September Sky (American Journey Book 1) (47 page)

"Amelia?"

"Huh?"

"Let's get up," Justin said. "There are a couple of people I want you to meet."

"Who?"

"You'll see."

Justin stood up and held out his hands. When Amelia took them, he helped her to her feet and then escorted her to the bottom of the steps. He barely had the opportunity to turn his head when he saw his father move ahead of Wyatt Fitzpatrick and rush forward.

Justin stepped away from Amelia and met Chuck halfway. He embraced his father with the affection and enthusiasm he deserved. He had no bigger supporter in life.

"It's good to see you, Dad."

"It's good to see you," Chuck said in a voice that started to crack. "I knew you would make it. I just knew you would."

Justin stepped back and put his hands on his father's shoulders.

"I did make it," Justin said. "I made it because you taught me to pay attention to details. I knew where to go when the storm got bad – and I knew where to leave messages."

"The police sent us here. They were eager to help," Chuck said. "I think you made quite an impression on them this weekend."

Justin smiled sadly.

"Did they tell you why they hauled me in?"

"They did. Then they told me why they let you go. They also told me about the Becks and the wagon driver," Chuck said. "Have you heard from Emily?"

"No," Justin said. "I haven't seen her since I left Houston. I don't know where she is. I'm really concerned. She knew what I knew. She knew she'd be safe here or at the Tremont, but she didn't go to either place. She just vanished when her wagon overturned."

"We'll find her, son. If it's the last thing we do, we'll find her and her parents."

"I was hoping you'd say that. I really don't want to leave without them."

"We won't," Chuck said.

Justin turned to his left and offered a hand to Wyatt.

"Thanks for coming," Justin said. "It means a lot."

Wyatt took the hand.

"It's the least I could do, young man. Believe me."

Justin let go of Wyatt's hand and turned to face the girl at his right. He could see from the gentle smile on her face that the Townsend family reunion had done wonders for her spirits.

"Dad and Wyatt, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine."

CHAPTER 82: CHUCK

Monday, September 10, 1900

Chuck stared at the pile and then at the people gathered around the pile. He didn't know what he would remember more – the sight of bodies burning or the look of horror on the faces of people
watching
bodies burning. By six thirty Monday night, he wanted to forget them both.

"Let's go," Chuck said to Wyatt. "There's nothing for us here."

Chuck turned away from the blaze, which had drawn a solemn crowd of twenty, and walked about thirty feet to an intact grand piano that stood in the middle of Twenty-Fifth and O. He rested an arm on the instrument, took a breath of kerosene-soaked air, and waited for the others.

Chuck watched closely as Wyatt withdrew from the gruesome spectacle, placed his hat on his head, and walked toward the piano. He spoke again to his friend and relative when he drew near.

"How are you holding up?" Chuck asked.

"I'm all right," Wyatt said. "It's the others you should worry about."

Chuck couldn't disagree. When he looked back at the crowd around the fire, he saw two young adults who had clearly been traumatized by what they had seen since Saturday night.

"I'm less concerned about Justin than the girl," Chuck said. "Justin is tough. He's resilient. He has a life to go back to. He'll probably get through this better than we will."

Chuck sighed.

"Amelia's a different story. She lost her family, her home, and her community in one night. She has nothing. It's hard to see where she goes from here."

"She's become quite attached to him," Wyatt said.

"Yes, she has. That's another thing we'll have to address at some point."

Chuck had not expected to add an eighteen-year-old orphan to his entourage when he had arrived at the Ursuline Academy Sunday morning, but he had added one just the same. Though he had wanted to leave Amelia in the care of the nuns, he couldn't bear to walk away when she refused to stay at the school. He figured that he could serve her best by making sure she got safely off an island that was filled with desperate people doing desperate things.

Justin had not debated the matter. The minute Amelia had protested his departure with words and tears, he wrapped her in his arms, turned to Chuck, and said, "She's coming with us."

So she did. From that point forward, Amelia Gaines went wherever Chuck, Wyatt, and Justin went. She went with them to the police station, where they asked about the Becks, and to the hotels and relief centers, where they looked for them. She even went to places that no one should ever have to go to, such as a gymnasium-turned-morgue – where hundreds of bodies covered the floor – and the human bonfires that had sprung up all over the city.

Amelia did so willingly and without complaint. She did so like a person who needed to go through every motion and see every sight to achieve what people would someday call closure.

Sunday had been merely a preview of things to come. The four had seen bodies in the streets, but they had not seen what the hot sun could do to them after twenty-four hours.

When Chuck saw a relief worker pull the arm off a corpse in an attempt to load it onto a cart Monday morning, he vomited. When he saw rats feed on the body of a small child three hours later, he didn't give it a second thought. Death on this scale, he concluded, overwhelmed the mind and the senses. There was only so much a human being could absorb.

City leaders and relief workers had fought a losing battle with the numbers for two days. When they could no longer process the dead in morgues, they loaded them on barges and dumped them in the sea. When the bodies floated back to shore, they began to bury people where they found them. When they ran out of the manpower and space to do even that, they turned to fire. By Monday afternoon, they had their answer.

Those who survived the storm faced other challenges. On Sunday morning, they woke up to a city without potable water, electricity, or even a link to the mainland. The hurricane had done more than kill six thousand people. It had obliterated every railroad bridge, severed telephone and telegraph wires, destroyed wharves, and seriously damaged a pumping station.

Galveston drew its drinking water from the mainland. The water traveled from artesian wells through a three-foot main on the bottom of the bay to a facility that distributed it to homes and businesses on the island. When the city lost its pumping station, it lost its ability to provide its residents with an element they needed to survive.

Looting was also an issue. Even before darkness had enveloped the city Sunday night, police and vigilante groups had taken to the streets to prevent not only the theft of property from businesses but also the theft of property from the dead.

Some who stole rings didn't bother to slide them off the fingers. They simply removed the fingers and stuffed them in bags. Those found with stolen property were shot where they stood.

Chuck had seen little but death, destruction, and depravity since arriving in Galveston, but he considered himself lucky. Unlike many parents, he had found his child alive and well. He would live to see that child marry, have a family, and enjoy the life he was meant to lead.

Chuck's only concern was Justin's emotional well being. He had watched his son go from relatively upbeat to concerned to distraught in a single afternoon.

Justin had expected to find Emily on Sunday. He had expected to find her helping others in a hotel or a public building that she knew would survive the storm. He had every reason to believe she would use her knowledge of things to come to save her life and the lives of her parents. As the day had progressed, however, Justin's optimism had started to fade.

Chuck didn't share his son's pessimism. He knew that thousands of people still roamed the streets in search of loved ones and believed that the highly resourceful Emily Beck was one of them. He would not give up looking for her and her family until he had to.

Chuck gave the matter a little more thought and then returned his attention to his son. He saw him grab Amelia's hand and lead her toward the piano. Though he was concerned that Justin might form another strong attachment at a particularly inconvenient time, he was proud of the way he had taken charge in a crisis and assumed responsibility for another human being.

"What do you want to do?" Chuck asked when Justin and Amelia drew near.

"You know what I want to do," Justin said. "I want to find Emily."

"I do, too, but we're not going to find her tonight. It's already getting dark. I suggest that we go back to the Tremont, get some rest, and search again in the morning. We still have time."

"How much time? How much time are you willing to commit to this?" Justin asked with an edge in his voice. "Do you want to leave tomorrow? Do you want to leave
now
?"

Chuck sighed.

"What I
want
to do is not important. What we
have
to do is. We have to leave Galveston soon if we hope to catch our train on Thursday. We're playing for keeps now, Justin."

Justin removed his arm from Amelia's shoulders and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out the blue crystal and held it high.

"You see this, Dad?" Justin asked. "I still have it. It's always in my pocket. It's always on my mind. I don't need a reminder that the clock is running."

"I'm sorry," Chuck said.

"I just want a little more time, that's all," Justin said. "If we can't find Emily by tomorrow, then we'll go. I just want one more day."

Chuck walked up to Justin.

"Then you have it," Chuck said. "We'll search for her tomorrow and leave on Wednesday. We can search all day if you want."

Justin gave his father a hug.

"Thanks, Dad. Thanks."

CHAPTER 83: CHARLOTTE

Houston, Texas – Tuesday, September 11, 1900

Charlotte stared out of a second-floor window and watched two young boys play in the alley behind the house that Hiram Fitzpatrick built. She didn't know who they were or where they lived, but she could see they didn't have a care in the world. They laughed and squealed as they took turns jumping in a large mud puddle left by the storm.

She envied their ability to enjoy life and set aside any concerns they might have. It had been a long time since she had been able to do the same.

Charlotte stepped away from the window and returned to a table where she had placed the evening edition of one of Houston's daily newspapers. She had read each of the articles on the front page twice but still could not make sense of them. People did not make sense of hurricanes that killed thousands of people and turned their hometowns into rubble.

She glanced again at the story in the upper right corner and noted the headline: STORM WATERS CLAIM ORPHANS. Ten nuns had apparently tied themselves to ninety children in an attempt to keep them from floating away. They had succeeded in keeping them together but not in keeping them alive. All had died when rising waters had overrun the Ursuline orphanage.

Charlotte let her eyes drift to an article that was just as distressing. The story reported that authorities and relief workers had turned to burning bodies where they found them. She tried to picture cremations in the streets but couldn't. Some things were simply too difficult to imagine.

Other things, however, were all too easy to imagine. Galveston authorities had apparently done more than deal with the dead. According to yet another article, they had imposed serious restrictions on the living. They had declared martial law in the city, limited travel to and from the island, and prohibited able-bodied men from leaving at all.

Charlotte didn't need to know more to know that this created a significant problem for at least two men and one woman who planned to board a westbound train Thursday afternoon. She knew that if they didn't reach Los Angeles by September 18, they wouldn't be able to travel to 2016.

Charlotte wasn't troubled by the prospect of missing the train. She was as ambivalent as ever about leaving everything she had ever known, but she knew that leaping into the future was the only way she could secure happiness with her new husband and their unborn child.

She placed a hand on her belly and tried to feel the life growing inside of her. She didn't care at this point if the baby was a boy or a girl. She cared only that it was healthy and would have the chance to grow up in a world that was free from the kind of misery she had read about today.

Charlotte reassembled the newspaper, folded it in half, and placed it on a corner of the table. She started to rise from her chair and check on another important consideration in her life when that important consideration stepped through an open door.

Anna Beck didn't break her stride. She walked up to Charlotte, jumped on her lap, and placed her arms around her neck, just has she had done several times since Saturday morning.

"Have you heard from my sister yet?" Anna asked.

"No, honey, I haven't."

"Have you heard from my mama and papa?"

"No," Charlotte said. "I haven't heard from them either."

"Do you think they are all right?"

Charlotte smiled sadly and sighed.

"I hope so, sweetheart. I hope so."

CHAPTER 84: CHUCK

Galveston, Texas

The four searchers didn't waste a minute getting a start on their day. As soon as the sun came up Tuesday morning, they left their room at the Tremont and headed back out into a city that had become smellier, dirtier, and far less safe than the one they had wandered on Monday.

Chuck asked Justin to direct the search for reasons both personal and practical. He wanted to show confidence in his son, utilize his talents, and give him the final say in a matter where he had the most at stake. He knew that his son would never rest until he had explored every place and possibility that
he
considered important.