'He had a trailer behind a vacant house that used to be a rock-hound shop. You must have seen it.'
'I've seen it,' Anderson allowed.
'Didn't know who lived there.'
Kerney picked up the check for the coffee.
'Thanks for your time.'
'Hope I didn't waste yours,' Anderson replied.
He put some change on the table for a tip, shook Kerney's hand, and wished him good luck before putting his sunglasses back on and pushing his way out the door into the simmering desert furnace of the day.
As he paid the bill, Kerney pondered Anderson's behavior. The man had gone from one extreme to another. He'd been more than willing to talk about poachers, but went into a complete shutdown when Leon Spence had been mentioned. That was damn interesting.
Anderson hadn't left much of a tip for the waitress. Kerney went back and put more money on the table.
'Reading with one eye isn't easy,' Jim said.
'And I don't do it very well.'
'Maybe you shouldn't try,' Kerney replied.
Jim sat in the chair next to his hospital bed, a pile of papers in his hand. The dressing covering his eye had been replaced with a patch and his left arm was in a sling.
The bed was occupied by a very pretty, blue-jean clad blond-headed young woman with a dimple in the center of her chin, who sat cross-legged with a laptop computer balanced on her knees.
'That's Molly Hamilton,' Jim explained.
'My research associate. When she gets desperate, I'm allowed to date her.'
'Shut up, Jim,' Molly said sweetly, looking at Kerney. 'Hi.'
'Hello.'
Molly held out a modem cord to Kerney.
'Plug this in the phone jack, please. State archives is sending me some confirming information.'
Kerney did as he was told.
'Where did you find such good help?' he asked Stiles.
'Molly's the chief research librarian at the university,' Jim explained.
'I can't get her to quit her job, marry me, and have my babies.'
'Shut up, Jim,' Molly said, her fingers busy at the keyboard.
'Don't listen to him, Mr. Kerney. Want to hear what we've got so far?'
'I'd love to.'
Molly punched a few more keys and put the laptop on the pillow behind her.
'Okay. Before statehood, Thomas Catron owned most of the land west of Magdalena to the Arizona border. What he didn't own, Solomon Luna controlled, along with the Padilla family. Don Luis was kind of a junior partner.
They pooled their resources and formed a limited partnership called the American Valley Company.
There were a few more partners, but Catron bought them out except for Luna and Padilla. The venture never made a profit. Catron was overextended financially and couldn't raise the money for development.
In his day, he was just about the biggest landowner in the country. He held title to, or controlled, millions of acres in New Mexico. When beef prices plummeted in the 1890s and the drought hit, it was all he could do to hold on to the land.'
'That's interesting,' Kerney said, 'but it doesn't get us very far.'
'What's interesting, Mr. Kerney,' Molly said, arching her back in a stretch, 'is what Catron did.
He recruited a new partner with working capital:
William Elderman.'
'My granddaddy,' Jim added proudly.
'A real scoundrel.'
'True enough,' Molly replied.
'After the American Valley Company dissolved, Catron and Luna walked away from the venture, leaving Elderman and Padilla the biggest landowners in the county, but with a binding agreement that gave each of them first option for a buy out.'
'So did Elderman exercise his option for the land with Padilla?' Kerney asked.
'Padilla wouldn't sell, even though Elderman hounded him for years. It took the Great Depression to bankrupt Padilla.'
'Did Elderman get the land for back taxes?'
'Don't jump the gun,' Molly said, waving a censuring finger.
'The only entity buying land in the valley during the Depression was the federal government.
The feds wanted to expand the Datil National Forest. That's what it was called back then. And the land they wanted was owned by Padilla.
Elderman knew it. Padilla didn't. It was pure discrimination.
The feds didn't want to deal with the Hispanics.'
'Is this speculation or fact?' Kerney inquired.
Molly tilted her head in Jim's direction.
'Fact.
Most of what we know comes from an unpublished autobiography written by Woodrow Stringhom, the first park superintendent. His family donated the papers to the university after his death. Stringhom consummated the deal with Elderman to buy the land for the national forest. He wrote in his autobiography that he was ordered by Washington to have no dealings with Padilla, and to wait until the land came under Elderman's control.
'There's even a letter from Elderman to Stringhom, in which he writes that Padilla probably wouldn't be able to meet his obligations to the bank when his note came due. Seems that old William had an inside source on Padilla's finances.'
'Who owned the bank?' Kerney queried.
'Another scoundrel,' Jim replied.
'Calvin Cox.
Karen's granddaddy. Is this a good story, or what?'
'A very good story,' Kerney agreed.
'So Elderman got control of Padilla's land through Calvin Cox, turned around, and sold a chunk of it to the feds.'
'Right,' Molly agreed.
'Elderman Meadows.
There was no tax auction. We think Calvin Cox covered the tax liability until the proceeds from the land sale came through. Elderman probably paid through the nose for the service, but he walked away a rich man after selling out to the government.' She glanced at Jim.
'Are you rich?'
Stiles grinned.
'No, but my grandparents were, and my parents are well off. I guess that makes me part of the landed gentry.'
'Dirty money,' Molly said, wrinkling her nose.
Stiles nodded his head enthusiastically.
'It's how the west was won.'
Molly wrinkled her nose again in disgust at the idea.
'I don't like it any more than you do, really,' Jim said.
Molly's smile returned.
'You'd better not.' She turned her attention back to Kerney.
'That's about it. What I asked for from state archives should fill in some of the blanks.'
'Did you find any reference to a place called Mexican Hat?' Kerney asked.
'Nothing,' Molly answered.
'It could be one of those local place-names that never got recorded.'
