BIG SOUTHERN CHAPTER 25

MAY 1896

MCCONNELL

"Damn the man!" Governor McConnell slams his fist on the Blackfoot courthouse desk. His two aides take care to be still, outside his physical reach but still wary that matters might change. The other two men at the meeting, William Bostaph and D.S. Tracy, the Skeens' company representatives for the meeting, aren't sure how to react, whether they should be gleeful that their competition hasn't shown up or if they should be dismayed that the compromise won't be made. The agreement would free both companies to continue work unimpeded by further court battles, free them to solicit investors with a lure of financial security, something sorely lacking the past few months.

McConnell gathers his composure, both fists against the desk in a wide stance as he stares straight ahead to the back of the room. His body starts out tense, in small gradations releases an energy that Bostaph will later describe as a slow hiss that permeates the room's atmosphere. It takes time for McConnell to consider that his expectation of a political success, the agreement between the two canals to share the segregated territory, has been exploded. The United, by its absence, refuses the compromise in which it would gain rights to the twenty thousand acres within reach of the canal line they've already established—though not completed. That would have given them the land closest to Blackfoot, reached clear to the First Terminus of their planned three part project—the latter two sections which they roughly surveyed but on which they had as yet done no work.

The Skeens, under the proposal, would get those two sections, the rest of the segregated land clear to American Falls. It was an area they had done enough work on to already attract Midwest investors. McConnell's negotiations were now a complete failure, satisfying no one. His elbows, held stiff at first, now ease and his shoulders drift to normalcy, his gaze moving to each of the other four men in the room as he speaks. "Let the courts take care of it, if that's what Cluff wants," he says, lifting himself, grabbing his hat and making his way from the room, his aides in tow.

Bostaph and Tracy remain in the room and exchange glances, unsure of how to proceed. "Should we telegraph Skeen?" Bostaph asks.

Tracy shrugs. "And say what?"

Bostaph ponders the question. "How about compromise not compromised?"

© Ralph Thurston 2025