go over near the station and call for my friend. I thought that if she wrapped up her interview, the NS-man might untie the boy himself. But he didn’t. He came out, got behind the wheel, and drove away without even looking in the back.

Since then I’ve been thinking about how we Westerners love the idea of the Old West, and thinking we should remember that those days could be very brutal. We all carry guns again, the way we did in the Old days. We’ve always believed in our right to carry them—and I believe in it too. But we should try to remember that in the Old days we kept guns for protection from some pretty nasty characters. Also because we had dispossessed, slaughtered, and tortured the natives, driven them to the wall, and they were fighting back.

Let me give an example. In my last post I referred to the Pike Gold Rush of 1858. Well, by 1864 the brand-new Colorado Territory was full of miners, traders, and homesteaders. Sioux from the north, angry for their own reasons, attacked wagon trains along the South Platte River, and the Third Colorado Regiment began attacking Cheyenne in retaliation, though the Cheyenne had signed a peace treaty with the U.S. in 1851. So a large group of Cheyenne gathered and put themselves under the protection of Fort Lyon (about 125 miles east of present-day Colorado Springs). They stayed on the bank of Sand Creek, forty miles north of the Fort, for about four months. Then, in late November, Colonel John Chivington rode on the camp with 700 men from the First and Third Colorado Regiments and four howitzers. Here’s an eyewitness account (taken from Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee):

I saw the American flag waving and heard [chief] Black Kettle tell the Indians to stand around the flag, and there they were huddled—men, women, and children. This was when we were within fifty yards of the Indians. I also saw a white flag raised. These flags were in so conspicuous a position that they must have been seen. When the troops fired, the Indians ran, some of the men into their lodges, probably to get their arms … I think there were six hundred Indians in all. I think there were thirty-five braves and some old men, about sixty in all … the rest of the men were away from camp, hunting. After the firing the warriors put the squaws and children together, and surrounded them to protect them. I saw five squaws under a bank for shelter. When the troops came up to them they ran out and showed their persons to let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy, but the soldiers shot them all. I saw one squaw lying on the bank whose leg had been broken by a shell; a soldier came up to her with a drawn saber; she raised her arm to protect herself, when he struck, breaking her arm; she rolled over and raised her other arm, when he struck, breaking it, and then left her without killing her. There seemed to be indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children. There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed, and four or five bucks outside. The squaws offered no resistance. Every one I saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child, as I thought, lying by her side. Captain Soule afterwards told me that such was the fact. I saw the body of White Antelope with the privates cut off, and I heard a soldier say he was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them. I saw one squaw whose privates had been cut out … I saw a little girl about five years of age who had been hid in the sand; two soldiers discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her, and then pulled her out of the sand by the arm.

About 130 Indians died. In the year that followed, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux together killed and looted up and down the South Platte. They shot eighteen people in the small town of Julesburg and burned it to the ground. Ultimately, though, the Cheyenne retreated north to Sioux country and south to Kiowa country. In 1865 they signed another treaty giving up claim to everything between the South Platte and Arkansas rivers—basically all of eastern Colorado.

I have also been thinking that in our love of the Old West we should consider that we’re the desperate natives, up against technology and numbers we can’t match in the long run. I don’t know whether in the end we’ll be luckier than the Indians. I, myself, am hired as a guide by a traveling Easterner, like those Indians the U.S. Cavalry used to employ as scouts, and I turned away from that boy in the truck bed because I was powerless and scared.