Author's note: Really nothing new to add. The next chapter will be the soiree and, after that, everything should be set up for some more interesting and intimate interactions. Same caveats apply as noted in earlier chapters!
*****
As James Davidson climbed into his waiting carriage, Maya Ramirez walked into her one room apartment, carrying a bag with a few goods from the market in her hand. As she closed the door behind her, she cried out, "Are you hungry, Alejandro?"
"How can you think of eating?" her younger brother shouted back. "Aren't you excited about tomorrow?"
Maya knew exactly what Alejandro was talking about, but decided to feign ignorance. "I don't think it's your birthday. It certainly isn't mine. And it's too early for Christmas."
Alejandro rolled his eyes. "It's the rocket launch!"
Maya laughed. "Yes, the big rocket launch. The one that will measure the ... the..." Maya was trying to remember the English word.
"The ether!"
"Yes, the ether," Maya said, forming her lips around the strange word. It was such a new concept that it had yet to make its way into her French Creole. "All these amazing things happening on our little island. And you," Maya added, taking Alejandro's face between her hands, much to his embarrassment, "will be very important in it one day."
Alejandro slipped from his sister's affectionate grasp, which made her laugh even more. "That's what Miss Waggoner says. She says that if we work hard and focus, that we can accomplish anything we want."
Maya beamed at her little brother, happy at his optimism and enthusiasm. "Then this Miss Wag-gon-er is a very wise woman." So many strange names, and so hard to fit her tongue around. But, Maya decided, she thoroughly approved of any woman who was giving her brother this opportunity, strange name or no.
"She arranged for someone from the rocket facilities to come to the school tomorrow for the launch, and to tell us everything that is happening. And tonight, they're having a celebration at the English compound, and they'll have fireworks..." Alejandro added, a hopeful tone in his voice.
"And you would like to stand outside and watch. I think we can do this," Maya said with a smile. "Why don't we stop by Allain's booth and buy some accras tonight, and walk over to the English compound?"
Alejandro hugged his sister tightly, feeling as if he was the luckiest boy alive. Maya looked in the broken piece of mirror hanging near the door, ran her hand through her hair before leading Alejandro out into the hall.
Maya froze when she saw the owner's agent coming down the hall, two burly men walking behind him. In an instant, she knew what they were here for. Turning to Alejandro, she said, "Go! Run!"
"Maya, I..."
Maya shoved Alejandro down toward the opposite end of the hall. "I said get out of here! Now!"
Alejandro ran to the stairwell at the end of the hall, looked back, and saw his sister facing the men, her knife in hand, as the three man were laughing and grinning.
It was a cold, hard fact of life that, under normal circumstances, Maya would have been all alone in defending her virtue. Of course, Maya was not complaining. She had been doing so for years. She was more than aware that a larger, more determined attacker could overcome her defenses; but she also knew that all she had to do was hurt her attacker so badly that the potential bodily damage she would do was a deterrent in and of itself. Even as the owner's agent cautiously approached her, his two allies flanking him, Maya was deciding which one of the flankers to attack. Her thought was that if one ally was wounded, both the allies might abandon the owner's agent, leaving Maya a battle she already knew.
When Maya sent her younger brother away, it never entered her mind to have him seek out help. In the part of Castries where Maya and her brother lived, the citizens learned to fend for themselves. Although a small, calculating part of Maya's brain might have sent Alejandro away so that she wouldn't have any distractions in the upcoming 'confrontation, ' the main reason she sent her brother away was because she didn't want her beloved brother hurt or exposed to what would happen to her if she lost.
Alejandro, for his part, was neither a coward nor a fool. Like all the children in the poorer parts of Castries, Alejandro had been exposed to the hard facts of life early on, and knew exactly what the three men planned to do with his sister. In other circumstances, Alejandro would have stayed, regardless of his sister's command to the contrary, and no doubt gotten badly hurt or possibly killed for his efforts.
But the American school had instilled a sense of optimism in Alejandro. He didn't want to abandon his sister, but neither did he think he could effectively help her. So Alejandro ran down the stairs and out of the building, trying to come up with some plan that would force a squadron of colonial police to follow him back to his building. Not that the section of Castries Alejandro lived in either wanted or expected help from St. Lucia's colonial police; but Alejandro's reasoning was that, if confronted with the ongoing assault on his sister, the police would have to do something.
Then Fate provide Alejandro a better plan. Alejandro's apartment building was located not too far behind a string of market stalls that lined part of the thoroughfare from the American Emporium Hotel to India House. As Alejandro ran up to the street, looking for the police, he spotted the carriage carrying one James Davidson, American ethernaut.
---
Without a doubt James Davidson was Kenny's favorite customer.
Ironically, part of the reason Kenny liked the American was that the American rarely ever used Kenny's services. Anyone and everyone on St. Lucia knew that its recent growth was due to the Edison Moon Project and that, for all practical purposes, James Davidson was the face of the Moon Project. And yet the man considered himself as just one of the crowd. Which was quite different from many of Kenny's normal customers, minor merchants and bureaucrats who were quite full of themselves and who were usually very stingy with their gratuities. Which again was not James Davidson.
The American usually only hired Kenny's carriage for important functions, when one was expected to arrive under the power of a horse-drawn vehicle, and not one's own legs, even if the legs had as long a stride as James Davidson's did.
It had startled Kenny the first time James had asked to ride on the forward seat, but the two had had a very interesting discussion about their experiences with horses, and Kenny looked forward to the next time the American ethernaut would ride with him and the far-ranging conversations the ride would produce.
"Well, I cannot say that I approve of this cable car you tell me that they are operating in your country," Kenny was saying, "if for no other reason than I think it will put me and my horses out of business."
"Right now, Kenny, it's only in the city of San Francisco, and just in one very hilly part of the city. But I would not be surprised to see one in Castries within the next ten to twenty years." James tapped his upper lip with his finger, lost for a moment in thought. Technically, his only job was to train the ethernauts for their eventual ascension into the ether. But James was an inventor and innovator himself, if on a lesser scale than Edison. Which meant James spent a good deal of his time helping the various projects under the Edison umbrella on St. Lucia to mesh, and sometimes James saw other opportunities as well.
"Kenny, I'd like to hire you again three nights from now, for a couple of hours. I want to get this launch accomplished first, but I have an idea, and I'd like to get you involved in it."
Kenny just shook his head and laughed. "You Americans, always thinking. I wonder where that will leave our world when my grandchildren are running it?"
Before James could respond, a young boy dashed straight for their carriage, shouting "Mr. Davidson! Mr. Davidson! Help me!"
Alejandro dashed to the main thoroughfare, looking for one of the colonial police and trying to think of a story or lie or action that would get one or more of the constables to chase after him. Then Alejandro spotted the American ethernaut!
Like most of the boys on St. Lucia, regardless of their social or economic background, Alejandro knew everything about the Edison Moon Project, including the head of its ethernaut corps, James Davidson. Undoubtedly, in a few years, one of the companies that made baseball cards in the United States would make cards for the ethernaut corps, but boys like Alejandro didn't need them. They already knew all the facts about their heroes (or at least the more palatable facts).
To see his hero riding in the front of a carriage, right when Alejandro came running up to the thoroughfare, seemed to be a gift in and of itself. If it had been any other American or European, Alejandro would not have bothered, expecting only a beating from the driver for showing the insolence of running up to a carriage. But this was an ethernaut! The ethernaut!
So without a second thought, Alejandro ran to the carriage, shouting for help.
To Kenny's credit, he reached for his whip to "shoo" Alejandro off.
That is to say, Kenny was an experienced carriage driver who was used to chasing off the street urchins that would approach his passengers and beg for small coins. Such was Kenny's reputation among the street children that he didn't even have to reach for his horse whip. Just the sight of his carriage was enough for the youngsters to look elsewhere.
James laid a hand lightly on Kenny's lower arm. "It's OK, Kenny. What's the problem, son?" James asked Alejandro.
"My sister is in trouble. There are three men who are ... who are..."
