Henry Sampson and the Great Galveston Storm

William Merrell

Description

Henry Sampson and the Great Galveston Storm is a historic novel set in Galveston, Texas. All the action takes place in the week before and during the infamous 1900 hurricane, although there are flashbacks the famous privateer, Jean Lafitte, and his men as they bury and then protect a treasure. Galveston in 1900 was a booming, fascinating place. Wealth was being accumulated at amazing rates and new businesses and businessmen were pouring into town. Its hotels, one of which sported a five story atrium, were the finest south of St. Louis. It was also a party town. Galveston had more saloons than New Orleans. Whorehouses and society clubs occupied the same block. Politics and race relations were difficult as the post Civil War Republicans (led by a black Galvestonian) reluctantly gave way to a new majority of white politicians. Black and white unions fought over control of the cotton docks where the aptly nicknamed Octopus of the Gulf, the Galveston Wharves Company, monopolized seaborne trade into all of Texas. Jack Johnson, a native Galvestonian, was beginning his legendary boxing career and famous entertainers, such as Lillie Langtry, regularly performed at Galveston's opera house. The 1900 Galveston business and social environment suit Henry Sampson, a somewhat shady (who wasn't) businessman, who has come to Galveston to seek his fortune. And he's well on his way to riches using his loose assemblage of partners, both black and white, to exploit the greed of the Galveston Wharves Company. Henry dreams of the day he will have enough money to join Galveston's upper crust and marry his girlfriend, Molly Banes. Molly is a complex creature, an uncannily accurate fortuneteller who remains unimpressed with what money (in particular Henry's) can buy. Enter three mysterious siblings (two brothers and a sister) who claim to be Lafitte's descendants and who definitely have an interesting map and some of his famous journals. The materials provide substantial clues but not the exact whereabouts of Lafitte's buried treasure. They offer Henry a piece of the fortune in return for his help in finding the treasure and getting it off the Island. While dancing a fine line with the mysterious and ever scarier siblings, Henry tracks down correspondence, meets with heirs, determines changes in the Island's topography, and reexamines Lafitte's journals. His persistence finally pays off and he determines the treasure's location - just as the 1900 hurricane hits the Island.

Sujets

• Personal finance
• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: First Edition Design Publishing
• Date de parution: 15 décembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781622877614
• Langue: English

Extrait

Henry Sampson and the Great Galveston Storm
William Merrell


First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
Henry Sampson and the
Great Galveston Storm


A Novel
By
William Merrell
Henry Sampson and the Great Galveston Storm
Copyright ©2014 William Merrell

ISBN 978-1622-878-67-3 PRINT
ISBN 978-1622-877-61-4 EBOOK

LCCN 2014955915

November 2014

Published and Distributed by
First Edition Design Publishing, Inc.
P.O. Box 20217, Sarasota, FL 34276-3217
www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com



ALL R I G H T S R E S E R V E D. No p a r t o f t h i s b oo k pub li ca t i o n m a y b e r e p r o du ce d, s t o r e d i n a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , o r t r a n s mit t e d i n a ny f o r m o r by a ny m e a ns ─ e l e c t r o n i c , m e c h a n i c a l , p h o t o - c o p y , r ec o r d i n g, or a ny o t h e r ─ e x ce pt b r i e f qu ot a t i o n i n r e v i e w s , w i t h o ut t h e p r i o r p e r mi ss i on o f t h e a u t h o r or publisher .
Chapter 1

City of Galveston
Monday
August 27, 1900, 3:00 p.m.

My afternoon nap ended when I heard my name being shouted in the street. Earlier, after putting my feet on my desk and leaning back in my comfortable chair, I had succumbed to the dulling effects of a large lunch of grilled oysters washed down with a bucket of Galveston’s own High Grade brand beer. My still vivid, oyster-induced dreams had diverged from their usual plot of me dying poor and penniless but instead had focused on new ways to screw an octopus—that is, the so-called Octopus of the Gulf, also known as the Galveston Wharf Company. I smiled. It had been a great dream, and the bastards who ran the wharves were so mean and greedy that I had found the practice of screwing them to be both fun as well as profitable.
Half asleep and wracked by yawning, I swung my legs from my desk to the floor and lurched over to the lone large window of my third-floor office. It was a typical late summer day in Galveston, hot as hell and much more humid than any hell could ever be, so the window was wide open and the shutters pulled back. A couple of pesky mosquitoes had found their way up to the third floor, and I started swatting at them as I peered out on the Strand and reflected smugly, for about the hundredth time in the space of the day, on the unlikely fact that my office overlooked the wealthiest street in America west of New York City and south of St. Louis—not bad for a boy who had grown up dirt poor in the Virginia mountains.
But at that moment, the Strand didn’t seem quite as elegant as usual. The tradesmen, brokers, and shoppers who always packed the hub of Galveston’s commercial district were milling around and doing their best to act oblivious to an unpleasant scene. Amos Galloway, my junior and, by necessity, silent partner in two of Henry Sampson Enterprises’ many ventures, was shouting my name as he frantically dodged carriages and goods-laden wagons. In hot pursuit of Amos were two of the nastier employees of the Galveston Wharf Company: the Jones twins, Sam and Ben. No one was sure exactly what Sam and Ben did for the company other than be their obnoxious selves and constantly harass actual or potential competitors of the Octopus of the Gulf.
Amos, who must have been well over sixty but steadfastly refused to divulge his age, had small pearls of sweat moistening his purplish black skin and his breathing was quick but controlled. He held his thin rail of a body and balding head curiously erect, but his arms and legs moved in perfect harmony as he darted to and fro, barely missing the wagons and carriages. The Jones boys, on the other hand, were both running stiff-legged like pigs and breathing in huge, raspy gasps. With each tedious step, the hundred extra pounds of fat that each of them carried bounced and jiggled hideously. I was pleased to see that their butt-ugly faces were brick red from the effort of doing something more than pushing back from a bar or bashing innocents. I prayed that their bodily humors would spontaneously combust from the heat generated by their unfamiliar exertions.
Just as I dispatched the second annoying mosquito by popping my palm to my forehead, Amos saw me standing at the window and slowed down to shout, “Mr. Henry, I’ve been yelling for you to come down. Got an important message for you.” For some reason, Amos was performing a lackey act instead of addressing me in his usual rude and sarcastic manner. As I was reflecting on this unusual performance, the lead Jones boy—I was pretty sure it was Sam, but they are hard to tell apart—had almost caught up with Amos. Before I could shout a warning, a slight black woman in a maid’s uniform, acting as if she was panicked while desperately trying to get out of Sam’s way, stuck her folded parasol between his ham-like thighs Sam sprawled face down on the Strand’s sunbaked roadbed, a rich mixture of crushed seashells and animal excrement. He emitted muffled obscenities as he skidded a good six feet before grinding to a sickening stop. As the woman silently faded into a dark storefront, I saw a brief smile light up her face. Ben caught up to his fallen twin and straddled his prone brother, evidently so he could attempt to administer his feeble idea of first aid to Sam’s skinless elbows and nose. It was a scene that reminded me of two pigs copulating.
Amos grinned at the spectacle and walked slowly across the street until he stood directly under my window. He held up a small envelope and politely shouted, “Mr. Henry, may I come up to your office so I can deliver an important message to you?” As he excitedly waved the envelope back and forth above his head, he discreetly pointed toward the corner of Twenty-Fourth Street and the Strand with his other hand. I somehow refrained from looking at the corner while asking that he bring the letter up. I stepped back into the relative darkness of the office, but from there I still couldn’t see the corner clearly. Grabbing my police whistle, I leaned out of the window and blew hard. It produced an appropriately shrill sound as I carefully surveyed the corner that Amos had pointed toward.
Near the corner, everyone was walking briskly except for two men who stood side by side and smirked at Ben’s dilemma as he struggled to lift the dead weight of his skinned-up twin. The smirking men were dressed identically, in black suits, white starched shirts, and wide-brimmed felt hats. Both sported long handlebar mustaches that pleasantly accented their round faces and high cheekbones. In fact, they could have been twins except that one was huge with dark brown hair and the other tiny and blond. The small man stepped forward to get a better view of Sam’s wounds and thus exposed a third member of the well-dressed corner gang. Sandwiched tightly between the two men was a very attractive woman, also dressed in black. Although the men wore the baggy suits and floppy hats favored by Yankees arriving daily to seek their fortunes in Galveston, the woman’s dress was definitely of a Southern style, smartly tailored to accent her small waist and cut low in front to display her ample bosom. Her hair was dark, almost black, and tucked primly into a small hat with a thin, wispy veil that barely obscured her face. Coal black eyes stared at me through the veil. I couldn’t help but stare back. She didn’t say anything, but I could see her hands move to the men’s arms and dig deep into their biceps. Soon the two men also turned their attention toward me. I was sure that these three were new in town because I would have remembered them—at least the woman—if I had seen them before.
My continued assessment of the three strangers—I admit that I was focused on one in particular—was interrupted by the police, who finally arrived in the form of Sandy Howley, a large Irishman who supposedly patrolled this block of the Strand. Sandy’s one claim to fame was fighting in the Battle of Galveston Bay in the Civil War, or as the locals called it, the War of Northern Aggression. Sandy, who had been on the winning side of the battle but not the war, wasn’t young even back then. I tore my eyes from the woman as I shouted down to Sandy that I had blown the police whistle because one of the Jones twins had somehow hurt himself playing in the street and clearly needed medical assistance. More quietly I said, “Those stupid asswine could have hurt Amos. Aren’t we paying you enough to handle these sorts of things?”
Sandy replied in a loud stage whisper that partially deaf old men use when they’re trying not to be heard. “Take more than those dumb twins to handle Amos,” he said. “I’ll go drag Sam into O’Malley’s and pour some whiskey on his scrapes. You should be able to hear him scream from here.” Sam and Ben must have overheard Sandy because Sam started moaning and Ben frantically tugged at his twin brother’s tattered shirt. Despite being awakened from my nap, the afternoon was looking promising.
As Sandy strolled purposefully toward the loudly moaning but still prone Sam, I glanced up and down the street, trying not to stare at the corner. The two men in black suits were gone, but the woman still stood in the same place. She had pulled the veil away from her face and was staring at me, unblinking, like a hawk assessing the best way to tear into a pigeon. The Galveston heat must have been getting to her. Although she was fanning herself briskly with a white lace fan, the woman was flushed about the face, and her heavy breathing caused her breasts to pull together and then separate. It seemed as if her cleavage was giving me strange sideways winks. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. Her frantic fanning suddenly stopped, but she held my stare while a small smile crossed her face. Was she about to cross the street to speak to me? As she took a tiny step forward, I felt myself being jerked back from the window.
Amos pushed me into my chair, laughing. “Ain’t you