He felt himself relax and give in. He couldn’t control everything any more than Solomon could stop being a Jew, or Jenny could stop being a girl. All he could do was go along and hope for the best.
Hope for the best, that was it. He set aside his pie plate and clasped his hands over his chest, slumping down in the chair. He suddenly felt too tired to make the short walk back to his room, and he let his lids drift closed.
Tomorrow would bring new problems and new surprises, but he was too tired to worry about them now. As he drifted off to sleep, he was thinking that tomorrow would be just another normal day in Fury.
Whatever that was.
EPILOGUE
Dear Carl,
Well, that’s it. Sorry if I burst your balloon about the killing of the gunman, Ezra Welk, but sometimes the truth is, far and away, more interesting than anything you or I could make up. And certainly I couldn’t have come up with anything more poetic than the real reason for his death.
Jason Fury has already read this, by the way, and given his go-ahead on the project. He lives alone now, in the same old house he built on Second Street, although the place has certainly grown some. Fury now has a real grade school, a junior high, and a high school, and there is talk of a junior college. They’re well past Second Street these days and up to streets in the forty-somethings. They are, in fact, nearly halfway up to the MacDonalds’ spread.
And since the Apache no longer pose a threat, the east wall (along with the northern one) has been taken down and the cactus that the wind planted beside the wall has been turned into a pretty (if prickly) little park that separates the east and west ends of Main Street.
Fury has also become a popular vacation spot for Hollywood types, and several well-known names (including Tom Mix and William S. Hart) own property there, or at least come to stay over for a week or two here and there. As you might guess, this had led to the development of a number of swank restaurants and so on, and added to the townsfolk’s bank accounts.
The marshal’s office has been replaced, as have several other buildings. Solomon Cohen’s mercantile is still there, although now it is run by his grandsons, Issac and David. Did I mention that Solomon, in his later years, invented the valve for the modern flush toilet, adding to the work already done by the original English inventor, Mr. Crapper? It made him quite wealthy. And by the way, there is now a good-sized Jewish community in Fury, with its own synagogue and its own private cemetery. I noticed that they hadn’t moved Sampson Davis over there, though. Perhaps they thought he wasn’t worth the bother, and perhaps you agree with them, as do I.
The Catholic church is booming, too. A new structure was erected in 1900, and although Father Micah is long gone, the new priest, Father Tim McKay, seems a good fellow, and had no trouble letting me peruse the church records and regaling me with stories of Fury originally told to him by Father Micah.
The Reverend Milcher’s old church has been refurbished and now serves as the First Presbyterian. Reverend Bean eventually opened a Baptist church, which only survived three years.
You’ll be interested to know that the town of Fury has erected an enormous, heroic, bronze statue in the center of Main Street, where the community well once stood, of old Jedediah Fury, himself. Jason tells me it doesn’t do Jedediah justice, but then, you’d expect any son to say that about any edifice erected in his father’s image. (Water is now piped direct to the houses and so on, and there is a municipal sewer system in place, along with a small water treatment plant.)
Jason’s sister, Jenny, is the widow of the late Rafe Lynch, who passed away in 1903 after being mortally wounded by a would-be bank robber. However, he is survived by not only his wife, but three children and six grandchildren, one of whom serves as the present marshal (or chief of police, as they now call the position) of Fury. He is called Jason, after his great-uncle, and frequently seeks his advice and counsel.
Jason, himself, married a few years after the time of our story, and it came as a surprise to nearly everybody in town. He is a widower now, but his sons have gone into the family businesses, as it were. The elder, Jeremy, is a U.S. Marshal, and the other, Jasper, sells real estate. Between them, they have given Jason three granddaughters and four grandsons.
Most of the others in the story have passed on, more’s the pity. I would have greatly admired to have met old Salmon Kendall and Abe Todd.
I should probably say here, too, that old Wash Keogh never did strike it rich. Apparently, that enormous nugget he found was a one-of-a-kind relic (although he kept looking for some years), but he never cashed it in. It is presently under guard and on display at the Fury Historical Society and Museum, along with several souvenirs from the original wagon train, including the Milchers’ original piano, a real Conestoga wagon, a great many wanted posters from back in the day, and so on.
I must cut this off, for I hear the train pulling in to the depot, and they usually don’t stay over too long. I want to get this off to you as soon as possible, my friend, and I trust that you’ll enjoy reading about what I trust was the most action-packed week (in non-fiction, at least) in Arizona, ever!
Best Wishes,
Bill
Turn the page for an exciting preview!
In Utah the Loner finds religion—
behind the barrel of a gun . . .
SHOWER THE BRIDE WITH LEAD . . .
The damsel is in distress, or so it seems to
Conrad Browning. On his way across the wide,
tall Utah Territory to California, the Loner
meets a beautiful Mormon girl on the run from a
forced polygamous wedding—and the gun-toting
faithful trying to hunt her down. But there are
two sides to every story. Sometimes, the one you
don’t hear is the one that can get you killed.
The runaway bride has a little history of her own.
The Loner touches off a storm of unholy gunfire,
drawing blood from an outlaw and a death
sentence from a patriarch. Among murderers
and Mormons, Bibles and bullets, the Loner
finds himself riding to a wedding—a ceremony
he intends to crash with a vengeance. . . .
The Tenth in the Blazing New Series!
The Loner: The Blood of Renegades
by
On sale now, wherever Pinnacle Books are sold.
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Rugged, snowcapped mountains rose in the distance, a majestic sight under a beautiful blue sky.
