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  THE AMERICANS

  The Kent Family Chronicles (Book Eight)

  John Jakes

  For Nina

  Contents

  Introduction: … And the Curtain Falls

  The Kent Family

  Prologue Lost

  Book One: The Chains of the Past

  Chapter I. At the Red Cod

  Chapter II. Brawl

  Chapter III. Caught

  Chapter IV. Hearst

  Chapter V. At Home on Beacon Street

  Chapter VI. Midnight Visitor

  Chapter VII. Defiance

  Chapter VIII. Eben’s Fate

  Chapter IX. The Greek Woman

  Chapter X. Campaign Year

  Chapter XI. The Secret Door

  Chapter XII. A Father’s Fear

  Chapter XIII. Reprisal

  Chapter XIV. A Violent Lesson

  Chapter XV. A Detective Calls

  Chapter XVI. The Note

  Chapter XVII. The Promise

  Chapter XVIII. Carter’s Choice

  Book Two: The Journey of Will Kent

  Chapter I. Unhappy Homecoming

  Chapter II. Eleanor and Leo

  Chapter III. Welcome to the Bad Lands

  Chapter IV. A Tilt with Mr. Maunders

  Chapter V. “Hasten Forward Quickly There!”

  Chapter VI. The Horse Corral

  Chapter VII. Ambition

  Chapter VIII. Night Thunder

  Chapter IX. The Victim

  Chapter X. Old Doc Death

  Chapter XI. A Plan for the Future

  Chapter XII. Maunders Again

  Chapter XIII. What Gideon Said

  Chapter XIV. A Successful Man

  Chapter XV. Journey’s End

  Book Three: The Upward Path

  Chapter I. In Galveston

  Chapter II. Behind Bars

  Chapter III. Jo

  Chapter IV. The Students

  Chapter V. Trouble at Madam Melba’s

  Chapter VI. Marcus

  Chapter VII. The Pennels

  Chapter VIII. The Lioness

  Chapter IX. A Doctor’s Duty

  Chapter X. Laura’s Victory

  Chapter XI. Castle Garden

  Chapter XII. Birth

  Chapter XIII. “The Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Shore”

  Chapter XIV. The Only Hope

  Book Four: The Waters Roar

  Chapter I. The Troupers

  Chapter II. The Other Cheek

  Chapter III. A Dream in the Rain

  Chapter IV. Attack

  Chapter V. Stranded

  Chapter VI. Adrift

  Chapter VII. Danger on a Dark Street

  Chapter VIII. The Weapon

  Chapter IX. The Blind Boss

  Chapter X. Steam Beer

  Chapter XI. Puncher Martin

  Chapter XII. The Deluge

  Chapter XIII. Flood Tide

  Chapter XIV. Fire in the Water

  Chapter XV. Confession

  Chapter XVI. “Not Known to Be Found”

  Book Five: The Marble Cottage

  Chapter I. Summer of ’89

  Chapter II. Quarrel

  Chapter III. Newport

  Chapter IV. The Shacker

  Chapter V. Maison du Soleil

  Chapter VI. Whispers

  Chapter VII. Love and Honor

  Chapter VIII. Accusation

  Chapter IX. Summons

  Chapter X. Parting

  Book Six: The Education of Will Kent

  Chapter I. The Bend

  Chapter II. Unexpected Help

  Chapter III. “One Notch Above Hell”

  Chapter IV. Warning

  Chapter V. The Policeman

  Chapter VI. Stale Beer

  Chapter VII. The Tenement

  Chapter VIII. Jo’s Confession

  Chapter IX. The Raid

  Chapter X. Ultimatum

  Chapter XI. Questions

  Chapter XII. What Pennel Said

  Chapter XIII. Carnage

  Chapter XIV. Under the Knife

  Chapter XV. Laura’s Confession

  Chapter XVI. Reunion

  Chapter XVII. Someone Waiting

  Chapter XVIII. The Secret

  Chapter XIX. The Broken Promise

  Epilogue … And Make a Mark

  A Biography of John Jakes

  INTRODUCTION:

  … AND THE CURTAIN FALLS

  PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICANS brings this, the last of eight special introductions I’ve written for New American Library’s handsome reprints of the Kent Family Chronicles. The experience has been enjoyable and, when memory pops up with some detail I’d forgotten, enlightening.

  At the time the series concluded, there was furious conversation and negotiation about continuing the adventures of Philip Kent’s descendants into the twentieth century. Followers of the series will know that by the end of the eighth volume, I should have reached 1976, but managed to reach only the early 1890s because of my fascination with various historical episodes along the way (not that the readers or the publisher seemed to mind). Some overoptimistic souls connected with the project, therefore, felt I could string out the series to fifteen or sixteen volumes!

  Certainly there’s material aplenty for a continuation of the Kent story. But all the conversation and negotiation went for naught. I was plain worn-out from eight years of constant, relentless research and writing. Further, when a new contract was discussed, more than one company was involved, and there were additional complications including penalties for delays in delivery of future Kent books.

  The publisher ultimately backed away from the new contract, as did I. The complicating factors played a part, but my decision sprang mostly from my longtime affection for live theater, which I’ve mentioned elsewhere many times. It struck me that the Kent saga should end as a good stage performance does, with the curtain down and the audience satisfied, though wishing there were more. I turned away from the sad model of a TV show that stretches into an eighth or ninth year, only to die slowly, on its feet, like an old horse driven too far. Thus I went on to the North and South Trilogy.

  Yet interest in further adventures of the Kent descendants continues to this day. Many readers write me at my Web site, asking for another Kent novel or two. I always reply that there are no immediate plans, but I learned long ago never to say “never.”

  It’s time for me to express my thanks to all of the people responsible for returning the Kent Family Chronicles to the world in these new editions. Let me begin with those who really got it off the ground: my excellent editor, Doug Grad, working in tandem with my attorney, Frank R. Curtis. Louise Burke, who at the time held the post of publisher at New American Library, shared their enthusiasm.

  Then Leslie Gelbman, president of mass market books at Penguin Group (USA) Inc., and Kara Welsh, Louise’s successor as NAL publisher, endorsed the project. I am grateful to both of them.

  Anthony Ramondo designed the bold but tasteful new covers. Earlier editions had the books looking rather like romance novels: a hot male-female embrace on every one. Anthony rescued me.

  Ken May in production saw the new printings through from start to finish. I am grateful.

  And to you, one of the millions and millions who adopted the Kents as a sort of second family, I tender the most important thanks of all. Readers around the world created the astonishing success the Kents have enjoyed for three decades. I can never repay that enormous debt.

  —John Jakes

  Hilton Head Island,

  South Carolina

  “But as you already know your rights and privileges so well, I am going to ask you to excuse me if I say a few words to you about your duties. Much has been given to us … and w
e must take heed to use aright the gifts entrusted to our care. It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. I do not undervalue for a moment our material prosperity; like all Americans, I like big things; big prairies, big forests and mountains, big wheat fields, railroads … big factories, steamboats, and everything else. But we must keep steadfastly in mind that no people were ever yet benefited by riches if their prosperity corrupted their virtue.”

  July 4, 1886:

  Hon. Theodore Roosevelt,

  addressing the first

  Independence Day celebration

  in Dickinson,

  Dakota Territory

  Prologue

  Lost

  FORTY, GIDEON KENT THOUGHT. Before the year’s over, I’ll be that old. The country—and the Kents—have survived a great many disasters in that time. So have I, for that matter. But what about the next forty years? Will I live that long?

  Of late he’d begun to wonder. He’d been experiencing some pains that alarmed him—pains about which he said nothing to anyone else. His father had died at a relatively young age. And he was already edging close to the limit of an average man’s life expectancy—forty-seven years and a few months. The approach of his fortieth birthday merely emphasized that fact.

  I may have only a few years left to set things in order. And once I’m gone, who will bear the burden of leading this family?

  Above all other worries, that one beset him almost constantly. During the day it ruined his concentration, and during the night it ruined his sleep. Again this evening—the close of the first day of January 1883—it made him uneasy and restless.

  A half hour after the evening meal was over, he looked in at the door of the sitting room belonging to his wife, Julia. He told her he needed a bit of air. Her concerned expression and wordless nod said she understood some of the turmoil he was going through.

  Downstairs again, he flung a long muffler around his neck and set an old top hat on his head. In recent years he’d taken to wearing a full beard. Along with the leather patch on his blind left eye and the gray streaks in his tawny hair, the beard lent him a piratical air. He looked as if he belonged in some deadfall near the docks rather than in the splendid, brick-fronted residence on Beacon Street from which he emerged into swirling fog.

  The night was damp but exceptionally warm for January. He turned eastward without a conscious thought. His solitary walks always took him to the same destination—a place that usually brought solace, and the answers to whatever questions had driven him to walk in the first place.

  Lately, there seemed to be no answers anywhere. He was upset about the country’s drift toward materialism and sharp dealing. The worst excesses of the Grant years were growing pale by comparison. Only success mattered, not the means by which a man achieved it. Appearances counted for more than substance, which seemed not to count at all. Newspapers, including his, were guilty of paying more attention to the guest lists for opulent dinner parties than to the plight of the poor starving in urban slums. It seemed that in America, a man’s highest ambition was no longer to live in liberty, at peace with his conscience, but rather to be accepted by, and live in the thrall of, a few elderly women who ruled what everyone called Society.

  Gideon realized he might be cynical about Society because he would never be admitted to it no matter how long he lived. It was human to dislike what was denied you. But even if Mrs. Astor had kissed his foot and begged him to attend one of her fancy balls, he still would have loathed Society and all it represented. He might have gone to the ball, though. Just to smoke a few cigars, sing a few old cavalry songs, and ruffle the hostess.

  But his most pressing concern these days was a drift he saw in the family. A drift that might well presage the decline of the Kents.

  He was far from young. The pains were a telling reminder of that. He was beginning to fear that when his mortality finally caught up with him, no one would be ready to take over the leadership of the family. And he feared no one had the desire.

  He strode up the sloping street toward Charles Bulfinch’s magnificent State House. Its great dome dominated Beacon Hill and the city’s skyline. The building was one of those which led people to call Boston the Athens of America. But tonight Gideon was oblivious to the attractions of the local architecture and all but unaware of the emptiness of the streets. Last night, they’d been thronged with noisy revelers welcoming the new year.

  As he approached a hack standing at the curb, he reached into his coat for a cigar. The hack driver sat motionless on the high seat, an indistinct figure in the fog. Gideon struck a match. By its light, the cabman recognized him.

  “Why, hello, Mr. Kent. Foul evening for a stroll.”

  “Oh, it isn’t too bad, Sandy. Looks like business is slow.”

  The driver surveyed the empty sidewalk and chuckled. “You might say. But last night I did double my usual, so it all works out. Thank the Lord I didn’t forget my best friend when I left home in Roxbury.”

  From his lap robe he pulled a pottery bottle shaped like a coachman complete with whip, greatcoat, and top hat. When he tugged on the hat, it came away from the neck of the bottle with a pop. The cabman tilted the bottle and swigged. Then he held it out to Gideon.

  “Care for a tot, Mr. Kent? I short myself on a lot of things, but never on bourbon.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  He reached up for the bottle. The picture he must have presented—a Beacon Street Bostonian tippling on the curbstone—amused him. Such behavior was one reason the Kents would never be welcome in Society. One reason, but not the main reason, he thought as fragments of the McAllister Incident of two years ago flickered in his mind.

  The whiskey slid down smoothly, but was still powerful enough to make him blink and catch his breath. “Very fine stuff, Sandy.”

  “It’s Kentucky, Mr. Kent. The best.”

  “Easy to tell that. Thanks for sharing it.”

  “Don’t mention it, sir. Just send me a fare if you come across one.”

  Gideon waved and walked on. The bourbon made him feel a bit better, and a bit ashamed of his own pessimism. Why couldn’t he be content? he wondered as he continued eastward. He had a wife he loved deeply, and who loved him. He had a thriving publishing house, a successful newspaper, a very large fortune which continued to increase thanks to rising profits and prudent investment. And he was lucky enough to live in what he considered to be one of the world’s finest cities—the first American city his ancestor Philip Kent had seen when he stepped off the ship from Bristol.

  The Kents had been back in Boston since 1878. Gideon loved the place as much or more than he loved New York. From the Common and the adjacent Public Garden to the new neighborhoods of the expanding South End, it was a bustling blend of the traditional and the modern. The city had a healthy economy produced by foundries, rubber and shoe factories, and the commerce of a harbor always filled with ocean vessels, coastal packets, ferries, barges, and the new steam tugs. In such a prosperous setting, culture flourished.

  Boston was a fine book town, for example. One bit of evidence was just ahead, at the intersection of School and Washington Streets. William Ticknor’s famous Old Corner Book Store. Gideon paused to look at several titles from Kent and Son displayed in a window. One of the volumes was an expensive fifteenth anniversary edition of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, a favorite ever since its publication. Miss Alcott wrote fiction appropriate for the whole family under her own name, and more lurid material under pseudonyms. She was one of Gideon’s neighbors on Beacon Hill. Others included elderly Mr. Whittier, the Quaker poet; Dr. Holmes, the physician and author of popular light verse; and Mr. Howells, the editor, critic, and novelist.

  Boston was a good theater town, too. Top touring companies regularly played the Tremont, where Dickens had lectured on his second American tour in ’67, and the Boston, said to be New England’s largest playhouse. There was vaudeville to be seen at the Howard At
henaeum, and fine music to be heard at the Music Hall opposite Park Street Church.

  Gideon loved music—all sorts of music, familiar or new. Just a little over a year ago he and Julia had been among those at the Music Hall when George Henschel conducted the Boston Symphony in a performance of the Symphony Number Two by Henschel’s friend, Johannes Brahms.

  Gideon thought it a splendid, stirring work. Yet many people had walked out during and immediately after the allegro non troppo. The Kents had stayed through the remaining three movements, and later some of their friends had teased them about their taste for modern music, had jokingly called them “brahmins” because they’d liked the symphony.

  Gideon also shared the city’s affinity for sports. He liked nothing better than to stroll along the shore of the Charles at twilight and watch the Harvard rowing team working out in swift-moving sculls. He’d become a strong partisan of the college football team, especially in its intense rivalry with Yale. The first game between the schools had been played in ’75, Harvard emerging the winner. Since then, Yale had won every game. But hope still drew Gideon to Holmes Field on Saturday afternoons in the autumn.

  Though he seldom brought up the subject with Julia, he enjoyed less respectable forms of athletics as well. Like most Bostonians, he’d become a bare-knuckle prizefight addict in the past year or so; the country’s reigning champion, twenty-three-year-old John Lawrence Sullivan, had been born in nearby Roxbury, and had knocked out his first opponent on the stage of a Boston variety theater when he was nineteen. The preceding February, Gideon had ridden a succession of trains to reach Mississippi City, Mississippi, to see Sullivan take the crown from Paddy Ryan in nine rounds. Gideon didn’t think much of Sullivan’s often-stated contempt for foreign fighters. But there was no doubt that the handsome, hazel-eyed Irishman could indeed punch hard enough to fell a horse—even when he was half drunk or hungover, which was often. The Boston Strong Boy had a notorious passion for spiritous liquors and barroom brawling.

  At the intersection, Gideon crossed brick-paved Washington Street and walked north. At State he turned east again. He could smell the waterfront now, the salt of the sea penetrating the fog. How he’d miss Boston if he were ever forced to leave!