AGELESS Campaign Episode 2 - Temple of the Cat-Goddess

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-one, “The French Connection” September 2nd, 1882, 1:30 P.M.

James says, “Well, ours would have only been a theory without further evidence. An accidental discovery by Luiz less than a year ago was the definitive piece of evidence, and what prompted this current endeavor.” Doctor Chernovitz says, “The key to this discovery which became the basis of our theory occurred last winter when I was in France with my family. I was in a French bookstore and I stumbled across a one-of-a-kind book. It provided evidence of an alternate history about the Timucuan people and also solves the mystery of Fort Caroline.

What I discovered is a history that both the Spanish and French governments have officially suppressed for over three centuries. I only discovered this now through a fluke, in that the book store owner had for sale several crates of books inherited from an estate sale. This book was unpublished, a one-of-a-kind personal journal, that had some very interesting prints in it.”

Luiz, James, Sol and Alsoomse stand up and head over to a large cabinet and take out several large drawings of tattooed Native Americans that they place upon the easels (images below). Luiz states, “These are pictures of the Saturiwa tribe of the Timucuan people, copied and enlarged from prints within the book that I found. They were drawn by a French artist named Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. He made these during the year that he resided at Fort Caroline, which was the first French Colony in the United States. It was established right here on this very plateau in 1563, two years before the Spanish established their own colony at Saint Augustine and two years before they supposedly built the Castillo de San Mateo on this site."

Luiz continues, "The founder of the French colony of Fort Caroline was a man named Jean Ribault, a noble from the French City of Dieppe. The city is in the Normandy region overlooking the English Channel. He and the other colonists had fled the Diepee region of France due to religious persecution. The 1560’s was one of the uglier times in the wars between Wizard and Clerical magics, and Ribualt’s group actually believed in both.

Ribualt was the leader of a religious sect that believed that wizard magic as the gift from the Celtic deity Math Mathonwy, also known as Mathu, who rules over the realm of sorcery, magics and enchantment. One would think that the pro-wizard factions would have actually embraced a religion that believed in wizard magic. There is even evidence that the Atlanteans themselves first worship of this deity Math Mathonwy, as there is mention of it in Homer’s volume about the Atlantians that arcane magic is based upon.

But instead of accepting this view, Ribault and his followers were deemed as anti-arcane heretics. In 1563, France’s King Charles IX commanded that all believers of Math Mathonwy were to be found and put to death. Given that decree it is not surprising that these heretics chose to flee. They left France and reached Florida, building their new colony right here where this house now stands.”

Ruby asks, "Is that why their government wanted to hide the existence of the fort, because of Ribault's history as a supposed heretic?" James says, "Yes, exactly. Neither pro-wizard magic government, France or Spain, wished for there to be a public record of the French heretics and their religion. The French were here for two years. According to secret Spanish records, the true reason behind the Spanish expedition and colonization in 1565 was because the Spanish King discovered that they was a French colony here the lands claimed by Spain. Spain sought to force the French colonists away and to then establish a colony of their own in Florida, to strengthen the legitimacy of their claim. So the Spanish did not actually build the fortress of San Mateo here on this site. After they forced the French out they just renamed the fortress that had already been built by the French and the Saturiwa allies of the French.

It took some effort on our part, but we discovered and read the Spanish accounts of the 1565 battle here in Florida with the French. The Spaniards claim that they had a great naval victory, managing to sink every one of the French vessels with the loss of most of the French soldiers and sailors on board, without loosing any of their own vessels. They then claim to have marched to the Fortress here and that they killed all but two dozen of the three-hundred colonists, only allowing the ones who renounced clerical magic to live. These survivors were kept as prisoner servants to the Spanish in their Saint Augustine colony and never allowed to return to Europe.

The secret French accounts tell of a very different version of this story, the Spanish account having apparently been exaggerated by the Florida Provincial Governor Pedro Menendez de Aviles to impress his King. According to the French records, once Fort Caroline became aware of the newly established Spanish colony at Saint Augustine thirty miles to the south the French soldiers and sailors set off from here with all of their ships to attack the Spanish settlement. They left despite dire warnings from the Saturiwa leaders, who is seems knew something about weather prediction. As the French fleet neared Saint Augustine a massive hurricane struck and sank the entire fleet, killing the vast majority of the soldiers and sailors on board. The surviving French soldiers who actually managed to swim to shore were then easily captured and slain by the Spanish, with only a few young cabin boys being spared.

With their French military protectors of the Fort now gone, the settlers of Fort Caroline were left unprotected from a Spanish counterattack. The French records are consistent with the Spanish account of the fortress falling quickly, with almost everyone present at the fort being slain. So, in addition to not wanting to promote the heritics, they also wouldn’t have wanted the clerical magic nations to know that the wizard magic nations were fighting amongst themselves. And lastly, one can also assume that since the monarchs of both nations were cousins they may have wanted to suppress this entire incident as nothing more than an internal family squabble."

James continues, "But there remains several large inconsistencies to these stories. There is no evidence that any of the two dozen or so French prisoners of the Spaniards ever left Florida. But if that was the case, then how did this artist’s work and journal find its way back to France? If he had been a prisoner of the Spanish then his journal and sketchbook would have been confiscated and destroyed, yet here it is today. And even if he had managed to somehow hide it, you would think that he certainly would have mentioned having been captured by the Spanish.

But all of the journal entries at Fort Caroline end in 1565 prior to the Spanish arrival, with no mention at all of the Spanish. Later entries in the journal were written in France and dated from 1567 until the late 1570’s, but it remains completely silent on the two years from 1565 until 1567. You could ask similar questions regarding the note in the other book from French physician about the Doctor from the Fortress whose descendents later lived in France, how did he return?.

A third discrepancy concerns the official Spanish account claims that three-hundred French settlers were killed at the Fort. A written account by the Spanish officer in charge of the attack on the fort put the number at only around seventy-five. One could assume the smaller number to be correct, that the higher number was an exaggeration by the Spanish Governor. The higher account would match the maximum amount of people that could have made a single journey from French given the number and type of French ships.

But the discrepancy that really gets interesting is a review of the listings of the names of the French heretics who fled persecution from the city of Dieppe France and all supposedly came to the Fort Caroline colony. That list shows that, combined with the sailors and soldiers, there would have been approximately 900 French people. That is around twice the number of the higher Spanish account, as well as twice what the ships would have been able to transport. Furthermore, some of the dates listed in Jacques Le Moyne de Morgue's journal at Fort Caroline begin in 1563. But the departure date of the French fleet was not until 1564. So how could the colony have been established here at a time when these heretics were just beginning to raise money to purchase the ships?"

Luiz says, "And there is one other interesting coincidence that was recently discovered by my son, going through records in Dieppe, France. The physician whose fever remedy comes from Fort Caroline was one of a group of approximately 400 people who suddenly arrived in the French City of Dieppe in 1567. What is officially known of these new residents is they all spoke fluent French. They also had with then written evidence in the form of logs of the ships that brought them to the port city of Dieppe, but curiously, there were no witnesses to any ships having actually arrived and departed, or for that matter, to have ever existed. A separate note cites an unproven rumor that these newcomers were actually the former residents who had left for the New World three and four years earlier, and had then returned with new faces and names to escape persecution as heretics. "

Nanuet spoke up from his spot at the back of the room. "James, I am sure all of this history is fascinating, but it is being lost on me. Perhaps it is because I lack a formal education. Whatever the reason I am not really comprehending all of these dates and the politics behind hiding journals or lying about the existence of forts and how that ties into us sitting here today."

James says, "Nanuet, this background is to give you all of the puzzle pieces, we still have to put them together, towards discovering the secrets of Atlantis.

One reason the heretics chose Dieppe as the main base of worship to begin with. Three thousand years ago this port of Dieppe was one of the main foreign ports used by the island Kingdom of Atlantis to trade with Europe. Chateau de Dieppe, an ancient fortress and castle within the city, was said to have been built upon the stone ruins of the place where the Atlantian aristocracy stayed while visiting there. And not so coincidentally, it was from that very same castle that the townspeople saw these 400 new residents suddenly emerge after being supposedly dropped off by ships that presumably docked near the Chateau.

One other thing you have to take into account is that a common means of transportation for high-level wizards to day, teleportation, is a relatively new spell. It was only invented within the last century, originally created by the very same Society of French mages that I referenced yesterday. They devised the spell during their many attempts to rescue Napoleon Bonaparte from his exile on the remote Island of Saint Helena. The Atlantians therefore did not have access to a transport spell.

Alsoomse says, “Homer’s writings tell of their being great sailors but there is no mention of them having any vessels of sufficient size to travel the ocean to distant continents with large numbers of passengers. But what we do find is a brief mention by Homer of what translates as a ‘Magical Octagonal Gate’, said to be at the Cathedral to Math Mathonwy in Atlantis. Scholars have traditionally thought that this meant only an eight-sized doorway with magical protections on it. Atlantian scholars haven’t found any further references to this magical gate in recognized writings.”

James states, “A octagonal magical gate is mentioned in a twenty-three-century old writing by the chief scribe of the Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo II. This account has long since been discredited as fiction, as it also contains what has been deemed as a fanciful tale whereby Nectanebo II dons a magical disguise and then becomes the biological father of Alexander the Great. Dimensional gates themselves are not a new concept. Similar magical gates have been used for fourteen centuries, with the high-level Merlin’s Magnificent Mansion spell, which makes a doorway to an inter-dimensional multi-room building.

Nectanebo II was the last ruler of Egypt to be known by the title Pharoah, in the 30th Dynasty. His rule ended some 2,250 years ago when Egypt was defeated by the Persian King Artaxerxes III. According to the scribe’s writings, Nectanebo II was also said to be a great wizard and sorceror and is rumored to have been trained by the Atlantians themselves. That rumor is also been generally discounted, as Necranebo II lived full half-millineia after the fall of Atlantis.

Another of the same scribe’s writings explains this. It claims that a half-millinea before that writing, when Atlantis was sinking beneath the waves, the city’s elite wizards escaped the destruction. They did this by entering through an eight-walled diminensional portal, through a magical doorway that opened from Atlantis into Egypt. These wizards then became a new group of senior advisors to Pharaoh Osorkon II of the 22nd Dynasty in his capital city of Tanis.

It is a documented fact that Osorkon II was the first Pharaoh to surround himself with a group of top foreign advisors, but the official writings claiming these advisors to be of Greek descent rather than Atlantian. The role of senior advisors to the Pharaoh continued from the 22nd until the 30th Dynasties, and these advisors passed down their positions to their own children. So if Osorkon II’s advisors were Atlatian wizards then Necranebo II could very well have been trained by the descendents of those Atlantian wizards.

So Luiz and I launched this project upon the assumptions that the Saturiwa were a tribe of half-elves of mixed North American and Atlantian descent and that they worked as the servants to the Atlantians until the destruction of the island continent. With the destruction of Atlantis, the contact between the Saturiwa and their masters abruptly ceased, with those members of the tribe who were currently away under servitude contracts never returned and the annual payments ceased.

The Timucuan had no way of knowing what had occurred. They waited generations for the return of their former benefactors. When the Europeans arrived, they were initially mistaken by the Saturiwa to be Atlantians, a misconception perpetuated by references that these Europeans made about having come from across the Atlantic Ocean. So our theory is rather far fetched, but here it is. We believe that the Magical Octagonal Gate of the Atlantians existed and continues to exist. We believe that this octagonal room is an inter-dimensional room with eight doorways that lead to eight different locations on the world."

Ruby says, "Um, yeah, I sorta of agree with Nanuet, I'm not exactly the scholarly type to get all this. But... do you think you know where this gate is, I mean, where the doorways might be?" Luiz says, “We do indeed, we think it is right here! Assuming the writings are correct, the first doorway was in Atlantis at Math Mathonwy’s Cathedral. That doorway is now beneath the ocean and most-likely blocked by debris. Another of these doorways leads to Osorkon II’s temple in Tanis, Egypt and was used by the Atlantian elder wizards as their means of escape.

We believe that a third doorway leads to the Chateau de Dieppe in France and that a forth doorway leads to right here, San Mateo Hill, in Jacksonville, Florida. We think that the Atlantians originally used the gateway to bring the Timucuan servants to and from Atlantis. The French hetitics later used the same gateway to escape from religious persecution, making contact with the Timucuan in 1563 and establishing this colony. The French ships were later sent as a afterthought the following year to explain how the colonists got here through non-magical means, thus keeping the gateway a secret.

We believe that the majority of the French colonists used the gateway to escape the Spanish attack on the fortress in 1565. The seventy-five or so who were killed in the Spanish account would have been the brave souls who stayed behind to fight off the Spanish, to give the others time to escape, and then to hide the entrance to the gateway from the Spanish. The colonists who escaped did not return to France as they would have been killed as heretics. Instead, they traveled though one of the other gateways. They then spent a two-year period at this other location where they modified their appearances and created elaborate aliases, before eventually returning to France.

So in 1565 after the Spanish defeated the remaining French at Fort Caroline and renamed the Castillo de San Mateo, posting Spanish soldiers here. I’m also guessing as to the reason behind the counter-attack against the Spanish in 1568 by combined French and Timucuan forces. At that time all of the Spaniards were killed and the Fortress burnt to the ground. I believe that it may have been precipitated by the Spanish soldiers having finally discovered the entrance to the magical gate. The attack and destruction would have been to silence the Spanish before the discovery was investigated and reported.

James says, "We believe that the final time the gate was used was in 1595, by the Saturiwa themselves, to escape from the Spanish. We believe that the two families of Saturiwa who remained behind did so in order to cover and hide the entrance to the gateway." Alsoomse adds, "The cryptic message they left by these Seminole to pass on to non-Spanish seeking them out would have been for the Atlantians, if they ever returned."

Ruby states, "Wow, that is really... cool. Do you know where the gate is here? Or how we can find it? If it's still working we can travel all over the place!" James replies, Yes, we think that we have found the entrance to the gateway. We have no way of knowing that it works but there is no reason to suspect that it doesn't. After several weeks of digging at various spots throughout the plateau we reached a large flat rock around ten feet below that surface. The rock was twenty-feet in diameter and was protected by a very faint aura of hard-to-detect magic. Once Dr. Chernovtz was able to dispel the magic on the rock it shank to one-fifth its size.

We believe that the rock had been magically enlarged and then enshrouded with a permanency spell, used to block the passageway to the doorway. Beneath the rock was heavy stone and also thickly-packed dirt, The dirt was of a different shade than the rest of the gravel and sand on this site, with the odd-dirt taking up an area exactly twelve-feet in diameter, surrounded on all sides by thick finished stone. Digging further, we discovered that this was an elaborate dirt-filled stone tunnel, which continued diagonally downward into the ground at a steep thirty-degree angle.

Realizing that we need to keep prying eyes away, both outsiders as well as the students visiting here from Massachusetts, we built a structure over it. That structure is this very building. The four of us constructed a large windowless room around the tunnel entrance. We then had construction crews come in and build the remainder of the house around and above that room, but the construction crew members never saw inside the first room and we later put on the interior doorways to that room ourselves, with substantial locks on those door. That room is the Transportation and Logistics room. The tunnel entrance is directly beneath the large map table."

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-one, “Tunnel to the ends of the Earth” September 2nd, 1882, 1:45 P.M.

George had been listening intently to the story, nodding occasionally and taking notes. He says, "You know James, if they had a portal. And it has eight sides, my guess would be that there are a total of nine gates, each gate able to transport to each of the others. If the Atlanteans had the capacity to build them on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as the far Mediterranean, the other five could be anywhere in the world. Though my supposition would be that whereever we have seen concentration of late Neolithic advancements, we may find evidence of Atlantean involvement.

Have you looked into evidence near the Indus valley or the Hwang Ho in China? Or in the Andes? The arrival of Atlanteans may explain certain architectural similarities between the pyramids in Egypt and the Olmec and Toltec temples in the Yucatan. In fact by my list: Florida, Atlantis, Egypt, Yucatan, France, China, India, Babylon (another site of pyramid like structures in the ziggurats) and the Andes accounts for the major sites of civilization and meshes fully with your theory while having a total of nine gates."

Luiz says, "That is an excellent theory as well, certainly worth consideration.” George continues, "How ever, regardless of how the word translates, I still deem the use of the Timucuan by the Atlanteans as slavery. It was still servitude if clothed in service. What may have led the Atlanteans to have used them in the first place?" James says, "I won't disagree with you there, but I've always been an abolitionist. Why does any race use another or treat others as inferior?"

George says, "And, Plato, citing sources in Alexandria, which now may have been actually Atlantean, said that Atlantis was built by Poseidon for his children to rule over so long as they maintained their godly state and when they debased themselves by being human like, the island sank into the water to return to Poseidon. How do we reconcile these ancient accounts with what you have found? Lastly three have always been references to the Priest-Kings of Atlantis, indicating a divine source of magic, but you refer quite often to their wizards. But maintaining a reverence for Mathus, yet legends say they were of Poseidon?"

James says, "A good point, but bear in mind that Plato had a strong pro-Greek bias." "Well of course, many believed Atlantis to be mere fiction created by Plato to promote the glory of Athens, by creating a tale in which they defeated a more powerful nation."

"That conjecture is now gone as we have evidence of some manner of Atlantean civilization. But I still have a few questions, and perhaps you have shared everything with us, but I doubt that. Now how is it that we have but one reference to this great civilization theretofore, especially if they have or had the capacity to move on two continents. Yet we have found no other archeological evidence of them?” James says, "Unfortunately the vast majority of information about the Atlantians was collected by Alexander the Great and stored in the Library of Alexandria, which was burned and destroyed in the year 391. I am hoping that this magical gateway will lead us directly to more information about the Atlantians.”

George asks, “Where James, are you suggesting the surviving colonists were transported into before they returned to France?" asked George looking at James expectantly over his glasses. James states, "I'm suggesting that they went through one of the other gates. Which one, and where it went to, we do not know yet." George says, "I have a few more questions, but I will let you answer these for the moment" says George as he gets up and gets another iced tea for himself and Ruby.

Ben fished around in the hidden pocket sewn inside his left sleeve cuff and retrieved a thick, eight-sided gold coin half the size of his palm. "Maybe you and Mr. Eastman oughtta take a good look at this thing, Sol," he says, flipping it toward him with a high arc. "I fancied its odd design -- just look at the scrollwork on the reverse! I liked its heft even more -- that's at least 18-karat gold, as sure as the fuzz on my third nut is curly!"

Fish blushes as he catches himself: he's just not accustomed to talking in mixed company -- or rather, such genteel mixed company. He avoids looking at Ruby and Abigail. "All that filigree on the face of the coin? Is it a code? Does it make any sense to you? If I were less clever, I'd have missed that particular sovereign. Sir Guilleault had it exceptionally well-hidden..." Sol looks at it then hands it to Alsoomse. She spends around two minutes examining it before saying "Definitely Altantian, and set of symbols on this is the word for 'door'. Thank you Benjamin, I will see what more I can deduce from this in the next few days."

Returning to the previous conversation Luiz says, "We believe that the large flat stone had been magically enlarged by the top Saturiwa wizard to block the tunnel. The two families that remained behind would have filled in above the stone and then made the land look undisturbed. While they did this, the Saturiwa who had fled to their new location then filled the tunnel in behind them up to the stone, with dirt from their new home. This darker dirt which was clearly not from either of the other presumed doorway locations of France or Egypt, as the soil matches neither of those regions."

James says, "As we dug out the darker dirt from within the tunnel we found a significant number of rock samples mixed into it. Alsoomse made preliminary identifications of these stones, which I then sent those to Geology departments of two different Universities for analysis and confirmation. Thomas, would you like to tell the others what you discovered?" Thomas answers, "Yes, the samples I examined contained significant amounts of monazite, Wolframite, and titanium, all of which are extremely rare earths and metals, uncommon at best in their occurrence."

Alsoomse says, “Only one of those elements are common to this part of Florida. During the summer I have used geology-detection magic to investigate sites throughout both Duval and Saint Johns counties, a radius of approximately thirty-mile from here. The only precious metal found in this region of any quantity is Titanium, a soft lightweight metal first discovered in England in 1791. Titanium makes an incredibly strong alloy when mixed with iron, but to date nobody has discovered an economically feasible way to extract and refine the metal from the other ores that it is found within.

Neither Monazite or Wolframite is found anywhere in the southeastern United States. Wolframite, in fact, is only known to exist in significant volume at five different mines throughout the entire world. It is also the worlds most highly sought after metal. Practitioners of magic use it, as it has the highest melting point of all metals and is also an excellent conductor of both electricity and magnetism. Whenever possible, that metal is used for the creation of magical rings, wands. rods and other permanent metal magical items.”

Luiz states, “Of the five known Wolframite mines, the two oldest and most productive are in Portugal. They are in a carefully guarded secret location. Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion and occupation of Portugal at the beginning of this century was for the sole purpose of locating those mines. He was unsuccessful in learning their locations, despite torturing and murdering several members of the family who controlled the mines.” James interjects, “Yes, my maternal Grandfather was of Portuguese descent. The people who Napoleon killed were distant cousins of mine.”

Luiz continues, “Early in this century a third Wolframite mine was discovered in Russia and that mine is tightly controlled by the Czar. That mine’s discovery was what then prompted Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia. Since then France and its close ally Belgium have suffered from these naked attempts by Napoleon to steal the Wolframite ore. Napoleon may be long gone, but neither Portugal or Russia will sell any of their ore to the wizards from France or Belgium as a result of his actions.

The final two Wolframite mines have been discovered here within the United States during the last quarter-century, one in Colorado and the other in California. Both theoretically remain unworked and are heavily guarded by the United States Army to keep it that way. In reality, they are lightly mined by the military with the ore secretly sold to France and Belgium through the Department of State in order to maintain diplomatic ties to those countries.

It is actually due to our discovery of a possible new source for Wolframite through this doorway that Luiz and I were able to obtain the financial backing to make our plan of funding the AGELESS Corporation and Timucuan Conservancy a reality. This was through my family connection to the owner of Portugal’s hidden Wolframite mines. He has pledged to be our benefactor, having put up over three million dollars in a trust to finance this effort."

Ruby had sat, not really bored, though normally she would be at this kind of talk, but in awe of all the discussion that was going WAY over her head. She was embarrassed and felt out of place and wondered if everyone else understood what was being talked about. She supposed she was really only here because of her grandmother and James, or perhaps what they really wanted George and knew he would follow her to the ends of the earth and back. She watched George as he spoke, she didn't understand anything he was saying but she gazed at him with love and admiration, she was always amazed at just how smart he was.

Suddenly she snapped out of her thoughts. "THREE. MILLION. DOLLARS? Boy, that guy is brave putting up that much money! What happens if we don't find the stuff he is looking for?" James replies, "Our benefactor is not a greedy man. His sponsorship of our group is largely due to his desire to keep the French from finding the Atlantian secrets. As I mentioned before, Napoleon tortured and killed members of his family.

He does desire to keep both his family and country financially sound in the long-term, through the controlled flow of Wolframite throughout the world. If we do manage to discover a new source of the ore, then he wishes to be involved. He understands that it would be the AGELESS Corporation itself that would own the ore and not his mining company in Portugal. It is the controlled distribution of the ore to maintain the current pricing of his own mines that remains his primary concern. He may also occasionally request some assistance from us with the distribution of some of his current merchandise to regions of the world that we may be directly involved with.

And lastly, our benefactor would like any magical items or ancient artifacts that we find and choose to not retain ourselves to be displayed at the University of Lisbon’s museum. That University, in turn, will provide us with whatever informational resources we might need to undergo our missions.

Financially his three million is in a trust, which we will not directly draw down the principal investment of, although we can initiate loans with that as backing, which is how we funded this house construction and the purchase of an ocean freighter. The investment interest from the trust will also be between a quarter and half millions dollars a year, which is more than sufficient to fund operations. Plus the commercial side of the business will also generate income for our operations. The financial arrangement is such that half of all profits from both the commercial and academic side will go back into the business."

George says, "I do have worried that we will be beholden to your financial benefactor. His interests may not always align with those of the United States, of which nearly all of us here are citizens, and there is always the threat of sectarian division over magical sources arising again." James states, "I share those concerns and have voiced them to our benefactor. I consider myself a patriot and have served my country loyalty through direct service in two wars. However, I do not now and have never agreed with the country's official position in regards to wizard magic. I will never do anything to harm my county, but I will do whatever I can to see that arcane magics are preserved rather than destroyed. In that, our benefactor and I see eye-to-eye."

George says, "And there is of course the Timucuan themselves. Are you suggesting that they have traces of human blood in them? Or that they merely used natural selection to heighten that appearance?” Luiz says, "I believe them to be half-elvan, I have spent decades studying and have written medical texts upon the differences between the races. I have examined these drawings in detail and the physical appearance drawn by the artist depicts both human and elvan characteristics."

George asks, "Lastly, what is the source of the tungsten in the tunnel? Have you run a spectral analysis on it? Where can we find both monazite and tungsten acids in the same soil? Surely with such limited sources, though I do hear rumors a small find in northern North Carolina, it would not be hard to cross-reference the monazite to it? I am willing to listen you all your facts, theories, postulations and flights of fancy James, but you have not answered all my previous questions yet." says George with a smile.

James says, "To that we have devised an answer. The ore samples alone therefore are not conclusive as to determining a location, as the Wolframite does not appear to be from either of the five known mines, Tungstun locations are largely unknown, and Monazite is found in a number of different places throughout the world. The key to finding where the Saturiwa had traveled to came to light after we dug up a pair of broken natural shovels that had been buried among the dirt.”

James heads over to his bookcase and removes a folded blanket, placing it on the table and unwraps it. Inside are two pieces of bone animal claws, one-piece two feet long the other a foot long. Bones of this size could only have come from either a large mammal or perhaps a dinosaur. At the top of the shorter section a stone handle that has been attached with crude metal wire. At the bottom of the longer section is a long outstretched webbed multi-fingered claw, creating a scoop widening to fourteen inches and twenty-two inches in length. James shows how the two pieces would have joined together to form a shovel.

He states, “Like the large flat stone blocking the tunnel, these crude shovels have also been enlarged and strengthened with a permanency spell. We believe they were what the Timucuan used as tools to fill in the tunnel behind them. When the shovels broke through heavy use they were just tossed in with the dirt as garbage. We reduced one of these. The handle had apparently been fastened on after the magical enlargement, as it did not reduce in size. As to the remainder of the claw, once the magic was dispelled, it became like this.”

He holds up two much smaller but similar pieces, with a total combined length of around ten inches. He states, “We photographed this claw and Doctor Crane brought the photograph to a Zoological museum in Ohio. They positively identified it as being the claw of a duck-billed platypus, a creature native to only southeastern Australia.”

Luiz and I spent last night up in the library, reviewing journals of Australian explorers. The theory of southeastern Australia being the new home of the Saturiwa tribe for the last three centuries is consistent with the journal entry by the Scottish explorer Sir Thomas Livingston Mitchell, who ventured through the wilds of southeastern Australia in 1836.

He wrote about coming to a remote location ten days travel west of Sydney where there was a large community of several hundred tall, heavily-tattooed aborigines who were physically quite different than the native halflings of the continent. He described them as an elvan-like race nearly the height of humans who called themselves the Mocama. Ladies and gentlemen, Mocama was the name of the language spoken by the Saturiwa tribe. ”

"Well gee, I'm glad we have some smarty pants people to figure all that businessy stuff out. So the real question is," Ruby sat forward and grinned widely, "How soon do we start the fun stuff?" James say, “We can resume digging once this meeting is over, although I don't know that I'd exactly categorize that as 'fun'. Thus far Sol, Alsoomse and I have been doing all of the digging.”

Luiz interjects, “Yes, they won’t let me help. They are afraid of me harming my surgeon’s hands. They have, however, let me help in removing the dirt from the tunnel at night under the cover of darkness.” James replies, “Only because you insisted, and for that task the use of magical levitation devices on the wheelbarrows actually does the majority of that work.”

James continues, “We managed to dig through two-to-three feet a day without the students and construction workers being aware of what we were doing. Once they all left our productivity increased to nearly twice what it had been before. The tunnel now reaches down for approximately ninety feet, which at a thirty-degree angle puts us at a point fifty feet below the surface.

We have no way of knowing how much further it will be until we reach the anticipated magical gateway, but with this plateau being approximately one-hundred feet above the water level we must now be at least half-way there. With more of you now here to help we should be able to accelerate our productivity, so we should be able to find it in less than a week.

On Monday we have new workmen coming to dig ditches connecting this house to the homes of the Delroy-Kingsley family and also to our neighbors who you just met, the McKinnons. These ditches will contains pipes containing both electric and telephone lines. This house has electricity generated through an electrical-generation engine that we have constructed on the river, using the river itself as the main power source. These new ditches will provide us with a place to remove and hide this darker dirt as we accelerate our efforts to find the end of the tunnel.

Those of you willing to help dig will want to wear sturdy but comfortable work pants and boots, for while invigorating, the digging can also be rather grimy and sweltering." Alsoomse adds, "I can only cast two of these cooling spells a day, which helps, but it still gets hot digging down there."

Thomas grins as he says, "I believe I may be ideally suited for this task, given my ogrish heritage and my acclimation to the heat. While my years as a slave, albeit as a disguised agent, certainly weren't happy ones, one of the advantages derived from the experience was the development of the ability to immerse myself in hard labor without suffering serious mental or physical fatigue. When I am not needed in the laboratory or library, I am most content dedicating myself to hard labor -- it has the added benefit of keeping me in good shape for the unarmed methods of combat I prefer." "And I greatly appreciate that Thomas," James replies.

Hardin actually seems to be paying attention, taking the odd note in a small notebook with a fancy lawyer's pen. He whistles between his teeth and set's the pen down at the mention of the three million dollars. "Trust or no, direct access or no, three million is an awful big stake, James." His eyes narrow a bit. "Can I assume that the...umm...other interested parties may have similar financing in place? Not to take a detour into the foibles of men, greed and power...but that kind of stake means people tend to play for keeps!"

James says, "Those are correct assumptions. Money is absolutely no object to our French competitors, they have tens of millions. Luiz, why don't you go get that list of the 'Weekly Wizards' current membership roster, so that everyone here can see who and what we're up against. It lists each by, name, date-of-birth and occupation." Luiz stands and leaves the room, heading downstairs to his office.

Ruby stifled a yawn as George and James discussed history and business and politics. "I'm going to need something more than iced tea if we keep up this conversation," she mumbled. She stood and stretched then wandered over to the table with the animal bones while they spoke. She picked up a piece and seemingly studied it. "Australia huh? Seems like you figured some of these mysteries out, you've certainly put in your research time! These things," she held up the bones, "Seem very advanced. I'm excited to be helpful, if I can. However, I'll tell you right now, I don't think I'm very good at... digging. Dirt."

"I have a few last questions James." says George half rising as Ruby gets up from the table. "So it seems AGELESS has a quandary on it's hands. Continue digging for the portal, or seek out the Saturiwa directly.” James replies, "Or we could do both, my ship The Magnificence is on it's way here as we speak. We could set out for Australia if we want, but it would take two weeks to sail there and another week or two to travel inland. Alternately, if we find the portal and figure out how to use it we could actually be there sooner."

George asks, “Now do you suppose the same portal here transported both the Saturiwa and the settlers? To two different locations? In other words the transporters are programmable? Sol intejects, "That is the assumption that we are working under." Ruby furrowed her brows. "I suppose we won't know all the answers until we get down there. But I thought you were saying there are 8 or 9 gates and those gates are to set places on the planet. So you think that the gate destinations can be changed? Assuming so, you'd be able to go anywhere on the planet! Now that is really... interesting," she grinned, her mind flooded with the thoughts of all the places she could go. James says, "Yes, we won't know for sure until we get there.”

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-two, “Generous Offers” September 2nd, 1882, 2:00 P.M.

Luiz returns and takes out a piece of paper from his suit jacket pocket. He says, "Here is the list of the fifty-two members of the French 'Weekly Wizards' group. This list is in alphabetical order, and was current as of two months ago. Nine of the members are over ninety years old, and even with the slower aging due to the artifact, could still die at any point from natural causes. But given that most are very public figures we would have most likely heard about any of their deaths, so I suspect the list is still accurate." The paper is passed around the table, it reads:

Listing of the French wizard society’s members as of July 1, 1882
1. Andre-Marie Ampere (born 1775) – Physicist – Established the science of electrodynamics
2. Rene Belloq (born 1860) – Explorer and Linguist – Collector of antiquities
3. Sarah Bernhardt (born 1844) – World renowned stage actress
4. Paul Cezanne (born 1839) – Painter – Merged the classicalism, romanticism and naturalism styles.
5. Jean-Francois Champollion (born 1790) – Historian and Egyptologist – Translator of Egyptian hieroglyphic writings and conservator of Egyptian antiquities
6. Charles David Chamberland – (born 1851) -Physician and Alchemist – Protege of Louis Pasteur
7. Michel Eugène Chevreul (born 1786) – Chemist and Biologist – Master of Alchemy
8. Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre (born 1789) – Inventor and Photographer – Created the first practical process of photography
9. Jean-Gaston Darboux (born 1842) – Mathematician – Contributed to the Science of Geometry
10. Edgar Degas (born 1834) – Painter – Considered to be one of the masters of modern art.
11. Alexandre Dumas (born 1824) – Novelist & Biographer – Best known for the books The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo
12. Victor Duruy (born 1811) - Historian and Writer for Emperor Napoleon III
13. Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel (born 1832) – Engineer – Built several masterful bridges and viaducts. Designed the French canal to be built in Panama.
14. Eugenia Maria de Montijo de Guzman (born 1826) Empress of France 1853-1871, Wife of Emperor Napoleon III
15. Gabriel-Urbain Faure (born 1845) – Composer – Known for separating French music from German influence
16. Jean Baptiste Faure (born 1830) – Opera Singer – Leading baritone in Paris
17. Jean Bernard Leon Fouccault (born 1819) – Physicist and Inventor – First person to measure the velocity of light in air. Invented the gyroscope.
18. Paul Eugine Henri Gauguin (born 1848) - Painter – One of the founders of modern art.
19. Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac (born 1778) – Chemist and Physicist – Expertise with gases and acidic compounds
20. Jean-Leon Gerome (born 1824) – Painter and Sculptor – Paintings inspired through his extensive travels through the Orient.
21. Henri Giffard – (born 1825) - Inventor and Balloonist – Invented the dirigible. Recently collaborated with German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.
22. Gaspard Gouraud, Baron (born 1783) – Writer and Soldier – Friend and biographer of Napoleon Bonaparte. Accompanied him to his St. Helena exile and returned Napoleon’s remains to France for burial.
23. Francois-Pierre-Guillaume Guizot (born 1787) – Historian and Diplomat – Served as the French Ambassador to England and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1840 to 1848.
24. Joseph-Marie Jacquard (born 1752)- Inventor – Devised the use of punched cards with weaving patterns to automate looms.
25. Dominique Jean Larrey (born 1766) – Physician and Explorer – Explored areas of Australia and New Zealand. Served with Napoleon Bonaparte
26. Edouard Armand Isidore Hippolyte Lartet (born 1801) – Archaeologist. Founder of modern Paleontology.
27. Charles Louis Aphonse Laveran (born 1845) – Physician and Biologist – Traveled throughout northern Africa with the French military
28. Gabriel Lippmann (born 1845) – Physicist and Chemist – Research focus on optics and thermodynamics. Inventor of color photography. Theorized about time measurement.
29. Maximilien-Paul-Emile Littre (born 1801) – Philosopher and Historian – Studied the Greek philosophers. Wrote a 10-volume biography of Hippocrates.
30. Arsene Lupin (born 1850) – Adventurer – Gentleman and Acquirer of things
31. Edouard Manet (born 1832) – Painter – Traveled extensively throughout South America. Influenced the impressionist school of painting.
32. Jules-Emile-Frederic Massenet (born 1842) – Composer – Wrote many operas including the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
33. Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (born 1815) – Painter – Traveled with the French military and sketched battle scenes. Known for his technical eye for minute detail.
34. Prosper Merimee (born 1803) – Writer – Best known work was the romance novel ‘Carmen’ which the Opera was based upon. Expert on ancient monuments.
35. Jean-Franciois Millet (born 1814) – Painter – One of the masters of modern French painting. Known for landscapes of the coast of Normandy.
36. Henri Moissan (born 1852) – Chemist and Inventor – Expertise on toxic substances. Inventor of the acetylene torch.
37. Claude Monet (born 1840) – Painter – Founder of the school of impressionism.
38. Joseph-Michael Montgolfier (born 1840) – Inventor and Balloonist – Conducted experimental balloon flights and derived military uses for them.
39. Frederic Passy (born 1822) – Economist and Diplomat – Arbitrator for conflict among nations
40. Louis Pasteur (born 1822) – Chemist and Microbiologist – Discovered pasteurization
41. Jules-Henri Poincare – (born 1854) - Mathematician – Expert topologist and mapmaker as well as founder of mathematical theories
42. Joseph Ernest Renan – (born 1823) – Historian and Linguist – Conducted extensive studies of the Middle East and Egypt
43. Pierre-Auguste Renoir – (born 1841) – Painter – Founding father of impressionist painting
44. Charles Robert Richet – (Born 1850) – Physician and Alchemist – Known for creating serums and antidotes to most known poisons
45. August Rene Rodin – (Born 1840) – Sculptor – Considered by many to be the top sculptor of the nineteenth century – most famous work ‘The Thinker’.
46. Victorien Sardou – (Born 1831) – Playwright and Actor – Worldwide reputation for plays of every genre
47. Pierre Paul François Camille Savorgnan de Brazza – (born 1852) – Explorer – Traveled extensively in Africa.
48. Georges Seurat - (born 1859) – Painter – Developed a painting style using dots of pure color. Developed many theories about the use of color.
49. Hippolyte Adolphe Taine – (Born 1828) – Philosopher and writer – Critic of war, made great use of metaphor and sought alternative approaches.
50. Michale Jean Pierre Verne (born 1861) – Writer - Son of the novelist Jules Verne.
51. Eugene Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc – (born 1814) – Architect – Student and restorer of gothic architecture.
52. Charles Marie Widor – (born 1844) – Composer and Choreographer – Wrote symphonies, ballets and organ music and compiled lost works by Bach.

George asks, “And lastly, how much are you behind or ahead of the Weekly Wizards? Surely they are following the same paths of investigation. The site hear may be safe for a bit, but I worry about the Saturiwa if the Wizards deduce their origins or discover their whereabouts." James says, "We have no way of knowing what avenues the French are looking into. It was only a fluke that we found out about their efforts to form a team to investigate Atlantis. To the best of our knowledge they don't know about us yet. When Luiz's son was conducting his recent investigations in the City of Dieppe there was no indication that any of them were in the area."

Alsoomse states, with no small amount of urgency in her voice, "You are correct about the need to protect the Saturiwa. It was only from the rocks and platypus claws from the tunnel that we now deduced their current location. We must remove and bury every ounce of the Australian dirt that is currently in the tunnel, and do so as quickly as possible! On the off chance that the French do find one or more of the gateways we can't have them finding the geologic evidence. Should they discover a potential source of Wolframite, they wouldn't hesitate to kill every one of the Saturiwa to get at it."

James states, “Now, unless there are more questions we should get to where I ask if you wish to join. But before I do I suppose that some of you might be interested in hearing about payment. Each of you would receive a weekly salary of $ 500.00. That is over and above the free room and board at any of the Corporation's eight locations. You would also be entitled to a two-percent share of all profits. Essentially, half of all profits will go back into the business and the other half will go to the twenty-five operatives. Those twenty-five are the five officers, the ten managerial people for the Commercial side of the Corporation, and ten of you for the Academic side of the Corporation."

Ruby placed the bones back on the table and turned to the group. "Seems like most of the fine people here had already made their decision before last night. After some careful consideration and discussion, I will be joining the Ageless Corporation as a member and I will let George tell you his own decision."

James says, “But I also have one other exceptional reward to offer to all of you who are of full or part human blood. Please note that what I am about to tell you is a carefully guarded secret. Paolo da Rosa, Alsoomse’s husband, descended from Portuguese wizards and druids. Centuries ago the Portuguese discovered a method of human life extension using a combination of wizard and druidic magics. Upon reaching adulthood both myself and Wilamina have been recipients of this form of magic. I am currently one-hundred-and-two years of age and Mina is ninety-seven.

This magic requires some very rare and tremendously expensive components which can only found in Portugal and its colonies. It also requires multiple treatments over the course of a year, administered by a powerful spellcaster that is versed in both wizard and clerical magics, of which Luiz is one. By pooling together our knowledge, resources and connections made in the establishment of this Corporation, Luiz and I are able to make this generous offer to most of you."

Ruby clapped her hands and squealed as she bounced up and down a little. "Oh That's SO great!! George and I were just talking about doing that, I want to do it SOON so I can... well, I just want to do it soon!! I'd get to spend more time with everyone I love!! Sqquuee!!!!!" Her hair bounced up and down as she celebrated the good news. She stopped bouncing suddenly and her brows furrowed together. "Nana, you are ninety seven? NINETY SEVEN?? How did that happen? How old is mama, isn't she forty something? How old were you when you had her?"

Wilamina replies, "Your mother was born in 1837, which would now make her 45 years of age. I was 52 at the time. With this Portuguese method of slowed aging you remain youthful in physical appearance but for women menopause still sets in when in would have chronologically. However, long before we ever met James and his wife my first love Andrew and I had both previously used a French method which had de-aged us each several years, so my childbearing years lasted until I was chronologically in my mid-fifties." James interjects "Actually, that French method is very dangerous, with potentially lethal side effects. When I heard that Mina and Andrew had done something so foolish as to use that I insisted they needed to switch to the much safer Portuguese method instead. That is what we are offering to all of you."

Fish decides this is too much personal information. He gets up and nearly stumbles to the bar. He pours himself a stiff drink and remains standing, avoiding glances at either Wilamina or her granddaughter. Ruby exclaims, "You can DE-AGE yourself? My world gets bigger every damn day. Hey Ben, can you get me one of those?" "Of course!" says Fish, affecting breezy cheer but not yet meeting her eyes. He reaches for the bourbon. "Wedge of lemon or a cherry?" "Cherry of course," Ruby said with a grin, striding over to Ben. As the others continued to speak, she leaned in close and whispered, "Can you believe all this crazy stuff?"

Fish can feel the tops of his ears getting very warm. "Yeah, I feel a little in over my head," he whispers, "but I figure the Parkers have their reasons for recruiting a clever monkey like me!" He manages a glance and a wink in Ruby's direction. Ruby sipped the drink Ben made for her. "Yeah, me too. I'm not smart like the rest of them and I've been wondering why I'm here too." She smiled at the young man next to her. "Clever monkeys are always needed and useful. I'm not sure you can say the same about singers." "Don't be so sure, Miss West, " says Fish softly, "I'll tell you what I told Chernoviz: the deliberate use of distraction can be a beautiful thing to behold -- and the gods know you possess ample powers of distraction!" He drops his eyes, suddenly worried he's been too forward.

The corner of Ruby's lip curled into a smirk as she flipped her long red hair over one shoulder. "Yes, I won't deny I am good as distractions and the like. Aphrodite has blessed me with ample," she glanced down to her chest then back up to Ben, "Gifts, of that there is no doubt. However, my looks aren't going to move that dirt. Well, I suppose...," she pretended to be thinking heavily, "I could charm someone into doing my share..." Then she giggled. "I guess we should just leave the heavy thinking to the smarty pants, huh? We get to work on the other stuff." Fish mouths the words and motions toward the table: "Finish your drink, Miss West. We oughtta rejoin the others!" "Yeah, you're right, we should." She took her drink and drank it fast, coughing a little at the end. "Thanks for that Ben." She squeezed his arm then bounced back over to George.

George asks, "So, how long a life span does this entail? And at what functionality? I don't know that an extra three decades without a memory would be enjoyable. Does it slow down the aging process then or merely prolong the life span and to what degree within each portion of the recipient's life?"

James replies, "At it's full potential the magic will slow down your aging by half from the point that you receive the treatment. However, to achieve this magic’s full potential there are some geographic limitations, dependent upon the ley lines of the Earth. One would need to spend half or more of your time at places where wizard magic ley lines and earth magic ley lines intersect. There are also around two dozen such places in the world where these lines also intersect, including many of the great cities. It is no coincidence that all eight port cities chosen for offices of the AGELESS Corporation are at these locations.”

George asks, “Mina said it does not prevent the onset on menopause, it is merely physical appearance then? Surely without the natural rhythms of a woman's body, she would be prone to more ailments and disorders? Are there any side effects or risks associated with this process?” George is wringing his hands as he speaks. "Fastidious fella, ain't he?" thinks Fish to himself, "I bet he was potty-trained before the age of two!"

The physician Luiz jumps into the conversation at this point and says, "There is one major side effect for both men and women, it generally limits reproduction to only one child, or two in some cases like James, although each of those was with a different mate. There is no medical reason for either that or the early onset of menopause out-of-sync with the physical body."

Alsoomse jumps in here with "Because the answer isn't medical, it's spiritual. The nature gods will allow for the longer life span on the one hand, but limit the reproduction cycle in order to create an overall balance. Think of it this way, each family is only allowed so many total years, if you're taking more for yourself than they will be subtracted from future generations by reducing the number of children in those generations."

George asks, “Can it be reversed if needed, or against our will? “James says, "It can be reversed, but to do so would also require a year of special treatment. There is one other aspect of this that you should consider, the next generation also inherits a lesser version of this enhanced aging from the parents. Thus, they will live longer, but will also have fewer children. That is the reason behind the current estrangement between myself and my daughter. She feels that I had no right to do that to her." Ruby whispers to George, "Does all the technical stuff matter babe, really? Just think, me, you and all that extra time together," she purred. George squeezed Ruby's hand and gave her a weak smile but said nothing as he turned back to his notes.

While the conversation about the age-extending magics continued, Thomas quietly shuffled through his notes and journal, making a pretense of note-taking and calculations, trying to hide his discomfort at the topic being discussed. Gulping a large swallow of his bourbon, Fish casts his gaze across the room. He observes Thomas fumbling with his notes but fails to notice his unease.

Abigail stayed quiet for a moment, then said, "Mr. Parker, you'd have to drag me away from the chance to investigate these ties between Atlantis and the native tribes. As for the aging... I'll have to consider it. I've never thought of myself as the mother type, but I may be a little young to be making that decision forever. It would be fascinating to see how the world would change, though." James says, "The aging magic is optional, no need to make an immediate decision. So, now that all of you know the details and can make a more informed decision that's one yes to joining the AGELESS Corporation. What about the rest of you?"

Thomas looks up, and into the eyes of everyone in the room, and then stands up. "As my father often said, "in for a penny, in for a pound. You will, of course, have whatever service and labor it is within my means to provide for AGELESS, Parker. I say yes unreservedly." "Oh, count me in!" replies Ben cheerfully, lifting his glass. "It beats shoveling elephant poop!" Hardin tugs at his chin. "Sounds interesting, James. I will think on it, but the thought of making it most of the way through the next century is awfully intriguing. I think you will be able to count me in..."

Nanuet stands and says "As I said previously I will join AGELESS, the people in this room seem like the people I can be proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with and it is an easy decision for me. I for one though am glad that I do not have to make the decision regarding the extended life, that is a tough one." Lawrence scratches his chin. "I'll have to think about it. It's tempting, but I'm still leery about this kind of thing. Anyway about the Saturiwa. If we want to beat the wizards to it, we'll need to find this portal."

Ruby took a finger to George's chin and gently forced him to look at her. "What. Is. Wrong?" George squeezed her hand again "Nothing my love." "George Eastman, you are lying," Ruby said sternly, "What's wrong? What happened? Did you ask so many questions you convinced yourself something is wrong? Are you not going to join AGELESS now?" she pouted. George turned to Ruby and quietly said "Nothing is wrong, nothing has altered my original decision Constance. Don't fret."

"I can't help it, you're acting all strange." She sat back in her chair, unhappy at the new turn of events but tried to not show it. "So that's me, Abby, Ben, John, Larry, Thomas, Nanuet... who else? Roy, are you still in?" She didn't turn her head to look at her fiance. "George?"

Ruby's question woke him up from his nap. He had dozed listening to folks go on and on about history, magic, and whatnot. Less talk, more action; that was Roy's motto. "Wha.... Oh, yeah. Count me in Ruby," Roy said as he rubbed his eyes. "So when do we leave?" Ruby's smile popped back onto her face and she laughed. "Well, I'd like to know that myself! But, I think for now we will just be digging." Roy smiles. "Digging? Fantastic! It's not often that I get to use my talents in that nature. What are we digging for, exactly? I have some friends who may be able to help with that."

George finished a few last notes and closed his notebook. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Giving Ruby's hand a last squeeze he says "Well it looks like I am the last to state my standing. I have given this a good deal of consideration. And while I have a great deal of responsibility back in New York, I find that the current situation could lead to a great destabilization in world security. Between the risk of that, of genocide, the potential for new knowledge, as well as the thrill of adventure I will admit, I find that I too must through my hat into this pool of extraordinary people as well.''

"Additionally, I have been giving it a great deal of thought, and have decided to establish my own separate trust for the AGELESS Corporation, under the same terms as our Portuguese benefactor to ensure that we never need be beholden to him or his government. I shall endow this trust with one and a half million dollars to ensure that we have all the funding we need." adds George. "Give that man a drink!" yelps Fish, standing up with a grin and returning to the bar.

Ruby mouth dropped open, shocked. "George! Are you serious?" He replies, "I am very serious Constance. The matters here go beyond mere academic pursuits or even the thrill of exploring. We are dealing with Machiavellian wizards who circumvent the law and threaten the existence of entire peoples. I will help ensure that they are foiled, both by my actions and my finances." She exclaims, "B-but but that is a LOT of money! A MILLION AND A HALF dollars???"

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-three, “We dig dig dig dig dig dig dig, in our mine, the whole day through”, September 2nd, 1882, 2:15 P.M.

Following George’s offer of a million-and-a-half dollars to fund the operation Lawrence exclaims, "Great Scott, man! That's very generous of you, George." "Noble ideas remain just ideas until men work to make them reality Lawrence. But thank you." replies George. James says, "Well sir, that is very generous. I know that you have ambitious plans for your business but was not aware that it currently had that that degree of capital. As to our other benefactor, he himself is not beholden to his government, they actually need him more than he needs them, so there is no concern about Portugal wielding undue influence in our affairs.

In fact, while the King remains a personal friend of both mine and his, our benefactor and I feel that it is not necessary to tell him about us. The further removed the connection the better, given the fact that Portugal is highly known for their wizard magic. That is a key reason why the painting is on display in my office of my former Abolitionist society. I personally was the person who was primarily responsible for the Portuguese King abolishing all slavery within the Portuguese Empire's colonies within the last decade. My wanting to have a corporation to assist the native populations of those regions appears an natural extension of that work, as opposed to anything having to do with wizard magic."

"And as far as running your business is concerned George, I don't believe that you had a chance to speak much with Sergeant MacKinnon during lunch but his hobby is ornithology, the study of birds. He has trained carrier pigeons with a counterpart ornithologist who works directly for the telegraph office in Jacksonville. Getting messages out to anywhere in the United States can therefore we accomplished rather quickly, the walk or ride over to his house taking longer than sending a message to anywhere in the country, and once we have the two houses connected by telephones it will all the more quicker."

George says, "Thank you, I was going to ask that we look into having a telegraph line put in here as well.” James says, "I have plans for that to be done as well, both telegraph and telephone, but not until next spring as logistically it will be an undertaking to put in over ten miles of poles and lines. Right now, it would seem odd for a mere archeological exploration to undergo such an expense. But one advantage to have wealthy prep students here for the summers is that I can always claim that their rich parents paid for the expense in order to keep in touch with their children."

George continues, “I view the trust merely as my philanthropic duty for the next few years. While it will be a hit to my liquid assets I am dedicated t the cause. But don't worry Constance, they is plenty to keep us both comfortable." Ruby was obviously NOT happy. She lowered her voice but her displeasure was apparent as she leaned in closer to George. "You didn't even speak to me about it. At all. Not even one little mention!" George whispered back "No I didn't, but we can discuss this later. There are other things we need to discuss as well in any case." Ruby sighed. "Yes, I know."

She turned back to the group and forced a smile. "Well James, you have all of us! What an exciting new beginning this is." James says, "Indeed, I guess we'll just have to save the elixir for later uses. Well, are they any more questions? If not, why don't we all meet downstairs in the Transportation and Logistics room in say, half-an-hour, for a tour of the tunnel. You may wish to change into comfortable clothing prior to then." Fish looks at what he's wearing and shrugs. He says to himself, "It's this or the rags upstairs." "Lead the way, Mr. Parker. Let's get dirty!" he says aloud.

Ruby nodded. "Yes, can't really go exploring in a dress. We'll meet you in half an hour." She waited for George to follow her and they went upstairs together; obviously they would be having a "discussion." George escorts Ruby back to her room, going inside with her before closing the door. He sits down and looks at Ruby. "So, if I had told you about trust would you have said no?"

Ruby stands in front of George, looking down at him for some moments. "No, I don't think I would. But I am... hurt... that you didn't ask me about something so monumental. However, it's your money, not mine, so you can do whatever you want with it. It's a good cause." She shrugged. She wasn't sure what else could be said about this subject. George reaches up and pulls Ruby down into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. "Well, I apologize my dear. You have to remember that you are new in my life as well. These are decisions I am used to making on my own. But you are right that I need to make with you." "Not if you don't want to," she says a little stubbornly, trying not to look at him knowing that would quicken her losing this argument.

George tries to tickle Ruby to get her to look at him, she stubbornly refuses. So George, with a wicked smile, quickly slips his other arm under her legs and half lifts half throws her onto the bed, leaping quickly after her, landing next to her. He pins her arms to the bed. ruby is doing her best to not smile and giggle as George leans over her. "Ah but I do want to my love, I want us to be partners in life." says George bending and finding her lips and tenderly kissing her.

"Sometimes you just infuriate me!" she said, smiling. He knew she wasn't really angry. "That is just a lot of money and it surprised me is all. I know you're the business guy and you're right, you probably shouldn't ask me that stuff. I don't know much about businessy things. And, it is your money. Of course," she finally looks up into his eyes, "I like to spend money, especially your money." He answers, "Well I still have plenty of money my dear, and my business is sound. I do view this as an investment so that it will help my company. And I will set it up as a revocable trust so that, Athena forbid something happen to me, you can get to that money. And I think the corporation may not need it for long, if this pays off it could be solvent in it's own."

George watched Ruby's eyes almost roll back in her head with the business terms. He smiled he knew she was trying. George bend down and kissed her neck and whispered in her ear "We have a good twenty minutes my dear" as he nuzzled her neck. She let him continue for a moment, her fingers roaming though his hair, before speaking. "Yes... twenty minutes... but what is the other thing we need to speak of? I don't want to be worrying about it all day. I know you weren't telling me the truth about the discussion around the life extending talk. Please tell me what's wrong."

George let go of Ruby and rolled onto his side facing her. He propped himself up on one elbow to look at her. "Well, in all honesty it is nothing that needs to be decided today anyway. But when James spoke about balance and what not, and the fact that the treatment limited childbirth, well I couldn't help but think of you, and that maybe you can't have children because of Mina's treatment. But also, I had always thought about a family with lots of children. Not that I will always want that, but the option, the choice was mine," he says. "This takes that away, so it's something we have to balance against each other and discuss. It doesn't need to be done today. But can you imagine a whole passel of red-headed Eastmans running around? My brains, your looks, magic from one or both of us. Why they'd take over the world!" says George with a big smile. "It is something we need to talk about my love. But not yet, I know you are not ready for children anyway," says George.

"Babies? This is about babies again?" Ruby sighs. She rolls onto her side, the curve of her hip accentuated. "George, why am I not enough for you? And all that extra time we could spend together just me and you..." She quickly continues, "I'm sorry that's not fair." She looks up at him with big puppy dog eyes and says hesitantly, "I guess the little redhead clan of Eastman's sounds sorta cute... but then I'd have to get all fat and ugly and flabby while I had all those babies. And my boobies would sag. And Georgie, I love my boobies as they are. And after that I'd get old real fast taking care of little brats which I don't even know how to do! You know? And wrinkly. Don't forget wrinkly. Why would you want me like that?"

George stokes her cheek gently. "You will always be my Constance and I will always want you and always love you. No matter how wrinkly you become, no matter how saggy you get. But as I said it is too early to have this conversation. We shall have it again when you are 21. And I shall not take the treatment until we come to a decision," says George.

"That's the thing, I don't want to get saggy and wrinkly and I don't want you to get that way either. You should do it now, while you are young and so handsome. And I want to do it when I am young too. And, we need to figure this baby thing out before we get married, not later. Two years is very long time to be thinking of this," she pouted. "And I don't want you to be unhappy. If you can't be happy with me..."

George sighed and rolled onto his back. "That's the thing Constance, this treatment doesn't prevent getting old, it just takes a little longer is all. All that time with you does sound wonderful, but I do desire children, offspring, heirs." George closed his eyes and sighed again. Ruby gulped then said quietly. "And you won't be happy without them?" "I don't know. I have always envisioned a life with them. I haven't really thought about NOT having children. That biological drive to procreate you know," replied George. "I have been happy thus far, but as one grows older your thoughts turn to your future, to your silver years, to your legacy. I guess I always assumed I would have children, that my wife would want them too."

In her mind Ruby slapped the bed, stomped around the room and whined over this. She always knew to be with George, to be safe and cared for and loved, she would have to compromise and give up pieces of herself. But THIS seemed like a huge piece of her she wasn't sure she could do it. How could she do it and be happy? She would be another miserable and boring housewife? But instead she gazed down at the big sparkly on her finger and put on a smile on her face. "Fine George, if you want lots of babies you'll get lots of babies." But Ruby did not sound convinced. At all.

George smiled "You may have been able to lie your way through the Southwest Ms. Ruby West but I don't know how as you are a terrible liar. You don't want any kids? Not at all? Well I can take care of the raising part partially with a nanny, and even a wet nurse if you like to preserve your ample endowments." George sighed again and took off his glasses and set them on the side table and rubbed his nose. Ruby knew this was George's routine for thinking and she laid there quietly as he thought.

Finally he spoke. "Ok Constance. The idea of you being so beautiful, well as you are, for you will always be beautiful to me, but as you are for longer, for me to be as I am for longer, to accomplish more of my goals, my dreams, with the company, for the people, with you. But I do want children still Constance. I really do. But if we had one, maybe two as James said, I would be happy with that. I would, if you were happy. But that means we still have a good 20 years before you lose that ability at least. So I will get the treatment, if you can give me not a promise, but a honest effort than in 15 years or so we can have a baby. Ok?"

She leaned in and kissed him gently. "I will promise you that when I am 30 I will make an honest effort to give you a baby. I can't promise I will have one because I told you I don't know if I can but I promise I will try." She kissed him again. "Okay? Oh and by the way, I love you," she grinned. "Okay" replied George. "And I love you too my dear. Now we need to get you undressed if we are to meet our friends down stairs," says George. "I know, I know," Ruby sighed before shooing George out of her room so she could get dressed without interruption and he could too. Just the thought of babies tired her out.

Thomas peruses Fish from head to toe. "You know, Fish, if you do not mind me saying so, you have a distinct bearing and form that could be enhanced even more with the right cut of clothing. When we have some time, you and I should sojourn into Jacksonville and find you an excellent bespoke tailor -- I am sure that the city has at least one of repute." Fish grins widely, "Why, I'd be flattered, Dr. Crane!" Thomas looks over at Huggins, still dozing away, and sighs: "I did make the same recommendation to Huggins, but as you can see, he believes his South Pacific sensibilities of fashion to be far more suited to him than the cut and jib of our modern age."

Abby interjects, "You should take him up on that, but don't let him put you in anything you don't like. Stick with what's comfortable for you. The best suit will look awkward on you if you feel awkward in it. Be yourself, just be yourself in some new duds," Abby smiled at him. Looking toward Dr. Crane she added, "Clothes meant for action are what's needed for our new friend, I think." Fish says, “Yes! Something loose-cut that breathes well..." Roy adds, "Oh I agree. Perhaps a sequined suit of some sort. Fish, would you be comfortable in a unitard?"

Glaring at Huggins, Thomas attempts to maintain an impassive face... and as usually, fails miserably, breaking out into a brief snicker before catching himself. Turning to Abigail, "Agreed, Miss Marst... er... Abigail. I certainly would not want Fish to be either encumbered or uncomfortable. A good bespoke suit or two could easily be made to both accommodate a fashionable comportment for him, as well as suit his requirement for ... litheness, shall we say?" Abby says, "Oh! And don't forget the beret! It will do nothing but complete the outfit." "You might be surprised what one can conceal in a hat," says Fish, smoothing his hand across the back of his head. "Tell you what, Roy, I'll don a beret if you'll wear one of those pointed caps your people favor!"

Ruby and George returned to the group in the logistics room a little bit later than the agreed thirty minutes. For the first time the group finds her wearing pants and the swing of her hip of much more obvious when not covered by all the fabric of a skirt. Skin tight, skin colored leather pants and a white squared neck blouse with the sleeves neatly rolled up and heeled boots that went up to her knees. Her hair was all pulled back into a long braid that reached her lower back. She had an easy smile on her face, indicating all was now well. "I apologize everyone, I made us late. Takes some time to look this fabulous," she teased. "Oh who am I kidding, I always look this fabulous." More giggles. "So let's dig!

Forty-five minutes after James's announcement everybody has gathered in the Transportation and Logisitics room except for Luiz, who is helping Jasper and Obie with security. James, Sol and Alsoomse are all identically attired in leather work boots, heavy denim pants with a thick leather belt, and a thin tan cotton shirt. Sol climbs up the metal ladder to the catwalk. Alsoomse heads over to the pointer rack on the side wall, which looks like a wall-mounted billiard cue rack, except that the poles are longer with pads at the ends to push the ships around.

James says, "Opening and closing the table require command words. We made the opening part complex and requiring two people so that no intruder or visitor would be able to open it by accident. Basically, one person on the catwalk places their hands on the side railing facing the room and says the Timucuan word for "One". Another person touches the bottom of the pointer rack while saying the Timucuan word for "Two". They then both simultaneously each say a different Timucuan word, specifically "Three" and "Four". Closing it is much easier, as that may need to be done quickly. That only requires the Timucuan word for "Five".

He looks at Alsoomse and Sol and says, "Alright, let's open her up." Each touch the names spots while Sol says "Yaha", followed by Alsoomse saying "Yucha", then Sol saying "Hopu" while Alsoomse says, "Cheqela". Nothing immediately happens, then the table begins to rise from the front. The ship models do not shift but stay in place where they were. The table rises up until it is parallel to the back wall, at which point clamps appear on the side holding it up in place.

Before them where the table has been is a wooden floor, just like the rest of the room. James says, "Abra-Cadabra" and the illusion fades away, revealing a twelve foot diameter hole with a circular wall of solid polished stone, heading straight down into the earth at a thirty-degree angle. The tunnel is lit with Continual Light spells so they can see the entire ninety feet. Most of the dirt has been cleared away, but it has been left on the bottom, with a four foot ramped section in the center and with three feet of dirt on either side in leveled areas, creating giant steps to the left and right of the ramp. On each step is an empty wheelbarrow and the ramped area shows two rows of tire tracks.

James says, "We left some dirt on the bottom for traction, the stone was too smooth otherwise to walk. We fill a wheelbarrow at the bottom, attach a levitation device and wheel it up to the top side spot. You then move the levitation device to an empty wheelbarrow and bring it back down, repeating the process. Let's head down." He leads the parade all the way down. The air is surprisingly fresh although the heat increases slightly as they get lower. At the very end is the rough dirt wall that is currently being dug. A dozen shovels and picks are leaning against the side wall. Also near the end is a metal decanter and a dozen tin cups. James says, "That pitcher is magical, a Decanter of Endless Water, you get mighty thirsty doing this work.

We've found that it is wide enough down here for all three of us to work side-by-side. With more than three we may want to have some people assigned to digging and others to the wheelbarrow work. Once all of the wheelbarrows are full we knock off work and go take baths. We then wait until nightfall to remove the dirt from the building and bury in among the archaeological dig, covering the darker dirt over with local dirt."

Thomas removes his linen robe, shirtless, wearing his loose pants from his morning exercises, and assesses the work being done by the other men so far. He too grabs a shovel and pick, and moves forward, waiting for Parker to indicate what station he wants him to take. Fish knows his way around a shovel. He picks one up and gets to work. "Dirt sure smells better than elephant poop," he tells himself, grinning. Nanuet had shown up shirtless, well worn deerskin leggings, soft leather boots, his hair neatly braided down his back and a necklace with round stones on it around his neck. He says, "Let's get to work," as he joins Fish with a shovel and starts digging.

"Nan'," says Fish with a grunt while tossing dirt into the wheelbarrow *plonk*, "Doesn't your wolf kinda freak out when you're underground? I mean, I know they're den animals and all, but we're pretty deep down here!" Nanuet replies, "I think you can throw out most preconceived notions when it comes to Maska acting like other wolves. I imagine she still has the instincts of a wolf, but she has evolved to a point where she can control them. She can understand what is going on, and while she might not be comfortable down here, she would come without hesitation should I call for her."

Roy decides to wander the area around the house, looking for burrowing mammals to speak to and convince to help with the digging project Ruby says, "Sounds like we could do this in shifts perhaps?" James strips off his shirt and begins to move one of the wheelbarrow. He says, "Shifts might be the best idea, although I don't really expect you women to have to participate with this heavy labor. Alsoomse did before but we were short handed then." The elvan Indian woman moves forward and says, "James, I'm physically a decade younger than Sol, Lawrence and Thomas, and two decades younger than you. And I'm also in better physical shape than most of you as well. I'll continue to do my part."

James says, "Thomas, if the two elves move over a little and with your taller height we probably can get four of you working at once. The others of us will handle the wheelbarrows and we can switch off when some of you diggers get tired. Before we used only three-dozen wheelbarrow but I had another two-dozen delivered this week, which is why we now have thirty on each side of the ramp, one every three feet. I say we might as well keep going until all sixty are filled."

Alsoomse moves forward and grabs a shovel and moves in alongside Fish and Nanuet. Then, without any hint of modesty, she also strips down to her waist and begins digging at the wall with great vigor. Abigail had appeared in her usual work clothes, stout brown leather boots with form-fitting brown pants, but still loose enough to let her move, and a tan button down shirt like men wore. She gave an admiring glance to both those who had stripped down for the work, but did wonder a bit at how Alsoome could work that way. It had to be painful not to have any... support. With a shrug she assigned herself to wheelbarrow duty and got going.

Without thinking a smile crept onto Nanuet's face when Alsoomse had joined the digging next to him. When she began removing her shirt Nanuet's face turned red and he quickly turned away and concentrated on the work. His concentration did not last for long as he found himself peeking over at Alsoomse's beautiful half-naked form as she continued her work. "I am going to get myself in a lot of trouble..." Nanuet thought as he continued to shovel.

Thomas, who was totally absorbed in the digging, looked up when he sensed a certain tension ripple through the men after Alsoomse's and Abigail's arrival . Seeing the elvan woman half-naked, he immediately averted his eyes, glancing at Abigail to see if she had seen him looking at Alsoomse, and he then turned an even deeper shade of purplish-red than one might imagine those of his skin tone possibly could. He proceeded to dig harder and faster, steadfastly refusing to turn his head away from anything but the ground in front of him, steeling himself to be completely oblivious to the presence of the women.

Mina says, "Well, it looks like you youngsters.......and James.....have things under control. I'll be heading back up. Ruby, George, would you both care to join me?" Ruby answered, "Of course Nana," as she stared at all the half naked people. She laughed a little to herself, thinking no one would get anything done if SHE took her shirt off too.
She took George's hand and followed her grandmother back up the long tunnel.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-four, “Mina’s Questions“, September 2nd, 1882, 3:00 P.M.

Mina leads Ruby and George out of the tunnel. Ruby smiles and says, "I now understand why you couldn't get into details with us on the train. So much to know and remember! I admit, I feel somewhat overwhelmed by it all but I have you and George and James to remind me if I need some help remembering. So, is there something you'd like to do or something else we can help with?" George adds, "Yes Mina, I will feel bad not helping with the digging, but I can take a double shift later. There seems to be something you wish to speak to us about if I am not mistaken." says George as he walks along holding Ruby's hand.

Mina leads them to the President and Vice President's office and shuts the door. She then says, "There are actually four things I wanted to talk with you about. First George, the digging, James and I both feel that you should be categorized the same as Luiz. We realize that you want to do your share, and while you're not a surgeon your hands play an integral part of your work. There is no reason for you to get injured doing work that others could just as easily do.

Second, I wasn't sure how Ruby would feel with you working around Alsoomse in her half-naked state. She's never had any issues with nudity and has been digging that way alongside Sol and James for two months now. She isn't likely to change at this point, but I know that the nudity can be a bit unnerving if you aren't used to it. Third, I noticed the tension between the two of you after George made his generous offer and wanted to make sure that everything is okay now. James will understand if you choose to withdraw the offer upon further reflection. And lastly, James has noticed some growing chemistry between Nanuet and Alsoomse and was curious if you knew your friend's intentions towards her."

Ruby smiled. "Well Nana, I know where I get my love of questions from!" she laughed. She went to the sidebar and poured them each a small glass of bourbon. She handed them out then slid back up onto the desk. "I have to admit, I agree with you about George. His talents are better served researching or even the business side of things, though seems like you have that well under control already. George is very good at piecing together clues too. But yes, if he hurts himself, he would be unable to do his real work for quite some time and his business is really at an important... umm...." Ruby searched for the word, "Juncture?"

Ruby laughed, "How do you feel about James working next to a half naked Alsoomse? I think that it would make George extremely embarrassed but I'm not opposed to him working next to her. He's has me after all." Her grin was wide and easy as she threw him a knowing glance and a wink. Mina laughs and says, "Why should James working alongside Alsoomse matter given their relation to one another?" Ruby says, "Relation to her? Did I forget something important? Did you mention maybe some far back relation?" Mina looks surprised and says "Sol didn't tell you? He was supposed to during the tour. Alsoomse is James's grandmother." Ruby's eyebrows shot up. "No, I think he failed to mention that! He did say he had some elvan blood in him though. Wow, that is really interesting. A whole new dynamic."

Ruby continues with Mina’s next question, "As for Nanuet, I have known him some time and we have been though a lot together. It seems to me he is lonely since leaving his last partner and that he is also attracted to her. But I imagine the good hearted Nanuet might think this accomplished elven woman is too good for him. So, I don't know if he would make any obvious advances towards her, at least not without knowing she was open to them from him. He would not want to make her uncomfortable. Alsoomse has been around much longer than him and knows the ways of the world better. Nanuet was alone in the wild for much time so doesn't always feel comfortable in modern society or even know what the "proper" way to do things is. Courting, that is."

Mina says, "Well, Alsoomse is rather lonely herself. As you can see, she's still in the prime of her life and in fine physical shape. She remained fully faithful to her human husband, even though he was unable to attend to her physical needs for the last two decades of his life. She also maintained celebacy for the five-year mourning period. In the three years since then she has been living life.....more fully, much to her daughter's displeasure. She has commented about not wanting to get involved with one from another short-lived race. Among those here that leaves either Roy or Nanuet, and of the two James greatly favors the choice of Nanuet."

Ruby laughed again. "Hey, did you bring Nanuet here to set him up with Alsoomse?" Mina grins and says, "James didn't, that was all my doing. He did earlier express concerns about how she and Roy always flirted with one another and wasn't sure how things might develop between the two of them. This was my solution to that potential problem."
Ruby laughed. "Looks like you were touched by Aphrodite too Nana! Being a matchmaker is a fun job," she giggled. "So either she is just flirtatious, or she really likes Roy, or she's just lonely and looking for someone to share some time with. I guess time will tell us how this story will end." She burst into more fits of laughter.

Once Ruby calmed down, "I understand, she sounds like a fine and noble woman. And I would imagine they would make a good match. Nanuet is very noble and loyal too. I think he could use a committed relationship at this point after the turmoil of this year. So, what can we do to get these two together?" Mina says, "Not a thing. Didn't James mention that Alsoomse's name translates as 'Independent'. Once she makes up her mind she will take the initiative." She laughed again. "Poor Nanuet! He won't know what hit him. But I can guarantee he won't complain."

Ruby smile faded a bit and she took a long sip of her bourbon and got to Mina’s final question. "The tension... yes, we had a bit of a disagreement. George wants many children and wasn't sure about taking the magical life extending treatment. I didn't know if I wanted any children, ever. But we discussed it and came to a fair conclusion, I think. We will both take the treatment and when we are 30 we will try to have a baby." There was a noticeable large swallow from Ruby after speaking these words. She wasn't uncomfortable talking to her Nana like this but she thought George might be, a private person as he was. But this was her grandmother and if she was asking there was a reason.

Ruby put down her cup and leaned forward on her palms, swinging her legs like a schoolgirl. "Hey, I was thinking, we should probably have George take a picture of our group all together. We did just make our agreements, or we will soon. Will we have paperwork to fill out or anything? Some sort of ceremony? Either way, I think a group photo would be nice." Mina says, "That is a splended idea, although we should probably wait until everybody is cleaned up....and dressed."

Ruby says, "Oh yeah, I wasn't think this minute, but it should be soon, I think. Maybe before dinner when everyone is dressed nicer.” Mina says, "Lunch was today's sit down meal, for supper I'll just be bringing sandwiches and finger food down to the workers. We could do it tomorrow before lunch. We'll have some new guests for that meal, Jemima's other daughter and son-in-law plus their many offspring. Jemima is anxious to show off her grandchildren." Ruby nodded. "It all sounds good Nana. I'm afraid to ask... how many grandchildren are there?"

Mina says, "Four, one infant, one toddler, and two with more energy than you've ever seen in your life. Don't worry, we'll set up a children's table for all but the baby to eat at, they won't be at the main table." Ruby says, "Well, my time about my younger brother Ben has made it a little easier for me to be around children. I suppose I should get used to it, Kate will have her baby soon." “We could take another picture before the ball next week. Which reminds me," Ruby eyes sparkled, "When are we going shopping?" Mina says, "On Monday, we'll go into the city several hours early to buy clothes and have our hair done."

Ruby paused, considering her next words. "I was a little overwhelmed by that meeting. I'm not as smart as some of the rest of you. But I am excited to see if we can solve this mystery of Atlantis. I imagine most of this crew was invited each for a specific purpose?" Mina says, "Ruby, don't put yourself down. You all have a key purpose here. Your bardic abilities are quite useful and unique, your shooting skills are second only to Hardin, you've acquired some interesting trinkets along the way, and you've proven that you can remain calm under pressure. Plus, you're my granddaughter and I want you here."

Ruby smiled again at her grandmother. "You're right Nana, I am too hard on myself. I think I've just been somewhat..." Neglectful and lazy she thought but said, "Busy as of late to use my skills and maybe I was just feeling rusty. George has never even seen me shoot! Perhaps I should practice that. Do we have someplace safe to?" Mina says, "John Hardin practices each day. He found a good spot to practice on our land about three quarters of a mile east, where the hillside and cove muffle most of the sounds of the shooting. He might let you accompany him. James says that he and Sol also take the larger boat out into the ocean on occasion to get in some target practice."

"Hmmm, I wonder if Hardin would be okay with a girl shooting beside him? I will ask him, I think I had better get back into the swing of it and get back up to par. Shooting off a boat sounds difficult, unless the water was very very still, hard to get an accurate shot." Mina says, "Yes, that is part of the challenge. They put floating targets adrift and then shoot at them as they move further apart."

Ruby swung her legs a few more times. She says, "You give me the best reason to be here Nana. I am so glad we will spend this time together and you will be able to get to know George too." George sat and sipped his drink listening to Mina and Ruby talk. A smile crept over his face long longer he sat there. Finally Ruby noticed his cat-ate-the-canary grin and smiled and said "What George? Why are you smiling?"

George replied "Well I can see that with two red-heads in the family I should get used to drinking and not talking. I couldn't get a word into the conversation if I had a shoe horn." he laughed. "But yes a group photo is a wonderful idea, I will head up and get the lens and plates ready. Though I do feel bad not taking a turn on the lines digging. But I think my Constance is just jealous. She doesn't want me oggling my soon to be step-great-great grandmother" laughed George. Mina laughs and says, "Oh that's true too. Just think Ruby, if Alsoome and Nanuet were to get married that would then make you Nanuet's great, great granddaughter."

Ruby says to George, "We are very much alike, aren't we?" She slid off the table and came to George, plopping in his lap and wrapping an arm around his neck. "And yes, I am extremely, utterly jealous of you looking at any other woman, ever. Don't do it." She had a serious look on her face but was desperately trying to keep the giggles in.

George bugged out his eyes as he stared at Mina which sent Ruby over the edge and into fits of giggles. "Well, it seems nearly all the women here are related to you any way Constance, so I don't think that will be an issue, and you are more than enough for me to look at anyway" he added reaching up to kiss her. Ruby kissed him back hard. "You know I don't care. No one will never love you like I do. Or be as beautiful. And you know it. Except maybe Nana but she is already taken!" she teased.

Ruby then tapped her full red lips in thought. "You said that here the magical ley lines converge too, right? I should probably also practice my spells, just in case they are more or less powerful here or affected by the ley lines differently.” Mina replies, "They should be comparable to what you knew from Arizona. At some point in the future we should have a conversation with everybody about the ley lines."

Ruby says, “Maybe I'll entertain the crowd here tonight after dinner, what do you think Nana? George?" Mina says, "That might be a good idea, most of them will be rather tired I suspect." Ruby says, "Excellent. Maybe my entertaining will help them sleep better tonight. And yes, talking about the ley lines, good idea. But that might put them to sleep tonight!"

The tunnel crew work for a solid hour before James calls for a water break. At that point eighteen of the sixty wheelbarrows have been filled and moved to the upper 'steps' near the tunnel entrance, with the tunnel now nearly two-feet deeper. Hardin pitched in with the digging...finding it preferable to all of the scientific speculation...but soon found his hands had gotten a bit soft during his incarceration. He snorted to himself, "Damn lawyer's hands...".

Thomas does not even notice when James had called a break, continuing to dig as if it were a Herculean labor upon which his life depended. Abby filled the largest glass she could find and walked it over to Dr. Crane, tapping him on the shoulder. "Meditation in work is all well and good, but you still need to drink," she said, holding it out. Alsoomse puts her shirt back on and then examines the hands of all of those who had been digging, to see if any require a Cure Light Wounds spell to heal any blisters or calluses. James comments "Thomas looks like he could go another hour without a problem, but why don't the other three of you switch off to wheelbarrow duty and give some of the others a chance to dig."

After the water break the digging crews alternated again, Thomas still refusing to stop. By 5:00 PM they had filled thirty-seven of the wheelbarrows when Ruby, Mina, George and Luiz bring trays filled with sandwiches, fruit and a chocolate pudding as well as pitchers of lemonade and orange juice. They also bring some small blankets, as several of the lower wheelbarrows are moved over to make room on the dirt side steps for people to sit.

Alsoomse again checks the digging crew's hands for the need of curing spells. Luiz makes a point of checking her's as well, which he does cast a Cure Light Wounds spell upon and chides her worrying about others while not taking care of herself. She then casts her final 'Cooling' spell of the day, which drops the temperature in the heated chamber by twenty-five degrees. The tunnel now goes seven-to-eight feet further down into the ground than it had when they began.

Lawrence leans on his shovel and wipes his brow. "Whew. That was the hardest I've worked since that bridge out in Cincinnati. You remember that James? That was some time. Fish, you would have loved it. Dangerous work where a good sense of balance comes in handy." Sol interjects, "I remember too, that was the year after the war. At the time it was the world’s longest suspension bridge, connecting Cincinnati, Ohio to Covington, Kentucky."

James says, "Yes, you can blame me for that one. I was the one who suggested to President Johnson that it would be a symbolic gesture to devote the resources to reconnect a Union and former Confederate state in spectacular fashion. If I had known he was going to put me in charge of the project I'd have just kept my mouth shut." Lawrence chuckles, "There you go. That'll teach you to volunteer for things. At least we got a record out of it."

Following the meal break the digging resumes in earnest. The sixtieth wheelbarrow is filled by 7:45 PM, at which point the tunnel is a full eleven feet deeper than when they began this day. As the tired and dirty workers make their way upstairs Ruby and Mina have cold beverages prepared for them all. Mina says, "You should all go and each take a long hot bath. Ruby and Luiz will be giving a concert in the living room in an hour if any of you would like to attend."

Nanuet says, "It's been far too long since I've heard miss Ruby sing, I for one will be there" Naneut says, winking at Ruby. "Mind if I borrow somebody's bathtub? My lodgings don't have a tub and it's a fair walk to the river." James points out that two of the forth floor rooms are unoccupied, although each one shares a bathroom with either Benjamin or Roy. Lawrence inclines his head. "I'd like that very much. But now the bath awaits. I'll take mine outside. It was hot down there and it is still warm outside."

James says, "That's fine, but please clean up a little first before heading outside. Given the intruder yesterday I won't assume that the building isn't being watched. A dirt covered face and dirty clothing would give away that we've been digging inside the house." Lawrence nods and says, "Got it. I'll be discreet. They won't even know I was there." He goes upstairs to splash water on his face and to get a robe. Once he gathers his things, he sneaks out to a secluded part of the river.

Fish sidles up to Wilamina. "Lady Parker," he queries of her quietly, "I stink, and I have nothing clean to wear worthy of the evening. I'm ashamed to ask, but might there be something here in the house that might almost fit me?" He stands, heels together, arms akimbo. She says, "It won't be an exact fit, but Sol is close enough in size and build that his clothing should work. I'll go talk to him and have him bring something up to your room. On Monday when we go to Jacksonville we'll expand your overall wardrobe."

Fish heads to his room for a quick bath while waiting for Solomon. Wrapping a towel around his slim waist and dripping water, he stands at the bureau and attempts smoothing out the one ascot he owns. It's really quite elegant with its braided silver thread edging. He smiles as he remembers Lydia who gave him this twist of silk. "No need to breathe, indeed!" he says to himself, grinning lasciviously.

John Hardin was very happy when the digging came to an end for the day and filtered up with the others for a quick bath. He changed in to suitable wear for the balance of the evening and systematically checked his semi-hidden hardware with a practiced hand. He grins and heads up downstairs...

Abby had left the tunnel with her shirt soaked in sweat and aching shoulders. She didn't even want to think about the way her back felt. The long, hot soak in the tub improved the situation, but she still walked stiffly down to the evening's activities, and tried not to fidget in her chair while still trying to get comfortable. Fish hands Miss Marsters three fingers worth of bourbon. "Thank you," she said with a nod and a smile before tossing down the bourbon in one shot. "A couple more of those and I might feel better."

Ruby returned to her room to freshen up and choose a new outfit. She knew it wasn't necessary, being among friends, but she felt it was good manners to look nice and spread good cheer to those who worked so hard all day. She washed up and fixed her hair into a nicer updo, nothing too fancy but more formal than her normal day time look. She laid out and dressed in a creamy pink confection, an open square necked gown that accentuated her waist. Once she was properly attired for a performance, she swept back downstairs to have a drink and wait for her audience.

Luiz comes downstairs to the room. He is attired in a formal black-tie outfit complete with tails. In his hand is a good sized suitcase. Sol and James simultaneously move one of the couches and two chairs away from the south wall as Luiz approaches and opens the case. He removes from it what appears to be a toy upright piano, fourteen inches high and eighteen inches wide. He sets the piano along wall then removes from the case a piano sit made to the same scale as the piano.

Luiz then steps back and begins a long incantation in the German language, most of which is incomprehensible to those in the room except for the names of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach and Wilhelm Richard Wagner. Upon completion of the speech the piano and bench let off a slight glow and then start to enlarge. It takes a full two minutes until they stop growing, now being a regular-sized piano and bench. "Hey, that's a neat parlor trick," Ruby smiled. "What kind of songs do you know?"

Luiz smiles and says, "A variety of French, Portuguse, Spanish, British and American songs. Tell me what you wish to play and I'll do my best. And it isn't a parlor trick, the magic is in the piano itself. It's my wife's, but she's let me borrow it until we get a real piano here for the concert hall." Ruby exclaims, "Concert hall? Here? Where will it fit?" James says, "In the student center. Last summer we had Bradford Academy students who had a strong interest in history, archeology and Native American studies. They were willing to work long hours in the heat, live in tents, and do what needed to be done. They also were able to respect and listen to Alsoomse, despite her race and gender.

We have another group of Bradford Academy students coming in December for a month or so. They are a totally different bunch, the children of the upper class, who couldn't get into a more prestigious school due to either poor academic grades, discipline problems, or both. Most of them have parents who winter here in Florida that like the idea of their children being near them, but not necessarily with them. The major advantage to us having those students here is that their parents are filthy rich. The parents are currently undertaking key fundraisers to build the student center at the Timucuan Conservancy for their children to stay at. It will include a concert hall, as well as dormitory and lounge rooms. So next summer, when the serious students arrive, they will have a nice place to live."

Alsoomse adds, "And while these rich kids are here we can actually do some archeology digs at the Fort Caroline ruins. We couldn't risk that during the summer, as several of the students were smart enough to differentiate between Spanish and French artifacts. This next bunch won't have that skill set." "My goodness, is there nothing you haven't thought of?" Ruby laughed. "Sounds like you really look out for those students James, I hope they know how lucky they are. Hopefully I will get the chance to sing at the concert hall myself one day." Mina says, "Oh you will, you'll be the very first one." James adds, "Naturally, we'll need to test the acoustics of the place, who better than our very own singer to do so." "Excellent! I like being the first," Ruby grinned, feeling rather special.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-five, “Stargazing”, September 2nd, 1882, 8:30 P.M.

After the others arrived Ruby whispered into Luis's ear, speaking to him of song choices. Together they decided on some songs. Ruby faced the group. "Hopefully you'll enjoy our little concert, after your hard day at work you deserve a little drink and relaxing. We'll start when everyone is ready." Luis played some light music until everyone was seated and quiet.

Ruby began to sing a stream of songs, mostly popular and tame songs as she still didn't know everyone in this group well. She began with the classic “A Bicycle Built for Two” followed by “And the Band Played On”. It occurred to her that no one here, even George, had seen her perform many times if at all. So she kept the songs and her performance family appropriate, flitting from person to person around the room as she sang and engaged her new companions.

Though she hadn't practiced recently, Ruby's voice was strong and unwavering, a soprano which went from sounding sweet to sultry in a heartbeat. She always put a lot of emotion into her singing and this time was no different. She sang for 20 minutes or so and included a few very well known popular songs, two songs in Spanish and a song in French. Ruby finished with a melancholy song, filled with emotion, After the Ball:

A little maiden climbed an old man’s knees—
Begged for a story: "Do uncle, please!
Why are you single, why live alone?
Have you no babies, have you no home?"
"I had a sweetheart, years, years ago,
Where she is now, pet, you will soon know;
List to the story, I’ll tell it all:
I believed her faithless after the ball.“
”Bright lights were flashing in the grand ballroom,
Softly the music playing sweet tunes.
There came my sweetheart, my love, my own,
‘I wish some water; leave me alone.’
When I returned, dear, there stood a man
Kissing my sweetheart as lovers can.
Down fell the glass, pet, broken, that’s all—
Just as my heart was after the ball.“
”Long years have passed, child, I have never wed,
True to my lost love though she is dead.
She tried to tell me, tried to explain—
I would not listen, pleadings were vain.
One day a letter came from that man;
He was her brother, the letter ran.
That’s why I’m lonely, no home at all—
I broke her heart, pet, after the ball.
After the ball is over, after the break of morn,
After the dancers' leaving, after the stars are gone,
Many a heart is aching, if you could read them all—
Many the hopes that have vanished after the ball.

She gave everyone the chance to take in the song, sipping her own bourbon, before she spoke again. "So, anyone have any special requests?" Fish volunteers brightly, "Do you happen to know The Man on the Flying Trapeze?" Luiz plays as Fish sings the piece. "I do now," Ruby smiled after Fish's rendition

Following Fish's song Luiz introduces his next two pieces of music as being from Brazil's most famous composer, Jose Muricio Nunes Garcia, whose musical style was influenced by Mozart and Haydn, and who played for the Portuguese royal family during their visit to Brazil. He says that most of Garcia's work is for full orchestra, but that the man began by playing piano, organ and harpsichord, so left a number of pieces for just the keyboard. Two long flowing masterful pieces follow, Luiz's playing being superb.

Ruby took a break and enjoyed her own drink while Luiz played, the beautiful and soothing music good for her soul. She clapped enthusiastically when he finished. "That was excellent Luis! Where did you learn to play?" He replies, "Around fourteen years ago in France, my wife has always played but didn't have the patience to teach either myself or our children. I was able to arrange lessons for one of my daughter's with the master pianist Jules Massenet, who was willing to teach me also. He has since gone on to become a great composer. He is also a wizard, and within the past few years he was inducted into membership on rival team of French wizards."

As the concert winds down James says, "It's been a long day. Tomorrow should be easier for all of us, we'll still want to fill all sixty wheelbarrows but will have twice as much time during the day to do that in. Any of you who are tired should go to bed, now that it is dark outside the rest of us will go see to emptying today's collection of dirt and rocks. It should go rather quickly, the levitation devices do most of the work and we'll just be dumping it all into one of the student-dug holes, putting the local dirt on the final two feet of it." Lawrence rubs his lower back. "We'd better get started then. The quicker we get the dirt put away, the less likely we'll be spotted."

"When we're through, ish there any chance we can do a bit of shtar-gazing, cap'n?" asks Fish, buzzing from the bourbon. "Miss West, you could mix ush a liddle of The Green Fairy for the occashion!" "Yes, that sounds good," she grinned, "After the dirt moving, we'll have a little flight of fancy while star gazing. Good?" Alsoomse says, "Actually, Sol and I are heading up to the roof now to use the telescopes to make sure that nobody is around before we empty the wheelbarrows. After that the roof will be available. Nanuet, you may want to patrol the grounds with Maska as a second check that we're alone here."

"Not a bad idea Alsoomse. I fancy a stroll anyways." Nanuet nods his head towards Ruby and says "Nice singing as usual Miss Ruby, although not as, umm, raucous as usual." Nanuet will head outside and begin walking the grounds checking to see if they are being watched. "Ha!" Ruby laughed. "Well, yes, I figured I should not embarrass anyone tonight at my first concert for my new friends. I won't let you down though Nanuet, I'll be rambunctious just for you next time." She gave him a wink and a with a swish of her hips she went back to the bar for another drink.

"James, shall I help now with the dirt moving or is that off limits too? I can man the bar for those who need some medicinal help after today's strenuous activities otherwise." Luiz says, "James will let you, he let's me help with this part too, since the levitation device on the wheelbarrows absord ninety-five percent of the weight. He will make you wear work gloves thought to protect your hands. You'll also want to change out of that dress."

Ruby had been hoping for a "no" answer, yet she wouldn't decline. "Alright, I'll go change and be right back. After that stargazing and drinking. Not such a bad day!" She quickly returned to her room and changed back into her leather pants from earlier in the day then hurried back downstairs. "Let's get this part over with, shall we?" she said ready to work. After dinner but before the evening shift spent humping dirt, Fish changes out of the outfit that Solomon lent him, and pulls on his smelly clothes.

Once it is determined that no strangers appears to be around they get going. The work proceeds in near silence, with the wheelbarrows being wheeled out of the back door of the Transportation and Logistics room down a makeshift ramp and over to one of the larger archeological dig holes in the ground. The holes manages to take in all but eight of the wheelbarrow loads, with Thomas and Sol then covering the final two feet with the local dirt. The remaining wheelbarrows are poured into the bottom of a second hole, with around a foot or so of local dirt then shoveled on top. The wheelbarrows are all returned to the tunnel which is closed up. With nearly everybody working the entire operation is completed by 10:15 P.M.

James says, "Tomorrow morning we can work from whenever people get up until 11:00 A.M. We'll then get washed up for lunch with the Delroy-Kingsleys, then finish some time after lunch." Ruby states, "That sounds good James. I am going to get cleaned up and more comfortable then do some stargazing, it's such a beautiful night out tonight. I believe Ben has requested the green fairy make an appearance and I'll take care of that for him and anyone else who may be interested. So say 30 minutes or so and I'll be up on the roof. Everyone should feel free to join us." Lawrence, being an old man, goes to bed early. "You all have a good evening."

Mina and James declared they are headed to bed, as did Sol, leaving just the new companions to decide if they want to join in the fun. Ruby returned to her room where she dressed in her thin white nightgown. She covered that up with a long pink frilly bathrobe. She let her hair loose and brushed it out, leaving it down where it hung to mid back and left her boots and stockings off.

Once George was also ready she made a quick stop at the bar grabbing the liquor she needed, sugar, special glasses and the pouring accessories. the Green Fairy They headed upstairs to the roof and claimed some lounge chairs, putting the head of the chairs flat for easier looking up at the stars. "George, are you going to try one of these?" she asked him as she poured one for herself, also waiting to see if anyone else would show up.

After the excavating (hard work sobers him up!), Fish dashes down to the river, strips and splashes. He streaks back to house, having wadded up his now-thoroughly-rank clothing in a ball that he tucks under his left armpit. He winks at Maska as the wolf glowers at him on his way past the animal. He clambers up the side of the manse, ducks into his room, changes back into his dinner outfit, and scampers up to the roof. Hair still damp, he gladly accepts a goblet from Ruby, the green elixir therein catching the starlight. Ruby says, "Feel better now that you've had a bath? I always do. What a long day of work, huh? This will help all of us relax, I think."

Nanuet headed back to his lodgings and cleaned up. He put on a white linen shirt, keeping his deerskin leggings on and headed to the roof to see if anyone had arrived. Spotting George and Ruby he headed over to the couple. "I hope you haven't started the festivities without me. I haven't taken time to look at the beauty of the heavens in quite some time." Nanuet found a spot where he could sit comfortably and still speak with George and Ruby without raising his voice. "Beautiful night."

"Very beautiful. And it's quiet out here too, I can hear every bug chirping. Not like in Rochester where everyone is packed on top of each other. Nanuet, would you like a drink?" Ruby waved the bottle filled with the green liquid. "What exactly is that you have in your hand Miss Ruby? Some sort of local drink? It's green!" Nanuet moved closer to examine the bottle. "Ab... Ab-sin... Ab-sin-the... well I doubt it's any good for me since it has the word sin in it... sure, I'll try some."

Ruby laughed heartily. "Nanuet, you always make me laugh. Yes, it's very bad and sinful for you... but in the very best way. Of course it's good for you!! Would I steer you wrong?" She gave him a crooked, naughty grin as she poured him his very own Green Fairy, handing it to him slowly. "Just make sure you don't fall off the roof, okay?" He replies, "Fall off the roof? Well I'll make sure I sit down before trying this new vice you're introducing to me here. To new friends, new adventures and Green Fairy's!" She says, "Oh Nanuet, you are so funny!"

Abby considered the offer to just go on to bed, but the moving actually worked some more of the stiffness out of her muscles. She changed back into the pants and blouse she'd been wearing in the morning and went up to the roof. "None of the green stuff for me," she said when asked. "I wouldn't mind a couple glasses of wine, though."
"Excellent! I'll go get that for you." Ruby ran down the three flights of stairs to the bar and grabbed two bottles of wine, one red, one white, and a couple of wine glasses, returning before anyone could really miss her. "Red or white Abby?" she asked.

Ruby says, "It seemed like so long ago I first found out about this day and now it's here. Kinda unbelievable actually." She lifted her own green beverage to her lips then stopped. "To new friends and new ventures!" she toasted, before taking a large sip. Abby says, "You didn't have to make a special trip, I could have lived without it. I'll start with the red." She poured herself a glass and leaned back. "And let it get rid of the last of these aches from all that digging. I'm used to working hard, but it's usually a bit more delicate."

Ruby raised her glass to his toast. "No problem, I didn't mind running downstairs. Yes, that does seem like hard men's work, I must say. What is it you normally do Abby?" Ruby sipped at her drink then settled back in her chair, gazing up at the stars. She sighed, "They are so amazing..." "I guess no one else wanted to join us. Oh well, their loss."

Alsoomse joins the others on the roof. She has just bathed and her long hair is freely flowing over her shoulders and back, with a slight scent of honey to it. She is attired in a simple off-white linen dress belted with a braided cord and is barefoot. Upon arrival she helps herself to a small glass of white wine, and asks if anybody needs assistance with identifying the star constellations. "Yes, please!" says Fish, enjoying the view.

Alsoomse begins to point out the various star constellations, using the English, Greek and Native American names. She explains that her father liked to watch the stars, as well as her husband, father-in-law, son-in-law, grandson and great grandson. Ruby says, "I love them too. I have always wondered what else is up there. Like the gods, are they up there? But no matter, the stars are so beautiful and sparkly and magical... just seems like your dreams can actually come true if you wish on one, you know?"

Fish finds himself surrounded by beautiful women on a beautiful night. Nanuet finds himself watching Alsoomse more than the stars. He admires her teaching abilities and patience with the others as she points out the various constellations. "Well this was a terrific idea, an enjoyable ending to a busy day." The group of stargazers remain on the roof until after midnight and until the beverages are all gone before heading back downstairs to their respective rooms. After a long day it does not take long for each to fall asleep.

The sun rises at 6:30 A.M. and very few in the household rise at that hour, the previous day having been a long and tiring one for most. Nanuet is early to rise and is with Maska in the morning before commencing the digging again. By 8:30 AM a crew is downstairs in the tunnel working at digging. Lawrence asks James, "So how much more digging do you expect? It feels good to get some manual labor. I must be getting soft." James says, "We did until we reach it, but we're now slightly more than sixty-feet below the surface and we would hit the water level at approximately one-hundred feet, so we should reach it well before then. Once we get all sixty wheelbarrows full we can stop for the day." At 10:30 AM they have been joined by most of the others. James calls for a break at 11:00 AM for everyone to wash up and change for lunch, having filled twenty-six wheelbarrows and dug through another five to six feet of tunnel.

Shortly before noon the Delroy-Kingsley family arrives. With them today is Jemima's half-ogre daughter Beulla, her ogre husband Norris and their children Tristin, Declan, Esmerelda and Korrina. They live at the Kingsley Plantation. Beulla is Enoch's full sister and Antoinette's half-sister. Of the children, the two boys are the human equivalent of four and five. Esmerelda is the human equivalent of two and Korrina is around six-months old. Ruby enjoys her delicious lunch while trying not to make it too obvious she is avoiding the little germ carriers. George notices, but does not mention Ruby's avoidance, instead, indulging himself with the food along with Ruby.

Today's meal consists of barbecue pork ribs, roasted corn on the cob, a hot rice and green bean dish, wheat rolls and peach cobbler for dessert. One interesting side note that comes up during the dinner conversation is in reference to the food, when Alsoomse points out that the American word 'Barbecue' is actually derived from the Timucuan language. When the French and Spanish arrived they saw the local technique of cooking marinated meat on grills above a bed of coals. The fire oven was called a 'barabacoa', which is how the cooking technique and word found its way into the various cultures of the new world.

At lunch George does make an announcement. "My lovely fiancée had a wonderful idea yesterday. A group photo. What an excellent idea to start this endeavor. I would like to take one in the next day or so, I need to get the camera set correctly and the plates, and work out the last details on another suggestion from Constance, a device to trigger the shutter from a distance so I can be in the photo as well. So I would request that every one have some clean and decent clothes ready for say a photo before dinner tomorrow? Sound good James? I would like to take one before the upcoming ball as well when everyone will be in their finery." says George to the group.

Turning to James, Fish volunteers with a smirk, "Hey boss! I take it that you and Lady Wilamina would advise against my 'liberating' anything while we're at this fancy ball, yes?" James smiles and says, "That might be wise, given that Jacksonville's Mayor, Chief of Police and County Judge will all be in attendance." Remembering that Thomas offered to take him clothes shopping, Fish chirps, "Sol, Dr. Crane and I will ride with you!"

James replies, "That is an excellent idea. Tomorrow's meal by the Delroy-Kingsley family will be breakfast. We can plan on taking a group photograph outside immediately following the meal. As for everyone in our finery, you will need to bring the camera with you to Jacksonville, as I believe some of the attire will not be purchased until shortly before the ball." Sol says, "I plan to take those who need more time in town around mid-morning. We'll sail in on the boat, and the rest of you can join us in the evening using the carriage."

Alsoomse comments, "I'm still uncertain about this idea of yours of having most or all of us attend this ball James." He replies, "But necessary, we can't be having the well-to-do expect us to drop our important work to regularly attend social functions. Nor will it do to have people coming to visit us when we are supposedly here, but are actually off globe-trotting. The key will be to alienate the good old Southern folk just enough that they won't want to socialize with us regularly but will still accept our being here."

Abby shook her head, a bit confused. "Wait. The reason we're going to this ball is to offend local society?" "I can give you some pointers, if you'd like," Roy says with a wink. Abigail replies, "But Roy, I already know how to proposition all the good-looking women. You have something else to teach me?"

James says, "Jacksonville prides itself on its selective cultured and refined members of society. They are comprised primarily of middle-aged and older members of the upper classes who have chosen to either retire to here, or in many cases to just spend the winter months here in this warmer climate.

This particular Fraternal Order has politicians, military leaders, judges, artists, giants of literature and commercial leaders. They have been after Luiz and I to join since our arrival in June. Judge Thomas Settle, the previous President, looked like he would do cartwheels when he heard that George Eastman would be arriving. This particular club has rules limiting their membership to males of pure human blood, something that I find highly offensive as does Jerome Kingsley, who owns the Kingsley Plantation.

Curiously, their new President, General Francis Elias Spinner also thinks similarly. He was a New York abolitionist who during the war went to great lengths to allow women to find employment in Government service. At this ball He, Jerome and I plan to 'push the envelope' so to speak, and maybe get the organization to relax some of its more rigid rules. Either way, I doubt they will be looking for us to become very active in this group going forward, which suits me just fine, as we have far more important things to do. However, we don't want to offend them too much that they want us permanently gone from the County, that would be counterproductive."

Thomas states, "I imagine I could likely assist in the ... how did you put it? The "pushing" of said envelope," Thomas says. Turning to Roy, he smiles as he continues, "As a matter of fact, I am certain that Huggins and I could be quite helpful in coordinating a bald-faced challenge to their antebellum plantation attitudes about race and class."

James smiles and says, "Ah, did I forget to mention? Based upon my recommendation and his top-notch credentials my friend the Oxford educated Doctor Thomas Crane of Bermuda has already been accepted as a member. It's just possible that I may have forgotten to mention his race."

A wide grin splits Thomas' face. "Most excellent, Parker, most excellent indeed. I look forward to the undoubtedly warm welcome I shall receive!" James says, "Well, if Benjamin is willing my thoughts were that we might have you come in along with a very well-dressed Benjamin Trout. We could then introduce the two of you as Doctor Thomas Crane and his servant Benjamin, letting the misconception continue a while longer until an opportune moment presents itself."

Fish cracks a smile as wide as his face. "What fun!" he says gleefully. "I'm guessing a fancy vest will have one of those little watch pockets tucked high along the ribs, right? Let's have my watch resemble Dr. Crane's watch, only smaller. I'll mimic his affectations when checking the time: he'll look at his watch, then I'll look at my watch; his pinky finger will pop to the side when he does, my pinky will mimic the same gesture." Then the edge of his grin crooks, "Do I get to taste his drinks first?" Thomas laughs as he shakes his head, "You Americans have the most eccentric sense of humor I believe I have ever encountered in all of my world travels."

Ruby states, "Oh, I'll definitely want some time in town to shop. Though I believe I brought a dress or two that would do, I think the fashions down here are a little different than in New York. Plus, I just enjoy shopping. But honestly, I just don't get these people who think they are better than everyone else."

Luiz returns from having walked the Delroy-Kingsley family back to their house following the meal. As he enters he shakes his head and says, "I have grandchildren the ages of those youngsters. Makes me glad that they're 3,000 miles away from here." James smiles and says, "You say that now, but I'm sure you miss them. We were just talking about the ball tomorrow. Some of our associates feel they might not be given a warm welcome."

Luiz says, "Well as far as I am concerned we come as a package deal, if they truly want the world famous authors Pedro Luiz Chernovtz and James A. Parker as well as the successful businessmen George Eastman and Solomon Star, then they will likewise have to accept the other members of our party regardless of race or gender." Luiz heads into his office, returning with a book about the ancient city of Tanis, Egypt. He fixes himself a glass of lemonade and heads outside to one of the porch benches to read.

James says that work will resume again in the tunnel. He and several others head upstairs to change and then head back to the tunnel. During the morning and previous afternoon Alsoomse had worked on the wheelbarrow crew. She now picks up a shovel again. Either somebody has spoken to her or she sensed Nanuet and Thomas's discomfort with her previous digging attire, or lack thereof, because she now has a linen scarf wrapped around her chest while still leaving her arms, shoulders and mid-drift open for easy movement. Fish is not pleased with the change in attire.

Ruby retired with George to the photography lab while the others returned to digging. There he began to organize, he labeled items and arranged them in drawers and shelves in the order he preferred. Ruby helped him move things around but she let George tell her what to do; she knew he liked to be very precise with his livelihood. Halfway through they stopped and brought lemonades and cookies down to the diggers, then brought themselves a snack back to the lab before they got back to work.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-six, “Two Minute Warning”, September 3rd, 1882, 4:15 P.M.

Several hours of digging later all but seven of the wheelbarrows are filled. Given more time to work they have been filling them this day full to overflowing on the top, in order to dig further down. The tunnel is now approximately 115 feet deep and by Roy's estimation some 64 feet below the surface. Those inside the tunnel then hear the sound of a whistle, two long continuous notes. There is then a pause and two more long continuous notes. James loudly exclaims "That's the emergency signal. All stop!"

Ruby and George are in the Photographic Laboratory and hear the whistle sounds, which appears to be coming from the nearby Transportation and Logistics room. Ruby furrowed her brows together. "George, what was that?" She stood up and motioned with her finger to him, whispering, "I think it's in the next room, let's go check it out." Ruby moved quietly into the hallway then peered into the Transportation room to see what was going on. Ruby enters the room to see Luiz standing near the tunnel entrance blowing into a whistle. He is holding a small piece of paper in his hand. She asks, "Luiz, what's wrong? What is going on?" George sighs at the interruption and leaves the photography lab as it, but locks the door as he leaves.

Luiz steps back from the tunnel entrance as a dirty and shirtless James Parker charges out from it, with the other diggers right behind him. Thomas steps away from the digging, sets down his pick, and walks quickly towards the opening of the tunnel, where he has left his tunic and walking staff. He takes a moment to drink some water from the basin, uses his shirt to mop his face of the sweat and the dirt, and then goes to join the others.

Luiz holds up the note and says, "This just arrived by carrier pidgeon from Alan McKinnon. It reads 'Eleven purposeful and heavily armed men just rode by at a fast gallop. Are they expected? Do you need my assistance?'" Sol rushes out of the room and slides the side panel to the hidden staircase on the west wall. Rather than heading up the stairs he goes through another panel and into the dining room. He runs to the side window and yells back "I see a cloud of dust approaching the hill. Looks like they are around two minutes out."

Nanuet finds Maska and tells her "Go girl, go hide but stay close so you can come when I call. Go!" He then finds Alsoomse and goes to her, staying close and waiting for instruction. Alsoomse asks Nanuet "Are you proficient with bow and arrow? The shelves in my office contain various Native American items, including a longbow, shortbow and three quivers of arrows." Nanuet nods with agreement and understanding. "Lead the way."

Lawrence exclaims, "Damnation! Anyone got an extra gun? All I own is a little popgun. I better get it anyway." He rushes upstairs to get his Derringer. "I'm not armed," Abby managed between breaths. "I'll be right back." She took off at a sprint for her room where her colt was stored as well as a small pouch filled with spell components, just in case. She barely stopped in the room, rushing right back out to rejoin the others. Roy runs up to his room and grab his gun. He goes to the nearest window and crouches, waiting to pick off anyone who needs it.

In Alsoomse’s office she and Nanuet retrieve the quivers and arrows. While in the room she casts a quick spell over both herself and Nanuet, causing a circle of light to travel from head to toe, cleaning their bodies and clothing of dirt in the process. She also grabs a leather basket with berries, consuming a handful and telling Nanuet to do the same. As he eats the dried fruit he immediately feels the fatigue exit his body and is revitalized again. As they return to the hallway she offers a handful of the berries to any of the other diggers who are still around. Abby followed Alsoome's example and used a spell to clean herself up, then accepted the offer of the berries. The digging was harder on her than she liked to admit. Fish grabs and ingests a handful as he heads by.

Thomas states, "If they have come here to do harm, which seems likely, they probably think they will have the element of surprise, so it might be worthwhile to find concealed positions along the incoming path, and wait for them to approach, and then catch them unawares from several sides. They will probably send men around the back, so it might be worthwhile to have someone waiting there for them as well. Where do you need me, Parker?"

James points out that with Thomas's darker skin tone and covered in dirt he could blend in rather well by one of the archeological dig dirt mounds, suggesting the one closest to the front porch (around 80 feet northwest of the porch corner). Thomas nods, and will head over to the mound to wait for the horsemen Fish follows Dr. Crane, saying grimly, "I hide well, and none of us should be alone!" On his way up from the tunnel, he retrieves his shirt and leather vest (which conceal his throwing daggers).

Being the non trusting sort, Ruby almost always had her pistol hidden and on her; strapped to her upper thigh. Today was no different. A few thoughts quickly ran through her mind. "Luiz, I have an idea." She quickly cast a spell and disappeared, making herself invisible. "I will try to detect who they are what they are planning to do. I'm not sure I will be successful but I will try. I will be outside and if there is imminent danger I will let someone know. George you stay out of trouble!" She pinched George's rear end as she moved past him invisibly then made her way outside the house, positioning herself in the direction the intruders were approaching. She retrieved her gun from it's hiding place and readied to cast her detect thoughts spell when the group was closer, but not close enough to hear her.

George heads up stairs as Ruby heads out, grabbing his revolver and heading out onto the balcony in the front, to have a better view of what is going on. James and Mina come down from upstairs. In the two minutes he has totally cleaned up from the digging and is in new clothes. A Colt Peacemaker revolver is in the holster on his belt and he has pinned on his Deputy Sheriff badge

As the riders crest the top of the hill they slow to a canter and then to a trot. There are a total of nine adult males. Their horses look to be in excellent shape, with western-style saddles and a pair of full saddlebags on each mount. A rifle, shotgun, or both are sticking out from the rifle holsters on the saddles. Seven of the men are attired in standard western attire of cowboy hats, leather coats, leather vests, denim pants, leather chaps, sturdy work boots, and leather belts with gun holsters with revolvers. All but one of these seven look to be in their late teens or early twenties, the other being middle-aged. The other two men are both middle-aged, one attired in a dark suit, the other in an old Confederate army uniform. The man in the suit is clean shaven, the others all with beards and mustaches.

Ruby casts her spell when the riders are within 60 feet, then she continues to concentrate on their thoughts, it's especially helpful that they stop within 20 feet of the house. They come to a halt twenty-feet before the front steps. None of the men draw their weapons but most now rest with one hand positioned either to their side near their revolvers or against the saddle near the long-arms. The man with the suit appears to be the leader of the group as he rides up closer to the front steps.

Ruby focuses upon the leader, who is closest to her. She is unable to detect anything at all from him. Historically, when that had occurred the individual was either a strong-willed person whose thoughts would always be private or a wizard that had been trained how to shield his thoughts. Looking at the determination on this man's face she concludes that either or both may be the case.

Focusing further out on the group of eight beyond him she is immediately overwhelmed by a wave of strong emotions, which vary from excitement to dread. She senses that most wish to be here even though many fear that they will soon be dead. She begins to detect individual emotions, vengeance being the strongest. Other individual stray thoughts that begin to be detected are "Texas pride", "Pa would be proud of me" and that "Justice will be served". Texas pride? she thinks, wondering just what this group is after. She continued to concentrate but otherwise waited for James or someone to come out and ask this group just what they wanted. She readied to cast sleep in case they started advancing further on the house.

As she continued to concentrate a sudden loud thought came to her mind, loud because it was repeated by more than one of the intruders. Hardin. She quickly looked around the group for his location. This was not going to end well. But if she could find him perhaps a gun fight could be avoided.

James instructs Mina to watch from the window as he steps out onto the porch. "What can I do for you?" he asks. The spokesman and leader says, "We want John Wesley Hardin and James Parker." "I'm Deputy Sheriff James Parker, and you are trespassing. What business do you have with Mr. Hardin?" The suited spokesman says, “Hardin killed my brother.” “And my Pa,” one of the younger men interjects.

The man in the suit then says, “Hardin killed kin of every one of us. He was sentenced to twenty-five years in Prison for killing my brother Charlie. Shoulda been hanged, but I was okay with the twenty-five years as he probably wouldn’t have lived that long. I hadn’t counted on some no-account Yankee like you bribing the Acting Governor to pardon him, Mister Parker. Governor Roberts would never have done that.”

James replies, “Governor Roberts resigned to teach Law at the new University. Governor Brockton was duly appointed and was within his right to grant pardons as he saw fit. But your accusation lacks evidence, no money ever passed between myself and Governor Brockton.” The man in the suit laughs and says, “No, of course not, you’re too slimy for something that direct. The bribe was for you to go and build him a new school and new library in his home town of Bryan, Texas. All of his relatives now work at those places for high priced salaries.”

James replies, “Is that is the extent of your bribery charge? It lacks credibility Sir. If you do some further research you will find that I have been building schools, libraries and hospitals throughout communities in Texas for over thirty years, a period longer than Mr. Hardin has even been alive. Each of those buildings, including those in Bryan, have been named in honor of a dear family friend Andrew Dawson, who died as one of the defenders of the Alamo.

Regarding the buildings, I’ve only paid for the initial construction and start-up materials. All hiring decisions and ongoing salaries are the responsibility of the local communities who maintain and run the buildings, and I have no part in that. However, it doesn’t surprise me that Governor Brockton's family have chosen to work at those establishments. His life has been on of exemplary and dedicated public service, so his family members would be inspired by his example and also choose to serve the public.

So, please, I invite you to bring me up on charges of bribery based solely on that evidence. Have a judge set a trial date, I promise that I will be there. But don’t be surprised if a jury finds that a philanthropist establishing schools, libraries and hospitals in poor communities is seen as a good thing. I imagine that most Texas juries would also think favorably of honoring those who died at the Alamo.”

The older of the cowboys says, “There ain’t gonna be no jury trial back in Texas. We’re gonna discuss this with you among ourselves in private. You two come along if you don’t want to see any of these teachers and students getting themselves in the way.” James replies, “More a case of you not wanting any direct witnesses to what you have in mind. Mister Hardin and I are both going nowhere and you men are trespassing on private property. I will give you five minutes to get off the Timucuan Conservancy land before I have you all arrested.”

Ruby held her actions, continuing to concentrate on the thoughts with the hope she would have a warning before violence occurred. She prepared to cast sleep as necessary if shooting started. The overwhelming number of thoughts are a combination of wanting to kill Hardin, wanting to kill Parker, and fear of their own deaths. Ruby does detect thoughts from two different men that indicate that the men assume Hardin and Parker to be the only threats, that everybody else present are defenseless teachers and students.

Nanuet stood in the hallway with Alsoomse and Abby, the bow in his hands. He ran through options in his mind and surprisingly came up with a few ideas, should it come to a fight he could impede the horses and men with a soften earth spell, or perhaps obscuring mist would be a better option, preventing the men from seeing potential targets. Should the fighting make it's way into the house sanctuary was a good option. He tightened his grip on the bow as he listened to the threats and accusations fly.

Lawrence come rushing down the stairs after finding his gun. He has just enough time to duck around the corner of the house before the riders get close enough. He tries to eavesdrop on the leader as he talks to James. He doesn't like the odds in a fire-fight, but he keeps his hand on the Derringer in his pocket. Lawrence and Nanuet each manage to hear the entire conversation between James and the man in the suit.

Fish whispers to Thomas, "MacKinnon's note identified eleven men. There's only nine up there near the porch!" Remaining hidden, he begins to scope the environs for the remaining two men. Looking around from his and Thomas's vantage point by the dirt mound he does not see anybody else. "Well, crap on a cracker!" thinks Fish to himself, "where are those other two mooks?" He whispers his intentions to Dr. Crane. Thomas whispers "Be careful -- they have done exactly what I thought they'd do. I do not believe we have much time before this turns to fisticuffs and bullets." Fish replies quietly before moving off, "Fists I can handle. I duck real good!" he says, smiling grimly, "but I'm not too fond of bullets!"

Abby casts a Detect Magic spell and then peeked out the window. These men didn't seem the type to use magic, but the only way to be sure was to look. The spell actually reveals magic on four of the nine men. The spokesman in the suit has a magical ring on his finger and the barrel of his revolver glows, indicating magical ammunition. The cowboy who had spoken and identified himself as Charlie Webb's son also appears to have magical ammunition in the barrels of both his revolver and rifle. One other cowboy has a magical rope coiled up and hooked to the side of his saddle. Lastly, the older man in the Confederate uniform glows in such a way that his entire body appears to be covered by some sort of magical spell, as well as magical horseshoes on that man's mount.

During the first minute following James's ultimatum none of the mounted men make any attempt to move. James comments, "Several of us are Duval County Deputies, don't think for one minute that I won't arrest you." The man in the confederate uniform says, "What is that? A joke? Charlie Webb was a Deputy Sheriff and Hardin shot him down in cold blood. And you, you stinking Yankee, think you can buy your away around whatever you want. Neither of you have any respect for the law, so don't go trying to hide behind it now that you're cornered."

George is standing on the balcony above and listens to the conversations. He stands there, pushes up his spectacles and crosses his arms. He exclaims, "So you men seek to circumvent the legal system? You did not approve of the lawfully rendered decision, so you decide to take the law into your own hands, is that it? Niether Texas nor Florida is under territorial law, it operates under the United States Constitution gentlemen. So you seek an eye for an eye as Hamurabi would have had it. Well doesn't that put you no better than Deputy Hardin? Would your thirst for revenge cause you to commit crimes? You would seek to become charged with the same crimes as he was. Crimes I might add he was convicted for and served his due time. It would seem to me gentlemen that your best avenue of retribution would be to seek an injunction to overturn his parole.

Because at this point, you will not get your private meeting, and more so you have now made threats in front of many many witnesses. And should something happen to Deputy Hardin or Deputy Parker you will be brought up on charges. And the local law enforcement here does not look kindly upon out of state men seeking extra-judicial remedies. I would suggest that you find some other way to exact your revenge, the days of the cowboy west where a man takes the law into his own hands is well past us. Best at this point you look to a court to rectify this situation."

George's words appear to have some effect on a few of the younger men who look to and from one another with some hesitancy. Ruby detects uncertainty in their thoughts. The man in the Confederate uniform then looks up and says "Fancy talk Professor, but this doesn't concern you. Head back inside and you won't have to worry about getting hurt."

The men looking up at George provides the distraction Fish was looking for as he begins to duck and scoot around the perimeter at half-speed, doing his best to remain hidden while looking for these missing mercenaries. The human eye is drawn to movement, and photographer George Eastman's eyesight is actually above average [20/10 vision]. From the porch roof balcony two floors above the ground floor he now spots two separate things. The first is Benjaimin Trout moving away from the mound where he and Thomas had been hiding, staying low, and not being seen by the nine men on horseback that are looking in the opposite direction.

The second movement is from nearly 200 yards away, near the far end of the southwestern edge of the plateau, which is around ten feet higher than the plateau ground around it. He sees a rifle barrel move and track Benjamin. Looking closer at that area, George spots a second rifle barrel, this one trained towards the porch, and he presumes the shooter is waiting for Hardin to make his appearance on the porch. He does not see either shooter, but notices the hill has two bumps behind each rifle, and concludes that each man is probably lying down under a blanket the exact same color as the bare dirt.

George puts his hand in front of his mouth as he silently mouths a Magical Message while pointing with his other hand to both Fish and Parker. The message states “On a mound far end of the southeastern edge of the plateau there are two hidden snipers with rifles waiting to shoot Fish and at the porch, be cautious." Back on the porch, James nods in George’s direction. "Ack!" thinks Fish, affording himself a quick glance in the direction of the mooks, "so that's where those rat bastards are!" He throws himself prone behind the first clump of dirt or shallow dip in the turf with the intent of wriggling his way to the complete cover provided by the tool shed.

James tells the armed men "Do not think that I am bluffing." The spokesman says, "Right, a businessman against the nine of us?" James says, "I am more than a businessman, I am a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and proudly served in our Nation's military during a conflict well before this was ever a divided nation." Inside the house Mina lets out an explicative and says, "He did that on purpose. He's trying to make himself out to be more of a threat and their target rather than us, James don't be a martyr."

Thomas continues to listen to the conversation twixt Parker and the horseman, sensing that violence was unavoidable and imminent. The unwavering intent in the words of the armed men seeking Hardin, with two others obviously out in some kind of flanking or surprise action, made him extremely uneasy ... Thomas knew that his friends, old and new, were a skilled and able group that was probably quite capable of handling the menace posed by these gunmen. Still, if nothing else, his adventures and training taught him that one could never predict with any certainty how a battle might turn out, and that a potentially poorly planned venture always fell apart whenever the unexpected happened.

Steeling himself with a deep breath, Thomas decided it was time for him to be the unexpected. He stood up from the mound, loudly whistling an old Southern tune he remembered from his undercover slave days, and walked up and over the mound towards the road and the horsemen. "LAWDY, MR. PARKER!," Thomas nearly yelled at the top of his deep, booming voice, using the Old South Ogrish dialect of English he affected so well as a slave, "OL' TOM MUST BE GETTING EVEN MO' DEAF, CUZ I DIDN'T HEAR Y'ALL'S COMPANY COME UP FOR DINNER."

Dirt-stained and grinning from ear-to-ear, Thomas ambled towards the horsemen, feigning a limp while leaning slightly on his staff. "I'S FINISHED WITH ALL THIS HEAH DIRTPILE FO' MIZ PARKER'S HERBS GARDEN LIKE Y'ALL'S ASKED ... I RECKON'S I CAN GO ON INTO THE KITCHEN AND HELPS MIZ BESSIE WITH THE MEAL, IF DESE GEN'MENS BE STAYIN' WIF US."

Thomas kept walking towards the men without stopping, still grinning and nodding, basically ignoring anything they said with a "I'S SORRY BUT I'S JUST ABOUT NEAR DEAF AND HALF-BLIND, SO Y'ALL GONNA HAVE TO SPEAK UP!" or a "MY LAWDS, DEM'S IS SOME BYOOT'FUL HORSES Y'ALL'S GOT THERE... I'S PRETTY SURE WE GOTS 'NUFF ROOM IN DE STABLES FOR ALL Y'ALL'S!"

Abby moved away from the window so she'd be out of sight of anyone outside, cast a message spell and pointed outside at Thomas so he could hear as well. Then she turned to Nanuet and Alsoome and said, "The leader and Webb's son have magic on their weapons. The confederate has some magic all over his whole body and something on the horse's shoes. The cowboy with the coiled rope has magic on that rope." Nanuet nods his acknowledgment then looks out the window, trying to match the men to the description Abby had just given. He waits anxiously for something to happen.

As Thomas shuffles EVEN closer to the men, making a beeline for the leader, he says "MY LAWDS, I CAN ALMOS' HEAR MIZ ABBY'S VOICE IN MAH DUM OL' HED RIGHT NOW, ALREDDY YELLIN' AT ME NOT TO TRACK DIRT ALL OVAH HER CLEAN FLO'S"

Hardin sighs heavily and let the barely opened curtain fluttered shut from where he has been watching the proceedings. He steps to the bureau and opens his valise. A minute later, he is purposefully stepping down the stairs, marking the shadows, angles and potential fields of fire. He whistles softly so as not to startle Mina too much and places the valise on a nearby divan. "Ms. 'Mina, if anyone should need a firearm, there are several spares in this bag."

As he moves towards the direction of the door, she notices a brace of heavy Colts belted in a cross-draw harness at his waist. He slides forward, but stays in the shadow of the door...where he can see out but remain concealed. His crooked smile quirks as he fishes the badge out of his vest pocket and pins it on. He whispers again... "James, I'm here. I have no intention of swinging...but I also don't want any of you getting hurt on my account. I have recognized several of these boys - Charlie Webb's kin - and I don't think they will listen to reason. If they slap leather..." His voice trails off menacingly.

James takes a few steps back towards the doorway and softly states, "Don't blame yourself, them being here now seems to be more my doing than yours John." The suited man states, "Don't you go running away Parker. It doesn't have to be this way. You and Hardin come with us and all the innocent folks here will be safe, we have no quarrel with them." James then says softly to those inside, "Stay close John, the rest of you should probably go into Luiz's office, that's our first floor safe room." Luiz explains, "Yes, the windows, door and walls of that room are resistant to both bullets and magic. We wanted to ensure that I could operate free of interruption."

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-seven, “In for a Penny, In for a Pound”, September 3rd, 1882, 4:20 P.M.

Up on the balcony, George notes that once Benajamin found cover behind the tool shed the sniper continued to train his rifle on it for another minute, then shifted his focus back to the front porch. Fish is now inside the shed, and immediately looks for something -- anything! -- that he might slop together to create a distraction. His thoughts run through the options - Can he set a fire, the more smoke, the better? Can he roll something large and noisy out the door? Is there a cranky chicken he could set loose?

Ruby's spell ceases, the final detected thought being from the cowboy with the magical rope, who plans to lasso and hog tie Hardin as soon as he shows his face. Nanuet turns to the others standing nearby, he speaks quietly and calmly. "Has anyone seen Ruby? If anyone would start trouble right now it would be her." Ruby ran though all the enemies thoughts in her own mind quickly. Realizing that they were not going to end this peacefully... she reacted. She stayed in place crouched behind the porch swing, making sure her gun was in her hand and readied. Then some arcane words very lightly came from her mouth, barely heard by James and perhaps the others on the porch. Ruby begins to cast a Sleep on the group of people hoping to take some of them out before we start.

Solomon Star is standing just around the northeast corner of the house, having exited the building out a window of his Treasurer’s Office after gathering his firearms and props. He has a Colt Thunderer revolver on his belt and a Remington double-barrel shotgun is in his hands, although the real weapons that he plans to use are his brains and his ability to duplicate accents. With the deputy badge pinned to his chest and atop his head a Confederate military cap with the insignia of a Corporal he walks out into open.

As he walks he is carrying across one arm the shotgun with the stock opened up, with two shotgun shells in his opposite hand which he places into the shotgun as he walks. He exclaims in his best imitation of a Birmingham Alabama accent. “What in tarnation is all this commotion? Who in Hades are all you boys?” Apparently confused by this new arrival, the man in the suit asks “Who are you?”. Sol continues forward with a stride of confidence while finishing loading the shotgun as he speaks, but keeping the twin gun barrels still open. He states, “I’m Deputy Sheriff Solomon, senior lawman in these parts, an’ I asked y’all some questions that I want answered.”

The older man in the Confederate uniform says “We’re from Texas. We have unfinished business with John Wesley Hardin. He killed our kin.” James Parker looks towards Sol and says, “They want to take me too Sheriff. They’re trespassing and I gave them five minutes to leave the Timucuan Conservancy property. That five minutes is now up.” Sol’s face then turns beet red and he angrily yells at James and says, “Ain’t yer call, I’m in charge here. Damn it Parker, I told ya that boy’d bring nothin’ but trouble! It’s high time we got rid of him, he ain’t welcome here no more.” Sol turns back to the man in the suit and says, “Parker is my responsibility, he’s stayin’ put, but if y’all want Hardin you’re welcome to have’em.”

Sol closes up the shotgun but keeps it pointing down at the ground as he turns his head towards Thomas. He then gestures towards the corral and barn 250 feet away at the southeastern edge of the plateau and asks Thomas, “Toby, is Hardin still over in the barn reshooing that tan stallion of his?” Before 'Toby' can respond two of the mounted cowboys fall asleep and slump over on their saddles. "What in Hades?" the cowboy with the rope exclaims.

Inside, Nanuet says, "Yeah, I bet that was Ruby who put them to sleep. I guess we're in this now.” He starts a chant and points to the area at the horses feet, to turn the ground soft and muddy. He plans the mud to be a foot-and-and-half deep. Those outside are then interrupted by a crashing sound from the toolshed, following by a metal rolling sound from the same building which sounds somewhat like thunder. This is followed by the sound of breaking glass as a flaming bicycle tire goes crashing through and flying out of the shed window.

Spurred on by the two horsemen falling asleep, and the crashing of the flaming bicycle tire, and thinking to himself “In for a penny, in for a pound", Thomas now whirls into action, springing forward to engage the lasso-bearing cowboy with a full-fledged flurry of blows with his staff, intending to knocking him both senseless and off his horse. The man falls from the horse, stunned with such a force that he is barely conscious as he leaves the saddle, with the fall to the ground finishing the job. The horse begins to move to the side in reaction to the sudden movement of the large man beside it.

Ruby stays in her position then casts a second sleep spell, hoping to take out another couple of horsemen. Mina runs to where the pigeons are and sends a message that she had been writing out back to Alan MacKinnon for help, which reads "No, they are not expected and they are looking for trouble in regard to James and Mr. Hardin. Please send help as soon as you can."

Absent his 'accessories', Fish figures it's highly unlikely he'll inflict any incapacitating strikes himself, so he plans on pressing the distraction -- any of the mooks that target him is one less mook targeting his friends. His first inclination is to toss something that might startle the horses: a tin can full of nails, or a garbage can lid. If there's no obvious candidate, he grabs a handful of bolts or garden shears or whatever-is-on-hand in the shed, and begins chucking them out the broken window at the mooks. He's not particularly concerned with hitting anyone so much as creating a fuss, so he elects to fight defensively. He uses partial cover and concealment to whatever advantage available him.

As gardening tools go flying from the shed one of the cowboys draws his gun and takes two shots in that direction. The cowboy is then stopped by the older man in the Confederate uniform who yells, "Stop shooting you idiot! They're just trying to cover Hardin's escape from the barn! Foster, Danny, with me!" He then pulls his horse away turning to ride towards the distant barn. Two cowboys follow his lead, specifically the one who had identified himself as Charlie Webb's son another who pulls out a coiled rope.

On the balcony, George notices one of the two distant snipers redirects his aim back in the direction of the shed while the second continues to aim towards the front doorway of the porch. Nanuet’s Elvan chant catches the attention of the enemy group's leader in the suit. The man reacts by keeping his back towards his men as he begins a subtle movement of his own hands as he softly mutters an incantation. Ruby and Nanuet both manage to compete their spells by the time that the area around the front porch and lobby room suddenly reverting into a zone of complete silence. This temporarily prevents any further spells and/or all communication from and between Abigail, Alsoomse, James, John, Luiz, Mina, Nanuet and Ruby.

The cowboy who had taken the shots at the shed falls asleep and slumps over in his saddle, dropping his Colt Peacemaker in the process. As the gun hits the ground it goes off, the bullet striking the rear flank of the horse ridden by the man in the suit, which charges forward towards the porch and starts to rear up. The man grabs the reins and tries to steady his animal.

With the distraction going on Lawrence tries to sneak up on the closest gunman, drawing his derringer on the man and demanding that he surrender. The man is startled and since he still hasn't drawn his gun he raises his hands to surrender. The man's horse then begins to sink as the ground beneath turns to mud. Since Lawrence has moved up directly beside that he too begins to sink in the mud. Seeing Cantrell's predicament, Fish immediately secures some rope from the shed.

The three cowboys starting to ride southeast towards the barn manage to barely exit the area just as the dirt transforms to mud. The leader's forward movement also brings him outside of the zone. But the remaining five horses and riders are caught up, with the two who had been dismounted and lying on the ground sinking out of sight. The five horses caught in the mud begin to panic at attempt to escape, which just causes them to sink faster. Two of these horses are now rider-less, two others have riders that are still asleep, and the other is the man who had just surrendered to Lawrence.

George sighs at the resulting chaos that has erupted. He looks around gauging everyone's actions as the scene unfold under him. He gets a wry smile and casts a little spell, well above the silence under him. George sends another message, this time to the two snipers, the message being: "Hey cowboys, you two stick out like a sore thumb on that plateau. We have eight rifles pointed at your heads, so if you were smart you would skeedattle while your hide was still intact"

One man remains still, his rifle still centered on the porch. His companion sets down his rifle and lifts up a pair of binoculars, now scanning the upper floors of the house for these supposed riflemen. His face is now partially exposed but at this distance all George can make out is a thin mustache, short beard and receding hairline. When George gauges the man is looking at him he waves to the man and points to the roof.

With the new silence going on, Abby doesn't try to cast anymore spells. Instead she finds herself a spot by a window and pulls her Colt. No bullets have been fired yet at them, and she doesn't plan to fire the first, just to be ready if this gets that far. Nanuet's well crafted spell had left an island of solid dirt rather than mud remaining immediately beneath Thomas's feet, although the mud around on all sides now prevents him from being able to move away from that spot. Alsoomse realizes that magic has been used to silence them. She determines the location of the spell and then attempt to dispel the silence. Moving into James and Mina's office, she casts a Dispel that causes the Silence to cease.

Thomas manages to make an astounding fourteen foot leap which lands him clear of the mud. The five horses continue to struggle in the mud, one stepping on and breaking the arm of the sleeping man who had sunk into the muck. This is actually fortunate for the man, as the injury causes him to wake up and therefore not drown. Lawrence glances at his feet. He sighs, "If that doesn't beat all."

Lawrence tries to step out of the mud, ignoring his erstwhile prisoner. Fish loops an end of the rope through a heavy nut or iron washer, ties a knot, and tosses it toward Lawrence through the shed window, crying out, "Catch hold!" Lawrence reaches for the rope. "What's happening? A sinkhole?" Fish braces himself with a foot against the wall and haul him out.

The other three cowboys continue to ride onward in the direction of the barn. The enemy leader manages to jump from his unruly horse, landing with a degree of grace on the porch fifteen feet to the east of where James is standing. Grasping his staff, Thomas somersaults toward the porch. The man in the suit jumps back, the staff just brushing briefly against his chest. Nanuet casts hold person on the man who jumped onto the porch. The man continues to move rather than becoming held.

Once Roy sees the doin's a-happening in front of the porch, he beats feet downstairs and out onto the porch, gun in hand. When he sees the leader land on the porch, Roy puts himself between James and the enemy, gun outstretched. "I suggest you leave now, sir, before things get worse for you and your men." The man steps further back, nearing the northeast edge which is railed on both sides. He speaks to neither Thomas or Roy but instead turns his head towards Sol and says, "Sheriff Solomon, call your boys off, all I want is to accept your offer of Hardin and then go." Roy exclaims, "Over your dead body, do you get Hardin."

Fish is able to help pull Lawrence out. The horses cease sinking when they are around eighteen-inches deep. Feeling solid ground again they stop their panic. The muck covered man with the broken arm crawls to the edge of the mud and then collapses unconscious on the solid dirt. . The other three men continue to ride to the southeast, now closing in on the barn.

Alsoomse casts an entangle in the direction of the remaining horsemen in the mud, attempting to place the spell in a way to keep her allies out of the effect. With the plateau having been cleared of all vegetation, there is very little remaining to actually entangle, with only the only thing entangling the five horses being some remaining tree roots below the surface that make their way through the mud. These branches intertwine upward, further pinning the two sleeping men to their mounts.

Breathing heavily, Lawrence climbs out of the mud and says, "Much obliged, Fish." He sits on the ground and draws the derringer again. Fish pokes his head just above the windowsill. "Lawrence! These mooks have a coupla snipers 200 yards out. Any suggestions?" he asks, audibly distressed.

Solomon raises his Remington as he surveys the carnage around him, threading his finger ahead the trigger. He speaks in a tone that is half-drawl, half-growl, "I'm a man of my word, gov'nuh, but I'm a lawman too." He draws the shotgun to his own chest, audibly clinking its steel barrel against the badge. Through gritted teeth, he says, "You're welcome to Hardin, soon as you produce a warrant for his arrest or a legal order for his extradition. I'll be happy to be rid of that filthy Texan, either when you haul him away in leg irons or I chase his murderin' hide outta my county myself."

He looks across the yard, with the turf churned up and acrid smoke still curling from the tire that Ben tossed burning from the shed. Though no longer in a panic, the horses are still panting heavily and frothing at the mouth. "A man's house is his castle, guv'nuh, and your men just took a crap in the courtyard. I've been very patient. Be civilized, now, and leave."

The suited man's gun is still holstered and he makes no attempt to move his hand towards it. He says, "We're not going anywhere until after my boys see who is hiding in the barn." At the barn, the man with the rope stays mounted and ties one end of the rope to the front of his western saddle. He moves his horse to the front of the barn doors, holding his lasso in his hand. The other two dismount and draw their revolvers. The younger cowboy moves around to the door by the rear side of the building while the man in the Confederate uniform moves to open the front barn doors.

Roy cocks his gun and steadies it at the man. "Wrong. You will call your men, now, to ride their horses away from here and to never bother us again. Do. You. Understand?" "That's mighty un-neighborly of you, guv'nah," says Solomon. "I'll give you a count of ten to reconsider -- then you'll force me to take you into my custody." James warns Solomon, "Sheriff, you should know that this man has two snipers on yonder hill with rifles trained on us."
Solomon squints and his face sets like flint. He bellows, "Guv'nah, should your men fire on these citizens, I give everyone here release to put you down."

The man says, "Those guys are just hired help, they don't have a personal stake in this like the rest of us. You are in no danger from them, they have orders not to shoot any people. They're just here to take out Hardin's horse if he tries to make a break away." James barks, "I trust nothing you say! You've trespassed on AGELESS corporation property. You've been asked to leave, and you refuse. You've threatened both me and my guests. Why do your snipers train their rifles on the porch, if it's Hardin's escape by horseback that they aim to prevent? Extract your men and leave."

The conversation is then interrupted as the man on the horse who Lawrence had previously approached yells out "Horace!" He had been staring at his unconscious companion who Thomas had knocked from the horse and into the mud. The unconscious man landed on his back and partially sunk, but his face remained floating above the surface. A vine now entangles the man's neck and face and pulls him fully beneath the mud, the man's mouth filling with muck as he sinks from sight.

The man who yelled leaps from his horse in the direction of his friend, landing with a splash five feet away. He starts to move towards where the man sunk. The man in the suit replies, "Your ogre caused that Sheriff. You're so concerned about the law, if my man dies I want that buck charged with murder." James shouts, "Benjamin! Lawrence! Aid those men!" "What do you say we start earning our keep, Lawrence?" says Fish as he exits the shed, carrying his rope (and hoping that he doesn't get sniped!).

James then turns to the man in the suit and says loudly enough for all to hear, "I suspect that you'll join them, no? Help save your man -- or will you stand there and watch him drown?"

Ruby moved out from behind the chair she had been behind, now visible. She took a few steps toward James, her hands behind her back, concealing her gun. For now she said nothing; but was ready to act quickly if necessary. Mina returned from sending her message but before she stepped outside she cast True Strike upon herself and readied her gun. She wasn't going to let anyway waltz in and take her love from her. She found a spot where she could see the man on the steps and put him in her sight.

Hardin - Growing tired of waiting - steps out onto the porch and out of the zone of silence. His voice thunders...
"Henry Webb!" His hands seem to hang easily by his side, but he is drops into a slight crouch, his eyes narrowed dangerously. He slowly reaches a finger up to tap the piece of tin on his chest. "You heard Mr. Parker...you are trespassing and well past the generous deadline you were given. First, I hear the crack of one of those Winchesters and I am going for you. Second, I ain't going no where with you...not alive...anyway."

Hardin freezes and his eyes glitter darkly. "Make your move..."

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-eight, “ I don't want any bloodshed here...", September 3rd, 1882, 4:30 P.M.

Webb turns his head away from Hardin and looks towards his men......Alvin is sloshing in the mud, having just reached where Horace sank......Murphy and O'Brien are both soundly sleeping in their saddles.....David is lying on the ground, covered in mud, unconscious and with a broken arm......and the other three are still inside the barn looking for Hardin there.

So he was alone, and realizes the slim chance of his survival taking on Hardin one-on-one. He then looks again at loaded shotgun that Solomon has pointed towards him and the revolver in the hand of the little gnome, and concludes that neither of those men would even allow a one-on-one fight between only him and Hardin. So he lets out a sigh and says, "Fine, we'll leave. But this isn't over between us Hardin."

At Webb's pronouncement, Hardin's demeanor instantly changes and most of the tension drops away from his rigid frame. The ghost of his crooked smile crease his face. "I am glad to hear that first part, Henry, 'cause I don't want anyone getting hurt..." he steals a quick glance at the man getting pulled out of the mud, "...really hurt...tonight."
He steps closer to Webb, stopping right before him. His voice lowers and softens and he looks the angry brother of the man he killed straight in the eyes.

"As for the second part, I am mighty sorry to hear that. There hasn't been a day that's gone by over the last five years that I haven't deeply regretted what happened to Charlie. You may not buy this...but I came out of prison a changed man and I mean to walk the straight path. I don't want the blood of you, your kin or any of your hired gun hands on my head. In fact, if I never have to shoot another man in anger again, that's fine by me..."

His voice trails off for a moment, then he continues with earnest force. "But now I know that you are after me and plan to do me harm, which presents a most touchy dilemma. Sure as the stars are up in the night sky, I don't want to kill you...but if I see you in these parts...especially with a posse...I will assume the worst. So where does that leave us? I don't expect we will part tonight as friends, but I would hate to have to shoot you on sight if our paths cross again." Hardin stops and cocks his head for a moment and then his hand flashes, dipping to his belt and pulling one of the heavy colts, which he flips around and offers to Webb butt first. His lock onto the other man's eyes. "So what's it gonna be..."

Back in the mud, Fish tosses Alvin one end of the rope, "Tie this under his arms, ya' varmint!" Lawrence grabs hold of the near end of the rope and gets ready to pull the man out. Henry Webb looks to the side, seeing that Alvin, with the assistance of the two men who James ordered to help, are getting Horace out of the mud. Alvin looks up and says, "He ain't breathing Mr. Webb."

Henry turns back to Hardin and says, "Excuse me, I have men to help." He quickly walks down the stairs and on the dry ground around the muddy area. He gestures to have them set Horace down beside his the man with the broken arm. Webb removes his suit jacket, taking out a statue from an inside pocket. It is around ten-inches long, three inches wide and an inch deep. It looks to be made of either a dark stone or petrified wood, carved with indentations resembling a person with an oversized head. Webb leans Horace onto his side, kneeling behind him, and placing his left hand over Horace's chest. He then holds the statue up high in his right hand and calls out loudly "Hear me Itzamna".

He then begins an incantation. Those present who know the Elvish language can make out an occasional word, although most of the language is unknown. He then calls out the name "Tezcatlipoca" as the statue begins to glow, first an amber-yellow and then shifting to a bright orange. Those watching need to avert the eyes somewhat from the brightness. Inside the building lobby Alsoomse says loud enough for those nearby "Those are wood elvan deities of South America. Tezcatlipoca is the son god, the holy symbol draws the power and color from the sun itself. Itzamna is his offspring, the god of medicine. The incantation is in an ancient tongue of the wood elves."

Webb's left hand begins to glow as the orange color flows into the chest of the man beside him. A minute passes, then a second. Water and mud then pour from the man's mouth and he then coughs. Webb keeps his hand a short while longer as the man regains consciousness as the golden aura around his chest begins to fade. Web then turns, his left hand still glowing orange, and places his hand over the broken arm of the other man. The orange color flows once more, running up the man's arm. Another minute passes and that man too begins to gain consciousness as Webb releases him. Henry Web then stands and says in English "Thank you for your blessing ancient ones, I am again in your debt." Web himself now looks exhausted but one final burst of light shoots out from the raised statue and flows down over the man, which has the effect of revitalizing him.

While this has been going on the three men at the barn have apparently completed their search and are now riding back. When they are within 100 feet of the porch the man in the Confederate uniform yells out to Webb, "Henry, Hardin ain't there, no tan stallion either. The river's north and them Pinkertons were watchin' west and south, so he musta ridden east. If we hurry we...."

The Confederate then stops abruptly, having now spotted Hardin standing on the porch. His two companions also now notice Hardin as well, but continue riding forward. The Confederate and cowboy with the lasso both look unsure of what do next, but the man who had identified himself earlier as Charlie Webb's son immediately reaches down to draw his revolver. Inside, Abby says quietly to anyone who can hear her, "Pinkertons? If these men have more people to back them up, we could be in serious trouble."

Feeling foolish, heroic, or sporting a death wish, Fish rushes the leading men with arms raised. "Holster that cannon, you doofus!" he shouts at the Webb boy, "You'll get us all killed with that foolishness!" Hardin, flips the Colt back around and holsters it as soon as Henry starts moving away. He watches with fascination as the magic display takes effect. Fish's shout snaps him back and he takes in the on-rushing trouble in the space of a breath. He drops into crouch, turns is body toward the on-rushing rider to present the smallest silhouette possible and prepares. "Don't do it, boy..." he whispers to himself.

Every fiber of Hardin’s being screams to draw and fire, but he waits...and offers a silent prayer that the boy's aim is worse than his judgement. Raising his voice he calls out to Henry. "Please call him off, Henry, I don't want any bloodshed here..." Nanuet moves out to the porch and casts a Sanctuary spell on Hardin. "I hope this isn't too late" he says as he makes his move.

The young man rides forward as he draws his revolver. Henry Webb yells to "Stop, don't shoot," but his nephew either doesn't hear him or chooses to ignore the older man. The man in the Confederate uniform and the other cowboy do remain still in response to Webb's command. The man takes a shot in Hardin's direction. It misses by a good four feet, striking one of the round porch pillars. This is good for everyone, as a six-inch diameter section of the wooden pillar explodes inward where the bullet strikes, showering splinter down near Ruby. It was clearly far more explosive force than a normal bullet and would certainly have been fatal had it struck a person.

Hardin leaps aside out of surprise as he is showered with wood splinters. His hands seem to brush across his chest as he moves and come up with the Colt Lightenings. "Damnation, boy...you keep that up and someone's gonna get hurt..." The young man now slows his horse and takes steadier aim for a second shot just as Fish reaches the front of the animal.

"Gods damn it!" Lawrence yells as he hits the dirt. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Roy moves so that he's still standing between Hardin and the young man and takes a shot at the boy. Ruby shakes the splinters out of her hair. "Well, I've had about enough of this nonsense! Someone could have gotten HURT." Her gun still in her hand, she takes aim at the man and if Roy's shot misses she also shoots, attempting to shoot the gun from his hand or disable his arm. Simultaneously, Hardin draws and extends both of his pistols...

Roy's shot grazes the young man across the leg for a minimal wound. Ruby's shot is more accurate, hitting the young man's gun arm, incapacitating the arm and causing him to drop the gun. With an amazing demonstration of acrobatics Fish vaults forward and catches the falling gun before it can strike the ground and discharge. Fish then does a backflip, landing beside the horse's reins and taking control of the animal with one hand while simultaneously drawing the man's own weapon onto the rider and ordering his surrender. Hardin's guns are now out but he sees the situation looks to be finally in hand.

George was about to turn and head downstairs to help sort out the aftermath, but paused and stayed on the porch. After Ruby's previous issues with the Pinkertons, he decided to keep an eye on them until he saw them leave. Both of the snipers continue to remain lying on and under their blankets with the rifles still pointed towards the front porch. The cowboys who are preparing to leave keep wandering across the direct line-of-sight between these snipers and where Hardin is standing.

Below, Ruby takes a few steps forward. "Is there anyone ELSE that wants to have words with Mr. Hardin? Because I don't really want to stand out here all day pretending like any of us are going to be nice anymore." Hardin breathes a visible sigh of relief and eases off his hair triggers...fighting down the dark voice calling for blood. Too damn close...Without looking behind him, Hardin comments. "Fine shot there, Ms. Ruby...you OK?" Hardin gaze sweeps the scene, looking for any other signs of overt hostile moves before sliding the Lightenings into their vest holsters. "Mr. Parker, can we get the young man some medical attention?"

Finally, his eyes settle on Henry Web. "So what about it, Henry? This could have gone pretty badly tonight..." he pauses and looks around, "...mostly for your men, I'm thinking. We gonna keep doing this dance 'til we all end up with a bullet in the gut?" Webb says, "No, we're done here....Deputy. Parker here has apparently bought your way into the good graces of this State's Governor as well as that of Texas. I'm going over to my nephew now and patch up his arm, then we'll all be leaving." Why, thank you!" says Fish snarkily.

Sol follows Henry Webb as he walks the forty feet to his nephew. Webb tells the man in the Confederate uniform "Get those horses out of the mud and prepare to move out." The younger Webb dismounts and removes his coat and shirt to expose the wound.

Henry Webb again holds the statue up in the air while making an incantation in the language of the South American elves. It glows orange again and the same color flows from Webb's hand over the younger man's wound. The blood dripping down the man's arm turns the same orange color and then reverses direction, flowing back into the body. At the completion of the spell the wound is sealed over and the bullet which was in the nephew's arm is now in the palm of Henry Webb's hand. While the elder Webb is busy attending to the boy, Fish palms the ammunition from the pistol.

Hardin tries to catch Fish's attention while holding up a bullet briefly and nodding at the younger Webb's gun. He watches the magical play again and half turns to James. "That looks awfully handy...can you do things like that?" Keeping his voice low James replies, "Do you mean the healing or the bullet? Either way, the answer is that I personally can do neither. But Luiz can do a vast number of healing spells in addition to his surgery skills.

As for the bullet, I have seen those used before. They are a magical item known as a 'Cannonball Bullet'. In addition to being able to improve the accuracy of the shooter by ten-percent they strike the target as though they were a twenty-pound cannonball. Those items are rather hard to get, quite costly, and illegal in the United States. Apparently either young Mr. Webb or his Uncle felt that obtaining one or more of them was worth the effort. Thankfully for us the boy's shooting skills were not adequate for the task at hand."

Ruby lifted up her skirts on one side and placed her gun back into its normal resting-place on her thigh. She let the skirt drop and smoothed it down. "There, that's better." She walked down the couple of steps but stays at the bottom, not wanting to spook someone into shooting again. "I do apologize for shooting up your nephew Mr. Webb, however you do understand I can't let someone saunter in here and shoot up my friends. Your misguided thoughts on this matter could have gotten you and all your friends here killed."

Henry Webb completes the healing spell on his nephew. He turns towards Ruby and replies to her comment, "The only person with misguided thoughts here is Parker, he thinks that juries should be ignored and that stinking murderers shouldn't have to serve their time in prison."

Webb then turns to Fish and says, "That Colt Peacemaker that you're holding belonged to my deceased brother, I would like it back please. I won't return it to the boy until we're well away from this area." The other men have pulled the horses from the mud and the two sleeping men have been woken up. The two recently healed men are assisted up onto their horses by the one called Alvin, who then mounts up himself. All seven of these men keep their hands well clear of their weapons. Lawrence relaxes as the men saddle up. He lowers his gun, but remains wary of them.

Fish nods, sets the pistol on the ground while Webb finishes attending to his nephew, and walks into the house. He ducks behind the bar and stows the ammunition. He fills several tumblers with ice, pours a pitcher of lemonade, arranges everything on a serving platter, and steps onto the porch. "Tell me, Miss West, are ya' thirsty?"

Henry Webb very carefully picks up the Colt, making it clear that he isn't going to fire it, and shoves it into his belt beside his other gun. The man's nephew begins to protest their departure until the older man tells him "Shut up boy, we lost." They both mount up and ride over towards the others, with Henry instructing the man in the Confederate uniform to lead them out. That man rides off at a trot, with the six cowboys following behind in pairs and the two Webbs taking up the rear, the younger man glaring at Hardin with a look on his face of pure hatred.

The lead rider is a little more than one hundred feet from the porch and the Webbs well behind at twenty feet when the sound of a rifle firing fills the air. Up in the balcony, George also hears what appears to be a single shot but sees two simultaneous flashes from the sniper rifles, indicating that both men fired exactly in unison. They then both cock their rifles for another shot and remain as they were, continuing to point both rifles at the porch.

John Wesley Hardin does not appear to have been the target, perhaps due to the Sanctuary spell that Nanuet cast upon him, as both bullets slam into James A. Parker's chest. One strikes an inch above his navel, the other in the center of his right ribcage. The force of the impact is so strong that he is lifted off his feet and is flung back five feet, impacting with the house wall to the right of the doorframe. He falls, still conscious, to the porch, with blood pouring from the upper wound.

Nanuet moves quickly from Hardin to James. He immediately removes the necklace of round stones from his neck and takes a stone from the necklace, places it on James' chest and began chanting in Apache. George swears. The Pinkertons appeared to be playing the Webb family for fools since they were here for a different target all along.
George runs back inside the house and down the stairs to lend his healing skills to James.

Ruby watched James fall next to her. Anger filled her and she had only one thought, that she wished she had her rifle and a horse. She pulled out her gun again obviously she wasn't done using it, then looked around quickly to see how close any horse might be. If she doesn't see one in the very near vicinity she can jump onto on.

Following the rifle shot the Confederate yells out "They're shooting at us, scatter!" He and the six cowboys behind him spur their mounts to move faster as they gallop away in varying directions to the north, northwest and west.
As soon as the rifle fired both Webbs stopped their horses. Based upon the expression on his face, Henry Webb is either a phenomenal actor or as surprised by this turn of events as anybody else. He quickly takes in what has transpired and turns his horse to the west in the direction of the snipers. He starts off again yelling, "Stop you idiots."

The true idiocy however appears to be with his next generation, as the younger Webb continues to stare at Hardin while he reaches behind him for the shotgun in the saddle holster. Hardin's face twists in a mask of anger..."Fish, gimme those cannon-bullets..." Fish hands over the bullets and then runs at an accelerated rate upstairs, grabs two smoke grenades from his room, dashes back downstairs, and intends to set one off directly below the porch stairs, obscuring James and those attending him from the snipers.

Thomas looks out towards the snipers, barely controlled rage in his eyes, commenting, "I believe some animals need to be put down." Hardin kneels down, pulling a Lightening with his left and a Peacemaker from his belt-rig with his right. With expert quickness, he half cocks the pistol, flicks open the load-guard and empties a chamber one-handed. He also levels the Lightening and prepares to fire...

Upon hearing the gunshots, and seeing Parker hit, Thomas rushes to his side, arriving just after Fish, interposing himself twixt the snipers and Parker, the smoke billowing all around them. "I think I will make a slightly better wall than you, Fish. Do not concern yourself with what you should or should not have done. We need to get Parker out of here now, however. Nanuet, can I move him into the house without aggravating his injuries?" Nanuet has begun the healing spell on James and the bullet begins to push itself up and out of the wound.

Lawrence starts in surprise. He regains his composure and scrambles for the house. "James! Nanuet, how is he? Has everyone gone loco? As Nanuet gets closer he notices that the wounds are not as serious as he thought. He uses a smaller stone and then scans the porch to see whose nearby. "Let's try and get him inside before someone else gets hurt." George is now coming down the stairs. The seven cowboys are now further away and Henry Webb is now one-third of the way towards the snipers, continuing to yell for them to stop.

Ruby sees that the closest horse is twenty feet away, the one with the young Mr. Webb who is staring at Hardin and reaching for his shotgun. Hardin too sees the young man begin to pull the shotgun out of its holder. "Hardin, shoot him!" Ruby screams as she keeps running towards that horse, hoping its rider will be incapacitated by the time she gets to the horse and can jump on. She's too busy running to see her grandmother has been shot, but she is already assuming the "Pinkertons" are really there about the old business of the papers. Her gun is out as she runs and she is prepared to shoot the young Mr. Webb on it if necessary.

Mina lost all her thoughts as James went down. She knew he had some protections but even magic was not infallible. She ran to his side, then pulled him the few feet to inside the house. Once Mina is fully out onto the porch both of the snipers fire again, this time not quite in unison. One bullet goes though her right side just above the thigh for a clean but minor wound. The other far more serious shot strikes her where the shoulder reaches the neck just above the collarbone and blood pours from the wound as she collapses unconscious on the porch. Lawrence has turned around and is heading towards the porch and sees her fall.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-nine, “ The MacKinnons", September 3rd, 1882, 4:45 P.M.

The two snipers have apparently now finished their shooting as they partially stand and start to move away towards the western edge of the plateau some twenty feet distant. They move bent over, presenting smaller targets, and with the dirt-colored blankets still draped over their shoulders. Abby tries to see where the shots are coming from, and if she can spot them, fires her Colt Lightning.

George comes down just in time to see Mina get shot as Nanuet is hunched over James. Fearing the worst George kneels over Mina quickly checking her pulse and the two wounds. Over the more life threatening of the two George pulls out a small ivory Owl figurine. He touches the owl to the wound as he recites and a prayer to Athena. Ancient Greek words spill out of his mouth quickly as he makes smoothing motions over the wound. As if in reverse time, the bullet worms it way out of the wound and falls with a clatter to the ground as blood vessels re-connect and the skin grows together, leaving a small pink welt where the bullet entered. There is still a good amount of blood on the ground, but the worst here was past. George keeps his body between the plateau and Mina. "Has anyone shot those damned assassins yet?" he asks before trying to move Mina.

With Alsoomse and Luiz's help Nanuet and George are able to get James and Mina inside. Luiz begins to check the wounds on both Parkers. Abigail sees the two men approaching the far end of the plateau and takes a shot, but given the distance she fails to hit. The shot does have the effect of causing Henry Webb to look back, with him now seeing his nephew still near the porch and pulling out a shotgun. Henry pivots the horse around to gallop back to the house.
Fish arrives back downstairs with his smoke bombs.

The younger Webb pulls out the shotgun and points it towards the porch in Hardin's direction. However, by this point Ruby is now ten feet from him and between the boy and his target, making it impossible for him to fire without hitting her as well. He exclaims, "Ma'am, out of the way!" She replies, "Get off your horse and I will!" Abby steps out the door, the Lightning still in front of her and pointed toward the younger Webb. "This ain't what you want to do," she said in her N'Awlins drawl as she stepped forward.

Hardin quickly chambers a single round of the special ammo and sights down the barrel of the big Colt, taking careful aim. He shouts above the din..."You heard him, Miss Ruby...stand aside." Nanuet calls out to Ruby saying "Ruby, get out of the way! James and Mina need you over here, quickly!" Ruby continued to run towards the younger Webb, arriving at him and his horse. She pulled at his leg, attempting to yank him down off the horse so she could hop on it herself. He clearly underestimated her strength and determination and she pulls him out of the saddle and he falls to the ground, still clutching the single-barrel shotgun, which thankfully does not go off. Ruby hops up onto the horse.

George having ensured that Mina is out of immediate danger leaves her under the care of Luiz. He heads out of the house since there is still some commotion going on. Seeing Ruby heading towards the young man George gets a lump stuck in his throat and heads at a sprint towards Ruby. Ruby rides in the direction that the two snipers went over the plateau edge. She rides by Henry Webb, who has turned his horse around and is riding at full gallop back to the house while yelling to his nephew, "Drop the shotgun Fred, he'll kill you."

Several minutes have now passed since Mina and James were brought inside. As discretely as possible Luiz cuts away the clothing around Mina's wounds and says aloud a congratulation to George for his speedy healing, unaware that George has now gone back outside. Luiz casts one more healing spell, which more thoroughly seals over the neck wound, all but eliminating what would have been a noticeable scar, and brings Mina back to consciousness. She immediately asks about James and Luiz says, "I will check him next, but between the magical vest and Nanuet's cure I believe him to be fine."

She insists on helping him remove James's shirt and then unbuttoning the leather vest, where one bullet has flattened against it but not penetrated. The other bullet has cut through although the vest considerably slowed its forward progress for only a minor penetration, albeit a rather bloody one at the time of penetration, making it initially appear worse than it was.

The vest is removed and handed to Alsoomse who says, "Last time for this one. Those must have been magical shells, normal bullets wouldn't have done this." Luiz says, "Don't throw it away, the vest front is now fully depleted but the back still appears to radiate protective magic. We might still be able to fashion something out of it, possibly a protective cap or hat." Luiz then casts another healing spell on James, who also regains consciousness, complaining of a headache. "Probably when you hit the porch" Luiz says, "here drink this," and hands his friend an elixir.

Outside, The other seven cowboys reach the end of the plateau and continue to ride on. Alan and Autumn have backed up, their retreat noted by the two rifled men hurrying down the plateau towards their horses. Sol has moved forward with his shotgun pointed at the boy on the ground and orders the young man to carefully set down the gun. The boy does as instructed just as his Uncle Henry rides back up and alongside. And 250 feet to the west Ruby reaches the edge of the plateau. She anticipates seeing either two men attempting to ride off, or worse, lying in wait for her.

"Toby!" calls Solomon to Thomas, his shotgun remaining trained on the boy, "bind this fool!" Turning to the elder Webb, he says, "Your nephew will be charged with aggravated assault, for starters." Glancing back at the house, he adds with steel in his voice, "And accessory to murder, if the Parkers don't survive. I'll take your firearms now, sir, and return them to you by courier. I'll arrange for you to be escorted from the property immediately."

Henry Webb says, "He ain't an accessory to anything. He didn't fire that shotgun, he was just scared of what was going on around him, isn't that right Fred." "Y..yes Sir," the boy replies. "It's not the shotgun that didn't get fired that has your boy in trouble, pard'ner," says Solomon, his voice now flat of all affect, "It's the shot he did fire -- or is that hole in the porch my imagination?" "Toby!" he roars, "I told you to git over here! Secure this boy!" Taking note of present circumstances, Fish stows the grenades on his vest.

Webb removes his revolver and pops open the barrel to empty out the ammunition as he says, "As for them Pinkertons, as I said before, they were under orders not to fire at anything other than Hardin's horse. I don't know what they were thinking with those shots, and we had no part of any of that." Sol says, "Well then, if you had no part with it, then you have nothing to fear, do you?"

Henry Webb replies, "I didn't hire them guys, it was some fella from Virgina." He pockets the ammunition from his own Colt Peacemaker and hands the weapon to Sol. He removes his nephew's gun from his belt to do the same, and discovers it empty of ammunition when he opens the barrel. Fish sees Webb's look of surprise and smirks inside.

"So you had men with you that you hadn't hired but you thought were under your command. Rather gullible of you I would say. Who was the person in Virginia who did hire them and how did you come to meet them?" asks George pointedly . Henry Webb says, "His name is Van Ostenbridge. Hardin killed his son. And they're the ones who came to us with the information about Hardin."

Webb hands Sol the revolver. He then takes his rifle out of the saddle holster and hands that to Sol without bothering to empty the ammunition. He says, "I'll be going then. Take good care of Fred, I expect to see him, his horse, and our weapons returned to me in short order. I'll be in Jacksonville staying at the Astor Hotel." Solomon says flatly, "Your boy's horse and your weapons will be delivered to your hotel, Mr. Webb. As for your nephew, you're welcome to visit him in the county jail, which is where he'll be held pending a hearing before a judge."

*******

On July 4th, 1776 the American Colonies declared their independence from the nation of Great Britain. On that same day, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, a daughter was born to Doctor Ian Wallace MacPhearson. Doctor MacPhearson was a Professor of Science at the University of Edinburgh and little Mary was to be the only child born to him and his wife Catherine, as his wife would die of severe influenza but a year later.

Doctor MacPhearson’s specialty was Ornithology, the study of birds, and Mary would accompany him on his many bird watching excursions in the Scottish Highlands. Shortly after her 19th birthday they were in search of a rare breed of stork found only on the Isle of Skye, when they happened upon another creature that caught Mary’s eye. Specifically, what she saw was a robust young outdoorsman by the name of Charles MacKinnon. It was love at first sight and after a two-year courtship they were wed.

In the year 1799 Charles’s father past away, and rather than dividing his estate up among his sons he left it all to his eldest son Eric. Eric was a greedy man, who then required his younger siblings to pay him rent to remain on the land that they had lived their whole lives. Charles would have none of that, and with his bride of two years in tow, set off on a ship bound for America.

In 1800 the land known as the Northwest Territory had grown in population to the point that it was split into two separate Territories, named Ohio and Indiana. Each was permitted to elect a representative to Congress, where Indiana’s representative William Henry Harrison lobbied for lowering of the price of land in these territories. As a result, land became affordable enough that those with no income could purchase it on credit.

So Charles and Mary MacKinnon became one of three-dozen families who set out together on a convoy of barges down the Ohio River, to settle a new township in the Indiana Territory. Their journey ended on a six-square mile plot of Indiana land a short distance west of the river and exactly fourteen miles north of the growing community of Louisville, Kentucky. With a promised 640 acres apiece the township of Fourteen Mile Creek was founded. It retained that name for a number of years until a surveyor named Charles Briggs made the official measurements and the surveyor renamed it after himself as Charlestown, with the new name being a welcomed change to Charles MacKinnon.

Between the years 1801 and 1811 Mary gave birth to six children, of which Alan MacKinnon was the second. In 1811 there was an uprising of the Shawnee elves of Indiana, led by Chief Tecumseh. Then Governor Harrison resigned and raised an army, of which Charles MacKinnon joined. They defeated Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7th.

When Britain declared war against the United States in 1812 Tecumseh sought revenge and joined the British forces. Harrison again assembled his Militia who marched to the British fortress in Detroit, Michigan and on into Canada where they were victorious in the Battle of Thames. Charles MacKinnon perished in that battle.

Doctor MacPhearson retired from the University and moved to America to help his widowed daughter, where he taught his grandchildren about birds and the ability to actually communicate with them. He and Alan became quite close, and Doctor MacPhearson stood as Alan’s best man when he married in the year 1821. The extended family continued to reside in Charlestown, Indiana with none leaving until the United States went to war with Mexico in 1846. Having inherited the spirit of patriotism from his father, Alan MacKinnon enlisted in the Army alongside his two sons Ian and Wallace.

Assigned initially to the same regiment but soon promoted to different units, a MacKinnon saw action in every major battle of the war. Sergeant Alan MacKinnon received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his valor at the Battle of Monterrey, where he personally saved the lives of over a dozen men. Captain Ian MacKinnon received both a Purple Heart and Bronze Star for his bravery in the Battle of Buena Vista, which was led by Zachary Taylor. Lieutenant Wallace MacKinnon received no medals or military honors for his service, but he did return from Mexico with a half-elvan wife Rosita and a young son Samuel, who he deemed, were far more valuable than other possible glories he might have received.

In 1849 Wallace MacKinnon became one of the Minnesota Forty-niners. Unlike the California Forty-niners, who sought gold, those who migrated to Minnesota that year were in search of land that they could call their own, as that is the year it officially became a Territory of the United States. Wallace became a lumberjack and settled with his wife and son in a small logging town near where the mighty Mississippi River originated.

Wallace’s wife Rosita missed the warmer climate, so after twelve years in Minnesota they moved on to the Arizona Territory community of Tucson. However, Samuel remained behind in Minnesota, having grown up to be a backwoodsman and at the age of fourteen began trading goods with the Sioux, with them trusting him more than others due to his being part-elvan. At one point he came upon a group of Sioux that had enslaved a young half-elvan maiden of the Chippewa tribe named Autumn and he traded for her freedom. They fell in love and soon married.

When the Civil War began Samuel wanted to enlist with a Minnesota regiment, but was fearful of leaving his young bride alone. His grandfather Alan MacKinnon was now a widower himself and offered to move to Minnesota and stay with Autumn while Samuel was away in the war. This proved to be very beneficial to both, as Autumn’s mother had been a druid priestess who had taught her to communicate with birds and animals, so Autumn and her ornithologist grandfather-in-law had that in common.

The Sioux Chief in Minnesota took note that a significant amount of Minnesota’s men away in the war, and decided to launch an attack against the humans. They attacked the various frontier towns, killing hundreds of settlers. One attack came to Alan and Autumn’s town and it was her knowledge of the Sioux language that saved them both. She spoke to the Sioux warriors and shamed them, by stating that a true warrior would find warriors to fight rather than only women and elderly men. In the years following this Indian uprising there was a backlash by the humans against all those of elvan blood, and Alan now intervened to protect Autumn just as she had him.

In autumn of 1864 they received word that Samuel MacKinnon had died at Cold Harbor. From that point on Autumn received a widow’s pension, which combined with Alan’s military pension, provided enough income for them to get by. They were fairly self-sufficient and remained in Minnesota, spending considerable time bird watching and fishing along the State’s multitude of lakes.

By 1880 the long cold winters were taking a hard toll on Alan’s declining body, and Autumn suggested that they move to a warmer climate. They chose the Saint John’s River in Florida as their destination, as that region was known for having the most diverse population of birds within the entire continental United States. They purchased a fishing shack along the river and have resided there now for two years, becoming close friends with the Delroy-Kingleys, a human and ogre family that lived just east of them.

During the summer new neighbors moved in. Alan was thrilled to discover that the group’s leader, James A. Parker, was also an Army veteran who like his father had served during the War of 1812. The two spend many an evening together swapping war stories. Parker was an author of historical books and was currently working on one that concerned the 9th President, Indiana’s William Henry Harrison, who had been a personal friend of Alan’s father. James appeared to be little more than half of his chronological age due to his being a quarter-elvan, with his grandmother Alsoomse also with him. She and Autumn became fast friends, and them and young Antoinette Delroy now nearly inseparable.

James and Alan also began to rely on each other for mutual assistance. James had need for speedy communications and news, which Alan had already established via a carrier pigeon network between him and the telegraph operator in Jacksonville twelve-miles away. James had constructed a new house for him and his friends, which was electrified, with plans to soon extend telephone and electrical lines to both the Delroy-Kingsley home and the MacKinnon home. In the meanwhile, Alan continued to Communicate with James on an almost daily basis via carrier pigeon.

The most recent message that was sent by Alan occurred thirty minutes ago, when a group of eleven riders with looks of determination on their faces rapidly rode by the MacKinnon home en route to Parker’s. Alan dispatched a note to that effect and asked if assistance was needed. While waiting for an answer Autumn got their horses saddled up and Alan prepared their weapons.

Before they received a reply they heard a pair of distant revolver shots. The pigeon with the note then arrived, telling them to alert the County Sheriff that he was needed. Another pigeon was dispatched to Jacksonville with the message, adding that shots had been fired. Alan and Autumn then cautiously set off to the east, uncertain of exactly what they were riding into. They then heard another single shot, followed immediately by three more shots, and then a long period of silence.

They passed by the Delroy-Kingsley house, seeing Jasper Delroy armed with a shotgun and waiting with anticipation by the rear door. Alan motioned for the man to stay put as he and Autumn continued forward. They neared the incline in the road up to the higher plateau that the house sits upon. Autumn noticed a pair of saddled horses tied to an orange tree along the western base of the plateau, approximately 120 feet south of their current position.

They then heard what Alan recognized as the distinctive sound of rifle shots, fired so close together that only a keen military ear would be able to discern them as two shots rather than one. These originated from up the plateau, but not from the southeast where the house is located. Instead these were closer, from the south and not very far from where the two horses are tied up. They rode closer to the horses and two more shots rang out from the top of the hill.

Just as Alan and Autumn are forty feet from the animals as they hear another shot then look up to see a pair of men charging over from the plateau at the top of the hill eighty-five feet away. Both appear to be in their early-to-mid thirties, with neatly cropped beards and mustaches. They are wearing suits, each one carrying a rifle in one hand, and have blankets draped over their shoulders. Alan recognizes them both as being among the eleven riders who went past his farm.

"Zayde," whispers Autumn to her grandfather, "keep your distance! Valencia will soon be holding these men for our gentle neighbors..." She begins to coax her horse backwards, wanting at least 40 feet separating her and the men's mounts. Autumn then prepares to cast Entangle centered on the orange tree, to trip when the men are within fifteen to twenty feet of their mounts.

A short while later Ruby’s horse reaches the edge of the plateau. She anticipates seeing either two men attempting to ride off, or worse, lying in wait for her. Instead she sees the men around 100 feet away, both fifteen feet from the ground and fully ensnared by the limbs of an orange tree which are wrapped around the men's arms, legs and torso. Atop horses some forty-five feet away are Autumn and James MacKinnon. He has a rifle pointed unnecessarily at the pair in the tree while she has secured and is communicating to another pair of saddled horses, presumably the mounts for these men.

Meanwhile, Ruby sees in the distance the other seven cowboys riding swiftly on the road westward and almost to the edge of the Timucuan Conservancy property. To the north she sees Jasper, Obie and Enoch now emerging from the Delroy-Kingsley property, each carrying a rifle or shotgun.

Ruby rides up to the MacKinnon's and releases the breath she had been holding. "Thank goodness you showed up when you did, I thought these two were going to get away. They shot James and I am unsure of his condition. How long will this last?" she said as she nodded to the tree and branches. Autumn replies, "Only for a few minutes, which is why Grandfather has them covered. Your assistance with securing them would be a great help."

"It would be my pleasure," Ruby said without a hint of joy in her voice. "Do you happen to have any rope? Otherwise I will ride back to the house and get some." Alan throws Ruby a rope. He looks up at the tree and says, "You boys shot my friend James? You are in for a whole heap of trouble. I'm a crack shot, so I'd suggest that you don't give these ladies any trouble." Autumn tells Ruby to get ready as the spell ends and the two men drop abruptly to the ground, their rifles landing several feet away from each man.

Ruby hurried over and roughly threw the rope around each man, pulling it snug behind them and forcing them together. "Yes, you made a grave mistake today," she said, yanking it tighter. "So tell me, who hired you to take out Mr. Parker?" One says, "Whose Parker? We were shooting at Hardin." The second says, "We want to talk to our lawyer." Ruby states, "How did you know who Hardin was? Have you seen him before? Because you shot James Parker and if he is seriously injured or gods forbid dies... I'm not even going to say what is going to happen to you."

The one who did most of the talking before says in his Virginia accent "Everybody knows what Hardin looks like, his face has been in all of the papers. If we missed him then he must have moved at the last minute." "I was standing directly next to James and near Hardin, he never moved, so you're lying. You might as well shut up now because I don't believe a word you're saying. You're lucky our friends were here when I met up with you." Alan rides over and says, "Shall we walk them back to the house?" She nodded towards the MacKinnons. "I'm certain someone here will have a way of getting the absolute truth from you. Now get up and walk." Ruby gathered their rifles, no doubt filled with magic ammunition and started walking them towards the house.