Time Change B2

by Alex Myers

  He thought if cash was “king” in his century, it was something approaching the ‘Undisputed Supreme Ruler of the Universe’ now. The entire country was feeling the effects of a depression, and the South was feeling it most. He found that people were only too happy to share information—whenever he mentioned ‘cash’.

  They met a man along the beach road driving a wagon.

  “You’re that inventor fella from Norfolk, huh?”

  “That’s me all right, grew up round here.”

  “It looks like we’ve got two inventors in the neighborhood then. Across the Bay not far from the Thoroughgood House—you haven’t seen all the construction going on?”

  “No, I’ve been in Norfolk and came up from the beach. What’s going on?”

  “Ken Barnett is back from Chicago and building a huge plant and research facility over there.”

  “Ken Barnett? I’ve never heard of him.” Jack knew that in his version of the future there had never been a research facility located there. As far as he could remember, the property was always a huge dairy farm owned by the Thoroughgood family, and remained so into the twenty-first century.

  “He was a big shot, I guess some sort of idea man, with the McCormick Corporation. He and old man McCormick had a parting of the ways and he decided to set up shop here. He’s from here, you know. Don’t really know where he got all the money; someone mentioned the Fire-eaters, and if so, well that’s plenty fine with me. It’s a pretty big operation he’s got going on, I tell you.” The farmer then hitched his horse, preparing to go.

  Yet another thing had changed in Jack’s future and he wondered if he had somehow set this in motion. “I’ll have to stop by and say hello. Thank you once again.”

  “No, thank you.” The man said, patting the five dollar gold piece in his pocket.

  Hercules had been silent, yet seemingly happy for most of the trip. But as they got off the ferry that crossed the mouth of Lynnhaven Bay, Jack heard him singing a song:

  Oh, freedom! Oh, freedom!

  Oh, freedom over me!

  And before I’d be a slave

  I’ll be buried in my grave

  And go home to my Lord and be free.

  No more moaning,

  No more moaning,

  No more moaning over me!

  And before I’d be a slave

  I’ll be buried in my grave

  And go home to my Lord and be free.

  “That’s a mighty sad song you’re singing there.” Jack said.

  “It be one that my people have been singing for years. I’ve never sung it in front of a white man before.”

  “You can sing whatever you like from now on. But if I can put in a request for a little happier one next time…”

  Spanish moss hung from giant swamp cedars, roofing the wet, peaty acid soils of the small bogs. Sawgrass covered the encroaching windswept dunes closer to the beach, neither though quite obscuring the view of the Chesapeake. Having passed Fort Story, where the saline ocean became the brackish water of the bay, their moods had changed. Hercules stopped singing and they rode in silence, both knowing something terrible was coming.

  CHAPTER 10

  Wednesday, July 1, 1857

  There was a sand dredge in the bay and a massive dock leading out to a channel. The sounds of construction were loud and plentiful. There was pounding, hammering, and teams of horses pulling loads of lumber. Hundreds of men, most of them black, were erecting buildings of every sort; houses, bunkhouses, cabins, small and large outbuildings, and storage sheds. The massive airplane hangar-sized structure in the middle of the property dominated and dwarfed all the others. Small gauge railroad tracks lead from the building down to the water to a large pier jutting out into the bay. A large, three-masted ship sat at the dock, being unloaded by a throng of black men. Near the pier a large house looked out over the water, presumably where Barnett lived. He saw a man and woman, two older looking girls and two boys sitting at a picnic table in the yard.

  Jack stopped his horse, his mouth agape, and gawked at the site.

  “It sure be a sight to see, ain’t it, Mr. Jack.”

  “It’s not that Hercules, this whole thing, it’s… it’s exactly like mine in Norfolk. It’s laid out the same; it looks like the same number and types of buildings. Wow, they look like they even used the same color of paint.” From the looks of things, the Southerners Against Compromise was better funded than Jack thought.

  Jack urged his horse to move in the general direction of the house and stopped at the first group of workers he came upon. “Where can I find Ken Barnett?”

  A man holding a blueprint turned from the construction to face Jack. It was Abner Adkins, and from behind him stepped Winston Creed. He at first looked slightly off balance, then oozed loathing. “Mr. Riggs, this is a surprise,” Creed said. “Word has it you and the old man stopped by to say hello up in Williamsburg, but it is a surprise to see you here. Nice of you to stop by to visit.”

  “We heard you were at church a couple of weeks ago… sorry we missed you.” Adkins laughed.

  “I’m not. Is Kazmer here?” Jack said, the tone edged with ice.

  “Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. What business is it of yours?” Creed said.

  “I just want him back.” Jack gestured at the buildings. “What is all this?”

  “We call it the Southern Compound. Quite impressive, isn’t it.” A hateful smile filled Creed’s hard face.

  Jack turned as Hercules rode up with one hand under his shirt—where Jack knew he kept his gun. The rough looking construction workers closed in around the horses.

  “Yes, it is quite impressive,” Jack said, “and quite familiar too.”

  “It seems not all Southerners that move to the North are opposed to the idea of helping the South. Ken Barnett moved all the way to Chicago and yet still remembers where he came from.”

  Adkins stared long and hard at Hercules. “Nigger, you look familiar. Where do I know you? I never forget a face.” The crew of construction workers continued to menacingly swell.

  “What’s going on here?” A man yelled approaching at a gallop. The big Morgan horse stopped ten feet from Jack. “Mr. Creed, what’s the problem?”

  “We got ourselves a visitor.” He nodded toward Jack.

  “Who are you and what do you want? What kind of trouble are you causing here?”

  “I didn’t think I was causing any trouble. I just stopped to talk to you and I was asking where to find you. The name is Riggs, Jack Riggs.”

  A dark cloud crossed Barnett’s face and then his look turned to hatred. “Riggs, I have nothing to say to you.”

  Barnett was a big man, with massive arms and legs and a thick chest. He had a large, tanned forehead and intelligent looking coal-black eyes that seemed to sear their way into Jack. He spoke to the construction workers, “I need you men to escort this man off the property.”

  “Be happy to, sir.” The man with the blueprints and a couple of the meaner looking workers started to move toward Jack. “Come on boys, we got us a couple of trespassers.”

  “No!” Winston Creed screamed. “I want them detained.”

  “No, this is not Williamsburg, that’s not what this facility is about.”

  “Come on Hercules, let’s get out of here.” They turned their horses around and started away.

  “I be with you on that one,” Hercules said.

  Ignoring Jack, Winston wheeled around facing Barnett. “You Sir, work for me.”

  “I’m under contract with the SAC,” Barnett said.

  “Who the hell do you think the SAC is? There may be investors, but I am the SAC!”

  “And you gave me complete autonomy to run this facility the way that I saw fit.”

  “Autonomy my ass, you’re nothing but a Jack Riggs want-to-be. I’m wondering why I need you when the real thing is right here.”

  “Ah sir,” a workman said to Barnett as Jack and Hercules were riding away, “do you want us to foll
ow them?”

  “Hell yes!” Winston Creed said.

  “No, let them go,” Barnett said and smiled at Creed. “Say what you want, these are my men and they are loyal to me.”

  “That, Mr. Barnett, was a grave mistake,” Creed said as he watched Jack and Hercules ride away.

  As Jack rode away, he saw that Barnett’s family had ventured out to the edge of the crowd. He could see an older woman he figured was Barnett’s wife, two teenage boys, and what he had thought were teenaged girls that turned out to be two young women in their twenties.

  Barnett, the only one on horseback other than Hercules and Jack, flanked them as they rode away. He stopped when he reached his family.

  Since the construction workers were on foot, Jack wasn’t too worried about trouble; nonetheless, he was pleased to hear Barnett say as much. As he passed Barnett’s family, he gasped at the loveliness of Barnett’s oldest daughter. She looked twenty-three or twenty-four, and had long dark hair and a beautiful face; her smooth, tanned skin contrasted amazingly her shapely white dress. Her eyes were daft and brown and framed by the longest lashes. Her lips were big and full—perky the way only a young girl’s could be. She twirled her hair around a finger. They locked eyes until he was fully past.

  As they nearly passed out of earshot of his family, Barnett said, “Next time, I guarantee we won’t be so hospitable.” He turned his horse and he and the workers left in the other direction. Only Creed, Adkins, and a half dozen men stood and watched them leave.

  “At the very least,” Jack said, “They’ll follow us, hopefully nothing more than that.”

  Jack and Hercules picked up the pace as they made their way back to the ferry dock; upon arriving, they found that the ferryboat driver was on lunch and that the next run wouldn’t be for a half hour. They hitched their horses to a tree and sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the ferry-wharf. Jack wanted to cross and put some distance between him and Winston Creed, but the swift moving water of the narrow channel was too dangerous to even consider it.

  “Jack, why that man hate you like that? It be having the hair on my neck standing up. I'd rather been in a thicket looking straight up then be ‘round those men much longer.”

  “Which man are you talking about?” Jack asked.

  “All them really, but the big one with the yellow hair, that actually let us go. He be the one that caught my attention.”

  Hercules was talking about Barnett. “I don’t know,” Jack said. “I’ve never met him before in my life.”

  A female voice startled them. “Because he thinks it’s your fault he lost his job with the McCormick Corporation.” Jack and Hercules whirled around to see a vision of loveliness. The oldest Barnett girl was standing behind them. He had been watching for Barnett’s men and was surprised when the woman snuck up on them. “My name is Kady Barnett, Ken Barnett is my father.”

  Both men stood and Jack spoke, “I’m Jack Riggs and this is my friend, Hercules.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Hercules averted his eyes.

  She spoke directly to Jack. “I know who you are—only too well, I might add. You’re all my father ever talks about anymore.”

  She was even lovelier close up. She had delicate bones and perfect skin. Jack loved the way her long brown hair was parted on the side and swept across her forehead.

  “From what I saw today, he’s talking none too well of me. How did I supposedly make him lose his job with McCormick?”

  “Papa was in development with McCormick and was his design expert. He helped them upgrade and redesign the reaper. He was working on an idea for a new kind of plow when you beat him to it and sold the design to Deere. He and Cyrus had a big blow-up—really just two stubborn men, neither one of them willing to give in, mind you. My father asked how he could be stupid enough to pay a stranger all that money for a piece of machinery they already had, and Cyrus asked how could he be so stupid to keep paying my father all the money he did when all he needed to do to get a new idea was talk to Jack Riggs.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Cyrus is my Uncle and I’m his favorite niece. I took what Papa said, added it to what Uncle Cyrus said, and my Aunt filled in the rest of the details. Papa wasn’t away from the factory a week when we got a visit from these two men—“

  “Winston Creed and Abner Adkins,” Jack finished.

  “Do you know them?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  “Oh my goodness, that’s exactly how I feel. Papa was in the next room talking to them and I heard everything of that first meeting. I think they’re bullies and thugs, of course my father thought differently, but now…” She searched for the right words, “Now, I think he’s starting to reevaluate.”

  “Have you seen a guy named Kazmer? He’s Polish, twenty-seven, about six-four, glasses?”

  She shook her head. “There are a lot of workers over there, and no one like that comes to mind.”

  “He wouldn’t be a worker. I think he’s been kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped? Oh, goodness no, there would be no place to keep someone here—now Williamsburg, that’s a different story.”

  “These same men tried to sabotage my facility in Norfolk, attacked a group of people at a church in New York that almost killed me in the process.”

  “That would be the Fire-eaters, not the SAC. The SAC is a group of investors that do manufacturing, the Fire-eaters are the activists, the—“ She searched for the appropriate adjective.

  “Terrorists,” Jack said.

  “I’ve never heard that word before, but I think it accurately describes them.”

  “The SAC has been developing weapons, bombs…”

  “But we don’t have anything to do with that here.”

  “What is the building at the north-end of the runway?” Jack asked.

  “The weapons depot.”

  “What’s on the far side of the hill past the hangar?”

  “A weapons range.” Kady answered. She seemed to shrink a little and then turned curious, “How do you know?”

  “Because this is brick for brick, my same facility in Norfolk. Who do you think designed this place?”

  “I know it wasn’t my dad—that creepy Creed man, I suppose.”

  “Me, it was all me. They must have quite a network of spies.”

  “I don’t doubt that at all. It seems like Papa’s so deep into these men and their money he couldn’t get away from them if he tried. My father wants to make agricultural equipment.”

  “He does? Like what?”

  “Like a rice harvester, an automatic seed planter, these are just ones I’ve heard him talk about lately.” She looked back over her shoulder nervously. “I’m afraid I might have been followed.”

  “Is there some time or someplace we can meet?”

  “I already have a trip planned to Norfolk tomorrow. I could meet you somewhere in town.” Her brown eyes clung to his, analyzing his reaction. A breeze blew the fresh smell of her hair in Jack’s direction. She seemed radiant and radiated feminity.

  Jack saw that look, recognized it from past life experience, and whether it was the timing or the awkwardness of the situation, he thought he might be misreading her. “Sure,” he said to her with new interest, “where would be a good place?”

  With another glance back over her shoulder, she said, “I need to pick up some supplies for my mother and sister, but I can meet you for lunch. Do you know Lulu’s Cafe, it’s right downtown?”

  “I do know it.”

  “Say about twelve o’clock?” She glanced back over the dunes. “I’ve really got to go. I just took off without telling anyone where I was going.”

  “Noon at Lulu’s Cafe, it’s a date.”

  She had been looking away and when Jack said the word ‘date’, she snapped her head back to him. Her eyes were magnetic and compelling.

  “I’ll see you then.” She hiked up her skirt and kicked sand as she ran over the dune and out of sight.
/>
  Jack stood staring at the place she had been. “Man, she was stunning.”

  “That she was,” Hercules smiled as he moved to untie the horses, “and might be none of my business, but I think she be sweet on you.” He chuckled.

  “I’m glad to hear you say that—I thought it was just my imagination.”

  “I be thinking she want to discuss more than her daddy tomorrow. She be prettier than a speckled pup in a red wagon.” Hercules looked across the water at the approaching boat. “Here come the ferry.”

  It was just after noon when they got back to Norfolk and Jack said, “I need to buy a few things. You can just head back to the house if you’d like. We can catch an early supper, maybe get a jug of wine and watch the sun go down or something.”

  “That be sounding good. These horses really be needing some shoes. I could stop by the smithy and get it done.”

  “Okay. Take mine too, if you would,” Jack said, dismounting his horse and handing the reins to Hercules. “Here, take some money. I’ll just catch a taxi back home.”

  Jack handed him twenty dollars.

  “That be more than I need to get this job done.”

  “You need a little walking around money.”

  “I ain’t never had this much money at one time in my whole life. Thank you, thank you very much.”

  “Consider it part of your first month’s pay.”

  “I can buy whatever I want?”

  “Whatever you want.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Wednesday, July 1, 1857

  I wonder how many men on the construction crew down here are part of the SAC, the Fire-eater conspiracy? I wonder how many workers at my facility are really spies? Jack was having second thoughts about leaving Hercules alone; first Kazmer had disappeared, then Sam, and he didn’t know how or what happened to them. Jack needed help and didn’t know where to turn. Then he saw Aurellis sitting in his taxi.