September Sky (American Journey Book 1) (9 page)

When the door closed, Chuck turned to face his son and saw that he had followed the exchange closely. Justin sat on the edge of the sleeping berth and stared at his dad.

"Why do you care how long the train stays in El Paso?" Justin asked. "I thought we were getting
off
at El Paso?"

"We are," Chuck said. "We're going to get off the train when it stops, buy two tickets, and then get back on."

Justin looked at Chuck with puzzled eyes.

"Get back on? Why? I thought we had to change trains to get to Chicago."

Chuck sighed.

"We do. But we're not going to Chicago – at least not just yet."

"Dad, what are we doing?"

Chuck smiled.

"We're going to take a little side trip to meet one of our relatives."

"You have something up your sleeve," Justin said.

"I have a lot of things, actually. I'll explain them a bit later," Chuck said. "In the meantime, start thinking about how happy you'll be when you get to spend some quality time on a beach."

"A beach?"

"Yes, a beach. We're going to spend at least a couple of weeks in a place that has a pretty nice one, in fact. Texas will be our home the rest of the month, Justin. We're going east, not north. We're going to Galveston."

CHAPTER 12: JUSTIN

Val Verde County, Texas

As a longtime patron of California theme parks, Justin Townsend knew thrilling rides on rails. He had ridden everything from the X2 and the Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain to the classic wooden coaster at Knott's Berry Farm. But until he crossed the Pecos High Bridge on a train pulled by a steam locomotive, he had never known fear.

"I can't see the ground, Dad. I'm not enjoying this."

Justin could feel the sweat build on his palms as he clutched the richly upholstered seat in the lounge car. He wondered if the engineering and safety standards of 1900 were as exacting as those of the twenty-first century.

"You should," Chuck said as he broke into a smile. "You're riding over a bridge that hasn't existed for sixty-seven years. How many people can say that?"

Justin gave his father a death stare and then returned his attention to the window. He could see brown, scrubby hills in the distance but nothing that gave him comfort. The illusion of flying over a gorge at six miles an hour was extraordinarily disconcerting.

"I suppose you know how high we are," Justin said.

"I do. We're three hundred and twenty-one feet above the river," Chuck said. He laughed. "I did a little homework on the bridge too."

Justin froze when the train stopped in the middle of the viaduct-style bridge and didn't relax until it started moving again. He allowed himself a nervous smile a moment later when he was convinced the train would safely cross the span.

"It looks like you did a little homework on a lot of things," Justin said. He glanced at his old man, who sat in a facing seat. "What's this all about, anyway?"

Chuck reached into his jacket and pulled out a standard business envelope.

"It's about this."

Chuck handed the envelope to his son.

Justin examined both sides of the object and then lifted his eyes.

"What's this?"

"It's the reason for our detour," Chuck said. "Go ahead. Take a look at the contents. Then you'll know everything I know."

Justin opened the envelope and pulled out five pieces of paper, including a fax of a handwritten letter. He looked at the letter first.

Written in 1926 by a man named Robert to a man named Benjamin, the letter contained references to a sensational trial, a deathbed confession, and a grave injustice. When Justin finished reading the text, he stared at Chuck.

"This is interesting, Dad, but what does it have to do with us?"

"It has a lot to do with us –
if
we're interested in righting a wrong," Chuck said. "Benjamin Townsend was my great-great-grandfather. Robert Zimmerman was his friend and a Houston attorney. This letter is a reply to one Benjamin wrote a few days before he died. It seems Benjamin learned of a confession that would have absolved his brother for a murder he apparently didn't commit. He wanted Mr. Zimmerman to investigate the matter and clear the man's name, if possible."

"How did you get this?"

"My attorney pulled it from a file I set up after Grandpa died and faxed it to me. I've had the letter for years but never gave it much thought until now."

"OK. I get that part," Justin said. "But what can we really do for this guy? This letter was written in 1926. We're in 1900, in case you haven't noticed. I don't know much about the law, but I suspect this won't hold up in court."

Chuck smiled.

"I see you haven't lost your sense of humor," Chuck said. "You're right. That letter is worthless as a legal document. But it is potentially priceless as a guide. When we get to Galveston, we're going to do some digging and see if there is any merit to Benjamin's belief that an innocent man was hanged in 1900. If we're lucky, we'll be able to prevent an injustice."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean Benjamin's brother is still alive. He was arrested in August, shortly after the murder. Today is April 20. We have four months to learn whether Wyatt Fitzpatrick is a killing kind of man and perhaps prevent the homicide from happening in the first place."

"Isn't that crossing a line?" Justin asked. "I hate injustice as much as you do, Dad, but I'm pretty sure Professor Bell wouldn't approve."

"I'm sure he wouldn't, which is why we're not going to tell him about this. If we can save a life or two, we'll do it. If we can't, we won't. We'll pack our bags, proceed to Chicago or New York, and have that adventure the professor wanted us to have."

Justin put the letter down and gazed out his window at a pronghorn that grazed the meager offerings of the West Texas scrubland. He didn't want to mess with the past, but he understood his father's interest in keeping an innocent man – a relative, no less – from the gallows.

He gave the matter another moment and then returned his eyes to the remaining sheets. They were copies made from newspaper microfilm.

"What about these articles?" Justin asked. "Why did you bring them?"

"I brought them because I wanted to know more about an even bigger event that happened in Galveston in 1900," Chuck said. "If you learn nothing else about that town, learn about this."

Justin scanned the four newspaper articles. All pertained to a hurricane that slammed into Galveston in September and killed more than six thousand residents.

"So there's a hurricane coming," Justin said. "Are you planning to warn people?"

"I haven't decided what to do with that information, to tell you the truth. I just know I don't want to be anywhere near the city when that storm hits. Whatever we do for Wyatt Fitzpatrick or anyone else, we'll have to do it before September 8."

Justin glanced at Chuck and then returned to the newspaper articles. They included an overview of the disaster, survivor accounts, a story about the storm's impact on business, and lists of the living, the missing, and the dead.

Authorities in Galveston had found it impossible to keep accurate lists. Most victims could not be positively identified. Several people reported as dead one day had turned up alive the next. Casualty counts fluctuated between five hundred and twelve thousand.

Justin found the survivor stories particularly riveting. Many residents rode out the hurricane and a storm surge that swept over the island by clinging to debris or finding refuge in sturdy buildings like the Tremont Hotel and the Ursuline Academy.

Justin also noted adjacent articles on non-storm-related topics, such as the Boxer Rebellion in China and the Boer War in South Africa. Conspicuously absent were any stories about a man who was tried, convicted, and executed for murder in the fall of 1900.

"Did you bring any more articles?" Justin asked.

"No. I
had
more articles. I made copies of at least three or four on the storm's aftermath, but I forgot to bring them. I must have left them in the car."

Justin nodded.

"How come you didn't bring any stories on Wyatt Fitzpatrick?"

"I couldn't find any," Chuck said. "The library didn't have microfilm of any Texas papers from that era. What you see are articles published in California papers. The Fitzpatrick trial was a big story in Galveston and Houston but apparently nowhere else. The hurricane, on the other hand, made headlines around the world."

Justin nodded. He had run into a similar problem a few months earlier when doing a term paper on the rabies vaccine. While he found hundreds of articles published in the past fifty years, he found relatively few from the 1880s, when the vaccine was first developed and used on humans. Even the best libraries could not offer everything.

"So what do
you
know about Wyatt?" Justin asked.

"I know mostly what's contained in that letter and what my grandfather told me when I was your age."

"What's that? Did he give you any background on this guy?"

"He gave me a little but not nearly as much as we'll need," Chuck said.

"What did he tell you?"

"He said that Benjamin and Wyatt were born into a family of eight children but were split up after their parents died in a hotel fire. Relatives adopted Benjamin and three of his sisters. Strangers took in the rest. A shipping magnate named Hiram Fitzpatrick adopted Wyatt as a two-year-old and raised him as his own son."

"That was nice of him," Justin said.

"He didn't stop there either."

"What do you mean?"

"Hiram made sure that Wyatt had the best education money could buy," Chuck said. "After enrolling him in private academies in Galveston, he sent him to Harvard and Wharton. I guess the old man wanted an educated son to run his company."

"Did your grandfather express an opinion on Wyatt's guilt?"

Chuck shook his head.

"He didn't. He knew little about Wyatt and even less about the case. He was born five years after the trial and knew only what he had been told by his father years later."

"Didn't anyone try to prove Wyatt's innocence?"

"I think Benjamin did," Chuck said. "He returned to this country as soon as he heard that his brother had been charged, but he never had a chance to influence the courts or even see the accused. Wyatt was executed the day Benjamin arrived in Texas."

Justin looked at his father with renewed interest. Maybe messing with history wasn't such a bad idea after all. He grabbed the copy of the lawyer's letter and read it again. He stopped when he reached the reference to a deathbed confession.

"This letter doesn't say who confessed to the crime. That's a pretty big omission. Did your grandpa say anything about that?"

Chuck sighed.

"He never said anything to me, but he once said something to my father when he asked about the case. Grandpa said the killer's name was Mack or Max or something like that."

"So let me get this straight," Justin said. "We're going to try to prevent a murder without even knowing the name of the murderer?"

Chuck nodded.

"That's right."

Justin lowered his gaze.

"It gets better," Chuck said.

Justin looked up.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean we don't know something far more essential," Chuck said.

"What's that?"

Chuck put a hand on Justin's knee.

"We don't know the name of the victim either."

CHAPTER 13: CHUCK

Galveston, Texas – Saturday, April 21, 1900

Chuck glanced at his son the moment the train approached the rickety trestle, which looked as sturdy as a house of cards. If Justin didn't like riding a wobbly choo-choo more than three hundred feet in the air, then he certainly wouldn't like riding one across two miles of open water.

Or so Chuck thought. Sitting in the facing seat, Justin appeared anything but apprehensive as the commuter train from Houston began its slow eastward trek across Galveston Bay. He stared lazily out the window at the vast expanse beyond.

"What are you thinking about?" Chuck asked.

"I'm just thinking about the sun," Justin said. "I've seen it set over water hundreds of times, but I don't think I've ever seen it rise. I'll bet the sunrises on the Gulf side are pretty cool."

"I'll bet they are."

Chuck smiled sadly as he watched Justin rediscover nature.
This
is what he had missed over the years. He had missed watching his son observe things for the first time, including things as seemingly unremarkable as a sunrise over water. He vowed never again to let a career or anything else come between himself and his only child.

Chuck wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Even at six in the morning, he could feel the stifling heat and humidity of the Gulf coast. He wondered how civilization had managed to remain civil without modern air conditioning.

He glanced at a woman and a girl sitting across the aisle and saw that they too were wilting in the heat. The thirtyish woman cooled herself with a silk fan while the girl, who appeared to be no more than six, sighed and fidgeted in her seat.

Chuck couldn't believe that women wore corsets, girdles, and layered, ankle-length dresses in a climate suited for bikinis. Then he remembered that they didn't have a choice. Men set the rules in this society and enforced them rigidly. Propriety trumped comfort seven days a week.

Chuck thought about rules and society as the train reached the island and continued its journey toward the city. Whether making friends, conducting business, or saving relatives from the gallows, he would have to abide by the established norms of 1900 and not the looser, less formal, arguably more rational standards of 2016.

He looked again at Justin and smiled. The kid had made a near-seamless transition from laid-back California surfer boy to Southern dandy and seemed to revel in tipping his hat, opening doors, and using words like "lovely" and "ma'am." The ladies of Galveston were in for a treat.