Chapter Twenty
Again, we were sitting at the Mahogany table in the kitchen of Topo’s house. A fire burned in the hearth and the fragrant aroma of pine filled the kitchen along with the pleasant smell of coffee.
“What do you expect from me in San Francisco?” I asked Don Topo.
“Juan told me you killed some cattle thieves in Oregon.”
“It took a great deal of work to get those heifers to Oregon. A life was lost. I wasn’t going to tolerate someone stealing them.”
“I would expect no less determination from you, Charlie, however, you must not develop a reputation for violence. You need a to be known as a resourceful and honest businessman, not a killer.”
“You chastise me for protecting your property? I couldn’t let that poor Castro boy get clubbed to death by savages for no reason.”
Topo sounded tired. “They say you also killed one of your own vaqueros.”
“That was an accident. This Indian helping us gather some cattle got a bottle of whiskey and when it came time to go to work, he was drunk. He rode up to me at the corrals and said he wasn’t going to take orders from a pup. Then he pulled a knife. I cracked him over the head with a pistol barrel and when I did, it spooked his horse. He fell off and his foot got hung in the stirrup. We tried to get the horse stopped but he ended up being dragged to death in the rocks. I felt bad about it,” I said.
“You may have had your reasons, but I need you to be civilized in your dealings . I don’t really need another violent, illiterate vaquero or pistolero. Life has become complicated in California and it is getting worse,” Topo replied. He sighed and shifted in his chair.
“There is the idyllic life on the rancho and then there is real life. Real life is political power and the influence you gain through money and favors. Whether that is right or not, whether you believe it or not, it is true. Accumulate enough money, you can own a rancho as an amusement. The easy life where they held week long fiestas is over. The Spanish horsemen no longer shoe their horses with silver.”
“I don’t wish to amuse myself with a ranch. I want to manage a ranch. I like horses and cattle and life away from people.”
Topo had aged. His particular form of aging was to put on weight. If he were two inches shorter, he would become a circle. He ran his stubby fingers through his curly silver hair and then rubbed his sagging jowls.
“All you get from working with cattle is old before your time. Stay at it long enough and you will end up crippled and poverty stricken. It’s a young man’s game and you won’t be young forever,” he replied.
“You have made money with cattle in the past.”
“There are too many variables with livestock, Charlie. The rain comes, the grass grows and the cattle become fat. Gold is discovered and miners come and cattle are worth eight times what they were the previous year. We are rich for a time. Then the rains fail to come, the cattle don’t gain, the miners leave for a new strike and we are poor.”
“How can I buy cattle and not be in the cattle business?” I asked.
Don Topo took a sip of his coffee and shook his head and smiled a weak smile.
“No, Charlie. As a cattle buyer you are in the commodity business, not raising livestock. You provide a service. The cattle market is bad, you get a commission. The cattle market is good, you get a commission. The main thing is, by living in San Francisco, you are able to make deals. A good lease comes up, you can do someone a favor. A rancho must be sold because of taxes, you find a buyer for it or buy it for us. Then others will owe you. A middleman makes money whether it rains or it doesn’t, whether the cattle prices are up or down.”
“I am not sure I understand you.”
“Charlie, if you buy cloth for one dollar a yard and sell it for two dollars a yard, you make money. If you till the land, plant and harvest the cotton, then take it to market, who knows if you will make money. You need to concern yourself with profit, not lifestyle,” he said.
“You have too much faith in me, Don Topo.”
“Who else can I have faith in? I have two sons-in-law. One likes to gamble. The other likes to drink. They do not favor hard work nor do they have my trust. I have tried to build something for my family but the fruits of my efforts can disappear very quickly. You need to help me preserve what we have built.”
“Anyone would tell you I am not a deal maker. I don’t like the city. I don’t even play cards or drink whiskey. I have never listened to a politician I would lower myself to talk to. I want to help you, but I am not the man for the job,” I said. It was the first time I could remember telling Topo no.
“Your desire to stay in the brush with the vaqueros is childlike, Charlie. You can no longer afford to be a child. You have to find out how the world works. Give me a year in Yerba Buena working as a cattle buyer for our slaughterhouse. If you can’t abide living in the city after a year, you can go back to Oregon and follow the vaquero trade. Just give me a year of your time.”
I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair. Don Topo went on in his most reasonable and persuasive tone.
“If you travel buying beef for the slaughterhouse, you will form friendships. From those associations you will learn more about cattle and horses than you ever would living in a shack on a desolate ranch. After a year in San Francisco, you will own better horses, be able to afford better saddles and know where to buy better cows than you will camped in the wilderness of Oregon.”
I smiled because Don Topo knew what lever to use to sway me. Arguing that I could barely read didn’t sway him. Topo told me I could count cattle and read men. That was all he needed from me. In the end, I couldn’t stand against Topo’s wishes. I agreed to spend a year buying cattle for Don Topo’s slaughterhouse.
“If it makes you feel better, Charlie, your father and I were partners on a load of hides many years ago. The hides went to China and there were problems with payment. After all these years, I finally got a bank draft covering the profit on the transaction. To settle your father’s estate, I am giving you one hundred of the heifers in Oregon. You no longer work for me. We are now partners. However, I still need you to buy cattle for the slaughterhouse and try to be a husband to Lucinda.”
“Buying cattle will be easier than being married to Lucinda,” I said and immediately wished I hadn’t. The old man’s face fell. He loved his daughter and there was no getting away from that.
Topo looked like he might get mad, then he took a breath and eased deeper into his chair.
“No man has an easy road when it comes to women. Do the best you can and you will have my blessing,” he said, and sighed.
Thus, I went to live and work in San Francisco.
Sandy Ellis was Topo’s partner in the slaughterhouse. It was going to be my job to travel the countryside and buy cattle. As such, I would be absent a great deal of the time. The prospect of my being gone didn’t seem to upset Lucinda or distract her from searching for a house. Somehow, she had extracted a promise from Topo to pay for a home near Butchertown.
Lucinda found a pleasant looking, newly constructed two-story wooden house on a big enough lot for a rose garden. The house was situated on Kentucky Street, several miles from the offices of the Ellis Livestock Company. I would have liked something closer to my work but when the breeze was just right, the stench of the offal from the slaughterhouses would drift through the air. If you lived within a half mile of the conglomeration of tanneries and slaughterhouses, the smell would make you heave lunch. The fact that I had a long way to hike to get to work didn’t seem to bother Lucinda. She was unfazed that, due to it’s proximity to the center of the city, the house was much more expensive than what her father had intended to pay.
It was estimated that a population of over three-thousand workers were employed in Butchertown, which was comprised largely of tanneries, slaughterhouses and fertilizer manufacturers. A contingent of vaqueros and cowboys worked unloading the cattle from ships and driving them to the slaughterhouses.
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Topo had been right about all the latest saddles, innovations and craftsmanship of the silver inlaid bits making their way to Butchertown. If it was made of silver, iron or leather, one of the cattle buyers or ranchers would own it. New and improved bit designs, spurs and saddles were always a topic of conversation.
Sandy Ellis, Don Topo’s partner in the slaughterhouse, was a cherubic little man who must have owned two dozen shirts. I never saw him dressed in anything but a freshly pressed shirt. Amazingly enough, he put his laundry on a ship to Hawaii to have them washed and starched. There were more established and better laundries in Hawaii than in San Francisco, though the turnaround time was a bit longer.
Sandy always had a recent haircut and fresh shave. The first thing he did when I showed up was to frown in my direction, then take me to his barber. While I was getting my hair trimmed, Sandy lost no time is schooling me on buying cattle. He was a sharp trader with sunny outlook and a smile always in place.
Over whiskey, he rattled on. “You can get hurt in a cattle deal in many different ways, Charlie. You can be a week’s ride out in the country and the price of live cattle will drop. You don’t hear about it until you get back to San Francisco with the cattle you paid too much for. There won’t be a scale so you have to argue with the rancher about what his steers weigh. Some of the cowmen want gold, rather than a bank note, which presents a problem because if you are carrying gold instead of a check you can be robbed. Most cowmen will make the cattle thirsty with salt the cattle so they will look fatter than they are, and will weigh more when they are run across a scale. People will try to sell you cattle with an altered brand. Accidentally buying stolen cattle can complicate things in a hurry. Misunderstandings abound and no matter how honest you are, someone will always label you a skunk. You just have to accept that.”
He looked at me, his eyes twinkling.
“Those challenges are just the tip of the iceberg in this business. No wonder I drink.”
Lucinda and I saw a little bit of the city while I was helping her set up house. She arranged to have Patricio stay most of the time with his aunt. With her son taken care of, Lucinda availed herself of all the furniture shops, linen shops and carpet stores in the city. She would be out shopping at nine in the morning and stay at it till sundown. There were popular concerts and plays that she insisted I accompany her to. However, within a week of our arrival, I was headed out into the countryside to locate cattle. I can’t say I minded because after a full day of hauling home furniture followed by a late night of entertainment in the theatre; I was worn out.
My job involved many hours on a horse. Sometimes I would buy the cattle and arrange for my vaqueros to drive them. Sometimes I would buy them with the understanding that they would be paid for when they reached San Francisco. Sometimes the ranch owners would bring the cattle and sell them to the highest bidder at Butchertown. Most of the time all parties involved preferred that the details of the transactions, how much they were going to get and how their cattle graded, be hashed out ahead of time. Once I was dispatched to the northern counties to buy cattle for the slaughterhouse, I didn’t see Lucinda much. I was constantly traveling. Making long horseback rides followed by a day or so visit with the stock producers to look at the cattle and try to strike a bargain. I might be back in San Francisco for forty-eight hours, most of it spent sleeping, recording accounts and taking care of personal details. Then it was back out to locate more cattle to buy.
When I was out of town, Lucinda struck out on her own. Without asking me my opinion, much less my permission, Lucinda finagled a down payment on a coffee shop and restaurant located by the wharf. I assumed the money came from her father, but I never inquired. As I came to find out, her dabbling in the coffee business wasn’t quite as benign as it seemed.
Scent of Tears