The Offered Journey

The ceremony was over, mercifully, and people had already started to head back down the hill to the house. The three orphaned West/Gordon children stayed behind, as was their right, to mourn undisturbed for at least a few moments in front of the two freshly dug graves laid side by side with two older ones. James West was with his Adele now in every sense and Artemus Gordon had his Lily back. The large Baldwin apple tree overlooked them all, guarding their eternal sleep.

Dad would be jealous, Amanda thought, almost with a guilty touch of amusement as she saw the sheer size of the crowd meandering or waiting for them below. The turnout for her father's funeral had been the most impressive their little townlet could remember last year, with masses of folks from the theater, science and Secret Service communities all turning out, and that in chilly, rainy weather. But the combined final audience for Lily Fortune Gordon and Captain James T. West on a disturbingly sunny day had been even larger. He wouldn't really begrudge them, though. Her Dad and Uncle Jim had been as close as any two friends possibly could be, but they'd also maintained a quirky competitiveness, even keeping track of how many times each one had saved the other's life. The senior Artemus had gone to his deathbed still holding a substantial lead on that score. Amanda could only hope that her mother and Aunt Adele would find some way to keep their two dads out of mischief in heaven now that they'd both arrived.

Feeling slightly guilty at finding anything even a bit amusing to think about on a day like today, Amanda knelt down to adjust one of the arrangements of flowers placed by her mother's grave. She supposed it was the shock still that made her search for anything bearable to think about. Given the size of the hospital explosion and the wanton destruction that had claimed their loved ones' lives, they'd been fortunate to have any bodies to bury at all. But the search had been undertaken with a grimness of purpose by the best professionals in the business. The Secret Service took care of its own. No effort had been spared to identify and extricate what remained left of James and Lily. Only Tem and Amanda had been forbidden to help with the hunt, for which Amanda was infinitely grateful. Tem might have dug through the rubble with his bare hands until he bled or died of exhaustion otherwise.

One of those strong hands reached down and helped her stand upright as she took her place beside her husband once more. The black crepe mourning dress she wore with its attendant undergarments was new, stiff and uncomfortable. Not nearly as easy to move around in as her specially modified working petticoats. Well, women were not meant to feel comfortable, and women in mourning were expected to be the least comfortable of all. But poor old Uncle Jeremy had already made the day more comfortless and dolorous than any ill-fitting clothing could. He didn't understand much these days, but he'd understood what was going on this morning, who exactly was gone, and he'd howled his own grief crouching on the ground as the caskets were lowered. She shivered a little, knowing she'd be hearing the sound of Uncle Jeremy's keening in nightmares yet to come. She and Jimmy had been just as distraught, but they'd held themselves together somehow.

"It doesn't make sense," Tem whispered to her as they wrapped arms around each other briefly for solace. They'd already learned from their Secret Service colleagues about the explosives found in the hospital rubble, about the fact that the disaster was no accident. "Why kill a man who was already dying?"

None of it made any sense. If James West had anything to reveal about his unknown assailant, he'd been too weak to do so. According to one of the doctors who'd made it out of the hospital, the old man had suffered a heart attack, not just a bullet wound. That would have been the true cause of his death if not for the explosion. Any killers who'd gotten close enough to plant high-powered explosives in the hospital wing could have found that out. A pillow over the face would have been enough to finish off Uncle Jim. It wouldn't have taken much more than that, Amanda realized with a shudder, to do in her elderly mother.

And we were about to leave them there defenseless . . . .

Why use such an awful method, why kill so many victims if the target was so near death? Even their fathers' old archenemy Dr. Miguelito Loveless wouldn't have gone in for such overkill . . . . Well, no, she corrected herself – he might have, if some of the old stories were true. But surely there weren't many villains like Loveless still around. She and Tem had both battled their share of bad guys in their fledgling Secret Service careers already, and had their share of close scrapes too, but nothing to equal the wild tales her father and Uncle Jim had told them.

"Excuse me," an unfamiliar voice interrupted Amanda's thoughts and she and Tem turned to face a man in a gray suit who was holding out a Secret Service identification to them.

Amanda felt a twinge of annoyance at having what should have been the family's scant private time disturbed. She didn't recognize the man either, despite being an agent herself. But with so many present today, that signified nothing. Uncle Jim's death had even brought out several members of the Cheyenne Nation in full dress regalia.

"Can we help you, Agent . . . Hamilton?" Tem asked, no doubt seeing the mood in Amanda's eyes and reading the agent's name off the I.D.

"I am hoping to help you," the agent said. "You two and Mr. Gordon as well." Hamilton nodded to Jimmy, who joined Amanda and Tem in front of this strange visitor. Agent Hamilton drew an envelope out of his jacket and handed it to Tem. "Train tickets and hotel vouchers. I am truly sorry to disturb you on an occasion such as this, but your presence is urgently requested in Washington to discuss this matter. We cannot do it here."

"This matter?" Amanda asked, angry to hear 'this' being referred to in such a dispassionate term. "You mean our parents' murder?"

Agent Hamilton nodded.

"As I say, this is not the place."

Or the time, Amanda thought, though she was burningly curious about what he couldn't discuss in a private family graveyard surrounded by half the Secret Service agents in the country.

"I am truly sorry for your losses." The agent tilted his head again and sounded as if he might actually mean it. Tem, Amanda and Jimmy all watched as Hamilton turned and left down the hill. As he departed, some of the other funeral guests, agents they recognized, waved and called out greetings to Hamilton. So. Not an imposter then. But not someone who headed toward the Gordon house either. Instead of seeking refreshments, Hamilton walked down the crowded drive and disappeared.

Jimmy was staring at the envelope, but Tem put it away in his black suit pocket and sighed.

"Time to face the music, you think?"

"And dance as best we can," Amanda whispered back. The rituals of death did not spare the living. Poor Aunt Kate was on triple duty today assisting the young Wests in hospitality while also being a mourner and comforting and keeping an eye on poor, distressed Uncle Jeremy. Uncle Jim's maid-of-all-works Maisie was also devastated but serving all she could, and Aunt Adele's nieces were being holy blessed godsends. But Amanda, Tem and her brother had a duty to perform, and they'd been brought up to do their duty, no matter what.

Showtime, her father would have said. The show must go on.

And on . . . and on . . . and on . . . .

Later, after the last of the crowd had dispersed, or at least gone on to Chicago to wreck that town instead of the Gordon lawn, Amanda flung herself onto the davenport too exhausted even to go to bed. Tem was just as tired. Normally they both enjoyed the task of getting her undressed, but not tonight. The only member of the family not almost collapsed was Jimmy, who'd had a nervous, restless energy all afternoon. Sixteen year olds. Amanda had expected him to take today hardest of them all, but she was proud of the way he'd held himself together. Her parents would have been so proud too . . . .

Suddenly she found herself bawling her eyes out, collapsed and shaking in Tem's arms, drenching him with the tears she hadn't allowed herself all day.

"Why?" she moaned. "Why?"

"I guess that's what Washington wants to talk to us about," Tem said. His voice sounded raspy and when Amanda looked up, she saw his face wet with tears too. Not just husband and wife anymore, but two orphans who had been sticking together through thick and thin in every sense of the word. Even, alas, in mourning.

As they wiped away each other's tears, Tem withdrew Agent Hamilton's envelope from his inner pocket. Wordlessly, they opened it and examined the contents. Three train tickets, just as the agent had said, and vouchers to cover their other travel expenses.

"Day after tomorrow," Tem murmured, reading the date and time printed on the tickets.

"One day?" Amanda felt grief turning to grievance again. "They're giving us one whole day to mourn after we buried our parents?" But the agent part of her knew they were lucky to be given that much. Tem knew it too.

"They do think it's urgent." He put the tickets and vouchers back into the envelope and returned it to his pocket. "Whatever Dad got himself mixed up in, it's big, like it usually was. I just wish . . . ." Tem's voice choked up and he had to swallow before he could speak again. "I wish . . . I mean, I know he was dying . . . but your Mom . . ." His voice choked off once more.

"Don't," Amanda said, taking his tear-stained face in her hands. "Don't be sorry for that. We both know that she led a rich, full life and that she's with my Dad now. This isn't your fault, this isn't Uncle Jim's fault either. It's the people who planted those bombs who are to blame – no one else. Hopefully Washington can tell us who that was and why, or at least point us in the right direction."

Tem nodded.

"I owe them both that much."

"We owe them both that much," Amanda corrected him. "Partners, remember?"

"Partners," he agreed.

They were both so tired that neither noticed a third pair of eyes watching them as they finally, painfully went up to bed.

"Partners," Jimmy Gordon whispered to himself when they had gone upstairs.

[WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW]

Dad would be jealous, Amanda thought once again as she, Tem and Jimmy walked through to the luxury observation car for the start of their journey to Washington. They'd all had the privilege of seeing 'The Wanderer,' their fathers' old train when they were small children, but they'd visited it much as they would have visited a museum exhibit. That train had been considered a fantastic luxury in its day, but it was a real museum piece now, permanently side-railed and disarmed of its deadlier components. They'd known that both of their fathers had called The Wanderer home and sometimes had a nostalgic yearning to pay a call on the old locomotive. But while it had seemed large enough when Amanda was little, its fancy 'varnish car' and living accommodations were so small and cramped that she wondered how their fathers could have lived on it for so long without going mad.

This modern passenger train she, Tem and Jimmy were on was the real height of space and luxury, with capacious windows, sleeping berths and water closets that didn't require contortions to get into – and blissfully, no sections that had to be patched up from bullet holes. While she'd been angered by the lack of private time for mourning that Washington had given them, she found herself glad of it now. Yesterday the home she'd grown up in had seemed so dreadfully empty that she didn't know if she could bear to stay in it even one day longer. A return to work on this sleek engine might be the best thing after all. A return to work also meant a welcome excuse to change her dreadful mourning outfit for her working attire and working parasol in place of the useless black thing she'd borne to the gravesite. Not that she hoped she'd need the parasol.

The only other fly in her ointment about the journey was her brother Jimmy's presence. She wished he had not been included even if he had as much right to know about who had taken their loved ones' lives as she did. By society's standards he had even more – he was Mr. Gordon after all, while she was supposed to be just the 'good little wifey' to Artemus West. Amanda was grateful that Tem and their Secret Service colleagues had the good sense – and survival instinct – to treat her like the competent, intelligent person she was. She'd be forever indebted to Aunt Kate for blazing that particular trail. But Jimmy was so young – too young to be getting mixed up in this business. She'd expected Tem to agree with her on that score and had been deeply chagrinned when he did not. Outvoted 2-1 she now had to acquiesce to Jimmy's attendance on the trip. She waited to see her little brother settled into a comfortable chair, fiddling with one of the complex metal gadgets he so often seemed to have with him before going out onto the observation car's back deck - by herself.

What good was being annoyed at Tem without letting him know she was annoyed with him?

As expected, her husband joined her on the deck after giving her the appropriate minute of solitude.

"You're still mad at me, aren't you?" he asked.

"Your powers of observation, Mr. Holmes, are priceless."

Tem gave a long, drawn out sigh. She wished he wouldn't look so cute while doing so. She was really making an earnest effort here.

"We shouldn't be fighting among ourselves," he said. "Especially right now. We're all each other has got left. We can't keep treating Jimmy like a child either."

"I'm not treating him like a child!" she argued. "I'm treating him like a sixteen year old – which he still is!"

"Same thing. Amanda, he was included in Washington's summons for a reason. He has a right to be with us. Besides, it's not as if he hasn't graduated college."

"When he was twelve! That doesn't make him an adult!" How could Tem understand? She remembered the sight of her father standing on the stair landing outside her parents' bedroom on the day Jimmy was born. Remembered how he beamed with pride at the little bundle in his hands as he had called down to her honorary uncle: "Jim! Come up and meet your new namesake!" She also remembered the pale, haggard appearance of both her parents' faces, the worry, the fear as that little bundle of joy struggled through every infant illness known to man. "I just want to keep him safe, that's all."

"So do I." Tem put both of his hands on her shoulders. "He's my family too, remember? He's an honorary West just like I'm an honorary Gordon. But we have to let him grow up. He's never going to be able to take care of himself if we don't let him try!"

Damn it, she hated when he was right! Just like she hated the way her knees went weak when this man she'd known since her infancy stared into her eyes with that deep green gaze of his own. The way she was ready to cast aside her every independent thought when she felt those strong, protective hands holding her, those warm, wonderfully expressive lips . . . .

"Mandy!" Jimmy's voice called from within the observation car, taut with worry. "Tem!"

Husband and wife snapped out of what had been a five second reverie in response to that anxious sound. Amanda adjusted her grip on her parasol and the two agents, moving as one, sped back into the observation car.