Chapter 20

Malik listened as Robbie O’Sullivan put the car’s standard-sized steps in place, extending over the coupler and down to the edge of Depot Way. That chore wasn’t meant to be part of the disconnect service, but the brakemen on Healy’s crew always saw to it during the several extra minutes the train was in Waypoint due to dropping his cars.

Malik was still in shirtsleeves in the warmth from the coal stove. As he began to gather up his papers, he heard someone begin to clump up the steps and so was looking toward the front door when it opened.

“Peng!” he gasped, but then he froze in place.

She stood in the doorway, leaning on crutches. Her left foot, held up from bearing any weight, was encased in a large dressing of some sort. She was nearly panting and he could see the sweat on her forehead and the pallor of her skin. Her distress seemed to release him from his shock.

He moved to her quickly but then hesitated when he stood in front of her. Except for brief, incidental occurrences in the course of their work, they had never touched, not in any deliberate manner.

She said, “Excuse me,” and began to move forward. He backed into the main cabin and stood aside while she maneuvered past him and made her way to the passenger seats, where she propped her crutches against the bulkhead and indecorously dropped into a chair, her back to the bunkroom partition. She leaned down and lifted her injured foot to rest on the opposite seat, the action betraying the heavy weight of the bulging dressing. Her position blocked further access to those seats.

Malik stood dumbly for several seconds at the far side of the cabin, watching her. Of a sudden, he turned and grabbed one of the dozen mugs that hung from hooks on the bulkhead above the stove. He took the mug to the water canister and filled it from the spigot, then offered it to her. She took it and, swallowing slowly, drained it. He reached for the empty mug and she held it out to him. He refilled it and handed it back to her. She took another couple swallows, then held it in her lap, her gaze falling neutrally on the passenger seat across from her, where her injured foot rested.

Malik looked around, then chose to sit in one of the chairs at the table, swiveling to face her from about ten feet away. She continued to stare at the seat across from her.

They sat in silence, Peng’s breathing slowing to normal and her gray skin giving way to its normal, light tan color. Malik’s left arm rested on the table, while that hand gripped the table’s edge. Likewise, his right hand gripped the end of the chair’s padded armrest. His posture made it appear as if he were prepared to spring from his seat. His facial expression did nothing to reduce that impression.

Peng unbuttoned her canvas jacket, in deference to the heat of the room.

Malik breathed, “Peng, I--”

She shot him a stern look and said, “No! I came here. It is on me to speak.”

Peng drank the rest of the water and set the mug on the floor next to her chair.

Malik began to rise, but she glared at him, again, so he sat back.

Malik could hear a teamster, with imaginative profanities, urging his mules to draw a freight wagon closer to the railroad’s loading dock.

Peng, still looking at the opposite seat, in a quiet but clear and urgent voice, said, “This is unprecedented. I have no experience by which I may guide myself. I do not know if I should beg your forgiveness or demand vindication. I have lost all objectivity in my assignment. My ability to assess situations has never been so compromised.” She looked at him, tears in her eyes. “I am at once devastated and fearful, and yet aroused and eager. As I witness the collapse of my life’s goals, I feel, once more, like a young girl on a spring morning.”

She looked away, toward the windows on the other side of the car. “I have no conclusions to offer. I have fallen from a cliff and have yet to...” Her voice merged with the silence. She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket.

Malik began to rise, but she held up her finger in clear warning. Once more, he resumed his seat.

Peng moved her injured foot to the floor, pushed herself up from the seat to a standing position, and reached for the crutches. Then, from that height advantage, and with a fierce glare, she leaned forward between the crutches and said, “Know this, Emil Malik: I am deeply disturbed by this disruption in a life for which I have worked hard, very, very hard, to establish balance. So, no matter this attraction, it is an unwelcome experience and I will devote myself to its eradication. I would suggest you do the same.” With that, she made her way toward the front cabin. Malik stood up and watched her leave.

As she went through the door, he said, “And that is what you call ‘balance’?”

Peng hesitated, if only fleetingly, but then hobbled to the front door, opened it, and left.

Malik could hear her working her way down the steps. He reached the front platform in time to see her climbing into a two-wheeled vehicle of a type not often used in the west: a spare, open carriage, barely more than a seat suspended between two large wheels, commonly called a trap. She snapped the reins and the large burro in the traces carried Peng up Depot Way and around the corner of Wagon Road Avenue, where further view of her was blocked by the station building.

“Was that Peng?”

Malik spun around to find his brother walking toward him from the freight dock.

Malik didn’t answer immediately, but turned back to look at the corner where she had left his view. “I believe it was,” he said, as if to himself.

Andy came up the steps and asked, “What’s that supposed to mean? Didn’t she come here to see you? For that matter, should she even be up and about?”

Malik turned to his brother and said, “Come in, Andy. Let’s have some water. I’m very thirsty, for some reason.”

Seating himself at the table, Andy said, “So, why was she here? I know you just got here, you hardly had time to talk.”

Malik set a mug of water in front of his brother, then sat down with his own. He took a drink, and then looked at his hands, gripping the mug.

Andy, now less demanding, asked, “What’s wrong, Emil?”

Malik cleared his throat and looked at his brother. “It was a very strange visit. Peng seems to be distraught over the attraction between us, maybe even angry. She intends, she says, to eradicate the feeling, that it interferes with her balance.”

“Is that what she said?”

“In so many words. Actually, she was a bit more effusive, but that was the essence of her message. Oh, and she advised me to follow her example.”

“What, to suppress you feelings for her?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was unexpected. What did you say when she told you that?”

“Nothing. She wouldn’t permit discussion. She came in, caught her breath, read me the riot act, and left. As she went out the door, I suggested that her idea of balance seemed somewhat off kilter. That was the long and short of it.”

“How about that,” Andy said. “Well, you want to go to lunch?”

“‘How about that.’ That’s all you’ve got to say, ‘How about that?’ Can’t you at least tell me what you think?”

“I won’t know what I think until we get home and Christina tells me what to think.”

They’d found Lewin, Nicholson, and Bream having lunch at the Inn, and they joined them.

Andy said, “Fired him, huh? Well, I didn’t think he was up to the Kanzona’s usual caliber. He even messed up with the order of the cars when they picked yours up.”

“He seemed like a regular fella to me,” Malik said.

“Yeah, that’s because you like everybody you meet, at least until they kick you around once or twice.”

“Don’t give me that guff. The only reason you’re alive today is because I’m so good natured.”

“Good natured,” Andy exclaimed. “Shall I show them the scars?”

“What? From that scratch on your knee?”

“Scratch. Ma put five stitches in it.”

Malik looked at the others and said, sotto vocé, “He was a clumsy child.”

Nicholson, chuckling, leaned toward Lewin and said, “You didn’t tell me there were midday comedy performances here.”

Bream said, “They’re showing off for the new guy. The rest of us usually don’t get to see a matinee.” By that point, even the Malik brothers were sniggering.

Then Bream asked, “But what about this labor organizer? Has there been any other word?”

“I haven’t seen anything in the Saber,” Andy said.

Nicholson was frowning. “There was a representative from that Labor Pioneers union who was bending the ear of some of the state legislators, Senator Cable Aldecott, particularly. Now that I reflect on it, I think that Aldecott may have been ushering that union man around to the others.”

Malik said, “Aldecott’s from Buchholz, right? He represents Galena County?” For Lewin’s benefit, Malik explained, “Galena County’s on the northern border of Arenoso.”

“Yes,” Nicholson replied. “He’s a slimy bastard. He’s partners in the biggest gold mine up there, though no one’s seen his partner in years, apparently. Aldecott insists the man’s back east.”

Lewin asked, “Didn’t they have some anti-Chinese trouble up in Buchholz?”

“About a week ago,” Bream replied. “Tarred and feathered a half dozen men, as I recall. Ran them out of town.”

Andy said, “I wonder if it’s the same labor guy up in Fort Birney? Or if they’re working Arenoso in general, in different locations.”

“What if one showed up here?” Lewin asked. The men looked at one another. Malik shrugged.

“For one thing,” Malik said, “he’d have a hard time finding anyone that didn’t have a job.”

“True enough, Emil, but there’s always a few ne’er-do-wells hangin’ around the saloons, men who don’t like the parts of a job that involve the actual work,” Andy said.

Nicholson added, “And that’s just who these recruiter mugs go after, if they can’t find legitimate problems. They’ll tell the layabouts that they could have comfortable jobs if it weren’t for all the Chinese, or the Mexicans, or the Irish, or the Jews, or whomever. Once a few locals are stirred up, they’ll bring in some paid thugs, make it look like labor’s on the march. That will bring in some of the perennially disgruntled men who actually have jobs. Then Katie-bar-the-door.”

“Hold on, hold on,” Malik said. “Labor unions seem to be doing some good. They’ve begun to make coal mines safer. And their very existence is pushing the major railroads to install the Westinghouse brakes and develop safer work practices.”

“I’m not debating that,” Nicholson said. “My point is that recruiting new union members, especially in areas where there have been no labor issues, has become a cut-throat business. Often independent contractors, some even competing with one another, find out where a union may have interests, and they move into the area. Then, in effect, they sell their recruits to the union.

“Some of those recruiters take on areas in which the union has been unable to make inroads. Workers who have little or nothing to gain don’t want to be paying union dues just so they can wear a shiny union button. But the organizers are paid by the head, and sometimes with a percentage of the dues of those they sign up. So recruiters look for ways to coerce unwilling workers to get on the bandwagon, sometimes literally. Once they have a few recruits, the social pressure from their fellow workers pushes others to it.

“When we talked about this last week,” Nicholson continued, “we acknowledged that the easiest way to bring people into the fold is to find a common enemy. The Chinese are the easiest target. That’s why union organizing has become synonymous with Chinese persecution in the western US. I’m not criticizing unions, per se.”

“You’re right,” Malik conceded. “I recall that distinction from our last discussion. My apologies.”

“Forget apologies, Emil. We’re just friends talking here,” Nicholson insisted.

Andy said, “We need to get our intelligence system operating. Want to make the rounds of the saloons and barbershops tomorrow, Emil?”

Thursday morning, Peng Delan asked to speak to Malik privately. He invited her into his office. Once there, he offered her coffee or tea but she declined either. Her usual placid face looked somehow disturbed, though one would have been hard pressed to identify whether it was anger, or fear, or frustration she was feeling.

Malik closed the office door, then went and sat behind his desk. He folded his hands on the desktop and asked, in a kind voice, “How can I help you, Miss Peng?”

She looked at him for a moment, a questioning uncertainty in her eyes. But then she sat up straighter, even though she was already seated quite properly at the front edge of the chair, with her skirt-enshrouded ankles properly crossed, and her hands held properly in her lap, and she said, “In fact, Mister Malik, this is a personal matter and you may prefer not to deal with it during your office hours.”

“Without embarking on a detailed explanation for why or how I choose to do things, Miss Peng, let me assure you that this seems the best time and place of any I can imagine to hear you out. Please proceed as you see fit.”

After another moment during which she seemed to be searching his eyes, she said, “I do not pretend that I understand my sister, Mister Malik. I admire and love her very much, but I do not understand her. She is nearly ten years older than I, and I have always attributed my lack of understanding to the difference in our ages. But, since she and I have been reunited over the past few years, I realized our ages were not the problem.

“Yan left our family home when I was still very young, only five. I remember very little of her, except that I called her Shibing, which means ‘Soldier.’ She tells me I did that because she practiced martial arts and with various weapons even when she, herself, was young.

“After she left home, my father never spoke of her, though Yan would always visit me around my birthday, but never when Father was present. Our mother had died shortly after I was born, so I was raised mostly by my father and his older sister.

“I apologize for all the extraneous detail, sir, but I wanted you to understand as much as possible, limited as that is.

“What brings me to seek your counsel, Mister Malik, is that, last night, my sister was crying, for the longest time. Perhaps until she fell asleep. Other than anger or frustration, I have never seen Yan project another emotion. Oh, she always treats me warmly, but I have never known her to cry, before.

“I know she visited you yesterday, sir, and I had hopes you might know what distressed her so.”

Malik looked off to his left, toward the edge of his desk, and gently shook his head, releasing a breath from between his lips. Then, still looking off to the side, he asked, “Peng--I mean, your sister, has returned to your home, here in town?”

“Yes, sir. She returned on Monday. Doctor Lee was against the idea but Yan was quite insistent. So Doctor Lee applied the gypsum plaster dressing and he and his daughter, Lee Kwan, brought her home in a wagon. But she has appeared, oh ... agitated, since she returned. I imagined she was finding her limited ability to move about quite frustrating, but now I think that is not the problem. I suspect that you might be better informed.”

Malik turned to look at Peng Delan. “Has Peng Yan said anything to you regarding me, Miss Peng?”

“No, sir. Well, not recently. At first she spoke of the things you said or did, and the conversations you had with her. But I have noticed that she has recently become less ... she talks to me less, and when we do talk, it is mostly about trivial things, like the weather or what we are eating. However, that must be measured against the fact that I have seen less of her since she began traveling with you. Still, in the balance, she has become reticent.”

“I see,” Malik said, then paused for a moment before continuing. “Miss Peng, my reluctance in speaking about your sister’s visit is because it has to do with very personal matters, matters, it seems, she has kept private, even from you.” Malik paused, again, lastly adding, more to himself, “Though, in fact, the matter is somewhat widely known.”

He looked to his right where the bay window faced the new courthouse and he watched idly as Mitchel Anderson was in conversation with another man. That man was wearing a colorfully distinctive broad-checked suit, a window-pane plaid. The two men climbed the courthouse steps and then paused to converse outside the doors.

Peng Delan asked, “Is my sister in love with you, Mister Malik?”

Malik took a deep breath and rubbed his chin with his index finger. He remained watching as the man, who carried a shillelagh-like walking stick, turned and went back down the step, while Anderson went into the courthouse.

Finally, he looked back at Peng Delan. “In a manner of speaking, yes,” he nodded, “yes, she is.” Then he sighed. “But she doesn’t want to be. That’s what she told me yesterday.”

Peng Delan’s face had returned to its normal placid state. “And do you love her, sir?”

After a brief pause, Malik said, in, a quiet, gentle tone, “It seems so.” He sighed, shook his head, and looked down, closing his eyes. “Even though I put my beloved wife in the ground only four months ago.”

Peng sat quietly during the silence that ensued. After a minute, she said, “Thank you for being candid, Mister Malik. I believe I understand Yan’s distress, now. May I be dismissed, sir?”

He looked up at her with a wan smile. “Yes, of course, Miss Peng. Peng Yan is lucky to have you for a sister.”

Peng Delan rose, gave a slight bow, turned, walked to the door, opened it, and left the office.

Andy said, “It seems certain we can count on Lucius and Adolphus. But those other two, I don’t know.” The Malik brothers were riding toward Ranch Home, late Thursday afternoon.

“I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised about the Lone Star,” Malik said. “Arthur Coates is invested in that. I reckon Mike owes his first allegiance to Arthur, when it comes to intelligence gathering. And the cantina, I just don’t know. None of the taberneros (barkeepers) seem to stay long. The license-holder, at least at the courthouse, is a Jose Garcia, but, really, that could be anybody. It’s a common name and a common alias. In any event, it doesn’t seem like the sort of place a rabble-rouser would be able to assemble much of a mob, at least not an Anglo mob. And my impression is that the Labor Pioneers don’t admit Mexicans.”

“That’s rather curious, isn’t it?” Andy suggested. “The union sometimes goes to desperate measures to recruit members, mostly for their dues, but then shuts out large groups of laborers. And if any workers are overworked and underpaid, it would be Mexicans or other...” Andy sat up in the saddle. “Of course,” he said. “They are the enemy, the ones who are stealing the jobs.” He turned in his saddle toward his brother. “Since when do only the lily-white European immigrants and their descendants own all the jobs?”

“They don’t, of course,” Malik replied, “but it’s really only natural that they think they do. It was just the opposite when this was all Mexican territory. Remember when Texans, in order to own land, when it was still part of Mexico, had to convert to Catholicism in order to become Mexican citizens? It’s the same thing.

“Any group of alike people will believe that they are better, or hold more rights and privileges, or deserve more rights and privileges, than others who are somehow different. It was the basic notion that Red Salt finally discovered: we don’t like other people who are different from our people, simply because they are different. Right now, the Chinese are the most different, so both the lily-white European types and the tan-white Mexicans can see them as the enemy -- if they’re properly aroused. But, while the lily-whites might see the tan-whites as allies, they do not see them as equals. Of course, the Negroes occupy their own devalued niche.”

Now Malik turned toward his brother. “Hell, Andy, for all that, we’d be seen as half-breeds, were our heritage more apparent. Whether our mother was pure Spanish or Indio-Spanish by lineage, she was a citizen of Mexico. If Pa had been poor and we’d lived in town, that’s what we’d have been seen as. No matter how clean, smart, or hard-working we’d have been, we’d still be called dirty Mexican half-breeds. Maybe that’s why some folks, like Arthur Coates, are so resentful of us.”

“I can understand all that and see that it’s true,” Andy said, “yet it still seems so bizarre, so pointless.”

After a minute of silent riding, Andy said, “It’s always amazed me that Christina’s pa married Matilda’s ma. If there was ever a died-in-the-wool white man, I would have figured it would be Jacob Baylor. Admittedly, I never have heard him say anything derogatory about anyone’s race. He’ll berate folks’ manners, or the quality or quantity of their work, or how they dress, or whether they scrape their boots before coming in the door, but I’ve never heard him cast aspersions about anyone that seemed related to their race or religion.

“And he treats all his customers the same: he seems to barely tolerate ‘em. The only reason he does so well is because he has an uncanny ability to find quality goods for low prices and he passes those savings on to his customers. Plus, he stands behind what he sells. If something about a product’s not right, he’ll replace it or refund the money.”

Andy looked over at Malik, “In fact, he’s been talking about buying or building a warehouse so he could make larger purchases when he finds good deals.”

“Tell him I’ll give him a good deal on a warehouse,” Malik said. “I’ll build it and he can rent it. That way he can hold onto his cash for those good deals. As far as marrying Hannah goes, I reckon the old adage of a man’s stomach being the way to his heart may be exemplified there, especially if the man is an aging widower with some steam still in his boiler.”

“Steam in his boiler? Thanks a lot. That’s an image that will bear forgetting.”

“Well, Hannah’s a handsome woman. And she’s a sweetheart, besides being smart and hardworking. Between the bakery and the mercantile, those two have become something of a major retail presence in Waypoint, if not from cash volume, than at least for the portion of the market they’ve captured. They’re influencing the economy of the town simply because of their quality and pricing practices.”

“What’s all this about markets and economics you’ve been spouting lately?”

“Oh, a couple books I’ve read over the past few months. One’s called The Wealth of Nations. It was written by a Scot, Adam Smith, about a hundred years ago. Another is a more recent publication, Principles of Political Economy, by J. S. Mill. He’s a Brit. Then I’ve read some articles that purport to summarize parts of a German volume called Das Kapital, by a man named Marx.

“It’s been very interesting to encounter their ideas of how human society works. For the most part, Marx’s notions of what will work best are in significant opposition to Smith’s and Mill’s. The problem is, I could see the sense of both positions, at least, to a degree.

“Then I finally realized that all of them were making large assumptions about human behavior. While Marx’s view was definitely grittier, each of them assumed, more-or-less, that human beings pursued consistent and standard behavior, amongst pretty much everyone. While, on the broadest average of all people they might be correct, human beings vary way too much to assume that some set of categories can possibly define them all. It’s like having a bowl of noodle soup and assuming that all of the noodles in your bowl will automatically fall into regimented rows. Even if the vast majority of people run true to expectations, the outliers, those who don’t, besides presenting their own problems, will also affect those who actually meet the defined average.