The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection

by Alex Myers

Jack believed a hand crank was more reliable than a battery for the source of power for the transmitter, but it also had a further range. He sat on the rounded roof of the pilothouse to get more range and turned the crank around and around.

  “If you see an explosion, put something vertical between you and it, just dropping to the deck isn’t good enough. The shards will probably rain down on us from above,” Jack said as he worked feverously and felt terribly exposed.

  Out of nowhere Frank Sanger spoke, “Frances has gone to Williamsburg with Abner to try to get Kazmer and your friend Sam.”

  Jack stopped cranking and looked at Frank. “Why? How does she even know about it? Who told her Kazmer and Sam were there?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was Adkins?”

  “Why would he tell her except to brag? Unless he still wants her?”

  “I’m not sure. I wasn’t going to tell you about all this.”

  They were 400 yards away from the barge and Jack started cranking again. “Why did you tell me, then?”

  “Because,” Frank said and tilted his head toward the barge, “we might not make it. She made me promise not to tell you, but I feel like you should know the truth.”

  They were 300 yards away. “Why would she do that for Kazmer and Sam?”

  “She did it for you.”

  “Me?” Jack shook his head but still continued to crank the transmitter. “Frank, I don’t want to speak badly here, but I don’t need her charity. If this is some sort of act of contrition from her for being with Abner…”

  “Jack, I don’t think that’s the way it is.”

  They were 200 yards away and they were getting within distance the transmitter was sending. Ken Barnett was looking through a spyglass at the barge.

  Jack looked at Frank again. “She told you all these things in front of Abner?”

  “Lord no, Abner was in some big argument with a big fellow named Miles.”

  “Why are you here in Norfolk?”

  “I was first in DC, then Richmond to buy a couple of stores. Frances wanted me to come here with her to look for you. I needed to do a little boat shopping, so I agreed.” He nodded toward the ship. “But she would have come with or without me. Apparently, she was too late.”

  “Too late?”

  “She says you have another woman. Kady something or another? She saw you holding hands and kissing, I guess?”

  “That’s Ken’s daughter.”

  Ken put down the spyglass and turned to look at them.

  “Well, this is awkward, then,” Frank Sanger said.

  “It’s not like that,” Jack said.

  Ken turned back to the barge and raised the spyglass.

  They were 150 feet away. “If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen now,” Jack said.

  “Creed is on the barge,” Ken said. “I don’t see Abner or Miles.”

  Frank and Jack both thought of it together and Jack asked first. “There’s not a woman on board, is there?”

  “I don’t think so— no. They are all men and all have repeater rifles aimed at us.”

  Jack pulled his hat lower onto his face.

  “Get the hell out of here!” One of the men yelled from the barge. He was waving the Lady Maryland off.

  Jack continued to crank, switching from one frequency to the other. They were 75 feet away, close enough to hear Creed ask someone on the barge what the man on the pilothouse was doing.

  Ken and Hercules ducked below the rail, Frank kept his eyes straight ahead on the wind hitting the jib, and Jack held his breath as he tried frantically to set off the bomb. Everyone waited for the sound of the explosion.

  Nothing. They passed by the barge.

  Then they were 200, 300, then 500 feet away. Finally, Jack quit cranking. At three-fourths of a mile away, they all gathered at the wheel.

  “That would have been too easy, I suppose. How long do we have on that fuse in the limpet mine?” Jack asked.

  “Five minutes, give or take a minute either way,” Ken said.

  “Good, let’s make another pass. If you can get me close enough, we can light it, and I can slip over the opposite side. It’s starting to get dark enough, shadows are getting pretty deep.”

  Ken Barnett used the spyglass and stared off into the distance in the direction of the barge.

  Frank Sanger asked, “What about when the bomb explodes?”

  “I’ll attach it to the side of the barge and swim away as far as I can. When I hear the limpet go off, I’ll grab a big breath and swim as far as I can underwater. That’s where I hope I’ll be when the other bomb explodes.”

  Ken slowly brought the small telescope down. “Doesn’t that mine attach with magnets? Jack, that barge is made out of wood, even the rails.”

  Jack grabbed the spyglass and swung it toward the barge. It was still daylight enough for him to see Ken was right. “I didn’t even consider that it would be made of wood. That’s what was bothering me when I was looking at that dredging barge back at your place. I don’t think I could throw that mine from the water up over the rail and into that boat. Even if I could, all they would have to do is pick it up and toss it back in the water.”

  “And pick you out of the water like shooting a duck in a barrel,” Frank said.

  “There are too many men with repeater rifles to try to shoot our way in… Ken, how’s your throwing arm?”

  “Not very good, I’m afraid.”

  Hercules took a step forward, “I’ve been hunting for quail, rabbits, squirrels, my whole life with rocks. Bout only weapon a slave can get good at. I can throw me a rock.”

  Jack walked to the front of the boat and picked up the box with the five grenades. He took one out of the box and held it up for Hercules to see. “I’ll show you how to use this. Basically just pull this pin and throw it. There’s about ten seconds before it explodes. Aim for the top of the deck and all those fireworks onboard. Ken, take this gun and climb as high as you can on the mast hoops on the main mast. Keep it between you and the barge, and get a protected place where you can wedge yourself in. When we start throwing, you start taking shots at those canisters of fireworks. Being up higher should give you a better angle at them. All we need is for one to go off and the whole thing should explode. Frank, this time get us as close as possible, one hundred feet or closer, if you can.”

  Hercules was hefting the grenade in his hand.

  “This boat we’re on here is 100 feet long, can you throw it from one end to another?” Jack asked.

  “And gets it on the top of that big flat boat? Yessa, I can.”

  Jack turned the boat around and the jib sail blossomed out into the wind. He handed the wheel over to Frank Sanger. “Take a broad reach back, you’re almost running with the wind so the boat will be traveling faster than before, even with just the jib working. Aim for that light on top of the Atlantic hotel.”

  Ken Barnett climbed the wooden mast hoops like a ladder until he was about fifteen feet above the deck. He hooked a leg and an arm through and used the ropes to steady his aim toward the barge. Jack and Hercules were on the Starboard side of the Lady Maryland each with a grenade in hand and the box with the remaining three at their feet.

  “You ready, Hercules? Wait until I say ‘now’.”

  “I be ready. Just wish dat bad man Adkins be on dat boat too.”

  “We’ll find him, I promise. Are you nervous?”

  “Nossa.”

  “Can you swim?”

  “Yessa, I can swim. I trusts you. You seem to be a man who know what he be doing.”

  “I hope so, Hercules. Wait for my signal, pull the pins, throw, and then do it again. Be ready to duck down below this rail anytime you see or hear an explosion.”

  They were 300 feet, then 200 feet, then 150. Jack looked up to Ken. “Duck behind that mast once you get a few shots off.”

  “Ready,” Ken said.

  “Frank, when I give the signal, duck to the ground and hold the wheel in place if you can, but stay d
own.”

  “Got it,” Frank said.

  “Pull the pin and hold it like this,” Jack said. Hercules held the grenade, ready to throw. “Now!”

  Hercules let go with his grenade a split second before Jack let go of his. Hercules’s grenade hit the main deck of the barge with a thwack loud enough for them to hear but there was no explosion.

  A dud.

  Jack’s throw hit the top of the rail, bounced straight up and hung in the air. Winston Creed stepped up and swatted it into the water with his cane. Hitting the water the grenade exploded in a giant orange and green spume. The giant churn of water erupted with enough force to lift the edge of the barge out of the water. The spray of water that missed the barge belched up forty feet in the air.

  Three rapid-fire shots from Ken Barnett’s repeater rifle hit harmlessly on the side of the uplifted barge.

  Then the gun jammed.

  The hoisting of the barge caused the men onboard to tumble over. Then the geyser of water doused them as they started to stand and raise their weapons. That was what probably saved the lives of the crew of the Lady Maryland.

  Then the barrage of bullets hit the Lady Maryland like a vicious hailstorm. Wood splintered and chunks flew, as shot after shot hit all around them.

  Ken gave up trying to unjam the gun, dropped it, and then dropped himself to the deck where he pressed down flat. There were several holes in the sail where he had been. They slid past the barge; either Creed’s crew gave up on them or ran out of bullets. Jack crouch walked over to the wheel and relieved Frank Sanger.

  One last Hail Mary shot echoed in the distance and the sound of ripping sailcloth was heard above their heads. Jack looked behind and the barge was a half a mile back. “I think it’s okay to stand up. Is everyone all right?”

  Everyone gave a slight nod of yes. Jack looked to the sky in frustration.

  “I’m sorry, Jack, I don’t know… what else we can do?” Frank Sanger said.

  “We’ve got to go warn them,” Ken said about the gathering crowd at Town Point Park straight ahead of them. The sun had just set and the crowd of abolitionists seemed festive.

  Jack looked back again and saw a small, fast moving boat puffing black clouds of smoke and moving swiftly to the barge. Jack never knew there were small steam powered boats that moved so quickly.

  Jack swung the ship completely around and sat dead in the water about one hundred yards off shore of the Town Point Park. Ken, Frank, and Jack all started yelling for the crowd to leave. Hercules joined in and all were yelling and gesturing for the crowd to go away. The gathering of over four hundred people mistook their message and started waving and cheering at them. There were speakers on a stage and Frederick Douglass was among them, waiting to give his speech.

  That’s when Jack saw her.

  He pointed out to Ken the long dark hair and billowy white dress of Kady Barnett. She was running to the water’s edge and waving wildly. They could see she was pointing at something.

  Jack motioned to Ken and gave him directions out of the earshot of Frank and Hercules. He nodded in agreement and they walked to where the others stood by the rail. “Hercules, are you sure you can swim?”

  “Yessa.”

  “And Frank?”

  “Of course.”

  Jack pushed Hercules and Ken pushed Frank. They both fell feet first the ten feet to the water. “Sorry,” Jack yelled down to them as they started to swim toward shore, “It’s just too dangerous.”

  Frank Sanger treaded water. “What are you going to do with my boat, Jack?”

  “Probably end up owing you forty-two hundred dollars.”

  Ken Barnett leaned over the rail and shouted to them, “Go tell my daughter to get out.”

  Jack moved behind Ken and pushed him in too. “Sorry, Ken, you’ve got a family to raise. See if you can disperse the crowd in case I don’t make it.”

  Ken surfaced and looked up at Jack. “What are you going to do, Jack?” Ken treaded water and yelled back.

  “Git ‘er done,” Jack said under his breath as he filled the jib with wind. He locked the wheel in place and raised the foresail. He wanted all the speed he could muster. He tied it off and went back to the wheel. The one hundred and three feet of the Lady Maryland tacked hard into the wind, keeling over and knifing through the water.

  CHAPTER 22

  Saturday, July 4, 1857

  A mile and a half from the barge, Jack unlocked the wheel and his heart sank. The small steamship was speeding directly toward him. The boat was directly between him and the barge, and he would die before he turned away.

  The barge was now a mile away and the steamer was a little over a half a mile, closing fast on a collision course. Jack looked over his shoulder and the crowd at Town Point Park had grown instead of dispersed.

  The smallest of glows from the setting sun were visible, but a full moon had already risen and lit the night brightly. Jack hoped he was doing the right thing, staying true to his course. He knew if he failed it would be a disaster. Great, I’m having a character arc with a deadly game of water chicken. Jack looked once more for a possible glimpse of Kady, Frank, anyone—but the crowd was an unidentifiable mass of people.

  The steamer was four hundred feet away when Jack noticed a change in its direction. It looked like an ever so small turn to move away.

  But then it stopped. Instead of turning away, the small boat turned broadside to block the path of the big ship from the barge. Jack was one hundred fifty feet away and still on a collision course when he saw the big man emerge from the pilothouse of the little boat. The man was huge; the man was Miles Drake. He was standing at the rail with his arms crossed, daring Jack to come forward.

  Just before Jack lost sight of the steamer, he was close enough to see the look on Miles’s face. He looked smug and was smiling. Not the kind of ‘thanks for remembering my birthday smile’, but more of the ‘this is going to kill me as much as it’s going to kill you’ type.

  The impact of the steamer by the Lady Maryland was more spectacularly seen than felt. The big ship rolled up and over the little boat with less impact than a big wave, but the sparks that flew told a different story. The width of the Lady Maryland was twenty feet, and it collided with the twenty-four feet of length of Miles Drake’s little steamboat. The front of the ship hit and crushed Miles against the pilothouse. The pilothouse flattened and lifted the firebox up off the deck. A millisecond later, when the bow of the ship hit the firebox, it flattened and elongated it—the pressure in the boiler blew it apart. There was a giant wall of flame that the front half of the Lady Maryland passed through.

  There were flying, burning bits of boat, brass, and Miles Drake raining down onto the deck. The burning embers landed in large piles on the deck, the sails and rails. Lines were burning and the two lifeboats were ablaze. The bowsprit had blown straight up, and the lines still ahold slammed it back onto the deck. The impact knocked Jack onto his backside.

  When he got to his feet, he saw the barge pass by on the left side of the ship. The entire front of the Lady Maryland was ablaze when Jack remembered the limpet mine that had been sitting next to the dory.

  He swung the front of the boat around after having passed the barge completely and made a downwind run at it. The wind slammed like a giant fist into the jib and the foresail and rocketed the ship forward with tremendous power.

  Jack saw the first firework leave the barge, travel, arc, and explode over the crowd.

  He saw the manhole cover sized, flying-saucer looking bomb in the middle of the blaze on the very front tip of the deck. On the fire engulfed Lady Maryland there was nothing holding the bomb back, no rail, no railing, just the onrushing air of the front of the boat.

  The barge was two hundred feet away and firing off rockets one after another toward the crowd.

  Jack was on a direct course to the barge 125 feet away; he’d done all he could do. He turned and ran toward the back of the ship, jumped, used the top of the rail as a spring
board, and leapt into the darkness, just as the limpet mine in the middle of the fire exploded. The explosion of the mine on the Lady Maryland was directed outward toward the barge and downward and nearly sheared the front fourth of the ship completely off. Winston Creed gave a downward wave with his raised cane and then turned to see the onrush of sparks and debris and the hundred and three foot flame-engulfed projectile.

  Jack hit the water.

  He tumbled and rolled in the black churning water and wouldn’t have known up from down had it not been for the blinding explosions from the barge that reached ten feet deep into the water one hundred feet away.

  Jack rose to the surface, gulped at the air, and saw a giant fireball leap into the night sky. He took another gulp of air and went below the surface, just as small shards of poisoned wood barraged the surface of the water.

  He surfaced a minute later to see the front of the burning ship impaled on top of the burning barge. A man on fire—and, amazingly, still moving on the barge—was stumbling aimlessly, waving a fiery cane above his head.

  The front part of the ship snapped. The two hundred fifty pound anchor broke free and fell on top of the cane brandishing human fireball, crumpling and crushing Winston Creed into the deck.

  The combined weight of the big anchor and the burning ship folded the burning barge up on itself, and somehow still unexploded firework cylinders gave the thousand people in Town Point Park a spectacular grand finale.

  Debris rained down everywhere. Jack watched until the last of the flaming fireworks, and the ship and barge, sank below the black silky water. He moved gingerly, as not to stick himself with the stingray poison-soaked shards. A seven-foot section of mahogany top-rail floated in the water ahead. Jack swam up and grabbed ahold, pulled off his boots, and kicked for the distant light of Norfolk, completely missing the Alpaca silver lion’s head crooked handle cane with the hardened ebony shaft that floated burnt and broken nearby.

  CHAPTER 23

  Sunday, July 5, 1857

  Jack made it to the Atlantic Hotel, a block away from Town Point Park, and walked into the lobby like a ghost. Ken Barnett, Frank Sanger, and Kady Barnett sat looking solemn at a table adorned with three glasses and a bottle of whiskey.