Chapter 30

By mid-June, Padre Ramos had determined that Juniper and Stone Raven had reached an academic level well beyond that of the normal graduate of the twelfth year at the Jesuit mission school. Both had already been accepted to matriculate to La Paz University.

Malik planned to accompany the two young men to La Paz in mid-August. In the meanwhile, Juniper, who had been staying with Stone Raven, in his mother’s home, returned to the Tsosie Ranch, to be with his family.

Nothing further was heard from the Labor Pioneers, nor were there any more attacks against the Chinese. The impromptu Waypoint peacekeeping committee suspended further meetings pending any word of trouble.

In Waypoint, the entire length of both Wagon Road Avenue and Jackson Street had been paved in manufactured brick cobbles in various shades of red. Wagon Road Avenue was paved from the north town plat line to the south line while Jackson Street was completed from the tracks to Sunset Avenue, including the streets encompassing the courthouse square. East of the tracks, Jackson Street had been improved with stone underlayment and a graded road-base gravel surface, in keeping with the improvements as the road continued to Ranch Home.

A new subsidiary of the K&ASR, Kanzona Utilities, had placed advertisements seeking customers for a new telephone exchange in Waypoint, to be available within a one-mile radius of the depot. Initially, it would operate from seven in the morning until seven in the evening. After one hundred customers signed up, the exchange would have an operator on duty twenty-four hours a day. A customer would also be able to call Fort Birney from a special booth in the new Kanzona Utilities’ telephone office. That modest building was under construction on Depot Way, behind the railroad station and next to Malik’s siding. In fact, Malik had a life tenancy on the building site, the use of which he allowed in exchange for the waiving of his telephone service fees.

The evening before he was to leave to attend the K&ASR board of directors’ meeting, he sat down in his car with Andy and offered him a brandy.

“Mitchel Anderson introduced me to this, recently. I know that, thanks to Pa, neither of us have developed much of a taste for any sort of alcoholic beverage, but Mitchel insisted I try this while enjoying one of my cigars. I don’t know why, they just seem to go together.”

“This isn’t bad,” Andy said. “I bet Christina would enjoy this. Is it French?”

“In fact, it’s a brandy de Jerez, a Spanish brandy from the Andalusian region of southwestern Spain. It’s called Besada el Cielo.”

“‘Heaven Kissed’,” Andy translated. “Good name. I’ve been offered brandy, at times, which I’ve sipped at, to be polite, but never enjoyed. But this is very smooth. Most brandies are aged, aren’t they? How long was this aged?”

“Fifteen years, in oak casks, Mitchel said, casks that had previously contained sherry. He said he could detect its subtle flavor.” Malik sighed quietly and shook his head. “Now I realize what it is I like about the combination of cigar smoke and brandy. It brings to mind those little cheroots Gabriela liked to smoke on occasion.”

“Ah, yes. They’ve been soaked in brandy, haven’t they? Christina still smokes one, now and again.”

“I wonder if it was this brandy?” Malik said, holding the snifter up to the lamp light. Then he shook his head once again. “Mitchel also said that, for some reason, most brandy de Jerez is shipped to the Netherlands and distributed from there.”

“The Spanish and Dutch have often been allies, and sometimes even had the same rulers,” Andy said.

“Well, sure, but it seems like an expensive tradition.”

“Enough evasion, big brother. What did you want to talk about?”

Malik was silent for some moments, slowly turning the cigar between his fingers. Then he sighed heavily and, still looking at the cigar, he said, “I’ve found Peng invading my thoughts more, of late.”

“And this bears my attention because...?”

“Because ... because my prior separation from her weighs heavily on my mind and I suppose my yearning makes me feel ... vulnerable, I reckon. Yes, vulnerable.”

“Vulnerable? Vulnerable to what?”

Malik looked at the brandy snifter. “To having my heart...” He hesitated again, then continued, “To experiencing those crushing feelings, again. Beyond the experience itself, each time I recover, I feel diminished. It’s like I ... It’s like I’m building up a callous, like you do when you work with a tool all the time, or do the same manual chore over and over. The thick pad builds up to protect your fingers, but then you can’t feel as much through those fingertips.

“I remember the blindingly brilliant feelings of realizing my love for Gabriela. It was like watching a sunrise. But, after losing her and ... so many others, and after being handed my walking papers by Peng, all I can feel now is, ‘Oh, no, not again.’”

After a moment, Andy said, “Grow up, Emil. This is what life is. New relationships and lost relationships, again and again and again. People come into your life, people leave it: they die, they go to live in another state, they tell you to go to hell. So what if life doesn’t seem like a picnic at the lake? It never was, except in our naive minds. You need that callous. It helps you endure in a lifetime of such experiences.

“Quit feeling sorry for yourself. Believe it or not, people have suffered much worse, and you know they have. Look at Red Salt. He was near dead and laid there on the ground for more than a day, even lost his eye. You want to trade places with him? Or consider some of the stories we’ve heard about the prison camps during the Civil War. Or what’s happened to so many Indian tribes. Or those Chinese who were tarred. Would your life be better like that? Get over yourself, brother. Did you think you invented loss and sorrow? It’s life. Time you figured that out.”

Malik looked up at his brother and smiled. “You’re parroting Christina, aren’t you?”

Andy smiled back. “Of course. You think I could piece this together on my own? I’m as dumb as you are about such things.” They both had a chuckle on themselves. Then Andy went on. “But, seriously, I think your, uh ... bewilderment, I guess we could call it, is simply due to the seeming overwhelming nature of the circumstances and that it sweeps you along in that current. Talking it out, like this, helps you see the situation in more manageable elements. When you were with Gabriela, she was the one who helped you, just like Christina and I support one another. And, right now, I’m the one helping you sort things out.”