Eddie was visibly uncomfortable with Papa’s new proposition, however, and the silent room hummed as he grasped for some reply. All he managed to offer was a question of his own: “You wish for me to travel with you to Texas?”
“Indeed,” my daddy answered, taking a bite of his roast. “The pair of you. We’ll go to West Texas and then across it. We’ll study the terrain.”
Eddie looked down at his plate. “How would we travel?”
Papa clasped his hands on top of the table, chewing his meat. “Train as far as Dallas.”
Ed made a face like he’d bitten into something sour. “And…and then?”
“Why, mules and chuck wagons. Just like I traveled as a young buck.”
Eddie cleared his throat, shifting in his seat as he swirled his gin into a clear whirlpool; I could tell he wished to drain the glass in one gulp. But Papa was undeterred by his son-in-law’s tepid interest. Perhaps even a bit entertained. “Come now, Edward Close, you ride, don’t you? You fish? You hunt?”
“In Connecticut, yes. And on Long Island. But there, in Texas…well, I’ve heard about…Aren’t they overrun with all sorts of creatures? Scorpions…copperheads, and the like?”
Leila sniggered and I wanted to toss my napkin in her direction. It was one thing for me to cringe inwardly at my husband’s preciousness, but it was quite another for that woman to openly laugh at him.
Papa smirked, his tone one of good-natured teasing as he said, “What, you’re not some fragile teacup, are you, Ed Close?”
Eddie shook his head, snorting out a short, guttural laugh. “No, sir.”
“Come into my study, both of you. I’ll show you the map. So much land, with great big reserves of oil underneath. And it can all be ours! I know an opportunity when I see one. You’ll see what’s got me all riled up.”
I rose from the table and followed my husband and father into the study. Papa’s desk was covered with papers—maps and land surveys, most of them. He waved us forward, pointing out places where he had marked up the plans. “Here’s our spot.” He drew a circle with his index finger around a vast stretch of land in the western part of the state. “I’ve got my eye on more than two hundred thousand acres on the frontier right here.”
“Fort Worth,” Eddie read the name of the nearest town, pronouncing the words as though he were listing an unsavory item on a restaurant menu.
“Yeah, a fine cattle town. But don’t be thinking about the city,” Papa said. “I’m looking here, to the country.”
I read the names of the counties where he was pointing: “Hockley, Lynn, and Garza.”
“That’s right.” Papa nodded, tapping the map enthusiastically.
“Never heard of the places,” Ed said.
“And that’s why it’s got to be our spot,” Papa declared. “That’s where the opportunity is. Don’t tell me there isn’t some cowboy hidden under all that Connecticut.”
Eddie rocked on his heels. My eyes roved over the map of unsettled West Texas land. I glanced at my husband, who nodded politely, even as his fine features were growing increasingly strained. And then I looked to my father, who went on and on about the fortunes to be pulled from that lawless, unsettled land of squatting ranchers and oil prospectors.
Papa was smart, I knew that much. He’d always seen opportunity where others had scoffed. And I thought it sounded like an exciting adventure, this trip to the West. What would we be missing back in Greenwich? Not much other than a few weeks of cocktails and golf at the club—I knew that answer. But the harder question to answer was the one I wondered next: Could my husband get excited about a remote rural Texas settlement called Post?
* * *
In the end, Eddie agreed to go to see the land in Texas. In part because Papa was impossible to resist once he had set the sheer power of his will and enthusiasm behind something, and in part because he knew how much I wanted to make the trip. And more, he knew how much it meant to me that, for our family, for our future children, he take a role in my family’s interests. As outlandish as it all sounded, Papa was a shrewd businessman who had made millions already on what many others would have called impossibly long odds, and we would have been fools to turn down an opportunity such as this, with hundreds of thousands of acres steeped in oil and cattle.
The plan was to depart by train together from Battle Creek. Leila and I accompanied the men as far as Fort Worth. Once their small party, including Papa and Eddie and a few guides and land surveyors, had set out from our Fort Worth hotel, planning to ride first toward Garza, Leila and I went our separate ways to await their return. We each occupied our own individual suite in the hotel, and there was no need for further interaction or meals together. Leila, as far as I could tell, spent her days and her money at whatever shops she could find on the wide cattle streets of Fort Worth, and at the card games they held in the grand lobby of the hotel in which Papa had installed us. I used the time to catch up on my writing to Helen and Mother, and to review the last of the decorator’s figures and plans for The Boulders’ new furnishings.