Leapholes (2006) (11 page)

It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was setting. Ryan glanced again at the scoreboard and noticed that the game was in the bottom of the thirteenth inning in the second game of a doubleheader. In a matter of minutes, it would be too dark to play. "A few lights would be nice," said Ryan.

"Now you sound like the people who sued old man Wrigley," said Hezekiah.

"Enough chatter," said the umpire. "Play ball!"

Ryan looked toward the pitcher's mound. A lanky ballplayer wearing a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform was staring straight at him, ready to deliver the pitch. Hezekiah gave the pitcher a signal. The pitcher shook it off. He tried another signal. Suddenly, the ball was speeding through the darkness at Ryan, easily exceeding ninety miles per hour.

Ryan swung in desperation at the screeching fastball. To his delight, the bat connected, and the ball was soaring out of the ballpark. For some reason--again, completely inexplicable--he and Hezekiah were pulled right along with it. Together, they sailed clear over the leftfield wall. An excited fan speared his glove into the air to catch the home run ball, and both Ryan and Hezekiah were sucked into the leather, disappearing from sight, back down into the tube.

They were back in the orange swirl, that cocoon of safety. But not for long. Ryan felt another jolt. A splash of Technicolor appeared before his eyes. He and Hezekiah reappeared in a colorful cartoon, in a dusty canyon in some desert.

The Roadrunner sped past them. "Meep, meep/"

Hezekiah and Ryan were stacked inside a cannon, like human cannon balls. A mangy looking coyote suddenly appeared, his pointy ears sticking out of his strange protective helmet.

"That's Wile E. Coyote," said Hezekiah.

"I know who it is," said Ryan. "I've seen the Roadrunner cartoons."

"Yes, but did you know that the coyote sued ACME Manufacturing Company for all those lousy gadgets that blew up in his face every time he tried to catch the Roadrunner?"

"Really?"

"Nah," said Hezekiah. "I made this one up. But it's a fun one, isn't it?"

Wile E. Coyote lit the fuse on the cannon. The whole contraption exploded in his face, sending Ryan and Hezekiah speeding through the air. They were in another leaphole that carried them across a different plane, through another orange swirl.

Finally, they landed in the back of a bus.

"Where are we?" asked Ryan.

Hezekiah was in the seat beside him. "Montgomery, Alabama. City bus number twenty-eight-fifty-seven."

Ryan looked out the window. People on the sidewalks were wearing warm overcoats, and there were Christmas decorations in the storefronts. It had to be December. Ryan spotted a license plate on a parked car. The year was 1955.

The bus stopped. Ryan watched from the rear of the bus as a black woman boarded and paid the driver. She then got off the bus and re-entered through the rear door. The bus continued down the street.

"That's Rosa Parks," whispered Hezekiah.

Ryan asked, "Why is she coming in through the back door?"

Hezekiah's voice seemed lower, sadder. "Colored people can't enter the bus through the front door. That's the law."

Ryan watched as the woman headed up the aisle and took a seat in the fifth row. Ryan also noticed that
that everyone in the first four rows was white. Everyone in the fifth row and farther back was black.

The bus stopped again. The front of the bus (the white section) was now full, nowhere to sit. A white passenger boarded the bus. He walked up to Rosa, who was seated in the fifth row, and demanded that the black woman give up her seat and move farther back in the bus.

Ryan asked, "What's going on?"

Hezekiah said, "Rosa is breaking the law. Colored people have to give up their seat and move farther back in the bus if a white person has no place to sit."

"What the heck kind of law is that?" said Ryan.

"It's 1955, Ryan. That was the law in Montgomery, Alabama."

Rosa shook her head and refused to move. The white passenger complained to the driver. He stopped the bus and walked down the aisle to the fifth row.

"Ma'am, I have to ask you to get up and move."

Again, Rosa refused. The driver seemed exasperated. He. looked at Rosa and said, "Well, I'm going to have you arrested."

Rosa looked at him and said, "You may go on and do so."

The driver went back to the front of the bus, got on the radio, and called for police backup. After a few minutes, a polic
e c
ar pulled up alongside the bus. Two officers came aboard, and the driver explained what had happened. The police came down the aisle.

"They're actually taking her to jail?" said Ryan.

"I told you, Ryan. The law doesn't always prevent bad things from happening to good people."

Again, Ryan thought of his own father in jail, but he was too taken aback by the arrest of Rosa Parks to think about his own situation for very long. One of the police officers had a set of handcuffs with him, and those rings of metal suddenly reminded Ryan of the leapholes he had seen in Hezekiah's jar. Both resembled flat, uncomfortable, metal bracelets. Ryan wasn't sure if the police were going to cuff Rosa or not, but as the light reflected off those shiny metal circles, the swirling sensation resumed. It was as if the leaphole had reemerged before Ryan's eyes. The eye of the miniature hurricane was centered around those handcuffs dangling from the police officer's belt. In a matter of seconds, the spinning was more intense than ever. Ryan had the sensation of being pulled from his seat, pulled through the bus, sucked out the door. His body was turned in such a way that he was facing backwards, yet he could feel the thrust of forward motion. All was a blur, yet he knew that he was headed in the right direction. The power of the leaphole was taking him back to the place where he belonged, back to a place he knew well.

The swirling stopped. His surroundings came into focus. Ryan and Hezekiah bounced onto the floor of Hezekiah's law library.

Ryan pulled off his helmet and looked at Hezekiah with complete disbelief. "That was amazing!"

"You liked that, did you?"

"Totally. This helmet is so cool." Ryan inspected it briefly, then looked quizzically at Hezekiah. "But where's your helmet?"

"I don't need one."

"How come I do and you don't?"

"You don't need one either."

"You're still trying to sell me on that idea of legal magic, aren't you? The secret Society."

"I'm not selling anything, Ryan. When you're ready to step beyond the virtual legal environment of a computer, you will. For now, suit yourself. Grab your helmet, and let's go."

"Where to this time? Do I get to pick?"

Hezekiah shook his head. "Leapholes are not all fun and games. They're not just joyrides or tools to help satisfy our idle curiosity."

"I know, I get it. It's like you said before, these books aren't just a bunch of dusty old pages. These were all real people with real problems."

"And the best lawyers understand people and their problems. No better way to understand a case than with a leaphole."

Ryan was really starting to like Hezekiah, but the old man was suddenly very serious. "Now it's time to prepare for your case," said Hezekiah.

"So, we have to go . . . where?"

"Back to the William Brown."

"You mean that ship that sank when it hit the iceberg? The case that got you all wet?"

Hezekiah nodded. "For you, that is the most important case in all these books. The judge will use that case to decide whether you are guilty or innocent."

"How can an old case about a sinking ship help the judge decide whether I'm responsible for those people who died from a disease like BODS?"

"You'll understand when we get there." Hezekiah went to the closet and draped a heavy black cloak around his shoulders. It was the kind of winter garment that Ryan would have expected to see on a man from the nineteenth century. Then Hezekiah found a long wool coat and gave it to Ryan. "Better wear this," he said. "Nighttime in the North Atlantic isn't exactly Miami Beach."

Ryan still didn't believe that they were actually going anywhere. But he pulled on the coat, just in case. It fit perfectly.

"Are you ready?" said Hezekiah.

Ryan took a deep breath and strapped on his VLE helmet. "Ready."

"Then off we go."

Chapter
14

Ryan landed hard on the wooden deck of a ship. A cold wind was howling, and the icy spray of the North Atlantic broke over the rail. On the opposite side of the deck, men and women were screaming and shouting. They ran in every direction, eyes filled with terror. Almost immediately, Ryan was chilled to the core, shivering in the night air.

"Look out!" someone shouted from above.

Ryan quickly rolled to his left. Hezekiah came crashing down on the deck beside him. If Ryan hadn't moved out of the way, he would have been flattened by the old man.

Ryan said, "Do you have to make these landings so rough?"

"How else am I going to convince you that this is real?"

"It's not real. You said it yourself. It's a virtual legal environment."

"Sure it is," said Hezekiah.

Another wave broke over the bow, soaking Ryan and Hezekiah with sea water.

"That was virtually freezing," said Hezekiah.

Ryan rose to his feet, shaking water from his coat. He was about to say something, then stopped short at the sight of a ring-shaped life preserver hanging on the rail directly in front of him. Hezekiah had warned Ryan about their destination. Still, it gave him goose bumps to see the ship's name printed in bold black letters on the white life preserver.

"The William Brown" said Ryan, reading aloud. It was as if the full ramifications of their journey had finally set in. "We're on a doomed ship."

"Yes, we are," said Hezekiah. "In less than two hours, this vessel will be resting on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean."

Ryan and Hezekiah exchanged a look of concern, but a shrill scream from the other side of the ship sent them scampering to see what was the matter. Ryan went first, followed by Hezekiah.

The William Brown was nothing like the great iron ocean liners of the later steamship era. With three tall masts, large canvas sails, and a long wooden hull, it was fairly typical of the ocean
-
crossing ships that sailed in the 1840s. Ryan and Hezekiah climbed over boxes, barrels, and other cargo that was strapped to the deck. Above them, the tattered remains of a huge canvas sail flapped in the windstorm like an old shredded bed sheet. The ship was in peril, completely at the storm's mercy as it rolled from one great ocean swell to the next. At times, Ryan could barely stand on his own two feet against the northeasterly gusts. If the wind didn't soon tear away what little was left of the main sail, Ryan feared that the next great gust might take the entire mast down. They had to cross the deck with caution. The planks were slick with foamy sea water. Rain and sleet were coming down harder by the minute. It was like sliding down an icy hill, as the ship was listing badly to the port side. Clearly, the hull had already taken on too much seawater.

Although it was only a short distance, it seemed to take them a very long time to reach the starboard side of the ship. Perhaps a hundred people were already there ahead of them.

They were pushing and shoving, each one trying to out-shout the other. Another huge wave slammed across the bow. Cold, salty water drenched the crowd. It only fueled the sense of panic.

"Order! We must keep order!" a man shouted above the ruckus.

Three young sailors armed with clubs pushed back against the advancing mob. The crew and some volunteers were trying desperately to hoist a lifeboat into position. It was the sailors' job to keep the most unruly passengers at bay.

"Get back, mates!" another sailor shouted. He was speaking to Ryan and Hezekiah, which Ryan didn't realize until the sailor shoved him hard against the wall.

"What happened?" asked Ryan.

"We've hit an iceberg," said the sailor. "The captain has given the order to abandon ship."

"But where do we go?" said Ryan.

"Same place we're all going, mate. To meet our Maker."

Ryan felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him, but it was just the weight of the man's words.

"Heave ho!" the sailor shouted. The strongest volunteers had broken into two groups, each of them pulling on a length of thick rope. The pulleys above them creaked and swayed. Slowly, the wooden lifeboat inched downward from its davits. As it neared the deck, the crowd surged forward. It didn't take a genius to see that this lifeboat wasn't nearly large enough to carry everyone to safety. Many would be left behind. It seemed that everyone was willing to fight to be among the lucky few survivors.

The men pulled harder on the ropes. Children clung to their mothers. Sailors moved at the command of their officers. The wind continued to howl. The night air seemed to turn even colder, if that was possible. Ryan wasn't dressed for such brutal weather, and neither were the rest of the passengers. The women were wearing ankle-length dresses, and the men wore heavy coats and capes. The fashion was clearly of another era, which was no surprise. This was, after all, the mid-nineteenth century.