Longarm said, “I noticed he seemed sort of smitten with a still young and handsome widow woman.”
“Her property, you mean!” sniffed the snippy brunette. “I know he was flirting with her a lot, but all the time he was going on about losing his own spouse to the plague a good spell back, he was eyeing everything inside her picket fence as if he already owned it. I told you about that other skunk who came courting a poor woman with little experience with smooth talk, didn’t I?”
Longarm said, “You did. She’s lucky to have a more well-read librarian as a chaperone. I can see a man would have to get up early to put anything over on you. Do you have any books about that old Credit Mobilier of America scandal as broke during the ‘72 Presidential race?”
She said she thought there might be something on it in the recent history cross-index, and led him over to her files as she confessed she’d heard about them doing something dreadful with railroad stock back in Washington while she was in high school in Omaha. She confessed she’d been more interested in a certain boy down the street at the time.
As she pored through her index cards Longarm said, “I was just getting over my admiration for cows at the time. They were still at it about Credit Mobilier when I signed on with the Justice Department as a junior deputy. But they never asked my opinion, and I’m not certain I recall the skullduggery right.”
She sighed and said, “I don’t have anything filed under Credit or Mobilier. If we have anything about the mess it would be in a book we have under another listing. Maybe if you could just get me started with the gist of it all …”
Longarm sighed and said, “I fear everyone wound up mighty confused with all the facts and figures laid out in front of them. The way I remember it, some big railroading men got authorized by Congress to build that transcontinental railroad betwixt ‘64 and ‘69, under mighty generous terms. The government was so anxious to see a railroad all the way out to California that they loaned both the Union Pacific and Central Pacific millions of dollars and granted them alternate sections of land all along their rights of way, along with the water, timber, and mineral rights.”
She said, “I heard about that. I wish somebody would give me just one square mile of free land, with or without a forest or gold mine on it!”
Longarm nodded. “The hard-nosed directors of that Central Pacific were content with just getting as rich as King Midas. But a couple of Union Pacific directors called Ames and Durant took pork-swilling to new heights. They set up a dummy corporation, called the Credit Mobilier of America, to contract with the Union Pacific the two of them already ran to lay the tracks out to the Great Salt Lake and pound gold spikes with the eastbound Central Pacific.”
“Was that against the law?” She asked.
Longarm said, “They’re still arguing about that. The exact numbers are in those books you don’t have handy. But the left hand billed the right hand a third more than it really cost for every mile of track. Ames and Durant, as Union Pacific directors, were proud to pay Ames and Durant of Credit Mobilier such a handsome profit with other suckers’ money. Oakes Ames sat in Congress as well as on all those boards of directors. So he figured he’d best cut some politicos their own slices of the pie. He dealt out shares in Credit Mobilier cut-rate or even on credit, which could be considered outright bribery, and was by some. For as those golden spikes got driven and the construction company was liquidated, Credit Mobilier shares with a face value of around two hundred dollars were redeemed with cash and Union Pacific paper worth over eight hundred dollars per share, which does add up when you slip a congressman a few hundred free shares at a time. That may have been why so few came forward.”
She said, “I’m not sure I understand what those congressmen were supposed to do for all that railroad paper, Custis.”
Longarm said, “Neither was that congressional panel after they’d looked under many a shell. They never found out how many shares, worth what, were distributed amid how many congressmen to do what. They managed to implicate Vice President Colfax, two senators, and four or five representatives, along with old Ames himself. But nobody was ever indicted or even expelled. The committee likely missed a few old boys holding handsome blocks of Credit Mobilier. In the end the dummy outfit that built the Union Pacific faded away like that Cheshire cat in the story about Miss Alice in Wonderland, leaving more of a bad taste in the air than any big grin.”
Ellen asked, “Aren’t those Credit Mobilier certificates under all that wallpaper back at the house worth anything at all?”
Longarm said, “That’s how come I want to look ‘em up. I’m only a lawman, not a stockbroker. I don’t think they could be worth anything at this late date. Martin MacUlric couldn’t have thought much of them when he used them to paper his upstairs before he passed on. But he did buy a heap of them before he decided they were only pretty paper.”
Ellen said, “I never met him. But if you ask me he must have been a fool. Why would he have paid anything for all that Confederate money?”
Longarm shook his head and replied, “Not money. Bonds. A promise on the part of the Confederate States of America to pay the bearer face value on maturity. He wasn’t a total fool. Some of the former states of the Confederacy have started to pay pensions to Confederate widows, now that the Reconstruction has blown over and Southerners are running Southern states again.”
Ellen gasped. “Good heavens, she has ever so many Confederate bonds back at our boardinghouse!”
He chuckled and said, “There’s no way even the Union could afford to redeem all that rebel paper. They had to issue a heap of it to get any real money in return. But it might be possible to redeem old Credit Mobilier of America stock. The parent company, the Union Pacific, is still in business and doing grand under new management. If we can’t find anything here, I can wire this railroading slicker I know. Old Jay Gould ain’t connected with Union Pacific, but he’d know if any railroad paper was worth a plugged nickel, and I did him a favor one time.”
She said she’d noticed even mean-tempered folks tended to remember favors. That gave him the opening to say, “Us mean folks don’t get as many favors as some. I came here with the intention of asking for one. You got me all side-tracked, worried about slick-talking hardware men and upstairs rooms papered with stocks and bonds.” Ellen said she was only worried about a poor young widow, and asked him what she might be able to do for him. She could sure smile dirty for such a big-eyed little thing. He said, “I don’t want to catch the evening southbound. I don’t want to have anyone shooting up our boardinghouse again either. So I have a plan, But I need a little help. I ain’t asking anyone to risk hide or property on my account, you understand. I only want to scout around the railroad stop to see if I can spot anybody acting sneaky when the southbound combination steams in and out. Then, if I can’t catch any sneaks laying for me near the tracks, I mean to see who’s most surprised I’m still in town after the train rolls on without me.”
She smiled up at him like a fond teacher warning the class clown not to write like that on the blackboard, and asked what he wanted her to do come sundown. He said, “I want you safely hunkered in your quarters at the
