May 31, 2001

Fero Mex, the Mexican railway company, bought the line going through the old ranch last year from the Southern Orient Railroad and the State of Texas. The service comes out of Mexico from the Pacific port of Topolobampo via Presidio, Texas. But I am not going to trace the connections as today I only have to worry about crossing the 65-foot right-of-way in a pickup to go to Mertzon and once or twice a year to drive our heifer calves back and forth between the Divide and the highway.

After the Santa Fe sold to the Southern Orient, crossing the new operator's tracks became as polite as finding a seat at a finishing school graduation. Engineers on the S.O. stopped back far enough from the crossing to allow the calves to cross. Had the old-time Santa Fe hands shown that much courtesy in the 75 years the family dealt with their offices, we'd have suspected infiltration in the railroad brotherhood by outside parties, like maybe communists or government agents. Those old soreheads delighted in releasing the air on the engine's brakes next to a shipping pen full of fresh-weaned calves or a corral of brush-spoiled cows skittish as mustang colts.

All the ranch's product — the wool, the lambs, and the calves — rode the rails until the mid-1950s. We loaded a few shipments after dark. Many times we shipped in driving rain, blinding the men and soaking chaps and hat brims into a collapsed mess of sodden leather and felt. The best part of loading cattle on the rails was that the entire procedure up to the floor of the loading chute was on horses. Railroad gate latches reached saddlehorn high. Armed with a long punch pole, a rider could break up a mill of calves or peck an old sulky cow on the horns until her head instead of her rump pointed toward Fort Worth.

Before my time, the Remount Service also congregated hundreds of horses to ship from Noelke Switch every year. In the more distant past, Grandfather Noelke received all of his groceries, feed and ranch supplies on a dock attached to his warehouse. So every time I rode across the tracks, a strong attachment generated from those grounds. Much of the excitement of spring and fall roundups ended in sliding the final rickety car door closed for the section foreman to seal and writing down the boxcar numbers to bill at the depot.

The other day when I was going to San Angelo, a bright red Fero Mex engine opened the new era pulling a short string of coal cars. The engine parked at an intersection between Mertzon and Tankersley. On a one-way traffic line, the train doesn't have to use a siding. No one was about. Peggy and Bob Steger live right across the tracks. I figured maybe the engineer and brakeman stopped over to spend the night with the Stegers.

For my own amusement the rest of the trip, I practiced a skit reporting right-of-way fires in Spanish to Ciudad Juarez. First efforts went like this:

My end: "Bueno. Es la officina del Fero Mex?"

Office: "Si senor, como servimos, Usted?"

My end: "Hay un fuego en la servidumbre de paso en medio de Barnhart y Mertzon."

Office: "Un que?"

My End: "Uno fuego. Un cadron fuego. 'Effe-ooo-gee-oh.' En medio de B-a-r-n-h-a-r-t y M-e-r-t-z-o-n, Texas."

Office: "Donde esta Barnhart?"

My end: "Barnhart es diez y ocho mias de Big Lake, Texas. Y dos cien cincuenta mias de Ojinaga, Mexico. Gosh-a-mighty, the wind's getting up: Lady, call your boss!"

Office: "The boss is playing golf at the Country Club course in El Paso this afternoon. Would you like his cell phone number, Sir? I feel sure he'd like to hear about the fire between B-a-r-n-h-a-r-t and M-e-r-t-z-o-n, Texas."

After I played with the idea awhile, I remembered the indifference the Santa Fe section crew showed about setting big piles of timbers on fire in high March winds. Those old gray and white-capped spooks laughed about a train dragging an ancient car through the ranch, throwing sparks from the brake bands, committing serial arson without ever slacking off the throttle. I think I reported once of the train wreck that dumped a car of coal due north of the headquarters. If I did, I'm still the hero who bribed the section crew with enough Spanish goats to keep them from starting a fire that would have smoldered all winter in a noxious cloud of soot potent enough to choke the furnaces of the foundries of U.S. Steel.

Maybe Fero Mex will be as easy to deal with as the Southern Orient. I am not going to test the new company on who has the right of way on crossing cattle until we are better acquainted. However they behave, it's going to be a strain on my Spanish to report emergencies.

May 31, 2001