by Alex Myers
“I say do it.”
“Really? I thought you might be upset.” Jack was relieved.
“In case you do slip away from me, that would be the only way I could ever get a message to you.”
In his little strongbox, Jack placed nearly $80,000 worth of pristine gold coins of the era. Even if the coins were to be of no value to collectors, the gold itself would be.
He decided not to use any kind of paper, like deeds or stock certificates, because he remembered several hurricanes had hit the area and wasn’t sure if Fort Monroe had ever suffered flood damage. And besides, all his property would be deeded over to Frances once they were married.
He prayed this would never be an issue, but he and Frances both knew it could be.
CHAPTER 32
Wednesday, July 15, 1857
Chapel of the Centurion
They took care of business and Frances accompanied Jack to the Chapel of the Centurion at Fort Monroe. They said they were thinking of getting married in the small church. Once they revealed to the kindly old Chaplain who they were, they were left alone to pray for over an hour in it. Jack saw that the altar steps, even though they were not even forty years old, were cracked and splintered. Jack offered to have new altar steps custom made at a cabinetmaker in Norfolk as a donation for the use of the church. He used one company to make the steps, another to install a hidden, swing-away panel, and yet another company to deliver it. Only the last company knew the final destination for the woodwork, and to them it was only stairs. To celebrate after placing the strongbox in position, Jack suggested a few days on the beach.
They walked together for miles in the sand just north of Fort Monroe in Hampton, dashing out of the way of the thunderous waves crashing at their feet. They watched as the perfect day slipped away into the blues and violets of a perfect evening and the remaining sunlight danced on the incoming crests. They ducked as gulls swooped and squawked just inches above their heads and the crisp saline air filled their lungs.
They didn’t speak for the longest time. Jack finally turned to her and asked, “Do you know why we are here?”
“Sure I do, so that we could hide the box at the Fort,” Frances said, looking into his eyes and smiling a mischievous smile.
“No, I mean here on the beach.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“Because I wanted to thank you for adding meaning to my life, true meaning for the first time ever. The sweet measure of your heart seems to give my life purpose.”
Jack took her into his arms, gently guided her to the sand, and they made love. They made love with both eyes open, staring into depths, that until that time, neither had fathomed.
Lying in the sand together, watching the moon dance over the waves, Jack held her tight in his arms and squeezed just as hard as he possibly dared.
“Frances, there comes a time in the course of living a life that one feels transcended beyond the biology of flesh and bone, a time when the wind whispers and the angels sing. A time when all things feel possible and inevitable. I feel like I could sing a song, climb a mountain, do just about anything. I have missed you more than I thought I would, and I was prepared to miss you a lot.”
“I missed you too, Jack. Let’s never be apart again. No more separate travel—from now on, we travel together.”
“This morning on my walk around the City, waiting for you to wake up, your name commingled with the voices I heard and thoughts of you floated on the wind. I’ve spent today in a daze and tonight in a dream. I will never forget you or love you any less than I do right at this moment. I promise,” Jack said.
But can promises stand the test of time?
CHAPTER 33
Saturday, August 15, 1857
They were married three weeks later at the little chapel. The air was filled with an electric, contagious excitement. The entire Sanger and Goodyear families, Samuel, Kazmer, Hercules, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Conrad Poppenhusen, Allan Pinkerton and his wife Joan, Ken Barnett and his family—including Kady—were all at the wedding ceremony. Even more people showed up for the reception. Jack rented the town hall in Norfolk, and everyone from the Norfolk Complex and every Sanger employee were invited. And nearly all showed up. Jack was surprised to see Cyrus McCormick and his new bride, along with Joseph Henry and his wife, Harriet, show up in time for the party.
It was a grand day and even finer night.
Jack and Frances, her parents, Samuel, and Kazmer sat at the main table in the front of the hall. The table sat sideways so the gathered group of nearly 150 people could watch the couple eat and occasionally kiss. The waiters brought out chilled bottles of champagne and glasses for everyone. The band’s music intermingled with the festive sounds of clinking glass and the giggles and squeals of happy children. Robbie and Kazmer had already been on the dance floor.
Samuel L. Clemens stood, wearing a white suit that Jack had asked him to wear, saying that one day, along with his bushy white hair and mustache, it would become his trademark. Sam raised his champagne glass above his head and clinked the side of it with his spoon. “Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” he said over the hum of the crowd. The band stopped and everyone turned in their seats to listen to the wild-eyed, wild-haired young man. His mustache was freshly waxed and the ends were tightly curled. He twirled one of these ends as he waited for the crowd to take their seats and raise their glasses.
“We are gathered here tonight to celebrate the nuptials of my dear friends Jack and Frances. Jack,” he tipped his glass in Jack’s direction, “you are a very lucky man. I want a good wife too, I mean, who doesn’t? Now that I think about it—I want a couple of them if they are particularly good—but where is the wherewithal?
“If I were settled, I would quit all nonsense and swindle some girl into marrying me, too. But I wouldn’t expect to be worthy of her. I wouldn’t have a girl that I was worthy of. She wouldn’t do. She wouldn’t be respectable enough.”
The crowd laughed and Samuel continued, “This kind of love you two have is not a product of reasonings and statistics. It just came—no one knows whence—and it, of course, cannot explain itself. Love seems the swiftest but is the slowest of all growths. I believe that no man and woman can know what perfect love is until they have been married at least a quarter of a century.
“People talk about beautiful friendships between two persons of the same sex. There is no place for comparison between the two friendships; the one is earthly, the other divine. Good luck on your life journey, my two good friends!” He raised his glass toward Jack and Frances and said, “Cheers.”
Jack looked into Frances’s eyes and could never remember being this happy in his life. As big and tough as he thought he was, he found that his ability to speak had escaped him. He knew his eyes were glassy and tears of joy were just waiting to flow down his cheeks. He did struggle to talk, and discovered that his throat had closed up. Frances placed her hand on his face and said, “I know, sweetheart, I know.”
With one unified voice, the entire crowd followed suit and said, “Cheers!” Jack and Frances kissed, and there were claps and cheers of encouragement from their friends and relatives.
Frank Sanger stood and raised his glass in front of him. Even though Andrew Sanger might have had a slightly better head for business and was definitely more aggressive, it was Frank that the employees of the F.A. Sanger Company thought of as the kind and calm patriarch of the organization. “From me and your mother, Frances, good luck and a happy life together—salute!” He tipped his glass toward Jack and Frances and took a sip.
Frances saw a big tear rolling down her stoic father’s face, and then Frances started crying herself. Seeing this was all Jack needed to send him over the edge.
Shy and quiet Kazmer was the only member of the wedding table that hadn’t offered up a toast, and no one expected him to. So everyone was especially surprised to see him slowly rise to his feet. It seemed to take forever for the long, lanky man to straighten to his full
six feet, four inches and bring his glass stiffly in front of him. Jack watched particularly closely and wondered what his friend was going to say. Everyone, including Jack, was shocked at what came out of his mouth.
In a voice rich and full, one that could be heard by everyone in the hall, and quite possibly everyone for several blocks, he sang:
“Zivio!
Zivio!
Zivio!
Mnoga lieta, Mnoga lieta, Mnoga lieta!”
Jack just stared at his Polish friend, as did most of the crowd. Alexi Podemere, a Russian scientist from the Norfolk Complex stood, as well as Rendor Boldizsar, an assistant manager from the New York Sanger store. They both joined Kazmer as he belted out the words again.
“Zivio!
Zivio!
Zivio!
Mnoga lieta, Mnoga lieta, Mnoga lieta!”
Several others in the crowd also stood and joined in with the ever-growing chorus.
Frances was smiling east to west when she asked Jack, “What language are they speaking?”
“I’m not sure, this must be some Slavic thing.”
Soon the entire hall was on their feet, including Samuel and Ralph Waldo Emerson. The song ended with a robust “ZIVIO!” and everyone toasted and clapped.
Kazmer said in his normal quiet voice, barely heard above the din of the crowd, “My good friends Jack and Frances, this is a Russian song we sing at home. It means, live long and many years of happiness.”
Jack stood and raised his glass to the gathering. “Thank you, and thank all of you, for being part of the greatest day of my life. For the first time, I feel complete—fulfilled—and I thank each one of you for making this possible.”
In a whisper only Jack could hear, Frances said, “I’m pregnant.”
CHAPTER 34
Saturday, August 15, 1857
Hercules Gordon Hopwood and a middle-aged black woman eased into the hall. Jack waved and hurried toward them, leaving Frances talking with her mother. Frank Sanger saw Hercules and he joined Jack.
“Mr. Jack and Mr. Frank, I would like you twos to meet my wife, Molly.”
Without waiting for her to extend a hand, Frank Sanger reached across and grabbed hers to shake it. Jack did the same. She was a tall, dignified, sturdy woman, wearing an expensive looking dress.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ma’am,” Frank said.
“I’m glad you both could make it, I was starting to worry,” Jack said.
“Molly just gots in on the train from New Orleans. Mr. Frank, we just don’t know hows to thank you.”
“It was nothing. I’m glad I could help.”
Hercules scrunched his face and said, “I begs to differ wits you there, sir. Without your help, I know I’d never be findin’ my wife.”
“Nonsense! I just put our man Pinkerton on the job, and using his connections—why, it was my pleasure.”
“Why don’t you two come and have a seat, get some food,” Jack said.
“Not to be unkind, but we just stopped on in to say thank you and congratulations. Molly brought a big surprise for me.”
“A surprise?”
“I brought our three children along with me from New Orleans,” Molly said in an elegant British accent. “I would like to thank you two gentlemen again for all your help reuniting my family.”
“The young uns, ah, actually they be teenagers now, are out in the wagon waitin’ on us.”
“Invite them in and join the party.”
“If it be all the same to you Mr. Jack, I gots me some serious catchin’ up to do. We is plannin’ a little celebration of our own tonight.”
“I understand,” Jack said. “Frank, I want to stick my head out and say hello real quick…”
“I’ll tell your new wife and the rest of your guests your whereabouts, but I can’t hold them off forever,” he joked.
“My wife’s been on the same plantation all these years,” Hercules said, holding the door.
“I’ve been a personal servant to Mrs. H.G. Hopwood, we came from South London together about forty years ago,” Molly said.
“And she marries my massa and that’s how we got together. That’s where we gots our last name.”
Three fine looking children sat in an open wagon parked in the street. The girl looked about eleven, and the two boys about fourteen or fifteen.
“This be little Mary, that be Josh and Brent.”
“Welcome to Virginia,” Jack said.
“It’s our pleasure to meet you, sir,” they all said in an accent like their mother’s.
Jack turned to Hercules. “I want to give you the house next to mine. I know it was a house you were going to share with other men, but that’s back before you were a married man with family. It’s all set up and waiting for you; all the paperwork has been signed.”
“Ah, Mr. Jack, I don’t know how—“
“What Hercules is trying to say Mr. Riggs, is thank you,” Molly said.
“Virginia is a slave state, it’s not the safest place to live. If you would rather I can talk to Frank about getting you set up in New York.”
“Thanks to your largess Mr. Riggs, we are now free, and there can be no better place to help others of our race than here.”
“Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yessa, it be what we all want. If’n we can make one family as happy as you made ours… any troubles—well, they be worth it.”
“Then you’ve decided?”
“Yes, we have decided as a family,” Molly said with a smile, and hugged her husband.
“Let me know how else I can help with your cause,” Jack said.
“We appreciate that and we certainly will,” Molly said.
“We be needin’ all the help you can throw our way,” Hercules said.
“Then I’ll see you all when I get back from my honeymoon?”
“We would not miss it for the world, Mr. Riggs.”
Jack watched the family drive off down the road, waving as they rode.
Two gunshots then cracked the still of the night. The noise of the band stopped abruptly.
He turned to hear more gunfire from inside the hall.
CHAPTER 35
Saturday, August 15, 1857
Jack reached the door of the hall and heard shouting voices and screams. He cracked the door and slid silently inside. Everyone was standing and facing the wedding table set-up in the middle rear of the hall. Two half semicircles of men stood facing each other, guns drawn. He couldn’t make out the faces of the men on the far side but recognized the backs of Kazmer, Samuel, Andrew and Frank Sanger, and several men from the Complex. Jack could see several guns.
Allan Pinkerton pressed a gun into Jack’s hand. “You’ll probably need this.”
Jack didn’t slow down to thank him as he continued his movement through the crowd.
“Where is he?” The voice of Abner Adkins was blasting and hateful. “Tell me where he is or I’ll shoot his new wife.” To accent his words he fired a shot into the ceiling. He and six of his men were backing toward the rear entrance.
As Jack moved closer, he could see Abner with an arm around Frances’s neck, holding her from behind. He held a pistol to her temple with his other hand.
“Here I am! Let her go!”
Everyone turned in Jack’s direction except Scott O’Leary, Jack’s head of security at the complex. O’Leary rapidly fired three shots. The first two shots dropped the two men on Abner’s left, the third tore into Abner’s right shoulder. An explosion of crimson blood, shattered bone and shredded clothing covered the two men to Abner’s right. Abner reflexively dropped his grip around Frances and grasped his bleeding shoulder. Frances, dazed and covered with blood herself, spun from his grip and fell to the floor in the middle of the circle. Abner’s remaining men turned and ran for the back door. Frances, on the floor and her white dress covered with gore, struggled to get to her feet.
“I hate you, Riggs, you ruined everything!” Abner said through g
ritted teeth. “This didn’t have to end this way, you could have done your duty for the South.”
Jack ran next to Scott O’Leary, and he and Scott each held pistols in their hands.
Abner, swaying as he stood, took aim at Frances.
Jack yelled, “Adkins, I’m here. I’m the one you want.”
“Keep talking to him,” Scott said quietly. “I’m going to move around for a clear shot.”
Frances got to her feet and stood directly between Jack and Adkins, blocking any kind of shot.
Abner aimed at Frances then reached around her and aimed at Jack. “I just don’t know which one of you to kill first. Screw you, Riggs, we gave you a chance. You turned your back on your own people. You nigger lovin’ son of a bitch! But then you took my wife, my Frances.”
“You bastard!” A woman’s voice echoed from the back entrance. Everyone in the hall turned to see the hideously disfigured Mattie Turner advancing on the crowd with a gun.
“I gave up everything I had for you—my farm, my son, my face. All I wanted was you, and all you could do was obsess about them. Him, because you were jealous, and her, because you never got over her. ” Her clothes were dirty, her hair was matted and one half of her face was a giant scar.
Abner, still shaky on his feet, never once looked in her direction, but took over-exaggerated aim at Frances and thumbed back the pistol’s hammer.
“At least have the guts to look at me when I kill you,” Mattie said.