September Sky (American Journey Book 1) (48 page)

Justin rose to the challenge. He set priorities, drew up plans, and assigned specific duties to each member of the group. He approached the problem of finding the Becks as methodically as any hard-boiled detective or seasoned investigative reporter.

Under Justin's direction, Chuck, Wyatt, and Amelia scoured the city. They visited more than thirty hotels, agencies, and relief stations, where they asked questions, checked buildings, and looked for clues. They searched with persistence, passion, and drive but did so without success. By two o'clock, they found themselves no closer to finding the Becks than when they had started.

That appeared to change when they walked to the west side of town, near the waterfront, and found what could only be described as a forest of death. More than a hundred corpses of men, women, and children hung from the branches of salt cedar trees.

Among the dead was a young dark-haired woman who hung in a tree near the edge of the grove. She wore clothes similar to the ones that Emily had worn to the train station on Saturday.

Justin insisted on inspecting the body first. He said he wanted to have a private moment with the deceased in case the deceased turned out to be Emily.

He appeared relieved to see a face that he didn't recognize but dismayed to see two puncture marks on the girl's wrist. A snake had gotten to her long before the water had.

Chuck sighed and silently celebrated the outcome. As much as he wanted answers for Justin and the rest of the group, he didn't want to obtain them from a corpse.

When Justin finished inspecting the rest of the trees in the grove, he led the group through the Sixth Ward and then toward the center of town. Guided by his belief that Emily, if still alive, was helping those in need, he narrowed the search to churches and relief centers.

So for the next two hours Justin Townsend and his entourage visited places that served survivors. They looked for answers in sanctuaries and first-aid stations but didn't find any until they walked into the police station at five fifteen and talked to a man named Meyer.

Will Meyer, a brakeman with the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway, reported seeing his friend Max Beck enter a home near Nineteenth Street and Avenue L early Saturday afternoon. He said that Beck's wife and daughter carried him from the flooded intersection into the house.

Chuck knew then that the Becks had sought refuge in the home he had shared with Charlotte and Rose. By five forty, Chuck, Justin, Amelia, and Wyatt were at the house – or at least a pile of wood, metal, and brick that rose more than fifteen feet near the house's former location.

When the four began sifting through the debris five minutes later, they discovered what many others had known since Sunday morning – finding anything under tons of broken beams, shredded roofs, and displaced furniture was damn near impossible. Still, they tried.

Each of the four searched a different location.

Chuck gravitated toward a crushed china cabinet that he knew belonged to Charlotte. He wanted to find something that he could take back to a wife who had lost nearly everything.

Justin went to the edge of the debris, on the Avenue L side of the house, and started lifting boards. It was clear from his pace that he was searching for something he
didn't
want to find.

Amelia wandered freely and picked up whatever appeared interesting. With no connection to the house or any of its possible occupants, she was able to look at everything with a fresh eye.

Wyatt drifted to a location that contained items from Rose's bedroom, including a candelabra, jewelry, and a framed photograph of a couple that had never married. He picked up the objects, sat on a board, and resumed his role as the group's protector. He protected people and property with a Colt .45 pistol he had retrieved in Houston.

Chuck found it difficult to dig too deeply. He considered the house a gravesite of sorts – for memories and cherished belongings, if not for people. He hoped it wasn't the latter. He had seen far too much death on this journey and had no desire to see more.

Chuck picked up and discarded a salad plate that was too damaged to keep and then looked to the west. He saw one thing and heard another that gave him pause and put his situation into perspective.

The setting sun reminded him that time was growing short. He knew that he and the others had no more than two hours to complete their work. As soon as darkness fell, they would have to end their search, return to the hotel, and prepare for an early-morning trip to the mainland.

The sound of a gunshot reminded him that getting to the mainland might be difficult. Authorities and others were doing more than shooting looters. They were pressing able-bodied men into the relief effort and prohibiting most from leaving the island.

If the time travelers missed Dave Schmidt when he made his final round, they would almost certainly miss their train to Los Angeles. At this late hour, Chuck didn't want to think about that.

Chuck turned away from the sun and the sound of the shot and gazed again at a house he had called home just a few days earlier. He couldn't believe that something so seemingly sturdy and permanent had been reduced to kindling in one evening, but it had.

When the sight of the debris began to bring him down, Chuck decided to associate the broken items with happier times. He looked at the scattered dishes and cups and saw things he wanted to see, like intimate dinners and festive staff breakfasts.

Then he looked at a board that once formed part of the trim around the front door and saw something he
didn't
want to see. He saw an object that partially covered a human hand.

Chuck braced himself for the worst as he walked several feet to the board. When he lifted the board and three larger, flatter ones, he found the decomposing body of Maximilian Beck. He collected his thoughts and then looked at his son with heavy eyes.

"Justin?"

"Yeah?"

Justin continued to sift through debris.

"I found something," Chuck said.

Justin, Amelia, and Wyatt all stared at Chuck.

"What is it?" Justin asked.

"I found Max."

When Chuck saw three people step toward him, he held up his hands and signaled for Amelia and Wyatt to stop. He wanted Justin to see the body next.

Justin paused for a moment, as if to gather his strength, and then walked slowly toward his father and the grisly discovery. He kept his thoughts and his eyes to himself.

When Justin reached the corpse, he dropped to his knees and gazed at a man who might have become his father-in-law. He looked at Max dispassionately for about a minute and then reached for a pillowcase that hung from a board a few feet away. He carefully straightened the linen, gently draped it over the deceased's face, and returned to his feet.

Justin glanced at Chuck and then scanned his surroundings, as if looking for something in particular. He apparently found it in the form of a small pile of debris that stood nearby. He walked to the pile, lifted the board on top, and threw it to the side. He repeated the process with several other boards until he found the body of Isabella Beck. She had been cut in half.

Chuck didn't wait to see Justin's reaction. He immediately stepped toward his son. He wanted to embrace him and at least try to ease his pain, but he didn't get the chance. Justin held up a hand and shook his head. He apparently wanted nothing to do with parental compassion.

Chuck turned to Wyatt. He hoped to find a friend who could offer an encouraging word or at least an empathetic smile but instead found a man who stared blankly at the ground.

Then Chuck looked at Amelia and saw something he would remember for the rest of his life. He saw a girl hold up an open locket that contained photos of two people. Even from a distance he could see the locket was the one Emily had worn on Saturday.

Justin noticed Amelia a moment later. He dropped a board, stepped away from the rubble, and walked toward his friend. When he reached her, he took the locket, held it out, and rolled it between his fingers as if he were inspecting something new or strange.

Justin put the item in his pocket, glanced at Chuck, and then turned to face the setting sun. When he looked again at his father, he did so with watery eyes.

"No," Justin said. He shook his head. "I refuse to believe it."

"Justin?"

"She's alive. I know she is."

"Justin?"

"Don't say another word. I don't want to hear it."

Chuck stepped toward Justin as he started to pull and then throw every board that was even remotely close to the Becks. When Chuck reached his son and put a hand on his shoulder, Justin recoiled and pushed the hand away.

"Go away! I have work to do!"

Justin returned to the debris and went through it at an even faster pace. For more than a minute, he pulled boards, kicked them, swore at them, and tossed them in every direction. When he threw a small board that nearly hit Amelia in the head, Chuck intervened.

"Stop it!"

"Go away, Dad!" Justin snapped. "I mean it."

Chuck grabbed Justin's arm, stopped him from throwing boards, and then turned him around.

"I said, 'Stop it.'"

Justin pulled his arm back but stopped his pursuit of a woman he would probably never find. He gave his father a hateful glare and then turned to face Amelia, who had dissolved into tears. When he saw the girl shake her head in disapproval, he lowered his head and started to sob.

Chuck put his hands on Justin's shoulders and pulled him close.

"I'm sorry," Chuck said. "I'm so sorry."

CHAPTER 85: CHUCK

Wednesday, September 12, 1900

The skipper kept his word. At six o'clock on the fourth morning of the recovery, he sailed the
Harmony
through a debris field that was once a wharf and sent his sons to fetch three men and a young woman in a leaky, ten-foot rowboat.

Chuck was grateful for that not-so-little favor, but he didn't feel like celebrating. He felt like crawling inside of a cave or a whiskey bottle and shutting out the world. He didn't care much for a place where death struck so randomly and senselessly. He was sick of it all.

He thought about random, senseless death when Dave Schmidt brought the party of four to Houston and again when a carriage driver took them to a sprawling mansion that hadn't suffered a scratch in the hurricane. He thought of little else.

Chuck conceded that he should have known. He should have known that even when you're a time traveler with knowledge of things to come that you can't stop everything from coming. You can't stop others from acting recklessly or courageously or in ways that make no sense. You have to recognize that when you step into another time – any time – you can't control its course.

He watched Justin closely as he helped Amelia out of the carriage in front of the house. He knew that his son was tough, but he also knew that he had never been tested like this.

Chuck wondered how Justin would cope not only with the loss of Emily but also with his pending separation from two other young women who had become dear to him. He had less than a day to say goodbye to Amelia Gaines and Anna Beck, who each had awaiting relatives.

Chuck had not wasted a moment in notifying others of what he had found on the island. When he had learned that the Tremont had restored telephone contact with the mainland Tuesday night, he called Charlotte, James and Josephine Gaines of Corpus Christi, and Pierre and Estelle Pelletier of New Orleans. He told his wife that he would meet her at the mansion in the morning and the others that he would meet them at the Grand Central Depot in Houston on Thursday.

He didn't look forward to the partings at the train station. He knew they would be long, emotional, and possibly problematic. He didn't want to think about how each party would respond if the girls simply refused to leave Justin's side.

Chuck decided to set aside thoughts of Thursday for at least a few more hours as he opened the front door of the mansion, stepped inside, and waited for Justin and Amelia to join him. There was no point in fretting over something he could no longer control.

He looked back at Wyatt, who talked quietly to the carriage driver, and then walked through the door. When he called out for Charlotte, he was mildly surprised to hear no reply. When he called out a second time, he became mildly concerned.

Chuck called out again and this time heard what sounded like a muffled scream. He moved quickly up the stairs, just ahead of Justin and Amelia, and raced to a large sitting room on the second floor – a place that Charlotte favored. He walked into the room and found three people – two he wanted to see and one he didn't.

When Chuck looked into one corner of the room, he saw Anna Beck sitting in a chair. She had been bound and gagged. When he looked into another corner, he saw Silas Fitzpatrick hold a revolver to his wife's head. She had been gagged.

"Come in, Charles. I've been waiting for you," Silas said. He pointed the gun at Chuck. "You can stand in the corner next to the brat."

Chuck walked slowly toward Anna. He started to say something comforting to the girl but held his tongue when he saw her stare blankly into space. It was clear, at least to him, that the eight-year-old had fallen into shock.

Silas trained his gun on Chuck until he stepped behind the chair and put his hands on Anna's shoulders. He returned his attention to the door just as Justin and Amelia walked through it.

"Come on in, folks," Silas said.

"What are you doing?" Justin asked.

"I'm adding spice to your morning, young man."

Silas pointed the gun at Justin.

"Now go stand next to your father, or I'll add some lead."

Justin grabbed Amelia's hand and led her to the corner of the room.

"Where is Wyatt?" Silas asked Chuck.

Chuck glanced at Charlotte, who looked terrified, and then at Silas, who looked irritated. He glared at the gunman but didn't answer his question.

"I asked, 'Where is he?"

"I don't know," Chuck finally said. "He didn't come in with us."