1
JULY1899
SANMARCIAL, NEWMEXICOTERRITORY
Susanna Ragsdale Jenkins stepped off the Santa Fe passenger train and sighed. The breeze outside was only mildly helpful. Inside the stuffy cars of the train, women had actually fainted from the heat. Susanna’s mother had to be revived no fewer than ten times. Of course, that was typical for her overly dramatic mother. Gladys Ragsdale did love attention.
Susanna looked around as her father assisted Mother from the train. Her brother, Gary, was already hailing a porter for their bags. At eighteen, nothing seemed to deter him. He was energetic and impressionable, as well as foolish and thoughtless. He’d barely made it through school, and as the spoiled and pampered son of wealthy parents, no one really cared. Susanna had watched her parents try to manage him, but Gary had no respect for either of them. All they had taught him was how to live a life of privilege and the expectation that someone, somewhere, would provide the means for his desires. With that no longer the case, Gary had become even more headstrong and impatient. It was one of the reasons Susanna had agreed to accompany her family to New Mexico.
That, and she saw it as the easiest way to avoid the promise she’d made her dying husband.
She buried that thought deep as Gary approached.
“I’m going to see what kind of fun is to be had in this town.” Beneath his stylish straw hat, his golden-brown hair was dripping sweat.
Susanna fixed him with a stern look and shook her head. “No, you will help Father get Mother settled at the hotel. Then you will make certain our bags are delivered to the hotel.”
He looked at her for a moment as if trying to decide whether he’d go along with this new order. For a full minute, Susanna wondered if there was going to be trouble, but when Mother cried out and began to crumple to her knees, Gary went to help her.
What was Uncle Harrison thinking, sending a pair like her parents to manage a hotel in the middle-of-nowhere New Mexico? Susanna was appalled. San Marcial was a railroad town—a headquarters for the Rio Grande Division of the Santa Fe Railway.
“You have wasted your inheritance by investing in schemes that you were warned against. Time and again you put your family in a state of diminished financial security, always relying on me to straighten out the situation. Well, no more,”Uncle Harrison had said on their last night in Topeka.“I have no choice but to cut you off from further financial support and make you work for a living.”
Susanna could still hear her mother’s shriek of distaste.“I wasn’t born to be married to a man who has to do physical labor! How embarrassing! Oh, the thought of it is enough to give me apoplexy.”
“Well, have your fits somewhere besides my hotel sitting room,”Harrison Ragsdale had demanded.
Susanna had been invited to the meeting only because her uncle knew she could help keep some sense of order. Havinglived her first year of mourning with her in-laws, she had agreed to move with her parents to New Mexico and see them settled at the hotel her uncle had built. But her years living with her husband had helped her forget just how bad her family could be. Now that they were broke, it was bound to be even worse.
Susanna swept pieces of soot and ash from her black gown. She had already determined that this would be her last day of full mourning. It had been over a year, after all, and she hated black. The constant reminder of what she’d lost—what she would never have again.
“Where is this supposed hotel?” her mother asked as Father and Gary supported her on either side.
“Uncle Harrison said it was two blocks from the train. Easy walking.” Susanna motioned for the porter Gary had given up on securing.
A black man came to her immediately. “Yes, ma’am, how may I help you?”
“We’re the Ragsdale family, and I need to arrange for the delivery of our luggage. We are staying at the Grand Hotel. It’s new, and my family has come here to open it.”
“Yes, ma’am. We saw it bein’ built. Mighty fine place just over yonder.” He pointed to the northeast. There, clearly visible from the train station, was a large, white-washed two-story building with a huge sign that readGrand Hotel.
She studied it for a moment, then nodded. It looked just as Uncle Harrison had described. A regal, clean, and very welcoming sight.
She turned back to the porter and smiled. “Would you arrange for our things?” She reached into her purse, pulled out fifty cents, and handed it to him. “Have the baggageman bring them to the hotel’s front desk, please.”
He gave her a slight bow. “I’ll see to it.”
“Thank you.” She left him to manage the situation andcaught up with her folks and brother. “The bags are handled and should be delivered shortly. There is the hotel.”
“I cannot live in a hotel as the wife of a ...manager,” her mother declared. “The shame is too great.”
“Mother, we’ve already discussed this in Topeka, on the train, and now upon our arrival. The fact of the matter is that you have no choice. Now, let us at least go and see what the accommodations are like.” Susanna looked at her father. Sweat poured from his head and had already soaked the neckline of his shirt. None of them looked like anything special. Just a bedraggled crew of travelers who had lost their way.
Susanna led their parade, crossing Railroad Avenue at Zimmerman Street and then walking up to First Street. She raised her parasol for the short walk. The sun was merciless, and she knew she would burn to a crisp otherwise. Her fair skin had always freckled easily, much to her mother’s disgust. A proper lady simply did not have freckles.
She reached the hotel well ahead of the others and tried the door. It was locked, and Father had both sets of keys. By the time her family joined her, Mother was sobbing softly into her handkerchief, and Gary was itching to take off and explore.
“I just want to see what’s available. We’re going to need food no matter what.” He started to leave, and Susanna called him back.
