Flashback Four #4

by Dan Gutman

  All eyes turned to Aaron Burr now. He was the only one with a bullet in his gun. Burr looked furious, glaring at Isabel. The rules of the duel, which had been so carefully worked out in advance, had been changed without his consent. He had never agreed to having these four witnesses involved.

  “Is this another one of your little games, General Hamilton?” he barked. “Did you put the young lady up to this? Well, I’m not falling for your distractions. She’s not going to testify against me, or anybody.”

  Burr turned and pointed his gun at Isabel’s head.

  “No! Don’t!” shouted Julia.

  “Eeeeek!” screamed Isabel, instinctively putting her hands in front of her face.

  “Grab the gun!” David yelled. He and Luke charged at Burr.

  But it was too late. Burr pulled the trigger. A shower of sparks sprayed out of the muzzle.

  “Oh, shoot!” Luke screamed.

  The bullet flew out of Burr’s gun. It would have hit Isabel right between the eyes, but she was shielding her face with her hands. And the TTT was in one hand.

  The bullet ricocheted off the TTT.

  Isabel was knocked backward from the impact. The TTT went flying out of her hand. She stumbled and fell.

  “Isabel!” shouted Julia.

  Julia, Luke, and David ran over to Isabel, on her back in the dirt.

  “Are you okay?” David said, cradling her head.

  Julia examined Isabel’s clothes and skin looking for blood or a bullet hole.

  “Where did it hit you?” she asked Isabel. “Where does it hurt?”

  “I’m okay, I think,” Isabel said, opening her eyes. “It must have bounced off the TTT.”

  There was an audible groan coming from the other side of the dueling ground. The Flashback Four turned around as one.

  Alexander Hamilton was on the ground.

  CHAPTER 19

  I AM A DEAD MAN

  THE BULLET HAD RICOCHETED OFF THE TTT, which was in Isabel’s hand, and struck Hamilton in the abdominal area, just above his right hip. He let out a cry, and the pistol dropped from his hand. Hamilton rose up on his toes for a moment, jerking violently to the left. Then he toppled over. A bloodstain appeared instantly on his shirt.

  Then it was pandemonium.

  “No!” screamed Pendleton as he rushed to Hamilton’s side. “Dr. Hosack! Dr. Hosack! Come quickly!”

  The instant Hamilton hit the ground, Aaron Burr took a step toward him, as if to see if he was okay. His second, William Van Ness, stopped him.

  “Don’t,” he said simply. Van Ness didn’t want Burr to be at the “scene of the crime” any longer than necessary. He opened an umbrella he had brought specifically for this purpose and held it in front of Burr’s face as he pulled the vice president away.

  “But I must speak to him,” protested Burr.

  “That would be ill-advised, Colonel,” Van Ness said, almost dragging Burr toward the dirt footpath they had taken to get up to the dueling ground. Burr stumbled, spraining his ankle so he had to throw an arm around Van Ness’s shoulder as they hustled away. The two men disappeared into the bushes, heading for the boat that would take them back to Manhattan.

  Aside from the shock of having somebody point a gun at her and fire it, Isabel seemed to be okay. No injuries. David, Luke, and Julia left her for the moment and rushed over to where Hamilton had fallen to see if they could do anything.

  On the ground behind them, the TTT, bulletproof and still operational, buzzed.

  IS THE DUEL OVER? DID YOU GET THE VIDEO? the message read. But nobody looked at it. There were more important things to worry about.

  Hamilton groaned in pain. The bloodstain on his shirt was getting larger. He could barely speak.

  “I am a dead man,” he mumbled.

  “No, you will live, General!” Pendleton said optimistically, leaning over his fallen friend. “We need you!”

  Pendleton dragged Hamilton over to a small, reddish-brown boulder and propped him up against it so he was sitting in the grass. The color had drained from Hamilton’s face. His blood was staining his pants now. He closed his eyes. It looked like he was dead.

  “Breathe,” Julia told Hamilton, not really knowing what else to say. The rest of the Flashback Four gathered around, looking on helplessly.

  Dr. Hosack came charging up the path, holding his doctor’s bag. He must have passed Burr and Van Ness as they were leaving the scene.

  “Has the general been hit?” he hollered.

  As soon as the doctor saw Hamilton, he had the answer to his question.

  “Who are these children?” the doctor shouted. “Give him air!”

  The Flashback Four backed away as Dr. Hosack took a knife from his bag and sliced open Hamilton’s shirt. There was blood all over his stomach. The doctor didn’t seem to mind. He examined Hamilton carefully, probing him with his fingers.

  By the way, reader, if this had happened in the twenty-first century, things would have obviously been completely different. Somebody would have immediately called 911 on a cell phone, which didn’t exist in 1804. In minutes, an ambulance or a helicopter—which also didn’t exist back then—would have arrived. Hamilton would have been rushed to a hospital, which did exist but didn’t have X-ray equipment, modern medicines, or the last two hundred years’ worth of medical knowledge. In all probability, Hamilton’s life would have been saved.

  On the other hand, if this had happened in the twenty-first century, Hamilton and Burr wouldn’t have been there in the first place. They would have settled their differences in a courtroom instead of on a dueling ground.

  “He has fractured a rib on the right side,” Dr. Hosack said. “The bullet may have hit his liver or lodged in his spine. It did not hit his heart.”

  “Will he live?” asked Pendleton.

  “I don’t know,” the doctor replied. “There is no pulse, no breathing.”

  He took a little glass bottle out of his bag. The label said “Spirits of Hartshorn,” a liquid made mostly of ammonia. The doctor quickly rubbed it on Hamilton’s face, lips, temples, neck, and hands. He tried to pour some of it into Hamilton’s closed mouth. Then he waved some smelling salts under his nose.

  Miraculously, Hamilton opened his eyes and saw Hosack leaning over him.

  “This is . . . a mortal wound, doctor,” Hamilton said, closing his eyes again. He seemed semiconscious.

  “Just rest,” the doctor told him. “Don’t try to speak, General.”

  “I went to the field . . . determined . . . not to take his life,” Hamilton said, gasping for breath with each word.

  At that moment, William Van Ness came running back up the footpath.

  “Will the general live?” asked Van Ness.

  “It remains to be seen,” said Dr. Hosack.

  “I have no ill will . . . ,” Hamilton grunted, “against Colonel Burr. I met him . . . with a fixed resolution . . . to do him no harm. I forgive . . . all that happened.”

  “I will convey that message to him, General,” said Van Ness, and he hurried away again.

  While the doctor was trying his best to clean out the wound, Hamilton opened his eyes again.

  “I feel no feeling . . . in my legs,” he mumbled. “When I am gone, please break the news gently to my dear wife, Eliza.”

  “You’re not going anywhere, General,” Dr. Hosack said. “There are more battles to be won.”

  That seemed to remind Hamilton of something. He looked around and saw his pistol lying on the ground about ten feet away.

  “Be careful with that,” he said. “It could discharge and injure someone.” Hamilton was so out of it, he didn’t realize he had already fired his gun.

  “Let’s get him to the boat,” Dr. Hosack told Nathaniel Pendleton. The doctor grabbed Hamilton’s upper body, and Pendleton took his legs. Together they lifted him up carried him toward the footpath.

  “What can we do to help?” asked Isabel.

  “Haven’t you done enough already?” Pendl
eton barked without turning around.

  He and Dr. Hosack rushed to carry Hamilton down the footpath and to the boat that would take them back to Manhattan. When they were gone, all was quiet on the dueling ground.

  CHAPTER 20

  DECISIONS, DECISIONS

  ALEXANDER HAMILTON, AARON BURR, AND THEIR respective seconds had left Weehawken and were headed back across the river on separate boats. The sun was up now. None of the Flashback Four said anything for a long time. There was an eerie quiet on the dueling ground.

  Finally, it was Luke who could no longer restrain himself. He ripped off the Hot Head and jammed it into his pocket.

  “Are you insane?” he shouted at Isabel. “I can’t believe you did that! What were you thinking?”

  “Hey, easy, man,” David said. “Give her a break.”

  “I couldn’t help it!” Isabel said, almost in tears. “Something came over me. I couldn’t bear the thought of Aaron Burr shooting a defenseless man. I’m sorry I did it.”

  “You almost got yourself killed!” Luke hollered.

  “Forget about killed,” said Julia. “We were specifically told not to interfere. And that’s exactly what she did.”

  “Listen to you,” David shouted at Julia. “You’re the one who almost messed everything up when we were in Gettysburg and on the Titanic. You’ve got no right to criticize anybody.”

  “I didn’t mess anything up on those missions,” Julia protested. “Everything worked out fine. I didn’t change history.”

  “Neither did Isabel,” David said. “Hamilton was going to get shot no matter what any of us did.”

  “I said I was sorry,” Isabel whimpered.

  When something goes horribly wrong, there’s a natural tendency to blame somebody. It’s human nature. Emotions were running high. The Flashback Four needed to blow off some steam.

  “I knew from the start that this mission was a dumb idea,” Julia said. “We should have quit while we were ahead, after we got out of Pompeii.”

  “If I recall,” David told her, “you were complaining that your life back home was boring after we got back from the Pompeii. Remember? Well, are you bored now?”

  “Whose bright idea was this, anyway?” Luke asked.

  “Not me,” Isabel replied. “I didn’t want to come here. I was perfectly happy being bored back home. I just went along with you guys.”

  “It was the Gunner’s idea,” said David. “None of us wanted to do this. She just about kidnapped us and tricked us into it.”

  “All we had to do was shoot the video and get out of here,” Julia said. “That was the plan. You messed it up, Isabel. And you’re the one who wanted that free ride to college so badly.”

  “Look, finger pointing isn’t going to get us anywhere,” David told the others. “We all agreed to do this. Any one of us could have messed it up. And any one of us could have talked the others out of it. Sometimes stuff just happens. So forget about it. The past doesn’t matter anymore. Let’s think about the future.”

  “You’re right, dude,” Luke said, calming down. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Isabel.”

  “Me too,” said Julia.

  “It’s okay,” Isabel said, wiping her eyes.

  The Flashback Four had a short group hug. Everybody tried to cool off and figure out what to do next. That’s when they heard a quiet buzzing sound behind them.

  “Oh no,” they all said, turning around to look at the TTT lying in the grass.

  “One more inch over and I’d be dead right now,” Isabel said, going over to pick it up. “This little thing saved my life.”

  There was a small scrape on the TTT where Burr’s bullet had bounced off, but otherwise it seemed as good as new.

  “That Jones guy was right,” Luke said. “That thing is indestructible.”

  Isabel flipped open the case. There were multiple texts on the screen, each one a few minutes apart . . .

  IS IT OVER? DID YOU GET THE VIDEO?

  DID YOU SHOOT THE VIDEO?

  ANSWER PLEASE

  DID YOU GET THE VIDEO? WHO SHOT FIRST? WHAT HAPPENED?

  ARE YOU OK? ANSWER PLEASE!

  “What should I say?” Isabel asked.

  “Don’t say anything,” David advised. “Don’t tell her a thing. Let’s make sure she brings us back safely before we tell her what happened.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Luke. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Slowly, the Flashback Four made their way down the dirt footpath they had climbed to get up to the dueling ground. After a few anxious moments, they found their little rowboat where they had hidden it in the bushes. They climbed aboard, with the boys handling the oars, Julia in the front, and Isabel in the back. As soon as they pushed off into the water, the TTT buzzed again.

  “Just ignore it,” Julia said. “We need to think.”

  “I have to say something,” Isabel replied. “If I don’t, she might think we’re dead.”

  Isabel typed this . . .

  IT’S OVER. WE ARE ROWING BACK ACROSS THE RIVER NOW. WILL LET YOU KNOW WHEN WE GET TO NY.

  Almost instantly, a reply came back . . .

  DID YOU GET THE VIDEO?

  To that, Isabel didn’t reply. She closed the case of the TTT. The boys settled into the rhythm of the oars pulling through the water. All four of them were thinking about what had just happened in Weehawken.

  “I killed Alexander Hamilton,” Isabel finally said. “It was all my fault.”

  “Stop it,” David told her. “He was going to die anyway. You know that. Burr would have shot him if we hadn’t been there. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  Luke stopped rowing for a moment.

  “Hey, I just thought of something,” he said. “What if Hamilton doesn’t die?”

  “What do you mean?” asked Julia. “Everybody knows he died. It’s in the historical record.”

  “He died when Burr shot him originally,” Luke told her. “But this time Hamilton didn’t take a direct hit. The bullet ricocheted off the TTT. Maybe it didn’t do as much damage when it hit him. Maybe he’ll survive.”

  “Do you really think that could happen?” Isabel said hopefully. “That would be great!”

  “No, it wouldn’t,” David countered. “If Hamilton lives, we will have changed history. Then we’ll be in real trouble when we get home. We were specifically instructed not to change history.”

  “Still, I hope he lives,” Isabel said. “I can’t hope that he’s going to die. That would be wrong.”

  “Well, for our sake, it would be better if he died,” Luke said. “I’m just saying.”

  “Whatever happens to him,” Isabel said ruefully, “I played a part in it. I’ll have to live with that.”

  Meanwhile, Alexander Hamilton was in extreme pain, lying across the bottom of a boat that was being rowed furiously back to Manhattan. It had seemed like he was dead at first, but he revived when Dr. Hosack treated him with a reddish-brown painkiller called laudanum. It was made of opium, morphine, and codeine. In those days, laudanum was used as a home remedy for just about any ailment.

  When the boat docked in Manhattan, Hamilton was carried to the mansion of his friend William Bayard and taken to a bedroom on the second floor. Rumors and gossip swirled immediately as the news spread about the duel. Somebody went to get Hamilton’s wife, Eliza, from her home in Harlem, but it would take hours for her to get downtown. She would only be told that her husband had suffered “spasms.”

  Aaron Burr’s boat docked in Manhattan before Hamilton’s did. It has been said that when he arrived home, he laughed and threw a party to celebrate his victory in the duel. That may or may not have been true. Later, Burr would say that if his vision hadn’t been impaired by the morning mist, he would have shot Hamilton in the heart. He didn’t do himself any favors when it came to public opinion.

  By the time the Flashback Four reached the middle of the Hudson River, the kids realized that some decisions had to be made. There was no way for them
to look at the video Luke had shot with the Hot Head. It was stored on a chip. But they knew what had happened. What Luke had seen with his eyes was what he had filmed. Ms. Gunner and the folks at NOYB would not be happy to see that Isabel had interfered with the duel.

  Luke stopped rowing and took the Hot Head out of his pocket. David stopped rowing also.

  “We can’t let them see the video,” Luke stated plainly. “They’ll go crazy if they know what happened back there.”

  “Agreed,” said the others.

  “We can’t show it to anybody,” added David.

  “What we saw is our secret,” said Julia. “Forever. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” said the others.

  “I vow to you guys right now that I will never tell what happened,” David said. “They can torture me. They can do anything to me. I’ll never tell.”

  “Agreed.”

  “We could hide the Hot Head,” Isabel suggested.

  “I don’t even think we should bring it back with us,” Luke said. “If we do, somebody will eventually get their hands on it.”

  “Then what should we do with it?” asked Isabel.

  “We’re going to have to destroy it,” said David.

  “How?” asked Julie. “The Hot Head is probably made out of the same stuff as the TTT. There’s no way to destroy it.”

  “They probably spent a million dollars on the technology,” said Isabel.

  “Maybe more.”

  “I know how to destroy it,” Luke said. “It’s simple.”

  With that, he flipped the Hot Head over the side of the boat and into the river. The Flashback Four watched as it disappeared into the water.

  CHAPTER 21

  TRUTH AND LIES

  BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO THE OTHER SIDE OF the river, David’s and Luke’s shoulders were aching. The current had picked up a bit, which made the rowing even harder.

  “We’re gonna have to do some serious lying when we see the Gunner,” David told the others as the rowboat neared the dock. “You realize that, don’t you?”

  “I don’t like to lie,” Isabel replied.

  “If we lie, she’s going to be mad,” Luke said. “But if we tell the truth, she’s going to be furious.”