A Quest of Love and Redemption – Extended Epilogue

Union Avenue was jammed with revelers, the citizens of Pueblo, Colorado almost to a person. Even some children were allowed to dance and laugh and partake of the evening’s festivities, though Ross Starling knew this had more to do with the parents’ desire to attend the grand opening of the new Pueblo Manor Hotel.

At four stories, it was the tallest building in town, and had been the result of a communal effort that included the political pull of Mayor John Harrison himself. The fresh white paint and green trim gave the place an elegant feel. It was big and wide, too, like the Rockies themselves, like Colorado around them, and the entire nation.

Ross and Sheriff’s Deputy Nick Mathers looked up at the big hotel and at the crowd of people filling the streets, leaning out the windows and waving at the streets below. Men puffed hard on big cigars, others wandered around with whiskey bottles in their hands.

Pueblo was growing fast. In the eleven years since the marriage of Sheriff Jack McAllister and the former bank officer-turned schoolteacher Willamina Starling, the population had grown and the downtown area along with it. The Pueblo Manor was the biggest hotel, but it was far from the only new addition, including a Lafleur’s Bakery and a second saloon, also owned by Night Owl owner Percival Tallinger.

Ross looked Nick over, a stalk of black hair hanging over his face. He looked around, eyes scanning the crowd.

Ross asked him, “How’re you doin’?”

“Good,” Nick said, nodding, “just … good.”

“You’re nervous about something? Katherine coming along okay?”

“Mmm? Oh, yeah, she’s fine. Five months along now, Dr. Campbell says everything should be fine, but, I dunno … ”

Ross chuckled and slapped Nick’s shoulder. “I felt the same way before little Billy was born last year. I almost drove poor Beatrice half around the bend! And you remember how Jack was before my nephew Lester was born.” The two men shared a chuckle. “But that Dr. Campbell knows his business, that’s for sure.”

“Sure does. Brought Nancy Hobbs back to life, and the way he looks I often think he’s somehow managed to keep himself alive for three or four hundred years.”

“He does look like the risen dead with that bald head,” Ross said. “Still.”Ross looked around, then back at Nick. “Sure you’re not more worried about this? You’ve never been the man in charge, have you?”

“Not for this long,” Nick said, “or for a party this big. Still, I don’t suppose there was gonna be a good time. I envy them the trip though, New York by Jack take his family for trip back East, see that big new statue of, what was it called?”

“Lady Liberty, I think. I hear it’s quite a thing; a wonder of the modern world, they say. And then there’s the whole of the city, the American Paris.”

“I’ll get out there myself someday,” Nick said, “long as I still have a job to come back to here.”

Ross nodded. He knew the pull of the hometown more than most, having been exiled so young and under such terrible circumstances. He knew the humble desire to serve quietly and in peace, away from the limelight, and he couldn’t help but admire those qualities in Pueblo’s erstwhile deputy.

“Deputy Mathers!” Nick and then Ross turned to see the Pueblo Caller’s George Niles, scuttling up to them, small and bespectacled, a paper tablet in his hand and a pencil in the other. “Any comment on tonight’s festivities for tomorrow’s edition?”

Ross turned to Nick, eager to hear how he’d handle that very public situation, if he would succumb to the love of self that one’s name in the paper so often engendered in Ross’ experience.

Nick said, “Pueblo continues to be a town of the future. People who settle or visit here can be assured that they’ll be as safe and as happy here as anywhere in the country. The people in Pueblo are the most welcoming and wonderful people I’ve ever met, they deserve every bit of their prosperity.”

George finished scribbling, nodding with pleasure before turning to Ross. “Anything from you, Mr. Starling?”

Ross didn’t have to give it too much thought. He glanced at Nick, but said to George, “I don’t think I could add anything to that, other than to say that I, and everybody here, can have great faith in the law enforcement here in Pueblo. All are encouraged, all are welcome.”

George asked, “And what can I tell my readers about you, Mr. Starling? You were as popular as Col. David Crockett in some circles. Word is now that you spend most of your time working the McAlliStarling ranch.”

Ross nodded. “I was lucky to have a second chance at life … no, a third chance. My family enjoys our privacy and so do I. We work hard, stay in love and in faith and ask nothing more than the opportunity to help our community with anonymity.”

George nodded. “Nothing’s changed then. On a personal note, how are Beatrice and Billy?”

“I’ll send them your regards,” Ross said.

George turned to Nick. “Your wife, she’s great with child.”

Nic smiled. “She’s both.”

The men shared a warm chuckle before George turned to fade back into the crowd.

Ross shook his head. The Fourth Estate, he couldn’t help think, the Voice of the Populace. Thank God for him, and for anybody who resists the temptations of fame, the corruptions of wealth and the desire to bend power to the will of a single man. Ross knew that world well, and he prayed that he’d never know it again.

Keep things as they are, Lord, he silently prayed, send no more challenges against us, seek not that we should have to prove ourselves again, to sacrifice further. Haven’t we earned the peace You’ve granted us, the world we struggled to build and maintain? That’s all we ask, Lord, and all we can offer.

A familiar face walked past, grabbing Ross’ attention. “Eustace!Eustace Weber!” The former sheriff of Colorado Springs turned, stooped, body swaying, full beard completely gray. He’d been replaced in Colorado Springs by a younger, more competent man, and had come to Pueblo for his retirement.

Nick followed Ross’ line of sight to Eustace, weaving drunkenly and holding a whale oil lantern in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other.

Nick said to Ross, “That’s a shame.” Ross could only look on and nod. He’d run Colorado Springs for years with Eustace as the sheriff, and they’d made good progress returning him to some semblance of the man he once was or could have been. “He’d better be careful with that whiskey and that light. He’s gonna set himself on fire one of these days.”

Ross shook his head. “I don’t think he’s gonna live long enough for that. Wish there was something I could do to help him, but … a man’s got to want help, y’know?”

Nick nodded. “You’ve done plenty for Pueblo since you been back. New schoolhouse, new firehouse, new cemetery — ”

“I didn’t do any of those things alone, Nick. I hardly did more than raise the issue and initiate the campaigns, that’s all. It was the mayor’s pull, much as anything. And you and Jack do more for Pueblo than I could do, or would want to do. I’m just a simple ranch hand, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Nick said, “right.”

“Gentlemen!” Ross and Nick turned to see Mayor Harrison approaching with Father Arnell Abernathy. The two town elders approached, chests puffed out with pride, smiles stretched with satisfaction. The mayor went on to Ross and Nick. “Having a good time?”

“Not me, sir,” Nick said with a tip of his hat, “I’m on the job.”

Father Abernathy said, “But, you’re always on the job, my son. I’ve rarely come across a man so dedicated and dutiful, other than our absent sheriff himself, of course.”

“He really is good,” Nick said, “better than I, were I to wear the same badge.” The others grumbled, shaking their heads, but Nick was quick to say, “I’m not being morose, my friends. I was privileged to serve under the late Sheriff Lester McAllister, and I’m just as pleased and proud to serve Pueblo under Jack’s leadership. Men like that are hard to find, increasingly rare in this world.”

The others nodded, nobody able to doubt the legend of the McAllister name.

“Hey, watch it, ya drunk!” Ross didn’t know the voice, but he knew just where it came from. His eyes shot instantly back to the direction his old friend had just wandered down. By the time Ross could focus on him clearly, Eustace had already fallen backward, dropping both his whiskey and his lantern, glass shattering under his awkward grunts.

The flames spread quickly, and the crowd ran even more quickly. Fear swept over the crowd as the smoke got thicker fast, one scream touching off another and then another until people were running, some without even knowing why.

Ross jumped into a fast run across the crowded street and down the half-block to the scene of Eustace’s accident. Just steps behind Ross, Nick arrived just as Ross was pulling Eustace to his feet.

Once Eustace stumbled clear, it was a matter of fighting the fire. Flames licked up the spilled whiskey and whale oil, dancing up from the wooden sidewalk and from the wall of the new hotel.

A horse was hitched to a post just a few yards down the street, and Ross ran one. The beast was getting nervous fast, pulling at the reins, champing at the bit. Ross unbuckled the saddle and threw it off, pulled out the saddle blanket, and untied the horse to set it free of the encroaching flames.

Ross ran back and started drying to douse the flames with the wool blanked, flapping it over the spreading fire in a futile effort to snuff out the flames. Instead, they caught the blanket itself and Ross was soon wielding a curtain of flames. He tossed it into the dirt road to prevent it from creating further destruction.

There was enough of that happening as it was.

Ross turned to Nick. But it was Nick to spoke first. “Go get the fire department, I’ll go in an evacuate the building!”

“Not alone you won’t!” Ross turned, cupped one hand over each side of his mouth, and screamed, “Fire! Somebody call the fire department!” The bells were already ringing distant, but Ross knew they’d arrive with the steam-powered fire engine, tank full, hose and nozzle tested and ready.

Ross and Nick exchanged one final glance before running into the burning building, side by side.

The crowd hadn’t caught the spreading sense of panic overtaking the street. Nick called out, “I need your attention, everyone! Everyone, please!” But their response was not as quick as it could or should have been. “Everybody, listen to me!”

Ross shouted, “The building’s caught fire and we need everybody to evacuate in an orderly fashion!” This caught the crowd’s attention, and as it had outside, the fear spread quickly. It as only then that the smoke was suddenly thicker in the air. Ross turned to the wall he knew was burning from the outside in, and sure enough flames were already reaching around to the inside of the hotel.

But while they responded quickly, they showed no concern for the details of Ross’ instructions. They did not evacuate in an orderly fashion. Instead they stampeded to the front entrance, the only one most of the patrons would be familiar with.And each of the hundred or so people seemed blind to the others, reaching out for the exit as they screamed and ran, trampling anybody not fast enough to keep out of the way. Ross saw two older people sink down into the crowd, and plowed against the current of their communal horror in rescue.

Ross had marked the location of one fallen customer, and when he reached down his hands and eyes found the aging man in time to help him to his feet. “My wife,” he said, looking around in terror! “Where’s my wife!”

But Ross looked over to see Nick helping the old woman to her feet, body turning to find her husband, the two gravitating together. Ross said, “Get ‘em out of here!” Nick looked like he was going to object, but Ross turned and headed up the stairs even as customers began leaking out of their hotel rooms and running down the stairs against him.

It was hotter on the second floor, invisible needling poking into Ross’ skin, his eyes. Even as frightened guests ran past him, Ross knocked on every closed door, then opened it up and looked around.

The first room was empty, but there were others which weren’t being evacuated, and Ross knew he had to check ever one, and on the two floors above as well.

Ross tried the last closed door on that floor, a man lying asleep on the top of his bed covers, fully dressed, an empty whiskey bottle on the floor by the bed. Ross ran across the room and shook the man, who woke with a start, looking around in that crazed delirium between wakefulness and sleep.

“Whah — ?”

“Fire,” Ross said, “get out, get out now!” The man tried to push himself up, too drunk to manage without Ross’ help. Ross led him across the dark hotel room to the hall, also a balcony over looking the lobby. The smoke created a gray haze, hot in Ross’ throat as he led the drunk to the staircase, wincing as his eyes burned. He got him to the stair and said, “Get out and sober up!” Ross turned to head up to the next flight of stairs, Nick already in action ahead of him.

Good man, Ross thought to himself, with no time to think further.

Ross ran up to the third floor, people still streaming out of their rooms and down the stairs. They pushed against him, slowing Ross’ progress and called up, “Is there anybody still up there on the upper floor?” No answer came back to rise above the din and clatter of the fleeing throngs.

Nick called out, “Ross, over here!” Ross turned and headed down the third-floor hallway to an opened hotel room door. Ross looked in to see Nick trying to pull a very fat woman out of her bed. She looked like she weighed four hundred pounds or more, her leg a massive, swollen purple tree trunk.

It looked as if she’d sank into the bed, as if it had collapsed beneath her weight and at just the wrong time.

Ross ran in tried to reach around the woman’s tremendous girth, Nick pulling at her fat arm to help her to her feet. Ross clasped the woman’s other hand and pulled, but even the combined effort off all three could pull her up off the bed.

They finally managed to rescue her from the crippled bed, the woman groaning as they set her on her feet.

“Oh, thank you,” she said, “thank you both so much!”

“Let’s go,” Ross said, “hurry!”

Ross led them out of the room and into the hallway, smoke even thicker than before, the heat rising around them. They took the several steps down the hall toward the stairs, but the woman froze to see the flames consuming the wooden structure around them, drapes devoured by fire and spitting back thick streams of ash and smoke.

“No,” she said, “oh no! I can’t!”

“We don’t have any choice,” Nick said. “You can do it, we all can!”

The three resumed their escape, climbing down the flight of stairs with frustrating awkwardness. She waddled and weaved from one side to another, limping on her injured leg, arms reaching out and grateful for the support Ross and Nick were giving her. Without them, Ross knew she’d be dead and he knew she was aware of the fact. All three were equally aware that they weren’t safe yet, their lives still at perilous risk.

They made it down the first flight of stairs and turned for the other, a better view of the inferno around them. But the opened front door wasn’t far off, and Ross was comfortable with their chances of —

Craaaaack!

The stairway gave beneath Ross’ feet, and he knew at once that the entire step had collapsed from their combined weight. Ross fell fast, the woman and Nick doing the same. But each hadn’t only one foot on step, so the three fell forward, one leg each sinking in.

Pain hit Ross hard in the belly when he landed on the step, leg dangling beneath him, other leg up and over, hitting the fat woman as Ross fell through.

Ross was wedged in tight, his leg pressing against his chest, his other dangling beneath the stair. the woman trapped in a similar fashion, her massive body tipped to one side and pressing Ross against the side of the staircase.

Crrrrrack!

Gravity resumed control of the situation and Ross was pulled through the crippled staircase and down into a hot, dark area beneath the staircase. Ross hit the ground hard, leg twisting, pain shooting up his body and into his brain, nearly forcing him to pass out. Ross looked around and refocused quickly. The smoke was thick, hard to make sense of things in the burning hotel. But the floor under and around the staircase was not yet on fire, and that meant he and the other two still had a chance to get out of there alive and not be cooked to death.

Ross pushed Nick’s errant foot up from under the staircase, Nick’s body rising with it. Ross called up, “Pull yourself up, Nick!” Nick’s foot slipped from off his hands and smashed accidentally into Ross’ face. He snapped back but remained on his feet, finding Nick’s kicking foot and grabbing it tight, pushing it up again. Ross’ own foot was bursting with pain, but he tried to ignore it.

Ross coughed, wincing as his eyes burned, throat parched.But Nick’s leg disappeared out of the shattered step above Ross, leaving only the fat woman and with a lot more room to maneuver her.

Ross shouted up, “You pull, I’ll push!”

“Okay,” Nick said, only slivers of him visible through the shattered step and past the big woman.

“Madam, you keep this leg straight!” Ross grabbed her foot as he had Nick’s, called up, “Okay, Nick, and … heave!” Ross pushed and Nick pulled, the woman screaming out as her swollen leg supported much of her titanic weight. “Keep trying!”

The woman fell back, Ross falling to his feet but rising fast, coughing and dizzy. Time was running out for all three of them. They had one more chance, and the more smoke got into that fat woman’s lungs, the less likely she or any of them were to survive.

“Aaaaaaand … heave!”

Ross pushed, Nick pulled, and the woman rose up out of the shattered step, bits of wood falling in behind and beneath her. She said, “Oh thank God!” as Nick led her down the stairs above.

Ross ran around from under the staircase to join them, the three of them headed straight for the exit, for escape. The doors were burning, but there was room enough to make it out if Ross and the others got through soon enough. But Ross could only try with Nick to usher the big woman across the burning lobby. The burning door frame threatened to crack and fall in, and Ross knew if that happened they’d be trapped in the building, and their deaths would be assured.

“Faster,” Ross said, trying to drag the big, injured woman to the doorway, Nick doing all he could under her other arm. “Hurry!”

The door frame creaked and buckled, the top cracking and tipping inward, not quite falling in. But the collapse was imminent. And every step toward that door seemed futile, pointless, the door feeling as if it was getting further and further away, dooming them to a torturous death.

Ross held his breath as they dragged the big woman through the burning doorway, the heat intense, a small flame rising up from Ross’ shoulder. He patted it out and kept going, the doorway creaking loud, the entire hotel shifting above them.

Bam!

A huge wooden beam fell from the ceiling, twenty feel long, two feet thick and engulfed in flames. Ross pulled at the woman as he and Nick cleared the hotel doorway, the smoke pouring out behind them.

They stumbled across the sidewalk, a crowd of people swarming in to pull them away from the burning hotel. The fire department was pelting the hotel with the blast of the firehose, but the spray wouldn’t be enough. The fire would prevail despite their valiant efforts.

But Ross, Nick, and their immense companion allowed the others to pull them clear, Ross and Nick setting her down on the sidewalk across the street.

They turned to see the hotel burn. It had been a symbol of Pueblo’s future, of America’s future. But it seemed to be a herald of the nation’s future. Not even twenty years since the fiery war of the War Between the States, few doubted that the era of peace would last. There was constant violence in the West, rising crime everywhere, political unrest overseas. The nation, all of mankind, seemed to Ross to be as fragile as that burning hotel, forever on the verge of collapse, a thing of great promise which had been overtaken by natural forces, man’s work undone by the vengeful hand of God.

But there was great work done in those flames, Ross suspected and Father Abernathy confirmed it with his words, taken from the bible which quivered in one hand, the other raised to the burning hotel.

“And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are My people,’ And they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’”

The fat woman started wheezing, looking up from the sidewalk, fat arm reaching, thick fingers grasping. Her eyes were wide and red in her lardy face, mouth open in a frightened grimace, wide and gaping.

She fell slowly forward, Ross and Nick reaching down to support her but able only to usher her to her back on the buddy ground. Doctor Campbell raced up, lean and fast, a bald medical miracle, crouching over the woman and ushering everybody else back.

Ross and Nick stepped back and looked on, Ross’ own heart straining as if he were feeling her pain, his own chest tightening in empathy. But there was nothing more either Ross or Nick could do but stand back and pray and let the medical expert work his magic.

Doctor Campbell pulled at the woman’s nightclothes to loosen them. He tipped her head back and pinched her nostrils closed before leaning down over her and putting his mouth onto hers. He huffed several times in a steady rhythm. Everybody watched as the doctor pulled his head back, the woman now motionless, lifeless beneath him.

Lord, Ross prayed, restore the woman to her loved ones, please! She was brave and suffered much, but surely she is your humble and worthy servant as much as I have ever been, or any of us. ‘For howsoever you treat the lowliest among us, so you treat Me.’ Please treat her with Your grace and virtue, my Lord, as you always have treated me.

The doctor went on with his strange ritual, but Ross knew what he was attempting. It only saddened him to see that another round of huffs into the woman’s breathing passages failed to rouse her.

Doctor Campbell cupped his hands together, raised them up high and brought them down hard right onto the woman’s chest with a loud thud. He struck her the same way three times more. He paused and lowered his ear to her chest. Obviously not hearing the heartbeat he was looking for, Dr. Campbell cupped his hands together and tried again, three sharp punches onto her chest.

He listened for a heartbeat, then returned his attention to puffing into the woman’s mouth. Ross and Nick looked on, glancing sadly at each other. The crowd all wore similarly sad expressions, some shaking their heads, people who never knew the woman saddened to see her lose her battle for life. Any one of them could have been consumed by that fire due to one set of circumstances or another, and the fact didn’t seem to be lost on any of them anymore than it was on Ross.

The woman coughed up a gargled gasp, her fat body cramping and bucking, her head raising up as muscles flexed and twitched and pulled beneath all that lard. Her body relaxed a bit and her coughing receded, regular breathing wheezing up.

Doctor Campbell asked her, “You’re okay? You with us?”

The fat woman nodded, dazed and confused but gathering her wits quickly as the crowd erupted in a tremendous cheer. People hugged one another, strangers made friends by their shared experience.

Ross savored the sense of relief, warmth rushing through her tissues. He reached out and Nick took his hand, shaking it with a shared respect and admiration. Neither could have survived without the other, and working together they’d rescued a third life and probably several more. Ross knew God asked no more of him, that surely no man could.

But if any man did, Ross knew he’d do his best to accommodate that person, whatever it was and whoever they were. That was God’s will for him, to do what he could when he could, no matter what.

Me and everybody else, Ross had to reflect, watching that hotel burn to the ground with the rest of the people of Pueblo, Colorado. We’ll rebuild this hotel, better and safer than before, and innumerable other buildings like it will rise. Nature may strike us down, our own failures and hubris haunting us from the shadows of the past, reaching out with deadly force. But we won’t shirk, not now and not ever. The flames will recede, calm and normalcy will return, and progress will carry on, whatever the price.

Ross and Nick stepped back, solemn but relieved, each silently committing to their duties, as men and as Americans. Ross thought about his adored Beatrice and their child, the family Starling which had been reunited almost by a miracle but mostly by his sainted sister Willamina.

Nick and Ross both had bright futures, family and love and faith and purpose, and neither man needed for much more. Both would return to their wives that night, Ross knowing Nick would savor his wife’s attention as much as Ross would enjoy his own. Ross couldn’t wait to hug his young son, to tell them the thrilling tale of the fire at the Pueblo Manor Hotel, and assure them that he’d never do such a risky and foolish thing again. He’d be stretching the truth, he would know and they would know it too.But it hardly mattered. What did matter was that they were together, and that no force would ever separate their family as such forces once had, years before, the first of a series of events which had given birth to bliss, raising glory from the ashes, to live and love and praise God almighty in the highest for all the days of their lives.

THE END

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