150 Years Ago

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jwhouk
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Re: 150 Years Ago

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EPILOGUE
December 4, 2015

The snowfall from the previous weekend had melted slightly over the past week – but had then progressively frozen due to the drastic drop in temperatures we began experiencing yet again for the winter.

It made my drive in to work a bit on the annoying side that night. Things didn't get any better once I was at work; the kids in my cottage seemed wound up from the sudden cold snap.

And, to top it all off, I couldn't get a ride down to the main entrance at the end of my shift. I was nearly frozen by the time I got down to communications.

I was surprised, however, by two people waiting for me in the entry foyer. Both wore dark cloaks; one with mirrored sunglasses – even though the sun wasn't going to be up for at least an hour.

The other had typical round-rim glasses, that hid her freckles and very white complexion – but were framed by long, auburn-red locks of hair.

I saw the pair through mostly steamed glasses. "Oh, great, now what?"

"Well, good morning to you, too," Suzie replied. "We're not here on business, actually."

"She isn't, anyways," Billens said plainly. "Your clearance level with our organization has been cleared to Level Alpha."

I took off my glasses to wipe them, and looked at the pair.

"Why, thank you, Marshall. What, pray tell, does that actually mean?"

"It means you're basically on the same level as the Centurion as to need-to-know basis among civilians," he added. "And, it also means that Agent McBride has to debrief you on a few things."

"Uh, I do have to get home," I mentioned.

"Lily's gonna meet me there," Suzie said. "Her daughter pointed her out to a bakery east of here, something about flax bread. Billens has some stuff going on in Rhinelander, which means I would need to hitch a ride. If, of course, you don't mind?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"It's either that or do the briefing here – and some of it might be a bit, um, personal?" Suzie gave me a look.

I rolled my eyes.

"Fine, let me at least call my wife and warn her," I said.

---

We got on the road, with the heated seats finally kicking in against the sub-zero temps. I had the car pointed south down Highway K. It was at that point that I broke the silence.

"So, I take it you spoke with Neil about my great-great-grandpa."

"Actually, Phix kinda spoke to me about it. She said she'd given you his diary. He, uh, didn't say anything about me in there, did he?"

"No." The heater was running full blast as the interior of my HHR was slowly warming up. "Did you ever figure out who 'Tanner' really was?"

She chuckled.

"You're never going to believe it."

"Try me."

"James Wilkerson Bond." She paused for a moment. It sank in after a beat.

"James Bond? Ian Fleming is rolling in his grave at that."

"Yeah, he was the son of a plantation owner in northern Virginia. Grew up in Maryland, which is how he managed to pass as a Yankee." She thought for a second. "He fought with General Hood's troops in the Battle of Nashville, in late 1864."

"The ones that the 44th helped repulse out of the Music City," I added.

"Not only that, but I believe he might have been the one that Dashnois shot as they were retreating," she replied. "When I was doing his… post mortem, I saw that he had two buckshot wounds on his posterior – the more recent one from when he escaped after the first assassination attempt, and an older one. Roughly three to four months older."

"How'd you get into nursing, anyways?" I asked.

"It was a cover," she said. "I worked for the Union Army's special operations unit. Those soldiers had been recuperating from their wounds at the Battle of Franklin, and we were finally getting the opportunity to ship them home to Maryland."

"But you were the ship's nurse?" I asked.

"Ebbie and I knew each other from when he was a middie," she replied. "It's a bit complicated, but I used his steamer as transport when I could."

The dawn was trying to peek through under the heavy cloud cover that blanketed most of the state of Wisconsin.

"There wasn't anything about me in that diary?" she asked. "I mean, at all?"

"Not that I saw," I replied.

"When did it say he returned to Paducah and the 44th?"

"They got back on the 18th, I believe," I said. "The train down from Louisville came down late on Friday, and they were given two days leave in Paducah before formally reporting. He didn't write anything about it."

"Louisville," she said idly. "He was already back in Louisville with Austin and the rest of the 44th on the 11th."

I had to slow down, as a school bus was making a pickup ahead of us on the rural highway.

"How do you know this?"

"Ebbie had to bring the ship in to the yards in Jeffersonville for repairs," she stated. "It was going to take a week or so. Billens was back in Washington. I offered to escort the boys down to Paducah on the railway."

"Dashnois' hand was still bothering him?"

"He was still hurting, but he didn't want to report for duty with a bum hand." She pursed her lips carefully as we followed behind the bus.

"I get stuck behind this thing every morning during the week," I explained. "He turns in to this little trailer park down by 51, so we shouldn't have to…"

"I slept with him," she said quietly.

"…wait, what?" I had to slam on the brakes momentarily, as I hadn't noticed the bus had its brake lights on.

"Yeah, uh, don't really like going into details, but, um, your great-great grandpa was definitely not a virgin on his wedding night."

I looked at her. She looked at me over the top of her glasses.

"Well," I said quietly, "It's not like people didn't have sex back then."

"Look, they were young, we'd just gone through hell over Neil, and…"

I raised a hand to stop her.

"It's okay, Suze." I drew in a breath. "Not sure what to say to that, but it's okay. I didn't know much about my great-great-grandfather before earlier this month, anyways – except that he was a Civil War vet. I never imagined he was a saint or anything."

I navigated the HHR down Center Avenue and into the north side of the city of Merrill.

"I'm actually thinking that might have been why I, uh, came on so strong on you at the wedding," she mentioned quietly. "He was actually a really nice guy. Seemed a bit sad when I told him I was, uh, unavailable."

"He knew you were a vampire, though, right?" I asked as I turned on to Main to head west toward home. She nodded.

"I never did any of that… stuff… you may have heard about from those stupid Twilight movies," she explained. "That's not how it works."

"I've never seen Twilight, and I don't particularly care to know about the sexual habits of vampires," I replied. "You two were consenting adults, and he was a single soldier a long way from home. I don't blame him one bit."

The rest of the drive back home was quiet. When I pulled into my parking lot, Lily was there with the LTD.

I pulled up to drop Suzie off. She surprised me by kissing me on the cheek.

"Thank you," she said. I was a bit stunned, but at least I weakly smiled at her as she got out and walked over to the LTD.

I waved to the pair as Lily pulled the car out of the parking spot and headed out – then, I pulled out and parked my car in the garage.

I didn't want it to freeze out in the cold, after all.
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
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jwhouk
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Re: 150 Years Ago

Post by jwhouk »

"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
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jwhouk
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Re: 150 Years Ago

Post by jwhouk »

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Other than those individuals who are regulars in the web comic Wapsi Square, these are the other characters involved in this grand play:

THE 44TH WISCONSIN REGIMENT:
• George B. Austin, Corporal, Company H (Eagle, Wisconsin); he is from my great grand-uncles' hometown of Eagle, where Old World Wisconsin is located. For the purposes of this story, he the grandfather of my great Aunt Marcella Houk's husband, Martin Eiden. The "buncha krauts" that bought the land where he'd once hunted happened to be Marcella's grandfather and father.
• Frank Dashnois, Private, Company D (Green Bay); his uncle runs a meat packing plant over on the west side of the Fox River. He's built like a linebacker; in fact, you might think he's a little shorter-haired version of a certain kid named "Mathews" on a certain football team that his uncle's plant would sponsor about, oh, 55 years later. His grandson would be the plant manager for Indian Packing of Green Bay – and would play under Earl "Curly" Lambeau on that first Packers team. Oh, and yes – Company D did see action at the Battle of Nashville in December of 1864, but they (like most of the rest of the 44th) were mostly involved in picket duty.
• George M. Hatch, Private, Company E (Oconomowoc); Yes, that is a real city in Wisconsin – something that probably got him a bunch of looks from people when he explained where it is. It is also my dad's hometown. After the war, he would purchase a large plot of land on the southeast side of the city, nearest Summit Township. He lost money on the deal, but it would eventually be part of the Summit Addition – which would include a street named for the speculator who bought some of the land from him – Westover. At house number 712 on said street, a young Irish girl and her family would make their home for over six decades. That Irish girl was my grandmother, Mary Kelly.
• Joseph Hough, Private, Company G (Cottage Grove); Cottage Grove is a city just east of Madison on the Milwaukee-Madison Highway – what would eventually become Highway 30 and, much later, Interstate 94. He moved to Madison to pursue a law degree after the war, something that his son continued after his death. His granddaughter married a gentleman from northwest Wisconsin, that she met at the UW Law School – a young man by the name of Warren Knowles. Mr. Knowles would go on to become the Governor of Wisconsin in the late 1960's – and was Governor the year that my father was hired at Southern Wisconsin Colony and Training School, a state run institution for the "developmentally disabled".
• Oscar Watts, Private, Company I (Beloit); I already outlined who exactly he is. It should be noted to the reader, however, that though each of the five members of the 44th Regiment are based on real people, the description of their lives here and as to their "future" is fiction, at best. Of course, Phix hasn't given me my great-great-grandpa's diary… yet.

OTHER MAJOR PLAYERS:
• Jebediah Billens, U.S. Marshall, Department of Special Investigations; in case you missed it, he is exactly whom he was accused of being. It turns out, in grand Wapsiverse style, that his momma was no dummy. When she dipped him in the River Styx to become invulnerable, she spun him around by the ankles. Yes, like our fair Mr. Antonia, he is nearly immortal – but if "Tanner" had been quicker with his shot, he may have very well hurt Billens. He is now involved as an MIB agent – he was the one who was eating the Salted Caramel Latte Popsicle in the strip after Suzie cared for her "Jane Doe." He has not, as of yet, been told about the relationship between Watts and myself.
• Gaius Cornelius Antonia, Citizen of Rome; See The Centurion and The Sphinx for more information.
• Aeternia Dixiana Antonia; the child of Neil and Phix. At the time of the "present" at the end of this work, she is a few months old.
• "Edward Tanner" was a banker in Cincinnati whose demise was, unfortunately, not noted until well after the war. It was later discovered that his ownership of a plot of land on the east side of Cincinnati would eventually be purchased by George Wright, who would later use it to erect The Palace of the Fans – the stadium that would later be known as Crosley Field.
• Ebenezer Calvin "Ebbie" Alexander, Detective in Chief, Allan Pinkerton Detective Agency; Ebbie was a graduate of the US Naval Academy, with honors in Engineering. Unfortunately, his "liberties" in trying to improve the SS John Adams' boiler design resulted in his discharge from the Navy. He took a job as a "heavy" with Mr. Pinkerton, and was soon diverted to Pittsburgh, where a steamship company was experiencing heavy losses due to theft and property damage. It turned out that when Ebbie arrived at the Three Rivers, the company had only one ship on its line – the barely usable SS Fairmount, a sidewheel steamer that was ill cut out for the Ohio. While dealing with the issues of theft and damage, he slowly made improvements on the ship, allowing it not only to sail all the way down river with ease, but making record time doing so. He set forth a call for crew among his centaur kind, and he spent the five years leading up to the Civil War building the company back up from the ruins. In 1860, he and the captain of the Fairmount financed full purchase of the company and ship with help from a bank in Cincinnati; in their honor he renamed the ship the Queen City Belle. Unfortunately, the war prevented him from taking full possession of the ship. He continued as the "protection" for the ship as it pulled cargo duty for the Union armies along the border with Virginia and Kentucky. After the War, he finally took ownership of the shipping company – and promptly decided to move it to the Mississippi, to compete with the lines that were setting up on the Big Muddy. Circumstances, however, conspired against him when a mishap at the Louisville Canal led to the ship nearly being lost before reaching the river. Forced to fix a damaged (and slowly growing obsolete) steamer for use on the Mississippi, Alexander chose instead to take the ship north to the Tri-Cities area of Iowa and Illinois (Davenport/Rock Island/Moline) – where he scuttled her and turned her workings into equipment for farming. In a few short years, he founded Alexander's Harvesters.
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
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lake_wrangler
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Re: 150 Years Ago

Post by lake_wrangler »

You know you're reading good quality stuff, when it has you running for the dictionary (or the online search equivalent, that is), every once in a while...

I'm really loving all the fanfic rereads I've been doing, lately.

There has not been much new writing activity in that regard, lately, but I do hope we will see more, eventually.
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lake_wrangler
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Re: 150 Years Ago

Post by lake_wrangler »

From the previous page:
lake_wrangler wrote: Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:29 am
Sgt. Howard wrote:Seems he bled to death...
Oh? So he died of natural causes, then... After all, it's only natural to die, once you've been exsanguinated... :mrgreen:
Reading this previous post of mine immediately reminded me of a recent comic page on Grrl Power...
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