The Last Narrow Gauge Train Robbery. Robert K. Swisher Jr.
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For Moose, who rode those mountain trails,drank that rot gut whiskey;sometimes old friend, you have to bite the bullet ….
All of the characters in this book
are fictitious, and any resemblance
to actual persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental
Copyright © 1987 by Robert K Swisher, Jr.
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any
electronic or mechanical means including information storage and
retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Swisher, Robert K., 1947-
The last narrow gauge train robbery.
I. Title.
PS3569.W574L37 1987 813′.54 87-6491
ISBN: 0-86534-106-0
Published in 1987 by SUNSTONE PRESS
Post Office Box 2321
Santa Fe, NM 87504-2321 / USA
CHAPTER 1
With each passing mile, Bill Masterson felt the tension drain from his body. Another thirty minutes and he would be on the edge of the mountains; another year, another yearly trip. God, the time flew anymore. He wondered if they would make it. He prayed they would. This would make the tenth year and nobody had missed yet; but, the apprehension was always there. Although they were all in their mid-thirties, one day somebody would be the first to die. What shit life is, Bill decided. He rummaged around in his shirt pocket and dug out the inch-long roach of Afghani weed. As the smoke curled around his head, Bill once again fell back into the joy of not thinking about responsibilities, and picturing the mountain trail that would lead his friends and him high into the San Juan Wilderness to Green Lake.
At the edge of the mountains, Bill drove toward Chama. Surrounded by the Santa Fe Forest and the San Juan Wilderness, the New Mexico town is the kickoff point for many different people wishing to see a glimpse of an America that is rapidly shrinking. During the summer, an endless line of bird watchers, fishermen, and campers make their way through the town. During the fall, grouse, elk, deer, and big horn sheep hunters fill the woods.
Chama consists of people who don’t want to ask questions and don’t want to answer any. Six bars line the main street, scratching out a living from truck drivers trying to dodge scales and out-doorsmen. The only establishment that makes a good living year round is the Wagon Wheel Bar because the owner, a Mr. Saavedra, loves girls with big tits, dreams of girls with big tits, only hires girls with big tits. With big tits ingrained in modern society, the Wagon Wheel always has enough men in it to pay the bills.
Years earlier, Bill Masterson had heard about the bar on the C.B. as he was driving north of Albuquerque.
“Lord,” the trucker had said, “her tits were the best I’ve seen in years. Big enough to get your tongue hard.”
After that, the yearly meeting place before the onslaught into the wilderness was changed to the Wagon Wheel. After all, the thinking was, if a group of has-been hippies was going to meet once a year from all corners of the country to go fishing, they might as well meet at a place where the barmaids have big tits.
Scattered behind the bar are several hundred small wooden homes which look like they belong more in the midwest than New Mexico. At this elevation, there are no quaint adobe homes selling for ridiculous prices. Instead, wood frame homes sell for ridiculous prices.
At one time, the staff of life to the town was the lumber mill. One either worked at the mill, cut the trees in the forest, or drove the trucks that hauled the trees. But, when the mill played out, it was the narrow gauge railroad that came to the rescue. Now, the small town is mostly known for its potatoes and the hookers who come from nowhere during the hunting season.
Before the fall of the wood mill, the narrow gauge had consisted of nothing but rotting passenger cars and two old broken steam engines. The old tracks were torn and twisted. Two men from Texas, just out of the woods from hunting elk, were sitting in the Wagon Wheel enjoying the tits and getting drunk when one turned to the other.
“I bet I can take that old railroad and make it into a money maker.”
The other Texan took a big pull on his beer and laughed. “You’re nuts, five thousand dollars says you’ll loose your ass.”
People laughed when the word got around … at first. But when crews came in and fixed the forty-some miles of track, rebuilt the tiny steam-powered engine, and refurbished the wooden open-air passenger cars, people didn’t snicker as much. Then, the first year when a lot of people came to ride the train, many people began to say, “Maybe it will make some money.” But the following