Murder at Toltec Gorge: A Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad Adventure

by Billy Anders

"Murder at Toltec Gorge," surprisingly, is a love story. Unfortunately, love, a raw human emotion, is sometimes accompanied by violence. Such is the case here. Set during 1927, the tale is one of historical fiction involving workers for the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad. The D&RGW, initially chartered in 1870 in Denver, Colorado, was intended to reach El Paso, Texas. As it progressed south, bringing both good and evil along, it reached Antonito, Colorado, in 1880. But with El Paso as a goal, silver had been discovered in the San Juan Mountains in the late 1870s. And the railroad wanted to make money. So a 90-degree right turn occurred at Antonito, as rails headed west towards Durango and Silverton, Colorado. Each new section station along the route was staffed with a foreman, a cook, usually the foreman's wife, and about a dozen young rail maintenance workers. Arriana Garcia is the woman of the house at Sublette, New Mexico, on the D&RGW's San Juan Extension. It's a lonely, isolated mountain place, 9,276 feet up, where winters are harsh. Twelve young rail workers live in two bunkhouses next to the section house, and Mrs. Garcia cooks for everyone. She is the only female. Though imperfect, she is stunningly beautiful. No lonely railroad male employee is immune from her charm. Arri Garcia is from a traditional Hispanic background in Alamosa, Colorado. Her husband, Leo, the Sublette section foreman, is also from Alamosa. When World War 1 came along in 1914, men like Leo Garcia went to war to be affected by it, not always in the best of ways. The Great War also altered the behavior of women in the United States, where they substituted for men in factories, lived more independently, and liked it. In 1920, they got the vote. In 1927, during the Roaring 20s, many American women like Arri Garcia were rethinking traditional roles. Leo Garcia was decorated for bravery in France during 1918, a hero. Garcia is a strict, effective railroad supervisor, but he has a dark side, a souvenir of the war. Leo is an abuser. Foreman Garcia rules his home the same way he rules his section gang - through intimidation and fear. Eliseo Marinez, 28, is a star engineer for the D&RGW. He grew up in Conejos, Colorado, serving as an altar boy in Our Lady of Guadalupe church. Over time, Eli quietly falls in love with the married Arriana Garcia, though he knows better. More than once, Martinez sees fresh bruises on Arri. Finally, infuriated, he tells his best friend, fireman Samuel "If he hurts her again, I'll kill him!" Sam realizes that Eli has stepped into a Sublette funnel in which there's only room for two people to come out alive. This can't be good, thinks Sam. This can't be good at all. The author is a 31-year career police officer who now works as a docent for the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, the successor since 1970 to the Denver & Rio Grande Western. Although the story is fictional, some aspects parallel actual cases handled during his law enforcement days. Take this exciting ride through the San Juan Mountains on the Colorado & New Mexico Express by reading "Murder at Toltec Gorge"!

200 pages, Paperback

Published March 8, 2020

Reviews

[Arthur Hoyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

All Aboard

This crime novel from retired law enforcement officer and military veteran Billy Anders is set on the Colorado plateau amongst a group of Hispanic railroad workers running the Denver and Rio Grande Western. The year is 1927, when Charles Lindbergh made the first transatlantic air crossing, an event that forever changed mass transportation. The plot centers on a love triangle involving Eli, an engineer, Leo, a brutal section gang foreman, and Arriana, Leo’s beautiful but abused wife.
Anders is a railroad aficionado who serves as a docent on the Cumbre & Toltec Scenic Steam Railroad. His knowledge of railroad history and his love of railroad lore are evident on every page of the novel. Readers will learn the nuts and bolts of railroad operations, the mechanics of steam locomotives fired by coal, the functions of the railroad crewsthe engineer, the fireman, the brakeman, the conductor, and the section gangs that maintain the tracks. The “suits” who administer the railroad company are shadowy background figures who don’t do the heavy lifting that Anders respects.
Anders is a curious man who has taken the time and the trouble to educate himself not only about railroad operations, but also about the landscape through which his central character Eli passes on his routes. We learn about the region’s flora and fauna, its geology and natural history, and the stories and legends swirling around its small human settlements.
The central love story is a subsidiary thread in the tale, a device that Anders uses to create suspense and human interest as he fills in the picture of railroad life.
The murder that gives the book its title is the culmination of the narrative. No spoilers here, but let me say that Anders’ handling of the investigation draws from his years of experience as a law enforcement officer in the San Antonio Police Department and the Otero County Sheriff’s Department that operates out of Alamogordo, New Mexico. It also reflects his awareness that justice often works in strange, ironic ways. Anders is a stickler for procedures in both railroad operations and police work. He knows how important teamwork and discipline are for men working in life-threatening circumstances. Anders reminds us how reliant society is on men and women who do their gritty jobs well and support each other.
I read the book as a lament and tribute for a past agethe age of industrial mechanization, of iron, steel, coal and steam powering the economy and giving a firm physical texture to men’s lives. This age is passing away, supplanted by a world of tiny microchips, of digital files, of men and women spending their days looking not out the window of a rumbling passenger train at the scenic beauty of the Colorado plateau, but at dead screens offering only a semblance of life. I’m with Anders and hear his call, “All aboard!”

Arthur Hoyle
Author of Mavericks, Mystics, and Misfits: Americans Against the Grain