A Fraud in Figlandia: Part 6
Part 6
Over the next two weeks deals were finalized. Wilhelm traveled around the county in a fine, black buggy with gold-painted filigree and red, spoke-wheels pulled by two, shiny black stallions. The Van Horns sold their ranch. Mrs. Rippe signed the paperwork for her new home-site. Wilhelm sold all the acreage he had purchased including the town lots on the plat. He sold groves of trees. Even Mr. Morgan purchased several fig trees to plant around his home in Alvin. Men approached Wilhelm asking to purchase shares of stock in the company and to invest in the canning plant. He obliged their requests. A contingency of citizens from the new town proposed he run for mayor in the elections scheduled for that November, but he respectfully declined, due to the obligations of launching the canning plant.
One early October day, at the home of Mrs. Rippe where he had resided for over a week, he informed that afternoon’s assemblage of county dames and their most-eligible daughters that he must leave the next morning to travel to the county courthouse in Brazoria to file the plat for the town and the other papers from the assorted land deals. He had promised to meet the purchasers of the fig trees at the siding switch just south of the town plat for the first shipment of trees to be unloaded from rail cars three days hence.
On that day, eager faces waited by the siding switch. A train came into view, passed them, and continued south. They caught up with the train at the depot in Alvin, but the cars held no shipment for their group. While discussing their obvious confusion over the timing of the shipment evidenced by the absence of their dear friend Wilhelm, a man approached their assemblage, having overhead their discussion of their venture as he alighted from the train. The man had traveled down from Houston, where he had purchased a lot, from a representative of the Golden America Land Corporation, in a new town, sight unseen. The representative, a European of some sort, had informed him of the boom that was about to take place in the area due to a new venture involving figs. Having familiarity with the area, the Houston gentleman had made haste to close the deal. The gathering of fruit tree owners expressed surprise. The Count had told them that all the land was sold. The man produced a deed from his pocket bearing a legal description of his lot. Faces peered at the wording; then one man in the group turned red-faced followed by a disturbing shade of purple. “How could you buy this? This here’s my lot!” Pinky gasped.
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Flat. I don’t ever want to see land so flat again. Not that I’ll ever come back here. I wonder what Eula Mae will think when she hears what I’ve done. She was so excited about living in town and having that flower garden. Perhaps the town will still happen. But will any of them have any money to make it so? No. Stop. He would not think about the past. One regret would lead to another and another. Too many for a man only twenty-six-years-old. And then he would be paralyzed; unable to plan.
Yes, the money was substantial. But not as much as he had lost. No, not enough. There would have to be another scheme to add to his purse. But winter would be upon him soon. The cold. New Orleans would be a pleasant place to find warmth in the dark days ahead. He knew a smoldering quadroon with heavy-lidded eyes there. Simone. She would melt around him in the soft bed of a fine, French Quarter hotel. Fill his arms. Fill his soul. Perhaps.
The train rolled out of the depot in League City, fourteen miles southeast of the Figlandia site, two days before the trees were scheduled to arrive; heading north for a stop in Houston, and then away to the east, far away, from unfulfilled promises, broken dreams, empty pockets, the fictitious name of Zielinski, and fig trees that would never arrive.
