Excerpt from El Paso by Winston Groom, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Well, my word, Mother, we can't just—"

"Yes, we are!"

"Well, I think we ought—"

"No," Beatie said firmly. "He is going home with us."

But Arthur did not go home with the Shaughnessys that day. the orphanage wouldn't permit it, no matter that the Shaughnessy name was among the most influential in Boston.

By Christmas Eve, however, and under a most unusual arrangement, Arthur went to the Shaughnessy home for something of a trial period. Shaughnessy had worked it out with the orphanage people. Arthur would stay with them over the Christmas holiday. If it worked out, they would discuss the matter further. the orphanage didn't like such things because there was always the chance the child would be returned—more hurt and confused than ever—but this was John Shaughnessy, owner, president, and chairman of the New England & Pacific Railroad Company. He was not a man to disagree with, especially if donations were in the air.


TURNING AWAY FROM THEW WINDOW and the hustle-bustle of the Chicago rail yards, Arthur gazed at the large oil painting that dominated the opposite wall. In the picture, the Colonel stared down at him, at anyone who entered the room. His features seemed larger than most men's: high wrinkled forehead, thick dark hair slicked back, a great black brushy mustache, full lips, aquiline nose, square jaw, and a strong, masculine chin that could take, and had taken, many blows. then there were the same deep-set, penetrating blue eyes that Arthur first noticed at the orphanage so many years before, and on this day the painting reminded him of the morning he first entered into the Shaughnessy household.

Arthur had been nine when the Colonel and Beatie removed him from the Laura Bostwick Foundlings' Home. At the time, the boy had all but given up hope that his fate would be any different from that of the countless other boys who turned sixteen without finding a home. Like them, he dreaded the day when he would be sent out into the world with nothing more than a hand-me-down suit and some pocket money. Aside from what he wore on his back, the only things Arthur owned were his collection of butterflies and a glass cutter. He had always wanted to collect coins or stamps, but they cost money. Butterflies were for the taking.

He'd amassed an impressive lot of specimens from nearby parks and along the waterfront, and after finding one would make his own plate frames from scrap wood and cast-off glass from a window manufacturing business down the block where one of the workers had given him a glass cutter. On that strange day when he moved to the Shaughnessys' fabulous Beacon Hill home, he proudly lugged with him a little cardboard box of neatly labeled insects, which included moths of all descriptions, dragonflies, and a number of large aerial biting creatures such as the horntail wasp, the giant cicada, and robber flies.

Beatie and the Colonel had come for him on the morning of Christmas Eve.

Two

Up in his third-floor room in the foundling house, Arthur had carefully packed his butterfly collection into a cardboard box and said good-byes to his roommate, Michael Martin, who was off to the last day of school before the holiday. Arthur was especially fond of "Mick" Martin, who, even though only a year older, was vastly mature compared with himself. Mick was fearless, daring, and mischievous, and a natural-born leader.

He also looked the part, with his dark hair and eyes, impressive height, and a full, strong mouth that made him look more like an adolescent than a ten-year-old. that same year he had gotten Arthur into trouble—or, better put, Arthur had gotten himself into trouble, by letting Mick persuade him to run away from the orphanage together. It had been summer and they were just returning from a two-week camp at the other end of the state. For the most part, it had been a memorable experience, except that Mick, who everybody believed was the bravest and strongest of all the boys, had managed to develop an unreasoning fear of snakes after stepping on one in the woods. It was just a large harmless black racer but, startled, had hissed and struck Mick several times on his bare leg before racing off. From the marks on his leg, no one knew but that it was not a venomous copperhead. they put iodine on the bite and confined Mick to a bed in the camp infirmary, where they watched carefully for swelling that never developed.

Excerpted from El Paso by Winston Groom. Copyright © 2016 by Winston Groom. With permission of the publisher, Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.