Chapter 24

Saturday, August 22, 1891

To accommodate those traveling from a distance, the funeral mass was scheduled for three in the afternoon. Malik was asked to speak after the pastor’s eulogy. The priest had known Wayne since childhood and, speaking from the pulpit, he had recalled many amusing, warm, and gratifying incidents from Wayne’s life, exemplifying the values of a Christian family.

Malik, rising from the front row of pews, opposite Wayne’s parents, chose to stand by the coffin, which was borne on a black-draped support frame at the head of the center aisle.

He turned toward the priest, who was seated at the right side of the sanctuary between two altar boys. He nodded toward the cleric, saying,

“Father.” Then he nodded toward each of Wayne’s parents, sitting just to his right, in the front row of pews, saying, solemnly, “Missus DeWitt, Mister DeWitt.” Finally, he added, “And though no official bond had been declared, all of us were aware of Wayne’s abiding fondness for Melissa Dundridge Monroe,” and he executed one more nod toward the young woman, who was seated next to Wayne’s mother, their arms interlinked, both women in tears.

Standing tall, at the head of the coffin, Malik looked down at it and rested his gloved hand on it, his left arm in a black cotton sling, under his frock coat. Then he raised his head and surveyed those congregants filling the pews in the nave.

In a clear, strong voice, he said, in measured words, “It would be my sincerest prayer that I had absolutely no reason to be standing here before you this afternoon.” He shook his head. “However, there is a supremely worthy yet overwhelmingly tragic reason that all of us are here.” He paused, for the space of a breath. “We have come together, here, today, to ask God’s mercy as we bury one of the finest examples of His beneficent creation. Though sorrow fills our hearts, it is actually our honor to be here, among those who knew Wayne well enough to mourn his passing.”

Malik continued to pause briefly after each sentence, “Picture the man we all knew: intelligent, steadfast, friendly, courteous, dependable, disciplined, imaginative, humorous, strong, and brave. And brave.” Then, with a sad nod and a sigh, much quieter, “And brave.” Malik walked to the third pew, where his brother sat, on the aisle. He grasped Andy’s shoulder and looked to the congregation. “My brother, Andy, sits here today, because Wayne is not here. My brother’s son sits on his lap, his wife clings to his arm, and I can again embrace him, because Wayne was the man he was.” Returning to the coffin, Malik concluded. “But there is nothing more I can say about Wayne that wasn’t said better by the evangelists: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”

(Saturday, August 22, 1891)

Sunday, August 23, 1891

The breakfast dishes had been cleared when Michael DeWitt asked Malik, “You say that woman in Texas is dead?” Michael and Esperanza Dewitt were accompanying Malik back to Wichita in order to close their son’s apartment.

“Yes. I think the Ranger said she died this past Monday.”

“Natural causes?”

“I assume so. All he said was that she died in her sleep.”

“And Wayne helped catch her kids?”

“They were her niece and nephew, and the niece’s male friend,” Malik supplied.

Andy added, “In truth, Wayne was running the operation. He posted the guard rotations and determined the guard stations. That’s not to say I wasn’t right at his elbow. After all, I knew the ranch and most of the people. But Wayne knew what Emil wanted done and he’d been trained in the methods. And he was everywhere, making sure it was all done right.

“Just for one example, we’d never posted guards on the roof of the hacienda, before. It’s kind of obvious, once you think of it, but no one had before, even though we’d had occasion to post guards in the past. But Wayne saw the advantage right away.”

Malik said, “He was also the one that had us dropping batches of wanted posters everywhere. Originally, we were just going to print enough for the depot and the sheriff or town marshal to post in his office. Wayne asked why so stingy? He pointed out we were getting ten copies for a penny. He calculated that for three bucks they could drop a hundred at every town and section camp on the branch and all the sub-divisions. So that’s what they did.”

DeWitt said, “Sometimes all it takes is a fresh eye to catch the problems and fix them.”

Malik said, “You’re right about that. But that reminds me, I’ve been wondering if your police chief is worried about the next election?”

“He doesn’t seem to be. He’s the same age as me. We both figure to retire in ‘Ninety-five.”

“Oh? I thought you were going to cash in your chips this year. You are turning sixty-two, right?”

“Already turned. But I don’t want to give up work, yet. I just don’t feel like sittin’ around.”

“What about San Diego and the Redwoods?”

“You know,” DeWitt said, “as I’m now remembering things, I think it may have been talking to you, back in March, that started me looking at things different, and not just the job. In any event, we took a trip at the end of June and spent a week at a beach resort in San Diego. It was wonderful.”

“What was wonderful, Michael?” Esperanza DeWitt asked. The dining table being left in place between meals as a convenience for group conversation. In this instance, the men had gathered at one end of the table and the women were at the other end, with Peng in between.

“Oh, I was telling them about our trip to San Diego.”

“That was a nice trip.” Then she sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “I was going to suggest it to Wayne for his honeymoon trip.”

Michael stood and walked over, to kneel behind her chair. He reached around to embrace her, chair back and all. “I had that same thought, dearest.” After a pause, he added, “I was so proud of him.” Then DeWitt had to pull a kerchief from his pocket. Esperanza patted the hand that still held her.

Malik said, “Both of you should be proud for producing such a fine man. Everyone liked him. He was a serious man, but he was friendly, too. We just don’t see enough men and women like that. On the Kanzona, though, when we come across them, we try to hire them. The woman he worked with, well, you met her, Moira Daley. She came out with Bill McCroskey and that security group from Wichita. She’s another one, like your son. Well, so is Bill for that matter.”

After a final squeeze, DeWitt released his wife and stood. “Yeah,” he said, “we’ve been in Bill’s company any number of times over the years. We sort ‘a came to think of him as Wayne’s older brother we never had.”

“‘Older brother we never had’,” Andy repeated, chuckling, “I like that.”

Malik said, “You know, you get to be on friendly terms with someone like that, and you just wish you could adopt them into your family. Wayne would’ve made a great brother.”

“Would’ve been better than the one I’ve got now,” Andy quipped.

“Huh, that’s funny,” Malik said. “I was just thinking that you would have made a better sister.”

After lunch, Malik and DeWitt were standing on the back deck, smoking Guardia Reals. The train had just crossed from Arizona Territory to Arenoso on the eight-and-a-half-hour trip from Tucson to Junction City.

“Was it a hard decision, to put off your retirement another four years?” Malik asked.

“In a way, it was. But the retirement I was imagining -- making and selling furniture -- was a pipe dream. I’m not really that good. Or maybe I am that good, I’m just not very fast. I could get better and probably faster, but it would cost some money for the right tools and supplies and it would probably be a couple years before my skills were at the level I’d like. And then I’d be competing with some established furniture makers. So I gave up the idea of commercial production and decided to keep it as a hobby. I reckon I can put up with the reports and keep kicking ass for a few more years, and save more money for travel.”

“But you have your time in? Your pension isn’t going to get any better if you work three more years?”

“No. I’ll get a lieutenant’s pension of fifty-six dollars a month even if I work until nineteen ninety-one.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what does a lieutenant make in Tucson?”

“I don’t mind. Besides, it’s a matter of public record. I make seventy-one dollars and fifty cents a month.”

“Do you know how much Wayne was making?”

“Seventy-nine dollars and twenty-five cents a month, the little turd,” DeWitt said with a grin. “He liked to remind me, every chance he got.”

Malik chuckled, then said, “We’ve two security department positions that make more than that. Both Bill McCroskey and our officer instructor, Geoffrey Lu-chin, earn ninety-two dollars a month.”

DeWitt gave him a skeptical look. “You trying to make me cry, or what?”

“Lu-chin wants to retire at the end of the year.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have any trouble filling a position that pays that well.”

“Oh, we’ll be flooded with candidates. The problem will be finding the right one.”

“So, your current man must be something special.”

“That he is. He was chief constable of a police district in Hong Kong, so he worked in the British system. They’ve developed a lot of formal police procedures in the last twenty years.”

“Wayne said it was a lot different from joining the sheriff’s office or even the Arizona Rangers.”

“We think it’s a good system. Our officers may not be smarter than those with other agencies, but they learn to work smarter. And safer. Over all, we think it saves us about twenty percent in man-power.”

“Really? Now that surprises me.”

“With the men following procedures, they save a lot of wasted work. For instance, when they approach what may be the scene of a crime, say a burned box car, several of them don’t go charging in at once. One man will approach carefully, making sure his own footprints don’t obscure other footprints. He will describe what he observes and his partner will take notes.”

“Partner? They always work with a partner?”

“For the most part, yes. Among other advantages, it’s a safety measure.”

“And you still save twenty percent?”

“For the type of crimes we deal with. Most serious crimes -- assaults, murders -- are usually taken over by the local jurisdiction. We mostly deal with crimes against property.”

“Even so.”

“I’m not really the best one to be describing all this. Bill and Sir Geoff are the experts.”

“Oh, Geoffrey Lu-chin is Sir Geoff. Sure, Wayne mentioned him a number of times. I failed to make the connection.”

Both men took a puff on their cigars. DeWitt said, “And I just made another connection. You’re dangling this trainer’s job in front of me like a worm on a hook.” He laughed, skeptically. “I don’t know any of that British stuff. I came up in the seat-of-the-pants school.”

“And is seat-of-the-pants how you’re still doing it in Tucson?”

“Okay, you’ve got me there. But mostly we just took seat-of-the-pants and wrote it down.”

“And you think that’s different from how the British did it?”

“Sure. For one thing, Wayne said Sir Geoff was a stickler for correct spelling.”

The big stagecoach stopped before crossing the Leander Wash bridge. All the passengers got down.

Andy said, “There were ten of us on the far side, blocking the coach’s progress. Six riders had waited in those trees and rode in behind the stage. I was over there, by the end of the safety rail. Wayne was next to me.”

The Manuela de Ortega had been switched from the Southern Pacific passenger train at Junction City. Then, with the Chen Niao, which had been left at Junction City, it became the two-car consist of a special train to Waypoint. There, the family’s mule-drawn four-in-hand coach took Malik and Peng, Andy, Christina, and Luke, as well as the DeWitts, on the road to Ranch Home. The main purpose of the side trip was to allow the DeWitts to see where their son had died.

Andy sobbed. “I’m sorry. It just happened so fast, and Wayne was gone.” He pulled a kerchief and wiped his eyes and blew his nose.

Under control, once more, Andy explained, “What happened is that Ivanov must have figured out that the jig was up. He leaned out the window and looked right at me. Maybe he knew who I was. He’d been in Waypoint, at least once before. It never occurred to me that I might become his target.

“I think Wayne had a view to the inside of the coach through another window, and he must have seen Ivanov drawing the gun from inside his coat, because Wayne was already moving when Ivanov brought the gun up, yelling ‘Die, carpetbagger!’

“Later, I had thought Wayne made an unsuccessful attempt to get his horse to rear, but as I’ve remembered what happened, I believe he drove his horse toward my horse’s head, intending to get Beowulf to move me away from Ivanov’s line of fire. But I suppose it really makes no difference. Whatever he was intending, it was obvious his purpose was to prevent that bullet from reaching me. I doubt he expected it to strike him, instead, but that was the risk he took for me. He moved toward Ivanov’s line of fire.” Andy looked down and slowly shook his head. “There is nothing I can say that would adequately describe the enormity of that decision, not for your family, not for my family.”

After a minute of silence, Esperanza started out onto the bridge.

Andy said, “Esperanza, I want to caution you, there is a stain there, on the bridge deck, from Wayne’s blood.”

She hesitated, then turned and looked at her husband, holding out a hand to him. DeWitt joined her and wrapped an arm around her waist. They crossed the sixty-five-foot bridge together.

A dark, irregular stain marked the bleached wood, right at the northeast corner of the deck. Upon reaching it, Esperanza fell to her knees. She brought a clean kerchief from her sleeve and leaned down to scrub at the stain.

DeWitt said “Esperanza?”

She straightened and held up the delicate material, displaying a sizable brown smudge. She looked at her husband and said, “This is the blood that pumped through the heart of our son at the moment of his sacrifice. I will find a way to honor it.”

“Of course, Beloved. I will help. Perhaps a shadow box, with his three badges.” He helped her to her feet.

“That might be nice,” she said.

Esperanza said, “Melissa let us read his last letter to her. From what he wrote, he must have been seated at that table. This is a charming room, though I’m certain its charm was lost on Wayne. He was a typical man when it came to the finer things.”

“Hey,” DeWitt said, tightening the arm that was around her shoulders. “A man only needs to appreciate one finer thing and then marry her, so she can take care of all the other finer things for them both.”

Christina said, “Andy’s and Emil’s mother, Manuela, decorated most of the rooms. We’ve replaced the furniture in the great room and our own room, but everything else is how she left it when she was killed in, gosh, in ‘seventy. That’s over twenty years ago.

“How was she killed?” Esperanza asked.

“Oh, it was terrible. We even heard about it in town. I was twelve, then, as was Andy.

“What happened was that raiders rode into the ranch village. It wasn’t called Ranch Home back then; it was just ‘the ranch.’ The raiders had plundered Kylie the day before. They were just a bunch of men, white men, who were marauding as a way of surviving. Most of our men were out on the ranch working. The raiders went to the hacienda, first, and killed Manuela and three others. The village women had armed themselves, but most were thinking in terms of defending their home, rather than attacking the raiders. Once some of the ranch hands showed up, both the men and women began to fight back. When one of the raiders was killed, the rest mounted up and rode off southwest, back the way they came.

“Emil, and Andy, and their Pa had been down working on the dam at Summer Lake, about five miles southeast of here. One of the partners’ sons rode down to get them, though the surviving raiders, seven of them, were long gone by the time Valerian and the boys got back.

“After they buried Manuela, Valerian had Emil saddle some fresh horses, while he collected food, bedrolls, and guns. Then the two of them set off after the raiders.” Christina sighed. “Emil was only fifteen.”

After a pause, she said, “Emil and his Pa were back within a week. They never said what happened, but no one ever heard anything about those raiders again.”

DeWitt said, “Those were some hard years, after the war. There were plenty of men, ex-soldiers, who were stealing, and raping, and killing.”

Esperanza walked over and touched the table top.

Christina said, “You two can have the room next door. It has a bigger bed, with a new mattress. But you’re welcome to use this room, too, if you’d like.”

Esperanza said, “No. I’m being overly sentimental. I carry Wayne in here.” She touched her bosom, over her heart. “There’ll be no better memento than my abiding love for him. But I appreciate your generosity, not just for this, but for bringing us out here, so we could see where Wayne spent his last days. As he suggested in his letter to Melissa, this is a very comforting setting.”

After supper, the women were still in the kitchen with Maria Espinoza, the cook. Andy, Malik, and DeWitt were sitting near the fountain on the patio, with lit Guardia Reals, and snifters of Besada el Cielo brandy at hand.

There was a jangle of small bells. Andy stood up and went into the front room. Maria Espinoza came out of the kitchen and Malik said, “Andy’s got it, Maria.”

She said, “Gracias, Emil,” and went back into the kitchen, where they could hear the women laughing, Peng along with them.

Andy came back from answering the front door carrying a flat, canvas-wrapped packet, about two feet long and a foot wide, tied with twine. He handed it to DeWitt, saying, “It’s the deck board, from the bridge, with your boy’s blood. Give you something to work with.”

DeWitt at first looked startled. Then he looked down at the packet and, as his knuckles turned white in grasping it, he said, “Ah, you didn’t have to do that. But thanks. I really do appreciate it.” Then he looked toward the closed kitchen door, where more laughter could be heard.

“I think I’ll put this in our room, tell her about it later.”

“Just so you know,” Andy said, “because it’s important to me, to us: some of his blood ran down onto the sub-deck, which they’ve covered, again. I’m also comforted to have part of him there, just to remind us all.”

(Sunday, August 23, 1891)

Thursday, August 27, 1891

Moira Daley brought the DeWitts to Malik’s office at a quarter to twelve. She tapped on his door frame to draw his attention from the blueprints he was studying.

Looking up, he said, “Welcome, come in, sit down for a minute while I collect Raul.” He stood up, then looked toward Daley. “Moira, would you see if Dixie is ready? If she is, why don’t you go ahead down there? It will probably take me a minute to pry Raul out of whatever he’s doing.”

“Sure, uh, Mister Malik.” She turned and walked off down the hall.

Esperanza tittered. “She told us how they don’t feel right calling you by your Christian name.”

He walked around the desk, saying. “I know, and I’ve given up reminding anyone I’ve told more than once. I could order it, but that would seem to defeat the purpose.” He shook his head, wearing an expression of mild exasperation. “Excuse me, I’ll just get Raul.”

Peng accompanied Malik to dinner that evening at the Castillos’, where the DeWitt’s were the honored guests.