Chapter 7

Christina, Matilda, and virtually everyone else at Ranch Home, were relieved to have both Malik brothers back on the ranch.

After Christina put out the word that the hacienda would entertain an open house, the next two days saw a sporadic succession of visitors who wanted to offer their condolences to Malik. Many of them shared accounts of helpful gestures and materiel support that Gabriela had offered, some of which Malik had had no knowledge.

With the uncertainties of winter weather upon them, the family elected to have two separate, more modest memorial services, one at Ranch Home and another in Waypoint. Neither would be announced beyond the two towns. At the same time, they would publish a death announcement and obituary in the various newspapers in the region, noting only that Gabriela had been laid to rest next to her daughter, with no mention of memorial services.

On a windy, snowy Sunday, three weeks after Gabriela’s death, and two days after the Ranch Home gathering, the Waypoint memorial, itself more of an open house, was held in the dining room of the Old Courthouse Inn.

Despite the limited publicity, there were visitors from up and down the K&ASR trunk line as well as several from Kansas: Chen Ming-teh and all of the board directors from the railroad, including Raul Castillo, who’d arrived a day early. Judge Westcott and Marshal Lonegan attended, as did the sheriffs and assorted county officials from McCabe, Franklin, Sonora, Independence, and even Jackson counties. Blue Maize, Walks-On-Sand, Long Hand, Stream-In-Winter, Stone Raven, Juniper, and all of the Quincys came up from Dorado Springs. Gaspar Eland, Judge Hector Ramirez, and Minnie Edwards, came from Shepherds Crossing. Les Toomey, Sage Tsosie, Chet Fisher, and Frank Fenn came from the Doña Anna, while Mockingbird and Stands-To-Cougar, represented the Tsosie family. There were, in fact, so many unanticipated visitors, that Molly’s Restaurant was pressed into service as an overflow setting. Juanita and Val Garcia hosted at the Inn while Andy and Christina did the same at Molly’s. Malik would periodically switch locations.

The outpouring, both of sympathy for Malik and admiration for Gabriela, marked a profound change in Malik’s grieving process. Underpinning it, though, was Malik’s awareness of his love for and obligations to his infant daughter, Aspen. While still somber, he began to once again exhibit the ambition and determination for which he was known.

The timing of that recovery could not have been better, because Chen Ming-teh left an envelope with Andy, suggesting that it was a preliminary proposal which, were it to be carried to fruition, would be significant to the Malik ranch.

At his meeting with Andy, in Malik’s business car, Chen said, “Ordinarily, I would hand this to your brother, in his formal association with the K and ASR. But I will hand it to you primarily so that you may decide if it would help or hinder Emil’s grieving process, or to determine when it might be helpful to that process.”

“So I can read this before I give it to Emil?”

“Yes, that is what I think would be best,” Chen said. “There are certain financing and land acquisition details that I am trusting to your discretion. At the same time, the overall plan is still a confidential matter. I would prefer none of it be known other than to yourself and your brother.”

“I can assure you of that, Ming.” Andy was on familiar terms from working for the K%ASR board, assisting with land and mineral options acquisitions in the Dry Valleys.

Chen leaned back in his seat at the work table and sighed. “This has been a difficult year. Gabriela’s death perhaps most devastating, in that such an intelligent, capable, and personable woman was brought down as the result of such a joyous event.”

He shook his head and gazed out the window. “A less-than-admirable trait of the leader of the Heavenly Kingdom, which I served as a financier, was Hong Xiuquan’s somewhat rabid anti-Confucianism and anti-Buddhism.

“Unlike Hong, who was a convert to Roman Catholicism, I was raised in the Roman church, and I was not fully comfortable with Hong’s later representation of Christianity. It took on the trappings of a personality cult. He exhibited some of the same shortcomings he claimed were flaws of the Buddhists and Confucianists.”

Chen looked at Andy. “A true understanding of both Confucius and the Buddha reveals that their teachings are not religious under the classic definitions of western thought. Confucianism is more a code for successful living, and the Buddha was involved in understanding, accepting, and dealing with the vagaries of life. Some later teachers and practitioners have introduced what could be considered religious overtones, but the unadulterated philosophies of either do not have a religious agenda, as such.”

He paused for a moment, then said, “My point, in this somewhat rambling comment, is that one of the major tenets of Buddhist thought regards the impermanence of objects, of life itself. Buddhist philosophy accepts the reality that everything breaks, deteriorates, or decays, reaching a state in which it is no longer able to function in its intended manner. In effect, everything ends, including all living things.”

He reached across the table and lifted a glass mug that held a number of pencils. “Someday, this mug will break. Its fragments will cease to function as a receptacle useful to human purposes. But we do not consider that inevitability. So, when the mug is bumped in a moment of inattention and it falls to the floor and shatters, we are surprised and upset. But why? It was bound to happen at some point in time. Yet, when we set a mug on a table, we somehow expect that it will always be there, all of our experience and logic notwithstanding.”

Chen set the mug down with an audible thump.

“Everyone dies,” he said, “sooner or later. But we rebel against that notion, as if death were a cruel surprise or an undeserved punishment. But it is neither. It is simply what happens, like snow in winter, or the heat of a candle flame, or the decay of a rose.”

He chuckled and said, “Forgive me. At times like this I find it helpful to remind myself of such natural inevitabilities, lest I lapse into incurable melancholia.”

“Not at all,” Andy replied. “I am actually grateful for the perspective. Someday, probably not soon, however, I’d like to talk to Emil about those notions.”

As she had planned with Andy, Christina was staying with little Luke at the Malik hacienda, which provided her with the most convenient setting during her first months as a new mother. Being near her friend, Matilda, as well as several other new mothers in the tight-knit Ranch Home community, was also a comfort.

At the same time, Christina and Matilda were more than happy to care for Gabriela’s daughter.

Matilda was staying in Cowboy’s room at the hacienda, a room she and her husband had shared since their wedding. She was having an adobe structure built on the south side of the plaza, nearer the west end, close to the commissary. The new building would be her bakery. Unusual for an adobe structure, the side that fronted the plaza sported a large display window under a peeled log lintel, which supported the adobe blocks above. Since the window faced north, the heat of the summer sun was not a concern.

She wanted to be working there by the middle of March. She and her partner -- her mother, Hannah -- had already ordered the coal-fired ovens and stove, along with pots, pans and baking sheets, from the Montgomery Ward catalog. In the meantime, the various racks, cabinets, shelves, display cases, and the like were being manufactured, as an independent contract, by one of James Kelly’s maintenance crewmen, Luther Nunamaker.