Chapter 2

NMT, August, 1901

The blessed event finally arrived and Sarah was greatly relieved. The twins were born! As agreed with Mat, she named them James York and Florence Catherine. No longer did Sarah feel like a walking pumpkin! Now she could walk from her bedroom to the dining room without feeling like she was going to collapse from exhaustion! Even the ten hours of labor were not too much to pay for being able to feel normal, again.

Carmelita and Bill were tapped as Godparents and were thrilled to be picked. The whole family doted on the twins and Mat was particularly seized by the joy of fatherhood. Sarah once remarked to Carmelita in a moment of exasperation, "Mat is a typical father. He gloats over the twins and takes all of the credit while I have to nurse the two little monsters! Carmelita, there's no justice in the world! It's a good thing that I love all three as much as I do!"

Roland had a wild idea cooking in the back if his head that just would not let him alone. Twice in his life he had tasted ice cream and he never forgot the joy of the taste. He had wanted to revisit that taste ever since, but had not had access to the ice that was required. After all, where in southern NMT could he find enough ice? He finally admitted that the only way he was going to get enough ice was to make his own!

He remembered reading somewhere of a patent that had been issued about 50 years before describing a machine to make ice. Roland, in his usual determined fashion, set out to get a copy of the patent and build such a machine. He sent an order to the patent department in Washington, DC, for a copy of patent #8080. While he was waiting, Roland went on with the many other projects he had going at the time.

The requested patent arrived in due time and Roland marveled at how easy it would be for him to duplicate the machine. As an intermediate stage in the production of the ice, the machine produced copious quantities of very cold water. Much of this "coldness" was wasted, but Roland was sure that he could find plenty of use for the stuff. Along with everyone else, Roland was aware of the almost miraculous ability of cold storage to preserve food, so he figured that this would be an obvious use for some of the otherwise wasted cold water.

Roland wanted to keep secret his plans for making ice cream. This was to be his Christmas present to the ranch, but he did need help with making the machine and the cold storage room which was to be his ostensible reason for the project. Therefore, he described his idea for a cold storage facility to Carmelita and enlisted her aid in selling the project to the executive council. They had no trouble in convincing the council to back the project, since everybody had such confidence in Roland's ability to deliver on his promises.

This turned out to be a rather complex project, since Roland had to use the wind for his basic power source. He had a special building constructed from concrete block and faced with adobe brick. He put his windmill on top of this building and planned to put the refrigeration/ice-making machine within the building which would also serve as the cold storage locker. It took about three months to get everything built with the enthusiastic cooperation of the whole ranch.

At last, the refrigeration system was ready for final testing. Everybody who could get away from his regular job was there when Roland turned on his machine. At first, there was a general air of disappointment as there was no obvious sign of something happening. After a while, people began to wander away amid muttering at how this was Roland's first failure, but then somebody noticed that the room seemed to be getting cooler. Suddenly, a spontaneous cheer broke out as everybody felt the stirring of the cooler air. Those that had left sneaked back to be part of the celebration and there was a lot of laughter and loud talk of how this person and that one just knew that Roland would come through again. After about an hour of enjoying the cool air, people began to leave; the room was just getting to be too damned cold!

There was still work to be done on the system. For one thing, a lot of ice had to be made. Roland had prepared a number of molds for the resulting ice blocks in 1 and 2 cubic feet size. He planned to stack the blocks around the room along the walls to help maintain the temperature of the room. Nobody knew what would be the best temperature for storing food. In fact, Carmelita speculated that there would be some foods that kept best at one temperature and some foods that kept best at another. Roland agreed that they would have to experiment to find what worked best.

Carmelita and Bill had become so close that they might as well be married, or so went the gossip of the ranch. The fact was, they both wanted to marry, but each was too cautious to make the next move. Finally, Sarah decided that they had stalled enough and it was time for her to put the pressure on. She almost found her encouragement of Carmelita to border on nagging as she kept trying to push the two together.

One day, Sarah said, "Why don't you and Bill set a date? Everybody knows how the two of you feel toward each other. Mat has talked to Bill. Bill is just afraid that you will reject him if he asks. It looks to us as if you will have to make the first positive move, SO DO IT!"

"OK, I will ask Fr. Murphy. If he sanctions the marriage, I will ask Bill."

"Now, you're talking like the Carmelita I have known all my life! Go to it, woman! I know that you will be happy, and you will relieve a lot of worry among your friends."

Carmelita began to get excited as she contemplated the marriage. "We could be married in the spring. If you help, we could have everything ready by the middle of March."

"Of course, I'll help! You'd have to beat me off with a stick to keep me from helping! I'm so excited, I can hardly wait! I'll tell Mat; he'll want to help, too."

Thus, the marriage was finalized. The agreement by the priest and the groom were just two more technicalities among the mountain of details to be ironed out. Beyond this point, Carmelita was in charge and Bill was just along for the ride! The juggernaut was advancing and woe unto any fool who got in the way!

Sue was suspicious of the two new businessmen in town, so she decided to resume her cover as an interviewer for "The New Mexico Territory Historical Preservation Society." Neither Rufus Craig nor Harry Smith were anxious to be interviewed, an attitude puzzling in two recently arrived businessmen. However, Sue persisted, and finally she was able to talk to each man. They both were so bland and innocent that her suspicions were reinforced She wondered how could either man rise to his current apparent wealth without having some notable event in his background? She also noted the tattoo each man had at the base of his left thumb: a burning cross.

She decided to ask Jake Jakobs to put a tail on both men to find out what they could. That was when they found the link to the same saloon in Alamogordo that had been used before by the Brotherhood. How could an organization with so much potential brain power keep making such stupid mistakes? Armed with this information, she had the tails dropped on Craig and Smith and replaced by a tail on Anton Zane. This eventually led to a contact named John Altman in Albuquerque. Both men were observed to have the ubiquitous tattoo.

A tail on Altman led to a law office in Santa Fe, but the trail faltered there. There were six men in the office, so the trail was too diffuse at this point to follow any farther. However, all six men had that same tattoo. It looked like she had tracked down the latest edition of the Brotherhood in NMT!

Sue discussed her latest findings with Mat and Sarah, and they agreed that they were caught in a quandary. They could eliminate the NMT division of the Brotherhood by simply assassinating their list, but then the Brotherhood would just send in replacements, as they had done before. It would be better to try to eliminate the highest echelon of the Brotherhood, if they could be identified. This was what they decided to do.

Sue moved to Santa Fe and, with a little chicanery, managed to get a job working in the law office in question. Sue was, by far, the most intelligent secretary there, so she quickly became the de facto office manager. In the course of her duties, she discovered that the owner of the firm made an annual trip to Montgomery, Alabama, to attend some very important meeting. Sue contrived to be the secretary tapped to accompany him on this year's journey.