The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection Page 12

  “That’s curious. He doesn’t sell any of it retail, just gives it to friends. Where did you have it?”

  “I can’t recall,” Jack said, covering himself. “I can’t remember where, but the taste is hard to forget. I remembered it because I liked it so much.”

  This seemed to satisfy Cooper. Kaz stepped forward and presented him with an empty glass.

  “More, please.”

  “Better take it easy. This stuff packs a pretty mean wallop.”

  “I find the taste—” Kaz searched for words—“very . . . American.”

  Jack nearly drained his glass too; the whiskey was going down smooth and easy.

  They drank, they laughed, and then they drank some more. Bob Cooper went upstairs to his room and came down with a loaf of bread, hard salami, and cheese. They washed it down with more whiskey. They were still drinking two hours later when the talk turned to inventions and Jack’s endless supply of ideas. Jack had forgotten about Cooper’s military question and his buzz had him feeling loose, so his guard wasn’t up when Bob Cooper asked, “I bet you could retire off the money you’d make designing weapons.”

  “The next few years we’ll see a virtual explosion in weaponry, pardon the pun,” Jack said, nearly slurring his words.

  “Tell more,” Kaz said, dribbling his drink down his chin.

  “Yes, tell us about it.” Murphy noticed that Cooper had been drinking considerably less than the others.

  “Muzzle loaders, breech loaders, flintlock rifles and pistols, Kentucky Rifles, Harper’s Ferry pistols and rifle—these are all just slight variations of the weapons used in the Revolutionary War more than fifty years ago. In the next five to ten years, we’ll hear names like the Spencer, the Henry, and the Gatling. Things will enter the picture like center fire cartridges, bolt-action and lever-action rifles. In the next twenty years, the Colt Peacemaker and smokeless gunpowder will be introduced. Shoot, we’re not far off from automatic machine guns and chemical bombs, tear gas and mustard gas.”

  Jack was especially fond of weapons. His father had been a collector and, with Jack’s own interest, he had amassed quite a vast understanding of weapons. Kaz’s eyes were getting glassy as he continued to drink. Cooper’s were as clear as ever.

  “The items you talk about sound deadly. I suppose they could put an end to war altogether?” Cooper said.

  “The ones I mentioned? Nah. You don’t know the half of it. Those are just toys compared to what will be developed one day. Grenades, torpedoes, land mines, bazookas, laser guided missiles—hell, one day there’ll be a bomb powerful enough to wipe out an entire city, big cities, New–York-size cities.”

  “And you know how to make these things?”

  “Some of them I do.” Jack thought a minute. “Well, I guess, most of them I do.”

  “Just seeing what you’ve designed and brought through my shop in the last few weeks I don’t doubt that you do. I don’t know how you have this knowledge, whether you’re a seer or what, but I believe you. Supposing that there will be a war, and I’m assuming that there will be, whatever side has Mr. Jack Riggs designing their weapons will surely have the winning advantage.”

  Something about Cooper’s declaration struck Murphy as odd. He realized Cooper was much too sober and eager. There was something he didn’t trust about the man—he just couldn’t figure out what it was.

  CHAPTER 23

  March 1856

  Snake in the Grass

  “Who did Riggs say he was working with?” Winston Creed demanded.

  “He mentioned the names Spencer, Henry, and Gatling,” Bob Cooper said. “But he put ‘the’ in front of the names like they were a thing instead of a person.”

  Creed looked at Abner Adkins for recognition of the names or weapons. Abner shook his head ‘no.’ “Don’t shake your head like a deaf mute. Answer me, that’s what I pay you for.”

  After a second to gather himself and to shake off Creed’s anger, Adkins said, “There’s a Christopher Spencer working for the Colt Firearms Company up in Connecticut, but as far as we know, his rifle is a long ways from being done.”

  “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place?”

  “Because I don’t know these other names. I’m not sure there’s a connection with this Spencer.”

  Creed looked more angry and turned back to Cooper. “Riggs was drunk, right?”

  “Drinking. I can’t say he was drunk.”

  “You think there’s something to this?” Creed asked, seeming more interested.

  “He seemed to be telling the truth and knew what he was talking about.” Cooper walked over to a satchel and pulled out three long tubes. From each tube, he removed several blueprints. He unrolled them on the large conference table and Creed and Abner stared open-mouthed.

  “Go fetch our engineers Copland and Tolbert and have them come here with drafting pen and paper. Now! They need to make copies of this,“ Creed said to an assistant.

  “This is the plow,” Cooper said. “This is the bicycle, the two can openers—here, look at this one.” He quickly unrolled and used small flat weights from the table to hold the drawing open. “This is a cotton picker. It removes cotton lint and seed from the plant at up to three rows at a time. They are working on one that does six rows—that would do the work of forty niggers.”

  “Shitfire, can you imagine what that would do to the price of a slave?” Abner said.

  “That could destabilize our whole economy,” Creed said. He pointed to the technical details of the drawing. “Do you understand any of this?”

  “Only because they explained it to me. How everything works is in the descriptions on the sides of the drawings. These are their patent submissions,” Cooper said.

  “Something this company knows nothing about,” Abner said, almost under his breath.

  Creed’s cane smacked the table and Abner barely moved his hand in time. “If you have a problem with that, you can quit any time.”

  Abner’s heart was pumping; he’d come mighty close to having his fingers smashed. He’d have to really edit things he said around this mean son of a bitch, he thought.

  “What else do you have?” Creed said to Cooper.

  “Smokeless gunpowder.”

  “We have hit the motherload! These three invented this?” Creed asked, greedily stroking the blueprints.

  “I don’t think so. I think Jack Riggs is the idea man and the other two are the facilitators.”

  “On all this stuff?”

  “My gut is telling me that.”

  “I’m not going to pay you to spy so that you can keep me updated on your intestinal tract,” Creed said.

  “My what?” Cooper looked confused.

  “Your ‘gut,’” Abner said. “What else did they talk about?”

  “Riggs talked about things like center-fire gun cartridges, bolt-action and lever-action rifles. He even mentioned automatic machine guns and chemical bombs, some kind of gas bombs.”

  “I knew it, I knew it. I told you so, Winston.”

  “Shut up, Abner. Is that all?”

  “He did mention a bomb powerful enough to wipe out New York.”

  “Does he have this bomb now?” Creed asked.

  “No, but it’s my impression that he knows how to make it.”

  “This is exactly what we need.”

  “Abner, I won’t tell you again to shut your mouth,“ Creed said.

  The assistant walked in with the two engineers. Creed pointed them to the table with the blueprints and he took out his pocket watch. “How long do we have to copy these?”

  “They leave on a boat for New York tomorrow morning at eleven, but I need to walk them over to the lawyers at nine,” Cooper said.

  “That means we have fifteen hours.”

  “You’ll never get a copy of all this made with just two men,” Cooper said.

  “I have three, counting you, and working all night, it doesn’t look like a problem.”

 
“But I have places I have to be tonight,” Cooper said.

  “Not if you want to get paid. You’ll remain here until eight a.m.”

  “I need to have them to the lawyers no later than nine. How can you plan to get from here in Williamsburg to Norfolk in an hour?”

  “Miles, does that seem like a problem for you and your little steamboat?”

  “Not at all, boss.”

  “Abner, Miles come with me to dinner. We have much to discuss.”

  “Wait a minute. What about me?” Cooper asked exasperated.

  “You will make sure that these plans get copied tonight and then continue to keep an eye on Mr. Riggs and associates.” Creed placed two Liberty Head twenty dollar gold coins and thirty silver Seated Libertys next to Cooper and smiled. “Two gold and thirty pieces of silver. Now you belong to me.”

  CHAPTER 24

  April 1856

  Hamburgers and French Fries

  “How do you like your new place?” Frances asked.

  Jack had moved into the house that was built for Frances. It was a wedding gift, but it was also her father's attempt to settle her, or at least to have her near the family. It was a two-bedroom home set into the trees overlooking Broad Creek on the edge of the Sanger Ranch. Frances had lived there for two years before the divorce and then had moved back into the main house. That was also when she began spending more time traveling for company business. Frank Sanger sold the house to Jack for a fraction of what it was worth.

  Jack loved it. It was seven hundred feet directly across the deep-water inlet from Murphy’s place

  “I like your sailboat.”

  “I’m having a bigger one built, but right now this is cool. It takes me five minutes to get to your dad’s and ten minutes to get to town, depending on the wind. I row a little boat across the creek to the Complex every day; it’s great for my shoulder muscles.” Jack did a strongman pose for her.

  “I know my dad likes having you near,” she said smiling.

  “I don’t know which is better—the new place or being away from Miss Nancy,” Jack laughed.

  “I like what you’ve done with it.”

  Jack looked around the small kitchen and dining area, confused. “I haven’t done a thing. This is your furniture, isn’t it?”

  She examined the pieces a little closer. . “I guess you’re right.” She seemed a little embarrassed. “At least that explains your good taste.”

  “Do you ever miss it?”

  She continued to look around the room. “No.”

  The dining table was an elaborately-detailed imported hardwood. Its top was freshly polished and it reflected the light filtering through the trees. The stove Jack was stoking was the most expensive model made by the Chief National Excelsior Company and brought by wagon from Quincy, Illinois. “Are you sure? I can tell a lot of thought went into furnishing this place.”

  “I said no!” Her voice echoed through the whole house. Her attention wandered from the décor and back to Jack. “I’m sorry. This place brings back some bad memories.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” she said with a slight shake of her head. “I’ve moved on. This is my first time back here since….”

  “The divorce?”

  She snapped her mouth shut, looking surprised. Her eyes lost a little of their sparkle. “No, even before then. I moved out the night I learned the truth about….”

  “Your husband?” Jack finally finished for her.

  “Yes.” She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I can’t believe I actually lived here, it seems so long ago. It was never really practical in the first place.”

  Jack wasn’t sure if she was talking about the marriage or the house.

  “I was never here, anyway. This place has been sitting empty for almost a year and a half.”

  Jack was surprised; he thought it had been longer for some reason.

  “Daddy hadn’t the heart to sell it or do anything with it. I guess that’s a testament to how much he likes you. Uncle Andrew thinks you’re a genius, too.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. I’m just rehashing things that have been done a million times in my time. All this stuff is really old hat.”

  Frances’s face was easy to read and showed disappointment. “Do you want me to disagree with you? Do you want me to say that you’re a genius?” she asked. “Look at the progress you’ve made in the last few months. It’s a testament to your ingenuity, your adaptability. Is this your lack of self-confidence coming to the surface?”

  “No, all I’m saying is that I’m not sure I deserve as much credit as everyone is giving me.” There were three windows and a door for cross-ventilation in the small kitchen, but Jack felt the room was stuffy, and becoming more so.

  “You’ve been here now what, two-and-a-half months?”

  “Just had my four-month anniversary.”

  “Four months? That’s practically no time at all.”

  “I’m counting the clock that tells the time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a line from Shakespeare’s Sonnets—it means that I only have a limited amount of time before the Civil War. I can’t work fast enough.”

  Jack fed long thin strips of sirloin into a sausage grinder that was attached to the counter. Every six turns he would feed in a small piece of bacon.

  “How do all these ‘inventions’ fit into your plan? Daddy said that you’d applied for six patents. And you do have a plan—right?”

  “It’s more like a rough draft. And it’s eleven, by the way. Eleven patents and we’ve already started producing two of them. I’ve got to amass money—money and influence—if I’m going to have any kind of hope. I’d love to fiddle around with Murphy and Kaz all day.”

  “All daddy and Uncle Andrew do is talk about you.”

  “I wish I could spend more time with them.”

  “They couldn’t be happier about the time you do spend, though. Just don’t waste your time running yourself down. I think of you as our one hope for avoiding this war.”

  “We’re still a long way from that point—but I appreciate your confidence.” Jack fed the meat a second time through the grinder, then rolled it together, forming a six-inch long, five-inch thick cylinder. He lifted a towel off a plate containing thickly julienned potato. He moved a cast iron pot of oil directly over the warmest part of the stove, then set another cast iron frying pan next to it.

  She ran her finger across the wood countertop. “Looks like the maids did a good job cleaning this place.”

  “Yes, they did. Be sure and thank your mom for sending them over. Your father gave me an advance. A hundred dollars goes a long ways these days. I bought all new linens and towels, food, a couple of new suits, shoes, pants and shirts, paid Kaz and Murphy their third, and still have nearly twenty bucks left. Your father really is a great guy, by the way, and so is your Uncle Andrew. No wonder they do so well in the future.”

  “You know of them in the future?”

  “Frank and Andrew Sanger. There are F.A. Sanger stores everywhere in my time.”

  “I never thought to ask. That really makes me proud. I wish there was some way to tell daddy, it’d make him happy too.”

  “I hope to make you proud tonight with this dinner I’m making for you. Think of it as sort of a Welcome Home party.” He sliced equal four patties from the rolled meat and placed them in the large skillet, then slid the cut potatoes into the pot’s hot fat.

  “What are you making?” The aroma mixed with the wood smoke and smelled delicious.

  “Hey, hey, no peeking.” She enjoyed the gentle sparring as much as he did.

  “Give me a hint.”

  “OK, we’re having hamburgers and French fries. There, are you satisfied?”

  “It sounds divine. Very European.”

  “Not at all, it’s about as American as it gets. There’s a restaurant called McDonald’s that has sold billions—that’s billions with a ‘b’—
all over the world. It’s probably the most common lunch or dinner in my time.”

  “Mom said you had the cooks bake small round pieces of bread.”

  “Those are called buns and your father was so curious about the whole thing I had to make some for your parents—two hamburgers apiece, as a matter of fact.”

  “I wish I would have been there to see that.”

  “They liked the hamburgers, but went crazy over the French fries. Don’t be surprised if the next time you talk to him he tells you about his plan to open a chain of burger restaurants.”

  “That’s daddy. You know I don’t know half these words you use—I kind of get the meaning, though.”

  “I hope you’re not disappointed that you’re not the first person in 1856 to have tried burgers and fries.”

  “Since it was my family, I’ll let you get by this time.”

  Jack had the stove roaring with a fire he had built an hour earlier. He tried to slide the handle of the frying pan around without a potholder. “Damn,” he said.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, sucking on the burnt finger. “There are some things from my time that are just hard to live without.”

  “What, for instance? What did you have there that you don’t have here? You know, something you really miss?”

  He laughed. “Do you have all night? Where do I start? OK, I miss having either a gas or electric stove. You turn a dial, the burners come on and heat up to the temperature you specify.”

  “That does sound handy. Do you think you guys could make one?”

  “We probably could, but we would have to get power to it.”

  “Do you think you could make this power?” Frances asked.

  “For sure. Gas, diesel, natural gas, coal, wind, hydro, and without too much of a stretch we could probably do solar and atomic. Murphy is generating enough from his little hydro plant to power the complex—hey wait a minute—you’re just getting me going, aren’t you.”

  “You really didn’t even need a push. See, you were being innovative and working things out,” Frances said.

  “In my old world we get our power by turning on a switch. You just pay your bill every month and don’t even think about it. Every house and apartment has it and it runs all sorts of devices. There are machines that wash your clothes, wash your dishes, and even brush your teeth for you. Some of them are really quite trivial. We have become very lazy in modern-day America. You name it and somebody’s invented it.”