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I’d have the house ready if I had to go to Mexico myself and fetch the tiles back single-handedly. It didn’t warm her up over much.

2
    Next afternoon, late, I was sitting on the ranch house front porch worrying about Nora and the house when a rider from town came tearing up with a telegram. We had an arrangement with the telegraph office that they’d send out anything marked important soon as they got it. Of course such a service cost a deal extra, but, some of our dealings being fairly important, it was worth it.
    I opened the telegram with dread. I was sure it was from the contractor in Galveston with bad news and words of other delays.
    But it was from Norris, sent from Laredo. It said:

    SQUATTERS CONFIRMED STOP SITUATION VERY COMPLICATED STOP INVOLVES SPANISH LAND GRANT STOP LOCAL AUTHORITIES IN LAREDO USELESS STOP MUST GO TO MONTERREY TO STRAIGHTEN OUT TROUBLE STOP TAKING JACK COLE WITH ME STOP WILL WIRE SOONEST FROM MONTERREY STOP

    Well, that left me a good deal troubled. Nearly all the land in Texas could be traced back to Spanish land grants when Texas was part of Mexico and Spain owned all of it. Spanish land grants were large parcels of land that were given or sold to colonizers who, in turn, would break up the grant and parcel it out to smaller colonists. It was all a pretty tricky business and more than one family in Texas had lost valuable land because of some sloppy paperwork a hundred or so years in the past.
    But we weren’t talking about valuable land. I couldn’t for the life of me figure why Norris hadn’t just left the matter in the hands of a lawyer and hied himself home. Plus I didn’t much like Norris messing around in Mexico and certainly not the border. Mexico, if you don’t understand it, is bad enough. You can get in trouble there without half trying. And Norris didn’t understand Mexico.
    Much more, he sure as hell didn’t understand the border, a strip of land some forty or fifty miles wide on either side of the Rio Grande. You might as well call it a separate country unto itself. It’s got its own ways and, if you can call them that, its own laws. It’s full of every brigand and thief and swindler and murderer that can squeeze in.
    Norris hadn’t any business trying to operate in that part of the country. I got up, cussing out loud, and went in and showed the telegram to Dad. I said, “Now look what he’s gone and done. That damn land isn’t worth a sack of dried beans yet Norris is spending time and effort and money making a fight over it. Back here he can make us more money in one day with one deal than that whole five thousand acres is worth. What has come over him?”
    But Dad wasn’t going to be drawn in. He said, “Well, you gave him his orders. It appears he hasn’t followed them. Reckon you’ll have to decide what to do about it when he gits back.”
    “Yeah, but what would possess him to go off on such a wild-goose chase?”
    Dad shrugged. “Reckon he thought he was doing what he thought was right.”
    “What he’s doing,” I said grimly, “is acting like a damn stubborn fool. He’s got his back up about that patch of sand and nothing is going to do until he gets to the bottom of it. And hang the cost. Goddammit, he makes me so angry I feel like knocking his head off.”
    Dad gave a slight smile. He said, “Guess you never affected me that way. Listen, what say you and I have a whiskey and forget about all this. Norris will be back in a couple of days. You need to be thinking about your wedding.”
    I went and got the whiskey and poured us both out a healthy measure. I said, as I handed him his glass, “You blindsided me on this drink, old man. If I hadn’t been on the prod about Norris you wouldn’t have slicked me as easy as you did.”
    He drank off half his whiskey and said, “Aaaaah. In that case I’ve got Norris to thank. Maybe you can get mad at Ben and give me another one?”
    I said, “I’ve heard you got the money to start this ranch by