Chapter 6

“Why would a boat have the tail of a chicken?” asked a puzzled Sabrina, or is that just a word to meant to add description?”

“That’s exactly what it is,” exclaimed Beth. “The wake of a boat going very fast through the water will often force some of the water five to ten feet into the air. Someone thought it looked like a rooster’s tail, and the name stuck. Good job of asking a good question.”

Sabrina just beamed from Beth’s praise, and both Grant and Beth noticed her reaction. Grant looked at Beth, and smiled. They both knew that Sabrina would need a lot of praise and encouragement in the future. This thought caused Grant to close his eyes for a moment. Moments later, he reopened them and leaned back in the chair and pinched his chin with his left hand in a natural pose of concentration. In addition, his eyelids narrowed, while his eyes seemed to be gazing into some imaginary horizon.

“Ladies, before I bring the children in to get their thoughts, I need to understand why me, and why so quickly? I haven’t dated anyone since this mess with Charlotte started, and I really didn’t want to ever be in a similar situation. I don’t believe in love at first sight. In addition, Charlotte proved that even after more than twenty years you can suddenly find you didn’t know the person after all. Now, after less than a day, you both want to marry me and this has me somewhat confused and concerned.”

Sabrina answered, “I’m nineteen and in this time, I’m considered a spinster or old maid. The key is that the reason for my condition is that I was looking for someone in a dream. A dream of a strong but compassionate man who would see me as an equal, and would nurture and protect me and my house from all the bad things in the world. I’ve had many suitors, but until you came along, they all fell short of my dream. As for the speed of our courtship, I think circumstances controlled that, not me. Things had to be done quickly in order to save the freedom loving landowners of this area, and our betrothal and subsequent marriage had to be part of the plan.”

Beth added, “Grant, even in our day, we’ve arranged marriages to bind two companies or two countries together. I’m convinced that Oscar chose me to be included on this trip, not because I’m a doctor, but because he knew we needed each other as soul mates. Therefore, for lack of a better explanation, accept that this was a marriage arranged by Oscar to better ensure the success of your mission.”

Grant considered the statements of the two women, and made a decision. He picked up the phone, hit the intercom button, and asked Mark and Tracy to come to his office. Moments later there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” said Grant.

The two youngsters seem a little downcast as they entered.

Mark asked, “Did we do something wrong?”

“Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

“When Mommy or Aunt Teresa called us on the intercom it usually meant we were to be punished.”

“Were you punished often?” asked Beth.

“Yes,” answered Mark, “but mostly for things that Brad and Sophia did. If they claimed we were guilty, then no one listened to us, even when we tried to explain we weren’t even in the house when the accident happened.”

Turning to the older women, Grant explained “Brad and Sophia were Teresa’s children.” Looking back at his children, Grant asked, “Mark, why didn’t you tell me that this was happening?”

“I think Mommy realized when I was eight that I might do that. She said that if we told anyone, we would never get to see you again.”

Grant was turning red with anger. He almost couldn’t speak, as he asked, “How were you punished?”

“Teresa called it caning.”

Beth and Sabrina were now more upset than Grant. Sabrina especially, since she knew personally what caning felt like.

“My Father used to cane Tom and me,” stated the beautiful young downtimer. “He stopped after Tom threatened to kill him if he ever did it again. I think he has now come to regret those actions. At the moment, I also think it’s very good that those two women did not make the time jump with the rest of you. I look at both of these children, and I can never even imagine they could have done anything to deserve such punishment. If these women were here, I’d probably kill them with my bare hands.”

Grant pulled his son close, and said, “I think we would’ve had to draw straws to decide who would have the honor.”

Tracy, who was being hugged by Sabrina and Beth, said “Daddy, don’t get so angry. We’ll get over it, and we’re now free and loved; that’s all that matters. Is this new lady going to join our family? I hope so, because I can feel her heart like I can Beth’s.”

“Tracy you sound so much older and wiser than your years. My name is Sabrina, and I’d very much like to join your family.”

“This is good,” responded Tracy, who was now holding hands with her brother. “Before, Mark and I had two mommies, but no love. Now, we’ll have two mommies who are overflowing with love. Isn’t that just like God to give us extra to make up for our sufferings?”

The three adults just stood for several minutes looking at the two children who almost seemed to have a glow about them.

Finally, the scene was broken by a knock on the door.

“Come in.”

Sioux stood at the door, and said, “I know you didn’t want to be disturbed, but I think you need to see something.”

“Sure, I’ll be right there.” Turning back to Sabrina, Grant said, “Okay, I agree that this is the right thing to do. Can you get with your father today about the engagement party, or whatever it’s called? Also, please get with Beth and explain the related social etiquette. That way she can determine what is different from our time and give the information to me in a summary. I’ll be extremely busy for the next few weeks, so I need both of you to help keep me from committing some disastrous social blunder and ruining this special time for you.”

Grant left the room and his two women kissed and hugged each other before placing Mark and Tracy on their laps for more hugs and kisses. While they loved on the children, they discussed their surprise at Grant’s expressing such concern for Sabrina’s emotional feelings. It took several minutes for them to return to reality.

“Where do we start?” asked Beth.

Sabrina answered, “We need to create an identity for Grant that will be both prestigious and not easily challenged. I know that Grant is not into lavishness, but for him to be listened to in the area he needs to be so respectable that his unpretentiousness comes across as genuine, not faked; as a strength, not as a character flaw. It would be better if we had more time, but the governor and his gang have given us a difficult, but not impossible deadline.”

“I can see that. What else?”

“Think about the kind of questions women will ask, especially when the person is unknown to them. They’ll want to know where we met, his financial position, what kind of work does he do, and what happened to his wife.”

“You’re right, the women will definitely ask more questions than the men. In addition, they gossip, and that gossip is spread throughout the area faster than an outbreak of mumps. Thus, whatever we come up with must pass inspection of the women even more than the men.”

While his women were plotting his future, Grant followed Sioux to the control room. Google news was showing the large computer screen.

“I got curious,” explained Sioux, as to why Oscar used a one week time-frame on extending the updating of the Internet. Since that’s no longer our time, I made a beginning assumption that all that information and news was not time bound, but all of it was available to us as if we were studying history. Am I making sense?”

“Sure, you didn’t wait for time to progress there as it is here, since there is no correlation between the two.”

“Damn, why couldn’t I have said it that easily? Anyway, I started reviewing the general news at the time of the storm, scanning through things rather than studying them in depth. Things were basically normal until the last day. Here is what Oscar wanted us to see.”

The headlines read: ‘Corporate CEO and sister missing after hijacking. Grant scanned through the article and learned that Charlotte and Teresa, as well as Teresa’s husband, were flying from Atlanta to San Francisco following Grant’s and the children’s disappearance in the storm. The aircraft stopped in El Paso to drop off one of the corporation’s executives who was hitching a ride. Shortly after resuming its journey the aircraft suddenly took a hard turn south, lost its transponder and dropped below radar. Later, the plane was found on a straight stretch of road west of Cuauhtémoc Chihuahua. The pilot, the husband and the two women were missing; everyone else on board was dead. The story went on about the lack of a ransom note.’

“Do you think Oscar’s behind this?” asked Sioux.

“I hope not. Having those two show up here would ruin much more than my day. That is, unless I could find a way to sell them into slavery. As for who, I’d put my money on Teresa’s husband or a subgroup of the company’s executive team. In fact, it might be a combination of both.”

Sioux nodded, and said, “If that’s the case and neither woman’s body shows up, then I wouldn’t be surprised if they did end up as a slave in some Mexican brothel. What will happen to the company if she disappears?”

“There’s a bunch of executives who will get a gigantic surprise. Charlotte’s and Teresa’s stock will go into a trust fund on behalf of all the children; Mark and Tracy, as well as Teresa’s two. The trustee is a cousin of hers who’s a federal prosecutor in New Jersey. He’s an absolute bulldog when it comes to corruption and white collar crime. He’s also a stickler for playing by the rules. They just thought they had a tough time with Charlotte.”

“Do you want me to keep searching?”

“If you happen to see something new on the story, please let me know. As for searches, I want you to see what you can find regarding treasure ships that sank in the last fifty years. Focus on the area between the outer banks and the Florida Keys. You could also check out treasures found by Mel Fisher and others in the past few years.”

“Are you thinking of getting there ahead of them?”

“Sioux, what we’re going to attempt is going to take beaucoup dollars. If we succeed, or even try and fail, how can we be sure that Mel Fisher and these others will ever be born? Besides, we’re not going to take advantage of other people’s future efforts just to increase our personal wealth ... we’re trying to give our country and our world a better future.”

“Okay, I understand. It still feels like I’m stealing or something, but I guess in this case, the end justifies the means.”

“Sioux, that’s hitting below the belt. I’ve been revolted by that phrase ever since I first heard it. Still, in this case I guess it’s all a matter of semantics. We were placed here to hopefully put some things in motion to improve the future. If we were to ignore the technology and information we have, then we’ve wasted the efforts and resources Oscar has spent to get us here. Vaccines, a better form of DDT, modern medical instruments and drugs, modern guns, and electricity were all sent back with us to aid in our efforts. To me, using our future knowledge of treasure, inventions and even the location of precious metals is no different.”

“You’re right, Grant. The key is our purpose for acquiring this treasure. If Oscar or whoever sent us back didn’t expect us to do this, they wouldn’t have left us access to the Internet. I’ll get started on your request as soon as possible.”

“Thanks, and don’t be afraid, in the future, to help keep me balanced and focused on the goal.”

“You’re welcome and in regards to those goals, I’d suggest a brain storming session as soon as possible, to discuss ideas and develop some short term and long term goals. Once we’ve solidified these goals we can begin to form a basic plan of action to achieve them.

“Excellent Idea,” Grant responded, “though I do think we need to get past this current situation and try to get some of the downtimers involved. In the meantime, I think there are some things we should start work on immediately.”

Sioux mulled the idea for a moment before she nodded, and said, “Should I plan on having a staff meeting in the morning?”

“Yes, but I want everyone included, not just staff. We don’t have a complete skills inventory of the newcomers yet, so I’ll try to let each of them get involved with projects that catch their interest.”

“That would work, and it would also be a good place to start developing that skills inventory.”

Grant returned to his office, and found Beth and Sabrina looking at his wall of memories.

“What happened to Mark and Tracy?” he asked.

“They were getting sleepy, so we helped them go to bed,” answered Beth.

“I even got to say prayers with them,” said an excited Sabrina. “My heart just glowed when she asked God to help Beth and me to be more like the wife you deserve.”

Grant could feel the emotions of the women from across the room, and found the feeling drew him to them in the same way a moth is attracted to light. He had never experience that with Charlotte.

“Have you found anything interesting on my wall of memories?”

“You looked so handsome and dashing in your uniform and those ships seem so big. It’s hard to imagine something that big even being able to float, and how can they find timbers that big. I’m also curious as to where they keep the sails.”

Grant grinned, and answered, “First, none of those ships use sails and they’re made of metal, not wood. Then, except for this ship (pointing to the Enterprise), the others are considered pretty small. That exception would be bigger than the city of Charleston, as there were more than five thousand people on board.”