The Last Narrow Gauge Train Robbery. Robert K. Swisher Jr.
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as he called it. It had been easy from there. There had been nobody else qualified for the job. The young man doing the hiring looked worried until Matthew smiled at him and spoke, “Don’t worry, I won’t die driving the train. Put a young man on with me and I’ll train him.”
Two days later, Matthew was on the bus headed for Chama as chief engineer of the Narrow Gauge Railroad. It was a dream, a new world, a coming out, a rebirth. For Matthew, a railroad man for his entire life, it was the completion of a circle.
He was everywhere around the train, checking, looking, feeling, touching the black engine. In time, the engine became his, not a large cast iron hunk of steel, but his. His outdated, antique old engine, made to run by love and caring.
Matthew would stand and watch the people board the small passenger cars, the cars with their straight-backed red wooden seats. And then he would climb into the open engine and lay on the steam. The engine would shake and bounce and groan and ever so slowly it would start, one inch, two inches, groaning, proving it could continue. One-tenth the size of a modern locomotive, but full of guts. And it would climb and wheeze up the treacherous 14,000 foot mountain with its switchbacks and upgrades and downgrades. All the time Matthew would talk to the engine. His old hands would be the steel wheels, his heart the steam boiler.
Soon, he was as famous as the train itself. His face was on postcards mailed around the world. Children asked him questions and sat in his chair, looking at the gauges and firebox. From early May until the last run in the winter, Matthew had not missed a day in two years. He was never sick. “Had all those fuckin’ diseases,” he would say, and didn’t drink more than one beer a night. In time, the town grew to love him. It was forgotten that he hadn’t been born there.
Matthew opened the door of the restaurant and looked at the short, thin, Mexican lady behind the counter. It was early, before the people and the rush; nice. There was time for a smile. Grace handed Matthew his lunch, courtesy of the railroad.
“Nice day,” Matthew spoke.
“Nice day,” Grace answered as she busied herself behind the counter. Through the months, they had become good friends. Both were alone, both felt a bond.
“Trees will start to change before long,” Matthew spoke. “Thought I saw a few yellow aspen leaves yesterday.”
Grace smiled, “Another year, they go fast.”
Matthew looked at the lady and could think of nothing to say. “Well, time to get going.”
The bell on the door clanged behind him. In the early light, he could see several men moving about the train. By ten, everything would be ready and the passengers would be boarding. He walked across the street and up to the engine. The engine was small, twenty feet long, its large cattle bumper reaching over the track. Behind the large, round, steam boiler, one had a few feet to stand or sit in front of the coal bin. All around the engine, one could smell the mixture of coal and steam and grease. Matthew loved this engine. There would be no world without it. With this train he could look back in time to see the mountains before the tourist, before the paved highway, to a time when the train was shiny and new. To a time when it was the only vehicle that climbed the mountain, carrying gold and silver out of the high passes. At times, Matthew could see the old-timers, the drummers and miners, the explorers and bad men. Sitting in the engine he could look back and see, standing by the passenger cars, men in leather and furs with large, well-oiled guns hanging from their hips and shoulders. There would be sheriffs hopping a ride to the top with their horses to hunt down bandits trying to hide in the vast, untamed wilderness. At times, he could see piles of hides and meat waiting for markets back East, and an occasional woman, all perfumed up with feathers in her hat, leaving a sordid past behind with the mountains.
Matthew knew the little train, the creaks and groans. He knew when it needed coal or water, knew when it needed grease and oil. The train talked to him and he listened. Both were in tune with time, and space, and dreams. Both were old and tired, but pertinent to a world that moved onward too quickly, too fast to enjoy or see unless moments were grabbed by cameras as one ran frantically through life. He stepped up into the engine, nodding to the apprentice engineer, touched the throttle, and laughed out loud, “Today, won’t neither of us die.” And he pulled the whistle that woke up the town.
CHAPTER 4
If one were to fly north from Chama, New Mexico, one would start at 7,000 feet and fly over the mountains looming up to 14,000. It is a green, lush land in the summer, dotted by fir and spruce and aspen stands. The high peaks and meadows pasture for sheep and cattle in the summer. In the winter it is white with snow. The land around the foothills of the mountains is divided, for the most part, into private ranches; big spreads boasting of times in the past when they made a living. Now ghosts of what they were, most are owned by oil men and sheiks who use them for tax write-offs and hunting. They run a few cows to help them feel like cowboys. The ranches are worked by young men, men with large drooping western hats, boots with their Levis tucked in the top, and spurs that ring when they walk. Dead men already, hanging onto a dream that died before them. They are but tokens on the ranches, living legends who, for a few years, will live their glory; sleeping with the young cowboy girls poured into their tight Levis, dreaming of six guns and cattle rustlers, reading their Louis L’Amour books until the day comes when they get one of the little cowgirls pregnant and move into a trailer, then rising each day to work in the mill or drive a truck.
The mountains that are excluded from the boundaries of the ranches are considered wilderness or natural forests. A huge tract of land running between Pagosa Springs and Durango on the west, and Chama and Antonito on the south and east remains relatively unspoiled. Left to the government, it will be spoiled. The trail heads are areas where one may start into the wilderness either on foot or horseback. Motorized vehicles are not allowed. In the lakes that dot the wilderness, brook and cut-throat trout leap into the air from the stillness of mirror-smooth water. The people who come to this country come to be alone or to be with friends. It is a small haven for the lost and disenchanted ones who come to be with the wind and the forest. It is a place to run to, to breathe the fresh air, and to see one’s life.
Before the 1860s, there was nothing back in the wilderness except a few outlaws and a few Indians. By the 1870s, gold and silver had been discovered, and a rough-cut road circled up and through Grouse Mountain, Cumbres Pass, and Munga Pass, ending at the small mining community of Platoro. Here, miners worked for the large mining company until they had a grub stake, and could then head into the mountains to pan the streams and dig the outcroppings in search of their glory hole. The trails that came from these miners are the trails that people follow now, searching for quiet. It is a timeless place, a place where the seasons come and go without our help. A place where nature is alone most of the year, sealed by remoteness from our perils.
Snaking around the edge of this wilderness is the Narrow Gauge Railroad. Running partially by the super highway, it is a black, smoke-belching attraction that makes all the cars stop and look in wonder at a portion of our past. The train runs by the highway for ten miles before it cuts off into the forest, climbing over the passes to coast into Colorado. It is a living memory, a memory of gold and silver, guards with double-barreled shotguns riding with the cars, nervous, waiting for the sound of the rifle or crack of a pistol. Hanging in the office of the Narrow Gauge Railroad is an old, browned-out photograph of four men who tried to rob the Chama train. They are strung from a cottonwood tree by the river, their necks extended out past life, dreams of riches and no work gone forever. Standing around the four is a group of smiling men, their hats pulled over their eyes, their guns crossed in their arms. There is no date, there are no names. It was just another event in the mountains not worth remembering.
When the mine played out, and the rivers did not yield enough gold to warrant any more exploring, Platoro, Chama and the railroad died, slipped peacefully back into the seasons. A few crooks and ranchers stayed on, along with a few hermits. Not until the 1960s did the land wake up once again. Hippies, the disenchanted ones, moved in from all over the world, looking for peace and love and the truth. They found Mexicans who hated Anglos, cowboys who hated Mexicans and about everything else, including cold, and the truth. But they also found the wilderness. A wilderness not overrun like Yellowstone or Yosemite. And then,