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
Bill