Chapter 7 - Corruption

John Irwin removed his dream like stare from the photo of Flora and himself on his desk and he stood and straightened his tie. Reminiscing was not helping his depression only prolonging it. In this bitter winter of nineteen twenty-one, life was at a crawl, slow motion, like the smoke that rose from a hundred chimneys across Salina in a creeping dance toward the low gray sky. So did the lives below him in the street. Forward they march to and from work and home, their own bodies aging and wearing out, largely undetected. The only aging they see may be the appearance of new lines under their eyes, new gray hairs, or spines that further bend over and shrink, perhaps from the added disappointments that weigh on their stature and personalities.

Again John stepped over to the window and looked outward, this time down at his car parked in front of the office, on the side of the frozen-over Iron Street . It was the same Model T Mr. Jenkins gave to Flora and he more than a decade ago. It’s front fenders had rusted away completely five years ago and he had them replaced with wood, those kerosene lamps at the front of the fenders had leaked and rotted the metal. “They make electric lamps now on all of the new ones.” John pondered. He pressed his face closer to the window, and again, looked north down the frozen street at the primary school, where Orenthal and Sydney were, and hopefully behaving.

“We can not stay here in Salina, St. Louis is no better, Denver too cold, too wet. If one more foreclosure comes through that door. No, if three more foreclosures come through that office door, I’m leaving. Flora would agree, she would not be afraid of leaving, she would have even liked the idea, she liked changes, new things, new places, traveling. How would Thelma react to leaving her family?”

John grabbed his coffee cup and went to the main office floor where two secretaries and four bookkeepers were hard at work. He poured a cup from the Westinghouse Brewer and one of the bookkeepers and a personal friend, Fred Smyth, approached him carrying some papers.

“John this is the strangest thing, well a coincidence really. Actually, it’s a hell of a coincidence. I have not seen this kind of thing, yet, in my years working here. Look at these amounts all next to each other for this audit from the Kansas Pacific Railway. They’re all the same as these numbers for land sales for our customers purchasing lots adjacent to the north side of the railway and west of Salina. But the railway’s numbers are for contract labor, materials, and operating expenses.”

“What are the dates Fred?” John asked and pointed into the ledger with interest.

“This page of Kansas Pacific Railway Company expenses is only one week apart from these listings of lot sales from us.”

“Let me see all of these, I’ll have good look. My guess is they have a new accountant at the Kansas Pacific, but I can not guess how on Earth his numbers happened to match ours on the same page for a completely different type of purchase. Maybe Mr. Godfrey went to visit their office and brought one of our folders over by accident? Then maybe the ledger got copied mistakenly?”

John quickly carried the papers under his arm to his office and shut the door. He folded the ledgers he was working on and laid-out the papers that Fred was doing, in order on his desk.

“Finally, something to take my mind off things, a good mystery. I’ll find the mistake , it is probably right here under my nose.”

John switched on his overhead electric lamp, put on his visor cap and sharpened a pencil. Focused, he got to work this new project, his mind temporarily clear from dismal reality.

John spent over an hour’s time going back and forth from one ledger to the other. Puzzled and suspicious he strongly suspected something was foul, someone was up to something no good. Motive remained the mystery, what to gain by having these duplicate books but with differing companies of differing expenditure names and categories? Two sides of the same street, Iron Street, the railroad company on one side, the loan bank on the other. “The owners of each enterprise must know about this,” he thought, “it’s got to be them!” The money was good in the railroad industry. The money was good in the home and farm loan industry. Why risk violating the law? Are they really violating the law? It would only be a matter of a short time before the book from the railroad company is found to be missing, so John would have to get it back before then, without being found out. He would have to be inconspicuous because the persons who would collude like this, to hide expenditures, to deceive auditors, would be afraid of being caught, and afraid of going to jail. Concurrently those persons would be likely to take action against someone with the ability to stop their plans. John got a nervous feeling of fright. Betrayal of his ideals of honest work for honest pay was a new concept to confront him. John had many questions to answer before he could bring the matter to the attention of anyone else besides him and Fred Smyth. Would he lose his job, his livelihood, over this? What about the boys? How would they live if he were forced into poverty? Railroads were being bought and merged almost daily. What had once been over one hundred and fifty railroads in the nation was now less than sixty, so his experience in that field would be less in demand than he had known it to be just ten years ago.

“I do not need this, I didn’t ask for it. I do not need this trouble. What if they are stealing? Who are they stealing from? What if I’m found complicit in this? I am the chief accountant for the bank. Is it my responsibility to investigate this? Holy shit!”

Ever since John had first made the decision to run away from his father and the miserable life in Chicago, he had at that time felt confident. Confident that he could acquire the American Dream, a dream of success, of an honest success, one without taking, and without cheating. It was the confidence he needed to get out, and it was the trust in himself that he has drawn from to meet every challenge in his life thus far. He works daily to instill this confidence in the boys, honoring their every success, even admiring their mistakes and helping them to learn from them. Stealing or lying and cheating are not even considered under his roof. Even a secret is not even kept unless it pertains only to the self and to no one else. He has punished O.W. for lying about how many cookies he ate. He has punished the boys for withholding the truth about grades from school. What kind of a father would he be if he became a hypocrite who practicing at work the very behavior he condemns at home? Would that change him? Would that change his fathering? Would ignoring this conspiracy be tantamount to participating in it? Would Flora have wanted him to ignore the apparent misdeeds in order to keep his job and their lifestyle? What would Thelma think?

John needed time to swallow the dozen or more questions this new information brought to him. He would need time to contemplate what actions would be the best for the boys. But time was not on his side. If the book is found missing, Mr.Godfrey will be over here almost immediately looking for it, and most assuredly he and Mr. Auburn will come into his office looking for it.

“My God I’m going to have to get this book back tonight!”

John picked up the receiver on his Bell Telephone on his desk, he tapped the lift twice to get the operator.

“Hello Mary? This is John Irwin, could you ring my house please?”

Mary was one of only three operators at the American Telephone and Telegraph office, so every one in town could tell their voices apart.

“Very well Mr. Irwin, one moment please. You are connected, have a nice day John!”

Mary got sultry as she said goodbye, John was a well known widower and an eligible bread winner.

“Hello Thelma, how is everything on the farm? Good, listen I am going to miss dinner, I’ll grab something across the street later. It is also very likely I will have to work here until late tonight, so the boys will not be seeing me tonight. Yes thank you, and give em kisses for me and smother them with big hugs. Bye now and thank you again. I love you too darling. Yes, me too.” He added quietly to the conversation.

John hung the phone and reached into his lower right desk drawer where he keeps a few of his personal things, he fumbled his hand through the back of the drawer and found his old key set. He examined each key until he found a particular rusty iron skeleton type.

“Ahhh, I can’t believe I kept this one, the railroad office front door, maybe it still fits. Why would it not?”

John put on his fur coat and wrapped his neck with his scarf, grabbing his brief case and wool lined gloves, he left his office, saying goodnight to his co-workers, he stopped at Fred Symth’s desk to offer some placating words about the duplicate ledgers:

“Fred I’ve had a good look at those ledgers and I’ll take care of it. It looks as though a bookkeeper at the railroad may be stealing. I want you to keep this under your hat until I can nail it down properly. We don’t want to get the wrong people in trouble and cause unnecessary harm.”

Fred was puzzled but conceded to the known wisdom of his superior on the matter. Fred was not in a position of value enough to rock the boat. John was confident Fred would keep the secret, at least for now.

John went across the street for dinner and from his table he watched out the front window as the bank’s employees trickled out, until finally the guard left and locked the front door behind him. He slowly finished his meal, ordered his second whiskey and watched as the rest of Iron street emptied of traffic, and stores closed their doors.

John returned to his office and immediately closed his wooden blinds on both office windows before he turned on the overhead lamp. John would spend the next five hours meticulously copying the mysterious railroad company ledger by hand, until his wrist throbbed in pain, and until midnight. He then brought a typewriter into his office from the secretary’s desk and typed a careful letter explaining his actions and just why the ledger is actually a copy.

My name is John H. Irwin and I have been employed by the First Kansas Home Trust Bank for approximately ten years as chief accountant, principally to supervise loans and acquisitions. I am a Kansas State Certified Accountant for the Public Trust, license number KCAP238N. I have produced this copy ledger from an original brought to my attention by a fellow worker whose name I will leave absent unless requested otherwise. On the evening of this affidavit I will be returning the original ledger to the place of it’s belonging and rightful owners in order to protect myself and my co-worker from reprisal or confrontation with those responsible for the original ledger. I made this copy because the amounts indicate a duplicative numerical similarity to a ledger at the property of my employment. The finding of this duplication was purely accidental and I affirm this under penalty of the law in signing this affidavit.

Signed:
John H. Irwin _____________________

Witnessed by Attorney:________________________

John did not know law, or whether or not this letter would help to absolve him, he was flying by the seat of his pants, and doing anything he could think of to protect himself. It was now half past midnight. The next step will be waking-up Al Worthington, the only criminal defense attorney in Salina, getting him out of bed without waking his family, showing him both ledgers, and getting him to witness the letter. Before essentially breaking-in to the railroad office to place the original ledger back into that office.

Thankfully there was no street lights near Al Worthington’s house, and so John was able to stand outside and toss pebbles at the second floor window, under the shroud of darkness. The curtain of the bedroom window drew to one side and Al’s shape came into view, the window slowly rattled upwards and Al’s head appeared.

“John Irwin? What in the hell are you doing out there? What time is it? You almost broke my window!” Al quietly chastised and questioned John at the street below.

“Never mind that, I need to meet with you now, it’s important.” John implied urgency as he cuffed his hands around his mouth to retain sound towards Al’s window.

Al and John sat in Quincy’s, which was nearly empty and being swept up, chairs placed on tables upside down around them as they sat with a whiskey each. Al left his derby hat on, his nightgown top sloppily tucked into his pants, suspenders hanging down at his sides, he gazed into the ledger, comparing numbers in each of the three ledgers which included John’s copy.

“Jesus John this is trouble. How did you come by this?”

“Purely by accident. One of the bookkeepers brought it to my attention. It would appear that Mr. Auburn of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, accidentally carried it over when he met with Mr. Godfrey of the bank, then Auburn must have left it on the secretary’s desk, then she later gave it to the bookkeeper.”

“Next important question John. Do you know why?” Al leaned in toward John and asked quietly, with dead seriousness.

“No idea. I can’t think of the motive. The thing that makes this peculiar to me is that these two men are among the wealthiest in all of central Kansas, they don’t need more money, or to hide money.”

“You used to work for the railroad company, did you not?” Al Worthington asked.

“Yes. Sure, it was my first real job, I started in Topeka before the office moved here. Why?” John quizzically replied.

“Well do you think there is anything to that? I mean you were doing the books for both of these companies. I’m just saying, that it is questionable John.”

Suddenly John felt as if a brick had been dropped into his bowels. It had not occurred to him that he may have been used, possibly for years. Facts began to flash into his memory in a matter of a second or two; he always made more money then most men in town, both at the railroad and now at the bank, maybe more money than he should have been paid. Maybe it wasn’t payment for his loyalty and his honesty or his accuracy? “Have I been an unwitting pawn in a scheme of dishonesty?” John asked himself.

“Great Caesar’s ghost, Al. I never considered it. I never before saw anything suspicious. Shit Al, when I was offered the job at the bank, on my wedding night, Mr. Auburn did not even try to keep me at the railroad!” John was showing panic.

“Take it slowly John. That might not be the case, it all might be a coincidence. I’ll represent you on this matter. Do yourself and me a favor, do not tell me anything that you do that may be illegal, if you are going to investigate this further, like finding out the motive on your own. Do keep me informed of what you find out that absolves you, or incriminates them. Most importantly of all, don’t let any body else know. The bookkeeper that brought you this ledger, keep him close, listen for signs that he is being pressured, or may be talking to Godfrey or Auburn. Take him to dinner now and then, or something like that.”

The concept that he may have been used for some years by both men was hard to accept yet churned within him as an insult, a grand insult. What a fool he had been, John began to think.

“Wait John, you’re getting way ahead of yourself. You don’t know yet. All a coincidence, just a bit rotten luck, happenstance. Calm down, no need to get angry, yet. Fuck. They both paid me an unusually high salary to make it look like I was involved.”

John put the ledgers away into his brief case and bid good night to Al Worthington , who stayed behind to finish another beer. Outside the bar he turned left onto the dark sidewalk of poured cement that was cracked and wavy from sinking and bad installation. In the spotted yellow tinted lighting of a few homes above the stores, he walked, quietly, purposefully avoiding the clacking of his heels against the pavement and stepping carefully on icy sections, two blocks to the front of the Kansas Pacific Railway offices. The street was deserted but a fire could be seen, its flames dancing out of the top of a steel drum that had been set in the street about two blocks down, for the local deputies patrolling the streets to keep warm. Standing in front of the railroad office was a surrounding he was too familiar with, familiar with the door-knob, even with the welcome mat, and the lettering in the window. He looked both ways, and he looked at the apartment above the Butcher’s shop across the street, to ensure no one nearby was awake and possibly watching. He pulled out the old key from his right vest pocket and fumbled and dropped it onto the sidewalk. He looked around again before bending over to pick it up, he grew more nervous and began to feel slightly rattled, his heart began to pound and his breath grew hard and fast, the moisture visible by the cloud of breath vapor now forming around him in the frozen air. He gently pushed the key into it’s rightful place. “It fits! Slowly now, slowly.” John grabbed the knob with one hand as if to keep it quiet, while the fingers of his other hand began turning the key.

“Good evening sir! Can I help you with anything?”

A man’s voice just behind him. John would have jumped out of his boots if they were not tight enough. His heart, which had one split second earlier pounded in fear, had now seemed to have stopped cold. John dropped his hands from the door knob and spun around while placing an awkward smile on his face, to see that it was one of the deputies, noticing first the large shiny silver star on his chest, then the now standard blue over coat and high derby hat uniform. He was about ten feet in back of John, standing in the street, holding his night stick with both hands behind his back and calmly smiling.

“Oh, uh, hello officer how do you do this evening?” John’s voice was shaky.

“Just walking the beat of the storefronts on this pleasant evening. You’re the fellow who works at the bank are you not?”

“Oh, yes, yes I work for the First Kansas Home Trust Company, My name is John Irwin, pleased to meet you deputy!”

John reached out a hand and stepped towards the street to meet the deputy half way. The two men shook hands and receded to a comfortable speaking distance where the sidewalk met the street.

“I notice you’ve had a bit to drink this evening sir. A whiskey breath you can’t mistake in my line of work! That must be why you’re trying to get that key there, into the door of the wrong office front. Your office is across the street and down a bit that way.” The deputy pointed towards John’s office.

The deputy had provided John with the perfect escape excuse, if he wanted it. A drunken businessman attempting to enter the wrong office on a dark night. He could take the excuse provided so timely by the deputy, or he could provide another excuse to continue the mission of returning the ledger. Fortunately for John, the sheriff’s office was used to dealing with hobos and vagrants, not known businessmen, wandering about town in the wee hours of the morning. The notion that a upstanding citizen would be up to no good, had not begun to occur to this deputy. “I have to get this ledger back tonight, or never. Tomorrow may be too late!” John thought with determination.

“Oh no, no deputy, it’s . .”

“Please sir it’s Robert Haskill, folks call me Bobby.”

“Well alright Bobby, it’s not like that, I’m plenty sober. I was just working late tonight to get ready for a tax audit and, you see, the railroad company here is a close and important client of ours at the bank and I wanted to return this ledger to Mr. Auburn, the owner of the Kansas Pacific, on my way home so that he’ll have it first thing in the morning. Or else, you know, I’ll be the one getting the blame for it not being there. Mr. Auburn gave me a key, he knows I’ll be in and out sometimes, off hours.”

“Oh, then not to worry, I thought I would point you in the right direction. Makes no difference to me anyhow. I better get on with my rounds or I’ll be the one to blame if anything happens on this street tonight. Pleasure to meet you Mr. Irwin and a fine morning to you.”

“Pleasure to meet you deputy Haskill, erh Bobby.”

John may have excreted a half a gallon of nervous sweat in those couple of minutes with the deputy. His legs were weak and his hands and face wet, he turned around to face the door again, this time however, with less fear of being heard.

Inside John climbed the stairway to his old office, it was nearly pitch black dark, but he knew where everything was, how every piece of furniture was laid out. Something that had not occurred to him was the location of the new lighting knobs for the electric lamps, for which he had to fumble around on the walls for, for what seemed two or three minutes in the darkness. To his dismay he found the door to Mr. Auburn’s office locked. “Jesus Mary and Joseph! He’s never locked this before.” Squatting with his head low, still not wanting to be seen by outsiders, he hobbled over to the secretary’s desk. “Got it! It will look like this is where it’s been all along!” He slid the ledger book under her desk and exposed only one small corner of the book to be seen by a passerby above.

“Mission accomplished!” He said aloud in the empty office.

John walked home and he was seen once more by deputy Haskill, and they waved jovially at each other from half a block away. Because of the risk of witness that these encounters with deputy Robert Haskill now present, time will be more limited now, time in which to investigate the matter.

“What are the chances he will spill the beans, talk to someone, the wrong person, before I’ve figured this out. What if Godfrey and Auburn hear I was going into the railroad office tonight. What if they cover their tracks, destroy the ledger, or fire me?” John worried as the sections of the non-lighted dark sidewalk passed under foot.

Santa Fe Street was desolate, it’s street lights dark, John’s house was the only one with any sign of life, Thelma had left a lamp on in the foyer to welcome him back and perhaps to tell him, he was missed.

Folks were still afraid of electricity, most homes not having received electrical wiring but in the past few years. Too often incandescent bulbs would not burn-out, but explode when a surge went through the wires, showering dry wood and carpeting and curtains with falling sparks, frightening the daylights out of homeowners. The only saving characteristic of these power surge blow-outs, is that they were loud, allowing a person to run to the scene to contain fire damage.

John crept into his home and laid his briefcase at the foot of the stairway banister and turned off the lamp. He quietly went to the boys room and after delivering kisses and hands on heads caresses to the boys, he retired to his overstuffed chicken feather mattress, his sanctuary of comfort and safety. He lay on his back, pulling his sheet to cover his neck, he folded his arms over his chest as if to hold it down. Then at this same moment of his bedtime routine, like he has done thousands of times, he considered that Flora was not beside him, remembering her face, and the silky smoothness of her thigh against his, the way her loose hair would tickle his face when he rolled towards her to share a pillow. He then pondered the reality of this day, the sheer incredibleness of it and then the voices and words of the bookkeeper and the lawyer and of the deputy, passed through his thoughts as if his mind was reminding him it was indeed real. Breathing out his last nervous exhalation of relief, he passed quickly into slumber like a well run hound dog on the evening after the hunt.

It was Friday and Friday was Johnny Cakes day. O.W. and Sydney were up and running at six in the morning, in the kitchen, arguing with each other over something, when John awoke after barely four hours sleep. Thelma had been up preparing the boys for the day. John stumbled into the new second floor bathroom which was installed last year. Thelma had already started the wall mounted gas fired hot water heater, hung on the wall above the bathtub, and it was making steaming noises from it’s relief valve, letting John know his hot shower was ready. John washed himself then sat on the floor of the tub, folded his knees upward and held them to his chest and let the hot water rain on his head and body, he hung his head low to relax his neck with the soothing droplets. Again reality must be checked. Again; “ . . is it real,” he pondered. Under the water he could no longer hear the boys, he could barely hear the clacking of dishes as Thelma prepared breakfast downstairs and he was able to focus his thoughts.

“Motive. Why? How do I find out? The names of the payees might reveal that. How do I trace the names from another source? A source that still conceals my investigating. It’s itemized expenses. Expenses that account for loan spending on behalf of the railroad, to account to the bank on condition of continued borrowing. Think about it John. Draw lines. From who to who? Who after the Home Trust Company, is it really? It can’t be the same people. Aliases. Aliases for what reason, what illegality, what to hide? The railroad, the Right of Way Act, the land maybe? It’s not supposed to be sold. It is supposed to belong to the federal government, held in trust. Held for some number of years, why? Is Mr. Auburn selling Right of Way land? Jesus that must be it!”

The familiar aroma of Johnny cakes and sausages with molasses drifted immediately from under the door and touched John’s nostrils the moment the water was shut off and a vacuum had formed in the steamy confines from behind the bathroom door. After a clean full shave, John dressed in the master bedroom, his gray suit, his bow tie and his black shoes with his flat rim business man’s hat, he looked Chicago banker in this town of wheat and railroads. Downstairs the boys were finishing their math homework at a fevered pace. O.W. was holding his pencil with his teeth and scrubbing an eraser across a sheet of paper, Sydney was frowning with concentration. John leaned over Sydney’s homework.

“Find the denominator first. What is the easiest number to go into that number, right Sydney? John patted him on the shoulders to say good morning.

“Six?” Sydney replied unsure.

“I don’t know. Is it six? Try it out on the side of the paper.” John said encouragingly.

“What the heck are you boys doing homework for at six thirty five in the morning for any how?” John said in surprise.

“It was me Mr. Irwin, I let them play with their train set last night cause you weren’t here to read to them.” Thelma interjected on the boy’s behalf.

“Ahh, I see. When daddy is away the boys get to play!” John smiled.

Thelma can get away with anything and occasionally pulls a favor for the boys to further earn their trust. This creates a sort of comradeship and earns her greater respect with the boys which pays-off when tough demands are made of the boys in John’s absence.

Thelma eats at the table with the Irwin men, John insisted more than ten years ago that she behave as if she really is the boy’s mother. As far as the boys have known, save for Sydney who still carries some memory of Flora, Thelma is their mother. Breakfast was a selfish display of gobbling up Johnny cakes and sausages if they were war rations, the boys would drown theirs in King Syrup and lick their plates. Manners were not strictly enforced in the house, the boys knew when to impress mannerisms, like when eating at a restaurant or when John has a guest over. The boys finished their homework as Thelma cleared the table. John brought out his briefcase and examined his copy of the ledger from the railroad company. He flipped through his own freshly scribed pages, he stopped about halfway through the book and examined a peculiar notation on the lower right margin of the page: See Burrows about this one first! This was a name to investigate being it was the only indication of a third party involvement within the ledger. John knew of one particular Burrows in this region of Kansas and it frightened him. James B. Burrows was the president of the Union Pacific Railroad, perhaps the largest and richest railroad company west of Chicago, he was also the Secretary of State of Kansas. John pondered the pessimistic scenario before him as the boys and Thelma continued with the familiar morning kitchen noises in the background of John’s awareness.

“Criminey, if that’s him, I’ve opened a can of worms I can’t fish with. How will I investigate this man? He’s big, really big. He uses the Pinkertons to police his business, that means I couldn’t even hire them to investigate, no one could in this case. I’m so up a creek without a paddle on this. I have to at least find out what they are up to.”

John snapped close the ledger and tossed it back into his briefcase then closed and locked it. He then broke the morning routine in the kitchen with a wonderful proposal to Sydney and O.W..

“How you would boys like to go camping this weekend?”

The boys stopped putting their books together and froze in place at the kitchen table, pausing in awe, then smiling with expectation towards John as if to see if he was teasing them.

“You’re not Joshin us dad?” Sydney said.

“On horseback dad? Are we going to be trail riders?” O.W. said still incredulous.

“No, not Joshin! That would be mean would it not? And yes O.W. on horseback, trail riders, we’ll be scouts for the army for the weekend.” John buttered his toast.

“Thelma this is another opportunity to spend time with your folks and the Jenkins’ss, if you like.” John looked to Thelma with a dirty griddle in her hands.

“Mr. Irwin that sounds like a mighty fine proposal. But I need time to myself so I think I’ll just hang round these parts, maybe take in a movie show at the colored theater, or go get myself a dress, catch up on some reading maybe. I’ve seen my folks and the Jenkins enough as of late, any how. You go on and have a great time and don’t worry about Thelma.”

In the two minutes since John broke the monotony of the morning, Thelma had already planned her weekend. For the boys this Friday in school would seem like a months time to pass before the bell rings and their focus will not be on mathematics and geography but on dusty trails, campfires, jerky, pine trees, crossing streams on horseback, and playing army scouts. For John this business day will also be a long one. He will have to watch his boss’s every movement for signs that he suspects something is wrong. He will have to deal with his own stress about his and the boy’s future, which may now be in jeopardy.

The work day was at an end and back home preparations for the promised overnight, horseback and camping trip with the boys would soon proceed. At his office, John moved his photograph of Flora and himself from the front of his desk, to the shelf behind him, next to the photo of the boys and positioned it properly as if to fit it perfectly on the shelf.

John was awoken Saturday morning by a violent rocking motion which in his dream became a sea story of himself, the hero, saving women and children on a liner caught in a vicious storm in high seas. Then he awoke to the real stimulus that was Sydney and O.W. jumping up and down on his bed, tossing his dreaming body to and fro.

“Come on then dad, it’s time, time to get ready!” O.W. was gleefully commanding.

Realizing he was dreaming and that he had never been at sea anyway was a relief to John and seeing the boys at his side was a delight, even in those first few conscious moments of just awake realization. John smiled and reached out for the boys while still laying back in his pillow, he pulled their heads downward onto his shoulders and rubbed their scalps vigorously.

“Are my army scouts ready for a winter patrol mission?”

“Corporal O.W. ready sir!”

“Lieutenant Sydney Irwin ready to begin morning mess sir!”

Thelma entered the room, her hands braced on her hips, she stood next to the door with an amused smile at the sight of this father and sons male bonding moment.

“Well I’m making a breakfast fit for an army patrol. What’s it gonna be, oatmeal, bacon, grapefruit, or maybe Johnny cakes, bacon and grapefruit, with milk and coffee?”

“Johnny Cakes, Johnny Cakes!” The boys chorused with glee.

“Mr. Irwin?” Thelma looked to John for permission to indulge the boys to Johnny cakes two mornings in a row.

“Johnny Cakes it is Thelma!” John granted.

As John walked about his bedroom alone, getting dressed for outdoor adventure, his mood was far better than the past two days of stress and worry about the railroad ledgers and the corruption he had discovered. For these moments after the boys awoke him with anticipation and love of him, he was away from that worry, almost as if it had not happened. He needs them desperately, he realizes again repeating the thousands of times he has realized this since Flora’s disappearance. Without them he is certain he would die, or certainly would want to be dead. Without them he imagines himself homeless, possibly alcoholic, living among the hundreds of hobos camping along the tracks, fighting for a can of beans, or killing for a pint of whiskey. If the boys could conceive of the value of their very lives to John, discipline would be out of the question, as they would get away with anything. John smiled to himself at the thought of them realizing they are more valuable than the Hope diamond itself. This secret he will have to keep to himself as any father would. One day, perhaps sooner rather than later, he will have to tell them this. Will they comprehend? Will the circumstances that lead to this talk to come, overshadow the true meaning? A challenge as old as Leaky’s homo-sapiens is for a father to walk a fine line between love and affection, toward his sons, and stern disciplinary attitude. John’s insecurities about the boy’s upbringing hovered around his own failures on both sides of that line.

“I guess I’m doing fine with them. It could have been much worse. I’m doing fairly well as a dad, I would guess.”

John smiled to himself as he tightened the final boot strap on his wool lined winter hunting boots.

The entourage set out after an hour of preparation at the livery stable at seven in the morning. The sky was clear and the air was cold but the boys were excited and appeared to not even feel the cold. Just outside town on Watkins Road, they stopped while John pulled out his map of the county which listed properties and ownerships that he had obtained from the file draw of Mr. Auburn’s office. He pinpointed a spot where the Union Pacific crosses the road and they rode on. At the tracks the “patrol,” turned left to the west and rode on the gravel and through the light brush of the railroad right of way. The boys and John sang Camp Town Races, Dina Won’t You Blow, Over There and probably ten other songs the boys had learned in school. John was as patient as a father could be with the very off-key notes of his two pubescent sons, whose changing voices knew no consistent sounds, wildly dropping and rising from note to note. “It’s too bad we’re not hunting.” John thought to himself. “The game would commit suicide, saving us a lot of work!”

Brown squirrel and Lady squirrel foraged happily in the pine clearing, scraping through an inch of powdery snow, to the preserved needle and dirt ground underneath, where bounties lie fresh for gathering. They were nearly fifty feet from the human’s shiny branchless trees that lay flat and smooth, in straight lines ,and went on to somewhere, from seemingly nowhere, or from or to everywhere else that may exist, if anything else did. Brown squirrel was enjoying a pine nut some ten feet from Lady squirrel who was stuffing her face pouch with some old acorns she had buried three months before, to bring them to the nest. Her acorns were perfectly aged, soft, with magnificent aroma and Brown squirrel and Lady squirrel were very much looking forward to eating them over the next couple of days. The silence was wonderful, just a Crow could be heard cawing a desperate whine, almost a quarter mile away, a woodpecker had been jumping from tree to tree looking for pests to consume, knocking only occasionally on dry freezing dead wood. It was so quiet that Brown squirrel could hear the snow being scraped over the dirt that Lady squirrel was digging in to get her acorns. Suddenly the two foragers stopped what they were doing, Brown squirrel stopped chewing, Lady squirrel stopped digging and they stood up high on their hind legs. Something was coming. A sound unlike anything they had ever heard before, horses and humans, but not just horses and humans, not the familiar tremendous black smoking monster that traveled the metal trees, not a hammering human that was building large nests made of dead trees. Not any of those sounds now familiar to Brown and Lady squirrel. But a shrill and whining, high pitched and scary sound. A sound that was piercing through the cold air and rushing through the pine trees, changing while getting closer to them, menacing. Brown squirrel jumped quickly, over a few feet closer to the tree line and stopped, and again rising up on hind legs to determine the level of danger, he turned his head left and right, confused, growing fearful. Lady jumped over to him, joining his position in suspense of this unknown screaming of very unusual tones. Wounded animal, deathly warnings, whirring, wooing, waning, howling type sounds that seemed to come from the direction of the metal trees.

“Camp town ladies sing this song, doo-dah, doo-dah! Ohhh, Camp Town races are five miles long, all dee-doo all day!”

Lady squirrel quickly spit out a semi chewed acorn, and Brown squirrel dropped his pine nut, in synch they jumped without touching ground, ten feet to the nearest tree, and with lightning speed they scurried up each side, not pausing until they were sixty feet above the Earth. Without hesitation they began jumping from one branch to another, north to safety, north away from the howl of certain death coming towards their gathering grounds, and away from certain destruction by whatever vicious monster would make such a horrible whaling. They finally stopped hoping branches a few minutes later. They rested, panting, listening to the deathly whines now in the distance, minutes passed and they calmed, feeling much safer, they shared the two acorns Lady had managed to hold on to throughout the ordeal. The fight for their lives was temporarily over, a fleeing they would not soon forget, from the unknown animal that was with the humans, near the metal trees, that made the sound of doom, that ruined their tranquil morning.

The first property that John and the boys could see from the tracks was a farm house and a barn, it was listed on the map and so John presumed it was legal. It’s distance from the tracks was at least a few hundred feet, legal distance for a non railroad use, private property. Nothing unusual here. Two more miles along the right of way they came upon a house, a log home, with a log stable and a small plot of tilled growing land. This house was very close to the tracks, probably fifty feet. John checked the map, it indicated nothing but forest, yet there it was, someone’s home with clearly established barbed wire fence enclosing the property. This was the first sign John needed to confirm his conspiracy theory, a property without a place on paper. Homestead land was long gone in this region of Kansas, and this home is not old enough to be a homestead. The boys and John rode on, exhausting the repertoire of sing-along music, to John’s great relief. After a two hour lunch break of jerky and beans and hot cocoa around a warm fire, they mounted and rode on to further investigate the right of way. The next two properties were similar, not on the map, too close to the railroad land. John had seen enough to know that this was it, this was the secret. Federal law granted the railroad companies right of way to two hundred feet, but only for railroad business, like for a depot, or a storage yard, or a switch-back for cars. Not to covertly sell creatively produced lots of land to unsuspecting farmers and city folks desperate for land ownership of their own. John realized that this could be widespread, that if he could find three properties of this type on one afternoon horse ride in one direction in possibly ten miles of track, than there must be dozens, or perhaps hundreds more of the same. Additionally the Union Pacific has to be involved because they co-own these tracks and that explains Burrows involvement. This could have been going on for ten years or more. Burrows, Godfrey and Auburn making the sales, cooking the books. Burrows using his position in Kansas government to fend off the federal auditors, distract them with paperwork and his own social position.

That night in a small clearing, fifty feet from the tracks, in a cavern of pine trees carved out by yellow flickering light from the campfire, sitting with the boys, John did his best to forget the conspiracy and enjoy the company of his sons. They took turns telling ghost stories, poking at the embers of the camp fire, until eventually all three of the Irwins were on their sides and rolled up in their bedding, arms weakly reaching for their cocoa or a stick to stir the ashes. O.W. fell asleep first in between moments of talk about Butch Cassidy and Wyatt Eryp. To the sound of his father’s voice O.W. was anesthetized and more content than ever. Sydney covered his shoulders. The Irwins slept on the hard frozen ground without stirring once before the daylight and the grunting of the horses awoke them gracefully. John knew that if the boys had their way, this is exactly how they would live forever. Too bad, he contemplated, that society and modern civilization would not allow them.

The following Monday afternoon John stopped by the law office of Al Worthington, anxious to tell him what he had discovered, feeling that by communicating his findings he would partially absolve himself of the burden of knowledge. John approached the office door on Ohio Street and removed his hat before entering. Smiling with relief he expected to see Al face down in paperwork at his desk, alone. Instead Al was leaning on his own desk, his arms folded, and nodding his head in agreement with Mr. Godfrey who was standing across from him and finishing a sentence in a clear and stern voice.

“So, you see where we stand with all this Al .” Mr. Godfrey instructed Al Worthington.

John’s expression instantly dropped from cordiality to disappointment and shock at the sight of the culprit himself, standing and conversing with his only hope of legal relief from the crime. John’s face changed from rosy wintry wind blown blush to pale white as his blood rushed to his torso and central organs, preparing him for a defensive stance. He closed the office door behind him and forced a warm, yet shaky, greeting for the two.

“Afternoon Al, Mr. Godfrey, what a surprise. How do you do this afternoon!”

“Fine John, just fine. Good to see you. Come over and enjoy the stove warmth, take you coat off, please.” Al was quick to welcome him in.

“Hello Mr. Irwin, good to see you this afternoon. How are the boys doing? Have you taught them to drive yet?” Mr. Godfrey was welcoming yet pretentious in his tone.

It was obvious to John that the conversation he interrupted was about him. The attention and coy attitude directed at him made it clear.

“Oh the boys are great, Sydney drives, but not alone yet and O.W. is a bit afraid of crashing so he only drives in a straight line with me right next to him.”

John responded as normally as he could given his heart had just dropped into his stomach as he was coming through the door. He hung up his hat and coat on the standing rack next to the front window. Forcing a pleasant demeanor he stepped toward the pot belly stove and rubbed his hands to absorb the heat. Mr. Godfrey faced him and his look became serious, his eyebrows closed their distance on his forehead. Al Worthington became expressionless as if waiting for Mr. Godfrey to take control of the room.

“John, pull up a chair and sit down, please. We need to talk to you about something.” Mr. Godfrey spoke softly and steady.

Al then rounded his own desk and sat in his leather chair facing John, he folded his hands over his lap and waited for Mr. Godfrey to begin. John felt the air of interrogation, the set up was arranged, perhaps impromptu for the two men, having been surprised by John’s arrival, but it was about to begin none the less. John felt his skin begin to sweat, he was in the hot-seat and did not want to be there. The fact that Mr. Godfrey remained standing and looking down on him was intimidating. The fact that Mr. Godfrey had been his employer of six plus years, a mentor of his early adulthood, the man who gave him his livelihood, did not make it any easier. Al Worthington swiveled his chair around to a table at his desk’s side and quickly prepared a cup of black coffee for John and passed it over the desk to him without a word. With shaky hands John reached to hold the cup tactfully without spilling. Mr. Godfrey began. John pretended to be curious and amused, ignorant.

“John it’s come to my attention that you and your sons were horseback riding on the Union Pacific Railroad right of way west of town over the weekend. Is that true?”

“Well, yes sir. The boys and I went on an overnight camping trip.”

“John, I’m a bit disturbed, not about that camping trip, or that you were on the right of way. But I had a visit this morning from Mr. Auburn, your boss, about a meeting he had with one of the bookkeepers that works under you, a Mr. Smyth. Now that alone does not disturb me either. But this bookkeeper says he gave a ledger book to you that I probably brought over to your bank by accident, and misplaced there.”

Mr. Godfrey was dancing around the issue, this made John even more nervous, he shifted on the wooden chair and kept his attention upwards on the portly face of Mr. Godfrey. Mr. Godfrey was speaking rhythmically and without pause, not allowing John to interject. Al Worthington remained shiftless, giving John no indication of what he knew, or if he was still on John’s side. The situation could not be worse.

“Now John, it’s gets a little funny right about here, you see, this morning at around eleven, my secretary found that very same ledger book under her desk, just lying there in the dust. John, she doesn’t recall anyone bringing it to her, or how it got there, she doesn’t even recall it being on her desk, never mind underneath it. John, my secretary is the best I’ve ever had. She has the memory of an elephant. There is not a paper clip that is not in it’s place in that office due to her diligence and efficiency. She has never lied to me and the moment she does, it’s transparent, like you knew when you worked for me, that if she did she would be out on her fanny faster than an ant on a sugar cube.”

John was getting the message of guilt being flung his way. Mr. Godfrey was laying it on thick, taking advantage of the past years of loyalty, the bonuses, the good pay from his railroad company. It was getting to John.

“Now John, the thing is that ledger book contains information vital to contracts. Contracts between hard working people. People who deserve the opportunities that you and I have had. Farmers, small businessmen, children who rely on their parent’s steadfast payments on loans that provide their vitality. The thing is John those opportunities, that vitality, is not always available to these thousands of families who come out here to Kansas looking for land they think is still available out here. But you and I know there’s no land left, not really, not land that’s big enough to farm on, to raise hogs, grow wheat or anything that requires a respectable sized lot. The important thing for you to know John, is that myself and several other important people, people who wield a great deal of pull around these parts, have made it possible for those folks to have land. John the entire town benefits from this land, it’s how this town has survived this piss-poor economy so far, it’s why Salina is not a ghost town, like Fort Riley is becoming.”

John looked over at Al Worthington and pleaded with his gaze for some acknowledgement, some indication of Al’s favor in one direction or the other on this issue. Al nodded back to John as if affirming Mr. Godfrey’s position. John’s morality sunk low into his ego, with it hope and optimism, the possibility that ethical men existed around him, that maybe he was not alone, that perhaps there would be justice when it was needed. The wooden chair in Al Worthington’s office became a cold and lonely place to be, like a fifty foot high pedestal, it’s legs planted firm into solid rock, it’s seat high above an abyss of darkness on which John sat, unable to move, frozen for fear of his safety, nowhere to jump or to dare climb down.

John’s jaw hung open in response to this explanation of the corruption he had uncovered, in shock that Mr. Godfrey had gotten to Al Worthington, usurping John’s supposed advocate. Rapidly, thoughts of the boys flashed by his mind, their safety, their happiness. Mr. Godfrey continued with his diatribe of rationalization:

“John, you have enjoyed the benefits of these contracts, these opportunities that myself and these other, important people, have provided for these farmers and their families. Your pay scale in the years you worked for me was well above commensurate to your work. Anyone investigating that would realize it, and they might just see that as motive on your part to be complicit. As head accountant for me, and now head accountant for the Kansas Home Trust, you might just be implicated, if, if John, there were to be an investigation. Now, the thing is many people, people who understand the legalities of the situation, see no harm in allowing these farmers the opportunities you and I have had. John in just under fifteen years that land along the right of way is legally turned over to the state anyway. You see, the railroad knows full well how it’s going to use that land, if it’s going to use it, and just how much of it. Why wait John, why make those farmers and their children and wives wait? Do we have your cooperation John? Are you going to forget you saw that ledger, are you going to forget you saw those properties over the weekend? You don’t have to answer those questions. You’re actions will be your answers. Actions that may come with consequences. You and you’re boys live a good life here in Salina, a beautiful house, good money at the bank, I would just hate to see a family like yours lose all that.”

Mr. Godfrey picked up his hat from Al’s desk top and his coat from the back of one of the chairs. He tipped his hat to Al, he turned to John who still sitting in dismay, frowning a bit. Mr. Godfrey reached out his hand for John in a diplomatic gesture. John, obliged the gesture with reserve, he shook his hand and stood. Not a word further was said and Mr. Godfrey then exited the office into the cold and bright winter afternoon and the door close securely behind him.

“How could you Al?” John remained standing and required an answer.

“John it’s no use. They are entrenched in this state. I think is goes farther than you and I could imagine. I don’t think there is anything that can be done. We are both tied on this one John. You, more so than I because of your proximity to Godfrey and to your boss Mr. Auburn.” Al said with sincere concern.

“You know Al, Burrows is involved in this.” John looked at him to gauge whether or not he already knew.

“Burrows? Burrows the president of Union Pacific, the Secretary of State of Kansas, the richest man in the state?” Al looked dismayed.

“The same. His initials and last name were in that ledger book. He owns the tracks and controls the company by majority shares.” John added.

“Jesus, John that just cements it. The point is stronger than ever. He practically owns the Pinkertons, he’ll have you killed as sure as you stand here. You might want to leave John. I mean, Auburn knows you took the initiative to investigate the properties this weekend. Well, to Godfrey and Auburn, that might be seen as a indication you can’t be counted on to leave well enough alone. Do you follow my meaning?”

John let himself fall back into his chair as if gravity just became stronger. This was an accurate speculation on Al’s part and it’s meaning hit John like a load of bricks falling off scaffoldings. Again the boys, their safety, and the dreadful thought that they might get orphaned because of his discovery. Al Worthington leaned over in his desk chair and opened one of the bottom drawers of his desk, he pulled out two shot glasses and a full bottle of Scotch whiskey, and he landed two glasses on the desk. He cracked the bottle top and poured two whiskey shots fast with the grace of a bartender. John rubbed his hands over his entire face as if to wake himself up from the nightmare. He reached for the whiskey in an automatic response to the sound of it poured and he downed it in a swiftly as a medicine, like it was an elixir for nervous conditions. As the alcohol warmth reached his face and returned his color, his eyes watered and he smacked his lips, looking at Al, he handed him back the glass and with an upward nod he requested another. It was the least Al Worthington could do. John thought of options, but none reasonable came to him. Going to the sheriff was out of the question as the chances were good of the sheriff’s office being corrupt.

Where a nationwide economic depression had officially struck in the early nineteen-thirties, Kansas and all of the Plains States had already been in the thick of it for what seemed like a half a generation. “ . . Where seldom is heard a disparaging word and the skies are not cloudy all day . . Oh home on the range . .” Everyone knew the song, everyone whistled it or sang it aloud, but not because it was true. They embraced the words because they wanted it to be true. The optimistic sense of Kansans was epitomized in nineteen-eleven, by a Kansas State Chamber of Commerce advertising slogan that adorned a poster: Kansas Calling You! Every Industrial Opportunity! Every Agricultural Opportunity! Every Social and Educational Opportunity! Room for a Million! The misleading poster was distributed to cities and towns in the east, to hang in train depots, post offices and any billboard available.

Motivated by survival based fear by those who had little, and greed from those who had much, corruption had tainted north central Kansas. Willingness to utilize corruption is born in the psyche from within a narrow and jagged dark cave, where a man stands deep inside and turns around to face the opening far away, he has lost hope that the world will be fair, that hard daily work has just rewards for himself and for all others. From his cave of despair he can see the light he left behind. But it’s not his light, it’s the light of other’s. It is what optimism they hold left in the world and it happens to shine into his cave. He weighs the implications of betraying his values and chooses, not light born out of darkness or born out of hard work, but a light already there, belonging to others, he chooses corruption.

Greed is like a food which grows in the backyards of those who have accomplished the gathering of a great many resources or monitory credits. Greed thrives because it has a good taste, and that good taste is habituating, becoming less flavorful, requiring more and larger portions. Greed is rationalized by a sense of entitlement which propels the behavior for men and women who likely have a sense that fate, or destiny, or that perhaps that a god favors them. They decide that what they do is rationalized simply because they can see what is evidenced in the universe of their own lives, that greed has good return value, greed works.

Corruption often piles on to the wealthy like droplets of morning dew on a blade of grass, and because the wealthy occupy a greater surface area in their own environments, they have the ability to carry more dew in the form of goods and acreages of land, employees and acquaintances, business contacts that sprinkle the city and the counties and the states. A trap for the wealthy is their own misguided fears. Fearing that one might lose what one has, the comfort, the lifestyle and the pleasures. When fear of loss sets in, so does greed, as a defensive mechanism, a counter-measure. Irrational ideas take a hold in a small place within the brain of the greedy and never leave, engrained as options for future actions if need be. The strongest idea of nonsensical philosophy is that having more of the same will, as if by magic, prevent a loss of the same. The greedy man needs a million more dollars to protect the first million dollars from being lost to unforeseen circumstances, and having that further security becomes more important than how he gets it. The behavior in the acquisition of this material padding, pillowing over his insecurity, becomes corruption.

In this farming community in north central Kansas, corruption was now fueled by a new source, prohibition. Drinking spirits, a simple pleasure that often brought out the beast in men had become illegal by Constitutional Amendment. Recently enacted and within one year, prohibition had resulted in a crime wave across the nation. Having won the right to vote, nearly ten years prior and having successfully garnished the support of Congress and of State Assemblies, the determined and empowered women of the Anti Saloon League had won a twenty year battle of protest. Methods of sheer will over the masses won their efforts; their constant marching through towns and cities, and their insidious misinformation posters, and the indoctrination of public schools to teach temperance classes, associating anti-prohibition attitudes to the German American culture and the Kaiser, and tying together labor unionization to alcohol use in an effort to gain industry support. It seemed for a decade that there was no methodology low enough that the temperance movement would not use to convince the masses or to manipulate the powerful. Women like these could have ruled the world had they continued their rampage on other matters of significance. Kansas has had dry counties and dry towns for years, but this new federal prohibition promised enforcement and it had not been going well in it’s first year. Rural areas like the thousands of acres around Salina, where wheat or corn grew in abundance, became havens of secret distilleries, miniature factories for home-grown grain alcohol. Nationwide over thirty prohibition agents had been killed in service in the first year alone. Clandestine operations of smuggling thousands of bottles in milk trucks, hay bails, tires of automobiles, under car seats, river boats, even in the fuel tanks of the wings of small airplanes. Every barn became a suspected distillery. Federal investigators would scrounge through private properties without warning, often foregoing judicial warrants, turning homes and barns upside down looking for hidden doors, underground operations. People were shot, wounded or killed, often by mistaken intent while holding upwards a broom, an iron, or a rake. Nothing would stop the insatiable desire to escape reality that could only be quelled by alcohol, because it could be made through the use of simple materials.

John took part in the corruption instigated by prohibition and so did every man who drank at Quincy’s, before they closed it, even a few of the town’s women took part in indulging. They gathered at Jones’s barn on a five acre lot just outside of town. Deep in the woods behind Jones’s property, he operated a still for wheat grain alcohol, and for just twenty five cents and man could sit in the barn with friends drinking from a one quart canning jar what’s contents were strong enough to last nearly all night long.

One of the major failings of enforcement during these years was that the whole nation saw it coming for five or ten years back. Stockpiling had become a hobby of sorts for many astute drinkers. Bottled Scotch Whiskey, Bourbon and Rye had increased in cost exponentially, the day after the congress passed the wretched law. The industry packaged bottles kept appearing for years into prohibition.

Crowding breeds corruption in men. Under prohibition the pessimistic survivalist fighters who thrived on greed, no longer needed to feed on the optimistic light of others, only on their addictions and their need to escape the drudgery of their own minds. Dense population areas where job stability and the corresponding vitality of a man were challenged daily were havens for the civically unethical bootleggers. Organized crime was sweeping American cities, the Tommy Gun was ruling the streets of Chicago, of New York, St. Louis, Kansas City and on from coast to coast. Speakeasies were springing up in basements and garages, warehouses would double as alcohol storage points for smugglers. Owners of facilities were strong armed, black-mailed, intimidated by the mob bosses and their goons.

Al an John shared one more glass of whiskey before Al closed his office blinds and began locking up. Al went home, wishing John good luck with his troubles in a pitiful context. Dismayed by the heavy emotional blow he received upstairs John stood outside of Al Worthington’s law office, on the sidewalk below and breathed in the winter air, holding his coat closed, his briefcase under his arm and feeling the warming of his blood from the whiskey in his body. He looked upwards across the street and he saw the western sky displaying a purple and pink wash of wispy stratus cloud cover as the yellow and orange final rays of sunlight fought their way through the horizon’s cover. Straight over head, at two or three hundred feet above the town, a flock of Canadian Geese formed an open ended triangle and squawked their callings, as if arguing, as they headed towards the western setting sun.

“It’s been freezing cold for weeks. Why do they migrate now for warmer lands? Why so late? They lose ground for half a day by following the sun, but they get south anyway, roundabout, touring perhaps, visiting favorite fields, avoiding the hunters.. That goose in front must be their leader. Perhaps he has got a good sense of direction, or stronger flight wings, or maybe weaker flight wings? When he gets weak, they all must be weak and need rest. They fly west. The shape of their flock forms an arrow from my perspective. Westward, taking their time in semi circles. They see more that way. Find better eating and safer fields, see different places each year. I guess I’m one of a flock also. ”