Along The Fortune Trail by Harvey Goodman

whiskey and stout beer, which was served by virtually all of New York's saloons and refined restaurants, as well as many establishments throughout New England. The business employed seventy-three people, and it had facility space of an entire city block in an east-side area of Manhattan known as “Little Dublin.” Their mother kept the books and order, while their father and his two younger brothers provided the recipes and production know-how, learned through generations of well-known whiskey distilling in Ireland.
    But like their grandfather, who had left the thriving family concern in Ireland to pursue the adventure and opportunity of America, the twin grandsons, Homer and Reuben, had an insatiable desire to chase their own challenge. They dreamt of becoming cattlemen in the American west.
    As young boys in New York, they had awakened a grand canyon full of adventure reading western dime novels, whose stories and articles portrayed a vastness and call of the big country that drew each of them from the core of their beings. They made their plans as boys and carried them forward into manhood like a blood oath of mission and honor. After a dozen years of sales careers steeped in legendary achievement, they left the family business and headed west with a pledge from their parents that they could return to the business at any time. They never did.
    It had been a risky proposition, traveling west with such an amount of money and no pre-determined destination other than the Colorado/New Mexico area. They accepted that challenge as part of the adventure and necessity of it all. In early 1845, six months after they arrived and thoroughly scouted an area they believed to be perfect for their endeavor, they bought sixty thousand acres of northern New Mexico Territory from a vicar of the Spanish government for twelve thousand dollars. They used the remainder of in-hand cash to build, stock, and outfit the ranch, which they immediately named the Twin T. The land had multiple tributary water sources and was a mixture of foothills, forest, and high-plains grasslands marked by elevation changes that included buttes and valleys with good vegetation and retreat. With the help of a small army of hired hands during construction, Homer and Reuben spent a year building the main ranch house, bunkhouse, corrals, barns, pens, line shacks, and wells.
    The first few years had been sketchy, mostly because of the lack of practical experience associated with running a cattle operation. But Homer and Reuben had never been short of perseverance and natural talent. They were self-educated and brimming with confidence and a can-do spirit that was aided by gathering every bit of information available on cattle and cattle ranching. Early losses were minimal and buried by the joy of living their dream and having the means to sustain it. They started with small herds and operated the ranch mostly by themselves.
    At the conclusion of the Spanish/American war in 1848, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ceded vast Spanish territories, including New Mexico Territory, to the United States. The Taylors thought they might lose their land. But as good fortune had it, the U.S. government recognized their Spanish-issued deed as legitimate, and the worth of their land tripled shortly thereafter. In 1850, Homer and Reuben negotiated a beef contract to supply western U.S Army forts, and their cattle ranch quickly evolved into a big operation. The ensuing decades had fulfilled all that as boys they imagined could be.
    Homer was three hours older than Reuben, whom he occasionally referred to as “little brother,” even though Reuben was almost two inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. Both men were tough, proud, and all business in ranch matters, though Reuben had become more flamboyant in personality and action after nearly being killed by a grizzly in the Twin T.'s sixth autumn. Reuben credited the bear attack with delivering him to a new plane of existence that spawned