Chronica (25 page)

Sierra gave no response.

They were soon at the dock in Weehawken. Woodruff went to return the four-in-hand.

This time, the three-man crew was visible and on the shore. "We'll be leaving right away," Flannery told the captain, who nodded and boarded the ship with his men.
 

Sierra and Max considered bolting, but preferred to stay with the
Chronica
.
 

Woodruff returned, all four boarded the ferry, and it soon pulled back out into the river for the return to New York.

***

The water was even choppier than on the way out. Flannery took it in serenely. Woodruff looked less comfortable.

About halfway or a little more back to New York, one of the crew came down to the deck and said something to Woodruff. It sounded to Sierra like "people on shore". She noticed the man had a pair of brass binoculars in his hand.

Woodruff turned to Sierra and Max and produced a gun. "I've enjoyed your company," he said, "but all good things must end."

"What are you doing?" Flannery demanded.

The man with binoculars now also had a gun, in his other hand, pointed at Flannery.

"This is what our employer wants," Woodruff said, coolly. "Stay out of it."

Sierra and Max had not come unarmed. They weren't much good with guns of this era, but knives were knives, and both had become adept at their use in the ancient world.

They looked at each other for a split second and attacked the mate or whatever the hell he was with the gun. He got off a shot but hit no one. Sierra's knife got to his neck first, and she slit his throat.

At the same time, Flannery pulled his gun and charged Woodruff. "It's not what
I
want," he shouted. Loud gunshots echoed over the dark Hudson. Flannery was on top of Woodruff, struggling to get the gun out of his hand, but all he dislodged from Woodruff was the
Chronica
, which flew over the rail of the ferry into the black water and promptly sank. More shots were fired.

Sierra and Max, done with the crew member, turned to Woodruff and Flannery. Woodruff, no longer armed, holding what looked like a wound above his wrist, was scrutizing the water below. Flannery, also no longer armed, was on the deck, bleeding, clearly shot in several places.

Sierra and Max rushed Woodruff, knives in hand. Woodruff looked at them for a heartbeat then turned and jumped into the water. Sierra and Max reached the railing a moment too late to stop him.

They turned to Flannery, still on the floor, blood gurgling in his mouth. Sierra held his head up. He managed to give them his address in 1999 and his wife's name. "Tell Mary I'm so sorry. I've always loved her. Help her." And he died in Sierra's arms.

Chapter 16

[New York City, May, 1899 AD]

Sierra kissed Flannery on the forehead and held him for what felt like a long time but was just a few seconds. "He saved our lives," she said.

"What about the rest of the crew?" Max asked, knife still in hand. The ferry was still heading towards New York.

One of the crew indeed soon ran down from the helm to the deck, with no weapon in hand. "My God, what happened here?" he asked, looking at Flannery's body, then backing off when he saw the knife.

Sierra rose, not sure what to say, but put her knife away. She started to answer, but Max touched her arm, and pointed. Another ferry was approaching from the New York side.

Max and Sierra were pretty sure who was on that ferry, but could not be positive. Sierra gestured to it. "They'll know what to do," she said loudly to the mate, who had now seen the other crew member's body. He was standing as far away from Sierra and Max on the deck as he could.

Max picked up a gun that was on the deck and pointed it at the horrified mate. The plan was that this guy had no idea that Max barely knew how this gun worked. "Please, just stay here," Max said. "This will all be over soon. There's been enough bloodshed."

The plan worked. The mate was frozen.

The second ferry approached and was now within shouting distance. Sierra exhaled in relief. Jack Astor was standing on the deck with armed men. He saw her and waved. Astor was supposed to have waited with his men for Sierra and Max at the New York dock, to wring the
Chronica
from whomever Heron had sent to get it from Edison. But Astor had no doubt seen what had happened on the river with own binoculars and hired a ferry on the spot to get out here.

***

Astor and four Pinkerton detectives in his employ soon boarded Sierra's ferry. Two Pinkertons went up to the helm, weapons drawn. The other two put the mate Max had been talking to in handcuffs.

Astor looked at Flannery's body. He could tell by Sierra's expression that she wasn't happy about Flannery's death. "I wouldn't say that I liked him," Astor said, "but he probably deserved better than this."

"He probably saved our lives," Max repeated what Sierra had said. "Woodruff was set to kill us."

Astor arched an eyebrow. "I didn't much care for him, either. Where is he?"

Sierra pointed to the water. "He jumped into the Hudson a few minutes before you got here." There was no sign of him now.

"And the
Chronica
?" Astor asked.

"That went into the river, too," Max replied.

"You think Woodruff went into the water to fetch it?" Astor asked.

Sierra shook her head no. "Probably not. I don't know. Why would he do that? The
Chronica
destroyed, whether by flames or by water, is just what Heron wanted."

"Yes, Heron seems to have gotten what he wanted tonight," Astor agreed. "Nothing will be changed in the world – at least as far as this copy of the
Chronica
is concerned. Only Edison and Ford will be disappointed. Tesla will be happy – he's your best bet now to construct a Chair. Maybe he was always your best bet in that regard."

"He'd be a better bet if he had the
Chronica
in hand," Sierra said.

One of the Pinkertons returned from the helm. "It's ok," Astor told him, "you can talk in front of them," and looked at Max and Sierra.

"The captain and the other mate upstairs say they know nothing about what happened here," the Pinkerton said. "They were hired to take people across the Hudson and back, period."

"Do you believe him?" Astor asked.

"Yes, I do," the Pinkerton replied.

"Ok," Astor said. "Then please take the handcuffs off that man." He pointed to the crew member whose hands were cuffed behind his back.

Sierra was looking again at Flannery's body. "Back in 1999, he'll just be another mysterious disappearance, a police lieutenant who vanished without a clue. It'll be chalked up as another mob-related death, due to gambling, drugs, whatever."

Astor nodded, sympathetically, not knowing exactly what 'mob-related' meant, but getting the gist.

"I'm almost tempted to put his body in a Chair, and get it back to his wife – that way, at least she'd have some closure. Is that crazy?" Sierra asked.

"It's not crazy but it won't bring closure," Max said, softly. "The 1999 coroners will examine the body – what will they do with gun wounds made by an 1899 weapon? It'll just create more unanswered questions."

"I can see that he gets a proper burial now, in Woodlawn Cemetery," Astor said. "I know that place has meaning for you."

Sierra nodded sadly, as the ferry reached the New York dock.

***

Woodruff made it to a different part of the New York shore, about half a mile south, about an hour later. He was exhausted and wounded, but his badge had survived the plunge. He flagged down a carriage, showed the driver his badge, and told him to go to Bellevue, just across town.

He asked the driver to write his address on a piece of paper and give it to him. "You may have saved my life. I'll see to it that you're well paid."

"No need," the driver said, with a thick East European accent, as he wrote down his address. "You are our police. I support you!"

"I insist," Woodruff said, and took the paper. He staggered into the hospital and collapsed into an orderly's arms.

He awoke in a bed, his wet clothes removed, under a nice warm blanket.

"Detective! You're awake," a woman's voice said.
 

He turned and saw a nurse smiling at him.

"How long have I been unconscious?" Woodruff asked her.

"Only about an hour, I think," the nurse said. "The doctor will be in to see you soon." She turned and left.

Woodruff looked at her receding figure and thought about that old joke he had heard somewhere, "I was in the hospital, not feeling very well, and then I took a turn for the nurse!" Come to think of it, he had heard that from Flannery. Woodruff felt a stab of remorse.

***

Heron called Woodruff the next morning, returning Woodruff's call, just before the detective was released from the hospital. Woodruff told Heron the story step by step, and stopped with the shooting of Flannery.

"What happened to Flannery?" Woodruff said. "I know I shot him more than once."

"I'm afraid he's dead," Heron said. "I'm sorry that happened – I know you didn't want this – but that's the line of work you are in, and, as you said, he shouldn't have gotten in the way at that point. But he was a good man – and I will see to it that his family will never want again for money."

"You're sure that he's dead?" Woodruff still couldn't believe it, and that he was responsible, even though he was greatly relieved that Flannery could not seek justice and vengeance.

Heron nodded. "My sources confirm it."

"How many goddamned sources do you have?"

"I have had lots of time to cultivate my associates, like you," Heron replied.

Woodruff made no response.

"Please, continue with your account," Heron requested. "What happened after Flannery fell? What happened to the
Chronica
?"
 

Woodruff confirmed that the
Chronica
was gone. "It sunk like a stone," Woodruff said, "in the deepest part of the river. I couldn't see so much as a page of it. That manuscript will never be seen again, except maybe by a fish."

"It was a manuscript not a scroll?"

"Yeah," Woodruff replied.

"And it was written in?"

"Greek, ancient Greek," Woodruff replied. "I know the difference between the modern and archaic forms."

Heron asked Woodruff to repeat that part of his story – clearly much more interested in what happened to the
Chronica
than what happened to Flannery, Woodruff thought, with a flash of black anger.

"Ok," Heron replied, not entirely happy at all with the results of the evening. "Get back to your police work now – no one knows you were with Flannery last night, right?"

"I certainly didn't tell anyone," Woodruff replied.

"Let's hope he didn't tell anyone, either," Heron said. "At this juncture, your best course is to just be as surprised as everyone else about Flannery's unexplained absence. I'll contact you with any further instructions."

"As you wish," Woodruff said.

Heron got off the public phone he was using, a half a block from the seafood restaurant, which had received the call from Woodruff an hour earlier. Heron no longer looked like J. P. Morgan, but he still had all the money he needed to pay for the services he required, including getting messages for him under the name Harry from the maître d'hôtel.
 

Heron sighed mightily. What he disliked more than anything else was making the same mistake twice. He had thought Sierra was destroyed as Hypatia in Alexandria in 415 AD, and with it the scrolls she had stolen from the Library, including his
Chronica
. And he had been wrong.

He believed Woodruff about what had happened to the manuscript of the
Chronica
. But he was not going to make the mistake of assuming it was the only copy. And there was still the original, presumably but not definitely still in possession of the dying Appleton.

***

Astor, Sierra, and Max walked slowly from the grave of James Flannery in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. The ceremony had been simple and brief. The gravestone, which would be put in later, would say, "A lawman who tried his best."

Astor was talking. "So many notable people resting in peace here. Herman Melville the author, Jay Gould the financer, Bat Masterson another lawman – are they still known in the world you come from?"

Max nodded. "Herman Melville and Bat Masterson more than Jay Gould, but, sure, we know of all three."

"Gould helped finance the railroads?" Sierra asked. But all kinds of other thoughts were smashing like half-submerged icebergs in her brain. Socrates and her Thomas, once Alcibiades, would be buried here about a century and a half from now, Mark Twain in about a decade.

"That's right," Astor answered Sierra's question about Gould.

As always, she never knew how much to tell him. "I'm thinking I should see Flannery's wife, and maybe bring her to this place in 1999 . . . I don't know."

Astor looked at her.

"So how will this change the course of history," Max wondered. "Not much if at all back here, but Flannery had a life to live in the 21
^st
century, which will be gone now."

"Perhaps he was destined to die early in the 21
^st
century, or even in 1999, all along," Astor said. "And he could not escape his fate, even back here, like in an O'Henry story."

Max nodded. "In our experience," he looked at Sierra, "the universe seems to have a lot invested in keeping its original timelines intact – whatever original really is."

Sierra nodded, but addressed a different issue. "You've read O'Henry?" she asked Astor. "I'm pretty sure his major stories were not published until a few years into the 20
^th
century."

"Yes," was all that Astor said.

Lots of other notable people were buried here, Sierra thought. Not Astor, but other important people who would die on the Titanic. Isidor and Ida Straus, almost as rich as Astor. Her grandmother had worked on some arbitration committee with their grandson, Donald Straus. Sierra didn't want to cry but there it was again. Max squeezed her shoulder.